They were all of them, it seemed, on the football team, and all in strict summer training. The amount of eggs and steak and milk that they devoured during the eight weeks of their stay was something amazing. Every afternoon they produced two oval, brown leather balls and went through remarkable proceedings in the meadow behind the barn. Strange as it may seem, Kendall had never seen a football before, although he had indistinct recollections of having heard or read somewhere of the game. He looked on absorbedly and was as proud as a peacock when, one day, he was allowed to kick one of the illusive objects. They got a good deal of fun out of his attempts at first, but it wasn’t long before he had discovered the knack, and they professed themselves impressed with his ability.
“The kid’s cut out for a kicker,” declared Dana. “Those long legs of his were just made for football. Kid, you keep it up, do you hear? Some day you’ll be a crackerjack kicker if you do.”
The four took their departure early in September to join the rest of the football squad at New Haven. But when they went they left one of the battered balls behind, and during a month of loneliness Kendall made a friend of it. Day after day he went down to the old place in the meadow and kicked and chased the shabby pigskin oval, and dreamed of a time when he should be a Yardley Hall man and play on the football team! But the four left behind them something even better than the old football, and that was a seed that grew and ripened and ultimately bore fruit. They had talked with Kendall’s father and mother, the latter especially since she had proved the more receptive, about the boy’s future schooling, and Mrs. Burtis had hearkened willingly and remembered. And in the course of time she had won her husband to the plan of sending Kendall away to a good preparatory school when the time came, and, later, to college. But when the time did come money was lacking, and at fourteen, instead of going to Yardley Hall, Kendall went to the high school in Roanoke. Then came a bumper year for the Maine potato growers, and, with it—wonder of wonders!—a shortage over the rest of the country and correspondingly high prices. Potatoes reached a dollar and four cents a bushel that winter and Farmer Burtis fared well. And Kendall’s best Christmas present was the promise that the following September he should, if he could pass the examinations, enter Yardley!
Pass the examinations indeed! Kendall never had a doubt of it. That only meant study, and he would have studied twenty hours a day if necessary! It wasn’t necessary. He had passed the Third Class examinations with flying colors. And now, behold him a Yardlian, a boy whose dream had come true!
He had listened to the speeches and watched the proceedings with eager curiosity. And when they had sung “The Years Roll On” he had stood up with the others and had tried, very softly, to follow the tune, while, somewhere inside of him, something was stirring that was neither pleasure nor pain, but seemed made of each. After the meeting was over he followed the others out of the building and, since he knew no one yet, set off alone along the walk to his room in Clarke Hall. He was one of the last out of Oxford, and by the time he had reached the first entrance of Whitson, which stands between Oxford and Clarke, most of the gathering had disappeared. In front of him, however, three boys were walking and as they passed a lighted window Kendall recognized one of them as the football captain. As the trio occupied the width of the path and as Kendall didn’t like to crowd past them, he was obliged to suit his pace to theirs, and so couldn’t help hearing their conversation.
“How do you like your new room, Tom?” asked Dan Vinton.
“Fine,” was the answer from the larger of the other two boys.
“It seems funny, though, not to see Alf and Tom,” continued the first speaker. “We’re going to miss them, aren’t we?”
“Awfully,” agreed the third boy. “I’m so used to dropping in at Number 7, Tom, that you mustn’t be surprised if it takes me a while to get over the habit.”
“Don’t get over it,” responded Tom Roeder heartily. “Make yourself at home. I suppose Loring and Dyer are feeling pretty big about now.”