I suppose the story of that game really began on Thursday night, when Babe and I were in our room in Puffer and this Joe Kenton mooned in on us. Babe’s real name is Gordon Fairfield Linder, but he’s always been called Babe, even when he was in grammar school, on account of him being so big. Babe played center on the team, and I played right tackle. This fellow Joe Kenton was a sort of fourth substitute half-back. He’d been hanging on to the squad all the season. He wasn’t much good, it seemed, and the only reason he was still with us was because Hop MacLean, who was captain that year and played left half, had a bum knee and was expected to have to give up playing any old time. He’d got injured in the first game of the year, but he was still playing, and playing a mighty nice game, and I guess Joe would have been dropped from the squad after last week’s game if Rusty hadn’t probably forgotten about him. A coach gets sort of muddle-headed in the last two weeks of the season, and sort of absent-minded, too, and I guess he was so used to seeing Joe sitting there on the bench that he didn’t think much about him: just thought he was part of the scenery.
Joe was an awfully decent sort of chap, even if he was a dub at football, and fellows liked him pretty well, Babe and me inclusive. He was a corking baseball player, and you might think he’d have been satisfied with that, but he wasn’t. He was dead set on being a football hero, and he’d been trying last year and this without getting very far. It wasn’t anything unusual for him to turn up at Number 11, but he didn’t generally come in looking like he was rehearsing to be a pallbearer at some one’s funeral. Babe, who had grabbed up a Latin book, thinking it might be one of the faculty, tossed it back on the table and picked up his magazine again and grunted “’Lo, Joe.” And I said “’Lo,” too, and asked who was dead; and Joe sort of groaned and dropped into a chair.
“I’m up against it, fellows,” he said dismally.
“Spill it,” said I.
He pulled a letter out of a pocket and tossed it to me. “Read it,” said he.
So I pulled the thing out of the envelope and started. It was dated “Central City, Nov. 12.” Central City is where Joe lives.
My Dear Joseph, [it began] your last Sunday’s letter, posted, I see, on Tuesday, has just arrived, and both your mother and I are glad to learn that you are well and getting on finely. You neglect to answer the questions I asked in my last letter, but as you never do answer my questions I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I am pleased that you are doing so well at football, of course, but would like sometimes to have you make even passing mention of your studies. Your mother has been suffering for several days with a slight cold, but is considerably better to-day and—
“It’s on the next page,” interrupted Joe dolefully. “Turn over.”
So I turned the page and read—“on top of the furnace, and it’s a wonder she wasn’t burned.”