“Cameron has no business on the team, and as long as he’s there I’m out of it. If you like I’ll keep in training and play in practice, but I won’t go into the games if he is in the line-up.”
I’m not going to repeat everything that Bert said; much of it he was probably quite ashamed of later; and it didn’t do any good, anyway. Hansel refused to argue, refused to fight, refused to lose his temper. The matter was carried to Mr. Ames at once, but the latter decided that Hansel had a perfect right to say whether or not he would play football.
“Then I won’t have him on the field,” said Bert. “If he won’t play against Warren and Fairview, there’s no use in having him practice. We’ll put Cutler in at right end and hammer some football into his thick head. But this means that we lose the Warren game, sure as fate! Hang Hansel Dana! There’s been nothing but trouble ever since he came here.”
“You don’t think then,” asked Mr. Ames, “that you could do better by dropping Cameron and keeping Dana?”
“Do you?” asked Bert moodily.
“I’m not certain. You know Warren has been playing a running game all fall, and her quarter has done some wonderful work with the ball; they say he’s like a cat at working the ends. And if Fairview finds out that we’re weak at right end, she’ll probably try the same thing.”
“I won’t let Cameron go,” said Bert stubbornly. “That’s just what Hansel and Phin and that crowd are after, and I won’t give them the satisfaction!”
“Well, think it over. I shan’t interfere in the matter. Keep Cameron or Dana, whichever you think best.”
The next day Hansel was not at right end on the school team, and, in fact, did not appear on the green at all. By night it was known throughout the school that Dana had been put off the team because of his anti-Cameron attitude. It did not get out until after the Warren game that he had refused to play because of Cameron’s presence. The football authorities came in for a good deal of criticism, for Hansel was recognized as almost the best player on the team, and to put him off just before the Warren game seemed the height of folly. Hansel refused to talk on the subject.
On Thursday Hansel suddenly realized that he had not seen Phin for two days, a most unusual occurrence, since Phin had formed the habit of bringing his lunch to school with him, and eating it in a corner of the library while he studied, and Hansel usually dropped in there for a chat on his way back from dinner. But the library had been empty the last two days, and Phin had not shown up, either at recitations or at Hansel’s room. So on Thursday afternoon Hansel set off to the village to look him up. He was glad of something to do, for since he had left the eleven the afternoons had grown interminably long and frightfully dull. As he crossed the green the fellows were just lining up for practice, and he could see Cutler at his place on the right end of the first. When he rang the bell at Mrs. Freer’s it was Phin himself who opened the door. He looked paler and thinner than ever, and there were dark streaks around his eyes, as though he had not had sufficient sleep.