Walton had been very earnestly striving all the week to capture the guard position, but the fact that Don had been played through most of the Morgan's game indicated that the latter was as yet a slight favourite in Coach Robey's estimation. During the week succeeding the Morgan's game the two rivals kept at it nip and tuck, and their team-mates looked on with interest. At practice Mr. Robey showed no favour to either, and each came in for his full share of criticism, but when, the next Saturday, the team journeyed away from home and played Cherry Valley, it was again Don who started the game between Thayer and Thursby and who remained in the line-up until the fourth period, by which time Brimfield had piled up the very satisfactory score of twenty-six points. In the final five minutes Cherry Valley managed to fool the visitors and get a forward pass off for a gain that placed the ball on Brimfield's fourteen yards, and from there her drop-kicker put the pigskin over the cross-bar and tallied three points. The game was uninteresting unless one was a partisan, and even then there were few thrills. Brimfield played considerably better than in the Morgan's game and emerged with no more important damages than a wrenched ankle, which fell to the share of Martin, who had taken Rollins's place in the last period.
Joe Gafferty came back to practice the following Monday, but was missing again a day or two later, and the school heard with some dismay that Joe's parents had written to Mr. Fernald and forbidden Joe to play any more football that year. Joe was inconsolable and went around for the next week or so looking like a lost soul. After that he accepted the situation and helped Mr. Boutelle coach the second. That second had by that time been shaken together into a very capable and smooth-running team, a team which was giving the first more and more trouble every day. Coach Robey had again levied on it for a player, taking Merton to the first when Gafferty was lost to him, and again Mr. Boutelle growled and protested and, finally, philosophically shrugged his shoulders. A week later Merton was released to the second once more and Pryme, who had been playing at right guard as a substitute for Tom Hall, was tried out on the other side of centre with good results. Pryme's advent as a contender for the left guard position complicated the battle between Don and Harry Walton, and until after the Southby game the trio of candidates indulged in a three-cornered struggle that was quite pretty to watch.
Unfortunately for Don, that struggle for supremacy threatened to affect his class standing, for it occupied so much of his thought that there was little left for study. When, however, the office dropped a hint and Mr. Daley presented an ultimatum, Don realised that he was taking football far too seriously, and, being a rather level-headed youth, he mended his ways. He expected, as a result, to find himself left behind in the race with Walton and Pryme, but, oddly enough, his game was in no degree affected so far as he could determine. In fact, within a few days the situation was simplified by the practical elimination of Pryme as a contender. This happened when, just before the Southby game, Tom Hall, together with eight other members of Mr. Moller's physics class went on probation, and Pryme was needed at right guard.
I have mentioned Tom's probation very casually, quite as if it was a matter of slight importance, but you may be sure that the school viewed it in no such way. Coming as it did little more than a fortnight before the big game, it was looked on as a dire catastrophe, no more and no less; and the school, which had laughed and chuckled over the incident which had caused the catastrophe, and applauded the participants in it, promptly turned their thumbs down when the effect became known and indignantly dubbed the affair "silly kid's play" and blamed Tom very heartily. How much of the blame he really deserved you shall judge for yourself, but the affair merits a chapter of its own.
CHAPTER XII
THE JOKE ON MR. MOLLER
Amy Byrd started it.
Or, perhaps, in the last analysis, Mr. Moller began it himself. Mr. Moller's first name was Caleb, a fact which the school was quick to seize on. At first he was just "Caleb," then "Caleb the Conqueror," and, finally, "The Conqueror." The "Conqueror" part of it was added in recognition of Mr. Moller's habit of attiring himself for the class room as for an afternoon tea. He was a new member of the faculty that fall and Brimfield required more than the few weeks which had elapsed since his advent to grow accustomed to his grandeur of apparel. Mr. Caleb Moller was a good-looking, in fact quite a handsome young man of twenty-five or six, well-built, tall and the proud possessor of a carefully trimmed moustache and Vandyke beard, the latter probably cultivated in the endeavour to add to his apparent age. He affected light grey trousers, fancy waistcoats of inoffensive shades, a frock coat, grey gaiters and patent leather shoes. His scarf was always pierced with a small black pearl pin. There's no denying that Mr. Moller knew how to dress or that the effect was pleasing. But Brimfield wasn't educated to such magnificence and Brimfield gasped loudly the first time Mr. Moller burst on its sight. Afterward it laughed until the novelty began to wear off. Mr. Moller was a capable instructor and a likeable man, although it took Brimfield all of the first term to discover the latter fact owing to the master's dignified aloofness. Being but a scant eight years the senior of some of his pupils, he perhaps felt it necessary to emphasise his dignity a little. By the last of October, however, the school had accepted Mr. Moller and was, possibly, secretly a little proud to have for a member of its faculty one who possessed such excellent taste in the matter of attire. He was universally voted "a swell dresser," and not a few of the older fellows set themselves to a modest emulation of his style. There remained, however, many unregenerate youths who continued to poke fun at "The Conqueror," and of these was Amy Byrd.