Tim could skim his lessons, make a good showing in
class and remember enough of what he had gone over to appear quite
erudite. Don had to get right down and grapple with things. He once said
enviously, and with as near an approach to an epigram as he was capable
of, that whereas Tim got his lessons by inhaling them, he, Don, had to
chew them up and swallow them! But when examination time came Don's
method of assimilation showed better results.

The injured hand healed with incredible slowness, but heal it did, and
at last the day came when the doctor consented to let his impatient
pupil put on the padded arrangement that the ingenious Danny Moore had
fashioned of a discarded fielder's glove and some curled hair, and Don
triumphantly reported for practice. His triumph was, however,
short-lived, for Coach Robey viewed him dubiously and relegated him to
the second squad, from which Mr. Boutelle was then forming his second
team. "Boots" was a graduate who turned up every Fall and took charge of
the second or scrub team. It was an open secret that he received no
remuneration. Patriotism and sheer love of the game were the inducements
that caused Mr. Boutelle to donate some two months of time and labour to
the cause of turning out a second team strong enough to give the first
the practice it needed. And he always succeeded. "Boutelle's Babies," as
someone had facetiously termed them, could invariably be depended on to
give the school eleven as hard a tussle as it wanted--and sometimes a
deal harder. Boots was a bit of a driver and believed in strenuous work,
but his charges liked him immensely and performed miracles of labour at
his command. His greeting of Don was almost as dubious as had been Coach
Robey's.

"Of course I'm glad to have you, Gilbert, but the trouble is that as
soon as we've got you nicely working Mr. Robey will take you away.
That's a great trick of his. He seems to think the purpose of the second
team is to train players for the first. It isn't, though. He gives me
what he doesn't want every year and I do my best to make a team from it,
and I ought to be allowed to keep what I make. Well, never mind. You do
the best you can while you're with us, Gilbert."

"Maybe he won't have me this year," said Don dejectedly. "He seems to
think that being out for a couple of weeks has queered me."

"Well, you don't feel that way about it, do you?"

"No, sir, I'm perfectly all right. I've watched practice every after