“I don’t believe my not playing is going to make all the difference you fellows think. We’ve got a good team and we ought to lick the—” Billy glanced toward Dr. Lambert—“we ought to beat Fairview without much trouble. If I can’t play I can help things along, I suppose, and I’ll do it all I know how. And—and I guess that’s all. Thank you.”
He squeezed his way back to his seat amid a roar of applause that lasted several moments. When it subsided Spring was asking recognition, and Mr. Ames nodded to him.
“Mr. Chairman and—and fellows,” began Spring eagerly, “it seems to me that Cameron shouldn’t be allowed to pay back that money. He’s played all the fall, in every game, and it seems to me he’s earned it already. And if he takes hold, as he offers to do, and helps the coaches, he will have more than earned it. I don’t believe there’s a fellow here to-night who doesn’t honor Cameron for a fine, plucky player, and a good, honest fellow. And I think he ought to understand that, in spite of—of circumstances, we’re right with him. And I’d like to propose a good big cheer for him!”
And so the meeting ended, incongruously enough, with the spectacle of a fellow who had just been barred out of the football team being cheered to the echo!
For two days Bert was hopeless and glum. But by Monday he began to cheer up again. The showing of the team, composed as it had been almost entirely of second string players, in the game with Parksboro had been highly satisfactory, and this, combined with the fact that Billy Cameron was coaching the half backs, and Lockhard, who was slated for his position, in particular, with evident success, brought encouragement to Bert. Besides Cameron several graduates put in an appearance Monday and Tuesday and assisted with the coaching. Interest and excitement grew with each passing day until on Friday night, what with the mass meeting and the old boys who were sprinkled through the dormitories, sleep in any respectable amount came to the eyes of but few.
Saturday dawned bright and crisp, an ideal day for the middle of November. The trees were bare of limb, and the beech leaves which for long had lain huddled in drifts along the walks and roads, had lost their pale golden hue. But the sky was fair, the sun shone brightly, and in warm nooks and corners the grass yet held its color.
From the station to the academy, almost every house and store proved its loyalty by the display of light blue. Before the little white house across from the Congregational church, behind whose sitting-room window Mrs. Freer, quite recovered from her illness, sat and sewed and watched the passing with smiling eyes behind their spectacles, a Beechcroft banner had fluttered valiantly since early dawn, placed there by Phin ere he had started on his morning round of the furnaces in his charge.
At ten Phin showed up at 22 Prince, a knot of pale blue ribbon in his lapel. He found Bert and Hansel in and for a while the three sat and won the game and lost it, and won it again many times. Then Harry demanded admittance, and strode in bearing, what at first looked like a flag of truce, but which on second sight proved to be a white sweater.
“There you are,” he cried, tossing the garment at Hansel. “There’s your old ill-gotten gains. Hope it gets you into as much trouble as it has me!”