Chick brightened. “Say, I never thought of that! I wonder! I hope he has!”
Chick had a lot more to say, much of it repetition of what had gone before, and talked until darkness settled in Number 21. Bert encouraged him, heartily glad that the old enthusiastic Chick had returned. Chick was all for self-sacrifice and service, eager to make amends, filled with a new fervor of loyalty. It might not last, but Bert hoped it would. The loyalty seemed to be more toward Mr. Cade than toward the Team or the School, but that was not important. Results were what counted.
There was a long, rather halting period of practice on Monday, with most of the time given to smoothing out the plays to be used against the ancient enemy. Bert shared the backfield with Ted Ball, Nip Storer and Jim Galvin during the drill and during a large part of the scrimmage with the Second. He discovered that he felt more at home there than before, that he seemed to fit in better. Perhaps he only imagined it, but it did appear as though Nip and he worked together particularly well, and he had a feeling that Nip thought so too. He began to suspect that Ted had known what he was talking about Saturday evening and that it was possible after all that Mr. Cade meant to start him against Kenly.
Chick was a revelation that day, and continued as such right through the week, or at least until the end of practice on Thursday. Thursday saw the last hard work of the season. Chick was like the player who had held down the right end position last fall; into everything hard, fighting every minute, taking knocks and giving them with a laugh, tackling like a demon and tackling for keeps, pulling down passes even when it seemed they couldn’t be reached and comporting himself generally during those four last days like the brilliant player that he really was. Fitz Savell fought him desperately, performing great deeds himself in a despairing effort to hold his place, and the Team and the School talked and marveled and credited a miracle. It was Tommy Parish who advanced the theory, based on the two-inch wound that decorated Chick’s forehead, that Chick had had an operation performed on his brain!
Tommy didn’t accept Chick’s come-back with any enthusiasm. To Tommy the rejuvenation was too good to be true; at least too good to be permanent. He stated to all and sundry that it was merely a flash in the pan, a grand-stand play that wasn’t to be taken seriously. He wandered into Number 21 Thursday morning between recitations, when the open door revealed Bert alone over a book, and eased himself against the closed portal and lugubriously munched nuts until the host took cognizance of his presence.
“Get out of here, Tommy, you and your everlasting peanuts,” said Bert sternly. “I’ve got a recitation in fifteen minutes and two more pages of this stuff to go over. Fade away, son!”
“These aren’t peanuts,” replied Tommy with funereal gravity, “they’re pecans. Have some?”
“No, and you heard what I said.”
“Sure.” But Tommy didn’t move. “Say, tell me this, will you, Bert? Is Chick going to get into that game day after to-morrow? First-off, I mean.”
“How the dickens do I know? But why shouldn’t he? Hasn’t he been playing corking good football lately?”