“Our ancestral home,” he would explain, to Hugh’s embarrassment, “Lockley Manor, Glyndestoke, Hants, England, by Jove!”
There was a smaller photograph of the home in Maryland, but that was less impressive and more like what Nick had seen. The two or three English country views interested him more. “This,” he would inform the newcomer, “is a view of the spinney back of the home farm. And here we have the bridge at Glyndestoke, with the Old Inn in the distance. Right there is where Ordway catches his salmon for breakfast. Every morning when it’s rainy enough he saunters down that road there accompanied by the head gamekeeper and two or three assistant gamekeepers and a few dozen gillies and fishes up a salmon. That is, he gets the salmon on the hook, but, bless your simple heart, he doesn’t pull him in. Oh, dear no! Rather not! I should say otherwise and vastly to the contrary. That’s where the first assistant gamekeeper has his innings, d’ye see? The first assistant gamekeeper takes the rod and plays the fish while the head gamekeeper stands ready with the landing-net. It’s all very simple, you see. Nothing irksome about it all. Ordway seldom gets tired fishing. He——”
“Oh, I say, Nick, cut it out, like a good chap!” Hugh would beg. “Stuff a pillow in his mouth, someone, please!”
Nick had various sobriquets for Hugh. Sometimes he was “Your Grace,” sometimes “The Duke of Glyndestoke,” sometimes just “’Ighness.” Eventually, though, it was Nick who discovered in the school catalogue, when that was issued in October, that Hugh’s full name as there set down was Hugh Oswald Brodwick Ordway, and, in consequence of the initials, promptly dubbed him “Hobo!”
Possibly it was its absolute incongruity that made that nickname instantly popular. At all events, while Hugh’s more intimate friends did not ordinarily call him “Hobo,” others and the school in general did. But that was later, when Hugh, greatly to his surprise, found himself a rather important person at Grafton.
Meanwhile, in that first fortnight of the fall term, Hugh was a very busy youth. He pegged away unfalteringly at football and began to like it, in spite of the drudgery. He weathered two cuts in the squad and saw other fellows with far more experience released to private life or their class teams. When, the second Saturday after the opening of the term, Grafton played the local high school and won without trouble by the score of 26–0, Hugh saw the game from the stand, and, with Guy Murtha to elucidate obscure points, enjoyed it vastly. High School presented a team badly in need of practice and Grafton ran rings about her and could have scored at least twice more had Coach Bonner thought fit to let her do so. But when the third period was a few minutes old and the score was 20–0, he began to send in second-string players, with the result that Grafton’s offensive powers waned perceptibly. One more touchdown was secured against the opponent in the last few minutes of the final period when Siedhof, who had substituted Bert Winslow at left half, secured the ball after High School had blocked Nate Leddy’s try-at-goal. Siedhof picked the ball literally from a High School forward’s hands and in some miraculous manner swung around and dodged and feinted his way through a crowded field and over six white lines to a score. Leddy missed the goal and play ended soon after. Grafton showed the benefit of those ten days of ante-season practice so long as her first-string men were in the line-up, and, on the whole, coach, captain, players, and supporters were well satisfied with the showing made in that first contest.
Hugh gained more knowledge of the finer points of football that evening when Nick, Pop Driver, Guy and Bert threshed it all out in Number 29. Much of the discussion went over his head, but he awoke to the realization that there was a great deal more to football than meets the eyes of the spectator. Nick and Bert argued for ten minutes over one play which had gone awry. Bert declared that it shouldn’t have been called for in the circumstances and Nick proved, to his own satisfaction at least, that it was fundamentally, psychologically, scientifically correct. Whereupon Pop, who had listened without comment, informed Nick that he was wrong. And, for some reason, Nick and everyone else accepted the dictum without question. Much technical talk followed, and Hugh was soon beyond his depth, but he tried hard to understand and stored up a fine collection of questions to ask Bert later.
But other interests besides football demanded Hugh’s attention. He was nominated for election to “Lit” by Bert and seconded by Nick and Pop. The Literary Society and The Forum were the rival social and debating clubs. Secret organizations of any sort were tabooed at Grafton, although there was, or was said to be, a certain lower middle-class society known as “Thag” which was supposed to exist in defiance of the law. If it really existed outside the imaginations of lower middlers it was of such slight consequence that faculty winked at it. Hugh might have been put up for The Forum instead of “Lit” had he wished, for Guy was an enthusiastic member of the older club and did his best to get Hugh’s permission to nominate him. Hugh, though, with no real preference, felt that he ought to allow Bert to decide the matter for him, and Bert naturally claimed his chum for his own society.
Hugh was also elected, much less formally, to the Canoe Club, and, at Bert’s urging, attended several trials for the Glee Club, to which he was eventually admitted. The elections to The Forum and the Literary Society took place in January, but candidates were meanwhile admitted to a quasi-membership that gave them the use of the club rooms and allowed them to attend meetings, without participation in debates or affairs.