or the next, nor did he ever hear more of the matter.
Walton displayed a retiring disposition that was new and novel. On such
infrequent occasions as Don ran across him Walton failed to see him. The
day of the game the latter was in evidence with his father, mother and
younger brother; Don saw him making the rounds of the buildings with
them and he wondered in what manner Walton had accounted to his folks
for his absence from the football team. Walton stayed on at school, very
little in evidence, until Christmas vacation, but when the fellows
reassembled after the recess he was not amongst them. Rumour had it that
he had been taken ill and would not be back. Rumour was proved partly
right, at all events, for Brimfield knew him no more.

* * * * *

The first and second teams held final practice on Thursday. The first
only ran through signals for awhile, did some punting and catching and
then disappeared, leaving the second to play two fifteen-minute periods
with a team composed of their own second-string and the first team's
third-string players. After that was over, the second winning without
much effort, the audience, which had cheered and sung for the better
part of an hour, marched back to the gymnasium and did it some more, and
the second team, cheering most enthusiastically for themselves and the
first and the school and, last but by no means least, for Mr. Boutelle,
joyously disbanded for the season.

There was another mass-meeting that evening, an intensely fervid one,
followed by a parade about the campus and a good deal of noise that was
finally quelled by Mr. Fernald when, in response to demands, he appeared
on the porch of the Cottage and made a five-minute speech which ended
with the excellent advice to return to hall and go to bed.

The players didn't attend the meeting that night, nor were they on hand
at the one that took place the night following. Instead, they trotted
and slithered around the gymnasium floor in rubber-soled shoes and went
through their entire repertoire of plays under the sharp eyes of Coaches
Robey and Boutelle. There was a blackboard lecture, too, on each
evening, and when, at nine-thirty on Friday, they were dismissed, with
practice all over for the year, most of them were very glad to slide
into bed as quickly as possible. If any of them had "the jumps" that
night it was after they were asleep, for the coach had tired them out
sufficiently to make