"You bet I will, Tough!" "It's the last stand, old boy!" "The last." "Only two minutes more we've got to hold 'em! The last ditch, Dink." "I'll last." He looked up and saw the school crouching along the linetense, drawn faces. For the first time he realized they were there, calling on him to stand steadfast. He went back, meeting the rush that came his way, halfknocked aside, half-getting his man, dragged again until assistDe Soto's stinging hand slapped his back and the sting was good, clearing his brain. ance came. Things came into clear outline once more. He saw down the line and to the end where Garry Cockrell stood. "Good old captain," he said. "They'll not get by me, not now." He was in every play it seemed to him, wondering why Andover was always keeping the ball, always coming at his end. Suddenly he had a shock. Over his shoulder were the goal posts, the line he stood on was the line of his own goal. He gave a hoarse cry and went forward like a madman, parting the interference. Someone else was through; Tough was through; the whole line was through flinging back the runner. He went down clinging to Goodhue, buried under a mass of his own tacklers. Then, through the frenzy, he heard the shrill call of time. He struggled to his feet. The ball lay scarcely four yards from the glorious goal posts. Then, before the school could sweep them up, panting, exhausted, they gathered in a circle with incredulous, delirious faces, and, leaning heavily, wearily on one another, gave the cheer for Andover. And the touch of Stover's arm on McCarty's shoulder was like an embrace. - OWEN JOHNSON. HOW THE ICE-BOAT WAS WRECKED CAMBERWELL is like many other rural towns of New England where the population has grown sparse. Schoolhouses where formerly fifty or sixty boys and girls were wont to assemble have been abandoned because there ceased to be enough pupils to make it worth while to hire a teacher for them. Instead, two and even three former districts have united to support one school in a central station. But this plan has its disadvantages. The children now have a long way to walk to school, in some cases three or four miles. To remedy this a "pupil-collector" is employed to gather up the children and carry them to and fro, by wagon or sleigh. Camberwell Pond is three or four miles in length, and one of the new union schoolhouses is in the little village near the foot of it. Early in the winter ten of the boys and girls, hailing from former school districts in the upper portion of the town, hit on a novel method of going to school by means of an ice-boat, contrived by two of the older boys, James Waite and Saxon Noyes. It was great fun. The young people all liked it, and it appeared to be attended by no unusual danger. Perhaps it would not have been but for a certain characteristic fault of one of the boys, whom we will here call Calvin Calvin In other respects Calvin is a fairly good boy, as boys of fourteen go, but he has this bad trait. When he breaks anything or makes a mistake, instead of owning up honorably, as any manly boy will do, Calvin tries to hide it, cover it up, slip the broken article out of sight, so that the deed may be laid to some one else. One morning in November he chanced to knock down the school thermometer, and broke it, but pretended that the wind blew it down. The larger boys take turns there hauling down and housing the school flag at night. Being in a hurry one evening, Calvin accidentally tore the flag, but denied it when the damage was discovered the next morning. One of the smaller boys, he said, had trodden on it. These and numerous other sly acts and untruths have come home to Calvin since the story of the wreck became known. This is the way it happened: There was a moon the night before, and during the evening Calvin used the ice-boat to carry a girl, who had been visiting his sister, home to the village at the foot of the pond. The wind blew fitfully. While running before it up the pond, on his way home, quite a hard gust struck the boat. The sail jibed. Like many such craft, this ice-boat was steered by a tiller controlling the hindmost runner. In a quick effort to hold the boat from sluing, Calvin split the lever where it was mortised to the hind runner, and had to walk and draw the boat the rest of the way up the pond. He did not like to own up to the damage, and did not want the other boys to know that he had used the boat. He had a clapboard nail in his pocket, and what he did was to patch up Stover played on in a daze, remembering nothing of the confused shock of bodies that had gone before, wondering how much longer he could hold out to last out the game as the captain had told him. He was groggy, from time to time he felt the sponge's cold touch on his face or heard the voice of Tough McCarty in his ear. "Good old Dink, die game!" How he loved McCarty fighting there by his side, whispering to him: "You and I, Dink! What if he is an old elephant, we'll put him out of the play." Still, flesh and blood could not last forever. The half must be nearly up. "Two minutes more time." "What was that?" he said groggily to Flash Condit. "Two minutes more. Hold 'em now!" It was Andover's ball. He glanced around. They were down near the twenty-five-yard line somewhere. He looked at McCarty, whose frantic head showed against the sky. "Break it up, Tough," he said, and struggled toward him. A cry went up, the play was halted. "He's groggy," he heard voices say, and then came the welcome splash of the sponge. Slowly his vision cleared to the anxious faces around him. "Can you last?" said the captain. "I'm all right," he said gruffly. "Things cleared up now?" "Fine!" McCarty put his arm about him and walked with him. "Oh, Dink, you will last, won't you?" "You bet I will, Tough!" "It's the last stand, old boy!" "The last." "Only two minutes more we've got to hold 'em! The last ditch, Dink." "I'll last." He looked up and saw the school crouching along the linetense, drawn faces. For the first time he realized they were there, calling on him to stand steadfast. He went back, meeting the rush that came his way, halfknocked aside, half-getting his man, dragged again until assistance came. De Soto's stinging hand slapped his back and the sting was good, clearing his brain. Things came into clear outline once more. He saw down the line and to the end where Garry Cockrell stood. "Good old captain," he said. "They'll not get by me, not now." He was in every play it seemed to him, wondering why Andover was always keeping the ball, always coming at his end. Suddenly he had a shock. Over his shoulder were the goal posts, the line he stood on was the line of his own goal. He gave a hoarse cry and went forward like a madman, parting the interference. Someone else was through; Tough was through; the whole line was through flinging back the runner. He went down clinging to Goodhue, buried under a mass of his own tacklers. Then, through the frenzy, he heard the shrill call of time. He struggled to his feet. The ball lay scarcely four yards from the glorious goal posts. Then, before the school could sweep them up, panting, exhausted, they gathered in a circle |
