After that Morris insisted on giving another dollar and Nell fifty cents. “I haven’t the slightest idea where I’ll get it,” declared the latter tragically. “I’ll just have to do something and make some money. Perhaps I’ll sell matches on the street corner! Or—or have a lemonade stand in the front yard!”
“If you do please see that the lemonade is hot,” said Lanny. “Cold lemonade in this weather wouldn’t go very fast.”
“Then,” said Louise, rising, “I suppose you don’t want any, Lanny. Never mind, I dare say the rest of us can drink it.”
“Oh, well,” replied Lanny carelessly, “if you have it all made— Rather than seem unappreciative, you know——”
CHAPTER IX
LANNY EXPLAINS
Dick was a very busy person those days. He had not deceived himself into thinking that coaching the High School Football Team would entail but little time and effort. His mistake had been in underestimating the amount of labor and time involved. Actual outdoor work took up a good two hours and a half every day save Sunday. Then at least five evenings a week Lanny and George Cotner, and often one or other of the players besides, met at his house and discussed progress, made plans, corrected mistakes, worked out formations and plays and conducted a sort of general football conference. This lasted anywhere from one to two hours, and after the others had gone Dick had to settle down at his books. Fortunately the senior year at high school was, in comparison with the years gone before, fairly easy, and Dick usually managed to do a good part of his preparation during the day, between classes. If he had not he would have been forced to yield either his position as football coach or his attendance at the High School!
But even the period in the afternoon and the one or two hours in the evening did not comprise all the time given to football, for Dick found that it was impossible to clear his mind of gridiron affairs at other moments. They obtruded when he tried to study, even when he was at his meals and often kept him awake at night when he should have been asleep. He was forever pulling out the little black note-book he carried in a vest pocket and jotting down a memorandum in it, and he got so he even went off into thought-trances when folks were talking to him! As when one evening at supper his sister Grace consulted him with regard to some problem connected with the new heating system which he was having installed in the cottage. Dick listened with apparent attention, his eyes on his plate, until Grace had finished. Then he surprised that young lady by looking up and remarking thoughtfully: “That end-around play won’t go unless we can keep the ball out of sight until the runner reaches the line.”
Grace declared that he was losing his mind.