The next afternoon Beechcroft played Kensington High School. Kensington’s men were light, and Bert’s warriors had no difficulty in piling up seventeen points in the first fifteen-minute half. Only old-fashioned formations were used, and there was little in the game to awaken the onlookers to enthusiasm. In the second half the team was materially changed, Bert, Conly, and Cotton giving their positions in the back field to substitutes, and Hansel and two other linemen retiring. They hurried through the showers and rubdowns in the gymnasium and were back on the side lines in time to watch most of the second half.

The leavening of subs in the Beechcroft team made a good deal of difference. The line developed holes and the back field was slower. Several times Kensington made her distance, and[92] Bert, who was entertaining hopes of reaching the Fairview game with an uncrossed goal line, displayed signs of uneasiness. The substitute who had taken Cotton’s place at quarter did not prove as good as expected, and twice a poor pass resulted in a fumbled ball. On each occasion luck stood by the home team and the pigskin was recovered, but there was no knowing what might happen the next time.

Kensington was unable to make gain consistently through the line, and so, having obtained the ball on a punt, she set to work trying the ends. The first attempt, a run outside left end, was nipped in the bud by King, who got through and nailed the high school captain behind his line. But the next try worked better. There was a long pass from quarter to left half and the interference, admirably arranged, swung wide and rushed across the field. Cutler, who had taken Hansel’s place, was put out of the way without difficulty, and when the Beechcroft right end penetrated the interference and brought down the runner, the latter had managed to reel off a good fifteen yards and the ball was in the middle of the field. The little[93] group of high school supporters yelled delightedly. The next play was a straight plunge at center, which came to nothing. This was followed by a cross-buck at left tackle and a yard had been gained. The Kensington quarter fell back for a kick on the third down, but the ball went to right half and again there was a gain, this time around King’s end. For the first time during the game, Kensington was inside Beechcroft’s forty-yard line.

Kensington’s spirits rose. She hammered at left tackle for a yard, secured two more between right guard and tackle, and made her distance through left tackle. On the side line, Bert scowled wrathfully and Harry made notes at Mr. Ames’s directions in a memorandum book. It began to look like a score for Kensington. But her next three attempts only netted four yards, and Bert sighed with relief as the substitute quarter dropped back for a kick. Royle passed well, but Kensington, massing her attack at the right of the line, broke through, and when the ball left quarter’s toe it struck full on the breast of a leaping high school player, bounded back, and went rolling toward Beechcroft’s goal[94] line. Like a streak of lightning, the Kensington captain was on it, rolled over, and found his feet again and raced toward Beechcroft’s goal. There was but a scant thirty yards to go, and for a moment it seemed that he had every chance of making it. Two Beechcroft pursuers were shouldered away by the hastily formed interference, and another white line passed under the feet of the speeding high school captain. Then a light-blue jersey broke from the straggling pursuit, left the others as though they were standing still, and bore down like a flash on the runner with the ball. It was Cameron. He eluded the first of the interference, was shouldered aside by the second, recovered instantly, and gained at every stride on the Kensington player. They were both inside the ten-yard line now and Cameron’s arms were stretched forth for the tackle. But surely he was too late! No, for just short of the line he dived forward, his arms locked themselves about the opponent’s knees, and they crashed to earth together a yard from the last white streak!

Bert smiled contentedly. Hansel, nearby, shouted his delight. It had been a heart-stirring[95] run, and Cameron’s tackle was one of the cleanest and hardest seen on the green that fall. Beechcroft lined up on her goal line and Kensington hammered despairingly at her, only to lose the ball on downs and race back up the field under a punt which this time was got off without hindrance. A moment after the whistle sounded and Beechcroft’s goal line was still uncrossed. As he trotted up the terrace toward his room, Hansel reflected ruefully that the fellow against whom he had undertaken to arouse school sentiment was the one who had saved them from being scored on. His task looked more difficult every day; while, to make matters worse, each day brought him an increase of liking and admiration for Cameron.

“Hang it all!” he muttered. “I wish he wasn’t such a decent chap!”

The next day was Sunday, and in the afternoon he set forth for the village to find Phineas Dorr. It wasn’t an easy task, for no one seemed to know where Mrs. Freer lived. Finally, he remembered that Phin had said something about the Congregational church, and after that it was easy. The house was a tiny white cottage with[96] green blinds and a general look of disrepair. The paint was so thin that in many places the warped clapboards showed through it. But in spite of its neglected exterior, which, after all, was somewhat mitigated by the cleanliness and neatness of the little front yard, the interior proved very homelike and attractive. Hansel didn’t penetrate farther than the hallway on that occasion, for Phin was not in, but what he saw from there pleased him. Everything was scrupulously fresh and neat. The strip of rag carpet in the hall looked as though it had just come in from the line after a hard beating, and the dainty dimity curtains in the parlor made him think, somehow, of his own home, although he couldn’t recollect any similar window draperies there.

The person who answered his ring was a sweet-faced little woman of perhaps forty-five years. She wore spectacles, and the near-sighted way in which she peered up at Hansel seemed to add to the homely kindliness of her expression. Even had Phin not mentioned the fact that Mrs. Freer was a relative of his, Hansel would have guessed it from the resemblance between the two.[97] Mrs. Freer was very sorry Phineas was out, and begged Hansel to leave his name and a message, if there was one. So Hansel scribbled a note on a slip of paper and asked her to give it to Phin.

“I would like to have you come and put up a shelf for me when you have time,” he wrote. “If you can call to-morrow afternoon between half-past two and three I shall be at home. Yours, Dana, 22 Prince.”

That evening he mentioned to Bert his intention of having a shelf put up above the couch in the study. He expected opposition, and was not disappointed.

“A shelf?” exclaimed Bert. “What do you want a shelf for?”

“My books.”

“But you’ve only got about a dozen! What do you want a six-foot shelf for, I’d like to know?”

“I may get some more.”

“Well, it’ll make the place look like the dickens!”

“Oh, no, it won’t. I’ll get Dorr to enamel it white.”

[98]

“Hang it, Hansel, I think this place looks bum enough as it is without any homemade truck stuck around!”

“Oh, you’ll like it when it’s up,” answered the other cheerfully.

“I’ll bet I don’t! Besides, if you’ve got money to spend on furnishing the room, you’d better buy a chair with it.”

“We’ve got chairs enough. Besides—Dorr needs the money.”

“Oh!” said Bert, with a sudden change of expression. “So that’s it, eh? Why didn’t you say so? If you’re doing it to help Phin——”

“I’m not; at least, not altogether.”

“Bet you are,” said the other more amiably. “He was up here last week with a yarn about wanting to do carpentering. I guess he has a pretty tough time of it.” There was a moment’s silence. Then, “Look here,” he said, “I’m going to pay half, you know.”

“No, I’ll pay for it. It’s my affair.”

“How is it? This study’s as much mine as it is yours, isn’t it?”

“Of course.”

“Well, then I pay half on improvements.”

[99]

“But I thought you didn’t think that shelf was an improvement,” said Hansel slyly. Bert grinned.

“I guess I can stand it,” he answered.

Phin turned up next afternoon, according to appointment, and Hansel explained what was wanted, speaking of “my books” in a manner calculated to impress Phin with their number and importance, and allay any suspicion of charity, if such suspicions existed. Phin whipped out a pocket rule, set down some figures on the back of a dirty envelope, and promised to attend to it the next day.

“I suppose two coats of enamel will do?” he asked.

“I guess so,” answered Hansel doubtfully. “Or maybe you’d better put on three; I’d like it nice and shiny.”

“All right. Much obliged to you.”

“You’re welcome. Not going, are you?”

“Well, I guess you’re busy and I’ve got some work to do in the village. Suppose I do this job to-morrow night. Would the noise disturb you?”

“Not a bit. I’d be glad to have you do it[100] then. I—I want to have a bit of a talk with you, Dorr.”

“All right, then; to-morrow night. Oh, by the way, you forgot to ask about the cost of this job.”

“So I did!” exclaimed Hansel in some confusion. “How much—er—will you charge?”

“It’ll be a dollar and twenty-five cents. You see, I’ll have to use three brackets, and they cost quite a lot.”

“Of course, and so does the board, I guess.”

“Well, I get that down at the mill; they let me have lumber at wholesale prices. Good night.”

Bert came in ten minutes later and at once looked at the wall over the couch. Hansel thought he seemed disappointed at finding it still bare.

There was a shake-up in the eleven that afternoon. Bert experimented with the position of left tackle, for which his weight and build admirably fitted him; but the experiment wasn’t a howling success, and he went back of the line again very contentedly. Mr. Ames abducted a heavily-built youth from the first class team,[101] and seemed fairly well pleased with the result. But, altogether, the line-up that day was a mixed-up affair, in which no one played for more than three or four minutes at a time in any one position. Even Hansel was shifted over to left end for a while, and later given a chance at left tackle. But the latter position was a new one for him, and he didn’t shine in it. Everybody, the coach included, was heartily glad when the work was over for the day. Mr. Ames, Bert, and Harry went up to the gymnasium together, and, judging from the way hands were waved and heads shaken, they weren’t very well satisfied with existing football conditions. Some of the team who were aware of having lately offended felt uneasy.

The next day three second team men went onto the first; among them Phipps, the quarter back. Things went better, as a result, if we except an injury to Cameron’s knee which threatened to keep him out of the game for at least a week. In the ten-minute scrimmage, the first managed to score three times on the second, and there was a better exhibition of team work than at any time so far during the fall.

[102]

That night Hansel had his talk with Phineas Dorr. The latter put in an appearance at eight o’clock, armed with a six-foot white-enameled board, three iron brackets and a canvas bag of tools. The couch was moved away from the wall, and he went to work. Hansel helped him once or twice by holding up the shelf during the operations of leveling it and screwing in the first bracket. Presently he broached the subject of Cameron and the condition of Beechcroft athletics. Phin heard him through in silence, barring an occasional encouraging grunt as he worked his screwdriver. Then,

“What you say is just so, Dana,” he said earnestly. “And I’m glad to find some fellow who thinks that way. It’s bothered me ever since I came last fall. I’ve talked with some of the older fellows about it, and from what they’ve said, I think there’s been a decline during the last five or six years in the school’s ethics, so to say. I think a whole lot of the blame belongs to Johnny.”

“Johnny? Oh, you mean Dr. Lambert. But I should think the principal would be the first one to—to——”

[103]

“He ought to be, but Johnny’s not quite the man for the place, according to my thinking, Dana. He doesn’t get close enough to the fellows. Those who don’t take Greek of him don’t see him sometimes for a month. Last year one of the fellows asked me what sort of a looking man he was! You see, too, athletics here are left to a committee of two members of the faculty, Ames and Foote, and three members of the two upper classes. But they very seldom get together. If any question comes up, instead of calling a meeting and discussing it and finding what’s best to be done, some one goes and asks Bobby—that’s Ames, you know—and Bobby says, ‘All right, go ahead,’ or, ‘No, I don’t think you’d better.’ As for Johnny, I don’t believe he ever saw a football game!”

“He hasn’t been here very long, has he?”

“Five years. He came from the South somewhere; some small college; I think he was just an instructor in Greek and Latin. The school had been running behind for a few years, and the trustees wanted a man who would do what they told him to do, and who hadn’t any very strong convictions of his own. Well, that’s[104] Dr. Lambert. Personally, I think he’s not half bad. But for one thing he’s too old; he’s nearly sixty if he’s a day; and he sticks too much to his office. He ought to get out and use his eyes, and see what’s going on. I don’t believe he knows that the fellows are paying Cameron’s way through school; don’t believe he knows who Cameron is, except for seeing his name on the books now and then. He ought to know a whole lot he doesn’t. And that’s why I say that I think a lot of the blame for the present lax condition of things belongs to him.”

“But Mr. Ames?” asked Hansel.

“Well, Bobby’s a good fellow and he means well; every fellow likes him; but I suppose he tells himself that since the principal doesn’t bother his head about such affairs it isn’t up to him. As for Foote, he doesn’t bother himself much about anything outside his own province, which is looking after the fellows’ physical condition.”

“Well, who are the student members of the athletic committee?”

“Folsom and Middleton for the fourth class, and Royle for the third.”

[105]

“But they’re all football men!”

“Yes, that’s a fact. You see, they’re elected by the fellows, and the fellows generally pick out the most prominent athletes. Harry got on because he made a fine reputation as a chap with brains last year when he was assistant manager.”

“I see,” said Hansel thoughtfully.

“Yes, and you can see how it would be mighty hard work to keep Billy Cameron from playing football.”

“Yes,” said Hansel dejectedly. “Maybe I might as well chuck it. Only—no, I’m hanged if I do! There’s next year yet, and if I— Look here, Dorr, I was in hope you’d join forces with me. From something Harry said——”

“What did he say?” asked Phin, working his screwdriver busily.

“That I’d better talk to you because you were—peculiar, too; he says that’s what I am.”

“Well, you haven’t asked me yet,” said Phin dryly.

“Oh! Will you?” asked Hansel eagerly.

“Yes, I will. Have you made any plans of—campaign?”

“No, I haven’t. I meant to speak to Mr.[106] Ames first; I thought he might suggest something.” Phin shook his head.

“Let’s leave him out of it for the present. After we’ve made a start we’ll ask his assistance, and I think he’ll give it, but just now, what with being in a bit of a pickle over the team and not wanting to lose one of his best men, it’s a difficult proposition to put to him. See what I mean?”

“Yes, I see,” answered Hansel. “Then what do you think we’d better do?” It seemed comforting to be able to say “we.”

“I think we’d better keep next year in mind, and not count too much on this. If you and I were members of the committee, and could get Bobby to act with us on the questions that came up, we could do about as we pleased.”

“Yes, but——”

“The new committee will be elected in the spring. You and I will stand.”

“You might make it all right,” said Hansel, “but I don’t know a soul, scarcely.”

“But you’re going to; that’s part of the conspiracy,” answered Phin with a smile. “We’ll begin to-morrow. I’ll introduce you to the best fellows in our class, and you must set out to win[107] them. You’re certain of your place on the team, and that fact alone will carry weight. What you’ve got to do is to become popular, Dana.”

“I don’t like the sound of it,” Hansel objected.

“No, I don’t either. But it’s in a good cause. I don’t like shoving myself forward for an office, either, but it’ll have to be done.” Phin paused with screwdriver suspended in mid-air. “Come to think of it,” he said, “there’s going to be a meeting of the school next Saturday night to elect a new assistant manager of the football team; Bliss didn’t come back this fall. I wonder—” He stopped and pondered a moment. “I can’t really afford the time, but—I’ll do it; I’ll stand for the assistant managership.”

“You will?” cried Hansel. “That’ll be great. If you do that you’ll be manager next year and——”

“And you’ll be captain,” said Phin quietly.

“Captain!”

“Why not? Just keep from being injured and laid off the team, that’s all you’ll have to do. You’re a star player, and the fellows on the team like you already.”

[108]

Hansel flushed.

“It isn’t likely they’d elect me, though,” he objected. “There’s Royle, who has been here for two years already, and Cotton——”

“He graduates.”

“And Conly.”

“So does he. As for Royle, well, he might push you, but if we go at it right I guess we can get you in.”

“I don’t like it,” said Hansel again.

“No, but you will have to put up with it,” answered the other with a smile. “Mind, I don’t ask you to swipe. All you need to do is to be friendly with the fellows, play the game the best you can, and let me manage your campaign. With you captain and me manager, I guess I can name two members of the next committee. Besides, maybe we can run our own man for the third position. I’ll call to-morrow night and we’ll make a few visits on some of the fellows. Meanwhile whenever we see a chance to drive in a wedge we’ll do it. But I don’t believe we’d best throw down the gauntlet just yet; we wouldn’t gain much by worrying Bobby or antagonizing Bert and Harry.”

“‘Play the game the best you can, and let me manage your campaign.’”

[109]

“I think we could win Harry over,” said Hansel thoughtfully.

“Maybe; we’ll think about it.” Phin gave a final turn of his screwdriver and stood off to examine the result. “There,” he said, “I guess that finishes it for now.”

“I’m awfully much obliged. It looks fine, doesn’t it? I think I might as well pay you now.”

“Just as you like,” answered Phin, packing up his few tools.

“How much did you say it would be?” asked Hansel.

“I said about a dollar, but it will be seventy-eight cents.”

“That seems awfully little,” said Hansel.

“It’s just right. The board was thirty cents, the three brackets and screws thirty-eight, and the enamel ten; seventy-eight in all.”

“But you’re not making anything!”

“No,” answered Phin with a peculiar smile, “not on this job, Dana.”

“But—but I wouldn’t have asked you if—if——”

“That’s just it, Dana,” Phin replied quietly.[110] “I guessed as much, and I don’t like charity.” Hansel colored up.

“I beg your pardon,” he muttered.

“That’s all right,” answered Phin. “Good night.”

“Good night,” murmured Hansel.