CHAPTER XIII
FORMING THE HOCKEY TEAM
"Candidates wanted for the Hockey team. All those who have played or would like to play please attend a meeting in the Gym at 4 P.M. on Friday.
"J. S. ROGERS, "T. H. EATON, "ROY PORTER."
This notice appeared on the board in School Hall the last day ofNovember, and when, four days later, the meeting was called to order byJack Rogers, there were some twenty-five fellows adorning the woodenbenches in the locker room. A handful of the number had come for want ofanything better to do, for it was a dismal, wet afternoon offeringlittle encouragement to those whose tastes turned toward out-of-doorpursuits. For once the line separating the "Burlenites" and the"Porterites" was not closely drawn, for there were not a few of theformer present, their desire for a chance to play hockey overcomingtheir allegiance to Horace. Needless to say, however, neither Horace norOtto was on hand.
"Somebody turn that switch," began Jack, "and give us some light. That'sbetter. This meeting has been called by a few of us who want to get upa hockey team. I don't know much about hockey myself and so I'll letPorter do the talking. He started the thing, anyhow, and he ought tohave the fun of speechifying to you. But I'd like to say that, as youall know, Hammond has been playing hockey for five or six years and haschallenged us almost every year to play her. If Hammond has a team weought to have one too. And if we have one maybe we can lick her athockey just as we have at football." (Deafening applause.) "There's noreason why we shouldn't. Here, Roy, you tell them the rest."
Roy got up rather embarrassedly and faced the meeting.
"Well, all I've got to say is that hockey is a dandy game and we oughtto have a team--if only to lick Hammond. (Renewed applause.) It isn't adifficult game to learn if a fellow can skate half decently and itdoesn't require much of an outlay. We've talked to Mr. Cobb and he hassecured permission for the formation of a team. And he knows somethingabout the game himself and will help us all he can. Our idea was tobuild a rink along the river about where the old ferry landing is.Doctor Emery says we can use what lumber there is in the landing andshed to build the rink with. And I think there'll be more than we need.Then we'd get a pump and pump water in from the river."
"Why not play on the river?" asked a boy.
"Well, that was the idea in the first place," answered Roy, "but Mr.Cobb thought we'd better have a regular rink. It's hard to play withoutboundaries because your puck gets away from you and you have to chase itall around the shop. Then, too, Mr. Cobb says that half the time the icewould be too rough or too much broken up to allow of playing on it.We've figured it up and think the outside cost of the whole thing, rink,pump, goals and sticks won't be much over eighty dollars."
"How you going to raise it?" asked one of the audience.
"That's what we've got to decide on," said Roy. "I suppose we couldn'tget nearly that much by subscription?"
Several shook their heads, and,
"I don't believe we could," said Chub. "But we might get half of it. Ifevery fellow gave a dollar--"
"Seems to me," said the boy who had raised the question, "that thefellows who make the team ought to do the subscribing."
"I don't think so," said Jack. "If we made the football and baseballteams pay all their expenses I guess we wouldn't have them very long. Itought to be worth a dollar to every fellow here to have a good hockeyteam."
"That's so," assented Chub.
"Well," went on Roy, "I wanted to hear what you'd say about it, but Ididn't think we could get the money that way, not all of it, I mean. SoI thought of another scheme. Why couldn't we get up an entertainment ofsome kind and charge admission. How would that do?"
"Great!"
"Swell!"
"Fine and dandy!"
"Chub can sing 'The Old Ark's A-movin'!"
"Cole can do his card stunts!"
"Cut it out, fellows," said Jack. "Let's get the matter settled; it'sgetting late."
So they got down to business again and Jack, Chub and Roy were formedinto an Entertainment Committee. After that Roy took the floor again.
"How many of you fellows will come out for practice?" he asked.Practically every hand went up. "How many have played hockey?" Twelvehands. "All right. We'll divide into two teams, first and second, and asfast as the fellows on the second show that they can play well they'llget onto the first. We probably won't be able to begin work on the iceuntil after Christmas Recess. But as soon as we can get some money we'llsend for goals and sticks and pucks. Then we'll put one of the goals uphere on the floor and practice shooting. Later we'll have anothermeeting, after practice has begun, and elect a captain and a manager.And as soon as we get the manager we'll send a challenge to Hammond. Nowyou fellows give your names to Chub Eaton before you go out, and watchfor notices on the board in School Hall."
That was the beginning of the Ferry Hill School Hockey Association,which still flourishes and has to its credit several notable victories.It was Roy's idea from the first. He had played hockey a good deal andhad seen many of the college and school games, and he had been surprisedto learn that Ferry Hill had never had a team. It was easy to enlistChub in the project of forming a club, and not very difficult tointerest Jack. Mr. Cobb had been quite enthusiastic but doubtful ofsuccess.
"They've tried to form a hockey team two or three times," he said, "andnever did it. But I don't want to discourage you chaps. I'll getpermission from the Doctor, so you go right ahead. Try to get the wholeschool interested in it; that's the only way to do."
By the middle of December the old ferry house and landing had beendemolished and the planks had been built into a three-foot barrier orfence enclosing a space sixty feet wide by one hundred and twenty feetlong. All that remained was to flood the enclosed ground with water tothe depth of four or five inches and allow it to freeze. A hand suctionpump had been ordered from a dealer at Silver Cove, but there was delayand in the end it did not reach the school until two days beforevacation. However, as December proved unusually mild, there was no harmdone. Meanwhile the goals, pucks and sticks had arrived and practice atshooting and stick-handling was held five afternoons a week in thegymnasium. At the second meeting of the candidates the EntertainmentCommittee was able to report a plan for the entertainment. There was tobe a minstrel show followed by a series of tableaux in the gymnasium thenight before the beginning of Christmas Recess.
"Now," said Jack, who was explaining, "you chaps will have to get busyand interest every fellow you know in the affair. We want a good bigcrowd for the minstrels; we ought to have at least two dozen fellows.There will be another meeting here to-morrow night and I want each ofyou to bring me the names of fellows who are willing to take part. Andyou must let me know what they can do, whether they can sing or reciteor do sleight-of-hand tricks, you know. And now I want to propose thatwe make Harry Emery an associate member of the Club. You see, werealized that we wouldn't be able to do much in the way of costumingwithout her help, so we laid the matter before her. And she went rightinto it; suggested the tableaux feature and offered to take partherself. (Laughter from the audience.) So I think she ought to be takenin."
"We ought to make Mr. Cobb and Mr. Buckman associate members, too,"suggested Chub.
So Harry and the two instructors were duly admitted, and the meetingwent into the plans for the entertainment. Sid, one of the mostenthusiastic members present, reminded everyone that he could play thebanjo, and Jack promised to let him do his worst. Roy was electedtemporary captain and manager and Jack temporary treasurer. Then anassessment of fifty cents each was levied and Jack spent the best partof three days collecting the sums. He, Roy, Chub and two others had gonedown into their pockets and advanced the money for the goals, sticks andpucks, and with Christmas Recess drawing near they were anxious to getsome of it back. The rink was to be paid for in January and the pump onits arrival. It was going to be necessary to collect something oversixty dollars from the entertainment, and the committee was gettinganxious. There
was little time for rehearsal, and, with Horace and Ottodoing all in their power to throw cold water on the scheme, Roy and hisfriends had plenty to worry them.
But Harry proved a brick. She went into it to the present exclusion ofall else and made things hum. She talked it up everywhere she went withthe result that the affair was extensively advertised before it was wellon foot. Harry attended a girls' academy at Silver Cove, and she wasn'tsatisfied until every pupil there had faithfully promised to attend theentertainment. She also persuaded Mr. Buckman to take part, somethingthat Jack and the others had failed at. Mr. Cobb had already consentedto sing and do a monologue. Then Harry devised costumes and found them,levying on the wardrobes of most of her friends and acquaintances. Andin spite of the fact that she and Chub and Jack and Roy met at leasttwice a day she still maintained her air of polite indifference towardthe latter.
When the morning of the day of the entertainment arrived affairs seemedin the wildest chaos and even Harry lost her head for awhile. Some ofthe promised participators had backed down at the last moment, theprincipal soloist had a bad cold, the stage was still unbuilt, severalof the costumes were yet wanting and Harris and Kirby, down for a duetand dance, weren't on speaking terms! And just as though all that wasn'tenough to drive the committee distracted, Chub had appeared at breakfastwith a long face and announced that he had forgotten to mail the posterto Hammond Academy. In support of the assertion he produced it, stampedand addressed. It had been lying in his pocket for three days. AsHammond with its seventy-odd students had been counted on to send quitea delegation, this was a hard blow. But Jack, with the cheerfulness ofdesperation, obtained permission to deliver the poster by messenger andsent Sid Welch across the river with it at nine o'clock.
That was certainly a day of troubles. Luckily there were few recitationsfor anyone. Jack and Chub spent most of the morning directing and aidingin the erection of the stage at the end of the gymnasium. The stage wasa sectional affair which, when not in use, was stored in the furnaceroom. Unfortunately one section seemed to be missing, and putting thething together was, as Chub said, like joining one of those geographicalpuzzles.
"You know the things, Jack; they're cut up with a scroll-saw into allsorts of wiggly pieces, and Florida insists on getting next to NewHampshire and Illinois won't fit anywhere except between South Carolinaand Georgia."
"There must be a piece of this missing," answered Jack. "I'm going tohave another look."
And presently he came back staggering under what looked like a length ofboard walk.
"Funny you fellows couldn't find this," he said disgustedly as he swungone end around against the wall and brought down six pairs ofdumb-bells. "It was right in plain sight; they were using it for acarpenter's bench."
"It _is_ funny," growled Warren. "Wonder they didn't make an ice-chestor a sewing-machine out of it!"
After that it was plain sailing until they came to the curtain. It was abeautiful thing, that curtain, fourteen feet wide and twelve feet longand bearing a picture of Niagara Falls in blue, green, purple and pinksurrounded by a wreath of crimson cabbages--only they were supposed tobe roses. Despite its beauty, work up and down it would not. Half way upit began to range itself in artistic folds, apparently forgetting allabout the wooden roller at the bottom. Once it came down unexpectedly onChub's head, and Chub danced around and shook his fist at it anddeclared that he'd cut holes in it for two cents. No one offered to putup the two cents and so the curtain was saved. In the end Jackmanufactured a new pulley-block and after that the foolish thing workedcharmingly every other time.
"All we'll have to do," said Warren disgustedly, "will be to makebelieve pull it up before we really mean to."
"Kind of disconcerting to the fellows on the stage," commented Jack,"but I guess that's what we'll have to do."
The drop curtain, showing a lovely sylvan glade in unwholesome shades ofgreen, went up without trouble at the back of the stage, but the piecesat the sides, very frayed trees with impossible foliage, refused tostand up.
"We'll have to make props," said Chub. "I don't blame the old things forwanting to lie down; it makes me tired just to look at them."
But when, finally, the stage was set and the boys stood off at arespectful distance and examined it it really looked very well. Chubadmired the effect of distance and wondered where the path led to.Warren said he'd like to meet the man who had chiseled out the statueunder the trees and another fellow wanted to go bird-egging. Then theyarranged the chairs and benches in rows. They had gathered chairs of alldescriptions from all over the school and the effect was finelydemocratic. Doctor Emery's leather arm chair hobnobbed socially with aplain pine chair from the dining hall and Mr. Buckman's favoritehour-glass chair appeared to be trying to make an impression on Harry'srattan rocker, the latter looking very dressy with its pink silkhead-rest.
"They had gathered chairs of all descriptions from allover the school...."]
They went to dinner feeling rather more encouraged and found that Sidhad returned with good tidings. Hammond had learned of the entertainmentseveral days before and had been waiting eagerly for an invitation toattend. And every fellow was coming, declared Sid. Roy, who had taken aflying trip to the town for red and blue cheesecloth, reported excellentprogress on the last of the costumes. And Post, who couldn't eat anydinner because he had been filling himself up all day with cough syrupand licorice lozenges, thought he might be able to sing, after all. Thelast rehearsal was at three o'clock, and after it was over Jack shookhis head dismally.
"I never saw such a bum show in my life," he declared gloomily. "Andtalk about singing! Say, I wonder if we can bribe Post to stay awayto-night?"
"Why, I thought everything went beautifully!" declared Harry. "You waituntil to-night; they'll do a lot better."
"The chorus work was all right," said Chub. "And the tableaux weresimply swell. I do wish, though, that Bacon wouldn't look as though hewas going to die every minute!"
"But those jokes!" groaned Jack.
"Oh, never mind; I've heard lots worse ones," answered Roy cheerfully.
"Not outside of a Sunday newspaper supplement, I'll bet," said Jack."That one about Mr. Cobb and Miss Webb, and falling in love with her thefirst time he 'spider' is the limit. I heard that when I was threeyears old!"
"That's all right; folks like 'em old at a minstrel show," answeredChub. "Old wine to drink, old books to read, old jokes to--"
"To cry over," prompted Jack. "All right. No use in cutting up roughnow. We'll have to make the best of a bad show. Just so long as Harrisand Kirby don't start to using their fists on each other during theirturn I suppose I can't kick."
"Well, let's go to supper," said Roy.