The High School Left End Part 14

"Fellows, come to my place after you've had your luncheons," Bayliss whispered around among his cronies, after school was out for the day. "I---I guess there are a---a few things that we want to talk over among ourselves. So come over, and we'll use the carriage house for a meeting place. Maybe we'll organize a club among ourselves, or---or---do something that shall shut us out and away from the common herd of this school."

When the dozen or more met in the Bayliss carriage house that afternoon there were some defiant looks, and some anxious ones.

"I don't know how you fellows feel about this business," began Hudson frankly. "But I've had a pretty hot grilling at home by Dad. He asked me if I belonged to the 'sorehead' gang. I answered as evasively as I could. Then dad brought his list down on the table and told me he prayed that I wouldn't go through life with any false notions about my personal dimensions. He told me, rather explosively, that I would never be a bit bigger, in anyone's estimation than I proved myself to be."

"Hot, was he?" asked Bayliss, with a half sneer.

"He started out that way," replied Hudson. "But pretty soon Dad became dignified, and asked me where I had ever gotten the notion that I amounted to any more than any other fellow of the same brain caliber."

"What did you tell him? asked Bert Dodge, frowning.

"I couldn't tell him much," retorted Hudson, smiling wearily.

"Dad was primed to do most of the talking. When he stopped for breath mother began."

"It's all that confounded d.i.c.k Prescott's doings! It's a shame!

It's a piece of anarchy---that's what it is!" muttered Paulson.

"On my way here I pa.s.sed three men on the street. They looked at me pretty hard, and laughed after I had gone by. Fellows, are we going to allow that mucker, d.i.c.k Prescott, to make us by-words in this town?"

"No siree, no!" roared Fremont.

"Good! That's what I like to hear," put in Hudson dryly. "And what are we going to do to stop d.i.c.k Prescott and turn public opinion our ways"

"Why-----"

"We-----"

"The way to-----"

"We'll-----"

Several spoke at once, then all came to a full stop. The "soreheads"

looked at each other in puzzled silence.

"What are we going to do?" demanded Fremont. "How are we going to hit back at a fellow who has a newspaper that he can use as a club on your head?"

"We might have a piece put in 'The Evening Mail,'" hinted Porter, after a dazed silence. "That's the rival paper."

"Yes!" chimed in Bayliss, eagerly. "We can write a piece and get it put in 'The Mail.' Our piece can say that there has been a tendency, this year, or was believed to be one, to get a rowdyish element of the High School into the High School eleven, and that our move was really a move intended to sustain the past reputation of the Gridley High School for gentlemanly playing in all school sports. That will hit d.i.c.k & Co., and a lot of others, and will turn the laugh back on the muckers."

This proposition brought forth several eager cries of approval.

"I see just one flaw in the plan," observed Hudson slowly.

"What is it?" demanded half a dozen at once.

"Why, 'The Evening Mail' is a paper designed to appeal to the more rowdyish element in Gridley politics. 'The Mail's' circulation is about all among the cla.s.s of people who come nearest to being 'rowdyish.' So I'm pretty certain, fellows, that 'The Mail' wouldn't take up our cause, and hammer our enemies with the word 'rowdy.' 'The Blade' is the paper that circulates among the best people in Gridley."

"And d.i.c.k Prescott writes for 'The Blade'!"

A gloomy silence followed, broken by Bayliss's disconsolate query:

"Then, hang it! What can we do?"

And that query stuck hard!

CHAPTER IX

BAYLISS GETS SOME ADVICE

On that fateful Thursday morning every High School boy, and nearly every High School girl saw "The Blade."

The morning paper, however, contained no allusion whatever to the football remarks of the day before.

Instead, there was an article descriptive of the changes to be made out at the High School athletic field this present year, and there were points and "dope" (as the sporting parlance phrases it) concerning the records and rumored new players of other High School elevens that were anxious to meet Gridley on the gridiron this coming season.

Thursday's article was just the kind of a one that was calculated to make every football enthusiast eager to see the season open in full swing.

Again the "soreheads" came to school, and once more they had to pa.s.s the silent groups of their fellow students, who stood with heads turned away. The reign of Coventry seemed complete. Never before had any of the "soreheads" understood so thoroughly the meaning of loneliness.

At recess all the talk was of football. None of this talk, however, was heard by the "soreheads." Whenever any of these went near the other groups the talk ceased instantly. There was no comfort in the yard, that morning, for a "sorehead."

When school let out that afternoon, at one o'clock, Bayliss, Fremont, Dodge and their kind scurried off fast. No one offered to stop them. These "exclusive" young men could not get away from the fact that exclusion was freely accorded them.

Fred Ripley, as had been his wont in other years when he was a freshman, walked homeward with Clara Deane.

"Fred, you haven't got yourself mixed up at all with that 'sorehead'

crowd, have you?" Miss Deane asked.

"Not much!" replied Fred, with emphasis. "I want to play football this year."

"Will all the 'soreheads' be kept out of the eleven, even if they come to their senses?" Clara inquired.

"Now, really, you'll have to ask me an easier one than that,"

replied Fred Ripley laughingly.

"I had an idea that all of the fellows whose families are rather comfortably well off might be in the movement---or the strike or whatever you call it," Clara replied.

"Oh, no; there's a lot of us who haven't gone in with the kickers---and glad we are of it," Fred replied.

"Still, don't you believe in any importance attaching to the fact that one comes of one of the rather good old families?" asked Clara Deane thoughtfully.

"Why, of course, it's something to be quietly proud of," Fred slowly a.s.sented. Then added, with a quick laugh:

"But the events of the last two days show that one should keep his pride b.u.t.toned in behind his vest."