“But Bobs, a sonnet—that’s easy!”
“That’s what I’ve heard about you,” he answered, hurriedly. “They say you can write poetry as easy as breathing. Now, you wouldn’t believe it could be done, but I’ve managed, all through my high school course, to steer clear of sonnets. I believe it’s a put-up job, anyway, requiring so much extra work this week. I have English with Miss Breckinridge, you know, and she’s down on football. She thinks she can keep me out of the game by piling on a sonnet, after everything else. Well, she’s cute! I give up. I can’t write a sonnet.”
“Oh, Bobs!” Jacquette stared at him in blank dismay. “You’re captain! You must play in the championship game!”
“Then will you write the sonnet?”
Jacquette stood still and met his honest blue eyes. No one who knew Bobs could help trusting him. As far as she could see, he was not ashamed of having asked the question.
She knew that it was a common thing among the girls to prepare lessons for their boy friends on the team, but, somehow, it had never entered her mind that she could do such a thing. Suddenly the thought that she—Jacquette Willard—might gain or lose Bobs Drake the chance to play in the championship game, took away her breath.
“But it wouldn’t be your work, Bobs,” she uttered, mechanically, while the sweet flattery of the situation tugged at her principles.
“What do I care?” he protested. “I’m not going to write sonnets for a living. I’m going to be an engineer. Oh, I know how you feel about it, because my principles are just the same, but this case is an exception. We wouldn’t be setting a bad example, even, because no one except you and me need ever know. That’s one reason I asked you; I knew you’d never tell.”
They had reached Jacquette’s home while he was speaking, and as she glanced at an upper window, Aunt Sula’s face leaned forward to smile a welcome.
“Oh, Bobs!” Jacquette cried, reproachfully, then, “you said you thought I was square!”