“You know I’m a Pythian, David, so I was glad you won. Aren’t you going to play football, too?”
“No, I don’t play football much,” David answered.
“You could if you tried—anybody that can run like that!”
David blushed and laughed and departed from the house feeling very much as if he had been knighted.
And wonderfully enough, three days later he was out playing football on the Pythian scrub, with Ruth, the most consistent of all partisans, looking on. A letter had come from his father enclosing ten dollars—a cheerful letter very different from those that his mother had been writing and one that caused David’s spirits to soar. Dr. Ives wrote that “business” had been very slow but that it was picking up a bit; that he realized that David was probably in need of cash and that he was the kind of fellow who would never ask for it; and that he was sending him a little money, which he must spend for whatever he most wanted. As for himself, Dr. Ives declared that he was feeling like a fighting-cock, now that cool weather had come.
It did not take David long after receiving that letter to get what he most wanted. For the rest of the football season he reported for practice every day. He displayed no striking ability, but he won a place as half back on the second Pythian eleven; and in the game with the second Corinthians he made one of the three Pythian touchdowns and later [tackled a runner in the open field and got a wrenched ankle], which necessitated his being assisted to the side lines.
[TACKLED A RUNNER IN THE OPEN FIELD AND GOT A WRENCHED ANKLE]
While he lay there wearing the stoical expression expected of the injured, Ruth Davenport came up and said, “Oh, I hope you’re not much hurt, David!”