“Linton must have got a couple more runs over after I left,” said Joe. “How did you get along?”
“Oh, pretty punk, thanks. I got one hit, rather a scratch, and was forced out at third. I got as far as third again and Whittier flied to the Linton right fielder and left me there.”
“Hard luck! How about your fielding?”
“Three chances and got them.” There was silence for a moment. Joe nursed a foot on the window-seat and waited. At last: “I’m out of it, Joe,” said Terry with a fine affectation of indifference. “Fosdick told me after the game that they’d decided to get along without my valuable services.”
Joe pretended surprise. Terry cut short his expressions of sympathy, however. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I mean I ought to have known how it would be. I didn’t, though. I thought I’d really made good at something finally. I wrote home only last Sunday that I’d got on the nine. Well, I can sit back now, can’t I? There isn’t anything left to try for!”
“Pshaw, that’s no way to talk, Terry. There’s your track work, remember. You’re pretty sure to get your chance with the quarter-milers.”
“I’m going to quit that. I know what’ll happen. Either they’ll drop me the day before the Dual Meet or I’ll trail in in fifth place.”
“Quit nothing!” said Joe disgustedly. “You’re going to stick, kid, if I have to lug you out by the feet and larrup you around the track!” Terry smiled faintly at the idea.
“You won’t have to, Joe. I was only talking. I’ll keep on with the Track Team as long as they’ll have me. Maybe——” He hesitated a moment and then went on doubtfully. “Maybe I can get Cramer to try me in the half, Joe. I have an idea I could run the half better than the four-forty. Anyway, I’ll stick. And I’ll try my hardest. There—there must be something I can do!”
Terry Wendell was fifteen, a nice-looking, well-built boy, rather slender but by no means frail, with frank brown eyes, somewhat unruly hair of the same color and a healthy complexion. He had entered Maple Park School the preceding Fall, making the upper middle class. He was good at studies and was seldom in difficulties with the instructors in spite of the time he consumed in the pursuit of athletic honors. Of course entering the third year class had handicapped him somewhat and his circle of friends and acquaintances was far smaller than if he had joined the school as a junior, but he hadn’t done so badly, after all, for Joe Tait had kindly taken him in hand and become a sort of social sponsor for him. What friends Terry had were firm ones and, had he but known it, liked him none the less for the plucky way in which, having been turned down in one sport, he bobbed up undismayed for another. But Terry, not knowing that, suspected the fellows of secretly smiling at his failures, and had become a little sensitive, a trifle inclined to detect ridicule where none was meant. Which fact probably accounts for the falling-out with Walt Gordon the next day.