Meanwhile, from Kenly came bright reports of the Cherry-and-Black team, and Alton Academy settled down into deep pessimism on the subject of the big game. This, it was clear, was not to be an Alton year. Youths of literary proclivities wrote indignant letters to the school weekly--a few of which were published--and wherever two or more were gathered together the invariable subject of discourse was What’s the Matter with the Team? In such unsatisfactory way the early season passed and the Mount Millard game loomed closely ahead.
On Wednesday of that week Crocker’s Hardware Store had announced in the paper a twenty per cent reduction in the price of athletic goods. Also, as Jimmy had discovered that morning, one window of Crocker’s had been devoted to a display of football supplies and a general athletic miscellany. Rather an attractive window it had been, too, although the dresser had evidently experienced some difficulty in finding sufficient articles with which to fill it, since he had eked out with canoe paddles, baseball bats and a lunch hamper. Jimmy had reported the matter with some concern to Russell and that morning and the mornings following had spent a large part of his time at the front door prepared to accost any person looking like a prospective buyer of athletic goods before he could get as far as Crocker’s. But Russell had not seemed greatly worried, and events proved that he had had no reason for worry. If there was no great growth in trade at the Sign of the Football, neither was there any perceptible falling off; and Jimmy, who kept a sharp watch on the rival establishment, reported that so far as he could determine Crocker’s was getting no more custom than usual.
Even with that twenty per cent discount it was doubtful if Crocker’s prices were yet lower than those of the Sign of the Football, and until they were Russell saw no reason for lowering his own prices. Stick spent a miserable week, fearing financial ruin and doing surreptitious figuring on scraps of paper. Russell was never allowed to see those figures, but he could guess what they meant. Business was really good now, and as the days of that week passed without any lessening of it Stick was almost encouraged to take hope. But it took a great deal to make Stick optimistic and he was still lugubrious when Saturday came. Russell sought to cheer him up by displaying figures that represented the week’s sales and the net profits, but Stick only viewed them moodily and sniffed.