“Better say eleven. They could hardly get over here before half-past ten. Well, I’ll get after them as soon as I get home. Harold, you are a youth of ideas!”
And Harold smiled proudly.
CHAPTER XXII
GORDON BRINGS GOOD NEWS
That was just about the busiest week for Dick that he ever remembered spending. In the mornings there was usually Mr. Potter to be seen and Mr. Potter’s newest schemes to be considered. And, after that, for nearly three hours, he and Harold shut themselves up in the latter’s room at the hotel and worked like a couple of galley slaves. All the hard work wasn’t the younger boy’s, either, for Dick had to do a lot of studying in order to maintain with dignity his rôle of teacher. It would never have done to have allowed Harold to catch him napping! The younger boy’s capacity for study was a revelation to Dick, and his progress a source of great satisfaction. By the end of that busy week Dick could, and did, assure himself that the battle was won! That unless Harold had an almost total lapse of memory when he was put through examinations he could not fail to enter Rifle Point. Of course cramming is not the best means of learning, and much of what Harold learned that summer he was bound to forget later, but Dick hoped that the forgetting would not come until he had passed examinations. Mrs. Townsend almost wept with joy and relief when Dick told her that he firmly believed they had succeeded in what had seemed not many weeks ago an impossible task, and her gratitude, or the expression of it, embarrassed Dick horribly.
After he returned from the Point each day just in time for dinner at one o’clock Dick had two hours to himself. Or he had unless the indefatigable Mr. Potter broke in upon him to breathlessly announce progress or to present a problem to be solved. At four there was practice at the field. In the evenings Dick very often had to go over the next day’s lessons, a task more often than not interrupted by the visit of Gordon or Lanny or Fudge or, possibly, all three. Tuesday evening not only that trio but Morris Brent as well descended upon him. Morris had at last discarded his crutches and walked with an almost imperceptible limp. The doctor assured him that the limp would leave him in a week or so, and Morris, an ardent football enthusiast, was already talking punts and drop-kicks.
Since Logan had readily consented to play a game with Clearfield at eleven o’clock the next morning, and since Dick’s services would be needed at the field, the usual morning lesson at the Point had been postponed until Wednesday evening. Dick hadn’t the heart to ask Harold to give up seeing Logan and Rutter’s Point play in the afternoon. And so when the visitors announced their presence that evening by a series of loud whistles from the gate Dick closed his books regretfully, knowing that he would have to sit up very late after his callers had gone.
They sat out on the porch and talked of many things while the crickets and katydids chirped and fiddled in the darkness. It had been decided that Tom was to pitch only three innings of the morning’s game and that Way was to finish out. This was in order to keep Tom fresh for the big game on Saturday. To equalize matters, Logan was to pitch her third baseman against Clearfield so that she might save her regular box artist for the afternoon contest. They discussed this and other features of the morrow’s battle, and then, as they always did sooner or later, reverted to the Saturday’s event. Fudge was filled with excitement these days and stuttered like an empty soda fountain whenever the subject was broached.
“Jordan and Fillmore’s window is f-f-f-full of flags and p-p-pennants,” announced Fudge. “It looks s-s-s-swell!”
“It’s sort of one-sided, though,” said Lanny. “They ought to put up some Point flags too.”
“I don’t suppose there are any,” answered Gordon. “They haven’t any regular color over there, have they?”