Chapter 7

HIGH SCHOOL ACCEPTS DEFEAT

A week passed, and the twins began to feel like old residents. They had ceased being “the Turner twins” to acquaintances, although others still referred to them so, and their novelty had so far worn off that they could enter a classroom or walk side by side across the yard without being conscious of the rapt, almost incredulous stares of the beholders. To merely casual acquaintances they were known as Ned and Laurie; to a few friends they had become Nid and Nod. Kewpie was responsible for that. He had corrupted “Ned” into “Nid,” after which it was impossible for Laurie to be anything but “Nod.” Laurie had demurred for a time, demanding to be informed who Nod had been. Kewpie couldn’t tell him, being of the hazy belief that Nid and Nod were brothers in some fairy story he had once read, but he earnestly assured Laurie that both had been most upright and wholly estimable persons. Anyhow, Laurie’s objections wouldn’t have accomplished much, for others had been prompt to adopt the nicknames and all the protests in the world wouldn’t have caused them to drop them. These others weren’t many in number, however: Kewpie and Thurman Kendrick and Lee Murdock and George Watson about made up the list of them at this time.

Kendrick was Kewpie’s room-mate, a smallish, black-haired, very earnest youth of sixteen, which age was also Kewpie’s. Thurman was familiarly known as “Hop,” although the twins never learned why. He was a candidate for quarter-back on the eleven and took his task very seriously. Lee Murdock was one of the baseball crowd, and Laurie had scraped acquaintance with him on the diamond during a practice game. The word “scraped” is used advisedly, for Laurie, in sliding to second base, had spiked much of the skin from Lee’s ankle. Of such incidents are friendships formed! Lee was two years older than Laurie, a big, rather raw-boned fellow with a mop of ash-colored hair and very bright blue eyes.

George Watson was sixteen, an upper middler, and, as Laurie frequently assured him, no fit associate for a respectable fellow. To the latter assertion George cheerfully agreed, adding that he always avoided such. He came from Wyoming and had brought with him a breeziness of manner that his acquaintances, rightly or wrongly, described as “wild and woolly.” Of the four, Kewpie and George were more often found in company with the twins.

There had been four lessons in kicking on an open lot behind the grammar school, two short blocks away, and while Ned had not yet mastered the gentle art of hurtling a football through the air, Kewpie was enthusiastic about his pupil’s progress. “Why, geewhillikins, Nid,” he broke forth after the fourth session, “you’re a born kicker! Honest you are! You’ve got a corking swing and a lot of drive. You—you’ve got real form, that’s what you’ve got. You understand. And you certainly do learn! Of course, you haven’t got it all from me, because you’ve been punting in practice two or three times, but I take some of the credit.”

“You’ve got a right to,” responded Ned. “You’ve taught me a lot more than I’ve learned on the field. Gee, if it hadn’t been for you I’d been afraid even to try a punt over there! You ought to see the puzzled way that Pope looks at me sometimes. He can’t seem to make me out, because, I suppose, Joe Stevenson told him I was a crackajack. Yesterday he said, ‘You get good distance, Turner, and your direction isn’t bad, but you never punt twice the same way!’”

“Well, you don’t,” laughed Kewpie. “But you’ll get over that just as soon as I can get it into your thick head that the right way’s the best and there’s only one right!”

“I know,” said Ned, humbly. “I mean to do the way you say, but I sort of forget.”

“That’s because you try to think of too many things at once. Stop thinking about your leg and just remember the ball and keep your eyes on it until it’s in the air. That’s the secret, Nid. I heard Joe telling Pinky the other day that you’d ought to shape up well for next year.”

“Next year!” exclaimed Ned, dubiously. “Gee! mean to tell me I’m going through all this work for next year?”

“Well, you might get a place this year, for all you know,” replied Kewpie, soothingly. “Just keep on coming, Nid. If you could only—well, if you had just a bit more speed now, got started quicker, you know, Pinky would have you on the second squad in no time, I believe. You’re all right after you get started, but—you understand.”

“I do the best I know how,” sighed Ned. “I suppose I am slow on the get-away, though. Corson is always calling me down about it. Oh, well, what do I care? I don’t own it.”

“I’d like to see you make good, though,” said Kewpie. “Besides, remember the honor of the Turners!”

Ned laughed. “Laurie will look after that. He’s doing great things in baseball, if you believe him, and it wouldn’t be right for us to capture all the athletic honors.”

“You make me weary!” grunted Kewpie. “Say, don’t you California chaps ever have any pep?”

“California, old scout, is famous for its pep. We grow it for market out there. Why, I’ve seen a hundred acres planted to it!”

“You have, eh? Well, it’s a big shame you didn’t bring a sprig of it East with you, you lazy lummox! Some day I’m going to drop a cockle-burr down your back and see if you don’t show some action!”

Hillman’s started her season on the following Saturday with Orstead High School. As neither team had seen much practice, the contest didn’t show a very high grade of football. The teams played four ten-minute quarters, consuming a good two hours of elapsed time in doing it, their members spending many precious moments prone on the turf. The weather was miserably warm for football and the players were still pretty soft.

Kewpie derived great satisfaction from the subsequent discovery that he had dropped three quarter pounds and was within a mere seven pounds of his desired weight. Had he played the game through instead of yielding the center position to Holmes at the beginning of the last half, he might have reached his goal that afternoon. Ned and Laurie wounded him deeply by declaring that there was no apparent improvement in his appearance.

Ned saw the game from the substitutes’ bench, and Laurie from the stand. High School turned out a full attendance and, since Hillman’s was outnumbered two to one, “O. H. S.” colors and cheers predominated. Laurie sat with Lee Murdock, who, as a baseball enthusiast, professed a great scorn of football. (There was no practice on the diamond that afternoon.) Lee amused himself by making ridiculous comments in a voice audible for many yards around.

“That’s piffle!” he declared on one occasion, when the ground was strewn with tired, panting players. “The umpire said, ‘Third down,’ but if they aren’t three quarters down, I’ll treat the crowd! The trouble with those fellows is that they didn’t get enough sleep last night. Any one can see that. Why, I can hear that big chap snoring ’way over here!” Again, “That brother of yours is playing better than any of them,” he asserted.

“Ned? Why, he isn’t in! He’s on the bench down there.”

“Sure! That’s what I mean. You don’t see him grabbing the ball away from Brattle and losing two or three yards at a time. No, sir; he just sits right there, half asleep, and makes High School work for the game. Every time he doesn’t take the ball, Nod, he saves us three or four yards. He’s a hero, that’s what he is. If Mulford would get all the rest of them back on the bench, we might win.”

“You’re crazy,” laughed Laurie.

During the intermission, Laurie’s wandering gaze fell on two girls a dozen seats away. One, whom he had never seen before, displayed a cherry-and-black pennant and belonged unmistakably to the high school cohort. She was a rather jolly-looking girl, Laurie decided, with a good deal of straw-colored hair and a pink-and-white skin. Her companion was evidently divided as to allegiance, for she had a cherry-and-black ribbon pinned on the front of her dress and wore a dark-blue silken arm-band. For a moment Laurie wondered why she looked familiar to him. Then he recognized her as Polly Deane. The two girls appeared to be alone, although some boys in the row behind were talking to them.

So far, the twins had not been back to the little shop on Pine Street, but Laurie resolved now that he would drop around there very soon and pay his bill before his money was gone. After paying the school bill for the first half-year, he and Ned had shared slightly more than twenty dollars, but since then there had been many expenses. They had each had to purchase playing togs and stationery, and, finally, had donated two dollars apiece to the football fund at the mass-meeting Friday night of the week before.

Viewed from a financial standpoint, that meeting hadn’t been a great success, and it was no secret that, unless more money was forthcoming, the team would be obliged to cancel at least one of its away-from-home games. But it had resulted in bringing out a big field of candidates, and there had been a lot of enthusiasm. The next day, viewing his reduced exchequer, Laurie had ruefully observed that he guessed a dollar would have been enough to give, but Ned had called him a “piker” and a “tight-wad” and other scornful things. Yesterday Ned had borrowed half a dollar, which was more than a fourth of Laurie’s remaining cash; and the first of October was still a week distant. Realizing the latter fact, Laurie changed his mind about settling his account at the Widow Deane’s. But, he reflected, with another friendly glance in Polly’s direction, it wouldn’t be right to withhold his trade from the store. And he wasn’t anywhere near the limit of indebtedness yet!

Two listless periods followed the intermission, the only inspiring incident coming when, near the end of the third quarter, Pope, Hillman’s full-back, foiled in his attempt to get a forward pass away, smashed past the enemy and around his left end for a run that placed the pigskin six yards short of the last white line. From there the home team managed to push its way to a touch-down, the third and last score of the day. The final figures were 10 to 7 in Hillman’s favor, and neither side was very proud of the outcome.

Ned returned to Number 16 half an hour later in a most critical frame of mind, and spent ten minutes explaining to Laurie just when and how the school team had failed. At last Laurie interrupted him to ask, “Have you told this to Mr. Mulford, Ned?”

“Mr. Mulford? Why—oh, go to the dickens!”

“Seems to me he ought to know,” said Laurie, gravely.

“That’s all right. You can be sarcastic if you like, but I’m talking horse-sense. You see a lot of things from the bench that you don’t see from the stand. Besides, you’ve got to know football to understand it. Now you take—”

“I beg your pardon! Did you say anything about understanding football?”

“Well, I understand a lot more about it than you do,” replied the other, warmly. “I’ve been playing it a week, haven’t I?”

“Sure, but I’ll bet you don’t know how much a safety counts!”

“I don’t need to. That’s up to the referee. But I know some football, just the same. And I punted forty-seven yards yesterday, too!”

“In how many punts?” inquired Laurie, innocently.

Ned threw a book at him and the subject was closed.

In his own line, baseball, Laurie was not setting the world on fire. He was gaining a familiarity with the position of center fielder on the scrub nine, and batting practice was at least not doing him any harm. But he certainly had displayed no remarkable ability; and if Ned had gained a notion to the contrary, it was merely because it pleased Laurie to fool him with accounts of imaginary incidents in which he, Laurie, had shone most brilliantly. As Ned knew even less about baseball than he had known of football, almost any fairy-tale “went” with him, and Laurie derived much amusement thereby; decidedly more, in fact, than he derived from playing!

On Monday morning Laurie dragged Ned over to the Widow Deane’s for ginger-ale, professing a painful thirst. The Widow greeted them pleasantly, recalling their names, and provided them with the requested beverage. Laurie’s thirst seemed to have passed, for he had difficulty in consuming his portion. When, presently, he asked politely about Polly, it developed that that young lady was quite well enough to attend high school as usual. Laurie said, “Oh!” and silently promised himself that the next time he got thirsty it would be in the afternoon. Ned ate two doughnuts and was hesitating over raspberry tarts when Laurie dragged him away. “Can’t you think of anything but eating?” demanded the latter, disgustedly. Ned only blinked.

“Ginger-ale always makes me hungry,” he explained calmly.

Two days later, the twins awoke to cloudy skies, and by mid-forenoon a lazy drizzle was falling, which later turned to a downright tempest of wind and rain. At four the baseball candidates scooted to the field-house for cover, although, peering forth through a drenched window, Laurie discerned the football-players still at work. Lee Murdock said he guessed the equinoctial storm had come, and that if it had there’d be no practice for a couple of days. Laurie tried to look broken-hearted and failed dismally. Taking advantage of a lull in the downpour, he and Lee, with many of the others, set forth for school. They were still far short of the gymnasium, however, when the torrent began again, and it was a wet, bedraggled, and breathless crowd that presently pushed through the door.

George Watson, who had been playing tennis before the rain started, was philosophically regarding a pair of “unshrinkable” flannel trousers which, so he declared, had already receded an inch at the bottoms. It was George who suggested that, after changing to dry clothing, they go over to the Widow’s and have ice-cream at his expense. Not possessing a rain-coat of his own, Laurie invaded Number 15 and borrowed Kewpie’s. It was many sizes too large, but it answered. The Widow’s was full when he and George and Lee got there, and the pastry counter looked as though it had been visited by an invading army. There was still ice-cream, though, and the three squeezed into a corner and became absorbedly silent for a space.

Polly was helping her mother, and Laurie exchanged greetings with her, but she was far too busy for conversation. Lee treated to a second round of ice-cream, and afterward Laurie bought a bag of old-fashioned chocolates. He hoped Polly would wait on him, but it was Polly’s mother who did so and asked after his brother as she filled the paper sack.

“I do hope you’re looking after him and that he hasn’t eaten those raspberry tarts yet,” she said pleasantly.

“Yes’m,” said Laurie. “I mean, he hasn’t.” He thought it surprising that the Widow Deane was able to tell them apart. Even Kewpie and George frequently made mistakes.

It was still pouring when they went out again, and they hurried up the street and around the corner into School Park, their progress somewhat delayed by the fact that Laurie had placed the bag of candy in an outside pocket of Kewpie’s capacious rain-coat and that all three had difficulty in finding it. Lee had just popped a big chocolate into his mouth and George was fumbling into the moist bag when the clouds opened suddenly and such a deluge fell as made them gasp. In distance they were but a long block from school; but with the rain descending on them as though poured from a million buckets, their thought was of immediate shelter.

“Wow!” yelped Lee. “Let’s get out of this! Here’s a house. Come on!”

There was an opening in a high hedge, and a short brick walk from which the drops were rebounding knee-high, and, seen dimly through the deluge, a porch at the end of it. They reached it in what Laurie called three leaps and a jump, and, under shelter of the roof, drew breath and looked back into the gray welter. The park was invisible, and even the high lilac hedge was only a blurred shape. Lee had to shout to make himself heard above the rain.

“Wonder who lives here,” he said. “I don’t remember this house.”

“Sure you do!” said George. “This is the Coventry house. We’re on the side porch.”

“Oh!” Lee gazed doubtfully into the rain. “Well, anyway, it’ll do. Gee, my trousers are soaked to the knees! How long do you suppose this will keep up?”

“You said for two days,” answered Laurie, cheerfully, trying to dry his neck with a moist handkerchief.

“I mean this shower, you chump!”

“Call this a shower? What’s a cloud-burst like in this part of the country, then?”

“We don’t have such things,” answered George, who was peering through a side-light into the dim interior. “Say, I thought this place was empty,” he continued. “I can see chairs and a table in there.”

“No; some one rented it this fall,” said Lee. “I noticed the other day that the front door was open and the grass had been cut. I wouldn’t want to live in the place, though.”

“Why?” inquired Laurie.

But, before any answer came, the door was suddenly opened within a few inches of George’s nose and a voice said:

“You fellows had better come inside until it’s over.”