a pill. A fellow who is too
lazy to play football or baseball or tennis or anything else and
pretends the doctor won't let him is a pill. A fellow who has been to
one school and got fired and then goes to another and is always
shooting off his mouth about how much better the first school is is the
worst kind of pill. And that's the kind Harmon Dreer is. He went to
Claflin for a year and a half and then got into some sort of mess and
was expelled. Then the next Fall he came here. This is his second year
here and he's still gabbing about how much higher class Claflin is and
how much better they do everything there and--oh, all that sort of rot.
I told him once that if the fellows at Claflin were so much classier
than we are I could understand why they didn't let him stay there. He
didn't like it. He doesn't narrate his sweet, sad story to me any more.
If he ever does I'm likely to forget that I'm a perfect gentleman."

But Clint's neighbours were not of overpowering interest to him those
days. There were more absorbing matters, pleasant and unpleasant, to
fill his mind. For one thing, he was trying very hard to make a place on
one of the football teams. He hadn't any hope of working into the first
team. Perhaps when he started he may, in spite of his expressed doubts,
have secretly entertained some such hope, but by the end of the second
day of practice he had abandoned it. The brand of football taught by
Coach Robey and played by the 'varsity team was ahead of any Clint had
seen outside a college gridiron and was a revelation to him. Even by the
end of the first week the first team was in what seemed to Clint
end-of-season form, although in that Clint was vastly mistaken, and his
own efforts appeared to him pretty weak and amateurish. But he held on
hard, did his best and hoped to at least retain a place on the third
squad until the final cut came. And it might just be, he told himself in
optimistic moments, that he'd make the second! Meanwhile he was enjoying
it. It's remarkable what a lot of extremely hard work a boy will go
through if he likes football, and what a deal of pleasure he will get
out of it! Amy pretended to be totally unable to get that point of view.
One afternoon when Clint returned to prepare for supper with a lower lip
twice the normal size of that feature Amy indulged in sarcasm.

"Oh, the proud day!" he declaimed, striking an attitude. "Wounded on the
field of battle! Glory! Triumph! Paeans! My wor