“You bet we saw something!” cried Hoop. “I saw it all right, anyway!”
“And so did I,” said Cal and Sandy in unison.
“Well, whoever it was,” declared Ned, “it couldn’t have been one of the Old Maids, for they’d certainly have scorched the ground getting to Horace with their troubles. I’m beginning to think that Clara is right and that it really was a ghost.”
“There isn’t any such thing,” jeered Spud as they entered the gymnasium. “And, anyhow, a ghost wouldn’t have swiped Cal’s pillow-case!”
“Well, whatever it was or whoever it was,” said Sandy earnestly, “I’m glad it didn’t give us away.”
Practice that afternoon was strenuous and Cal, having accepted philosophically the fact that there was no escape for him, set to work and made up his mind to master the intricacies of the game. Not that it appeared much like a game to him, however. He spent a quarter of an hour handling the ball with others of the “awkward squad”; passing it, catching it, falling on it—when it was there!—and learning not a few of its idiosyncrasies. He discovered, for instance, that, contrary to his first impression, it was sometimes possible to tell which way the pigskin would bounce when it struck the ground. At first if a ball was dropped and he reached in one direction for it it was nominally certain to bound off at an opposite tangent. But after awhile he began to develop a certain sense of prophecy, as it were, and more often than not the ball came toward him rather than away from him. They put him with six other fellows in a line and he was informed that he was to play left tackle. For awhile that meant being shoved and knocked around in order that an apparently crazy boy with the pigskin clasped firmly to his bosom might spring from behind him somewhere and dash forward, only to deposit the ball on the turf again and repeat the performance. Cal was still appearing in his every-day clothes, since the orchard episode had quite put the thought of purchasing football togs out of his mind. But Ned recalled it to him on the way back to West House after practice and showers.
“We’ll have to make that trip to the village tomorrow, Cal,” he announced. “We’ll get Marm to let us have dinner early. Just about one more day and those trousers of yours won’t be fit to wear to anything except a dog-fight.”
Cal examined them ruefully. They did show signs of the fray, and that was a fact. The knees bulged horribly and there was a nice collection of yellowish mud around the bottoms of them. He sighed.
“All right,” he answered. “I cal’late you’re right, Ned. Maybe, though, I could just get trousers now and let the other things go until I get some money from home. Then I won’t have to borrow from you, Ned.”
“Pshaw, what’s the difference? You might as well get the whole outfit now. Four dollars will about do the trick and I can loan you two just as well as not.”