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MOOSEHES1RT A1S1GJ1ZINE
Fit For Luck--־A Foot Ball Romance
“Do they?” said Dick. “I never believed-.much in luck. As I told the Colonel here, it’s ali well enough to believe in luck if you keep on hustling. If I see more than others it is because I believe in keeping my eyes open.”
“And are you going to manage this restaurant?” queried Daisy.
“If it doesn’t interfere with my studies, yes.” “And I shan’t let it interfere with his football,” laughed the Colonel. “I want my partner to win all the laurels that are unbestowed. From dog’s nurse to restaurant manager in a month isn’t bad, is it? Good bye, Dick, and drop in oftener now that you’re in the family—I would say firm,” he amended with a hearty laugh.
At the street door Dick, summoning all his courage, turned to the blushing Daisy, and wringing her hand babbled furiously:
“I don’t mind your father, Miss Daisy, and I know how it is with you and Jim. The old boy deserves his good fortune, but if you didn’t—if you weren’t—if I had—Good-bye!”
Daisy Wayne watched him swing off down -the street from behind the drawing room curtains, slumping along the sidewalk in blind and aimless fashion, and there was a smile on her face and a secret rapture in her heart as she murmured fondly:	“Silly boy! And he says he keeps his
eyes open!”
At the first corner Dick, in making a wide, clumsy turn, almost collided with Jim Drexler.. On his exuberant way to Daisy, of course! No wonder he was smiling like a benevolent shark.
“Hello, Dick!” greeted Jim warmly. “Did you get the Colonel for a partner?”
Dick, still mentally befogged, gripped the coach’s hand, and with demeanor as calm as a man overboard, delivered himself of the following:
“Congratulations, old scout! She’s waiting for you!”
“What’s that?” Jim caught him׳ by the 'arm and held him as he struggled to continue on his way. “What are you talking about, man?” Are you dippy?”
“Dippy? I must have.been when I entertained thoughts of winning her!”
“Listen* Dick. I don’t understand all this.”
“Oh, yep, you do.” Dick’s voice took on suddenly a harsh metallic tone. “I know you love Daisy, and Daisy loves you.”
“Daisy loves me?” The ecstasy in Jim Drexler’s voice made it shrill. “Daisy loves me? What are you saying, Dick?”
“Oh, Warner told me all about it, Jim.” Dick’s tone was so harsh it resembled a snarl. “He told me of your engagement, and of Daisy’s love for you. I’ll tell you straight, though, Jim, I’m out of the running now. If she hadn’t been engaged to you I might have—but I’ve just settled my own hash with her. I congratulated her and—•”
“And Daisy,” gasped Jim, scarcely able to believe his ears. “What did Daisy say?”
“What could she say, you boob ? So long—and good luck!”
Jim Drexler stood staring after the retreating-form of his star quarterback with a queer smile.
“Blind as a noontide owl,” he muttered to himself. “Why didn’t I tell him the truth? He’s the winner—shall I steal the prize from him? God help me play the man!”
The next day was Bloody Thursday, so called by the Franklin players because it marked the longest scrimmage of the week and they always went at it like the bitterest rivals. Coach Drexler made a little speech to the men before they took the field.
“Boys,” he said, “this will be the last hard grind we’ll have before tackling Taylor University on Saturday. As you know this is our biggest game, and if we can beat Taylor we can lay legitimate claim to the football championship. A victory will furnish glory enough for us all, but I’m not going to disguise the fact that it will practically make me as a coach. I have learned that some of you have broken training. This is one thing I will not tolerate. The man who breaks training will hear from me, and in no uncertain manner. That will be all for the present.”
Then the coach called Frank Warner aside. “Warner,” he said, “Gordon will play with your team today and I want you to give him the ball on every play. I mean every word of what I’m saying. Nobody'but Gordon carries the ball until the scrimmage is over.”
Then he told his varsity ends, Grimshaw and Wood, that Gordon would be the man to watch, as he was slated to do all of the ground gaining. They grinned and nodded, as Warner had done, with a vague comprehension of the plot afoot.
Dick Gordon started out like a house afire. He tore through the line, skirted the ends and punted, but Grimshaw and Wood hurled him to the ground CONTINUED NEXT MONTH
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9
don’t want to see old Franklin win. I am here to tell you anything I can, and Jim Drexler himself will say that in me you have a new and hitherto unmined source of information. I’ve made my peace with Jim, and I’ll play on the scrub till he thinks I’m varsity material again. Relations that were always friendly have been placed beyond the reach of misunderstanding. I’m out of the race for Daisy Wayne. He loves her, and from what I have recently learned, she loves him.”
Dick took breath like a swimmer in distress. “Did she tell you that or did—” He stopped short as though he had been thrown and choked by a lasso. Astonishment and bewilderment were written in every line of his face. His heart gave a twist as though someone were pinching it, but he imagined he had repressed all emotion. Not for a castle in paradise would he have given way to his feelings.
“I’ve lost,” came in low tones from Warner, “but I can play the game like a man. Will you shake hands?”
“Sure!” Dick squared his shoulders, like a soldier whose General pins a medal on his breast. “Jim’s an ace, and nothing’s too good for him!”
The next afternoon Dick Gordon, and ten other accessories after the fact sent the Bradwell College down to defeat by a score of 9 to 6. The field general and bright particular star of the Franklin eleven played one of the finest individual, all-round games ever seen on the chalk ribbed field. Lacking the brilliancy in spectacular open field running of an Eckersall or a Stevenson, Dick Gordon yet literally carried his team to victory on his husky back, which was twice ripped clean of the black jersey he wore.
He was under every play on defense; he carried the ball for many a Franklin gain; he cut off the Bradwell tacklers at the knee in the open field, and punted beautifully. His low deadly passing made possible the only Franklin touchdown, and his intercepting of Bradwell’s forward passing saved the game for the home team times without number.
The Franklin Press had this to say of the game and the new star:
“Frankiin, despite the excellence of several men, boasts a one-man team; but one man is enough to win many a game when he plays with the comprehensive skill of a Gordon. The worth of Franklin’s star quarter lies not only in his own prowess, but in his ability to keep his team on its toes, to run it with fine generalship, and to inspire it to deeds beyond its ordinary range.”
Daisy Wayne received Jim Drexler in the parlor of her home immediately after the game.
“It was great, Jim!” she chortled. “I wouldn’t have missed it for a mint. He carried everything before him, and when it wouldn’t go before him, why he just put it on his back and lugged it along.” “That’s what he did, Daisy!” affirmed Drexler warmly. “That boy is certainly a wonder. I was attracted to him the very first day he came here, for he is the only freshman I have ever seen who didn’t ask for a headgear in scrimmage. He just waded in and played the game as if he loved it.” “And you!” said Daisy.
“No, you!” said Jim before he thought, and fell back without voice or gesture, like one hopelessly beaten, for Daisy covered her blushing face with her hands and fled from the room.
It was not until a morning about a week after this that Daisy Wayne saw the hero of the Bradwell game, and then she encountered him in earnest conversation with her father in the latter’s study.
“Hello, Mr. Quarterback!” she called gayly. “Did you remember that the Wayne family still encumbered the earth?”
“Why, no—er—yes, indeed,” stammered Dick, looking slightly uncomfortable. “I had some business matters to discuss with your father.”
Colonel Wayne saw the look of hurt annoyance that passed over Daisy’s face and seemed enormously amused.
“Dick has put me on to a mighty good thing, Daisy,” he volunteered. “One of th,e college restaurants is for sale, and we are going to buy it. Let me tell you why. Every other place in town has boosted the price of coffee to 10 cents a cup, and they are getting it. Well—but I ’ll let Dick give you the figures he gave me. Go ahead, Dick.” “Well, it’s this way,” said Dick. “I can buy good coffee for 21 cents a pound. One pound will make seventy-eight cups. Ten cents a cup brings $7.80. That’s what I call profit.”
“And they call you a fool for luck!” exclaimed Daisy admiringly.
touted as an All-American quarter last year, and you were a varsity man from the first thud of a football last season: The fact that you are a member of the second eleven now can be attributed to your own poor playing and your personal habits. You have been listless, careless and indifferent always. I do not base my verdict on what a player has done; it’s what he is doing. I am like the much-abused fellow from Missouri:	I have to be
shown. And Frank Warner hasn’t shown anything that warrants a position on the varsity eleven, poor as the material is at Franklin in these days.” “Then I’ll not play quarter against Bradwell next Saturday?”
“I have better men for the position. You have been dissipating, and you havn’t shown me anything to make me, believe you are a varsity man.
I like a man who is willing to learn and puts his whole-hearted efforts in the practice. This boy Gordon looks like a football player to me. He does not know much about college football, but he listens when I tell him anything, and, what is better, he remembers it. You have been smoking and drinking, and your poor playing has been the talk of the campus.”:	-
”But I’m the regular quarterback, Drexler. Gordon is too big!: to be fast, and he don’t know enough anyhow.” -	■
“Dick’s movements on the gridiron recall Kipling’s description ojf an elephant. Kipling said if an elephant wanted to catch a train he wouldn’t run—but he would catch the train.”
Warner snapped his fingers in Drexler’s face.
“I won’t play on the scrub—you can have my uniform!” he snarled. “You have you favorites and you’ll play them to defeat. You can’t always win on flukes!”	.
When Jim Drexler reached the Wayne home he found Dick Gordon evoking unconcealed admiration from the Waynes, smiling father and wide-eyed daughter, with the story of how he whs helping to earn his way through college by one of the oddest jobs on record.
“When I first got out of the army,” he was saying, “I was walking down one of your fashionable streets here when a woman stopped me, evidently guessing that I was ready and eager for work. She asked me if I knew where she could find a young man who wanted a job. ‘Right here!’ I answered, and then she gave me my instructions. Every afternoon now Ucajl at this woman’s home. A servant meets me at the door and hands me a chain. Attached to one end of the chain is the woman’s dog. I lead that dog around the streets for his daily airing. Of course, in doing this, and serving a morning paper route, I am exposed to the scorn of the world, but now that you have my story you should be able to judge with fair accuracy whether I’m fit to. sit at the table with you.” “Bully for you!” said bluff old Colonel Wayne. “I was a street car conductor myself when I was working for an education. When you have graduated you will experience the exhilaration, as I did. that comes with the achievement of a hard-won goal.”
“Some days,” laughed Daisy, “I’ll come for a stroll with you and your dog.”
“Which reminds me,” said Gordon ruefully, “that I must be off to take over my four-footed charge. For the first time since I took the contract I feel an inclination to chuck the job!”
“If it will make it any easier for you,” said Daisy Wayne, reddening, “I’ll go with you. I like dogs!”
“Some dogs are lucky!” chuckled Colonel Wayne, when Dick and Daisy had left him alone with Jim Drexler. “And Daisy was telling me that Frank Warner called this Gordon fellow a fool for luck!” “He’s made a big hit with Daisy, Colonel, as any blind man can see.” The coach almost groaned the words. “Just when I seemed to have the field to myself, too, for she told me Frank Warner’s habits disgusted her. Still, they used to get along rather well until he got to drinking heavily. Does she ever say anything to you, Colonel, about the man she would like for her—her future partner in life?”
“She says a lot of things to me, my boy, but I pay little attention to her chatter. There are two things in this life I never did understand. One of them is football and the other is woman.”
The day before the game with Bradwell Dick Gordon received׳ a visit from Frank Warner. Dick had treated him with slender courtesy, feeling that any other attitude would be disloyal to Jim Drexler, and the latter had tried without avail to alter his determination.
“Not particularly pleased to see me, are you, Gordon?” said Warner when Dick received him in silence and with a grimness of bearing that was louder than any shouted threats. “Well, I only wish to say that I’m not so disgruntled that I