“You may make it mean what you like!”
“Oh, come now, Arn,” Frank put in soothingly, “Toby’s all right. I’m not saying anything, am I?”
“That’s twice you’ve called me a coward,” said Toby, his blue eyes flashing. “You’ll take it back, Arnold, before I ever speak to you again!” He brushed past Frank and went on hurriedly up the path, deaf to the latter’s appeal to “wait a minute!”
It was all through with and finished now, he reflected miserably. He had stood from Arnold just all any fellow could stand! A coward, was he? Well, he would show them! He didn’t know just how he was to show them, but that would come later. Until Arnold begged his pardon he would never speak to him or have a thing to do with him! It wasn’t until he was safe behind the closed door of Number 22, with his eyes a little bit wet for some reason, that he recalled Doctor Collins’ advice. Then he told himself ruefully: “It’s just like I said. The trouble with controlling your temper is that you don’t remember about it until it’s too late!”
March approached with a week of severely cold weather during which the river froze nearly eight inches thick and at night cracked like the report of a pistol. No more snow came and the shrill north-west winds howling against Toby’s windows forced him to wrap his legs in his overcoat when he sat down to study. Hockey went on unremittingly, but there were some days when it was cruelly cold on the rink and playing goal was none too pleasant. Toby was thankful for those warm gloves then. The school hockey championship was decided on the river, the Second Class Team winning the final contest handily from the First. Toby retained his place as first-choice goal-tend and Frank Lamson made a fine pretense of indifference and treated Toby as good-naturedly as ever. But it wasn’t difficult to see that Frank still had hopes of winning his position back, for he played hard and earnestly. The morning practice with Grover Beech came to an end two days before the Greenburg High School game on the advice of Coach Loring.
“You’re getting enough work in the afternoons now, Tucker,” he said, “and there’s such a thing as overdoing it.”
Toby wasn’t very sorry, for the contests of skill between him and Beech had become one-sided, since Toby learned more every day and Beech seemed incapable of further progress in the gentle art of shooting goals. With the yielding of full authority to Mr. Loring by Captain Crowell things soon began to look brighter on the rink. The fellows, bothered not a little before by having two masters, settled down to following the coach’s directions with far more enthusiasm. There were no other changes made in the line-up, for Casement had failed to show any better work than Arnold Deering at right wing. Dan Henry had long since given up hope of returning to the game that winter and was helping coach the second team goal-tends and occasionally refereed the practice games. Toby threw himself heart and soul into learning and retaining his captured position. It was well for him that he had something so absorbing, for he was not very happy just now, and hockey and lessons—for whatever happened he had to maintain a good class standing—kept his thoughts off his quarrel with Arnold.
The Greenburg High School game was played in Greenburg and the return match was an easy matter for Yardley. Toby played most of the game, and then gave way to Frank Lamson. Coach Loring began to put in his substitutes early in the second period and when the contest ended, with the score 11 to 3 in Yardley’s favor, not a first-string man was on the ice. All things considered, the substitutes did very well, scoring four goals against Greenburg’s really excellent defense. That contest was the last before the final game with Broadwood and only four work-outs remained. The reports from the rival school proved pretty conclusively that Broadwood had one of the best sevens in the history of the dual league, and it was thoroughly realized at Yardley that if the Pennimore Cup was to return to the trophy room there, the Blue would have to put up a better game than she had done so far all season, but Captain Crowell was hopeful and Coach Loring fairly radiated optimism, and the players took their cue from their leaders. A month before no one would have seriously predicted a Yardley victory, but now the tendency was rather toward over-confidence. And over-confidence, as we know, is a dangerous thing.
Toby managed to contract a slight cold the Saturday of the Greenburg game, probably because he had too little to do to allow of his keeping warm, and it got worse on Sunday night and kept him out of practice Monday. Nor was it very much better the next day, although he reported for work and played through the first period and about ten minutes of the second. The following morning he felt, to use his own expression, just like a stuffed owl, and he had to drag himself to recitations and between them sat wrapped in sweater and coat in his room and tried to see how many of his small store of handkerchiefs he could use up! After dinner, a tasteless meal to Toby, he sought the school doctor and was appropriately dosed and instructed to keep away from the rink that afternoon. “Wrap yourself up warmly,” said the doctor, “and stay out of doors, but don’t get overheated. Fresh air is the best cure for a cold, my boy.”
So Toby got himself excused from practice and, after his last recitation, donned his sweater and tied a muffler around his throat and went out for a walk. It wasn’t a very invigorating sort of day, for on Sunday the weather had changed and for two days a mild south-westerly breeze had been blowing in from the Sound, causing dire apprehension on the part of the hockey men. Already the river below Loon Island showed stretches of open water and ice-cakes were floating down past the bridges and into the unfrozen Sound. It was a moist, cloudy afternoon and Toby’s feet lagged as he struck down-hill toward the little village. Wissining had one store, a general emporium that sold everything a fellow didn’t want and nothing he did. Still, one could buy pencils there, and Toby needed one, and it didn’t make much difference in which direction he walked. After the purchase he went on along the road that parallels the track and eventually leads to the footbridge to Greenburg. When he got in sight of the river he was surprised to see to what extent the ice had broken up since yesterday, or even since morning. Unless the weather grew cold again within the next two days that Broadwood game would never be played next Saturday.