Of those who did win a word of praise from Johnny Cade this afternoon one was Bert Hollins. There were quite a few things in the line of football essentials that Bert was good at, and tackling, whether of the dummy or a hard-running enemy, was one of them. Bert’s relation to the team was somewhat peculiar. Last season, after trying very hard to make the Second until well into October, he had succeeded only in getting hurt in his third scrimmage. He had attended practice with a crutch under his left arm for a week and watched it from the bench for nearly a week more. Then, almost before he had limbered that injured knee up again, there had come a demand from the First for a light, fast backfield man and Mr. McFadden, coach of the Scrubs, had sent Bert across on approval. That had been a big moment in the boy’s life, that sudden elevation to the First Team, and he had tried desperately hard to make good. In a manner he had succeeded, for he had shown about everything except weight and experience. One without the other might have served, but together they kept him in the background. He played in two of the late-season contests and won good words, and, as a reward, was sent in by the coach near the end of the big game to earn his letter. There had been no opportunity for a signal display of brilliancy. He had not seized the ball and dashed sixty or seventy or eighty yards down the field for a touchdown and consequent victory. None of the thrilling, dramatic feats which story tellers love to relate, and which sometimes really are performed, fell to his portion. As a matter of unromantic fact, he had the ball but once and lost better than two yards in an ill-advised attempt to knife through inside tackle. Better men than he had repeatedly failed at that play already. He emerged from that fray with no more glory than he had entered, but he had at least emerged a full-fledged member of the Alton Academy Football Team, with the right to wear a big golden-yellow A on his gray sweater, a tiny yellow football on his cap and a gray-gold-gray ribbon on his straw hat in summer. There were other privileges and benefits, too, although of secondary importance. For instance, he could reserve four seats in the center of the stand for the Kenly games, he could cast a vote in the election of captain--a prerogative he had subsequently exercised--and his countenance, together with some thirty other countenances, would grace the wall of the gymnasium for posterity to gaze upon with awe--or boredom.