“Good-by, Harven. Very glad to have seen you again. Drop in some evening before term starts, and bring Brewton along, won’t you?”
CHAPTER II
CAPTAIN AND COACH
Stuart didn’t look for Mr. Haynes that evening. Instead, after supper in Safford’s only restaurant, he and Jack, together with three other early arrivals, went to the moving picture theater, which, like the Old Elm Café, was the sole representative of its kind in Safford. Stuart expected to meet the coach the next morning at breakfast, but the latter failed to show up. Pending the opening of Memorial, meals were served to the football players in the Lyceum House. This was a small cottage situated across the Principal’s Walk at the rear of Holton. In early days it had been used as a dormitory, as had a similar structure in the corner of the new campus. Later, the rooming facilities had been increased by the building of Sawyer and Byers Halls, the two cottages had been given over to the school societies, the Lyceum and Manning. The Lyceum House had four bedrooms on the upper floor, and living room, dining room and kitchen below. This morning the dining room was crowded when Stuart arrived. Nineteen fellows had answered the summons to pre-season practice, while the table seated but twelve. Fortunately, all of them did not come at the same time. As it was, Stuart made the fourth in the waiting line. His appearance was the signal for loud and hearty greetings, and there was much hand-shaking. Jack Brewton was already there and promised Stuart his place at table as soon as he “got outside a couple more eggs.”
Most of the returning players on last year’s first team were on hand: burly, red-haired Joe Cutts, the center; Leo Burns, square-headed and sandy-complexioned, as hard-fisted as he was soft-hearted, one of the best halfbacks in recent years; “Howdy” Tasker, big and gray-eyed and handsome, almost certain of the fullback position; Millard Wheaton, short but sturdy, pink-cheeked and blue-eyed, who meant to give Stuart a hard battle for quarterback supremacy; and others besides. Tom Muirgart, commonly known as “Mudguard,” yielded his chair to Stuart while Jack was still toying with his second helping of poached eggs, and Stuart deluged his oatmeal with milk and sprinkled it with sugar, and pitched in. “Whitey,” general factotum of the establishment, and as black a darkey as ever toiled in a southern cotton field, hurried back and forth in the seemingly hopeless endeavor to supply the wants of the eaters. Oatmeal, bacon, eggs, stewed peaches, toast, coffee, milk disappeared as if by magic, and pathetic plaints filled the air constantly: “Oh, Whitey! Got any more bacon?” “Whitey, bring some more milk, will you?” “Coffee, Whitey; and fill her up this time!” “Bring me two, three eggs, Whitey; and some toast!” “A-a-ay, Whitey! I’m starving! Get a move on, will you?”
At Stuart’s left a pleasant-faced, brown-eyed youth asked: “Have you seen the coach? He was asking for you last night.”
“No, what’s he like, Billy? I thought he’d be here this morning.”
“Rather a nice sort. Rather smallish. Looks keen, though.”
“Who’s that?” asked Joe Cutts from across the board. “Mr. Haynes? Quite a peppy boy, I’ll bet! He isn’t big, but he’s got a bad eye, son. He’ll have us jumping for fair!”
“If he can make you jump he’ll be going some,” laughed Billy Littlefield. Joe smiled tolerantly and landed a piece of toast on Billy’s nose. Wallace Towne, slipping into a vacated chair and absent-mindedly annexing Howdy Tasker’s glass of milk, joined in with: