Barry Locke, half-back

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.”