“You’re a silly chump,” observed Gil with conviction. “Why did you let Jeff here wear himself out trying to teach you to handle a paddle if you didn’t mean to use it?”
Poke grinned. “Because Jeff was troubled about me and I knew he’d feel a lot better if he thought he was teaching me how to win the race. I didn’t want to cause him any uneasiness, Gil.”
“You and your uneasiness!” scoffed Gil. “If I were Jeff I’d punch your head for you!”
“I’ll do worse than that some day,” laughed Jeffrey. “I’ll take him out in a canoe and leave him there helpless!”
Poke laughed. “It was funny, though, fellows,” he said, “to see the look on Bull’s face when he saw me on the float. He was so flabbergasted that he sat with his paddle in the air and let the canoe drift down-stream with him! I’ll bet that for a minute he thought it was my ghost he saw!”
Hope, I think, was a little disappointed in the outcome of the race. She had wanted Poke to prove a hero and instead of that he had only proved a practical joker. And Hope, while her sense of humor was extremely well developed, failed to appreciate the joke as much as the boys did. She confided to Poke some days later that she wished he would learn to paddle perfectly jimmy and then beat “that Gary boy” in a real race. And Poke gravely consented to think the matter over.
For awhile speculation was rife as to the duration of Gary’s term of probation, but after Cosgrove had settled into the position of right guard and it was observed that that side of the line appeared as strong as ever the school became less concerned with Gary’s fortunes. Cosgrove, although he had never played the position before, soon became a proficient right guard, and Curtis, accustomed to the other side of the line, took very kindly to his change. Crofton met and defeated three adversaries and then ran into a snag in the shape of Chester Polytechnic. “Poly” swept the Academy team off its feet and won the game in a romp. But “Poly” had a way of doing that, and Crofton was not disheartened. The game proved that the weakest place in the line was at left tackle, where Marshall, willing and hard-working, hadn’t the stamina for the position. And yet Marshall was the best material in sight and Johnny decided to keep him, trusting that in the Hawthorne game Sargent, on one side, and Gil Benton, on the other, would help him out. After the Polytechnic game came a battle with Cupples Academy, and Crofton crawled out victor by a single goal from field. With two contests remaining before the Hawthorne game the season settled into the home-stretch. Graduates ran out to Crofton for a day or two at a time and looked the team over and gave advice and sometimes took a hand in the coaching, and ran back to college or business quite satisfied with their devotion to alma mater. But the man behind the team was Johnny, and Johnny pursued the even tenor of his way, undisturbed. Rumors of exceptional ability on the part of the Hawthorne eleven might cause uneasiness to others, but Johnny paid them no heed. He had heard that sort of thing many, many times before.
Meanwhile Jim was getting on with rapid strides, and there came a day when the name of Hazard was on every tongue. For on that day Jim broke through Curtis, blocked a kick, captured the ball and sped forty yards for a touchdown. As the first team’s best that afternoon was a field goal, Jim’s feat brought a victory to the second, and he went off the field a hero in the eyes of ten panting, happy players. But brilliant tricks of that sort are not the common lot of tackles and Jim’s best work was of the sort that doesn’t show much. By now he had learned how to handle Cosgrove, while Curtis and he battled day after day with honors fairly even. But while Jim was making fine progress on the gridiron he was scarcely holding his own in class. A boy must be peculiarly constituted to work heart and soul for the success of his team and yet not show a falling off at recitations. And Jim, since it was his first attempt at serving two masters, was beginning to find himself at outs with his instructors. Oddly enough it was with Latin that he had the most trouble those days and it was Mr. Hanks who first scared him.
“It won’t do, Hazard,” said the instructor one day. “You’ll have to give more time to your Latin. Don’t let me find you unprepared again this month, please.”
That night Jim settled down in the quiet and seclusion of his own room and dug hard. And the next day, and the next after that, Mr. Hanks viewed him kindly. But in specializing on Latin Jim had neglected his other studies and he heard from that. Two weeks before the final game Jim was looking worried and had become so irritable that Hope declared she was certain he was about to be ill. And unfortunately his troubled condition of mind reflected itself in his playing and on the second team it was whispered around that Jim was getting “fine.” And then came the game with Fosterville School, one crisp Saturday afternoon in the first of November. And when it was over, with the score 12 to 5 in favor of the enemy, the future looked pretty dark for Crofton. For Marshall had been dragged out of a play limp and white, his usefulness to the team a thing of the past. The doctor declared it only a severe wrench of the left shoulder but Marshall took it badly and Johnny knew that even if Marshall pulled around in a week the accident had taken every bit of fight out of him. And so it was that the second lost another lineman to the first team, for by the middle of the following week, after trying out Parker and Hazard for the position, the much coveted, but unhoped for, honor fell to Jim.