Читать книгу Fourth Down! онлайн

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“Just shows,” he reflected as he skipped up the stairs, “that it doesn’t pay to worry about anything that may happen, because maybe it won’t!”

After a two o’clock séance with “Old Tige,” by which name Mr. Gaddis, English instructor, was popularly known, Toby went with Arnold down to the athletic field. September had still a week to run and the afternoon was almost uncomfortably hot. Across the river, the wide expanse of salt marsh was still green in places, and overhead the sky was unflecked by clouds. Fortunately a little westerly breeze mitigated the heat. Most of the tennis courts were occupied, a group of baseball enthusiasts were congregated over by the batting net and on the blue surface of the curving stream a few bright-hued canoes were moving slowly upstream or down. Toby found himself almost wishing that he had chosen a dip in the Sound instead of an hour or more of unexciting observation of some fourscore overheated youths going through football practice. However, the new grandstand, finished during the summer, was roofed, and as soon as Arnold left him to his own devices Toby meant to climb up there into the shade and sprawl in comfort. On the way they passed new boys here and there—it was easy to detect them if only by their too evident desire to seem quite at home—and they agreed gravely, pessimistically that they were a rum looking lot, and wondered what the school was coming to! Old friends and acquaintances hailed them from a distance or stopped to chat. Arnold was rather a popular fellow and knew a bewildering multitude of his schoolmates.