The High School Freshmen | Page 4

turning at the
head of the street. "Why, they're yelling and carrying that odious little

Dick Prescott."
"Must be dragging him off to give him a ducking, as he deserves,"
muttered Fred Ripley, gratingly.
"No, no! It's the school yell, and the girls are waving their
handkerchiefs."
"Then they must be canonizing the school sneak," returned Ripley,
frowning hard.
"Well, don't wait to see," urged Clara. "We don't care about mixing up
too much with such a common crowd as the Gridley H.S. students are."
"Prescott is nothing but a mucker, but he spoiled my coat, and I'll make
him smart for it!" uttered Fred, his face burning with sullen rage.
"You'll only smirch yourself, Fred, by having anything more to do with
such a fellow," Clara warned him.
"When I'm even with the fellow, I won't have anything more to do with
him," snorted Ripley. "But I'll wait, watch and plan for years, if I have
to, to take all the conceit and meanness out of that sneak. I'll never quit
until I can look at myself in the glass and tell myself that I've paid back
the lowest trick ever played on me!"

CHAPTER II
DICK & CO. GO AFTER THE SCHOOL BOARD'S SCALPS
In Gridley High School, sessions began at eight in the morning. School
let out for the day at one in the afternoon. The brighter students, who
could get most of their lessons in school, and do the rest of the work
during the evening, thus had the afternoon for work or fun.
Often, though, it happened that there were parties, or school dances in
the evening. Then a portion of the afternoon could be used for study, if

need be. Saturdays, of course, were free from study for all but the
dullest---and the dullest usually don't bother their heads much about
study at any time.
Gridley was not a large place---just an average little American city of
some thirty thousand inhabitants. It was a much bigger place than that,
though, when it came to the matter of public spirit. Gridley people were
proud of their town. They wanted everything there to be of the best.
Certainly, the Gridley High School was not surpassed by many in the
country. The imposing building cost some two hundred thousand
dollars. The equipment of the school was as fine as could be put in a
building of that size. Including the principal, there were sixteen
teachers, four of them being men.
In all the classes combined, there were some two hundred and forty
students, about one hundred of these being girls. Nearly all of the
students were divided between the four regular classes. There were
always a few there taking a postgraduate, or fifth year of work, for
either college or one of the technical schools.
With such a school and such a staff of teachers as it possessed the
Gridley standard of scholarship was high. The Gridley diploma was a
good one to take to a college or to a "Tech" school.
Yet this fine high school stood well in the bodily branches of training.
Gridley's H.S. football eleven had played, in the past four years,
forty-nine games with other high school teams, and had lost but two of
these games. The Gridley baseball nine had played fifty-four games
with other high school teams in the same period, and had met defeat but
three times in the four years.
Athletics, at this school, were not overdone, but were carried on with a
fine insistence and a dogged determination. Up to date, however,
despite the fine work of their boys, the citizens of the town had been
somewhat grudging about affording money for training athletic teams.
What the boys had won on the fields of sport they had accomplished
more without public encouragement than with it.

It was now October. Dick Prescott and his five closest friends were all
freshmen. They had been in the school only long enough to become
accustomed to the routine of work and study. They were still freshmen,
and would be until the close of the school year. As freshmen were
rather despised "cubs" Dick and his friends would be daring, indeed
should they dare to do anything, in their freshman year, to make them
very prominent.
According to a good many Gridley people Dick's father, Eben Prescott,
was accounted the best educated man in town. The elder Prescott had
taken high honors at college; he had afterwards graduated in law, and,
for a while, had tried to build up a practice. Eben Prescott was not lazy,
but he was a student, much given to dreaming. He had finally been
driven to opening a small bookstore. Here, when not waiting on
customers, he could read. Dick's mother had proved the life of the little
business.