“Coming out?” repeated Jim at a loss.
“Yes, to try for the team. This afternoon at four. We want all the new material we can get this year and you look as though you might make good.”
“Why, thanks,” said Jim. “I—I’d like to, but I won’t have time. You see, we’ve taken that house and there’s a good deal to do.”
“Oh.” Sargent looked disappointed. “I wish you would, though. See if you can’t give us an hour or so in the afternoon, Hazard. I’m going to look for you, anyhow.”
[“You a football man, Hazard?” Sargent asked.]
Jim murmured vaguely and politely, very much flattered by the football captain’s interest in him, and the group broke up. The quartette hurried back to Sunnywood Cottage as fast as Jeffrey could go, all very anxious for breakfast. At nine the school bell rang again and Jim and Jeffrey—with many another new boy—attended their first class. But there wasn’t much real work done that opening day, and at three o’clock they were free. Jim returned to the cottage alone. Most of the other fellows were making for the athletic field to either don canvas and get into the first day’s practice or to loll about the grand-stand or on the warm turf and watch and comment. But Jim had plenty of work awaiting him at the cottage, for in spite of the fact that they had been at Crofton for almost a fortnight there still remained numerous odds and ends to attend to. Hope, busily hemming dish-towels on the porch, was eager to hear about his experiences, but she found her brother a good deal of a disappointment.
“Why, nothing much happened,” replied Jim, dumping his books in a chair. “There was history and French. I have the new man, Mr. Hanks, in history. He’s awfully funny; guess he was rattled a bit. Poke calls him ‘Nancy’; not bad, is it?”