“Though anger may assail our Matthews
His cheek ne’er shows the sanguine wrath hues.”
In the end it was Stanley’s couplet on De Vitt that was voted the prize and Mr. Matthews gravely opened the desk drawer and as gravely presented the fortunate contestant with a large red apple! It was quite the largest apple any of them had ever seen, and, while it was passed around, the instructor explained that it was one of a plate of prize-winners at the County Fair. At Stanley’s request a knife was produced and the apple was divided into sixteen pieces and distributed. Mr. Matthews brought out the “spread” and for an hour longer the gathering munched delectable cookies and drank ginger ale and talked. On the whole, the occasion was a very enjoyable one, and Dick determined that hereafter his Friday evenings should be spent in Number 2 Williams. And, although he missed a “party” now and then, he kept that promise to himself fairly well.
[CHAPTER X]
WHITEWASHED!
Parkinson played Cumner High School the next afternoon. Cumner was a nearby town of some eight or nine thousand inhabitants set in the middle of a prosperous farming community. The Cumner teams were made up largely of very hefty sons of the soil, averaging slightly older than Parkinson’s representatives and invariably out-weighing them. As a rule Parkinson won because of better knowledge of the game and greater speed. She called Cumner’s players The Farmers, but she did it with much respect and liking, knowing which Cumner took no exception to the title. In fact, the Cumner Football Team was one of a few that invariably received as hearty a welcome when it trotted onto Parkinson Field as did the brown-and-white eleven. Its members were big, manly, hard-playing chaps who took defeat gallantly and victory modestly.
Dick, of course, was not vitally interested in that game and as he was not required to report in togs today he and Stanley and Sid watched the contest from seats in a stand. Cumner showed up unusually formidable during the ten or fifteen minutes of practice that preceded the contest, and Sid, who, although a baseball man, knew football very thoroughly, predicted trouble ahead for the Brown-and-White.
“That’s the heaviest team they’ve sent over since I’ve been here,” commented Sid, “and they don’t look nearly as slow as they generally do. And that black-headed giant down there hasn’t missed a goal yet, although he’s tried some fierce angles. No, sir, Parkinson isn’t going to have any old walk-away this afternoon.”
“Oh, we won’t pile up more than twenty points, maybe,” said Stanley. “Sometimes we don’t.”
“Yes, and sometimes we just squeak through, as we did two years ago. Seven-six it was that time. I remember I had heart disease when Sinclair got ready to try that goal. And then he wouldn’t have made it if the ball had gone six inches further to the right.”