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Quarter-Back Bates

Quarter-Back Bates

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Chapter 1 THE DEPARTURE OF A HERO

Word Count: 2102    |    Released on: 06/12/2017

Wally Nourse had let the cat out of the bag the day before. Wally was one of those well-meaning but too talkative youths such as we have all met. But Dick played the game perfectly this mornin

e assemblage was there to do him honour; and if, as some said, D

tle sex was well represented, too-and his father heard him telling them in that pleasant, rather deep voice of his how unsuspected and undeserved it all was. Mr. Bates wasn't deceived, however. Dick had confided to him on the way from the house that there might be a few of the fellows there to see him off. Instead, he chuckled to himself. "You can't beat him at the diplomatic stuff," he thought proudly. Then his smile faded. "Wonder if he isn't

still got me. Course, I can't play one of those half-portion b

ear not to be, felt that words of weight and wisdom were being exchanged over there by the baggage-room door, and wouldn't

ay pretty near college football at Parkinson, and you know how it is here. If Murphy ever had a new i

get near the team, you know. I guess they have a

u anything you'll be playing on the Parkinson team before you've been there a week! Gee, I sort of wish you w

l he needs is a whole lot of work. Of course you can tr

the best of luck and everything. You're going to make us all mighty proud of you, or I miss my guess! We'll all be rooting for you, you know that. Well, guess the others'll want to say good-bye. Wish

. I wish I could be here when you play Norristo

e last moment to say good-bye to Hogan, and then listening to his father's final instructions as to tickets and changing at Philadelphia. A grinning porter took charge of his luggage and Dick followed him up the car steps and from the platform smilingly surveyed the laughing crowd below. Afterwards it came to him that Wally Nourse had been the only one who had looked really sorry, that the oth

ht-weight cap and opened a magazine he had tossed into his bag at the last moment. Then, however, his eyes fell on the ribboned package and he picked it up eagerly. The next moment he remembered his neighbours up and down the aisle and so he pretended to suppress a yawn as he struggled with the entwined ribbons. When the covering was off he found a pair of silver-backed military brushes hidden amidst much rustling white tissue and a folded sheet of paper

ft of some sort. He was the sort who got gifts, not through any effort of his, but because folks liked him and seemed to want to do things for him. He never went out of his way to gain popularity. He didn't have to. But he enjoyed it thoro

b. But it was perhaps in the less polite pursuits that he excelled. He had a record of ten and two-fifths for the hundred yards and had done the two-twenty under twenty-four. He was a fair high-jumper, usually certain of third place in the Dual Meet. In the water he was brother to a fish. He had played baseball one season not at all badly and could fill in at basket ball if needed. But, when all is said, Dick's line was football. He had played two years on the High School Team at quarter-back. Last year he had been offered the captaincy without a dissenting voice and had refused it, announcing, what he had kept a secret until then, that he was leaving at the end of the school year, and nominating Sumner White. That Sumner was promptly elected was a further proof of Dick's popularity, for ordinarily Sumner would scarcely have been thought of. As a football player Dick was really brilliant. He had a collection of fourteen epistles, which he was

dormitory buildings, and Dick had made application the year before. To his regret, he had not been able to get a room to himself, but the fact

urnal, soon turning to the football and athletic news. A hair-breadth connection in New York put him on the last lap of his journey, and, after a deliberative meal in the diner and the perusal

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