“Let me be on the team?” begged Twaddles. “I can play football, Bobby. Can’t I, Dot?”
“You’re too little,” answered Bobby impatiently. “Fred is waiting to know if I can come, Mother.”
“But, dear, I don’t see where you are going to play,” protested Mother Blossom. “You can’t play on the school field, because the older boys have that for their use.”
“They’re all through playing football now,” explained Bobby. “The last game was Thanksgiving. There’s a vacant lot back of Fred’s house, Mother, and we can play there. I’m the captain.”
“All right, dear, run along and have a good time,” said Mother Blossom, giving him a kiss. “Be sure you come home at twelve o’clock. And, Twaddles, I’ll think of something nice for you to do at home. When you are as old as Bobby, you may play football, too.”
Fred Baldwin and Palmer Davis, two boys in Bobby’s class at school, were waiting for him. Fred had his football under his arm.
“We’re going over to Bertrand Ashe’s,” Fred explained. “His cousin is visiting him over Thanksgiving and his brother is captain of the football team at the State University. So he ought to be a good player.”
Bobby thought a boy who was fortunate enough to have a brother captain of a University team ought to be a good player, too, and he did not wonder that Fred had decided to play in Bertrand’s yard.
“Hello,” said Bertrand, when he saw the three boys. “This is my cousin, Elmer Lambert.”
“Hello,” said Elmer, a tall thin boy with a freckled face and nice, merry blue eyes. “I see you have a football.”