“Of course you can’t,” said Joe. “Besides, Ginger, it’s pretty likely that Babe’ll be back here now and then, and if you want to see him you’d better hang about the old field. And, gee, Ginger, I was counting on your help! It isn’t going to be any easy job next year, with so many of the old players gone, and—well, I’m going to need you, Ginger.”
Ginger hesitated, looked at Joe, darted a glance at Babe and at last spoke.
“Aw, all right,” he said. “I’ll see the old team through another season.”
[CHAPTER XX]
CALLED TO THE COLORS
In September Joe was back again at Holman’s, three months older, nearly an inch taller than he had been the preceding fall and a good eight pounds heavier than when he had left school in June. Some of those eight pounds, he knew, would come off when he began running the bases in fall practice, but he earnestly hoped that most of them would stay with him. As Hal was no longer there, and, since he was now a senior, he was privileged to room in the senior dormitory. He had applied for and been assigned one of the front studies in Levering Hall. But in July his plans had been changed. A wierdly scrawled letter from Gus Billings, written in a Maine camp, had reached him toward the last of that month. Gus, himself now without a roommate, proposed that Joe share Number 10 Puffer. “Maybe it isn’t as fussy as Levering,” wrote Gus, “but it’s a good old dive and I’d rather stay there next year than change, and you’d like it, I’ll bet, if you tried it.” So Joe joined forces with the big, good-natured football captain, taking over Babe Linder’s half of the quarters and becoming heir to one frayed bath towel, a half-filled bottle of witch-hazel and the remains of what had once been a blue gymnasium shirt, these articles being discovered in various out-of-the-way corners.
Joe missed Hal Norwin a good deal for the first few days of the new term, but after that there was scarcely time to miss any one. Fall baseball practice began on the second day and Joe was busy. He and Gus got on beautifully right from the start. Any fellow, though, could get on with Gus, so that was no great credit to Joe. Gus was even busier than Joe, and, as football leader, was facing far more responsibility. Until well into October Joe knew but little of the football situation. Gus spoke of it frequently enough, but Joe’s attention was generally perfunctory. Then, one evening Gus sprang a surprise.
“Say, how much longer are you going to waste your time with that gang of morons?” he asked. “Moron” was a new word with Gus, and he loved it. Joe simulated perplexity.
“Morons, Gus? Why, I’m not on the eleven!”