Three minutes later they were established at a table and had ordered the first two courses, oysters and soup, accompanied by such trifles as celery and olives and mango pickles. They were already consuming bread and butter with gusto, or, at least, Jimmy and Dud were, for they had breakfasted very early. Crail was less enthusiastic about food, and while the others ate he took up the interrupted subject of Mount Morris School.
“The way I came to know about this place was seeing an advertisement in a magazine,” he confided. “It certainly did read well, fellows. I sort of got the idea that it was the leading educational institution of the country. Maybe I was wrong, though.”
“You certainly were,” said Jimmy, speaking rather indistinctly by reason of having his mouth very full. “Mount Morris never led in anything. Why didn’t you pick out a good school while you were picking?”
“I suppose it’s a mistake to believe all the advertisements tell you,” said Crail. “Well, I guess it’ll be good enough for me. I’m not very particular. If they give me enough to eat and treat me kindly and beat a little algebra and history and a few languages through my skull I won’t kick. Know whether I have to take Latin, fellows?”
“Depends on what class you enter, I suppose,” replied Dud, helping himself to Jimmy’s butter, to that youth’s distress and muffled remonstrances. “I guess you’ll have to take one year of it, anyway.”
“Snakes!” said Crail. “That’s sure disappointing. I never did have any luck with Latin. Sort of a half-baked language, I call it.” His sorrow was dispelled by the appearance of the waiter with the oysters, and he beamed approval and beckoned with his fork. “Sam,” he said confidingly, “you bring in six more of these little birds. I haven’t eaten a real nice fresh oyster for a long time.”
“Can’t serve no more, sir,” replied the waiter. “Only one order goes with a dinner.”
“That’s all right, Sam,” said Crail untroubledly. “You don’t have to sing when you bring them in. Just do it unostentatiously.”
“Can’t be did, sir. I’d like to oblige you, but——”
“I know you would,” interrupted Crail earnestly. “I just feel it, Sam. Say no more about it, but get busy. And put them right here when you bring them. Try for the plump ones, Sam. These look sort of—sort of emaciated.”
“You won’t get them,” laughed Dud. “The steward would take them away from him.”
“I’ll get them all right,” was the reply. “Say, fellows, they sure are good! I used to think I’d like to live by the ocean and raise my own oysters. A fellow could, eh?”
“Where do they find oysters?” inquired Jimmy. “In the ocean or rivers or where?”
“Both,” said Dud. “They sow the young oysters and——”
“Sow them!” exclaimed Jimmy. “Oh, sure! Just like wheat or oats, I suppose. Where do you get that stuff?”
“They do, don’t they, Creel?”
“It’s still Crail. Search me, though. I never saw an oyster field. Ah, that’s the good old scout, Sam. Place them right here and remove this devastated affair.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry those wasn’t good, sir.” The waiter uttered the regret loudly, evidently for the benefit of the near-by diners, or, possibly, the eagle-eyed steward.
“Couldn’t eat them, Sam,” replied Crail cheerfully. “Don’t let it happen again.”
“No, sir. Now what can I bring the rest of you gentlemen?”
“Do you always get what you want like that?” inquired Jimmy enviously after the waiter had departed with their order. “If I’d asked for a second helping of oysters they’d have thrown me off the train!”
“The main thing to do,” answered Crail, holding an oyster up on his fork and viewing it approvingly, “is to think you’re going to get what you want and let the other fellow know you think it. That gets him to thinking so too, you see. How’s that soup?”
“Punk,” said Dud.
“I’ll pass it. Say, have you fellows got any names?”
“A few,” replied Jimmy. “His is Baker and mine’s Logan.”
“Thanks. I was afraid I’d call you Harold again and get beat up.” Crail didn’t look vastly alarmed, however, and Jimmy secretly congratulated himself on not having to carry out his threat of punching his head. Crail didn’t quite look like a fellow who would stand around idle during such a process! “I know a fellow named Baker out in Wyoming. He’s foreman on the Meeteetse Ranch. Might be kin to you, eh? He comes from back here somewhere. I don’t know what his first name is, though. He’s generally called ‘Soapy.’ Any of your folks out my way?”
“Not that I know of,” replied Dud. “Why do they call him ‘Soapy’?”
“Search me! You get all kinds of names out there. Up at the mines there’s a choice collection: ‘Pin Head’ Farrel, ‘Snub’ Thompson, ‘Tejon’ Burns, ‘Last Word’ MacTavish: a bunch of them. Sometimes they sort of earn their names and sometimes they just stumble on them, I guess. ‘Pin Head,’ he’s a big, tall chap with a head six sizes too small for him, and MacTavish is a Scotsman who is always saying ‘If it’s my last wor-r-rd on airth!’ But I don’t know why Thompson is called ‘Snub.’ Nor where Burns gets his nickname.”
“What were you called?” asked Dud.
“Just Monty. That’s my middle name, or part of it. The whole of it’s Montfort. That was my mother’s name. She was French.”
“What’s your first name?” Dud inquired.
“A.”
“A?”
“Yes, A Montfort Crail.”
“But—but doesn’t the A stand for anything?”
“Not a thing. Snakes, fellows, if I eat all this truck I’ll pass in my chips! Where’s this Grafter School you tell about at?”
“Grafton, not Grafter, if you please. Grafters is what the Greenies call us.”
“Who are the Greenies?”
“The Mount Morris fellows. Their color is green, you know.”
“Seems like it would be a good place for me,” chuckled Crail, transferring a large slice of roast beef to his plate and starting to work on it. (The others observed with interest as the meal progressed that their new acquaintance dealt with one thing at a time. He consumed his beef to the last portion before he paid any attention to the vegetables and then ate each vegetable by itself.) “Which comes first, Grafton or Greenbank?”
“Grafton, in everything,” laughed Dud. “We get to Needham Junction about half-past two. That’s where we change. You stay on and get to Greenbank about an hour later.”
“I didn’t know it took so long,” said Crail. “Tell me about your school, fellows. What’s it like? What do you do there? How many of you are there?”
“We had two hundred and sixteen last year,” replied Jimmy, “and I guess we’ll have a few more this year. I suppose the faculty would take more if we had dormitory room. We have three big dormitories and two small ones. Dud and I are in Lothrop this year. That’s the newest one, and it’s a peach. Then there’s Manning, where the younger fellows live, and Trow, the oldest one. And there’s Fuller and Morris, but they’re just wooden houses on the Green. They look after about twenty fellows altogether.”
“Don’t any of you live around?” asked Crail. “In the town, I mean?”
“No, the school’s about a half-mile from the town. Of course, we have some fellows who live in Grafton, you know, but not many.”
“I guess I’d rather live outside the school,” said Crail. “You don’t have to toe the mark so much, eh?”
“You won’t do that at Mount Morris,” said Dud, “because you’re nowhere near the village there. The school’s about three miles from Greenbank; and it’s up-hill all the way, too. I know, for I walked it once.”
“Oh, you’ve been there?”
“Yes,” answered Dud grimly. “Last June. Jimmy was with me. We got left at Webster and had to foot it most of the way. We found a handcar after awhile and did pretty well until a train came sneaking up on us and we had to throw the handcar down the bank. That was some journey, Jimmy.”
Jimmy smiled reflectively. “It certainly was! And say, Crail, what do you suppose this idiot did after we got to Greenbank? Well, he went in and pitched three innings and won the game for us!”
“Good leather!” Crail viewed Dud with new interest. “Pitched, eh? Say, that’s something I’d like mighty well to do. I tried baseball at Dunning last spring, but the captain and I had a falling-out and I got fired.”
“What position did you play?” asked Dud.
“First base—when I played. There was another fellow, though, that had me beat. Football is what I’m crazy about, though. What sort of a team do you have at Grafton?”
“Good enough to win from Mount Morris two years out of three,” answered Jimmy. “We’ll have a wonder this year, for we’ve got a lot of good men left from last season. Do you play?”
“I tried it a little last fall,” answered Crail, “but I didn’t make the team. I’d never seen football near-to until then. I guess it takes a pile of learning, that game. I’m sure fond of it, though, and I’m going to try it again this time.”
“You ought to make good at it,” said Jimmy, running an appreciative eye over Crail’s muscular body. “Guard is your place, I guess.”
“They had me trying for tackle, but I’m heavier now. I bought me a book about football and I’ve been studying it. Say, there’s a lot to it, isn’t there? Is it hard to get on the team at your school?”
“N-no, not if you show something,” answered Jimmy. “Of course, there are a good many fellows turn out every fall and you’ve got to work like an Indian to make it, but——”
“Work like an Indian, eh?” laughed Crail. “Say, did you ever see an Indian work? Well, I did, just once. He was plowing a piece of ground about eight times the size of this car and it took him three days to do it. It’s Mrs. Indian who does the work, partner. I guess I’d have to work a sight harder than any Indian to get a place on a football team. But I sure mean to do it, Har—I mean Logan. Sam, I’ll have a dish of ice cream and a man-size cup of coffee. Don’t fetch me one of those thimbles now! I suppose they make you study pretty hard, eh?”
“You bet they do!” said Jimmy feelingly. “And then some!”
“Harder than at this place I’m headed for?”
“N-no, I guess about the same.”
“Maybe it costs more money at Grafton?”
“Tuition, you mean? That’s about the same, too, I suppose. I don’t know how much it is at Mount Morris, do you, Dud?”
Dud shook his head, but Crail supplied the information. “A hundred and fifty,” he said. “Seventy-five down and seventy-five in January. And anywhere from two hundred to five hundred for board and lodging. Education sure costs a heap of money in this part of the world. I know a fellow went through college in Nebraska, and it cost him less than six hundred for the whole three years!”
“Two hundred and fifty is the least you can pay for a room at Grafton,” said Jimmy, “and that means either Trow or one of the houses. But the tuition is the same, except that we pay in three installments.”
“Well, I got two hundred and seventy dollars with me,” said Crail, “and I guess that would see me through for one term, eh? Only thing is, though, will they let me in?”
“Why, you’ve taken an exam, haven’t you?” asked Dud.
Crail shook his head. “No, they said at Mount Morris that I could do that after I got there. Won’t they let me?”
“Oh, yes, only fellows usually enter by certificate after the junior year. Let’s go back. We’ll be at the Junction in a few minutes.”
“What did you mean by entering by a certificate?” asked Crail, when they were once more in their seats in the day coach. “Where do you catch these certificates?”
Dud explained and Crail frowned a moment. Then his face cleared, and he laughed. “Well, I guess they wouldn’t have given me any kind of a certificate at Dunning that would have helped me much, fellows! I’ll just have to go up against the examination. Will it be hard, do you think?”
“I don’t believe so,” Jimmy reassured him. “They’ll probably let you in, and then sock it to you afterwards. I guess they want all the fellows they can get at Mount Morris.”
“Mount Morris, yes, but how about this Grafton place?” said Crail. “What about the examinations there?”
Jimmy shrugged. “I never took them. Neither did Dud. You’d be sure to pass for the lower middle, though, if you failed for the upper. They call them third and second at Mount Morris. We’d better get our bags closed, Dud. There’s the whistle.”
Crail arose and took his kit-bag out of the way, and set it in the aisle while Dud stuffed the magazines back into his suitcase, and Jimmy rounded up his own belongings. The train slowed down gradually, and finally came to a stop, and a trainman sent the stentorian cry of “Needham Junction!” through the car. “Needham! Change here for Grafton!”
“Well, I’m glad to have met you,” said Jimmy, holding out his hand to Crail. “And if you ever come to one of the games— Say, hold on! This isn’t your station! You’ve got another hour yet, Crail.”
But Crail, bag in hand, shook his head. “Fellows, I’m plumb tired of traveling,” he said, “and I sort of think I’ll get off right here.”
“But you’ll have three hours to wait, nearly!” Jimmy expostulated to Crail’s broad back. “There isn’t another train to Greenbank until five!”
Crail smiled over his shoulder as he pushed through the car door.
“Oh, I’ve changed my mind about that place,” he answered. “You see, I don’t know anybody at Mount Morris, and I sort of like you fellows, and I guess one school’s as good as another. Which side do we get off at?”