“Three cheers for Fairview—she knows how to take a licking the same as Randall!”
And at once the river echoed the cheers.
“Well, you did us that time, Boxer!” went on Bean. “But our time will come—we’re going to do you in the eight.”
“Not if we know it,” retorted Pinky Davenport.
“Oh, I’m so sorry—for you, Tom,” breathed Ruth, as the tall pitcher stood close beside her on the balcony of the boathouse. “Does it bother you much?”
“Well, of course I’d like to have seen our four win,” he replied, “but it doesn’t bother me. It only makes me mad. We’ll win that eight if we have to break every oar.”
“Don’t do that, Tom, old man,” advised Frank, who heard this last. “Breaking an oar is worse than catching a crab. It will lose us the race sure. Be moderate.”
“It’s hard, after all the work we did,” complained Sid.
“But look at it,” put in Phil. “We beat Fairview, and that’s something for a green crew to do.”