The High School Freshmen | Page 5

Harry Hazelton, Greg Holmes and Dave Darrin. These were the same now all High School freshmen who had stepped forward and offered to take Dick's place in fighting Fred Ripley.
Dick was now fourteen, and so were all his partners, except Tom Reade, who was a year older. All of Dick's chums were boys belonging to families of average means. This is but another way of saying that, as a usual thing, Dick and all his partners would have been unable to fish up a whole dollar among them all.
Fred Ripley, on the other hand, usually carried considerable money with him. Lawyer Ripley usually allowed Fred much more money than that snobbish young man knew how to make good use of.
Fred and Clara Deane were undoubtedly the best-dressed pair in the High School, and the two best supplied with spending money. There were a few other sons or daughters of well-to-do people in Gridley High School, but the average attendance came from families that were only just about well enough off to be able to maintain their youngsters at higher studies.
Fred Ripley, despite his mean nature, was not wholly without friends in the High School. Some of his pocket money he spent on his closest intimates. Then, too, Fred had rather a shrewd idea as to those on whom it was safe or best to vent his snobbishness.
From the start of the school year, Ripley had picked out young Freshman Prescott as a boy he did not like. Dick's place in the moneyed scale of life was so lowly that Fred did not hesitate about treating the other boy in a disagreeable manner.
A week after the meeting between Fred and Dick the High School atmosphere had suddenly become charged with intense excitement. The school eleven had come out of training, had played almost its last match with the "scrub" team and was now close to the time for its first regular match. Oakdale H.S. was to be the first opponent, and Oakdale was just good enough a team to make the Gridley boys a bit uneasy over the outcome.
"My remarks this morning," announced Dr. Thornton, on opening school on Monday, "are not so much directed at the young ladies. But to the young gentlemen I will say that, when the football season opens, we usually notice a great falling off in the recitation marks. This year I hope will be an exception. It has always been part of my policy to encourage school athletics, but I do not mind telling you that some members of the Board of Education notice that school percentages fall off in October and November. This, I trust, will not be the case this year. If it is I fear that the Board of Education may take some steps that will result in making athletics less of a feature among our young men. I hope that it is not necessary to add anything to this plain appeal to your good judgment, young gentlemen."
It _wasn't_. Dr. Thornton was a man of so few and direct words that the boys gathered on the male side of the big assembly room looked around at each other in plain dismay.
"That miserable old Board of Education is equal to shutting down on us right in the middle of the season," whispered Frank Thompson to Dent, who sat next him.
"You know the answer?" Dent whispered back.
"What?"
"Give the board no excuse for any such action. Keep up to the academ. grind."
"But how do that and train-----"
A general buzz was going around on the boys' side of the room. Several of the girls, too, were whispering in some excitement, for most of the girls were enthusiastic "fans" at all of the High School games.
Whispering, provided it was "necessary" and did not disturb others, was not against the rules. These were no longer school children, but "young gentlemen" and "young ladies," and allowed more freedom than in the lower schools. For a few moments Dr. Thornton tolerated patiently the excited buzz in the big assembly room. Then, at last, he struck a paper-weight against the top of his desk on the platform.
"First period recitations, now," announced the principal.
Clang! At stroke of the bell there was a hurried clutching of books and notebooks. The students filed down the aisles, going quickly to their proper sections, which formed in the hall outside. The tramp of feet resounded through the building, for some recitation rooms were on the first floor, some on the second and some on the third.
Two minutes later there was quiet in the great building. Recitation room doors were closed. One passing through the corridors would have heard only the indistinct murmur of voices from the different rooms. Within five minutes every one of the instructors detected the fact that, though discipline was as good as