It had seemed possible for some time that Tony might make end on the School team. Mr. Stenton, the athletic director, though he had a vigorous way of finding fault, forever threatening the boys with defeat and the benches and fines, secretly regarded Deering as a “find.” He had watched his play for a week or two on Kit Wilson’s Third Form team; saw that he was green but teachable, and judged that he was one of the swiftest runners that had ever come to Deal. The end of the first month found Tony a member of the School squad.
To the old boys it seemed almost “fresh” that a newcomer should be able to play football so much better than they, and to be a greenhorn at that! But Jack Stenton knew his business; he was an old Kingsbridge man, and he had played on the Kingsbridge eleven in the very earliest days of American football, when it was a very different game indeed. And Stenton made up his mind that Tony eventually should make the Kingsbridge eleven. Deal boys had not been taking many places on Kingsbridge teams of recent years, which was a matter of real grief to the faithful coach. Stenton, however, was the last man in the world to give a boy a good opinion of himself, so that he pretended to hold out to Tony but the smallest hope. “You may squeeze into shape,” he would say, “but I doubt it.” And in truth he was averse to playing a new boy in a big game; so that up to the eve of the Boxford game the line-up was in doubt. Tony had a vigorous rival for his position, in Henry Marsh, one of the members of the hazing-bee of the first few nights at Deal. Marsh was quick; Tony was quicker; but Marsh had the advantage of knowing the game, and clever as Tony was proving himself, he nevertheless was a greenhorn.
His promotion to the school squad did a great deal for Deering in the way of increasing his popularity. Kit Wilson no longer patronized him; on the other hand he was rather proud of Tony’s friendship, and took a good deal of credit to himself for having discovered him. He proposed Deering for membership in the Dealonian, a semi-secret society that took a great deal of credit to itself for the smooth and successful running of the School. Membership in it was an honor, which a new boy rarely achieved. It was enough to have turned our friend’s head, but he was singularly not a self-conscious youth, and to this it was due that his quick success aroused so little jealousy. Tony had the quality of lovableness to a marked degree, which is after all a quality; it was what won him at college in later years the nickname of “Sunshine,” a famous nickname in the annals of Kingsbridge, as Kingsbridgeans know—but that’s another story.
In all the unexpected happiness of the term there was for Tony nevertheless the inevitable rift in the lute. Chapin was still sulky toward him; and he could see beneath a rather elaborate courtesy, that Henry Marsh, Chapin’s particular crony, was anything but friendly. This lack of friendliness became so noticeable to Carroll that despite his intimacy with the two, he began to draw somewhat away from them. Carroll thought that they had singularly failed to appreciate Tony’s “whiteness” in saving them all from an unmerciful horsing. Even the Head Master had called their attention to that in his brief discourse to them on that unpleasant morning afterwards.
Carroll met the two coming out of Thornton Hall—the refectory—one evening after supper, and joined them as they walked around the terrace in the moonlight.
“I say, you fellows,” he began, plunging in medias res—Carroll always took the unexpected line—“why the deuce do you keep so sour on young Deering?”
Chapin looked up quickly, his eyes glinting unpleasantly in the moonlight. “Hang it, Carroll!” he exclaimed, “what’s that to you? We’ve no obligation to take up with every little southern beggar that comes to school, as you seem to have.”
“No, assuredly,” Carroll replied, suavely, “but it occurs to me that when a chap has behaved as uncommonly decently to us as Deering has, you might show a little—well, appreciation.”
“Rot! Deering has had a swelled head ever since the night of the hazing-bee, and if Jack Stenton sticks him on the team for the Boxford game there’ll be no holding him. We will be for sending him up to Kingsbridge instanter.”
“You are uttering unspeakable nonsense, my dear Arthur, and you know it. Give the lad a show; play fair. What’s the matter with you, Harry?” he added, turning to Marsh, “it is only lately that you have taken to snubbing him.”