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“I guess the only way to keep fit enough for football,” said Frank, feelingly, “is to chop trees all summer. I was just about all in last night. How did you manage to persuade him to take up football, anyway, Arn? I thought he was dead set against it.”

“So did I. I didn’t persuade him. I don’t know who did—or what! He sprung it on me suddenly yesterday. I’m glad, though. I think there’s a good football player in Toby, Frank.”

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Although Toby was back in Whitson before nine that evening, it is needless to say that the note he had promised himself to write to George Tubb did not get written. In fact Toby forgot all about it until the next morning, when Arnold found Tubb’s letter on the floor and asked Toby if it was anything he wanted to keep.

“No, throw it in the basket,” answered Toby. “Hold on, though! Guess I’ll keep it. I’ve got to answer it to-day. Stick it on the table, Arn.”

Later it got buried under a book and so during the course of a busy day or two Toby again forgot it. He might have remembered it on Sunday, which, as at every preparatory school in the land, was the recognized letter-writing day of the week at Yardley, but he didn’t. He wrote to his folks in the afternoon until Arn, who never spent much time on his correspondence, dragged him away to the river and a certain shining blue canoe. Then he finished the epistle in the evening just before bedtime, and retired with a fine feeling of duty performed. Monday witnessed a change in temperature. There was a light frost on the ground when Toby and Arnold hurried over to chapel, and, although the middle of the day was bright and warm, by the time practice began on the gridirons there was enough nip in the air to make work with the pigskin more agreeable.