The round football struck the branch and descended, bouncing merrily upon the head of the innocent bystander.
“We didn’t mean to, mister,” apologized the small boy who had done the kicking.
“Don’t mind me. I’d rather get a crack on the head than not.” In spite of a stomach that lacked breakfast, Vernon Judd managed a smile as he tossed back the “association” football.
Hard knocks aplenty had toughened Vern since the day the train dropped him into the bustling Middle Western city, an unknown person, in an unfamiliar place; and, what was more, he was without trade or profession. For three days he had been an “extra” hotel porter; for a week, till the dull season set in, he had opened boxes in a department-store basement; and twice he had earned scraps of money by unloading trucks. But of continuous employment he had found none.
He squared his shoulders now at the cheering discovery that both factories had entrances within a hundred feet of where he was standing. Along the big shop on his right ran the sign. “Landon Sporting Goods—Used All Over the World”; across the street, equally large letters shouted. “Bloss Company—Perfection Sporting Goods—For Sale Everywhere.”
Both Landon and Bloss, the original owners, were dead; but for years the managers of the rival factories had waged an advertising war from Cairo, Illinois, to Cairo, Egypt. Basket-balls, baseballs, footballs, hockey sticks, bats, golf clubs, boxing gloves, and everything else for the athlete had been boosted and knocked by each side. And here the two competitors glowered at each other less than a stone’s throw apart. To Vern, who all his life had read their advertising and used their goods, it seemed like coming suddenly upon the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte.
The job hunter meditated. “Let’s see. The year we had the big championship team we used the Bloss basket-ball; the year after that we used the Landon. It wasn’t as good, and we weren’t as good. All right, Bloss, old boy, you’ll get the first chance.”
He entered boldly. A pugnacious office boy on the other side of a wooden railing stopped him.
“Whatcha want?” demanded the guardian of the gate suspiciously.
Hard experience had taught Vern that discretion is sometimes half the battle.
“I want to see the superintendent,” he answered evasively.
“Creighton? Lissen, if you wanta job I’ll save you a lot of time right off the bat by tellin’ you there ain’t none.”
“You tell Mr. Creighton that Mr. Judd—Mr. Vernon Judd, of New York—wants to see him,” insisted the caller, with as much haughtiness as a man without a thin dime can muster.
Reluctantly the office boy slouched toward the door marked “Private.”
“All right,” he said, emerging a minute later. “Go on in.”
Vern had no more than entered the room before he saw that his hopes were doomed to failure. He had counted upon finding the superintendent an athletic type of man, to whom his own experience in athletics might appeal. Instead, he was greeted by a frowning, cigar-chewing individual, who plainly had never taken an active part in any game except from the side lines.
“Well,” he snapped, as he thrust some papers under the desk blotter, “what do you want? A job?” His voice rasped like a file. “Can’t you see that sign out there? Go to the other entrance between seven and eight Thursday morning. Don’t take up my time.”
“I know I am taking up valuable time, Mr. Creighton,” Vern returnedquietly, “but I think I’ve had valuable experience that might fit me for——”
“Haven’t a thing for you. No use talking.” The shrill voice rose higher. “Not a thing. Nothing at all.Goodmorning!”
The young man found himself on the street again, with a sense of injustice rankling in his mind. As he stood there trying to soothe his temper before tackling the Landon people, his eye caught the end of a tiny tragedy.
He heard an excited little scream. He saw a white-sleeved arm thrust frantically from one of the second-story windows of the Landon factory. He watched a square of snowy linen float out on a passing gust of wind. For a second it seemed that it would escape the clutches of the waiting tree and come safely to the ground; but just at the critical moment the breeze died, dropping the white handkerchief, like an opened parachute, across a network of autumn foliage. There it rested, twenty feet or more above the sidewalk and a dozen from the girl at the window.
Vern looked up. The instinct of mere politeness that had first urged him to offer assistance tautened into enthusiasm. He told himself the girl was more charming than any girl he had ever seen.
“I’ll get it,” he called encouragingly, though without the slightest idea in the world how he might bring about that end.
“If you will, please,” she begged. “It’s a bit of real Irish lace, and I haven’t any business owning it—let alone losing it.”
As he stared at the girl and the handkerchief, the inspiration came.
“Here, buddie,” he said, “lend me your football for a minute.”
Obediently the small boy tossed it over. It was round, but slightly smaller and not as heavy as the basket-ball to which he had been accustomed. Also, the handkerchief was much higher than any basket for which he had tried in a game.
He poised it carefully, swinging it up and down in his two hands to gauge the weight. Then, with a quick flirt of his arms, he shot it up and over.
It curved in a long arc and plumped squarely into the middle of the white patch in the tree. The twigs bent. The handkerchief fluttered down into his waiting hands.
As he stood there brushing the dust from the fragile fabric, the girl from Landon’s hurried out to him. “I want to thank you,” she said gratefully.
He looked at her. Risking the chance of being thought impudent, he said boldly, “And I want to know you. My name is Judd—Vernon Judd.”
She stared straight into his eyes for a moment, and was apparently satisfied with what she saw there. “I—I don’t think it will be difficult,” she said, almost in a whisper, and turned away, confused and blushing.
“Say, young fella!” Vern turned to the new speaker, who proved to be Creighton, the disagreeable superintendent of the Bloss factory, his face now stretching into a smile. “Say! I saw you make that basket-ball throw. Where did you ever play? What! You mean you were the center of that champ team, the 1911 five that were never licked? Listen!” He put his hand ingratiatingly upon the boy’s arm. “We have a basket-ball team in this factory that’s a world-beater, and we need a new man for center. Lemme see you throw again, to make sure that other toss wasn’t a lucky accident. Hey, Murph!”
A carrot-topped head popped out of the window over the entrance. “Get the big wastebasket, Murph, and hold it out there. I wanta see this guy make a throw. Come on, you; I’ll give you three chances, because it’s a hard shot.”
For once in his life, Vern felt nervous.The skill that had made him star of a star team seemed to have oozed quite away.
“Try!” the girl whispered. “You can do it. I know you can.”
Again he poised the ball and threw. Then, holding his breath, he watched it wing its curved path through the air—up, over, down; down, fair, and true, into the mouth of the waiting wicker basket.
“Yea, bo!” shouted the enthusiastic Murphy. “He can thread the needle all right.”
“Look here, my man!” Superintendent Creighton caught Vern’s coat lapel. “If I give you a job in the stock room at ten a week, will you get out and play on our basket-ball team this winter?”
“Will I?” asked Vern. “Try me and see.”
The girl from Landon’s extended her hand to him. “Here’s wishing you good luck,” she said, “till——”
“Till when?”
“Till the Bloss five meets the Landon five—till your team plays ours.”