THE MAGIC FOOTBALL A FAIRY TALE OF TO-DAY

I

“I wish,” murmured Tommy Piper, “they’d let me play!”

It was a chill, cloudy November afternoon, and Tommy, sprawled in the big armchair in front of the library fire, was very unhappy. Things hadn’t gone well to-day at school, where the teachers had been horribly unjust to him, nor at home, where he had been scolded for arriving late for dinner; Billy Blue, his most particular chum, was confined to the house with double mumps, and, to add to the burden of his woes, or to remind him of the principal one, half a dozen fellows, togged and sweatered, carrying a battle-scarred football and dangling their head guards, had just passed the window on their way to the field to practice for the final and all-important game of the year, that with Meadowville.

Usually Tommy went along, envious but interested, to watch the luckier boys at work, but to-day he was at outs with the world. What was most awfully wrong was that George Marquis, captain of the Hillside eleven, refused to perceive in Tommy the qualities desired in a member of that gallant band of gridiron warriors. George said that Tommy was much too light for either line or backfield, while grudgingly acknowledging that he could kick and was fast on his toes. Consequently, Tommy, who all summer long had looked forward almost breathlessly to securing a position at the end of the line or as a back, had been—and still was—horribly disappointed. Of course he realized that he was pretty light—he was only thirteen, you see, and by no means large for his age—but he was quite convinced that he was clever enough at punting and drop-kicking and carrying the ball to atone for his lack of weight. But Captain Marquis didn’t think so, and Tommy was out of it for another year at least.

He had been trying to read a story that was all about school life and football, but he didn’t want his fun at second-hand to-day. He wanted to make history himself! The book toppled unnoticed to the hearth rug and Tommy went off into a wonderful daydream, his round eyes fixed entrancedly on the glowing coals in the grate. He saw himself playing right halfback for Hillside in the Thanksgiving Day game with Meadowville, making sensational rushes, kicking marvelous goals from the field, cheered and applauded, a veritable football hero if ever there was one! When, after an hour of desperate battle, Hillside had conquered, and Tommy, on the shoulders of admiring comrades, was being carried from the field, he woke from his daydream with a sigh.

“I wish,” he said longingly, addressing no one in particular, since there was no one there, but gazing very intently at the gloomy corner of the room where lounge and bookcase met and formed a cavern of shadow, “I wish I could do all that! Gee, but I do wish I could!”

“Well,” said a small, gruff voice that made Tommy sit up suddenly very straight and surprised in his chair, “you were long enough about it!”

From the dark corner there emerged into the fire light the most astonishing person Tommy had ever seen or dreamed of. He was scarcely higher than the boy’s knee and he was lamentably thin; and his head was quite out of proportion to any other part of him. But the queerest thing of all was his face, which was just as round as—as, well, as a basket ball and very much the same color. From the middle of it protruded a long and very pointed nose. His eyes were small and sharp and bright and his mouth was thin and reached almost from one perfectly huge ear to the other. He was dressed in rusty black, with pointed shoes that were ridiculously like his nose, and a sugar-loaf cap, from which dangled dejectedly a long green feather. And under one pipestem of an arm, clutched with long brown fingers, was a football almost as large as he was!

Tommy stared and stared and thought he must be dreaming. But the strange visitor quickly put that notion out of his head.

“Well! Well!” he said crossly. “Can’t you speak?”

“Y-yes, sir,” stammered Tommy. “But—I—I don’t think I heard wh-what you said!”

“Yes, you did! You didn’t understand. Boys are all stupid. I said you were long enough about it.”

The visitor advanced to the hearth and took up his position on the rug, his back to the fire and his beady eyes blinking sharply at the boy.

“About—about what?” asked Tommy apologetically.

“About wishing, of course! Don’t you know fairies can’t grant a wish until it has been made three times? You wished once and then you kept me waiting. I don’t like to be kept waiting. I’m a very busy person. Nowadays, with everyone wishing for all sorts of silly things that they don’t need and oughtn’t to have, a fairy’s life isn’t worth living.”

“I’m very sorry,” murmured Tommy apologetically. “I—I didn’t know you were there.”

“‘Didn’t know! Didn’t know!’ That’s what every stupid person says. You should have known. If you didn’t expect me why did you wish three times?”

“Why, I—I don’t know,” said Tommy. “I was just—just wishing.”

“Oh, then maybe you don’t want your wish?” asked the other eagerly. “If that’s it, just say so. Don’t waste my time. I’ve an appointment in Meadowville in—in——” He took off his funny sugar-loaf hat, rested the end of the feather on the bridge of his long nose and spun the cap around. “One—two—three—four——” The cap stopped spinning and he replaced it on his head. “In four minutes,” he ended sternly.

“Th-that’s a funny way to tell time,” said Tommy.

“I never tell time,” replied the stranger shortly. “Time tells me. Now, then, what do you say?”

“Th-thank you,” said Tommy hurriedly, remembering his manners.

“No, no, no, no, no, no!” exclaimed the other exasperatedly. “What about your wish? Do you or isn’t it?”

“Why—why, if it isn’t too much trouble,” stammered Tommy, “I’d like to have it very, very much.”

“Of course it’s trouble,” said the fairy sharply. “Don’t be any stupider than you have to be. But everything’s trouble; my life is full of trouble; that’s what comes of being a D. A.”

“If you please,” asked Tommy politely, “what does D. A. mean?”

“Director of Athletics, of course. It couldn’t mean anything else, could it? Really, you do ask more silly questions! Now then, now then, look alive!”

“Yes, sir, but—but how?” asked Tommy anxiously.

“Repeat the incan., of course.”

“The—the incan——?”

“Tation! Don’t tell me you don’t know it!” The fairy was almost tearful and Tommy naturally felt awfully ashamed of his ignorance. But he had to acknowledge that he didn’t, and, casting his eyes toward the ceiling in protest, the fairy rattled off the following so rapidly that it was all Tommy could do to follow him:

“Repeat, if you please!” said the fairy. Tommy did so, stumblingly.

The fairy grunted. “Stupid!” he muttered. “Didn’t know the incan. What are we coming to? What are we coming to? In the old days boys didn’t have to be told such things. Modern education—puh!” And the fairy fairly glared at Tommy.

“I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Fairy,” he said.

“Hm, at least you have manners,” said the fairy, his ill temper vanishing. “Well, here it is.” He tapped the football he held with the claw-like fingers of his other hand.

“But—but I didn’t wish for a football,” faltered Tommy disappointedly.

“Of course you didn’t! Who said you did? You wished you might play in Thursday’s football game and be a hero and win the game for your team, didn’t you? Or, if you didn’t, how much? Or, other things being as stated, when?”

“Yes, sir, I did! And could I—could you really give me my wish?”

“Drat the boy! What am I here for? Wasting my time! Wasting my time! Fiddledunk!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said fiddledunk. I always say fiddledunk when angry. What do you say?”

“I say—I say——” Tommy had the grace to blush.

“I know!” exclaimed the fairy triumphantly. “You say jerriwhizzum! You shouldn’t! It’s almost swearing! You’re a very bad boy, and I don’t know that you ought to have your wish!”

“But I don’t!” gasped Tommy. “I never said jerriwhizzum in my life.”

“You just said it! Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me! Guilty or not guilty? Guilty! Remove the prisoner!” And the fairy grinned gleefully and maliciously at Tommy.

“But—but I meant I never said it before, sir!”

“Why don’t you say what you mean?” demanded the other evidently disappointed. “Are you or for what purpose did you not? Answer yes or no immediately. No answer. Discharged! Now then, what do you say?”

“Thank you very much,” said Tommy promptly. The fairy smiled.

“Not at all! Not at all! Glad to be of service. You have excellent manners—for a boy. Perhaps in time you’ll get over being so stupid. I did. I used to be awfully stupid. You wouldn’t believe it now, would you?”

“Oh, no, indeed,” cried Tommy. The fairy actually beamed.

“I took a correspondence course, you see.”

“A correspondence course?” murmured Tommy questioningly.

“In Non-Stupidity. Try it.”

“Thank you, I—I might some time.”

“Time!” exclaimed the fairy, twirling his hat again on the tip of the feather and counting the spins; “dear me! Dear me! I’m—seven—eight—nine—nine minutes late! Did you ever? I really must go, I really must. Here is the Magic Football——”

“Oh, is it a magic football?” exclaimed Tommy in surprise.

“Of course it is! There you go again with your silly questions! Taking up my time! Didn’t I just tell you that I was—— How many minutes late did I say?”

“Nine, I think.”

“‘You think’! You ought to know. Now I’ll have to do it again.” He spun the hat and it stopped at six. “I thought you were wrong,” he said in triumph. “You said it was nine! Stupid!”

Tommy thought it best not to argue with him. “What—what do I do with the football?” he asked.

“Play with it, of course. Didn’t think it was to eat, did you?”

“N-no, but——”

“This football will do everything you want it to. If you want it to come to you, you say, ‘Come’; if you want it to go, you say——”

“Go!” murmured Tommy.

“Not at all!” exclaimed the fairy testily. “I wish you wouldn’t jump to conclusions. If you want it to go you say ‘Og!’”

“Og?” faltered Tommy.

“Of course. When the ball comes to you it comes forward. When it goes away from you it must go backward. And ‘go,’ backward, is ‘og.’ I never saw anyone so stupid!”

“Oh,” murmured the boy. “But suppose I kick the ball?”

“Say ‘Og.’ But you’d better not kick it very hard, because if you do it might not like it. Magic footballs have very tender feelings.”

“But suppose I wanted to kick it a long, long distance?”

“Then say ‘Og’ several times. You’ll have to try it for yourself and learn the ography of it. Now call it.”

“Come,” said Tommy doubtfully.

The next instant the football was rolling into the fireplace, having jumped from the fairy’s arms, collided violently with Tommy’s nose and bounced to the floor again.

“Save it!” shrieked the fairy, jumping excitedly about on the rug.

But Tommy’s eyes were full of tears, produced by the blow on his nose, and by the time he had leaped to the rescue the ball was lodged between grate and chimney and the fairy, still jumping and shrieking, was quite beside himself with alarm. Tommy pulled the football out before it had begun to scorch, however, and the fairy’s excitement subsided as suddenly as it had begun.

“Stupid!” he said severely. “You almost made me ill. The odor of burning leather always upsets me. It was most unfeeling of you.”

“But I didn’t know,” replied Tommy with spirit, rubbing his nose gingerly, “it was going to come so hard!”

“You should have known. Seems to me, for a boy who goes to school, you are very deficient in ography and comeology.”

“I never studied them. We don’t have them.”

The fairy sighed painfully. “What are we coming to? What are we coming to? Never studied ography or comeology or non-stupidity! Oh dear! Oh my!” His long, thin, pointed nose twitched up and down and sideways under the stress of his emotion. “Well, well, there isn’t time to give you a lesson now. You’ll have to do the best you can. I’m very late. By the way, when you’re through with the football just say ‘Og!’ seven times and it will come back to me. But be careful not to say it seven times if you don’t want to lose it. Thank you for a very pleasant evening.” The fairy made a ridiculous bow, hat in hand, and backed away toward the dark corner of the room. Tommy started to remind him that it wasn’t evening, but concluded that it would only offend him, and so he didn’t. Instead,

“Thank you very much for the football,” he said. “Would you mind telling me who it is you are going to call on in Meadowville?”

“The name is—the name is——” The fairy lifted one foot and peered at the sole of a pointed shoe. “The name is Frank Lester. Do you know him?”

“N-no, but I know who he is,” answered Tommy anxiously. “He’s captain of the Meadowville Grammar School Football Team, and I’ll just bet he’s going to wish they’ll win the game!”

The fairy frowned with annoyance. “I can’t have that,” he said, shaking his head rapidly. “Besides, all the magic footballs are out. He will have to wish for something else.”

“But—but suppose he doesn’t?”

“‘Suppose!’ ‘Suppose!’ I’d just like to know,” exclaimed the fairy, “how many supposes you’ve supposed! You’re the most suppositionary boy I ever did see!”

“But if he did wish that,” pursued Tommy, “you’d have to give him his wish, wouldn’t you?”

The fairy grinned slyly and put a long finger beside his nose. “If wishes were fishes,” he said, “beggars would ride.”

“I—I don’t think that’s just the way it goes,” said Tommy.

“Then don’t ask me,” replied the other indignantly. “Besides, you have kept me here until I am awfully late for my appointment. I must be—I must be——”

The fairy caught off his hat and began twirling it about on the tip of the feather.

“One—two—three——!” he began to count.

The hat twirled like a top and Tommy, watching it, felt his head swim and his eyes grow heavy.

“Twelve—thirteen—fourteen—twenty-eight——” came the voice of the fairy as though from a long ways off. Tommy wanted to tell him that twenty-eight didn’t follow fourteen, but he was too sleepy to speak.

“Thirty-three—thirty-six—thirty-two—fifteen——”

It was just a whisper now, away off in the hazy distance....

Tommy sat up suddenly and stared. The fairy was gone. He rubbed his eyes. After all, then, it was just a dream! But as he stirred something rolled from his lap to the floor and went bouncing away under the couch. It was the magic football.

II

All that happened on Saturday afternoon. Monday morning Tommy sought George Marquis at recess and asked him to let him play on the football team. “If you do,” he said earnestly, “I’ll win the game for you.”

George laughed amusedly. “How’ll you do it, kid?” he asked, with a wink at Harold Newman, the quarterback.

Tommy flushed. “I—I can’t tell you that,” he stammered. “It—it’s a secret. But I can do it, George; honest and truly, black and bluely! Just let me show you, won’t you?”

“Oh, shucks,” said the captain, “if you know how to win the game you can tell me about it, can’t you? Anyway, I guess we can win it without you and your secrets, Tommy.”

But Tommy looked so disappointed that George, who was kind-hearted after all, said soothingly: “I tell you what I will do, Tommy. If we’re ahead at the end of the third period, I’ll let you go in at half. How’s that?”

“You won’t be,” replied Tommy glumly. “If you really want to lick Meadowville, George, you’d better let me play. If you don’t you’ll be sorry for it. I can win that game for you, and I don’t believe anyone else can.”

George’s good nature took flight. “Oh, you run away, kid!” he said impatiently. “Anyone to hear you talk would think you were a regular wonder! You’re too fresh!”

“That’s all right,” said Tommy to himself as George went off scowling, “but you’ll have to let me play whether you want to or not! Unless,” he added doubtfully, “that fairy is just a—a fakir after all!”

But that didn’t seem probable, for there was the magic football, and the magic football did just as the fairy had said it would. That afternoon when he was let out of school half an hour late—Tommy’s head was so filled with football these days that there was almost no room in it for lessons and he was kept after school as a result—he hurried home, unlocked the closet door in his bedroom and took the magic football down from the shelf. It looked just like any other football. There was the name of a well-known maker stamped on the clean leather and no one would have ever suspected that there was anything unusual about it. But there certainly was, as Tommy proceeded to prove when, the ball under his arm, he reached the vacant lot behind the dye works in the next street. The dye works had no windows on the back, there was a tumble-down board fence around the other three sides of the lot and Tommy was safe from observation.

When he had crawled through a hole in the fence he placed the football on the ground, swung his leg gently and said, “Og!” softly as his foot struck the ball. He hardly more than touched it with the toe of his scuffed shoe, but the ball flew up and away as straight as an arrow and bounced away from the fence at the further end of the lot. Tommy looked carefully about him. No one was within sight, and so he said, “Come!” very softly, and the ball began rolling toward him along the ground. That was too slow, and so Tommy said, “Come!” once more and a little louder. Whereupon the ball left the ground and arched itself toward him. Tommy held out his hands, and the ball settled into them.

That day and every afternoon until Thursday Tommy continued his practice with the magic football until finally he was able to judge just how to address it to get the results he wanted. For a short kick or pass one “Og,” not very loud, was enough. For a longer kick a single “Og” spoken loudly accomplished the purpose. For a very long kick, say thirty or thirty-five yards, beyond which Tommy had never tried to kick a ball, three “Og’s” were sufficient. And the same rule worked when he wanted the ball to come to him. He could make it just trickle toward him slowly across the turf or he could make it come slam-banging to him so hard that as often as not he jumped out of its way so it would not knock him down. When he did that the ball, instead of going past, stopped short in the air and dropped to the ground. In fact, Tommy learned what the fairy had called “ography” and “comeology.”

A funny thing happened the next day. When he got home after school—he wasn’t kept in that afternoon, for there was a teacher’s council in the Superintendent’s office—it occurred to him that perhaps it wasn’t necessary for him to go up and get the ball, even though it was in the closet with the door locked. At all events, he thought, there was no harm in trying it. So he said “Come!” very loudly and waited halfway up the front path. But nothing happened; not even when he said “Come!” again, very much louder. But when, for the third time, he said “Come! Come!” almost at the top of his lungs, something did happen. There was a frightful noise at the top of the house, a scream from Tilda, the maid, and a grunt from Tommy himself! When Tommy picked himself up, gasping for breath, he was six feet nearer the front gate and the football was bobbing up and down in front of him. It had taken him squarely in the stomach!

When he went into the house Tilda was sitting halfway up the stairs having hysterics, an overturned pail beside her and a flood of soapy water trickling down the steps. Something, declared Tilda, when she had been calmed by the use of smelling salts and other restoratives, something had flown at her as she was going upstairs and clean knocked the feet from under her! Just what the something was Tilda couldn’t say, but she was sure that it had been “as big as a washtub, mum, and kind of yellow, with two big glaring eyes!” Tommy, hiding the magic football behind him, crept up to his room. In the top of the closet door was a big jagged hole and the floor was littered with splinters!

Tommy looked and gasped. Then he stared at the magic football. “I guess,” he muttered, “I won’t try that again!”

On Wednesday he went out to see practice. What he saw didn’t impress him greatly. Hillside didn’t play like a team that was going to win on the morrow. The scrub eleven held the School Team to one touchdown and a very lucky field goal, and, when practice was over, the supporters of the home team came back looking very dejected. Tommy waited for George Marquis at the gate.

“George,” he said, twitching the captain’s sleeve, “don’t forget what I told you!”

Captain Marquis pulled his arm away and scowled angrily at the youngster. “Oh, dry up, Tommy,” he muttered. “You make me tired! I’ve got enough troubles without having to listen to your nonsense!”

Tommy went home and wondered for the hundredth time whether that fairy was putting up a game on him. Suppose, after all, the fairy had just been poking fun at him! If George didn’t let him play how was he ever going to win the game for Hillside? It was all well enough to have a magic football that would come or go just as you wanted it to and that would break its way through closet doors and scare folks into hysterics, but if you didn’t get into the game what good were a dozen such things? Tommy was sad and doubtful and pessimistic that evening.

But the next morning he felt more hopeful. To reassure himself he went over to the vacant lot with the football and put it through its paces to his entire satisfaction. And then, since it was Thanksgiving Day and the big game was to start at half past ten, he tucked the magic football in the hollow of his arm and joined the crowd that was wending its way to the field. He passed Billy Blue’s house on the way, and, in answer to his whistle, Billy appeared at an upstairs window with his face swathed in cotton batting and linen and waved to him sadly.

“Where’d you get the football?” mumbled Billy enviously.

“A fair—a fellow gave it to me,” answered Tommy. “Or maybe he just loaned it to me. It—it’s a wonder!”

“Going to the game?”

“Yep. Wish you were, Billy.”

“So do I! We’ll get licked, though.”

“Bet you we don’t! Bet you we win!”

Billy tried to say “Yah!” but it hurt too much and so he contented himself with shaking his head and looking sarcastic. “Yes, we will!” he mumbled. “Like fun!”

“We will, though, and, Billy——” Tommy sank his voice so the passers wouldn’t hear. “Want me to tell you something nobody else knows?”

Billy nodded.

“I’m going to win it for ’em!” confided Tommy in a stage whisper. Then, with a magnificent wave of his hand, he went on, pursued by Billy’s cruel and incredulous, if much smothered, laughter.

We needn’t dwell on that first thirty minutes of the game. From the point of view of Hillside it was a sad affair. Meadowville outrushed, outpunted, outgeneraled her opponent. The Hillside line couldn’t hold against the swift, hard attack of the visitors, and the Hillside ends were no match for the fast backs of the Meadowville team. When the first fifteen-minute period was at an end the score was 6 to 0. When the half was over and the rival teams trotted off the gridiron, the score stood Meadowville, 17; Hillside, 0!

Tommy, hunched up on a seat in the grandstand, the magic football clasped to his breast, watched and worried and almost wept. The fairy’s promise wasn’t coming true after all! He wasn’t to have his wish! All his lessons in “ography” and “comeology” were to be wasted! The magic football might just as well be back on the closet shelf, or, for that matter, back in Fairyland! Tommy felt very sorry for himself, very disappointed.

But he made one last, final appeal before yielding to the inevitable. He left his seat and squirmed through the crowd to the home team’s bench when Captain Marquis and his players came back, blankets and spirits both trailing. He got George’s attention for a minute finally, and reminded him of his promise. George was cross and impatient. “You again?” he exclaimed. “Promise? What promise? Oh, that? Well, I said if we were ahead, didn’t I? We aren’t ahead, so that settles that. Now get off the field, Tommy.”

Tommy didn’t, though. He carried his football to the bench and seated himself on it, unchallenged, among the substitutes. They were all too discouraged to care what Tommy did. Then the whistle sounded again and the game went on. The pigskin floated in air, was caught by a fleet-footed Meadowville player and brought back for many yards, the Hillside ends failing lamentably to stop the runner. A plunge at the line and another five-yard mark was passed. A wide end run and two more were traversed. Meadowville was literally eating up the ground, while from across the field came the triumphant shouting of her supporters. And then, not three minutes after the third quarter began, a strange thing happened.

The football in use, a perfectly good, brand-new football, supplied by the home team at a vast expense, began to become deflated. A halt was called and the lacings were undone and they tried to blow it up again. But the air wouldn’t stay in it! It was most perplexing and most annoying. No one had ever seen a football act so before. But there was only one thing to do, and that was to find another ball. Of course, Hillside ought to have had another one, but she didn’t; at least, not at the field. There was an old football at George’s house, but George’s house was a good mile and a half away. So it devolved on Meadowville to loan her practice ball and the Meadowville captain, after sarcastically stating what he thought of the stinginess of Hillside, consented to have the ball used. But when they went to look for it, it couldn’t be found! It had been there a half hour before; they were all quite certain of that; but it wasn’t there now. Boys searched everywhere, even behind the stand, but to no avail. And then, just when Captain Marquis concluded that he would have to dispatch a messenger to his house for the old football, someone brought word that Tommy Piper had a football and that he was sitting on the bench at that moment. Over hurried George.

“Let’s take your ball, Tommy,” he said genially. “Ours is busted.”

Tommy smiled and shook his head. George blustered.

“Come on! We’ll pay you for it, if you won’t lend it! Don’t be a meany!”

“I’ll lend it to you for nothing if you’ll let me play left halfback,” said Tommy. A howl of derision went up from the players and substitutes. George scowled angrily.

“What’s the use of being a hog?” he demanded. “Come on, let’s have it!”

But Tommy shook his head. George grabbed the ball and tried to tug it away. Tommy said “Come!” very softly under his breath and, although Harold Newman and Bert Jones and Gus Neely all helped their captain, not an inch would that ball budge! They had to give it up.

“Oh, let him play,” said Harold, very much out of breath. “It won’t matter, George. We’re beaten anyway.”

George, very angry, hesitated and finally yielded. “All right,” he said gruffly. “You can play. Give us the ball. Gus, you’re off.”

Tommy, the recipient of a look of deadly hatred from the deposed Gus, trotted joyfully into the field and took his place. Harold whispered the signal code into his ear. “You won’t be able to remember it,” he added, “but you won’t get the ball, so that doesn’t matter!”

Then the game began again. Meadowville was on her second down, with four yards to go. The quarterback called his signals, the two lines heaved together and——

“Ball! Ball!” shouted half the players. The Meadowville quarter had fumbled and, strange to say, it was Tommy who dropped to the turf and snuggled the ball to him. For almost the first time the Hillside supports had something to cheer about and they made good use of the chance. And half the Hillside team patted Tommy on the back as he was pulled to his feet. Of course, it was only an accident, but Tommy deserved credit just the same!

Hillside was on her forty-yard line when she got the pigskin and Harold Newman elected to have Bert Jones, the big fullback, take it for a try through right tackle. And so he called the signals, and the players crouched in their places and the ball was snapped. And then, as Bert leaped forward to take the pass from quarter, Tommy whispered, “Come!”

Such a befuddled-looking backfield as that was for an instant! Bert, expecting the pigskin, clasped empty air to his stomach and hove himself at the line. The other backs stood and stared; all, that is, save Tommy. Tommy was very busy. Already, with the ball snuggled in the bend of his arm, he had crossed two white lines and he was very intent on crossing the rest of them. That he didn’t was only because the opposing quarterback outguessed him and brought him to earth.

But twenty-five yards was not to be sneezed at, especially when theretofore the most that Hillside had made in one try was a scant six! George Marquis stopped scolding Harold and hugged Tommy instead. Harold, too, thumped him delightedly on the back, but the quarter had a dazed look on his face. He could have sworn that he had tossed the ball toward Bert Jones!

Slightly demoralized, Meadowville lined up again in front of her foe. This time she watched Tommy as a cat watches a mouse, but when Tommy, disregarding the play, scuttled yards across the field, the rival backs decided that he was faking an end run and paid scant attention to him. A moment after they saw their mistake, for the ball went to Tommy on one of the prettiest passes ever seen, and Tommy, almost unopposed, streaked straight for the Meadowville goal line! Only an end came near him and Tommy eluded the end deftly. Tommy was really a clever runner, say what you like. The opposing quarter tried desperately to intercept Tommy before he reached the goal line, but he failed and the best he could do was to tackle him behind and prevent him from centering the ball.

You can imagine how Hillside cheered then! It was deafening, terrific! Even staid and serious-minded elderly gentlemen shouted and thumped the stand with their gold-headed sticks. Girls screamed their pretty throats hoarse and boys—well, boys threw their hats in air and behaved like joyous lunatics! As for the Hillside players, they turned handsprings and tripped each other up and behaved quite ridiculously. All save Tommy. Tommy, a little breathless, but wearing his honors modestly, yielded the ball and trotted back up the field amid a shower of congratulations. And not until Bert Jones was directing the pointing of the pigskin did it occur to George Marquis to demand of Harold why he had signaled one thing and done another! And poor Harold, looking very white and worried, could only shake his head and gaze fascinatedly at Tommy!

But why go into further details of that last half? At the end of the third quarter Hillside was two points ahead of Meadowville, and Tommy Piper had only to turn his head or lift his hand to have the Hillside stand rise to its feet and cheer itself hoarse! Such runs as Tommy made! Ten yards, twenty, even once a full thirty-five! Never was such brilliant running and dodging seen before! Tommy could have played that whole game alone had he wished it, but he didn’t. With the assurance that his team would emerge victor in the end, Tommy let the other backs have their chances. And when they were stopped in their tracks or pushed back for a loss, then the ball went to the infallible Thomas Piper and said Thomas reeled off a dozen yards, or two dozen, perchance; and everything was lovely.

When the last quarter began Meadowville was showing the strain. So was the Hillside quarterback! Poor Harold was beginning to think that he had gone crazy. Time after time when he tried to pass the ball to one of the other backs or even carry it himself, he found that, for some strange reason, without wanting to do it, he had thrown it to Tommy. Of course, Tommy always gained and that made it all right. Only—well, Harold was certainly worried!

A run the entire length of the field, barring ten yards, was Tommy’s heart-stirring contribution at the beginning of the final period, and from that time on until, within only a minute to spare and the ball on Hillside’s thirty-two yards, he ended the game in a final blaze of glory, Tommy performed like a—well, like a magician. I can think of no better word!

But the last feat of all was the most astounding. It went down in history, I can tell you! Even yet no other player has ever come within at the least twenty yards of duplicating Tommy’s performance. The score was 36 to 17 when the final sixty seconds began to tick themselves away. Hillside had the game safe, and it didn’t matter very much what happened then. So when Tommy said to Harold: “Let me try a field goal from here, Harold,” the quarterback only stared and didn’t tell him he was crazy. He only grinned. And then, since they all owed the victory to Tommy, he consented. What did it matter how the contest ended? As well one way as another. And he’d be pleasing the redoubtable Tommy. So Tommy walked back to near the twenty-five-yard line and held out his hands, and everyone stared in surprise. For why, with everything her own way, should Hillside punt and lose possession of the ball?

Tommy was ambitious to outdo all his previous feats, and he could think of but one way to gain that end, and that was to make a wonderful field goal. But when, with poised arms, he awaited the ball and looked far down the field at the distant goal posts he began to have doubts. Perhaps the magic football couldn’t go so far. It was an appalling distance. But just then the ball was snapped and Tommy said, “Come!” Straight and true it sped into his hands. Tommy measured distance and direction again, dropped the ball and, as it bounded, hit it smartly with his instep. And as he did so he said, “Og!” very loudly, and then, to make very certain, he said, “Og!” again and again and many times, and kept on saying it until the enemy came swarming down on him and sent him sprawling on his back.

But he was up again in a second, watching the flight of the ball, and, lest it might falter on its journey, he said, “Og!” once more, or, perhaps, the fifteenth time.

Friend and foe alike turned and watched the football. Everyone held his breath. Surely it would never travel so far! And yet it kept on going, getting higher and higher until, by the time it reached the end of the field, it was yards and yards and yards above the goal posts. A great awe hushed the field. You could have heard a pin drop. And then a great cry of amazement started and spread, for the magic football kept on going up and up and up and getting smaller and smaller and smaller until, at last, it was just a speck against the blue and then—why, then it wasn’t anything at all! It had just floated out of sight like a runaway toy balloon!

But everyone agreed that it had passed exactly over the center of the Meadowville goal, and so what did it matter if the ball was lost?

Tommy, being borne off the field on the shoulders of enthusiastic admirers, cheered and waved at, smiled modestly. But under that smile was a sorrow. The magic football was lost to him!

“I guess,” said Tommy, sadly, to himself, “I must have said ‘Og!’ seven times!”