It's remarkable what a lot of extremely hard work a boy will go through if he likes football, and what a deal of pleasure he will get out of it! Amy pretended to be totally unable to get that point of view.
One afternoon when Clint returned to prepare for supper with a lower lip twice the normal size of that feature Amy indulged in sarcasm.
"Oh, the proud day!" he declaimed, striking an attitude.

"Wounded on the field of battle! Glory! Triumph! Paeans! My word, old top, but I certainly am proud to be the chum of such a hero! I'm so sot-up I could scream for joy.

Football's a wonderful pastime, isn't it ?" "Silly chump!" mumbled Clint painfully.
"Yes, indeed, a wonderful pastime," ruminated Amy, seating himself on the window-seat and hugging one knee.

"All a fellow has to do is to go out and work like a dray-horse and a pile-driver and street-roller for a couple of hours every afternoon, get kicked in the shins and biffed in the eye and rolled in the dirt and ragged by one coach, one captain and one quarter-back.

That's all he has to do except learn a lot of signals so he can recognise them in the fraction of a second, be able to recite the rules frontward and backward and both ways from the middle and live on indigestible things like beef and rice and prunes.