"Look at the poor kid," points out Butter Fingers as we're passing one afternoon. "They keep him as spic and span as a children's advertisement. Maxwell Tincup, Junior's sure going to be a chip off the old block if the old block has anything to say about it! I'll bet some day he takes the tiddly-winks championship of South America!"
"Are you sure Mr. Tincup won't consider that too strenuous?" I asks, innocent like.
"Butter Fingers" grins and shrugs his shoulders.
It's not until the Monday before the big game of the year with Edgewood that the something happens which changes the complexion of the whole situation and brings Mr. Tincup's objection to football to a boil's head.
"Butter Fingers" and me are coming back from the athletic field after an extra hard workout. I have a football and we're tossing it back and forth as we're trotting down the sidewalk, me about fifty feet ahead of "Butter Fingers" so we can have plenty of distance to pass. As we cut across the corner toward Tincup's house I spot him out in the yard, washing his front porch off with the stream from the garden hose. "Hello!" says I to myself, "Mr. Tincup's getting industrious in his old age!"
Just then "Butter Fingers" lets loose an extra long throw. I can see at a glance that the ball's going to be over my head unless I can take it on the jump. Nope! I miss it by three feet, banging up against Mr. Tincup's front fence trying to pull it down.
"Look out!" I yells when I see what's going to happen.
If "Butter Fingers" had took aim he couldn't have made a squarer hit. The pigskin spirals over the fence and plunks Mr. Maxwell Tincup smack on the side of the head. The blow's so unexpected it knocks the nozzle of the hose out of his hands and before anybody can say "Ask me another!" the hose squirms around like a snake and soaks him from head to foot. Mr. Tincup begins yelling like he's in the middle of the ocean, going down for the last time. It takes him a couple of seconds to get on to what's hit him, but the minute he sees the football lying on the lawn he lets out a bellow of rage and turns to us, shaking his fist.
"All right, young gentlemen!" he snorts. "That's the end of your ball ... and it's the end of you, for that matter!"
It may be the end of us but it's not the end of our ball so far as "Butter Fingers" is concerned. He's over the fence in a jiffy and streaking for the pigskin as though he's on a football field. Mr. Tincup doesn't suspect any opposition on picking up what "Butter Fingers" regards as a free ball. He's too dripping wet and ripping mad to suspect anything. As he stoops down to pick up the ball which is also wet, it slips out of his fingers. To make matters worse he kicks it accidently with his foot and it rolls along in front of him. It's right then that "Butter Fingers" arrives. He takes a running dive across the wet lawn, skids right under Mr. Tincup's nose, curls himself around the pigskin, bounces up on his feet and keeps on going till he comes to the fence which he hurdles.