Jim broke into the first team on Wednesday. That night there was a celebration at Sunnywood. Jeffrey began it with two bottles of ginger ale which he produced after study hour. They drank Jim’s health in that enticing beverage and then Poke suggested that some cake wouldn’t be half bad. So Hope was summoned and Mrs. Hazard was appealed to and the party adjourned to the dining-room where a spread worthy of the occasion was speedily forthcoming. Every one was very merry save Jim. Jim was wondering when the sword would fall, for he had flunked badly that morning in mathematics and had barely scraped through in Latin. And that was why he protested when Poke had the merry thought of inviting Mr. Hanks to the feast.
“Oh, no,” said Jim, “let him alone, Poke.”
“I think he ought to participate in our merry-making,”[285] Poke persisted. “You run up and invite him down, Hope.”
“Shall I?” asked Hope, her eyes dancing.
“No,” said Jim. But the others insisted and Hope hurried away on her errand.
“Well, anyway, he won’t come,” predicted Jim. But he did. He didn’t quite know what it was all about, but he and Hope were very good friends by now and he came unquestioningly, smiling and blinking behind his huge spectacles. It was explained to him that Jim had that day attained to the utmost pinnacle of success by being taken onto the Crofton Academy Football Team, and Mr. Hanks murmured “Dear, dear! I want to know!” nibbled at a piece of cake and wondered how soon he could in decency return to his interrupted labors upstairs. Finally he did go back, shaking hands with Jim in an absent-minded way first, with one of Mrs. Hazard’s serviettes dangling from his coat pocket. The party proceeded quite as merrily without him, however. Poke rallied Jim on his quietness.
“I fear the sudden honor is too much for you, Jim. You used to be rather a merry youth. To-night you remind me of a graveyard gate post. Why so sad?”
[286]
“I’m tired,” murmured Jim.
“Then, Jim dear,” said Mrs. Hazard, “I really think you had better not eat any more cake. I’m sure that must be your fifth slice. And you ate a great big supper.”
“You don’t mean to say you’ve been counting the slices!” ejaculated Poke. “Why, that’s not like you, Lady.”
“She couldn’t count all you’ve eaten,” declared Hope. “You’re a—a gridjon!”
“A what-on?” asked Poke anxiously.
“A gridjon. A gridjon is a person who eats too much.”
“Webster or Hazard?” laughed Jeffrey.
“It’s a perfectly good word of my own,” replied Hope with dignity.
But although Jim tumbled into bed in short time he didn’t go right to sleep. Instead he lay awake for quite a while wondering how long, if he didn’t make a much better showing in class, faculty would allow him to enjoy his new honors. And when sleep did come to him finally it was because he had comforted his conscience with the firm resolve to buckle down to-morrow and study as never before.
But, alas, how many of our good resolutions survive the night? The next day was filled with[287] new experiences for Jim, and much hard, gruelling work on the field, and a blackboard lecture in dining hall after dinner. And so, when study time came, he was tired and nervous and his thoughts absolutely refused to concern themselves with studies. And the following day Mr. Groff, the mathematics instructor, lectured him in front of the whole class, which didn’t improve Jim’s state of mind a bit, and Mr. Hanks viewed him sadly but forebore to reprimand him. In his other studies he was doing fairly well as yet.
There was no practice on Friday and Jim locked himself up in his room, in spite of the fact that Johnny had instructed them to stay out of doors and take mild exercise, and heroically studied. But the faculty of assimilation seemed to have deserted him of late and it was the hardest sort of work to make anything stick in his memory for more than a minute. But he kept at it until supper time and then emerged tired and fagged.
In the Merton contest the next day, the last before the “big game,” Crofton showed flashes of first-rate football. Although he didn’t say so, Johnny was well satisfied, for he knew that, barring accidents, his team would play at least twenty per cent. better a week from that day.[288] Crofton was still coming, and a team that is coming is better than one that has reached the zenith of its development. Merton went down in defeat, 17 to 8, after a hard-fought battle. Best of all, Crofton emerged from the fray with scarcely a scratch, at all events with no real injuries to any of her players. Jim played well in that game. For four twelve-minute periods he forgot all about Latin and mathematics and thought and lived football. And Johnny, who hadn’t liked the haggard look in Jim’s eyes, concluded that his fears were groundless, and confided to Captain Sargent after the game that “That fellow Hazard is the best find of the season.”
And then, on Monday, the sword fell!
He was summoned to the office at noon. What Mr. Gordon said and what excuses Jim offered are of small consequences. We are interested in results. The result in this case was that Jim emerged from Academy Hall feeling that life was indeed a very tragic thing. That afternoon Parker played at left guard on the eleven and all the school knew that Hazard was “in wrong with the Office.”
Johnny was a philosopher. Such things had happened to him before. He wasted no breath[289] in regrets nor recriminations. He picked the next best man for Jim’s place and went ahead. Perhaps he was a little grimmer in the face that afternoon and a little more silent, but that was all. Duncan Sargent, his nerves already jangling as a captain’s nerves are likely to jangle when the last week of the season arrives, was in despair.
“First it’s Gary,” he groaned, “and then it’s Marshall and now it’s Hazard. Well, I’d like to know what’s going to happen next! We might as well hand the game to Hawthorne and save the trouble of playing!”
Poke, to whom these remarks were addressed just before the beginning of practice, was as gloomy as his captain. He had known nothing of Jim’s misfortune until a few minutes before, for Jim had not shown up at dinner hour and Poke had not glimpsed him since morning.
“Gee,” he muttered, “it’s all a surprise to me. I never suspected that Jim wasn’t getting on all right in class. You don’t suppose J. G. will let him back in a day or two?”
“I don’t know,” answered Sargent despondently. “What if he does? A fellow can’t drop training for two or three days on the eve of the big game and then play decently.”
[290]
“Jim could,” said Poke thoughtfully. “I wonder where the chump is. I suppose he isn’t here, eh?”
“I haven’t seen him.” Sargent shrugged his broad shoulders. “What’s more, I don’t want to. If a fellow doesn’t think enough of the success of his school to study a few silly lessons we’re better without him.”
“Oh, be good,” Poke chided. “It was only two years ago that you were off for a whole week for the same reason, Dun.”
“And I learned my lesson,” said the other gloomily.
“Well, I suppose Jim Hazard’s learning his,” replied Poke. “Only I wish he’d chosen some other time. How’s Parker going to fit?”
Sargent kicked viciously at a football that had rolled up to them. “Rotten!” he said.
Practice went badly that day, just as it’s likely to on the Monday after a hard game, and there was a general air of discouragement about coach and players alike. The second team, grumbling over the loss of another lineman, smashed vengefully at their opponents and tied the score in the second half of the scrimmage. And so it stayed and the second credited themselves with what was virtually a victory. Gil,[291] Poke and Jeffrey walked home together after practice and talked over Jim’s predicament.
“Success,” said Gil, “was too much for him.”
“That’s not fair,” remonstrated Poke. “Jim got onto the team late and has had to learn a whole lot in a short time. Hang it, Gil, I haven’t been doing any too well at studies, myself, and I’ve been playing football long enough to know the ropes. I don’t wonder that Jim fell behind. The question now is can he catch up and square himself with the Office before Saturday?”
“Is it all studies or one or two?” asked Jeffrey.
Poke shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Why didn’t he say something to some of us? I noticed that he seemed rather down in the mouth, but I didn’t suspect this. I thought he was just worried for fear he wouldn’t make good at playing.”
“Who do you suppose started the trouble?” asked Gil. “Who do you and Jim have, Jeff?”
“Hanks in Latin and history, Groff in math, Arroway in English, Lewellyn in French and Thurston in physics.”
“Well, it might be ‘Gruff,’” said Gil, “or[292] it might be ‘Boots.’ (‘Boots’ was the popular name for Mr. Thurston.) It isn’t l............