Chapter 22 - Page 2

a hundred years, and nowadays fathers applied for admission for their boys about as soon as the boys were born. The school was in that respect like a club with a long waiting list. If a boy wasn't "entered" by the time he was five or six years old at the latest, he stood small chance of getting in when the time came.

Claflin had won from Brimfield three years on end, or ever since they had been playing together. She had started out by according Brimfield a mid-season date. The following year she had placed the game a week later and last year she had put it last on her schedule, Brimfield having by then proved herself an adversary of real merit. Oddly enough, Claflin had for some time been without a special rival and had gladly bestowed the honour on the Maroon-and-Grey as soon as the latter had shown herself worthy. This fall Claflin had had an unusually successful season, having played seven games and won all but the last, that with Larchville. Larchville, who had defeated Brimfield 17 to 3, had also taken the measure of Claflin to the tune of 12 to 6. Brimfield read of it in the Sunday papers and took comfort. After all, Claflin was not unbeatable it seemed. Her defeat by Larchville, coupled with Brimfield's overwhelming victory over Southby, lent next Saturday's game a roseate glow, viewed from a Brimfield view-point. In fact, by Monday Brimfield was almost confident of at last winning from the Blue, and the question of a proper celebration of the victory was up for discussion. Of course it should be a whopping big bonfire, with a parade and speeches and singing and plenty of music! But Brimfield had never yet celebrated such a stupendous event and consequently there were no precedents to guide them. Neither was it known what attitude faculty would take in regard to such an affair. But a few choice spirits in the upper forms made tentative arrangements to the extent of picking out a likely spot in a corner of the athletic field for the fire and locating such loose material as might come in handy as fuel.

Monday's practice was short and easy. Even the second had an off-day. The 'varsity players were given a blackboard lecture in the meeting-room in the gymnasium after supper and were put through an examination on plays and signals. On Tuesday the practice was as stiff as ever. Coach Robey was not altogether satisfied with the defence, and there were forty-five minutes of the hardest sort of scrimmage in which the second was given the ball at various distances from the 'varsity goal and told to put it over. The field was closed to spectators that day and it was hard hammer-and-tongs football all the way. "Boots" drove the second with whip and spurs and the second responded nobly. But the best it could do was to drop a field-goal over the bar in the third period of the scrimmage, after having been held a half-dozen times by a desperate adversary. Steve played about as well that afternoon as he had ever