Left End Edwards | Page 3

the library, Mr. Edwards,
dropping into slumber, was dimly conscious of a last disturbing thought.
It was that he was going to miss that boy of his a whole lot after next
week!
"It's all right," declared Tom Hall as he took the catalogue from Steve
with eager fingers. "At least, I'm pretty sure it is. He said at dinner that
he'd think it over, and when he says that it means--that it's all right.
What do you say, eh?"
"Bully!" That was what Steve said. And he said it not only once but
several times and with varying degrees of enthusiasm and volume. And,
as though fearing his chum would doubt his satisfaction, he
accompanied each "Bully!" with an emphatic thump on Tom's back.
Tom, choking and coughing, squirmed out of the way.
"Here! Ho-ho-hold on, you silly chump! You don't have to kill a
fellow!"
"Won't it be dandy!" exclaimed Steve, beaming. "We can room
together! And--and----"

"You bet! And we can have a bully time on the train, too. Gee, I never
travelled as far as that alone!"
"I have! It's lots of fun! You eat your meals in a dining-car and there's a
smoking-room where you can sit and chin as late as you want to and
you get off at the stations and walk up and down the platform and you
tip the negro porters and----"
"Wouldn't it be great if we both made the football team, Steve? Of
course, you'll make it anyway, and I might if I had a little luck.
Townsend said last year I didn't do so badly, you know, and if----"
"Of course you'll make it! We both will; next year anyway. I'll bet
they've got lots of fellows on the team no better than you are, Tom.
Wait till I show you the athletic field. It's a corker!" And Steve's fingers
turned the pages of the school catalogue eagerly. "How's that?" he
demanded at last in triumph.
They paused under a dripping tree while Tom viewed the picture, Steve
looking over his shoulder.
"It's fine!" sighed Tom at last. "Gee, I hope--I hope he lets me!"
"Let's go over there now so you can show him this," suggested Steve.
But Tom shook his head wisely.
"Not now," he said. "He don't like to be disturbed Sunday afternoons.
He--he sort of has a nap, you see."
"Just like dad," replied Steve. "Bet you when I get as old as that I won't
stick around the house and go to sleep. Say, Tom, what does 'Mens
sana in corpore sano' mean?"
"A sound mind in a sound body," replied Tom promptly. "Why?"
"It's in here and I asked dad and he didn't know." Steve chuckled. "He
made believe he was peevish with me, so's he wouldn't have to fess up.
Dad's foxy, all right!"

"Well, you ought to have known, Steve," said Tom severely.
"Sure," agreed Steve untroubledly. "That's what he said. Let's take that
a minute. I want to show you the picture of the campus."
"Let's sit down somewhere and look it over," said Tom. "I told father
that it was a school where they were terribly strict with the fellows and
you had to study awfully hard all the time. I wonder if it is."
"I don't believe so," answered Steve. "They say so much about football
and baseball and things like that you can tell they aren't cranky about
studying. And look at the pictures of the different teams in here. There's
the baseball nine, see? Pretty husky looking bunch, aren't they?
And--turn over--there you are--there's the football team. Some of those
chaps aren't any bigger than I am, or you, either. Good looking
uniforms, aren't they? Say, dad gave me a lecture on not thinking I was
going there to just play football. Fathers are awfully funny sometimes!"
"You bet! I wonder--I wonder--would you mind if we tore out a couple
of these pictures before he sees it? I'm afraid he might think there was
too much in it about athletics."
"No, tear away! Here, I'll do it. We'll take the pictures of the teams out.
How about the athletic field? Better tear that out too, do you think?"
"Well, maybe, just to be on the safe side, you know. Don't throw 'em
away, though. We might want to look at them again. Let's go over to
the library where we can talk, Steve."
CHAPTER II
OFF TO SCHOOL
Possibly you are wondering why two boys, each of whom was
possessed of a perfectly good home of his own, should select the
Tannersville Public Library as a place in which to converse. The
answer is that Steve's father and Tom's father were in the same line of
trade, wholesale lumber, and had a few years before fallen out