"That's easy!" grinned T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his arm across Theophilus'
shoulders, "I was the first boy born to any member of Yale, '96; it is the
custom of classes graduating at Yale to call such a baby the class kid!
Naturally, the members of old Eli, Class of 1896, are vastly interested in
me. Hence, my Dad wrote they'd be tickled if I won a big game for Bannister
with a field-goal!"
A moment of silence, Theophilus Opperdyke, gathering from Hicks' arm,
across his shoulders, that the cheery youth was not so awfully wrathful at
his base betrayal, adjusted his big-rimmed spectacles, and stared owlishly
at Hicks.
"Hicks, you—you are not angry?" he quavered. "You are not sorry. I—I
told—"
"Sorry?" quoth T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., "Class Kid," of Yale, '96, with a
Cheshire cat grin, "sorry? I should say not—I wanted it to be known to
Butch, and Coach Corridan, but I got all shivery when I tried to confess,
and I—couldn't! Nay, Theophilus, you faithful friend, I'm so glad, old
man, that beside yours truly, the celebrated Pollyanna resembles Niobe,
weeping for her lost children."
HICKS—CLASS KID—YALE '96
"Brekka-kek-kek—Co-Ax—Co-Ax!
Brekka-kek-kek—Co-Ax—Co-Ax!
Whoop-up! Parabaloo! Yale! Yale! Yale!
Hicks! Hicks! Hicks!"
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., swathed in a cumbersome Gold and Green football
blanket, and crouching on the side-line, like some historic Indian, felt a
thrill shake his splinter-structure, as the yell of "old Eli" rolled from
the stand, across Bannister Field. In the midst of the Gold and Green flags
and pennants, fluttering in the section assigned the Bannister cohorts, he
gazed at a big banner of Blue, with white lettering:
YALE UNIVERSITY—CLASS OF 1896
"Oh, Butch," gasped Hicks, torn between fear and hope, "just listen to
that. Think of all those Yale men in the stand with my Dad! Oh, suppose I
do get sent in to try for a drop-kick!"