“Well, no,” Wallace answered. “We decided we’d do something else, after all.”
At that moment Carson and a group of sixth-form friends, among them Henshaw, came up.
“I have the honor to report, Ruth,” said Carson, “that I fulfilled orders. I am the great pacificator.” He suddenly grabbed Henshaw by the collar with his right hand and David by the collar with his left. “I have the honor to restore to you one Huby Henshaw of the sixth form and one David Ives of the fifth, unscathed, unscratched, unharmed.”
“Good boy!” exclaimed Ruth. Her eyes sparkled with amusement, laughter rose from the crowd, and David and Henshaw stood blushing and grinning foolishly.
“You certainly do look like a pair of sillies,” said Ruth. “But you might be looking even worse—and you’ve got me as well as Harry Carson to thank that you aren’t. Come in now, and I’ll give you all some tea.”
CHAPTER IV
FRIENDSHIPS
David learned that the handicap track meet held every autumn by the Pythians and Corinthians would take place in the latter part of October. He entered his name for the quarter-mile as a representative of the Pythians.
He found that he had outgrown the running shoes that he had worn in the spring when he had been the “crack” quarter-miler of the high school. So he put on his tennis “sneakers” and practiced daily on the track in those. Most of the candidates for the track meet proved to be very casual in their training; they were nearly all out trying for a place on one of the Pythian or Corinthian football elevens, and that meant that they had to do their track work in the half-hour recess before luncheon or on occasions when they were excused from football. There was no regular coaching for them; Bartlett, the Pythian captain, and Carson, the Corinthian, were alike devoting their chief energies to football, but occasionally found time to supervise the work of their candidates, and more often Mr. Dean, though superannuated so far as active participation in athletics was concerned, gave hints and advice out of a historic past.