vey explained. "We'll be
practicing in a minute."

They were a ragged lot. Silvey boasted of a grimy, oft-patched pair of
football pants, which were a relic of his brother's high-school career;
Albert, the older Harrison boy, who did not seem very ill in spite of
the physician's dismissal, owned half of an old football casing, which
had been padded to make a head guard, and there was a scattering of
sweaters among them. Sid DuPree, thanks to parental affluence, was the
only boy who laid claim to a complete uniform, and presently he
sauntered over the tracks in shining headgear, heavy jersey, padded knee
trousers, and legs encased in shin-guards far too large for him. A new
collegiate ball was tucked securely under one arm.

"Here she is, fellows," he called, as he clambered into the field and
sent the pigskin spinning erratically through the air. "Isn't she a
peach?"

Last year, their combats had been fought with a light, cheap, dollar
toy, but here was one in their midst of the same weight, brand, and size
as that which the big university team used, and which cost as much as,
or more, than a new suit of clothes, according to the individual. They
gathered around it, poking at the staunchly sewn seams and thumping the
stony sides with a feeling akin to reverence.

Presently Silvey produced a frayed, dog-eared treatise _How to Play
Football_, which had survived two years of thumbing and tugging and
lying on the attic floor between seasons, and proceeded to lay down the
fundamental laws to the neophytes in the great American sport. Positions
were tentatively assigned, and the squad raced over weeds and stones in
an effort to master the rudimentary plays, while Silvey strutted and
blustered and administered corrective lectures in a manner that was a
ludicrous imitation of a certain high-school coach. Let John excel at
baseball if he would; he was the master of the hour now, and he marched
the boys back and forth until they panted and sweated and finally broke
into vociferous protest. Thus the "Tigers," whose name that season was
to spell certain defeat to similar ten-year-old teams, concluded their
first football practice.

[Illustration: _The "Tigers."_]

John dropped behind to talk to the elder Harrison boy as the team
sauntered noisily homeward. He wanted to learn the details of the
accommodating illness. Albert chuckled.

"Nothing the matter. Only the school doctor thought there was."

That official was a rece