“The trouble is, though,” answered Hansel, “that they’ve already paid his fall tuition, and he’s bound to stay and play football this season.”
“Yes, but there’s another year coming, and if Cameron doesn’t get his tuition paid for the rest of this year, he’s not going to stay here. That’s certain.”
“The amount pledged this evening,” announced Harry, “is seventy-four dollars. It isn’t enough, and I’m disappointed in you fellows. But I’ve told you how things stand and it’s up to you.” He paused, seemed about to continue, evidently thought better of it, and turned to Phin.
“Will you move adjournment?” he asked.
Phin was a pretty busy fellow these days. He got out of bed every morning at five o’clock and attended to five furnaces, in as many different houses throughout the village. By seven he was back home for breakfast, and after that meal he attended to a few chores about the house. At eight he had his first recitation, and from that time on was busy with lessons, either studying or reciting, until two o’clock, save for an hour at noon, and two days a week had recitations at three. From half-past three to five he was on the football field attending to his duties as assistant manager. And yet, in spite of all this, he found moments now and then to do odd jobs for the villagers or students. It was no uncommon sight to see Phin beating a carpet in some one’s back yard long after it was too dark to see the stick he wielded. He had all the work he could attend to, for there was nothing he could not do, and his personality pleased his patrons so much that one customer led to others. He mended fences, fitted keys, whitewashed walls, now and then tried his hand at a small job of painting, cleaned yards, and had soon grown into a village necessity, without whom the housewives would have been at their wits’ end. But no matter how much work was called for, Phin couldn’t neglect his school duties, for he was trying for a scholarship, and on his success depended his continuance at Beechcroft. Harry tried to get him to put up a shelf for him, but Phin, scenting charity, refused to do it.
“You don’t need a shelf,” he declared. “It would spoil the looks of your wall. But if you insist, I’ll put it up for you the first chance I have, and take just what the materials cost.”
“You’re a suspicious dub,” said Harry sorrowfully. “I’ve been pining for a shelf over there for years and years, but if you choose to assign base motives to my request, I shall continue to go shelfless. I won’t take favors from a chap who accuses me of duplicity.”
The intimacy between Phin and Hansel grew with every passing day. Hansel was grateful for the friendship, for matters in 22 Prince weren’t in very good shape those days. He and Bert passed the time of day, as the saying is, and that was about all. As for the new friends and acquaintances which Hansel had made through Phin, he cultivated them carefully, and found pleasure in so doing, but as [he was beginning to be looked upon as “queer,”] or, as Harry put it, “peculiar,” those friends didn’t turn into chums. Phin and Harry were his warmest friends, and that Phin finally led in his affections was probably because of the bond of interest existing between them in the form of what Harry called the “crusade.”
