Left End Edwards

by Ralph Henry Barbour

"What do you know about that?" demanded Tom the next day. "'Horace' gave me a B on my comp! Of course, I'm not kicking, but I'll bet he made a mistake. Maybe he got nervous and his pencil slipped!"

"Seems to me," returned Steve coldly, "he knows better than you do what the thing is worth. He's not exactly an idiot, you know."

Tom stared in some surprise. "I didn't say he was an idiot, did I? Considering the things you've said about 'Horace' I don't think you need take that high-and-mighty tone!"

"Well, don't be a chump, then," replied Steve. "If Mr. Daley gave you a B you deserved a B."

"Thanking you kindly," murmured Tom as he disappeared behind the pages of the blue-book to digest the corrections and criticisms on the margins. Steve's manner since the night he had remained up until morning to write that composition had been puzzling. He had very little to say to Tom, and when he did speak, spoke in a constrained manner quite unlike him. And more than once Tom had caught Steve observing him with an expression that he couldn't fathom. There was something up, that was certain, but what it was Tom couldn't imagine. It wasn't that Steve was cross or disagreeable. For that matter, his disposition seemed a good deal improved. But he was decidedly stand-offish and extraordinarily quiet. Tom wanted to ask outright what the trouble was, but, for some reason, he held back. As the days passed, Steve's manner became more natural and he ceased looking at Tom as though, to quote the latter's unspoken simile, he was a new sort of an animal in a zoo! But some constraint still remained, and, after awhile, Tom accepted the situation and grew accustomed to it. By that time he had grown too proud to ask for an explanation. The two chums spent less time together as a result, Steve becoming more dependent on Roy for companionship and Tom on Harry. When they were all four together, which was very frequently, it was not so bad, but when Steve and Tom were alone conversation was apt to languish.

Tom at first was inclined to blame Steve's "Daley Schedule" for the change, for that schedule had quite altered Steve's existence. He lived by a strict routine which he followed with a dogged determination quite foreign to his ways as Tom knew them. He got up on time in the morning, reached the dining-hall almost as soon as the doors were opened, spent a scant twenty minutes there and then went directly back to his room to browse over his recitations for the day. Once Tom found him there hunched up in a corner of the window-seat while the chambermaid, viewing his presence distastefully, draped the furniture with bedding and did her best with broom and duster to discourage him from a repetition of the outrage. Between ten and eleven on three days a week Steve put in an hour of study in the room. On other days he managed to snatch two half-hour periods in the library between recitations. At six he was almost invariably awaiting the opening of the doors for dinner, and well before seven he was at his table again. Usually he studied until nine, although now and then he closed his books at half-past eight and followed Tom to Number 17 Torrence. Roy called him the Prize Grind and interestedly inquired what scholarship he was trying for. Steve accepted the joking with a grim smile.

It wasn't easy. For the first few days he had to drive himself to his work with bit and spur. His feet lagged and he groaned in spirit—perhaps audibly, too—as he approached his books. But he did it, and little by little it became easier, until, as Mr. Daley had predicted, it had become a habit with him to do certain things at certain hours and he was uncomfortable if his routine was disarranged. I don't think Steve ever got where he loved to study, but he did eventually reach a pride of attainment that answered quite as well. He found as time went on that it was becoming easier to learn his lessons and easier to remember them when learned, and by that time he had taught himself to command over his thoughts, and when he was struggling through a proposition in geometry he wasn't wondering whether he would beat out Sherrard for the position of regular right end on the second before the season was over. In other words, he had learned concentration.

But all this was not yet. That first week, in especial, was hard sledding, and that French composition almost drove him to distraction and gave him brain fever before it was done. But done it was and on time, and, while the best that Mr. Daley would allow it was a C plus, Steve was distinctly proud of it. And in that week he demonstrated to the instructor's satisfaction that he was up with the class in French. I think Mr. Daley was very willing to be convinced and that he met Steve quite half-way. Latin was still a bugaboo to Steve, but it, too, was getting easier. On the whole, that schedule, backed by a grim determination, was making good.

Meanwhile football pursued its relentless course. Every day the first and second fought it out for gradually increasing periods and every day the season grew nearer its close and the Claflin game, the final goal, loomed more distinct. Phillips School came and went and Brimfield marked up her fifth victory. Phillips gave the Maroon-and-Grey a hard tussle, and the score, 12 to 0, didn't indicate the closeness of the playing. For Brimfield made her first touchdown by the veriest fluke and only gained her second in the last few minutes of play, when Phillips, outlasted, weakened on her six-yard line and let Norton through. On the other hand, Phillips had the ball thrice inside Brimfield's twenty yards, missed a field-goal by the narrowest of margins and, with the slightest twist of the luck, might have proved the victor.

"Boots" had hammered the second into what Mr. Robey unhesitatingly declared to be one of the best scrub teams he had ever seen, and there was more than one contest between it and the 'varsity that yielded nothing to an outside game for hard fighting and excitement. Steve and his rival, Sherrard, were running about even for the right end position. Steve's tackling had improved vastly under Marvin's tutoring, and it was his ability in that department that possibly gave him a shade the better of the argument with Sherrard. So far there had been no decided slump in the playing of either team, and, since a slump is always looked for at some time during the season, both Mr. Robey and Danny Moore were getting anxious. Danny almost begged the fellows to go stale a little. "It ain't natural," he declared. "It's got to come, so let it and have it over with." Neither had there been any injuries of moment. On this score Danny had no regrets, however. He was a good trainer and prided himself on his ability to condition his charges so that they would escape injuries.