T. Haviland Hicks Senior | Page 7

Colossus who will guarantee to advance the ball fifteen yards per rush, or money refunded!
"Why, Coach, while you are wanting things, just wish for a chap who will play the entire game himself, taking the ball down the field, while the rest of the team are pushed along in rolling-chairs, while imbibing pink tea. Get a prodigy who will instill such terror into our rivals that instead of playing the schedule, Bannister will simply arrange with other teams to mark themselves down defeated, and then agree what the scores shall be."
"I knew it!" growled Butch Brewster, glowering at the jocular youth. "We should never have consulted him on this problem, for it is not one within his power to solve, even though he performed the miracle of talking seriously about it Now--"
"Now--" echoed Hicks, with pretended seriousness, "Coach, you just hand me the blue-prints and specifications of said Gargantuan Hercules, and I'll try to corrall just such a phenomenon as you desire. Never hesitate to consult me on such important matters, for I am ever-ready to cast aside my own multifarious duties, when my Alma Mater needs my mental assistance, or--"
"Hicks, are you crazy?" fleered Deacon Radford, moved to excitement, despite his great faith in the versatile youth. "Full-backs like that do not grow on trees; the only one I ever read of was Ole Skjarsen, in George Fitch's 'Siwash College Stories,' and he was purely fictitious. We know you have accomplished some great things by your 'inspirations,' but as for this--"
"Just leave it to Hicks" quoth the irrepressible youth, swaggering toward the door with an affected nonchalant self-confidence that aroused Butch to wrath, and vastly amused his companions. "I'll admit a human juggernaut like Coach Corridan dreams of will be hard to round up, but, I'll have an inspiration soon. Don't worry about your old eleven, your problem will be solved, and you will have a team that can play fifty-seven varieties of football. Raw revolver, my comrades."
When the graceless T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had sauntered gracefully out of the grub-shack, big Butch Brewster, almost exploding with suppressed wrath, stared at Slave-Driver Corridan and staid Deacon Radford a full minute; then he grinned,
"That--Hicks!" he murmured, struggling against a desire to laugh. "What a ridiculous prophecy! 'Just leave it to Hicks!' Well, that means the problem goes unsolved, for though I confess he is brilliant, and his so-called 'inspirations' have helped old Bannister; when it comes to rushing out and lassoing a smashing. Herculean full-back--bah!"
Ten minutes later, when Coach Corridan and the Gold and Green squad climbed the bluff to the field back of Camp Bannister, for morning signal drill, their last memory was of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., arrayed in radiant vestiture, his chair tilted against the bunkhouse--the chords of the banjo, and his foghorn voice drifting to them on the warm September air:
"Oh, father and mother pay all the bills (plunk-plunk) And we have all the fun (plunkety-plunk) With the money that we spend in college life!"
Two hours afterward, as a tired, perspiring squad scrambled down the bluff, and made for the cool waters of Lake Conowingo, a mysterious silence, like a mighty wave, literally surged toward them. Camp Bannister seemed deserted, the sun was still shining, the birds sang as cheerily as ever, but instinctively the collegians felt an indescribable loneliness, a sense of tremendous loss.
"Hicks!" shouted Butch Brewster, loudly, his voice shattering the stillness. "Hicks--ahoy! I say, Hicks--"
Old Hinky-Dink, a letter in his hand, hobbled from the cook-tent toward them; like a sinister harbinger of evil he advanced, grinning deprecatingly at the squad:
"Mistah Hicks am gone!" he announced importantly. "He done gib me fo' bits to row him ober to de village, to cotch de noon 'spress fo' Philadelphy! Heah am a letter what he lef'--"
Big Butch Brewster, to whom the billet-doux was addressed in T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, familiar scrawl, tore open the envelope, and while the squad listened, he read aloud the message left by that sunny-souled youth;
"DEAR BUTCH:
"Coach Corridan will have to use the alarm clock from now on! I'm called away on business. See that my stuff gets to Bannister O.K. Stow it in the room next to yours. I'll be back at college some time in the next century. Give my adieux to Coach Corridan and the squad.
"Yours truthfully,
"T. HAVILAND HICKS, JR.
"P.S.: Tell Coach Corridan he should worry--not! I'm hot on the trail of a fullback that will make Ted Coy at his coyest look like the paralyzed inmate of an old man's home. Just leave it to Hicks!"

CHAPTER III
HICKS' PRODIGIOUS PRODIGY
"Has anybody here seen our Hicks? H-i-c-k-s! Has anybody here seen our Hicks? If you've seen him, answer, 'Yes!' He's tall and slim, and he wears a grin, And his banjo-thumping is a sin. Has anybody here seen our Hicks--