“You’re not to blame for anything,” said Teddy bitterly. “I’m the person that caused all the trouble. If I’d only had sense enough not to plug Jed’s horse that day, this whole thing wouldn’t have happened. If a prize were offered for ivory domes, I’d win it, sure.”
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these–it might have been,”
quoted Tom Eldridge, who usually had something pat in the poetical line for all occasions.
“Lay off on the spouting stuff, Tom,” said Ned Wayland, “and you fellows stop your grizzling and come down to the football field. It’s a dandy afternoon for practice.”
It was a wonderful October day, with a crisp breeze coming from the lake that moderated the warmth of the sun, and the boys were stirred by the thrill of youth and life that ran through every vein.
It was too much for Tom, despite the sarcasm with which his previous effort had been greeted, and he burst out:
“There is that nameless splendor everywhere,
That wild exhilaration in the air—”
He dodged a pass that Ned made at him.
“Let me alone,” he chortled. “Don’t you see that I can’t help it?”
“The lyric joys that in me throng,
Seek to express themselves in song.”