“You have it now?”
The eraser would be exhibited as evidence.
“Very well. Hereafter try to provide yourself with such—er—items before coming here. If it takes you so long to negotiate the loan of an eraser, Robinson, I shudder to think what would happen if you found you had forgotten, say, your fountain pen. The hour would be all too short, I fear!”
The bright overhead lights, the fluttering of leaves, the scratching of pens, the shuffling of feet, the presence of so many others around him all combined to deprive Clif of whatever power of concentration he possessed. That first study hour was a total loss so far as he was concerned.
But he got used to it after a time or two, just as he got used to other features of life at Wyndham School, and his letters to his father were increasingly cheerful. For days at a time he never went off the school property, but that was principally because football practice occupied his afternoons. The mornings were pretty well taken up with recitations, and with preparing for them. In the afternoon the last recitation for Clif was sometimes at half-past two, sometimes at three. In the latter case he showed up for practice about ten minutes late. Practice generally ran until half-past five nowadays, and there was only enough time for a shower, and a few minutes of rest before supper time. Between supper and study hour there was an interim of perhaps an hour and a half, and after study hour came “prowl.” “Prowl” was the hour between nine and ten when visiting between halls was permitted. At ten, unless you were a First Class fellow, you were required to be back in your own room; except you were the fortunate possessor of a permit from a “fac.” At ten-thirty you put your light out.
Life was busy and interesting. Clif soon discovered that he was going to have to study rather harder than last year, but he encountered no real difficulty in any course. The same was true of Tom save that the latter was already bogged down, as he phrased it, in English. That was one study which Tom dreaded and disliked—and at which he toiled hardest. “That ‘Alick’ guy thinks I can’t do the fool stuff,” he declared once to Clif, “but he’s got another think. I’ll do it if it kills me!” “Alick” was, of course, Mr. Alexander Wyatt.
Football claimed a good share of attention, and was the subject of much conversation between Clif and Tom, and, frequently, Billy Desmond. Billy was generous with advice, but although the boys followed the advice to the best of their abilities, it didn’t, as Clif put it, seem to get them anything. They worked hard and conscientiously, just as did three score others, but without any noticeable improvement in their status. The candidates had been sorted into four squads by Wednesday, and Clif and Tom were in Squad D. Squad D was composed of some sixteen or eighteen youths of various ages, sizes and football experiences in charge of “Pinky” Hilliard. “Pinky” also looked after Squad C, or did so until Friday, when Mr. Babcock joined the coaching staff. On that afternoon Squad A, and many of Squad B, were dismissed early, since the first game was scheduled for the morrow, and Coach Otis gave his attention to the remaining candidates. It was the seventh day of practice, and, after a preliminary hour of passing and falling on the ball, of starting and tackling the dummy, line and backfield candidates were separated, and the former hustled to the north end of the field by the head coach and given a half hour’s instruction in their duties.
Afterwards, punters and forwards were sent to one side of the field, and backs to the other, and the balls were soon arching across to be pulled down by the backfield candidates, and run back while tackles and ends came across to meet them. Hard tackling was barred, however, the man with the ball either being run off to one side or merely blocked with the body. Clif, encountering Tom several times in midfield, regretted the prohibition. It would have added greatly to his enjoyment of the occasion to have been allowed to topple the dodging, feinting Tom to earth. He did secure some satisfaction on one encounter, however, by knocking the ball from Tom’s grasp and jeering as the latter vented outraged feelings and trotted off in pursuit. The air was full of flying balls, players raced this way and that and shouts of “Mine!” or “I’ve got it!” vied with the calls of the coaches. Lacking a scrimmage to watch, the audience in the stand was grateful for so much action, and, lolling comfortably in the shade, lazily voiced approval of a good punt or a clever catch or chortled merrily over some amusing incident.
At the farther edge of the running track, toward the school buildings, two onlookers sat quite by themselves. One, covered to his waist by a light rug, leaned back at ease in a wheel chair. The second occupied a folding canvas stool set at the left and slightly to the rear of his companion. He was rather tall and rather bony, and, seated bolt upright, the inner edges of his shining black shoes touching, a hand on either knee of his carefully creased black serge trousers, he looked painfully respectable and extremely uncomfortable. The idea must have occurred to the occupant of the chair for he asked, glancing around: