“It is,” Tony laughed ingenuously. “Do you know, Miss Wilson, I feel half ashamed of myself. I so hoped something like that might happen. I suppose a fellow ought to think of the game and the school, and I reckon most of ‘em do; but two years ago, I was the means of our losing the Boxford game, and I tell you it took me a long time to get over the feeling that gave me.”
“I know,” said Betty. “Kit has told me about that.”
“Well, it was a long time ago; but I never did really get over it.”
“But it wasn’t your fault,” protested Betty.
“Oh, yes, in a sense it was; if I had stuck to the ball tighter, I reckon it wouldn’t have happened. But that sort of made me feel that I wanted a special chance to-day.”
“Well, you got it,” said the girl, with a smile. “Of course, one cannot help wanting to do things one’s self. I suppose we are all a little bit selfish.”
They chatted on then more at ease, until they reached the great field behind the Chapel where the celebration was to take place.
Every light in the school building was blazing, and a line of Chinese lanterns had been strung to fine effect up and down the driveway and along the terraces. In the center of the playing-field back of the school an enormous bonfire had been constructed, of drygoods boxes, barrels, fence rails, and various other combustibles, including an untenanted chicken-house that an amateur farmer of the Second Form had contributed in a genuine spirit of sacrifice. Around the bonfire were gathered three hundred boys of the school, a score or so of the masters and many of the Old Boys and friends who had stayed over. On the outskirts of the crowd there was a complement of sundry enthusiastic country urchins, who for the night had buried the proverbial hatchet usually in play between them and the school, and were rejoicing lustily in the honor that had fallen upon the entire community.
As Mrs. Wilson’s party arrived, Billy Wendell applied a match to a mass of kerosene-soaked excelsior, and the flames started up the pile with an avidity, it seemed, that was impelled by sympathy with the mounting spirits of the boys. A dozen rockets were fired off simultaneously, three hundred Roman candles were exploded, and a score of red fires were lighted in various parts of the field. There was a sudden blaze of splendid light.
Soon the magnificent bonfire dominated the interest. The boys circled about it, hand in hand, shouting, cheering, singing. The school bells rang out joyously on the frosty night; the strains of the school songs echoed and re-echoed, until was caught up in full chorus by those hundreds of happy voices, the triumphal song,—