There was a studied effort on the part of the players to keep away from the subject of football that morning.  Many of the fellows looked nervous and drawn, and said little.  Others were, or appeared to be, in high spirits, and laughed a good deal and rather stridently, and talked loudly of all kinds of things—­except football.  Jack Innes was even more quiet than usual and almost jumped out of his chair when a boy at the next table dropped a knife on the floor.

There were no recitations after eleven that day.  There might just as well have been none before that, for it’s quite useless to expect a boy to put his mind on his studies only a few hours before the Big Game!  At eleven the ’varsity players and substitutes assembled at the gymnasium and, escorted by Mr. Detweiler and Mr. Boutelle, took a walk across the fields and hills at an even though moderate pace.  They were back a little before twelve.  Dinner was at noon, and by a quarter to one they were climbing into coaches in front of Main Hall and at one-eight they, together with most of the school, were pulling out of the Brimfield station on their journey to Westplains, twelve miles distant.

Claflin was an older school than Brimfield and had a much larger enrolment.  Until last year the Blue had won three football games from the Maroon-and-Grey, all, in fact, that the two schools had played together.  Last year the tide had turned and Brimfield had nosed out her rival by one touchdown.  This year—­well, what was to happen this year was still on the lap of the gods, but Brimfield set out confident of victory.

Coaches met the players at the Westplains station and rolled them away along the tree-lined, winding road to the school, while the rest of the Brimfield invaders followed on foot or, if their pockets afforded it and they hankered for luxury; in the little station-wagons which, patriotically decorated with blue bunting and flags, sought patronage.

Claflin School was set down in the very middle of the town, a quiet, rambling, overgrown village too near New York to ever become more than a residence place.  The school was spread over many acres and its buildings, most of which had been there many years, had a look of mellow antiquity which the newer Brimfield halls had not had time to acquire.  Wide-spreading elms shaded the walks in Summer and even today their graceful branches added beauty to the campus.  Brimfield, nearly a hundred and fifty strong, took possession of the school grounds and went sight-seeing before they poured out on the further side and made their way to the athletic field.

Amy and Bob Chase, pausing to translate a Latin inscription over the entrance to one of the buildings, became detached from the others and were discovered by Mr. Detweiler, who, having made an unsuccessful attempt to find a college friend who was instructing at Claflin, was on his way to the gymnasium.  He listened, unseen, for a moment to Amy’s extremely literal and picturesque translation, and then a laugh revealed his presence and Amy looked around a bit sheepishly.