_ CHAPTER XIII. A GREAT FOOTBALL POW-WOW
"I have important news to communicate," began Old Dut dryly, after tapping the bell for the beginning of the afternoon session.
Dick and some of his friends looked up rather placidly, for they knew what the news was to be.
"All lovers of football in the Central Grammar School," continued the principal, "are requested to meet in the usual field immediately after the close of school. The purpose is to form a league and to arrange for games between the three Grammar Schools of Gridley. I will add that I am glad that so much interest in athletics is being displayed by our young men. To show my pleasure, I will add that if any of the young men in this school are so unfortunate as to incur checks this afternoon that would keep them in after school they may serve out the checks to-morrow instead. First class in geography! For the next twenty minutes the boys of this class are requested to remember that football is not geography!"
Excited as many of the youngsters were, and great as was the temptation to whisper, it happened that not a boy in the eighth grade received a check or a demerit, as it is usually called, for any form of bad conduct that afternoon. Immediately at the close of school the almost solid legion of boys of the seventh and eighth grades started on a run for the big field in which they had been practising of late.
"Now, we'll have to wait a few minutes for the fellows from the other schools," announced Dick when he had marshaled his forces in the field. "It will take them longer to get here."
"Here come some of the North Grammar boys!" called a lookout, a few minutes later. "Hi Martin is one of them."
"Welcome to the North Grammar," called Dick, as Hi Martin and two other boys made their appearance on the field. A dozen more boys from the same school could be seen straggling along in the rear by twos and threes.
"My, but you fellows have brought a mob," was Hi's greeting.
"We invited all of the fellows of the two top grades," Dick explained.
"A small, select committee would have been better," remarked Hi. "When you have too big a crowd you can't hear each other, for everyone is talking at once. So you fellows of the Central Grammar think you can play football, do you?"
"We don't know," laughed Prescott. "We want to find out."
"Huh!"
"Here come a dozen fellows from the South Grammar," announced another lookout.
"Huh! They're coming in a mob, too," uttered Martin in some disdain. "There's at least thirty in their crowd."
"Well, you Norths have brought at least fifteen," observed Dave.
"But only three of us are a committee," retorted Hi Martin. "The other fellows are just hangers on--camp followers, so to speak."
"Don't get too chesty, Hi," objected one of the outside dozen from the North Grammar.
"Don't try to give me any orders, Ben Lollard," snapped Martin. "We got all our orders from the school before we started."
"Who represents the South Grammar?" called Dick as the new comers trooped on to the field.
"Well, aren't there enough of us here?" demanded Ted Teall.
"But Martin, of the North Grammar, thinks each school ought to be represented by a committee," explained Dick.
"Committee of three," amended Hi Martin.
"Huh! That's a dude arrangement," rejoined Ted Teall.
"We have some sense of dignity at the North Grammar," snapped Hi Martin, flushing.
"And you carry it around with you all the time," jeered young Teall.
Things began to look badly for the success of the league. Many of the North Grammar boys came from rather well-to-do families, and not a few of these boys considered themselves infinitely superior to the class of boys that helped to make up the Centrals and Souths.
"Let's not have any disagreements," urged Dick coaxingly.
"Then keep these Souths in check," grumbled Hi Martin.
"Don't let the Norths get too fresh just because they have clean collars every day," advised Ted Teall.
"Fresh? It takes a South Grammar boy to be fresh," sputtered Hi.
"Oh, does it?" sneered Ted. "Dude!"
"Mucker!" responded Hi cheerfully.
"Say, if you could only use your hands as well as you do your mouths," sneered Ted, "ten----"
"We do," announced Hi Martin, bounding over in front of Teall.
"Fight! Fight!" howled half a hundred boys gleefully.
Ted Teall was more than willing, and Hi looked as though he were afraid only of soiling his hands in touching a South Grammar boy. Dick, however, darted in between the pair, and Darrin, Reade and Dalzell followed.
"Now, stop all this fooling, fellows," begged Dick. "We all know that Ted and Hi can fight. What we want to find out is whether there are brains and muscle enough in town to get three football elevens together. Ted, put your hands in your pockets. Hi, you move back. We don't want any fighting here."
"Then that cub will have to stop calling names," retorted Teall.
"You started it yourself," retorted Martin.
"You're another!"
"Fight! Fight!" yelled many of the young onlookers.
Ted was willing, and Martin not unwilling. Crowds surged forward, threatening to push the North and South champions to close quarters.
"Let's go home, if nobody ain't going to do nuthing," remarked one South disgustedly.
"Stop all this, fellows--please do," begged Dick once more. "Ted and Hi, you two show your good sense by shaking hands."
"Shake hands with that?" demanded Hi scornfully, glaring at Teall.
"Shake hands with a high-collared dude?" muttered Ted. "I'd get mobbed for disgracing my part of the town."
"You are a disgrace, anyway," snapped back Hi.
"Now, you get back, Martin, and let us get down to real football," directed Darrin, pushing Martin back several feet. "No; you needn't glare at me. I won't fight you, at all events, until the football season is over."
Dalzell was backing up Dave in an effort to keep Martin back. Reade and Hazelton now placed themselves in front of young Teall.
"Now, come to order, please!" called Dick.
"Hey, Prescott! Who asked you to preside?" hailed a South Grammar boy.
"I don't know that I want to, either," Prescott answered, with a smile. "But some one has to start the meeting. As soon as you come to order you can choose any one you want for presiding officer. All I'm trying to do is to get the thing started. Come to order, please."
"I'll meet you on Main Street any Saturday you like, Hi Martin!" called Ted belligerently.
"I wouldn't go out of my way to meet anything like you," shot back Martin.
"Order! Order!" insisted Dick. "Come to order, fellows!"
By the aid of his chums and a few other friends, and a great deal of "sh! sh!" all through the crowd, Dick at last got the meeting into a semblance of quiet.
"Now, as I said before," Prescott went on, "all the reason I had for taking the chair----"
"Where is it?"
"What did you take it for?"
"----was to get the meeting started," Dick went on. "Now that we're at least as quiet as some of the very small boys here will allow us to be, suppose you nominate some one to preside over this meeting."
"Dick Prescott is good enough for us," sang out several Central Grammar boys.
"Hi Martin!" came from the North squad.
"Ted Teall!" insisted the South boys.
"Well, whom do you want?" insisted Dick patiently.
"Dick Prescott!" "Hi Martin!" "Ted Teall!"
"Don't waste time trying to choose a chairman, Dick," advised Dave. "Just hold on to the job yourself, and try to get something through the meeting."
But a clamor went up on all sides that lasted fully a minute.
"Mr. Chairman!" shouted Tom Reade as soon as quiet came.
"Reade," acknowledged Prescott, with a bow in Tom's direction.
"Will you kindly state the object of the meeting?"
"The object of the meeting," Prescott went on, "is to see whether each of the three Grammar Schools in this town is able and willing to organize a football team. The object, further, is to see whether we can form the three teams into a league and play off a series of games for the championship this fall."
"Who's going to run the league?" demanded Ted Teall.
"That's for this meeting to decide," Dick answered. "I would suggest that each school nominate a committee of three to represent it in a council of nine made up from the three schools. That the council choose a chairman and that the council have full charge of league arrangements."
"Is Hi Martin going to be in that council?" called a South boy.
"I presume so, fellows," responded the chair. "Martin is already a member of a committee of three chosen at the North Grammar."
"But we haven't any committee of three," objected a Central boy.
"We can soon straighten that out," piped up Tom Reade. "I'm going to make a motion, and it's addressed only to the fellows of the Central Grammar. I move that Dick Prescott, Dave Darrin and Greg Holmes represent the Central."
"All in favor say 'aye,'" directed Prescott.
The motion was carried with a rush, there being no dissenting voices.
"I would now suggest," Dick continued, "that the South Grammar fellows put forward their committee of three. Then the council can get together, and soon be able to report back to the whole crowd."
But Ted Teall, who had been talking rapidly in undertones to several of the Souths, now yelled back:
"No, sir-ree! That doesn't go. South Grammar wants the whole thing put through in town-meeting style. Let every fellow here have his say."
"Will that be agreeable to the North Grammar?" asked Dick, glancing at Martin.
"Not much," retorted Hi. "South Grammar has twice as many fellows here as we have, and Central has a bigger crowd present than both other schools put together. Let's have committees and organize 'em into a council."
"We Souths won't stand for anything but town-meeting style," bawled Ted Teall.
"But we haven't enough fellows for that," objected Hi strenuously.
"Why didn't you bring more?" jeered Ted. "Did the rest of your fellows have to go home to put on clean collars and practise on the piano?"
"We shan't get anywhere unless the Souths put forward a more gentlemanly fellow to speak for them," remarked Hi with stiff dignity.
"Fight!" yelled one boy hopefully.
The surging and pushing began all over again, but Dick managed to make his voice carry over the hubbub.
"Fellows, what ails you all?" he cried. "Are we going to have it said that the Grammar School fellows of Gridley haven't brains and manners enough to get together and discuss an ordinary question or two?"
"What about uniforms?" spoke up a member of Hi's committee.
"Central hopes to have uniforms," replied Dick.
"North Grammar is going to have uniforms," shouted Hi Martin, "and we want to make it plain, right now, that we won't play with any team that isn't uniformed."
This cast a damper on the Souths, who knew, to a boy, that they couldn't hope to raise money enough to buy football uniforms.
"Aw," retorted Ted Teall scornfully, "what's the use of playing football with dudes that don't dare go on to the field if they haven't nifty uniforms and clean collars?"
"That's our stand," retorted Hi with intense dignity. "North Grammar will play no un-uniformed teams."
"And South Grammar won't play any dudes," shouted Ted defiantly. "We want real meat to play against--no mush!"
"Let's hear what Central Grammar proposes on this question?" put in Hi Martin hopefully. "Prescott, you said your school would be uniformed."
"Let's go home, fellows," proposed Ted, turning away and stalking off. For a moment the other Souths hesitated. Then, with a yell, they started off after their leader.
"Good riddance to muckers!" shouted a North boy derisively.
"Come to order, please," begged Dick. "Any one who calls names is out of order. It's bad practice."
"Who asked you to run this meeting, anyway, Dick Prescott?" snapped Martin.
"No one in particular, and I'm willing you should preside if you want to, Martin."
"The Centrals ain't any better stuff than the Souths," observed one of the Norths slightingly.
"Cut that out!" cried Dave, his eyes flashing. He stepped forward, looking for the fellow who had made the remark.
"I call upon the North Grammar delegation to step aside and confer for a few minutes," announced Hi. He led his own schoolmates some two hundred feet away.
"Say, the whole scheme's gone to pieces," grumbled Tom Reade disgustedly.
"Wait, and we'll see," answered Prescott hopefully.
The North Grammar boys talked matters over among themselves for two or three minutes.
"There, see!" grumbled Greg. "Hi Martin is leading his crowd away. They're all quitters!"
"That always seems to be the way with Grammar School fellows," sighed Dick. "High School fellows do big things, but you can't ever get Grammar School boys to stick together long enough to do anything!"
So Grammar School football died an almost painless death. _