Football -- Juvenile fiction; Phillips Exeter Academy -- Juvenile fiction; Schools -- Juvenile fiction
“That’s mine, Dave,” called Wolcott, calmly reaching over the heads of
the row of fellows who in jolly bustle and with unconcealed desire to
rattle the amateur baggageman were insisting each on immediate
attention.
The big fellow looked up and squared his broad face, dripping with
perspiration, toward the familiar voice. Over his features spread a
smile fairly glowing with the spirit of welcome.
“Hello, Wolcott!” he cried, grasping the outstretched hand by the
knuckles and shaking it vigorously. “Awfully glad to see you.”
“Then take this check,” said Wolcott. “I’m at the old place.”
But Laughlin only nodded shrewdly and retorted: “No, sir! You take your
turn at this shop.”
With this uncompromising reply on his lips, the deliverer of trunks
turned to one of the half dozen who were shouting: “Here!” “Here!” “I’m
next!” and gave himself up to business. Wolcott, thus forced to wait his
proper time, waited still longer and watched the scene.
The two assistants stumbled with a heavy trunk. The boss pushed them
aside, grasped the unwieldy thing and tossed it into the wagon.
“What a hand you’d be in a baggage car, Dave!” cried Wolcott.
“I’ve done it before,” answered Laughlin. “It’s not so hard if you know
the trick.—Here, you fellows, get into the wagon and push ’em up while I
throw ’em in.—I’ve got a lot of things to say to you, but I can’t say
’em now. I’ll be over this evening sometime.”
It was nearly ten o’clock when Laughlin at last came slowly up the
stairs and with a sigh of satisfaction stretched out on Wolcott’s sofa.
“About as hard a day’s work as I ever did,” said the truckman. “One
hundred and eight trunks since six o’clock this morning! I could have
done a lot more if I had had another outfit.”
“I hope you made a good pile out of it,” said Wolcott, “and that all the
fellows will pony up.”
“They paid cash,” replied Laughlin, shrewdly, pulling out a fistful of
halves and quarters. “If they ever have ready money, it’s when they come
in the fall. One hundred and eight trunks at twenty-five cents each is
twenty-seven dollars. Taking out two dollars for each of the fellows who
helped me, and six dollars for the wagons, I have seventeen left. How’s
that for a day’s work?”
“Great! I haven’t earned as much money in all my life. You won’t do it
soon again either, unless you get paid for playing college football,” he
added with a teasing smile.
“Then I never shall,” returned Laughlin, quietly. “Those fellows down at
X have been after me again.”
“Same offers?” asked Wolcott.
“Better ones. I can have the earth. They promise to find me a place to
work where all I have to do is to draw my pay, and they’ll see to it
that my expenses don’t worry me. It amounts to an offer to get me into
college, keep me there, and find me a job when I get out. All I have to
do is to play football.”
“Going?” asked Wolcott, laughing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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