CHAPTER VIII

WITH THE SQUAD

There was one person even more surprised at the addition of Barry to

the football squad than Barry himself. That person was Clyde Allen.

Barry felt that Clyde wasn’t going to be pleased. He couldn’t think of

any satisfactory reason for displeasure on his friend’s part, and yet

the conviction haunted him from the moment he was drafted by the Major

to the moment he found Clyde in Number 42 the next morning and broke

the news. At first Clyde laughed, for of course Barry was only joking.

But the laugh was short-lived. It ended abruptly in a frown.

“Do you mean it?” demanded Clyde, incredulously. Barry replied that he

did. “Well, but――but, for the love of Lucius, what’s the idea?” Clyde

wanted to know. “You’re no football player, Barry! I mean――well――hang

it all!――you know, yourself, you’re pretty fairly rotten!”

Barry agreed without resentment.

“It was just that I happened to boot that ball pretty decently and

he saw me,” he explained, “and――and then he said I was to report

to-morrow,――I mean to-day,――and that was all there was to it. He did

say, though, or as much as say, that I had no chance this fall; that he

had to think of next year.”

“Well, even so――” Clyde stopped and shook his head. Then he laughed

again, shortly, almost grimly. “I don’t envy you when the Major finds

out that that kick was just a fluke, Barry.”

“I told him it was,” replied Barry. “The most he can do is let me go

again.” He seemed to find reassurance in the thought.

“Yes, and the sooner he finds it out, the better for you. What I mean

is, he’s likely to get pretty sore if he wastes a lot of time on you

and then discovers that you’re punk! Coach didn’t happen to say where

he thought you’d fit, did he?”

“He said something about the back field.”

Clyde said, “Oh!” and stared hard a moment. Then he shrugged and turned

away.

“Well,” he said, “he knows what he’s doing, I suppose, but it looks

crazy to me.”

“But why are you so down on the idea, Clyde?” demanded Barry. “I can’t

see that there’s anything very much――very much out of the way in my

playing football if Mr. Loring wants me to.”

“‘Out of the way’!” echoed the other, impatiently. “Of course there’s

nothing ‘out of the way’! I didn’t say there was, did I? Great Scott,

Barry! All I’m thinking of is how you’ll look when the Major finds he’s

picked a lemon and gives you the gate. Fellows will laugh at you like

anything, I suppose, and I’ll have to hand out the yarn about the Major

insisting on having you, and it’s going to sound mighty fishy!”

“I don’t see that, Clyde. I mean I don’t see where you come in on

it. You say you’re responsible for me, but of course you aren’t; not

really.”

“It amounts to that,” Clyde persisted. “You know mighty well that if I

hadn’t――well, if I hadn’t done a certain thing a couple of years ago,

you wouldn’t be here at all. I can’t help feeling responsible. Besides,

your folks as good as put you in my charge.”

“Well, all right. That means you’d rather I didn’t report this

afternoon?”

Clyde considered. Finally he shook his head.

“You’ll have to,” he said. “The Major will raise Cain if you don’t. You

shouldn’t have agreed to play, Barry; but you did agree and now you’ll

have to go through with it. Only, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll

quit the first chance you get. It oughtn’t to be very hard to show the

Major that you aren’t football material!”

“I guess that’s so,” Barry agreed. “I didn’t realize you’d be so set

against it, Clyde, or I wouldn’t have done it. Although,” he added

reflectively, “I don’t see just how I could have helped it.”

Clyde was magnanimous.

“Well, don’t let it trouble you, Barry. I dare say you couldn’t have

done any different. The Major’s a hard guy to say ‘no’ to! Mind you,

I’d say, ‘Hang on,’ if I thought there was any chance for you, but you

know there isn’t. You aren’t the type for football, old chap.”

Barry didn’t say ‘yes’ to that; but he was relieved by his friend’s

return to good humor and didn’t want to offer any opinion likely to

disturb it again, so he left the last word with Clyde and hurried off

to a Latin class.

He had brought the remains of the previous season’s football togs to

Broadmoor, and at three o’clock he got into them. Peaches, watching,

declared that he looked exactly like Pete Zosker, only more noble. As

Pete weighed sixty pounds more than Barry, the statement indicated an

active imagination.

Barry found Sampson, the manager, gave his name, class, age, weight,

and a few other details, and became automatically a member of the

Broadmoor School football squad. Ira Haviland was in charge of the

back-field candidates, of which there appeared to be at least twenty.

Haviland was a tall, rather heavy First-Class fellow with a shock of

almost black hair and a voice like a good-natured fog-horn. He greeted

Barry with a glance of swift appraisal and a careless: “Yeah, Coach

told me about you. Push in with that bunch yonder, Locke.”

The day’s work consisted of the usual kindergarten duties. There were

passing and starting, tackling-drill, and, finally, signal-drill in

which Barry didn’t take part.

He didn’t find Peaches again until, in company with Zo, he went back

to the house after supper. The weather had turned cold over Sunday and

the front porch was deserted. The family were in the sitting-room, the

first room on the left, and he could hear Mr. Benjy reading something

from the evening paper, but a light upstairs had told him that Peaches

was in his room and he went up. Peaches, occupying two chairs, was

reading a magazine, but he dropped it when Barry pushed open the door.

“Hail, hero!” he declaimed. “Bloody but unbowed――what? Come in and rest

your wounds. How did it go? I watched you for a while, but there was a

certain monotony about your performance and I finally went over and cut

in on a tennis game. Do any punting, Barry?”

“No, I just stuck around with the dubs. I didn’t even see Major Loring

except in the distance. My boss was Haviland.”

“Ira, eh?” Peaches arose and closed one of the windows. “It’s getting

frosty, isn’t it? No more porch parties this year, I guess. Did you

hear Mill’s radio as you came in? He had it going a little while back.

Pretty screechy, though.”

“I didn’t notice it,” said Barry. Then, after a slight pause: “Say, I

wish you’d tell me something,” he began.

“I’ll tell you anything,” agreed Peaches, amiably. “You’ve come to the

right place, too. I’m chock-full of information to-night. Is there any

special subject that interests you or shall I just start off casual

like?”

“I want to know what’s wrong here,” replied Barry. “I mean in the

house.”

“Wrong in the house? Oh, I get you. It’s those snails of Toby’s. I

thought first it was the plumbing, but――”

“Shut up! Maybe I only imagine it, but ever since I came I――I’ve sort

of fancied something was queer. About the Lyles, Peaches. Mrs. Lyle

looks――oh, I don’t know, but I was wondering if there was anything

wrong with Mr. Benjy――or Betty.”

“I see what you mean,” responded Peaches. “I’d forgotten you weren’t

here last winter, and didn’t know about Davy.”

“Who’s Davy?”

“David Lyle, Betty’s brother. I might as well tell you the story, I

suppose. You’re sort of one of the family now. Kick the door shut, like

a good chap.”

Peaches hooked one foot about a chair and dragged it into position to

hold his legs. Then he continued:

“Davy is about twenty. He’s a decent chap, but more like Mr. Benjy than

his mother. He finished high school here a year ago and went to work

for Watkins and Boyle. Mr. Benjy was chief bookkeeper for them.”

“That’s the factory down by the station?”

“Yes. Well, I guess Davy did well enough, although I don’t know just

what his duties were: I remember he got a small raise at Christmas.

Then, along in February, a thousand-dollar bond disappeared. Of course

I didn’t hear the exact details, but there wasn’t any doubt that Davy

had seen it last. He claimed that he had put it in the safe, as he’d

been told to do, but it couldn’t be found and Watkins and Boyle were

pretty nasty. Of course Mr. Benjy wouldn’t believe that Davy had swiped

it――I don’t think he did, either――and he was all broken up. He offered

to repay the amount, and he’s still doing it, but the factory folks

thought something ought to be done to Davy. So about two days after the

bond disappeared the cops came along one morning, looking for him. They

didn’t find him, though, because he had beat it the night before.”

“Then he did steal the money?” exclaimed Barry.

“Well, I wouldn’t advise you to suggest that downstairs,” answered the

other, dryly. “Of course in a case like that the natural supposition is

that the fellow is guilty. If he wasn’t he’d stick around and face the

music. That’s what ’most everybody said; or if they didn’t say it they

thought it. But I don’t know, Barry. You see, the bond was gone. If

Davy didn’t have it he couldn’t prove he hadn’t. Maybe he figured he’d

get treated sort of rough if he stayed here. Maybe he thought the bond

would turn up and he could come back. Maybe he didn’t do much thinking

at all――just ran away because he was scared. If he was innocent he

did the wrong thing, of course; but, then, being arrested isn’t very

pleasant, I suppose, even if they let you off later. Anyway, Davy

disappeared and that ended the matter.”

“Was the bond――what-you-call-it?”

“Negotiable? Yes, a brand-new one that had just reached the office,

with all its nice little coupons attached. None of the coupons have

ever been presented for collection, and Mr. Benjy considers that proof

positive that Davy hasn’t the bond. He’s convinced that the thing will

turn up around the office some day, and from the way he described that

office to me last spring I wouldn’t be surprised if he was right. It’s

one of those places where the bookkeepers still sit on high stools and

they file things away in shoe-boxes!”

“And Mr. Benjy is still paying back the thousand dollars?”

“I suppose so. He was, anyway. As he’s getting only about eighteen

dollars where he is now, I fancy it’ll take some time!”

“Eighteen dollars a week? Then they fired him from the other place?”

“No, sir, they didn’t!” Peaches recrossed his ankles and chuckled.

“No, the old gentleman up and resigned on ’em! Said he wouldn’t work

for folks who believed his son to be a thief. You’ve got to hand it

to Mr. Benjy for that, Barry. He was getting pretty good wages at the

factory, had been with them something like fifteen years, I believe,

and he chucked the whole thing and went to work in the freight-station.

I heard Watkins and Boyle were after him again last month, but he

wouldn’t weaken. I like Mr. Benjy for that!” added Peaches, warmly.

“So do I,” said Barry. “Only, eighteen dollars a week seems mighty

little.”

“It is. And most of it goes to pay for that silly old bond. That’s

the reason I decided to stick here another year. They’re having hard

sledding. Of course if I’d given up this room some one else might have

taken it, but I couldn’t be sure. That room you’re in was empty, too.

About all they have now is what they get from these three rooms, and

that’s little enough.”

“What became of the son?” asked Barry.

“Davy? Well, he writes about every week. I suppose that after a while

Watkins and Boyle will forget their grouch, but I guess it wouldn’t be

wise for Davy to come home just yet.”

“You mean he’d be arrested?”

“Surest thing you know! The old warrant is still good. Well, that’s

pretty much that, Barry.” And Peaches stretched and yawned.

“I’m glad you told me,” said Barry. “It explains things. Like the other

night.” He told how Mrs. Lyle had become intent on the passing figure,

and Peaches nodded.

“Yes, she probably saw a resemblance to Davy. She misses him, I guess.

So does Mr. Benjy. Mr. Benjy seems a lot older this fall. Pretty

cheerful old bird, at that, but I’ve seen him looking awfully kind of

miserable when he didn’t know any one was watching.”

“Betty seems a good sort,” said Barry.

“Betty’s a corker,” asserted Peaches, enthusiastically. “She’s got the

brains of the family; and the pep, too. She really runs this shebang.

Mrs. Lyle’s a dear, but she couldn’t say ‘boo’ to a mouse.”

“Why should she?” inquired Barry. “‘Boo’ seems to me a perfectly

idiotic remark to make to――”

“That’ll do for you, son. Got any idea of studying to-night?”

“Some.”

“Bring your books over, then, and let’s get busy.”