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Title: The School Four
Author: Dudley, Albertus T.
Language: English
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THE SCHOOL FOUR
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BOOKS BY ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY
Phillips Exeter Series
Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth.
FOLLOWING THE BALL.
MAKING THE NINE.
IN THE LINE.
WITH MASK AND MITT.
THE GREAT YEAR.
THE YALE CUP.
A FULL-BACK AFLOAT.
THE PECKS IN CAMP.
THE HALF-MILER.
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Stories of the Triangular League
Illustrated by CHARLES COPELAND. 12mo. Cloth.
THE SCHOOL FOUR.
AT THE HOME-PLATE.
THE UNOFFICIAL PREFECT.
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THE KING’S POWDER.
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LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON.
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[Illustration: THE WESTCOTT MAN CLUTCHED THE BALL OVER HIS RIVAL’S
HEAD.]
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STORIES OF THE TRIANGULAR LEAGUE
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THE SCHOOL FOUR
BY
ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY
AUTHOR OF “PHILLIPS EXETER SERIES”
ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES COPELAND
[Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
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COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Published, August, 1909.
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All Rights Reserved.
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THE SCHOOL FOUR.
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
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PREFACE
“The School Four” is a story of football and rowing, its scene laid in a
private school in an Eastern city. As in the Phillips Exeter books, the
aim has been to keep the athletics practical and technically correct,
and at the same time to present such conceptions of life and conduct as
may encourage the boy reader to face his own school problems with the
right spirit. Later volumes will treat successively of the city high
school and the country boarding-school.
To Mr. John Richardson, Jr., captain of the undefeated Harvard crew of
1908, the author owes a special debt for expert counsel, for the freedom
of the Harvard coaching launch, and, above all else, for personal
inspiration.
A. T. DUDLEY.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
JOHN SMITH, PRESIDENT
CHAPTER II
THE CUP
CHAPTER III
ARCHIBALD DUNN
CHAPTER IV
RECRUITS FOR THE FOOTBALL SQUAD
CHAPTER V
AT ADAMS’S
CHAPTER VI
THE STORY OF JASON
CHAPTER VII
SUMNER CHOOSES A SUCCESSOR
CHAPTER VIII
A SLIGHTED OFFER
CHAPTER IX
THE NEWBURY GAME
CHAPTER X
THE SCOUTS BRING NEWS
CHAPTER XI
A FRUITLESS INTERVIEW
CHAPTER XII
PRESIDENT JOHN’S IDEALS
CHAPTER XIII
THE COMMITTEE DECIDES
CHAPTER XIV
THE TROWBRIDGE GAME
CHAPTER XV
DUNN’S DISAPPOINTMENTS
CHAPTER XVI
MIKE ADVISES
CHAPTER XVII
A KINDLED AMBITION
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SHOOTING MATCH
CHAPTER XIX
A LOSS TO THE NINE
CHAPTER XX
IN THE PAIR-OAR
CHAPTER XXI
THE SECOND CREW
CHAPTER XXII
A SHIFT IN THE BOAT
CHAPTER XXIII
THE WEAKENED HEART
CHAPTER XXIV
THE TRIALS
CHAPTER XXV
THE FINAL STRUGGLE
CHAPTER XXVI
CONCLUSION
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ILLUSTRATIONS
The Westcott man clutched the ball over his rival’s head
“They ought to tie a string to it and give Fatty the end”
His feet going like the arms of a hay tedder
Swung him directly into Hardie’s arms
And watch the Varsity eight sweep magnificently by
“Go it, Bainbridge! Kill ’em, Bainbridge!”
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THE SCHOOL FOUR
CHAPTER I
JOHN SMITH, PRESIDENT
THE first suggestion of the Triangular League came from a certain
aspiring and nimble-witted graduate of the Newbury Latin named John
Smith, whose surname, occurring on every page of every daily paper,
should safely conceal his identity from any over-curious reader of this
story. Moreover, it may be asserted with truth that the particular John
Smith who called the first meeting of representatives of the three
schools is not to be found on any of the eighteen pages of Smiths in the
last Boston directory. It is enough for our purpose to know that he
looked over the material in the upper half of the Newbury Latin and
found it to his liking—good for the present and promising for the
future. He considered within himself, with what he imagined to be
uncommon shrewdness, that it is better for a school to be at the head of
a small league than to swell the troop at the conqueror’s heels in a
larger one. His reason for selecting Westcott’s and the Trowbridge
School as complements to the Newbury Latin in this laudably patriotic
scheme was that while they contained decent fellows and were nominally
fair rivals, they were probably beatable without killing exertion. This
last item was not included in the argument for the organization which he
presented to the first meeting. His speech here took loftier grounds,
such as the charms of an alliance between naturally friendly schools,
and the splendid athletic ideals for which the new league would stand.
Either John Smith’s idea or John Smith’s argument carried weight, for
the league was formed, and the three schools pledged themselves to
maintain it and abide by its rules. In recognition of his unselfish
services in behalf of the cause, and at the suggestion of Mr. Snyder, an
instructor at Trowbridge, who insisted that the direction of affairs
should be in the hands of some mature person, Mr. John Smith was elected
president. It was voted that a managing committee consisting of two
representatives from each school, together with the president, _ex
officio_, should be empowered to draw up rules, arrange schedules,
select officials, and act as general board of control.
The first meeting of this permanent committee was held at Westcott’s, in
Boston, just before the end of the school year. After the visitors had
departed, Sumner and Talbot remained behind to discuss events from the
Westcott point of view.
“It’s going to be great!” opined Sumner, with his usual outburst of
enthusiasm for what he approved. “Everything was pleasant and straight,
and nobody tried to get the advantage of anybody else.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” answered Joe Talbot, commonly called
“Pete.” The origin of this nickname is involved in obscurity. Some boys
derived it from a character in a play; some asserted that Joe’s family
had given him the name in jest when he was a toddler. Steve Wilmot, the
wag of the class, maintained that it was descriptive,—he was called
Pete because he looked Pete,—and this explanation was on the whole
popular, especially as Talbot stoutly protested against it.
“Why not?” demanded Sumner.
“I’ve no confidence in that Smith. He’s too oily and smug. He’s got some
scheme he means to work.”
“Shucks!” retorted Jack. “Your brother Bob has prejudiced you against
him with his talk about that old football squabble. If I were a junior
in college, like Bob, I’d try to forget about school rows.”
“Those are the things you remember longest,” Pete answered wisely. “You
can’t change the facts, can you? You can’t make a low trick any better
by forgetting it. If it happened, it’s history, as much as Bunker Hill.
It shows the kind of man Smith is.”
“Was!” corrected Jack. “That was a long time ago, and he’s probably
changed as much as we have since we came into the sixth together. Just
think what little fools we were then, how we thought the verb _amo_ was
too hard to learn, and cried when Mr. Lawton lectured us, and Mussy used
to send us out of French every day for whispering in class.”
“We weren’t anything but kids then. Neither of us was over twelve.”
Talbot spoke as if seventeen, which was their present age, represented
the climax of maturity.
“I was just trying to make you see that people change. Smith has changed
too.”
“Perhaps he has,” growled Talbot, “but I don’t believe it’s for the
better. He’s got us into the league just because he thinks Newbury can
beat us. You don’t suppose he’s doing it out of love for us, do you?”
“No doubt he thinks we are a good crowd for his school to tie up with,”
answered Sumner, with ready complacency. “I really believe those fellows
would rather beat us than any other school, but that’s because they are
jealous of us. We are only a private school, more than half of us little
kids in knickerbockers, but we have the inside track in Harvard, and
we’re on the top socially. They don’t like that.”
“It’s the little kids and getting into college so early that spoils our
athletics,” remarked Talbot. “Newbury is a public endowed school with
lots of big fellows who don’t go to college, and Trowbridge is a
boarding-school in the country where the fellows have nothing to do but
play games all day. We aren’t anything but a school building in town and
a playground in Brookline.”
“And Adams’s,” put in Sumner.
Adams’s was the house of the instructor who lived at the athletic field.
It contained a schoolroom for such boys as were condemned to prepare the
next day’s lessons before they left the field in the afternoon, and
quarters for a limited number of boarding pupils.
“Adams’s!” exclaimed Pete. “What good is that? A half-dozen little kids
who play on the fourth or third, and a few older fellows whose parents
are abroad or can’t stand them at home. There wasn’t a fellow there last
year who did anything for the school.”
“There was Pitkin,” Sumner remarked. “He’d have made the second crew if
he hadn’t caught the measles.”
“He might,” responded Talbot, in a tone which implied that he probably
wouldn’t. “But what’s Pitkin, anyway?”
“Ben Tracy is going there next year,” went on Sumner, “and that cousin
Louis of his who lives in Worcester, and some one from New Jersey. There
may be some other new fellows.”
“The usual orphan asylum!” commented Talbot, savagely. “It’s four to one
that none of ’em will be good for anything. You always see things about
one hundred per cent better than they really are.”
“That’s not half so bad as seeing them one hundred per cent worse than
they are, as you do, you old growler!” retorted his friend, with a
laugh.
“They can’t be a hundred per cent worse,” maintained Talbot. “That’s a
logical impossibility. It would bring ’em below the zero point.”
And then, being boys, in spite of their advanced age and the seriousness
of their interest and the fact that both, avowedly at least, were
putting every available minute into their preparation for the next
week’s battle with the Harvard preliminaries, they wrangled for a good
quarter of an hour over the possibility—logical, actual, or
theoretical—of things being a hundred per cent worse than they were
without reaching the vanishing point. The reader will be spared this
argument. If he is a boy, he can manufacture it for himself; if a
grown-up, he has only to listen quietly to a knot of boys waiting in
idleness for a bell to ring or a train to appear, and he will understand
how it is done.
When the discussion had run its length, they recurred naturally to the
first theme of conversation. It was Pete who reintroduced the topic of
the new league.
“Whether Smith is straight or crooked,” he said, “he certainly expects
his school to come out ahead. I’d give something to beat him at his
little game.”
“Wouldn’t it be great!” Sumner’s exclamation was like an anticipatory
smack of the lips; his eyes were fixed in a fervent but unseeing stare
on the blank wall, his face beamed with delight at the mental foretaste
of the joys of triumph. “We may do it, too!”
“And we may not!” answered Talbot, rising. “Let’s get after those French
sentences.”
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CHAPTER II
THE CUP
WHATEVER his faults, the president of the new league possessed
unquestionably the virtue of activity. While the Westcott boys,
scattered up and down the coast from Long Island Sound to Bar Harbor,
were amusing themselves in their own idle but wholesome
fashion,—camping, cruising, racing boats, playing tennis matches, and
exchanging visits,—Mr. John Smith was devoting his surplus energy to
the cause. One tangible result of his labors formed the basis of much
curious questioning when Westcott’s gathered at the end of September for
the year’s work. A prize was to be offered to stimulate interest in the
contests of the league. Though many of the Westcott graduates had been
laid under contribution and might be supposed to know definitely the
purpose for which their money had been expended, it was soon discovered
that no one possessed information extending beyond the statements in the
newspapers. These began with encomiums on Mr. John Smith for his
enthusiastic and efficient services and the success with which he had
“rallied about him his hosts of friends”; they ended with
congratulations to the new league on having a man of Mr. Smith’s caliber
and influence at its head. In between was sandwiched the meagre news
that a cup was to be competed for by the schools on terms to be
announced later.
But Westcott’s had no notion of waiting until later. The boys stirred up
the contributing graduates, and the graduates addressed to Mr. Smith
certain pointed inquiries which suggested to the astute leader that it
would be wise to announce the conditions immediately, even at the risk
of losing some advantage for his own school. He appeared, therefore, at
Westcott’s, one day during the second week of the term, bearing a big
box of tinted cardboard, and made a speech to the assembled school in
which he set forth the conditions of the gift and the high hopes of the
givers. Then, with great impressiveness and in the midst of quivering
expectancy, he removed the cover of the box, undid a bag of canton
flannel and held forth the glittering thing to the general admiration.
“To remain from year to year in the possession of the school which shall
last have won it, and to be held permanently when three times won.”
To this announcement the school gave bountiful applause. The older boys,
though harassed by grave doubts of their ability to fulfil the
conditions, understood the privilege offered them and were grateful;
while the knee-trousered, flattering themselves with the assurance that
the splendid, two-handled vase, like a reward for good behavior, must
ultimately be theirs, smote their hands together long and violently.
Whereupon Mr. John Smith, who showed himself to be a sharp-featured,
somewhat over-dressed young man, with no semblance of that personal
diffidence with which great men are often handicapped, smiled blandly,
restored the treasure to its double envelope, shook hands with Mr.
Westcott, gave the school another benevolent and congratulatory smirk,
and departed—bearing his cup with him.
At the recess period for the first and second, four fellows took places
round the small table in the corner of the lunch room; a fifth seized a
chair and pushed in among them as if he belonged there. Others bought
themselves handfuls of munchable food at the other end of the room and
hurried to get a position at the railing which separated the
hot-lunchers from those who patronized the counter. The confusion of
half a dozen talking at once obscured the opening of the discussion.
“The crew’s in it. That’s good for us,” declared Rolfe, getting the
first hearing in the babel. “We’ll trust you to win that for us, Pete.”
Talbot, the captain of the crew, would probably have disputed this loud
assumption if he had been given an opportunity to speak; but others were
readier of tongue.
“And the track’s out!” cried Seamans. He held a sandwich untasted within
three inches of his lips and stared over the railing into Rolfe’s face
with an expression of disgust.
“Bad for you, Sim,” called out Jack Sumner. “You’ll have to go in for
baseball.—Some soup, please.”
“Newbury lost all her track men last year, that’s why the track’s out.”
Talbot had found his tongue.
“That’s not the reason,” proclaimed Sumner. “Mr. Westcott doesn’t
believe in track work for schoolboys. He thinks it’s too much of a
strain for young fellows like us. Your brother Bob has the same idea. He
told me just the other day that it usually spoiled fellows for college
running.”
“Smithy would have put it in all the same, if Newbury had any show for
it.”
“I don’t quite understand about those conditions,” came from the lips of
a boy at the railing, who was poising a buttered bread stick before a
broad, big-featured face crowned with shaggy hair.
“You never understand anything, Fluffy,” cut in Wilmot. “A fellow who
asks ‘why’ about the laws of falling bodies—”
He hesitated, giving Fluffy a chance to ejaculate, “You don’t know
yourself—”
“And don’t care!” retorted Wilmot. “I know they fall, and there’s a rule
about it.”
“I don’t mean falling bodies, I mean about the cup!” Fluffy got this out
in the face of a storm that threatened to sweep him the whole length of
the railing. No one wanted to hear a debate between Fluffy Dobbs and
Wilmot on the laws of falling bodies.
“It’s clear enough,” said Sumner. “There are three sports that count,
football, baseball, and crew. Whoever wins two of them gets the cup for
a year. The school that gets it three times has it to keep.”
“Do you understand that, Fluffy?” called Wilmot. “Because if you don’t,
we’ll get you a map and a guide-book.”
“But supposing each of the three schools wins at one sport?” proposed
Fluffy, undisturbed by Wilmot’s jeers, to which he was evidently well
accustomed.
“No score!” returned Sumner, quickly.
“Are they going to have special crew races with Newbury and Trowbridge?”
asked Tracy.
“No, we all row in the Interscholastic.”
“Then the first thing for us to do is to win at football,” said Trask.
“It’s up to you fellows to start the thing right.”
“Easy enough for you to say when you don’t play,” said a tall, wiry,
light-haired boy who up to this time had been listening in silence.
“Give us the material, and we’ll do it. We can’t make bricks without
straw.” Harrison was captain of the eleven.
“Oh, yes, you can, only it’s harder. A really good captain could make a
team out of ’most anything. Any fool captain can win with a bunch of
stars.” Wilmot’s significant grin disarmed this seemingly insulting
remark of all its sting. Everybody respected Eliot Harrison, and Wilmot
enjoyed a liberty of his own.
“The lot we had out yesterday was more like a flock of goats than a
bunch of stars,” growled Pete.
“A goat ought to be mighty good in the centre of the line,” said Wilmot,
reflectively. “He could butt a hole right through the other side, and
that’s about all guard and centre have to do. Now if you could only get
a few good butting goats into the line—”
“Or teach your own goats to butt,” suggested Tracy.
Wilmot slammed the table. “That’s the best idea yet! Get a goat as
assistant coach, a good old side-hill, can-eating, whiskered billy
that’s practiced butting from his youth up. He’d show the line how to
open holes!”
The audience warmed noisily to Wilmot’s proposition.
“He’d look fine on the side-lines, wouldn’t he?” This sarcastic comment
came from sober-faced little Stanley Hale of the sixth, whose class, by
the necessities of the school schedule, shared the recess hour of the
older boys. The influence of the kindergarten and the fairy tale was
still effective in Stanley’s mind. Ideas still translated themselves for
his intelligence into pictures, and the picture of the goat stood out
vividly before him.
“He could be a mascot, Stan,” said Sumner, turning to smile at Stanley.
“He’d be a great help in the cheering,” went on Wilmot. “The sixth could
give him lessons. He’d cheer bass to their soprano.”
By this time there was a general and hilarious interest in the
development of Wilmot’s suggestion which rendered impossible all serious
discussion of the morning’s announcement. Foolish jesting became
epidemic, and wit soon ran into silliness. Two boys showed no
disposition to share in the levity. Harrison smiled but rarely, and then
feebly and against his will; Talbot’s scowl grew deeper and blacker as
Wilmot’s fancy spread from the centre, where it had originated, out into
the ranks of the clumsy-wits who seized upon it with rough hands, tossed
it to and fro, squeezed it dry of whatever freshness and cleverness it
might have contained, and dropped it in ennui for some new catchword ten
minutes later.
The bystanders drifted forth for a walk, the sixth ran into the yard and
played goat tag, the pursuer being the goat.
“I wish you wouldn’t say that kind of thing, Steve,” began Harrison,
when the coast was clear. “It hurts the team to make sport of it or any
one on it.”
Wilmot opened his eyes. “I didn’t make sport of it. I just offered a
suggestion. You don’t have to take it, if you don’t want to.”
“We’ve got to have the respect and support of the school if we are going
to do anything,” went on Harrison, trying to be sensible and keep his
temper. “All that talk about goats makes the team ridiculous.”
“It puts everything to the bad right at the beginning of the season,”
broke in Talbot, roughly. “If you want to spoil all our chances, just
keep it up. You don’t care, of course, as long as you get your fun out
of it, but the rest of us have a little school spirit left and a little
self-respect!”
“Who introduced the subject, anyway?” demanded Wilmot, triumphantly. “It
was you that did it, and it was you that called the team goats. I just
built on your suggestion.”
“I won’t argue it,” answered Pete, savagely. “You’d twist my words
against me. But just try the goat business with the crew, and see what
you’ll get. Harry may put up with it if he wants to. I wouldn’t!”
“Now you’re getting peevish.” Wilmot rose from the table, still keeping
his smile of indifference, but by no means content at heart. “I don’t
like you when you’re peevish!”
The bell rang; the boys came flocking in and crowded up the stairway.
Harrison took Tracy’s arm as they leisurely followed the stream.
“Isn’t that new fellow at Adams’s coming out?”
“Who? Hardie?”
“Yes. He sat opposite us at luncheon to-day with the kids and didn’t
peep.”
“He hasn’t said much to any one yet. He’ll be out to-day if he gets his
clothes.”
“Do you think he’ll be good for anything?” pursued the captain,
anxiously. “We need about six more good men.”
Tracy gave his chin a side tip that might have expressed doubt, or
merely reserve of judgment. “I don’t know. He isn’t very heavy, but if
you’d seen him chucking trunks around this morning, you’d think him
fairly strong.”
“Trunks?”
“Yes, we piled a few in front of his door last night.”
“It’s a good thing to be strong, but a lot depends on spirit,” began
Harrison. What further he may have intended to say, we shall never know,
for the sight of Mr. Spaulding standing at the head of the stairs put a
sudden gag upon his lips.
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CHAPTER III
ARCHIBALD DUNN
ROGER HARDIE knew absolutely no one at Westcott’s when he moved into his
room at Adams’s that fall. His father was engaged in the Argentine
trade; and the day after Roger was safely established in school the
whole family sailed for Buenos Aires to spend the winter there. He took
his fate stoically, trying hard to persuade himself that he should soon
feel at home, but he could not avoid the sense of isolation and
exclusion which comes naturally to one of a very few new boys among a
great many very intimate old ones; and he lacked entirely the aptitude
for quick friendships. Boys are seldom temperate in their opinions of
their own merits. Eliminate the over-confident who run to freshness and
the under-confident who lack courage to assert themselves, and there
remain but a small percentage who wisely follow the middle course. The
over-modest in the end is likely to outstrip the over-bold, whose rash
spirit is easily broken by unexpected and humiliating defeats. The
average boy, however, takes very little thought for ultimate results. He
lives vividly in the present, is captivated by boldness and dash and
ready wit, ranks caution with timidity, and suspects steadiness to be
mere feebleness in disguise.
Roger was naturally reticent; he was likewise inclined to regard himself
as neither attractive nor clever. The first impression which he produced
on his mates at Adams’s was that of mediocrity. They took him at his own
valuation and disregarded him. The consciousness that he wasn’t
considered worth while increased his reticence, and at the same time
stirred his obstinacy. He certainly didn’t care for the boys if they
didn’t care for him. He would go one way, and let them go another.
Hardie’s pique was enhanced by the apparently different reception
accorded to another new Adamsite, Archibald Dunn. As a matter of fact,
the principle followed by the boys in the treatment of the two cases was
identical: each was accepted at the outset at his face value. While
Hardie made no claim to ability, importance, or friends among the great,
Dunn’s method was to assume everything, to throw himself frankly on the
credulity and friendliness of his new companions. Of course he played
football; he had been end on the Westport High School at the beginning
of last season, but a shoulder bruise got in the practice had thrown him
out of the regular games. He liked baseball better; he and a friend of
his, who made the Yale Freshmen, used to be the battery of a corking
little nine they got up at their summer place. His favorite sport was
automobiling; in his first half-hour in Tracy’s room he told five
astonishing stories of marvellous escapes from death or the police. He
sailed, too,—used to take charge of his uncle’s forty-footer in
cruises. Dunn’s manners were undeniably easy. In twenty-four hours he
knew all the small boys at Adams’s by their nicknames, and treated the
older ones as if they were intimates of years’ standing.
The Tracys, Ben and Louis, might smile a little incredulously at the
broadest of Dunn’s claims, but he amused them, and, provisionally at
least, they accepted him. “He’s good sport, anyway,” said Ben, on the
second day of school, while describing the Adams household to Sumner.
“He can talk more than any person I ever saw, and he likes himself to
beat the band, but he seems to be a good fellow to have round.”
“What about Hardie?”
“Oh, he’s a zero, a good little boy that never speaks unless he’s spoken
to. He sat up in his room all last evening, grinding at algebra and
Latin. Just think of being so fierce about the first day’s lessons!”
“All the new ones do that,” opined Sumner; “they’re scared.”
“Dunn didn’t. He loafed round Louis’s room, telling stories, the first
two hours, and spent the rest of the evening looking for a trot to
Xenophon. He says it’s a waste of time trying to get along without one.”
“Flunked to-day, didn’t he?”
“Don’t know. He’s not in any of my classes.”
By favor of chance, Dunn did not flunk. He was called up in Latin on
grammar questions which he happened to know. Hardie did not escape so
easily. His lot fell upon a difficult passage which in his preparation
he had not fully understood. Confused by the new surroundings and
agitated by a nervous eagerness to do well, he floundered along like a
pig in the mud, getting nowhere and accomplishing nothing but the
amusement of a cruelly grinning class.
To escape unscathed without having prepared a lesson was, of course, a
piece of good fortune which a boy could not expect to experience often.
Before the week was out, Dunn had been pretty well gauged by his
teachers, and one of the most conscientious had already begun in the
simple old-fashioned way—which Dunn reviled as antiquated—to detain
him after school to make up neglected work. But what he lost in prestige
by classroom deficiencies—boys never charge such failures up against a
good comrade—he made ample amends for by marked success on the football
field, where he was generally regarded as the most promising addition to
the available material which the new season had brought.
Here Dunn’s own lively tongue had prepared for him a favorable
reception. While he did not actually declare himself a great player, his
ready vocabulary of football terms, his anecdotes of games which he had
seen or taken part in, the air of familiarity with styles of play which
he showed—all marked him as a veteran. Besides this, he was an end, and
the eleven lacked an end. With Harrison, the captain, at one extremity
of the line and Dunn at the other, the two important wings of the
fighting force would be well equipped. The idea pleased the school fancy
and produced a strong prejudice in Dunn’s favor. The boys believed in
him because they needed him, and it was more agreeable to believe than
to doubt.
The first week’s work on the football field, as every one knows, is
largely concerned with the individual elements of the game,—tackling,
dropping on the ball, running down under punts, charging. Through these
Dunn’s self-confidence and previous experience carried him with flying
colors. He threw himself on the ball with admirable spirit; and the way
in which he scampered down the field after punts, getting the direction
of the kick by a single, quick, accurate glance over his shoulder, and
fairly hugging the waiting receiver, was a joy to the beholder. In open
work he was not quite so successful. He missed a few hard tackles, but
he made some good ones, and the balance remained in his favor. Talbot
was so malevolent as to remark that Dunn got the smaller fellows and let
the big ones by, but Talbot was from aye a surly growler. The opinion
which Dunn himself delivered in the dressing rooms after the first
tackling practice found by far the wider acceptance.
“Nobody can tackle in the open in cold blood,” he averred. “A fellow
might get his man every time in a game when he feels the excitement and
forgets everything but the play, and yet miss every tackle when you put
him out to show what he can do. There was a half-back we had in school
who afterwards made the Dartmouth eleven; he couldn’t make one out of a
dozen of those practice tackles. They’re dangerous, too. If I was a
coach, I’d cut ’em out altogether.”
After the middle of the week there were short line-ups in which Dunn
played left end. Behind him was all the superior weight and prestige of
the first backs, and before him as opposing tackle only “Skinny”
Fairbanks, who had barely made the third the year before. Dunn’s work
here was of the lively, striking kind that sets partial spectators agog
with delight. He shoved Fairbanks back for holes as if Fairbanks were a
dummy. When the ball by way of variety was given to the second, he lay
outside like a keen-eyed bird of prey and fell upon the fearful
seconders with a sudden, calamitous swoop. Hardie stood on the
side-lines the day before the first real game, and reproached himself
for a feeling of envy. Apparently he and Dunn had started fair in school
but a few days before, and now Dunn was leagues beyond him. He felt
inclined to send word to the dilatory outfitter that he shouldn’t want
any football clothes at all.
Then on the first Saturday came the game with the Suffolk school, which
Newbury had just soundly beaten. It was a discouraging contest that took
the fire out of the hearts of the players and set the school to jesting
about the team. Westcott’s won in the last five minutes through a long
run by Harrison, who got the ball on a fumble and carried it half the
length of the field; but the record of six to nothing looked very small
alongside of Newbury’s twenty-six to eight. The plan of the coach had
been to push the attack generally through the left side of the line
behind Eaton and Dunn; and when Suffolk had the ball to concentrate the
secondary defence behind centre and right, leaving the strong wing to
make its own resistance. The scheme did not work, and after much waste
of time was abandoned. Holes did not develop where they were expected,
and Suffolk pounded the left with great success. The fault was not easy
to place. Dunn seemed so devoted to playing a safe outside that he
rarely got into the path of the Suffolk runner; and the Suffolk right,
it was generally conceded, had been greatly strengthened since the
Newbury game. Two bad fumbles that lost Westcott the ball at critical
moments were charged against Horr, the half-back.
“You could have saved us the ball both times if you’d only dropped quick
enough!” Talbot remarked with undisguised frankness to Dunn, as the team
walked moodily into the dressing rooms after the game.
“I couldn’t, really!” protested Dunn. “Once some one piled into me just
as I was going to drop, and the other time I tried to pick it up because
I had a clear field, and my foot slipped. It was the correct thing to
do, wasn’t it, Harry?”
“I didn’t see,” answered the captain. “I thought you might have got
Jefferson, though, on that crisscross.”
“The end blocked me off just as I was going to tackle. Eaton really
ought to have taken him.”
“It’s your business not to be blocked off!” snapped Talbot.
“Shut up, Pete!” called the captain. “What’s the good of kicking now?
None of us played well.”
“My playing was rotten, I know,” rejoined the pessimist, “but I don’t
shirk the responsibility for it.”
“It takes time for a team to get shaken together,” said Dunn. “We’ll all
do better when we’ve had more practice.”
Dunn’s remark showed a forgiving and conciliatory spirit that by all the
rules of story-book morality should have extracted from a contrite
Talbot an apology; but the surly half-back went his way unappeased.
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CHAPTER IV
RECRUITS FOR THE FOOTBALL SQUAD
ON the following Tuesday—the day of the imposing appearance before the
school of President John Smith—Hardie, having at last secured his
playing clothes, presented himself on the field. His arrival aroused no
very flattering comment, partly because nothing in particular was
expected from him, partly because of the company in which he came.
Saturday’s disappointment had caused a flurry of energy on the part of
the football leaders, and the school had been sifted anew for material.
As a result Fat Bumpus was strained out, and little McDowell, who,
though lithe and sinewy as an alley tomcat, and eager as a hound tugging
at the leash, was manifestly below the standard of weight. He came via
the third team, on which he had distinguished himself in the game with
Wood’s third, played on the Saturday on which the first had failed so
conspicuously at Suffolk. These three, Bumpus the fat, McDowell the
small, and Hardie the unpretending, formed the last group of recruits
available to reënforce the battle line of Westcott’s.
The side-line comments would have been sufficient to put all three to
speedy flight, if the contemptuous words had reached their ears. Stover,
the ball player, stood with Hargraves who didn’t like football and
Reeves whose forte was dancing and “fussing,” and made very merry over
the faults of their schoolmates, dwelling with unwearied if not
brilliant wit on the appearance of the newcomers, and enjoying the
audience of gaping small boys who surrounded them.
“They ought to tie a string to it and give Fatty the end,” said Stover,
as Bumpus groped sprawling after the ball which Harrison had rolled
toward him. “It’s cruelty to animals to make him root around like that.”
“The best way would be to put him sideways in the line on his hands and
knees. No one could get past him then,” remarked Reeves.
“They’d have to call time to get him up again.”
“Did you see that?” broke in Hargraves. “Hardie got the ball at the
first try!”
“It must have been an accident; he hasn’t sand enough in him to do it
purposely.” This was Stover’s opinion.
A furious but futile charge on the part of Marshall, a clumsy but
energetic hanger-on of the second, drew the fire of the trio. “That’s
the spirit!” chuckled Hargraves. “Dig up the dirt with your face, my
boy! Football is the game!”
“There goes Mac!” cried a shrill voice close at hand.
“McDowell the infant wonder,” commented Stover, as the boy dropped
sharply and cleanly on the ball, falling along knee, thigh, and hip, in
one continuous and perfectly easy motion.
“What’s the sense in wasting time on a kid like him?” muttered Reeves.
“Firman of Newbury would carry half a dozen of him on his back.”
The coach evidently had his own views as to the usefulness of McDowell,
for he made the boy repeat his performance several times to show the
less skilful how the trick should be done. Meantime Talbot, who was
catching punts, drew over near the criticising group, and the comments
became less audible. As regards side-line ridicule, Talbot held forcible
opinions which he had no hesitation in expressing nor reluctance to
defend. The trio moved farther down the line, and their wit flowed anew.
[Illustration: “THEY OUGHT TO TIE A STRING TO IT AND GIVE FATTY THE
END.”]
All three of the newcomers got into the line-up of the second that
afternoon. Bumpus thrashed about with more uproar than success at guard,
while McDowell and Hardie were placed at right end and right tackle
respectively. Harrison gave them a general exhortation to “play sharp
now,” and Talbot urged Hardie in specific terms to “get right into
Dunn.”
“You can manage him all right, if you stand right up to him,” he said.
“Forget everything but the play!”
Hardie nodded gratefully. He felt no fear, nor was he by any means new
to football, but he was conscious that the school did not expect much of
him, and the personal interest of an important fellow like Talbot was,
therefore, especially gratifying. In the big athletic school from which
he had come to Boston, he had learned to think modestly of his prowess.
While he had made his class eleven there, the school team lay beyond all
reasonable hope. It was not easy for him to think of himself as ‘varsity
material, even at Westcott’s!
Talbot kicked off, the ball sailing over Roger’s head down into
McDowell’s territory. Lingering long enough to see the boy gather in the
ball and tuck it safely under his arm, Hardie ran forward at
three-fourths speed to take the first onset of the school linesmen and
permit Mac to slip by. The first comer was Dunn, who caromed off Roger’s
shoulder without so much as touching the runner. Eaton, the left tackle
of the first, McDowell dodged by an abrupt stop and a dart outside; and
beyond Eaton again, Hardie was at his side to take Channing, the right
guard. The two disentangled themselves and followed after as McDowell
zigzagged on, emerging from between Lowe’s hands and leaving Talbot on
the ground behind him. Sumner, the quarter-back, at last drove him
outside at the forty-yard line.
The coach carried the ball in and put it down for the scrimmage, first
giving the little end a deserved compliment, and then scoring the first
severely for careless tackling. The glory of the second faded quickly.
The quarter fumbled and lost a yard. Bumpus let Eaton through on the
waiting half; the third down was followed by a feeble punt which Sumner
ran back twenty yards. Then came a quick reversal. The first had the men
and the signals. The ball was pushed rapidly through the centre, through
the right side, again through the centre and again through right. At a
new signal Hardie caught a change of expression in Dunn’s face, and knew
that his own turn had come.
“Look out, Mac!” he shouted, and leaped for his opening with the first
movement of the ball. Dunn held him but an instant; with a side buffet
of the open hand the new tackle slipped by, ruined the interference, and
drove the convoy straight into Mac’s sure grip.
“This feels like it again,” Roger said to himself as he took his place
once more. “They’re not up to a Hillbury class team after all.”
“Whose fault was that?” demanded the coach.
“Mine!” said Talbot, shortly.
Hardie looked in wonder over at the friendly half-back. It wasn’t
Talbot’s fault, or at least not primarily. Dunn had failed to block his
man, Talbot only to make his protection wholly effective—a difficult
task at best. The essential weakness lay with Dunn.
“Tackle and end must take care of the opposing tackle,” said the coach.
“Get down in front of him, Dunn, spread your elbows, dive into him with
your shoulder, but _hold him_—you hear?”
“He started before the ball was snapped,” pleaded Dunn.
“Shut up! Play the game!” commanded Talbot. “I said it was my fault.”
They bucked the centre once more, by way of variety, and then made
another trial of the left side. Horr went ahead to push out the end, and
Talbot carried the ball. This time Dunn made frantic efforts to hold his
man by use of body and arms without much regard for the rules of the
game; but Hardie, keeping him at arm’s length, made a dash at the runner
that staggered him, and the line half-back laid him low. At the third
attempt Dunn and Eaton together contrived to box the second tackle, and
the play went through, over the line half-back.
Mr. Adams, who feared overdoing at the beginning of the season, cut into
the coach’s programme after the first had made two touch-downs, and put
an end to the practice. Bumpus limped in like an exhausted dray-horse,
sweating at every pore. Stover and Hargraves hailed him as he crossed
the road to the dressing rooms.
“How’d you like it, Bump?” asked Stover. “You look warm.”
“You played a bully game,” said Hargraves.
“Did I?” Bumpus gave them a glance of suspicion. “It didn’t seem so.”
“It was great playing,” continued Stover. “Going to keep it up?”
“Of course he is!” interrupted Harrison, as he came up from behind.
“Bump won’t go back on the school as long as it needs him.”
“That’s right!” said Bumpus, beaming with his whole red, swollen face.
“I’m not stuck on the game, but if you really think I’m any help, I’ll
come out till the end of things!”
“That’s the talk,” answered Harrison. “I wish you fellows showed as good
a spirit.”
“We’ve been trying to encourage him,” claimed Hargraves. “What more do
you want?” They went off, snickering, to Stover’s automobile.
Inside the dressing rooms, boys shouted and jested and laughed over
their bathing and dressing. Talbot leaned a smooched arm and a grimy paw
on the top of a locker, and smiled across at Hardie.
“You’ve played football before.”
“Only on a class team at Hillbury.”
“That’s more than most of us have done. You ought to make our team
easily.”
“I’d like to,” said Hardie, wistfully.
“Ever play end?”
“That’s where I’ve always played.”
“See here!” Talbot raised his eyes level with his companion’s and gave
him a square, direct look. “We need just the kind of fellow you are, but
Harry doesn’t know it yet. You keep your mouth shut, play for all that’s
in you, try to do what the coach tells you, and you’ll make the team
before the first league game. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” Talbot turned toward the door. “Where’s that ’Lijah with
the towels? He hasn’t given me a clean one for two days.”
A sober-faced negro with close-cut side whiskers appeared round the
corner.
“Aren’t you going to give me a clean towel, Lije?”
“Not ontil you pay me,” returned Elijah. “I ain’t trustin’ nobody this
year.”
“You old Shylock!” grumbled Talbot. “I’ve only got five cents, and I
want that for car-fare.”
“I’ll lend you a quarter,” proposed Hardie, eagerly.
“Thanks. He’s more generous than you are, ’Lijah. He’ll lend me a
quarter, and you won’t trust me for a towel.”
“He’s new here,” answered Elijah, solemnly, as he handed over the clean
towel and pocketed the quarter. “If he’d lost as much by you fellows as
I have, he wouldn’t lend you a cent.”
“That pays for a week, now, Lije,” urged Talbot. “Don’t forget!”
“I never forgets. It’s you that forgets;” and the janitor went forth to
seek other business opportunities.
“A good fellow Lije is, but he’s too avaricious,” commented Talbot,
hurrying for the shower.
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CHAPTER V
AT ADAMS’S
HALF an hour later, Roger Hardie was giving the last tug to his necktie
before a square of looking-glass that still adhered to the end of the
locker tier near the window, and Talbot, swinging a couple of books by a
strap, lounged near. Eaton was getting into his clothes a few feet
distant, bravely chanting away on a ragtime song in the face of derisive
comments from Wilmot, the manager, who sat on the bench nursing a couple
of footballs. Farther down, Dunn’s tongue was running wild before an
audience of worthies of uncertain intent, whose grins might denote
either innocent amusement or guile. Harrison was minding his own
business in his usual quiet fashion.
“That’s the second time my socks have disappeared!” sputtered Dunn.
“This is the worst gang of thieves I ever got into. You couldn’t keep a
thing here if you had a steel vault and a watchman.”
“You’ve probably got ’em on,” suggested Wilmot.
As Dunn had very little on, and was notably bare as to feet, this
suggestion could not have been serious. He glanced down, none the less,
and earned thereby a unanimous jeer.
“I don’t see how you could lose them,” observed Sumner. “They’re the
most conspicuous things in school. I recognized you by ’em this morning
a block away, before I could see your face.”
“Oh, you did!” was the best Dunn could do in rejoinder.
“I never saw anything like them but once,” Wilmot observed thoughtfully.
“A clown had ’em on in the circus. They seemed all right there.”
“They cost two dollars, anyway!” ejaculated Dunn, who was turning over
football trousers on the floor and kicking shoes into corners.
“Tyrian purple always did come high,” Wilmot said softly. “Aren’t you
ready yet, Jim? This excitement is getting on my nerves. I feel as if
there was an officer here with a search warrant. Perhaps Lije took ’em,
Dunn. He might use ’em for a necktie.”
“If I could find the fellow who swiped ’em, I’d use _him_ for a
necktie!” exploded Dunn. “It’s a low-down trick to hide a man’s clothes.
No one but a kid would do it. You fellows belong with the rubes who tie
knots in shirts at the village swimming-hole!”
This violent arraignment awoke new chuckles of merriment. Dunn was
becoming interesting.
“That’s a good suggestion,” said Wilmot. “Harrison might try that next
time.”
“Shut up, Baldie, and get dressed!” admonished Ben Tracy, in a low tone.
“You’re playing right into their hands. You don’t need the socks to get
to your room.”
At this advice, the wisdom of which he recognized, Dunn smothered his
indignation and went on with his dressing in silence. The crowd,
perceiving that the fun was over, began to scatter. Eaton put on his
coat and turned to Wilmot. “All ready, Steve! Come on, Pete!”
“I’m going up to Hardie’s room for a while,” said Talbot, who had been
talking in the corner with Roger.
Wilmot slid over toward the door. “There are your socks on the bench,
Dunn!” called Eaton.
“I must have been sitting on them all the time,” Wilmot explained
contritely from the doorway. “I felt something hot under me. Hope I
didn’t hurt them.”
“They seem all right, just as bright and sporty as ever. Want ’em,
Dunn?” Eaton held out the lost socks toward their owner; but Dunn,
having definitely adopted a policy of indifference, turned his back on
his tormentors and continued the conversation with Tracy as if he had
lost all interest in the object of dispute—in the end taking possession
of his property without let or hindrance.
Talbot, having explained the point in physics which was the nominal
object of his call on Hardie, sat by the window and talked about school
affairs.
“The trouble with our athletics is that we are in a big city,” he said,
“with lots of interesting things to take up our time outside of school.
Then we’re mostly too young to be very serious about anything. In the
big schools like Hillbury the fellows are older; and in the
boarding-schools they haven’t any outside attractions nor any liberty,
and there’s really nothing else to do but play something.”
“You always have men on the college teams,” remarked Roger.
“Oh, they do well in college, but they’re more mature then. Here there’s
always a whole lot of fooling going on such as you saw this afternoon.
You can’t change a fellow like Wilmot. He’s an awfully nice chap, but
he’s never serious, and he spoils the atmosphere for the hard,
determined kind of work that makes good teams.”
“Harrison seems serious enough,” said Hardie. “I should think he’d make
a mighty good captain.”
“That’s right! He’s about the best fellow we’ve got. That’s the reason I
had hopes of the football, but it looks now as if it was going in the
same old way. If we could only win in football, we could go to work with
more courage on the crew.”
“The crew is always good, isn’t it?”
“We seem to do better with rowing than anything else. There’s no fooling
there, I can tell you. From the time you lift out the boat until you put
her away on the supports there isn’t a minute wasted.”
“I should think it would be monotonous, just pulling an oar with the
same motion all the time. Of course the race is exciting, but the
training must be terribly tiresome.”
“That shows you’ve never tried it,” answered Talbot, laughing. “The race
is hard and disagreeable because you try to pull yourself completely
out, but the practice is fun all the time. We have good coaching, and
every day we try to get into the swing a little better, and overcome
some one of our faults. Then the movement of the boat is fine. You can’t
imagine what a pleasure it is to feel it going under you right—to know
that there is no check between strokes, that everybody is getting away
quick and sharp, and pulling just as he ought to.”
“I don’t understand,” returned Roger, “but I’d like to try it.”
“You must come out. You have the right build for rowing.”
Talbot glanced out at the window and waved his hand at Tracy, who was
crossing the yard to the dormitory. “We’re a long way from that yet,” he
went on. “We might possibly beat Newbury and Trowbridge in rowing, but
we can’t get the cup without football.”
“There’s baseball,” suggested Roger.
“No hope there. What can you expect with a fellow like Stover running
things? We never were a baseball school, anyway. It’s the fellows who
play on the corner lots that make the baseball players. Our fellows do
too much sailing and rowing and playing golf in the summer to have time
for baseball practice.”
He rose to leave. “Just go in hard on the football, and don’t give up if
you don’t get all the credit you deserve. They have a way here of
starting with a team made up on paper and keeping to it through the
season; but it’s a bad custom which I want to see broken. I give Dunn
about three weeks to talk himself off the field. Then if you don’t get
in, it’ll be your own fault.”
The door closed behind the first really sympathetic visitor Roger Hardie
had yet received. He had been in school long enough to know that the
captain of the crew on the whole outranked any other captain, and that
Talbot, in spite of his marked tendency to see the dark spots in the
future, and to be over-frank in his criticism, was yet one of the
steady-flowing springs of school energy, respected perforce even by
those who did not like him. To have Talbot as a friend was to be sure of
a stout defender, if not of a persuasive advocate.
Thrilled with gratitude for the attention shown him, his ambition
kindling into flame from the spark of hope which Talbot had struck,
Roger resolved to show himself worthy of his patron’s favor; he would
make something of himself in the school life for the honor of the boy
who had befriended him, if such a result lay within the reach of hard
work, or patience, or devotion. That making something of himself in the
school life meant to him mainly achieving a success in the school
athletics, was but natural. We who are older may rightly insist that
there are other ways of serving one’s school than by scoring touch-downs
or pulling on a winning crew; but a boy cannot be expected to see life
through the spectacles of the aged. He must grow through his own ideals,
not those of his parents. If his opinion as to the importance of
athletics is a fallacy, it is at least a far more wholesome one to hold
than many cherished by adults.
Roger held his head higher than usual as he went downstairs to dinner,
and in his plain but not unintelligent face the look of stolidity had
given place to a brighter expression.
“I was glad to see you playing to-day,” said Mr. Adams, pleasantly. “It
seemed to me that you were starting in very well.”
“Thank you,” returned Roger, quietly.
“Didn’t you say you hadn’t played before?” asked Ben Tracy.
Hardie shook his head. “I didn’t mean to. I’ve never played on a school
team. At Hillbury I played end on my class team in some of the games.”
“That’s not bad,” said Louis, with respect. “They have great class teams
at those schools.”
“It isn’t like playing on a school team, though,” offered Dunn. “You
don’t have any great responsibility.”
“The class feeling is pretty strong sometimes,” replied Roger, “and the
games are always hard.”
“I liked the way you got into the play,” said Mr. Adams. “The house
ought to give a good account of itself on the playground this year.”
“I couldn’t do anything at all to-day,” observed Dunn. “I have to feel
just right to do myself credit. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
Redfield exchanged a glance of intelligence with Louis Tracy. They knew
what had disturbed Dunn’s slumbers,—the memory of a late lunch in
Number Six.
“You must be careful about food and bed hours if you want to be in good
condition,” observed Mr. Adams, apparently oblivious to the exchange of
messages. “It takes some self-control to keep in training with a pocket
full of money.”
“I’d like to have a chance to try it once,” sighed Redfield, to whose
mind the suggestion of a pocket full of money conveyed the idea of a
continuously replenished supply. Much of his allowance never reached his
pocket at all; it was spent in paying back bills.
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CHAPTER VI
THE STORY OF JASON
HARDIE’S appearance on the football field unquestionably raised him from
the condition of nonentity into which he had fallen, but it did not
materially help him to get into the charmed circle of the initiate who
occupied the social centre of the school on a kind of ancestral tenure.
He felt himself an outsider, even more after Talbot had shown him favor
than before, for friendliness on the part of one served only to
emphasize the lack of interest of others. It was not that he was
objectionable or disliked; his schoolmates were merely content without
him, seeing nothing in the newcomer that commended him especially to
their notice. His mother’s name was not on their mothers’ calling lists;
he possessed no cousins or near friends who knew their cousins or
friends; he lacked the ready tongue which creates on short acquaintance
a reputation for wit. He had no special resources to enhance his
attractiveness—no fast auto waiting for him at the corner, no shooting
lodge in the marsh to which his friends might be invited. He was just
plain, undistinguished, unvalued Hardie, a new boy who lived at Adams’s
and played tackle on the second.
Dunn still floated with the tide. Judgment regarding him was still in a
measure suspended, but aside from Talbot, who was silent about him, and
Wilmot, who jollied him, the trend of opinion was in his favor. As a
prospective member of the first eleven, he possessed prestige, and as a
good-natured loafer whose excuses and garrulity were entertaining, he
appealed to the indiscriminate humor of the mob. But with one of the
smaller, though not altogether impotent, members of the school, he early
fell into conflict.
“Mike” McKay was a red-headed, freckle-faced, wing-eared urchin, filled
to the brim with activity and energy, who dominated the fifth class. He
lived at Adams’s, and held the proud position of captain and half-back
on the fourth eleven. Mike was no lover of lessons, but they constituted
a part of his day, and with his natural habit of putting into everything
that he undertook all the vim he possessed, he labored on them devotedly
until they were accomplished. Behind Mike in the schoolroom sat
Archibald Dunn. Dunn lacked the zeal of his little neighbor; he could
endure about ten minutes of mental effort at a stretch, after which his
brain demanded rest. In these intervals of rest he often refreshed
himself by slouching down in his seat and bracing his toes against the
chair in front of him, achieving, in the meantime, some distraction by a
languid survey of the room. Mike, intent on the French sentences which
he was laboriously manufacturing, word upon word, like a conscientious
bricklayer, would feel the tip of Dunn’s toe thrust into his exposed
haunch, and violently reacting, would make a scrawl or drop a blot to
disfigure the work of his hands.
Expostulations served only to convert what had at first been accidental
into a deliberate and repeated annoyance. Dunn had discovered a
diversion for the idle moments of brain recuperation.
Stung one day by this persecution, Mike turned fiercely and attacked the
exposed ankle of the offender with his pen. A teacher, sharp-eyed but
not far-sighted, caught the boy in the act and gave him long minutes
after school. This result appeared to Dunn exquisitely amusing; he could
hardly wait for the lunch hour to bring him the opportunity of telling
the story.
“You’d better let Mike alone,” said Ben Tracy. “He’s a miniature
fire-eater when he’s mad.”
Dunn sniffed contemptuously. “What do I care for him? I could lick a
couple of such little fresh kids with one hand.”
“He seems to me a rather nice little chap,” Redfield remarked.
“That shows he isn’t,” answered Dunn. “You never get things right.”
Silenced by this blunt personality, which Dunn would classify under the
head of wit, Redfield abandoned the conversation and devoted himself to
his luncheon. Bumpus came rolling in just in season to hear Redfield’s
remark and Dunn’s rejoinder.
“Who’s the nice little chap?” he asked, as he removed one chair and took
possession of the territory belonging to two.
“You!” sang out Wilmot, giving Bumpus a slap as he tripped past to
another table.
Bumpus beamed with joy, not at the jest, which indeed was worn as smooth
as a pebble in a pot-hole, but at Wilmot’s cordial manner, and at the
intimacy suggested by the playful tap on the shoulder. Word had gone out
from Captain Harrison that Bumpus was to be encouraged.
“Captain Mike McKay,” explained Tracy. “Dunn’s got him stung!”
“You don’t suppose I’m going to have him jabbing pens into my legs, do
you?” protested Dunn, disappointed to be thrown upon his defence when he
had expected to be amusing.
Of course no one did suppose any such thing, and the conversation
zigzagged gayly off to distant fields. Meantime Mike was temporarily
allaying his indignation by a brisk and noisy game of indoor baseball in
the playroom. Later on he paid his penance with stoicism, working out
half his home arithmetic problems during the period of his detention.
On the next day Mike endured two or three toe thrusts with Christian
forbearance. By squeezing himself against his desk he could put a
neutral zone between his own person and the convenient range of the
prods. By this pretence of retreat he tempted the enemy into an
incautious advance. To reach his prey in spite of bars, Dunn slid
farther down in his own seat, and bent his foot around the chair back,
so as to come within striking distance.
Instantly the boy recognized his opportunity. Seizing the foot with both
his nimble hands, he twisted off the shoe and passed it across the aisle
to a faithful clansman, who handed on the emblem of victory to another,
who as speedily got rid of it in his turn. By the time Dunn recovered
himself sufficiently to demand its restoration, the whereabouts of the
shoe was actually unknown to the first plunderer. It ultimately found
its way, wrapped in a page of a returned exercise, to the waste-basket.
The call to recitation broke in upon Dunn’s efforts, greatly handicapped
by the presence of a teacher at the other end of the room, to make clear
to Pirate Mike the fate in store for him if the shoe were not
immediately returned to its owner. The fifth Latin rose with cheerful
readiness and crowded to the door. Dunn fell in behind them, though he
had no recitation at that time, hoping in the confusion to get his hand
on his enemy. Once out of sight of the room teacher, he pressed on
hotly, scattering the fifth like a flock of sheep, and with an
imprecation on his lips reached for his quarry,—only to be met by the
stern face of Mr. Westcott as he emerged from his room at the foot of
the stairs.
Dunn was questioned in the office in a most unpleasant secret session,
while the fifth in their Latin room were forced to trace the route
between Mike’s desk and the waste-basket. When the different stations on
this underground railroad were located, and the shoe was produced by the
boy who had consigned it to its last resting-place, the guilty received
the regular penalty for small misdemeanors, and the Latin lesson took
its usual course.
Dunn’s session was longer. He emerged with a very red face, and sat with
a book open before him, staring angrily and unprofitably at its pages
for many minutes. He was very late for football practice for several
days after, on an excuse that was evidently valid. This, however, might
have been but a passing experience, forgotten in a fortnight, had not a
heartless sally from Wilmot perpetuated the memory of the unpleasantness
and given Mike a telling advantage over his bigger foe.
As was to be expected, Dunn had no history lesson that morning. He never
did compass more than half a lesson, but to-day he was as ignorant on
the subject of Greek Oracles and Greek Colonization as the Esquimau in
his hut of ice on the edge of No Man’s Land.
More than this, he showed himself distrait, and totally impervious to
the cleverly pointed shafts with which Mr. Downs sought to pierce a way
to thick-crusted brains. The patient instructor, ignorant, of course, of
the disturbance of the morning, and faithful to duty even under
discouraging circumstances, detained Dunn after the class was dismissed
for recess to admonish him of the evil consequences of idleness and
inattention. As a result, Dunn arrived at the lunch room late, facing
with an uneasy and unnatural grin a full collection of unsympathetic
teases.
“Jason!” cried Wilmot, loudly. “Beware of the man with one shoe!”
About one first class boy in five understood the reference, and this one
was immediately besought by his four ignorant companions to explain the
joke, for joke they were sure it must be. Johnny Cable, the book-learned
but otherwise incapable, was in excessive demand for the next few
minutes to clear up the mystery. These few minutes Dunn employed in
strengthening his defence of indifference and preparing himself for the
coming questions as to what Mr. Westcott had said to him, and what he
was going to do to Mike. He answered the questions in very ambiguous
terms, but his threats against the chief agent in his misfortunes were
no less awful because of their vagueness, while the grins of a dozen
fifth class boys at the long table opposite kept his wrath at the
boiling-point. Ben Tracy at last succeeded in diverting the general
interest to Redfield, who had made a new record that morning in the
smashing of glass tubes in the laboratory.
But the fifth were not to be diverted. They had no need of Cable’s
learning to explain Wilmot’s comparison. Having fought their way, line
by line, through sundry tales of Greek heroes presented in simple Latin,
they knew the stories from end to end. “Jason Dunn!” they whispered
ecstatically to one another along the table. The names fitted as if made
to go together. No combination could be better!
“We’ll call him Jason after this,” proposed Dickie Sumner, Jack’s
younger brother. “Nobody can help saying it after he’s heard it once.”
This suggestion was put into practice as soon as the youngsters left the
table. They gathered at the door and sang out in chorus three times
before they scattered: “Jason Dunn! Jason Dunn! What has Jason done?”
“Fresh little mutts!” exclaimed Tracy, in disgust. “That’s the result of
being tied up with a kindergarten. Let’s go out and wring their necks!”
“Don’t notice ’em,” said Wilmot. “They’ll forget it to-morrow if you let
’em alone.”
But the title stuck. Before a week was out, the name, Archie Dunn, or
Baldie Dunn, ceased to be heard on a boy’s lips. It had become Jason
Dunn.
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CHAPTER VII
SUMNER CHOOSES A SUCCESSOR
THE first skirmish in the feud that was bound to arise came on the
following day at Adams’s, when a group of fifth and sixth lads, thinking
themselves safe in the shadow of the dormitory, sang out the new
nickname derisively across the field to Dunn. Dunn, who was still in a
state of irritation, and by no means ready, as yet, to accept the
inevitable nickname, made a dash for the group, which broke into
screaming flight round the corner of the locker house. The first lad
whom Jason met as he rounded the corner in full pursuit, was Mike,
engaged in tossing a football against the side of the building. Without
stopping to raise the question whether Mike had been one of the
offenders, Dunn proceeded to the agreeable task of teaching the urchin a
lesson. The boy resisted with hands, feet, voice, and teeth. The older
fellows, hurrying forth at the shrill cries for help, found Mike lying
on his back, like the arms of a hay tedder, squirming to keep his
antagonist at bay and squawking like a hen in distress.
[Illustration: HIS FEET GOING LIKE THE ARMS OF A HAY TEDDER.]
The majority of the newcomers lined up in good positions, to enjoy the
amusement which chance had thrown in their way; but Talbot, who had seen
the beginning of the incident from a distance, pushed through the line,
jerked the boy to his feet, and commanded him to stop his noise.
“He knocked me down when I wasn’t doing a thing!” screamed Mike, weeping
more from rage than because of any hurt which he had received. “Let me
get a stone, and I’ll kill him!”
“You won’t do anything of the sort,” said Talbot, firmly. He turned to
Dunn. “What’s the row, anyway? What’s the use of pitching into a little
fellow like him?”
“I’m not going to have him calling me names,” said Dunn, defiantly. “He
thinks because he’s small he can be as fresh as he wants to, without
getting hurt.”
“I didn’t call him names,” sobbed Mike. “I wasn’t doing a thing.”
“It wasn’t him,” offered Dickie Sumner, who had been tempted back by
all-compelling curiosity. “He wasn’t with us at all.”
Talbot turned and seized the rash youngster by the arm. “So it was you,
was it? Now, look here! We aren’t going to have any calling names or any
other freshness from you young kids round this place. If we catch you at
it, we’ll duck you under the cold-water faucet and forbid you the
grounds. Understand?”
Dickie understood. “All right,” he answered faintly, and tried to pull
away; but Talbot still held him in a tight grip.
“What do you say, Jack?” he added, turning to Dick’s older brother, who
shared with him the responsibility for order on the grounds.
“That’s right!” replied Jack Sumner, sacrificing his fraternal
obligation in the cause of justice with surprising equanimity. “He’s a
good one to begin on.”
Talbot released the youngster, who speedily escaped from the circle of
danger to join his confederates over by the tennis courts, where they
discussed for a time in subdued voices the probability that Pete meant
business. They were soon diverted by tag.
“All the same, Dunn is a fool to notice them,” murmured Talbot in
Hardie’s ear as they returned to the locker room to finish their
dressing.
“I don’t believe he can shake off the nickname, now,” said Roger.
“No, it’s branded in. He isn’t showing much of the good-nature they talk
about, is he?”
In fact, Dunn’s good-nature didn’t extend far below the skin. It was a
mannerism assumed to win him the popularity which he craved. He was
vain, lazy, and characterless. In the football field his fine physique,
together with the professional air with which he bore himself, for some
time blinded the eyes of critics to his shortcomings. Yards, the coach,
felt sure that something could be made of a man of Dunn’s vigor and
apparent knowledge of the game. Yet a strong player opposite him, or the
grinding strain of an uphill contest, invariably produced slackened
effort and excuses.
“It’s come to be the weakest place in the team,” said the coach, a few
days before the Groton game. “If we could brace up the left end and
quarter-back, we should have some hope of giving Newbury a tussle.”
“Is Sumner so bad as all that?” asked Harrison, disturbed. “I thought he
was running the play very well.”
“He runs the play well enough, but look at the errors! He fumbles, muffs
punts, misses tackles. A quarter-back has no right to do anything of the
kind.”
“No one plays perfectly,” Harrison hastened to offer in defence of his
friend. “Besides, he’s the only man we’ve got for the place.”
“Hardie is coming on well,” observed the coach. “He’s going to push Ben
Tracy pretty hard for tackle. We might give him a trial at quarter.”
“I don’t think he’d do at all,” answered Harrison, quickly. “He’d be
entirely new to the position, and we shall need him as a substitute
tackle before the season is over.”
The coach considered for a time in silence. Yards was a loyal Westcott
graduate, whose devotion to his school was strong enough to make him
sacrifice his afternoons at the Law School for the sake of helping the
Westcott team. He knew the game well and could teach it, but he lacked
confidence in his own judgment of the comparative merits of individuals,
and he was morbidly anxious to avoid the foolish jealousies which he
remembered as a source of weakness to the school in his own day. It was
clear that Harrison’s heart was set on keeping Sumner in his place. To
insist on a change which would be at best an experiment with an unknown
quantity, and which might give rise to factions, seemed at present
unwise.
“We’ll give McDowell a chance on the end, anyway,” he said, “and let
Dunn rest.”
To this proposition Harrison assented eagerly, and went hot foot to warn
Sumner that he must bestir himself if he wanted to keep his post.
“Am I as bad as that?” asked Sumner, in consternation.
“You’re not bad, but you’ve got to be better.”
In place of replying, Sumner swung his sweater to the other shoulder and
gazed, a sober, startled expression in his eyes, across the field.
Harrison stole a side glance at his friend’s face and took his arm
affectionately. “It’s all right, Jack; don’t worry,” he said. “Just play
your best game, and I’ll stand back of you.”
“You’re wrong there, Harry,” Jack said quietly. “You’ve no right to
stand back of me. My playing has been rotten lately, and I know it. I’m
fumbling punts and missing tackles all the time. If you’ve got some one
else who can do better, I won’t have you keep me on just out of
friendship.”
“You’re talking rot,” returned Harrison, impatiently. “Stubby Weldon is
no use, as you know perfectly well. There’s no one else.”
Sumner breathed easier. “I’ll do better if I can,” he said.
So McDowell went to Groton to play left end, and Dunn was told to stay
at home and rest. He neither stayed at home nor rested. Stover took him
to the game with Hargraves and Reeves in his flyer. He amused himself
watching the play incognito, and got back before the return train
delivered the weary, disheartened team at the station in Boston.
Westcott’s fared ill at Groton. Sumner’s game was worse than ever.
McDowell strove like a hero against men a whole head taller and many
pounds heavier, tackling fiercely and surely whenever he got within
striking distance of the ball; but his opponents brushed his
interference aside, charged through him in the line and blocked him off
from the play almost at will. The score was eighteen to nothing at the
end of the first half.
“I can’t do it!” groaned McDowell, as the players tried to hearten each
other during the intermission. “I’m not big enough. Put Hardie in.”
As Dunn was out, there was nothing else to do. Hardie went in at left
end, and fat Bumpus, who had lost in weight but gained in muscle and
wind by his patriotic exertions on the field, relieved Kimball at guard.
The team sallied forth once more, crestfallen but determined.
Groton got the ball on Talbot’s kick-off, and tried the old trick of
circling Westcott’s left end, but Hardie could not be disposed of, and
the play came to grief. They bucked the centre, only to find big Bumpus
sprawling effectually in the path. A forward pass found its way into
Horr’s hands. Then Sumner gave the ball to Talbot, who discovered a hole
where McDowell had failed to make one. Encouraged, he repeated the play
and made the first down. A lucky forward pass which, to his great
delight, fell into Hardie’s hands, saved Westcott’s at the next third
down, and carried the ball to the centre of the field. Twenty yards
farther they pressed, and then Talbot was forced to kick. Groton started
on a return journey, which proved to be slow and frequently interrupted.
A fumble by Westcott’s before the goal posts gave the home eleven the
only score which they made during the second half.
Roger Hardie felt very happy as he took his seat in the barge with his
mates to drive to the station, for he knew, without regard to the
compliments paid him by his polite opponents, that his chance had come
and he had not missed it.
The leaders, however, were in no exultant mood. Twenty-three to nothing
is a big score for a coach and captain to swallow, especially when it is
clear that two-thirds of it is due to avoidable errors. On the train Mr.
Adams, who had accompanied the team, sat with Yards, Harrison, and
Talbot in a double seat, and tried to point out signs of hope for the
future in the day’s disaster.
“I should like to suggest two changes,” he said at length, “which may
help the team. One I think you will accept. The other I have my doubts
about.”
The trio looked at him expectantly. “Hardie should play regularly at
left end,” went on the teacher. “His work to-day was almost equal to
Harrison’s.”
“Better, sir!” said Harrison, quickly. “We accept that suggestion on the
spot, don’t we, Yards?”
Yards nodded. “We ought to have had him there before. What’s the other
suggestion,—Bumpus?”
“No. Bumpus can take care of himself. I want to propose that you try
McDowell at quarter. He’s out of place in the line, but he’s a good
tackler, catches punts well, and has a good head.”
Talbot looked at Yards, and Yards looked at Harrison, who pressed his
lips together and looked at no one. There was an interval of silence.
“I don’t see why he should be any better than Sumner!” said the captain,
defiantly.
“I don’t see how he could be any worse!” ejaculated Talbot.
“I don’t urge it,” said Mr. Adams, kindly. “I merely suggest it for
consideration.”
“He couldn’t run the game as Jack does,” said Harrison.
“He could save touch-downs as Jack doesn’t,” asserted Talbot. “I think
as much of Jack as you do, but my thinking a lot of him can’t make him
play well.”
“He has been on the team all the season. It is hard to put him off now.”
“No one stays on the crew because he’s been on all the season—I’ll tell
you that in advance!” blurted Pete, savagely. “I’ll fire myself if there
are four better men.”
Harrison smiled faintly. “It’s easy to say that now. Wait till spring.”
“Sh! Here he comes,” exclaimed Yards, speaking for the first time.
“We’ll think it over during the night.”
Sumner came oscillating down the aisle from the seat which he had
occupied, dismally brooding alone, during half the journey. He stopped
at the end of the double seat and addressed Harrison, but his gaze, as
he spoke, wandered uneasily away over the captain’s head; while his
flushed cheek and hurried tones betrayed the strain under which he had
been laboring.
“I’ve been thinking the thing all over,” he began, “and I see perfectly
plainly what’s the right thing to do. I’ve gone to the bad in my play. I
know it as well as anybody. I want you to put little Mac into my place
at quarter and give him a good, fair show to prove what he can do. He’s
no good in the line because he’s so light, but he tackles like a little
fiend in the open, and he can catch anything that can be kicked. I could
tell him all he doesn’t know about signals and plays in twenty minutes.
I believe the change would give the team a new start.”
“By Jove, you’re the stuff, Jack!” cried Talbot, as he clutched his
friend’s hand and gave it a wring. “If we win anything this year, that’s
the spirit that’ll bring it. There’s something in a name, after all.”
“Give McDowell the place and wrest it back from him,” suggested Mr.
Adams, who felt the tension of the scene.
“I shan’t wrest it back, if he has a fair show, sir,” answered Sumner,
with a melancholy laugh.
“We’ll try him, then,” concluded Harrison; “shan’t we, Yards?”
Yards acquiesced with a vast sense of relief. He had already determined
on this very change, though how he was to bring it about had greatly
perplexed him. Sumner’s magnanimity relieved him of all anxiety.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII
A SLIGHTED OFFER
ONLY a week remained before the first league game—that with Newbury.
Having already had experience in the position, and being a lad who used
his eyes and ears more than his lips, Hardie needed very little coaching
to fit well into the game at left end. Though he lacked Harrison’s
sureness in play, as well as the instinctive readiness in translating
signals into action which is to be expected of one who has practiced
long in a single position, he was better than Harrison in making holes
and quite as fast in getting down the field. Each showed a fine keenness
of scent after the ball in the enemy’s hands; each was master of the art
which belongs especially to a good end, of appearing where he is most
useful, and not somewhere else. Deprived of the support of the first
team and handicapped by the weakness of the second, Dunn made an
inconspicuous figure in the practice. When on the first, he had at
times, under favorable conditions, shown effective dash and vigor;
degraded to the second, he became sulky and listless. Little remained of
the aggressiveness of the early days but a chronic ugliness which
manifested itself in fault-finding and in the practice of certain mean
tricks which he had learned at a former school.
Sumner’s conduct stood out in strong contrast. Having undertaken to
furnish the school a quarter-back better than himself, he pushed his
sacrifice to its full limit. He drilled Mac in signals, schooled him in
receiving and passing—a part of the play in which Sumner himself
excelled—and put him in possession, as far as was possible, of such
facts respecting likely plays and dangers to be avoided as his own
experience had furnished. Harrison immediately made him captain of the
second eleven, and in this capacity he went energetically to work to
build up a team which should give the first the best possible practice.
By this course, it is safe to say, he gained more respect among the boys
whose opinion was worth having than if he had kept his place and won a
game. When kid-brother Dick, who, imp-like, found amusement in his
elder’s misfortune, referred slightingly to Jack as having been “fired,”
Mike McKay threatened to lick him on the spot.
“You’re a big fool, Dick Sumner, or you’d know that it’s a lot harder
thing to get off a team of your own accord when you’re on it, than to
get put on when you’re off. I’d be proud of him if he was my brother.
Besides, he’ll get back.”
“The team’s playing a lot better since he’s off; everybody says so,”
answered Dick, bound to maintain his position, yet secretly pleased at
this authoritative recognition of his brother’s merits.
“It isn’t because he’s off, it’s because Jason Dunn’s off. He never was
any good. I knew it all the time. He’s afraid of any fellow his size.”
Dick had nothing to say in favor of Jason Dunn, so he took another tack.
“Newbury’ll beat ’em anyway, so what difference does it make?”
“It may make a lot of difference,” answered the oracle of the fifth.
“Newbury may beat us, and they may not. If big Bumpus doesn’t bust,
we’re going to have a solid line, and the ends are great! It’ll be a
corking game all right, whichever wins. And you don’t want to go around
saying we’re going to be licked!”
“I don’t say it to anybody but you,” Dick interposed hastily.
“You don’t want to say it to any one,” continued Mike, with a severity
quite judicial. “Just try to make everybody think we’re going to win.
You know how Phillips had us all scared when the fourth played Suffolk,
with his talk about how big and strong they were, and how we couldn’t
possibly down ’em, and all that, till we lost our nerve and almost let
’em beat us?”
Dick remembered.
“It’s the same with the big team; they’ve got to be encouraged. Harrison
deserves it, too, for firing Jason.”
This principle Mike had an opportunity to put into practice the next
morning when he passed a knot of older boys gathered at the corner of
the school building, where they waited for the nine o’clock bell to ring
and meantime swapped news and jokes and covertly watched the girls who
by twos and threes and fours passed on the other side of the street on
the way to Miss Wheeler’s school. Eaton reached out and seized the boy
by the shoulder. “Ticket for the game?” he demanded.
“Got one,” said Mike, coolly, shaking himself free.
“What do you say, Mike,” asked Wilmot; “are we going to beat Newbury?”
“Sure thing, only they’ve got to get those forward passes down better.”
“Do you hear that?” called Wilmot, as the boy trotted away. “Mike says
we’re going to win. That settles it. No use to practice any more. It’s
all up with Newbury.”
“He’s trying to make us win; that’s more than can be said of you,” spoke
Talbot, disapprovingly.
“What’s the matter with me?” protested Wilmot. “Don’t I spend half my
time tagging round after you fellows as manager?”
“A bum manager!” grumbled Horr. “Where are those W sweaters?”
“Mike is doing his little best to build up a school sentiment behind
us,” continued Talbot, “and you—well, you’re laughing at us most of the
time. Mike knows what he’s talking about, too, when it comes to
football.”
Wilmot assumed an indignant manner. “That’s a base libel. I’m trying to
keep you from being over-confident.”
The bell rang and the group began to move. “I’d like to see a few signs
of over-confidence,” said Harrison. “Everything seems to me to be going
the other way.”
For the mid-week practice Yards brought out a team of Westcott graduates
from college, who could furnish to the reorganized school eleven
something sturdy on which to try their plays. Mac ran his game with few
errors and handled punts like a veteran; the ends got three out of four
forward passes; Bumpus wrestled valiantly against a big sophomore in the
line, puffing and blowing and perspiring, but fully holding his own. The
result was in the main encouraging.
Dunn stood on the side-lines, dressed for play and ready to be called in
if necessary. While he waited and observed the game, jesting aloud with
Stover to show the bystanders how little his spirits were affected by
his retirement from the team, Dunn noticed a stoutly built, showily
dressed man, with a square face darkened by a heavy, close-shaven beard,
who, while following the play, seemed at the same time to be interested
in the conversation around him. Presently the stranger, having
apparently made inquiries concerning Dunn from some of the smaller boys,
called him aside and talked with him a few minutes out of earshot of the
spectators. At the close of the conversation he put a slip of paper into
Dunn’s hand and disappeared.
Some time later, as Harrison trotted from the field across toward the
locker house, he passed Stover and Dunn going in the same direction.
“What do you think of Bumpus now?” he called over his shoulder as he
went by.
“You can make a football player out of ’most any fat old thing,”
returned Stover. “It’s different in baseball. I say, stop a minute,
Harry!”
Harrison turned round. “What is it?”
“We want to see you as soon as you get dressed about something
important, very important! We’ll give you fifteen minutes.”
Before the allotted time was up, the captain emerged from the locker
house, pulling on his coat as he came. Dunn followed him. Stover drew
them both into a corner. “Do you know Jake Callahan?” he asked.
“The Newbury coach? I know who he is.”
“He isn’t coach any longer, they’ve fired him,” said Stover. “He was
here this afternoon for a little while watching the game. He picked
Jason out of the crowd and made him a proposition. Go ahead, Jason!”
“He’s terribly sore on Newbury because they haven’t treated him right,”
explained Dunn, eagerly. “He says he can let us have the diagrams of all
their best plays and the signals for ’em. He doesn’t mean to sell ’em,
he’s just going to give ’em to us; but all the same if they help us, and
we _want_ to make him up a purse of a few dollars on the quiet, he’ll
take it. He left his address with me.”
Harrison looked from one face to the other, but said nothing.
“You see, if you had the signals,” continued Dunn, “and knew what the
play was going to be, you could stop ’em wherever you wanted to. Of
course you wouldn’t want to do it too often, or you’d give yourselves
away. It might be better to let only four or five good fellows in on the
thing, and then there wouldn’t be so much danger of getting caught at
it.”
“We could raise ten or twenty dollars for Callahan among a few fellows
who’d keep their mouths shut,” said Stover. “I’ll attend to that. Yards
needn’t know a thing about it.”
“Do you think it’s quite—honorable?” asked Harrison, hesitatingly. He
needed no lessons from either Stover or Dunn to appreciate the
advantages to be derived from knowing an opponent’s signals.
Stover grinned. “Honorable? Sure! Why not? Ain’t it their business to
have signals we can’t discover? Wouldn’t you play for the right side if
some one came and told you the Newbury right tackle was weak? Don’t we
always try to find out what kind of a ball a batter can’t hit?”
“The cases aren’t similar,” returned Harrison.
“There’s no use in arguing about it,” said Stover. “It’s nothing to me.
We give you a chance to get the game. You can take it or leave it. I
thought you wanted to win.”
Wanted to win! Was there anything Harrison at that moment wanted more?
He looked up and caught sight of Talbot and Hardie sauntering past the
corner on their way to Hardie’s room. “Here’s Pete,” said the captain;
“let’s see what he says.” And before the emissaries of the disgruntled
coach could interpose an objection, he had called the pair over and was
bidding Dunn repeat Callahan’s offer.
Dunn obeyed with alacrity, happy in the conviction that by the service
which he was now rendering, he was taking a long step forward to the
recovery of his lost popularity. As he spoke, growing more and more
eager in the unfolding of the advantages to be gained and the best
method of using the new information, Hardie dropped his gaze to the
ground, where he kicked away impatiently at a stubby tuft of grass,
while Talbot held his eyes fixed on the narrator’s face, his cheeks
darkening and swelling with rising emotion. Slowly Dunn became aware
that the impression which he was making was not the one intended. His
eloquence wavered; his speech dwindled to an abrupt and confused end.
“Well, what do you think of it, Pete?” asked Harrison, quietly, swinging
round upon his friend.
“I think it would be a dirty, mean trick!” Talbot burst out in wrathful
staccato. “A hundred victories couldn’t wipe out the disgrace of it!”
“That’s just my opinion,” declared Harrison. “As you have the man’s
address, Dunn, you’d better write him what we think of his offer.”
Harrison turned back into the locker house; Talbot and Hardie went off
toward the dormitory. Stover watched the retreating figures for a few
seconds in silence, then emitted a loud, mocking laugh.
“Have it your own way, you angels, you nice boys, and get slaughtered,”
exclaimed Dunn, in deep disgust. “I’m through with the thing.”
He crumpled the envelope on which was written Callahan’s address and
threw it on the ground. Several minutes later, when the coast was clear,
a strange boy who had been watching from the outer fence, strolled
across the yard, picked up the twisted scrap of paper, and thrust it
into his pocket.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX
THE NEWBURY GAME
STOVER, whisking home in his automobile, turned the incident over in his
mind, and decided that he would say nothing about it,—if the others
didn’t,—at least until after the game. The fellows in the influential
set at Westcott’s were terribly sensitive about points of honor, and it
was hardly worth while to risk position by running counter to the
general sentiment in a matter which really didn’t concern him at all.
After they’d lost the game, they might think more highly of his advice.
Stover himself was firmly imbued with the notion that winning is the
sole test, and reason for existence, of an athletic team. If a team
couldn’t win, in his opinion it might as well disband; there was no
sense in keeping it up. These views he held directly from his father, by
example and precept. Stover, Senior, prided himself on “getting there”
in business. Those who didn’t get there, who got only halfway there, or
refused to sacrifice certain principles in order to get there, were in
his eyes flabby failures. Protests represented but the inevitable wails
of the defeated, criticism the expression of envy; the man who won could
afford to laugh at both. Stover, Junior, accepting fully the idea that
defeat was inherently disgraceful, applied it to his own life in his own
way. He was ashamed to be on a losing team. Low marks in examinations
put him sadly out of humor, for they classed him with the despised
unsuccessful. For the same reason, notwithstanding a bold air of
indifference, it irked him sorely that he was not popular.
Dunn likewise came to recognize that he had made a misstep. He said to
Harrison next morning, “I guess you fellows were right about that
Callahan matter; it wouldn’t have done much good, anyway.” Harrison,
glad to perceive that Dunn understood the falseness of his position,
answered pleasantly, and let the incident slip from his mind. He found
enough material for anxiety in the problem of Talbot’s strained knee,
the perfecting of Mac in the use of signals, and the elaboration of a
new scheme for a forward pass from a fake kick.
Callahan’s offer cropped up again on Friday night, as Wilmot and
Harrison sat in Pete’s bedroom, drawing out a long good night. The pair
had brought in a rubber to work on the injured knee, distrusting Pete’s
fiercely repeated assertion, “It’s all right and doesn’t need any
rubbing.” Determined to see that their trouble was not taken in vain,
they stayed on during the process, in the face of rudely inhospitable
suggestions from Talbot that they go home and let him alone. They
lingered still after the masseur had departed.
“Anything new about Jason’s friend, the coach?” asked Wilmot, making a
try with his cap at the top of a brass candlestick which stood on the
mantel. The cap fell short, and Talbot put his foot on it. Wilmot flung
himself back in his chair.
“What coach?”
“The one that blew in at Adams’s the other day and offered to sell state
secrets. Harrigan or Cullinan or Hooligan—I don’t remember his name.”
The look of disgust on Harrison’s face showed that he understood. “I
don’t know. I hadn’t thought of him since.”
“I wonder if Jason wrote him,” mused Wilmot. “You ought to have given me
the job, Harry. I’d have done it in slick style.”
Harrison shook his head. “It would be taking too much notice of him.
Jason came up next day and acknowledged that it was all wrong. I don’t
think he did anything more about it.”
“Jason doesn’t know right from wrong, anyway,” observed Wilmot.
“You could say that of some others I know,” interposed Talbot, with a
significant emphasis. Wilmot, however, showed no curiosity to learn who
these others might be.
“Why can’t you get the other fellows’ signals right in the game?” he
proposed, suddenly alert. “Four-eleven-forty-four!—right half-back
outside left tackle. Two-eleven-twenty-three-six-million-and-six!—right
half-back crawls between centre’s legs. Deduction: right half-back is
eleven. Keep this up through the game, and you’ll have the whole system.
You win by mental superiority—solve cryptograms on the run. Sherlock
Holmes applied to football!”
Talbot smiled with complacent contempt. “That shows how much you know
about football. You’re in the class with the person who wrote a football
story that I read once in a weekly paper. The two elevens played the
game, and after it was over and the one team had beaten the other, it
was discovered that some one on the winning team had broken training
before the game. The winners, therefore, forfeited the game to the
losers.”
“No, seriously,” insisted Wilmot, “why couldn’t it be done?”
“Because it takes all your attention to play your game,” said Pete. “You
can’t be puzzling out conundrums when you’re watching with all your soul
to see the ball move. I suppose you’d have us call time to rub a leg,
and sit down with a pencil and figure the thing out.”
“No, not that, but I should think a few of the old hands like you and
Harry and Jimmy Eaton, and quick wits like McDowell—”
“McDowell stands ’way back on the defence, you idiot!” interrupted Pete.
“He can’t even hear the other team’s signals!”
“Like somebody else, then,” continued Wilmot, unabashed by the
compliment. “I should think a few fellows might each get a hint, and
then all together would have enough to amount to something. What do you
say, Harry?”
“It’s possible, but not worth while,” answered Harrison. “You’d lose in
trying to do it more than you could gain by anything you could find out.
The best way is to play a hard, safe game and be ready for whatever
happens along. Come on, I want to go to bed!”
The school turned out in force for the game. Though hidden within lay
the expectation of defeat, the older boys were assured that the team had
a chance, and gathered gladly, the gambler’s hope in their hearts. To
the younger ones the spectacle was in itself all-attractive, to say
nothing of the joy of sharing the new responsibility of supporting a
team which belonged to them. If some, in ignorance of their privilege,
needed persuasion, there was Mike McKay to furnish it, through the
potent influence of himself and his crowd. Two urchins of the sixth, who
had guilelessly announced their intention of seeing the
Harvard-Dartmouth game instead, were threatened by Mike with
excommunication; he would cut them off, from that time on, from all help
on lessons from their classmates, unless they performed their duty. They
were ready in their places. Papas and mammas were there, everybody’s
sister and her girl friends; and swarms of recent graduates from across
the Charles, vigorous aids to school cheer-leaders and stayers-up of
faint hearts. An extended line of autos was stalled along the fence. Nor
were the Newburyites behind in the demonstration. It was confidence (a
stronger force than hope) that swelled their numbers and gave vigor to
their voices.
But the proudest, most important, most conspicuous figure was that of
President John Smith. Increased in height by a brown derby, swelled in
girth by a fat fur coat,—he had meant that the day should be
cool,—with an alderman and two newspaper reporters in his train and the
officials of the game his employees, he paced to and fro within the
side-lines and enjoyed his greatness and the greatness of the day. Only
a badge was lacking to complete happiness. In the reporters he had two
friends on whose helpful services he could count. Alderman Skillen was a
political power in President John’s district, with a son on the Newbury
team. If only young Skillen would distinguish himself; if only
Westcott’s would put up a stiff but not victorious game; if only the
reporters could give the right turn to their laudatory phrases, and the
alderman be properly impressed with the power and the influence and the
potential value of the mainspring of it all,—the day might well mark
the beginning of a strong upward twist in the life curve of John Smith.
The suspicion whispered into his ear that morning by the Newbury captain
that the renegade coach might have betrayed the game to Westcott’s had
not so much as ruffled the surface of his optimism.
The game began. Hexam, the Newbury half-back, drove the ball on the
kick-off down into the hands of Mac,[1] who clutched it tight, and with
his jerky, darting see-saw, threaded his way up the field behind Talbot
and Hardie and Eaton and any one else he could use as a cover, for
thirty good yards. He went down buried deep, like a greased pig finally
swamped by numbers. Then when the small Westcottites were chirping over
the prospect of a quick advance to the goal line, Talbot, without trying
a single rush, punted long and low, sending the ball out of bounds on
the twenty-yard line.
Footnote 1:
The Westcott line-up: Hardie, Eaton, Bumpus, Ford, Channing, B. Tracy,
Harrison; quarter-back, McDowell; half-backs, Horr and Talbot;
full-back, Bradford.
The Newburyites now had their chance, with the length of the field
before them, and hammered away with moderate success, now on this side,
now on that, till Eaton broke through on a slow-starting end-play and
nabbed the runner yards behind the line. Forced to kick or try a forward
pass, Newbury chose the second alternative and lost the ball. Again Pete
punted, to the disappointment of the eager Westcott spectators, and
again Newbury started near her goal line on the slow pound-pound down
the field.
A half-dozen short gains had been made, when, on a second down, Talbot
pulled Roger aside. “Seven in third place means outside Eaton,” he
panted. “Watch out!”
“Six, four, seven, twenty-two, forty-four!” sang out the Newbury
quarter. Hardie crept in a double pace; Talbot, line half-back, advanced
a step; and Eaton nerved himself for a spring. The ball moved; Eaton,
moving with it, evaded his opponent and smashed into the interference
behind the line. The bearer of the ball, seeing Talbot in the gap in
front and Hardie swinging in upon him from outside, tossed the ball to a
mate behind who let it slip through his hands. Roger threw himself at it
as it fell. When the heap was split open, there lay the Westcott end at
the bottom, curled round the ball like a rat around an egg.
Now, within striking distance of the Newbury goal line, Westcott’s
abandoned the kicking game and took to aggressive, fast play. Sequence B
carried them forward fifteen yards, a fortunate try at right end gave
them five yards more, Eaton and Hardie twice opened a clean lane for
Bradford through the sputtering Skillen. Even Bumpus succeeded in
getting some kind of a lift from underneath on big Firman, and assisted
to establish a first down. The unexpectedly fast and furious attack
confused the Newbury resistance. Within the ten-yard line Mac gave
himself a chance, and scurrying to the right the proper measure,
squirmed over the last eight yards under Harrison’s protection and dived
home past clutching hands and struggling bodies. Westcott’s had scored a
certain five!
In the intermission Harrison contributed an outside-right-tackle signal
which he had learned from the repetitious Newbury quarter, and Bumpus
the number which usually preceded onslaughts on centre.
“Don’t try to find out anything more!” commanded Yards. “Put your whole
soul into the play. You’ve got the game if you can only hold them.”
Back they trotted, with smirched faces and tired limbs, but eager and
determined. Their schoolmates on the cheering benches howled joyfully at
them as they passed, but a certain gentleman wearing a brown derby and
fur overcoat, and accompanied by a short, rotund man, easily
recognizable by his diamond shirt-stud, thick mustache, and fat,
red-veined face, gave them but ungracious looks. These looks presaged
words equally ungracious to be uttered after the game, but the players
passed on, unaware that the eye of President John Smith rested on them
in disapproval.
I wish I might relate all the feats of heroes performed during the
second half of this game which seemed to Mike McKay the most wholly
satisfying contest he had ever witnessed. The chapter, however, has
already run its length, and more football is coming. The ball made many
futile journeys to and fro. Thrice the Newbury captain forced his
quarter to alter the signals because Westcott’s change showed that the
coming move was understood. Twice a Newbury man got an on-side kick
behind the Westcott secondary defence, only to go down in McDowell’s
grasp. Once Mac risked a long forward pass in the middle of the field on
a first down, and Harrison, getting it near the side-line, made a
forty-yard run to a touch-down. Once Skillen hit Hardie a swinging blow
with his fist as the Westcott end _would_ interfere between him and the
ball; and escaped the eye of the umpire. Once more he tried the same
pretty trick and retired from the field in consequence. Time slipped
away, and with it Newbury’s chance and Newbury’s courage. At the last
blast of the referee’s whistle the score stood eleven to nothing in
favor of Harrison’s team.
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CHAPTER X
THE SCOUTS BRING NEWS
THE delighted Westcott lads poured after their team to the dressing
rooms in a turbulent stream. The forward ones thronged the limited space
within, interfering with the progress of the players toward cleanness
and respectability, and wearying them with fierce clutches of the hand
and much repetition of exclamations and idle questions. Dunn served his
companions a good turn—unintentionally, to be sure—by standing near
the door and delivering to a densely packed circle a disquisition on the
game, which included not merely the true explanation of the weakness of
the Newbury team and the faults of their playing, but a candid setting
forth of the errors on the Westcott side. According to Dunn, the score
might have been doubled if Westcott’s hadn’t thrown the ball away so
much by punting, and had gone systematically to work at the outset to
use up Thorne, the Newbury tackle who did half the defensive work of his
team.
“Didn’t McDowell put up a great game,—and Hardie?” exclaimed some
inconsiderate enthusiast in the circle.
“Yes, they both did pretty well on the whole,” answered Dunn. “It was a
cinch for Hardie. He had nothing against him.”
Mike and Dickie Sumner came edging by.
“If Jason had only been there, you’d have seen something doing,” said
Mike, in a low tone to his companion. They both laughed aloud. Dunn
turned at the sound and caught a glimpse of the roguish faces, and felt,
though he could not hear, the insult of their words.
“Get out of here, you kids!” he called angrily. “You’ve no business here
at all.”
“We’re going, Jason, as fast as we can,” returned Dick, feeling safe in
the crowd. “You played a corking game, Jason!” added Mike.
The two went their way to the quarters of the other team to see how the
Newburyites were taking it, leaving Dunn to wax violent over the
necessity of having these “little fresh mutts” hanging round all the
time, and the foolish encouragement they received from older fellows who
ought to know better. Some of these fellows who ought to know better
were at the other end of the room preparing for the shower. Jack Sumner
held Talbot’s foot in his lap—the knee was stiffening again—and worked
at the knot in a shoe-lace, exclaiming with delight over the playing of
the team and dwelling with especial enthusiasm on McDowell’s
performance.
“It was just perfect,” he said, relaxing his efforts on the knot to look
into the faces of his hearers. “Those tackles in the second half when
Thorne got the on-side kicks and came down on him, just saved
touch-downs. He’s the greatest find of the year!”
“Oh, cut it!” exploded Talbot, punning without intent. He meant that
Jack should drop that talk about McDowell. It was honest, without doubt,
and generous, but it hurt Pete none the less, for he understood well
Sumner’s disappointment.
“I haven’t any knife,” said Sumner. “Here, Steve, give us a knife!”
And Wilmot, interrupting his discourse on how he had saved the game by
suggesting that they learn the signals during play, dug down into his
trousers pocket and produced a battered thing with a single broken
blade, which he kept on purpose to lend.
“Be sure you give it back to me,” he said. “It’s the only lender I’ve
got.”
Meantime in the Newbury quarters, outside of which stood Mike and Dickie
with wide-open eyes and most receptive ears, were to be heard laments
and reproaches and an indignant clamor of foul play. Westcott’s knew the
Newbury signals, there was no doubt about it.
“Why, that Hardie would move right up on the signal for outside-tackle
play, and go right back again when it was called off. He knew the signal
all right.” Skillen’s assurance had personal interest behind it. He
wanted it understood that he had been laboring under a handicap.
“And on the centre plays in the second half,” said Firman, “Ford came
right up into the line, and Talbot got in behind him. Of course I
couldn’t make a hole.”
“That miserable Callahan gave them away,” declared Newbold, the captain.
“You wouldn’t suppose Westcott’s would play such a dirty trick, would
you?”
“These high flyers are always the worst grafters,” said Skillen.
“They’ll cheat fast enough when they have to.”
“But we changed some of the signals,” remarked Thorne, “and that
outside-tackle signal that they knew was one of the new ones.”
“That was only one,” said Newbold. “They knew at least half a dozen.
Callahan sold us, that’s the fact. We’ve got proof. Fritz Schaefer saw
him at the Westcott grounds last Wednesday, talking with one of their
men. It’s a steal. We’ll protest the game.”
“I don’t believe they did it,” said Thorne. “I know one or two of their
fellows, and they aren’t that kind. Williams (the quarter-back) always
gives the same numbers, anyway. No one who kept his ears open could help
hearing some of them.”
“That’s right, stand up for ’em!” said Hexam, bitterly. “Go back on your
own school and try to get the Westcott fellows’ favor! They may let you
into one of their societies when you get to college.”
“I don’t feel as if I’d gone back on my own school much to-day,”
returned Thorne, quietly. “It’s bad enough to be beaten without playing
the baby.”
“It’s a steal!” Newbold reiterated. “They got our signals and won
unfairly. Smith says so.”
Smith was saying so at that very moment, in strongly rhetorical
language, to an eager crowd outside the quarters, including in its front
rank a stout man with a diamond pin, and—on the outskirts—Mike McKay
and Dickie Sumner. The high-minded president was sorely pained—not at
the defeat of his school—oh, no! Nor by the anti-climax of his first
gala day—certainly not! Nor by his loss of prestige with Alderman
Skillen. He was pained, but only impersonally and officially, as the
offended guardian of the moral majesty of the league.
“They was too smart for you, that’s about the size of it,” Mr. Skillen
was saying. “If the’ isn’t any rule against buying up a coach, why,
they’ve got you pinched.”
“No rule is needed,” answered President John, pompously. “The league
stands for the highest ideals in sport. It won’t countenance low tricks
or dishonorable methods of winning or anything at all in the games that
isn’t absolutely fair and right.”
“It wasn’t fair and right to kick Jerry off the field, that’s a sure
thing,” declared the alderman. “The other fellow got into him first with
his shoulder. I saw him do it time and again.” An irrepressible titter
ran round the circle at this ingenuous view of football etiquette.
“We have to leave that to the officials,” President John hastened to
say. “I think they roasted us several times, but we can’t help that. The
other matter is one for the league itself to handle. It’s one of the
most disgraceful performances in the annals of football!”
The bystanders listened greedily. Mr. Skillen gave a sharp nod of
approval. “That’s the way to put it—make it good and strong and stick
to it. Your friends can give us a nice little story about it in the
papers to-morrow. But what’ll come of it all, that’s what I want to
know? Will there be anything doin’?”
“We shall protest the game before the committee and demand that it be
played again or declared forfeited.”
“Forfeit!” decided Mr. Skillen, promptly. “Forfeit’s the thing. It
wouldn’t help any to play it again. They’ve got too many trumps.”
“Forfeited, then,” agreed Mr. Smith. “I’ll see Newbold about it at
once.”
President John disappeared through the door leading to the Newbury
quarters, whither the curious young Westcott lads had not the audacity
to follow. They hung about, however, hoping that he might reappear, and
talked over the startling news in indignant whispers. They didn’t
understand it all, but it was clear that their admired heroes were
charged with buying signals from a Newbury coach and winning the game
through the knowledge thus acquired.
“It’s all rot,” decided Mike. “Somebody’s been kidding ’em. They’d
believe any old lie, if they thought they could make anything by it.”
“Why, my brother Jack would no more do such a thing than he would pick
pockets!” said Dickie. “He’s awfully particular about those things, and
Pete is just the same.”
“They’re all the same, except Jason,”—there was nothing evil Mike
wouldn’t believe about Jason,—“and Jason doesn’t count any more.”
The president came forth, mopping his face with his handkerchief and
setting his hat firmly on his head. From the window of the dressing room
he had seen Mr. Westcott, lingering with three of his old boys near the
entrance to the grounds. Toward this group he set a straight course,
while the two lads fell in unnoticed behind him.
“Mr. Westcott!” called the high official, sharply, as he drew near. The
college boys lifted their hats and went their way. Mr. Westcott turned
with a pleasant look on his face, and in his heart a kindly feeling for
all the world, including this man Smith. The afternoon had brought him a
full measure of happiness; first the splendid playing of his team, then
a shower of hearty greetings from old boys—and tokens of regard from
former pupils, be it understood, are the sweetest morsels an honest
schoolmaster can roll beneath his tongue.
“Mr. Westcott!” came in a loud, contentious voice from beneath the brown
derby. “We shall protest that game,—I mean the captain of the Newbury
team has protested it.”
Mr. Westcott’s smile vanished in a flash, and an expression of
bewilderment overspread his face. “Protested!” he repeated. “I do not
understand. On what ground, pray?”
“Your team, it appears, bought or at least got the signals which Newbury
was to use from a discharged coach, and so were able to anticipate and
block the Newbury plays.”
“It appears from what?” asked the schoolmaster, coldly.
President John hesitated. “Well, from the game itself and—from other
facts.”
“Mr. Smith,” said Mr. Westcott, speaking with head thrown back, in tones
resonant with indignation, “you probably do not realize the insulting
character of the charge which you are bringing. If I understand you to
mean that the Westcott management plotted to win the game with stolen
signals, I assure you the charge is both false and slanderous. There is
a bad mistake somewhere. I know my boys, as you do not; they are
incapable of such an act.”
“I didn’t want to believe it myself, sir,” said President John, for the
instant abashed, “but the facts are such—” He stopped and tried to
think what the facts really were.
“The facts?” persisted Mr. Westcott.
“They will be stated fully at the meeting of the committee which I shall
call,” answered John, recovering himself. “I merely desired to give you
notice that I had received the protest.”
He turned and bent his steps toward his allies at the dressing rooms,
driving two urchins in flight before him. Long before his pompous strut
brought him to the Newbury end of the locker building, the two young
scouts had burst in among the Westcott players with a whoop and a yell,
had gathered about them in a trice an elbowing crush of the dressed and
half-dressed, and with mutual support and interruption, were devoting
themselves to the delectable task of relating the news. The audience
listened wild-eyed, questioned, and exploded in exclamations. When the
fire of questions slackened and the exclamations began to pop, Dunn
seized his suit-case and silently stole away. This crowd was no place
for him.
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CHAPTER XI
A FRUITLESS INTERVIEW
WHEN the Westcott boys gathered Monday morning at the corner outside the
school building, every third comer bore a newspaper in his hand and hot
indignation in his heart. Only those who did not read the papers, and
had not learned the news which Mike and Dickie brought to the quarters,
wore the complacent smile which they had carried from the field on
Saturday.
President John’s friends, the reporters, had done their work thoroughly.
While most of the Sunday journals merely announced the result of the
game, or gave a few inches of space to a more or less inaccurate
description, the _Trumpeter_ and the _Mail_ each sacrificed to it the
best part of a column on the page devoted to sports, introduced by heavy
headlines such as: WESTCOTT’S KNEW THE SIGNALS. SENSATIONAL CHARGES
AGAINST BACK BAY BOYS. GAME PROTESTED. INTERVIEW WITH PRES. SMITH! From
the interview it appeared that President John saw the affair in a very
serious light; that the league stood for the highest ideals in sport,—a
familiar phrase in the mouth of its president,—and would certainly deal
sternly with dishonorable practices of any kind. A special meeting of
the managing committee of the league was to be called immediately to
consider the protest. If the charge should be sustained, clearly the
only fair course would be to declare the game forfeited to Newbury, the
score to stand on the record as one to nothing.
To say that the Westcott lads felt indignant at being thus advertised as
unscrupulous cheats when they knew themselves absolutely innocent, is
like describing a raving maniac as the victim of hallucination. They
boiled and bubbled with rage. If President John had shown himself at the
corner of Otway Street at that moment, they would have flown to mob him,
though every bell in the Westcott school were clanging in their ears.
But as the exalted official did not present himself to be mobbed, and
the school gong did ring, they filed obediently in, and taking their
seats, brooded in sullen bitterness on the outrage. A boy’s sense of
justice—or, as some one has better expressed it, sense of injustice—is
always morbidly keen. The boys at Westcott’s were used to a life in
which the good things flowed in on them naturally, with few questions as
to whether they were deserved or undeserved. Good behavior, fair work,
regard for their parents’ wishes, constituted the price they were
expected to pay; even on this discounts were sometimes allowed. Flat
over-riding of just rights had entered into their experience as little
as physical hardship. They reared against the blow like a young,
high-spirited horse which feels for the first time the sting of a cruel
whip.
After the morning Scripture reading, to which, it is to be feared, few
gave heed, Mr. Westcott called Harrison and Wilmot into his office,
where he kept them for a quarter of an hour. The other football men, if
they could have had their hearts’ desire, would have sat outside the
office, matching expletives, until their comrades should come forth and
give them the history of the interview. This being for obvious reasons
impossible, the excited lads kept their curiosity under control and went
about their morning tasks with what interest they could
muster,—wrestling, nauseated, with the dullness of Burke on
Conciliation, abusing good English by turning it into worse than peasant
German, and finding Cicero’s maledictions on Catiline but weak and
watery dilutions compared with the things they could say of President
John Smith. Dunn alone of those especially concerned studied that
morning with absolute diligence; he did this in self-defence, to keep
his thoughts from a subject—more disagreeable than lessons—to which
they would wander if his grip upon them slackened but a moment.
At the lunch hour the ban was raised. A crowd packed itself about
Harrison and Wilmot as soon as the two got within the lunch-room door,
demanding news, and news condensed. “What did he say? What are you going
to do?” was the burden of the questions, but they fell like a hailstorm
in various forms and at various angles, from scores of lips at once.
Harrison was staggered, but not Wilmot, whose nimble wit served an ever
nimble tongue.
“He says we’ve disgraced the school,” said Wilmot, with a tragic
gesture. “We’ve got to go to Mr. Smith and apologize and—”
He stopped, not because he had run out of ideas, or was put to shame by
the serious faces about him, but of simple necessity. A hand was pressed
upon his lips and a strong arm embraced him from behind.
“Shut up, or I’ll break your ribs,” said Talbot, quietly. “We don’t want
to hear from you at all. Harry’s the man. Go ahead, Harry. I’ll keep
this fellow quiet.”
Harrison, thus encouraged, started on his report. “He wanted to know all
about it, and we told him. He said it was an insult to the school which
we must treat with dignified contempt. We’ve got to keep cool about it
and not get crazy and shoot off a lot of wild talk. That would hurt us
more than anything those fellows can say. He’s going to have Yards write
to the two papers, and he’ll write to the head-master at Trowbridge.”
“They’ve called a meeting for Wednesday,” said Pete.
“Do you think Trowbridge will side with ’em?” asked Hardie.
“I hope not,” answered the captain, doubtfully.
“If they think they can beat us,” offered Cable, “Trowbridge will side
with us, because if we beat Newbury and Trowbridge beat us, the worst
that could come for Trowbridge would be a tie, even if they got beaten
by Newbury.”
“How’s that?” demanded Reeves.
“It’s right. Think it out for yourself, and you’ll see,” said Talbot,
impatiently.
“And if we get one vote from Trowbridge, and one goes against us,”
continued Cable, encouraged by the attention given to his remarks,
“we’re sure to lose our case. There would be two votes of Newbury and
one of Trowbridge against us, and two of Westcott’s and one of
Trowbridge for us. Then the president would vote against us.”
“That’s right, too,” said Pete, ruefully.
“And if Trowbridge doesn’t vote at all or doesn’t come to the meeting,
the result will be the same.”
“I don’t believe Trowbridge would play us that kind of a trick,”
remarked Sumner; “it’s too mean a thing to do.”
At this point the suppressed Wilmot began to wave his hands about in
gestures which indicated that he wished permission to speak.
“Let go of him, Pete; he wants to say something!” commanded the captain.
Wilmot, obtaining release by this pantomime, escaped to a safer
position. “You haven’t said anything about going to see Callahan.”
“I forgot that. He thought Jason and some one else had better hunt up
Callahan and get his evidence.”
At this proposal, Dunn, who stood on the outskirts of the crowd, was
edging away, but Eaton dragged him back. “I won’t!” said the
unfortunate, sullenly. “I don’t want anything more to do with it.”
“You’ve got to,” Eaton retorted. “You’ve got us into this scrape; now
you must get us out.”
“You’ll have to go, too, Harry,” said Talbot, calmly treating Dunn’s
refusal as if it had not been made.
“I must be at the practice. Steve can go. He’s no use for anything
else.”
“I can’t go, either,” began Wilmot. “I’ve got to look after the balls
and take care of the sweaters and—”
“Shut up!” interrupted Talbot. “Mike will attend to all that, won’t you,
Mike?”
“Sure!”
“I’m not the man for it; I couldn’t get anything out of him,” insisted
Wilmot. “A simple, inoffensive fellow like me could never make any one
do anything he doesn’t want to. Pete ought to go. He’s got an awful
crust.”
“You’re going,” answered Talbot; “it’s the manager’s job. If Callahan
can stand your talk for ten minutes without giving you anything you ask
to get rid of you, he’ll be the first man who’s ever done it. You
remember the address, Jason?”
Dunn thought he did. “Then it’s settled,” said Talbot. “Let’s get
something to eat.”
That afternoon Wilmot and Dunn journeyed to East Boston together in
search of Callahan. They had little to say to each other on the way.
Wilmot disliked Dunn, and Dunn was afraid of Wilmot; neither relished
the expedition on which they were engaged. After much questioning and
unnecessary wandering they arrived at No. 73 Doble Street and asked if
Mr. Callahan lived there.
Yes, Mr. Callahan lived there, but was not at home; he would be in about
five. The boys drifted forth to kill time as best they could, hung round
the steamship docks, where a big Cunarder was being loaded, until
darkness fell, and then strolled slowly back to the abode of the
ex-coach.
Callahan had returned. They waited in the dimly lighted entry while
their message was carried aloft, depressed by the strange surroundings
and a sense of inadequacy to the task which they had undertaken.
Presently a heavy step was heard descending the bare treads of the
second flight above, and soon Callahan’s forbidding face came into the
half-light. He stopped on the third stair and peered suspiciously down
upon his visitors.
It had been arranged that Dunn should begin the interview, but at the
crisis Jason was dumb.
“What is it?” demanded Callahan. “What do you want?”
“We come from Westcott’s School,” said Wilmot, perceiving that it was
useless to wait for Dunn. “You’ve probably seen in the papers the
trouble we’re in about the Newbury game.”
“Yes, I have,” snarled Callahan, with an oath; “and a nice mess you’ve
got me into with your talk!”
“We haven’t been talking,” Wilmot answered; “it’s Newbury that’s doing
the talking. We thought you’d be willing to help us out by saying that
we didn’t get any signals from you, and—”
“Of course you didn’t get any signals from me—for the very good reason
that I wouldn’t have given ’em to you.”
“But you offered them to us,” said Dunn, his tongue loosened by this
strange statement. “You told me that day at Adams’s—”
Callahan turned fiercely upon him. “It’s a lie! I never offered you any
signals. I said I was through with Newbury and could coach you if you
wanted me.”
Dunn, amazed, opened his mouth to reply, but Wilmot was too quick for
him. “Will you write us a statement that you didn’t give us any signals?
Of course we know you didn’t, but the statement might help us.”
“Write nothing!” said the coach, shortly. “It’s none of my business.
There’s nothing in it for me.”
“We’ll pay you for it,” began Dunn, with eagerness; but Wilmot, who
perceived instantly that an evil interpretation might be given to this
transaction, checked his colleague.
“No, we couldn’t do that, of course. It wouldn’t look right. But if
you’d give us a statement denying that we got the Newbury signals from
you, we should be very thankful for it.”
“I’m not giving statements. Anybody who knows Jake Callahan knows he
wouldn’t sell signals. Anybody who says he did, lies!”
While speaking these words, Callahan had finished his descent of the
stairs and opened the outer door. Wilmot said good night and went forth,
dragging after him Dunn, who seemed on the point of raising again the
question of the conversation which he had held with Callahan at the
field.
“But he did offer the signals just the same!” Dunn broke out, after they
had walked in silence a hundred yards down the street.
“What difference does it make?” answered Wilmot, wearily. “He’s no good
to us, anyway.”
Yards was no more successful with his communication to the newspapers.
The _Mail_ hid it away in the bottom corner of the market page, where
Yards himself had difficulty in discovering it. The _Trumpeter_
sandwiched it in between a letter on Esperanto and another from an
opponent of the battle-ship programme. As few who read the sports pages
know of the existence of the correspondence column, and no one who reads
the letters cares anything about sports, Yards’s chance of undoing the
impression made by President John’s friends was about one in a thousand.
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CHAPTER XII
PRESIDENT JOHN’S IDEALS
TALBOT and Sumner were the Westcott members of the general committee
which was to consider the protest of the Newbury captain. They did not
lack advice as to what to say and what not to say, nor original
suggestions concerning methods of influencing the Trowbridge vote,
which, as everybody understood, must really decide the matter. Mr.
Westcott was the only counsellor to whom they gave heed, and his
directions they determined to follow to the best of their ability. They
were to avoid all display of feeling, keep their tempers under absolute
control, tell their story calmly without acrimony, and throw themselves
unreservedly upon the sense of fairness of the committee. Such a course
was especially difficult for Talbot, whose vehemence tolerated no
trifling or evasion, and whose frankness verged on discourtesy. He felt
his own unfitness for the task before him, even while he longed to be
brought face to face with the traducers of his school.
“You’ll have to do the talking, Jack,” he said, as the two delegates,
having patiently endured to the end the fusillade of admonitions and
counsel with which their ears had been deafened all day long, took seats
in the car which was to carry them to the Newbury School. “If I once get
going, I’m bound to go off the handle and ruin the whole business.”
“I don’t believe you will,” answered Sumner, reassuringly. “There’s too
much at stake. You just want to think of it as seven honest people
brought together to consider a question of fact,—that’s what Mr.
Westcott said,—not as if you were out for a fight with three sworn
enemies and two doubtful characters.”
“If Smithy isn’t an enemy, I don’t know what an enemy is! I wish Harry
or Steve were here in my place; either would be a lot better than I.
Harry can hold his tongue, and Steve can talk an apple off a tree!”
“You can hold your tongue, too.”
“I will, if I have to bite it off—until they decide against us. When
that comes, I’m going to call ’em just what they are, a pack of
thieves!”
“But it may not come,” said Sumner, quietly.
“Oh, it will. Everybody thinks so. Mr. Snyder will vote with us because
Trowbridge will want to seem to be fair, and Frost will vote with
Newbury. That will make a tie, and Smithy will be forced in the
interests of pure athletics to give the deciding vote against us.”
“I don’t believe it. Anyway, if that’s your opinion, you don’t want to
show it, or they’ll think you know you haven’t any case. We want to act
as if we were sure of the rightfulness of our claim, and had only to
state it to have it granted.”
“I wish there was something I could _do_!” groaned Pete. “I hate to sit
around and pretend.”
The other members of the committee were already assembled when Sumner
and Talbot were shown into the room. The glance with which Pete took in
this fact hardened immediately into a look of hostility, for it seemed
to him probable that the five had already used their opportunity to come
to a decision with reference to the object of the meeting, and that the
proceedings would now be merely formal. But Sumner was already going the
rounds, shaking hands with everybody in a spirit of great friendliness;
so Pete, suspecting that this was the proper time to begin that
assumption of confidence to which Sumner had urged him, fell in behind
his colleague, with a mighty effort crowding back his feeling of
distrust. Mr. Snyder and Frost greeted him cordially, and though Newbold
vouchsafed but a languid clasp of the hand and murmured a palpably empty
phrase of politeness through a frigid grimace, Thorne gave him a grip of
reassuring warmth. He tarried therefore at Thorne’s side and talked with
him for a few minutes on indifferent themes,—such as sailing and summer
dances,—thereby turning his back on President John and avoiding the
necessity of dissembling before that much-hated dignitary.
Thorne and Talbot were old friends, although their position now seemed
to Pete more like that of enemies approaching the battlefield. Their
summer houses stood within a mile of each other on Buzzard’s Bay, and
even now their boats lay housed side by side. It was a pity that a
naturally decent fellow like Thorne could be so blinded by rabid
partisanship as to lend himself as an abettor to the scheme of a John
Smith!
So Talbot was thinking, more in sorrow than in wrath, when President
John mounted the platform—a recitation room was their council
chamber—and called the meeting to order. They separated now to three
benches, Newbold and Thorne on the left wing, Mr. Snyder and Frost in
the centre, Talbot and Sumner on the right. “It’s like a court,”
whispered Pete, “with Trowbridge for judge. We’re no good except to pair
with Newbold and Thorne.”
The chairman introduced the business of the hour with all solemnity. The
committee had met to consider the charge made by Newbury that Westcott’s
had won the game of Saturday by unfair and dishonorable methods. It had
been to him a great disappointment that the first contest in the new
league, to which he had devoted so much time and thought, should have
been darkened by scandal. He felt, however, and he was confident that
the majority of the committee agreed with him, that there could be no
turning back upon the ideals of the league—again those ideals!—The
mere winning or losing of a game was of slight consequence compared with
the supreme importance of holding unswervingly to the highest
conceptions of honor and gentlemanly conduct.
“The old hypocrite!” whispered Pete in Sumner’s ear.
“Hush!” and a warning hand clutched the offender’s knee.
The chairman now read the protest,—which wound up with a demand that
the game be declared forfeited to Newbury,—and complacently asked what
should be done with it, addressing presumably the whole committee, but
looking straight before him at the two members from Trowbridge.
“I think we ought to consider first the grounds for the protest, and
afterwards, if the protest is sustained, the penalty,” said Mr. Snyder.
“Very well,” agreed the chairman; “we will hear the Newbury statements
first.”
If the protest is sustained! Why should they mention the penalty at all
unless they meant to sustain the protest? Talbot became more than ever
convinced that the whole affair was prejudged and that the proceedings
would be merely the carrying out of a prearranged plan.
He listened closely to Newbold, none the less, when the latter, in the
capacity of prosecuting attorney, presented his case. Newbury had been
unfortunate this year in the selection of Callahan as coach. A week
before the game with Westcott’s, for certain reasons unnecessary to
state, he had been discharged. Callahan was very “sore” and declared in
presence of witnesses—Newbold held up a paper which he said contained
their statements—that he’d “get even.” A few days afterward, Callahan
had been observed at the Westcott field in long conversation with a
Westcott player—another display of papers. Later this player was seen
conferring with Harrison and others of the football men. In the course
of this conference, one of the Westcott men dropped a paper which the
witness secured; on it was written the address of the discharged coach.
Suspecting an attempt to steal a knowledge of their game, Newbury had
changed certain plays and signals, but because the time was too short to
master an entirely new set they had been compelled to use a large number
of the old ones. In the game Westcott’s had often understood the Newbury
signals as soon as they were given out, and it was the old signals which
they understood. Through a knowledge of the signals, Westcott’s spoiled
Newbury’s play and won.
As Newbold sat down, Mr. Smith drew his hand across his forehead, swept
the line of benches with a look of sorrow and pain, and sighed audibly.
There was plainly no doubt at all in the chairman’s mind as to the
substantial truth of the charge. It was but too clear that a treacherous
blow had been struck at the fair fame of the Triangular League, and at
those ideals of sportsmanship which were ever the objects of President
John’s highest solicitude. But Anglo-Saxon justice has established the
principle that the worst criminal has a right to be heard in his own
defence. Mr. Smith turned therefore to the bench on his left, and with
the manner of a judge asking the convicted felon whether he has any
statement to make before sentence is passed, invited the representatives
from Westcott’s to make response.
Sumner had prepared no speech; he lacked, moreover, as he would himself
assert, all talent for impromptu oratory. But he could tell a plain
story with candor and simplicity, and there spoke in his tones an honest
conviction, which would inspire belief if the listening ears were
attuned to such a voice. He denied with all the vigor he could put into
words that Westcott’s had bought or stolen or had any previous knowledge
of the Newbury signals. Callahan _had_ approached one of the Westcott
players and offered to betray the signals, but Westcott’s had scorned
the offer. The address which the Newbury spy had discovered was thrown
away, not dropped. In the game Westcott’s had learned a few signals by
listening to them as they were given by the Newbury quarter, but before
the game began, they had absolutely no knowledge of the signals to be
used by their opponents.
“I should like to know, then, how it happened that it was the old
signals, not the new ones, that you found out,” began Newbold, savagely,
as Sumner dropped back into his seat.
“If that was the case,” answered Sumner, “it was merely chance. All we
got was three or four numbers for holes.”
Newbold sniffed. “I should like to ask something else, too,” he
continued. “You’ve played football and you know what the excitement is
in a game. Do you think it is an easy thing to detect a lot of unknown
signals while the game is going on?”
“No, I don’t,” answered Sumner, calmly, “but you could get a few if they
were given as openly as yours were.”
“They weren’t given openly!”
At this point, perhaps in the interest of peace, Mr. Snyder interposed
with a question. “What has Callahan to say about this? Have you his
statement?”
Sumner recounted the futile efforts which Westcott’s had made to induce
the coach to give evidence, not concealing the fact that Callahan now
denied that he had offered any signals at all.
At this frank admission Newbold gave vent to a nervous titter of
derision. President John smiled contemptuously. “Your stories do not
hang together, Mr. Sumner,” he said.
“One story is ours and the other is Callahan’s,” answered Sumner,
quickly. “They can’t hang together if Callahan lies.”
Pete whispered into Sumner’s ear, “Ask Thorne about it!”
“Ask him yourself!”
Talbot got upon his feet. “We’ve been answering questions for a while,
now I think it’s our turn to ask a few. I want Thorne to tell us whether
we recognized any signals on his side of the line.”
“Yes,” answered Thorne.
“How many?”
“I am sure of one, the play outside tackle.”
“Was it in the first or last part of the game?”
“The last.”
“Was it an old signal or a new one?”
“A new one.”
“I think he’s mistaken about that,” cried Newbold, and he applied
himself immediately with angry exhortations to his colleague’s ear.
Thorne reddened under the attack, but did not retreat.
“You see, it was just as Sumner said,” commented Talbot, addressing the
central bench. “We picked up a few signals during the game. Callahan
couldn’t have given us that tackle signal, if we had asked him.”
“Unfortunately it isn’t a question of one signal, but of many,” said
President John, quickly. “You ask us to believe what the football
experts assure us is impossible.”
“If you have a fool quarter-back, anything is possible,” retorted
Talbot. “When three plays out of four in succession are sent at the same
hole with only a slight alteration in the signal, a fellow must be an
idiot not to guess what the signal means!” Pete stopped short there, for
Sumner pulled him down.
“We didn’t do that!” snapped Newbold.
Again Mr. Snyder interfered. “I think we may as well vote now,” he said.
“We have heard both sides.”
“Yes, vote!” muttered Talbot. “That’s what we’re here for! It’s no use
to waste time on the truth if you’ve already made up your minds not to
accept it.” The words were spoken too low to carry distinctly, a
prudence which must be credited to the restraining influence of Sumner’s
clutch upon the speaker’s knee.
“We will take the vote then,” announced the chairman, in accents of
genuine relief; but he added immediately, “Unless some one has
additional evidence to present or questions to ask.”
“I think further discussion would be unprofitable,” said Mr. Snyder,
quickly. “Newbury has made a charge and Westcott’s has denied it. It
only remains for us to give our decision.”
To this sentiment the general silence gave consent.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIII
THE COMMITTEE DECIDES
PRESIDENT JOHN had his ballots ready. “I will distribute blank slips of
paper,” he said, “and Mr. Frost will kindly gather up the votes. Those
who think that the protest should be sustained will write ‘Yes’ upon
their ballots, the others will write ‘No.’”
He descended from his throne and paraded along the line, distributing
blank ballots with a great show of solemnity. Those which he put into
the hands of the Newbury delegates could hardly be called blank, as they
had the word “Yes” written clearly upon them. The great chief was
determined to reduce the chances of error to a minimum. Presently Frost
gathered up the momentous tickets and delivered them into the hands of
the chairman.
“Four to two against us!” whispered Talbot, as Mr. Smith began to
separate the ballots. A squeeze upon his knee was all the answer Sumner
vouchsafed. An instant after, they were both intently watching the
president, across whose face, bent eagerly over the desk, swept an
expression of astonishment and indignation.
“I think there has been a misunderstanding here,” he said slowly, as he
lifted his eyes to the occupants of the Newbury bench. Newbold returned
his look with a stare of fright and curiosity, but Thorne was gazing out
of the window. “On one ballot ‘Yes’ had been first written and
afterwards changed to ‘No.’ It is possible that I did not make myself
entirely clear. I think we had better take another vote.” And he
repeated once more the conditions of the balloting.
This time all the slips given out were blank. Thorne wrote his, holding
it in front of him in the palm of his hand. Newbold peeped over his
shoulder, uttered an exclamation and snatched at the ballot, but Thorne
repulsed him with a quick uplift of the elbow and dropped the vote in
the hat. The chairman sorted the ballots in feverish haste, his cheeks
dark with gathering wrath. Then, rising to his feet, he darted a furious
glance at Thorne, who met it bravely.
“The protest is not sustained,” he announced with an effort at calmness.
“What is the vote?” asked Frost.
The chairman made unwilling answer, “Five to one.”
Pete’s hand fell with a resounding slap on Sumner’s shoulder. “Five to
one!” he whispered, exultant; “Thorne voted with us! Isn’t he a corker
to do that?”
“Five to one,” repeated Mr. Snyder. “It is too bad it couldn’t have been
unanimous. I should like to say before we separate that this whole
affair seems to me in the highest degree ill-advised and unfortunate.
Unless we respect each other sufficiently to trust in each other’s
honesty and honor, we have no right to be leagued together. To encourage
accusations like these we have heard to-day without incontrovertible
proofs to support them is in itself an act of treachery to the League. I
hope we shall never be compelled to discuss such a question again.”
The meeting was over. President John was jerking on his coat and
savagely stamping his feet into his overshoes. Sumner and Talbot, having
exchanged congratulatory grips, were pouring out fervent expressions of
gratitude to their friends from Trowbridge, who had believed them honest
men, not liars and cheats. At the moment of adjournment Thorne had taken
his hat, and without a word to friend or foe, had slipped through the
door. Newbold, following closely after, overtook him in the hall.
“That’s right! Run away and hide yourself, you traitor!” shouted the
captain, his voice trembling with rage.
Thorne swung sharply round. “I’m not hiding from _you_, anyway,” he said
coolly. “What have you got to say about it?”
“I say you’re a disgrace to the school. First you threw us by letting on
that that tackle signal was a new one, and then you voted against us,
against your own school!”
“I told the truth, and I voted for what I thought was right!”
“What you thought was right!” sneered Newbold. “You voted that way just
to get in with those Westcott fellows, that’s what you did it for. But
you won’t succeed. No one respects a traitor, least of all those who use
him!”
This was a shot which wounded, not because it was true, but because it
suggested a despicable motive for an act prompted solely by scruples of
conscience. Thorne started as if pricked by a pin.
“That’s a lie, Tom Newbold, and you know it!” he flung back hotly,
advancing a step toward his assailant. “I’m not trying to get in with
any one, not even with you. I did it because I believe in getting games
by winning ’em, not by stealing ’em.”
The captain clenched his fists and glared. “You won’t get the chance to
win any more on _my_ team, I can tell you that. No team is big enough to
hold us two, after to-day’s work!”
“All right!” returned Thorne, who had recovered his self-control. “I’ll
consider myself fired.”
On escaping from the council chamber, Talbot spent half a dollar of
precious allowance money in telephoning to various people the happy
result of the meeting. Later, he went home and devoted the hour before
dinner to composing a letter to Thorne, which should express his
admiration of Thorne’s honesty and courage. It was a difficult letter to
write, because it was necessary to praise Thorne without condemning his
schoolmates, for Thorne was not one to listen with pleasure to abuse of
his associates by an outsider. As Thorne did not answer this letter,
Talbot concluded that he must have bungled it.
In fact, Talbot’s honest eulogy was one of the influences which enabled
Thorne to face the unpleasantness of the next two days at school with
head high and colors flying. He did not answer the letter because under
the circumstances he did not wish to have any correspondence with
Westcott’s. The Newbold party did their best to set the ban upon him in
school, to brand him as a traitor and expose him to public contempt. The
means employed to accomplish this purpose, the misrepresentation, the
distorted version of the proceedings at the meeting, spread broadcast,
the gathering of an anti-Thorne party by promises and threats, all might
interest us, if it belonged in the story. It is the result alone that
concerns this narrative. The movement was ill-timed. After two days of
practice with a substitute tackle in Thorne’s position, the practical
politicians forced the hands of the extremists. On the morning of the
Trowbridge-Newbury game, Newbold, driven to the hated course by the
overwhelming demand of the school, went morosely to Thorne’s house to
ask him to forgive and forget and take his old place in the game.
It was too late; Thorne had gone out of town with his father for the
day. So Newbury fared to Trowbridge, spiritless through dissensions, and
weakened by the absence of the best defensive player in school.
Trowbridge met them with a fresh, well-fused eleven, opposed harmony and
dash to disunion and blind resistance, got the jump on their adversaries
in the line three times out of four, made first downs through the weak
tackles almost at will,—and piled up three touch-downs while Newbury
was securing one lucky goal from the field.
Alderman Skillen left the field in the middle of the second half,
disgusted with football and those who had fanned his interest in it.
When the score reached seventeen, President John followed the alderman’s
example. Newbold, having suffered the humiliation of defeat on the
field, returned to school to face cold looks and hear contemptuous
comments, and to see Thorne treated as a victim of jealousy who might
have saved the day if he had only been allowed to play.
But the worst blow was dealt in the meeting for the election of next
year’s captain, when the team not only rejected Newbold’s
candidate—Newbold himself was a senior—but actually elected Thorne by
a seventy per cent vote. And the fickle school loudly acclaimed the
choice.
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CHAPTER XIV
THE TROWBRIDGE GAME
TO Sumner more than to any one else of the Westcott School was due the
fine spirit of caution and determination with which the eleven faced the
momentous game with Trowbridge. He had not slackened for a moment his
devotion to the team from which, according to Stover, he had been
ignominiously fired. He had watched the Trowbridge-Newbury contest with
a sharp eye and an open note-book. The newspapers remarked after the
game that Trowbridge had gained on end runs and tackle plays and lost on
kicks; and that Ricker, the Trowbridge back, was the star of the game.
Sumner had not been content with any such general impressions. He had
observed how the plays were started behind the line, what holes were
relied on for emergencies, who was most likely to fumble punts, and in
precisely what way Ricker’s interference formed and hit the line. During
the last week of practice, his second team was an imitation Trowbridge,
with Trowbridge end runs and genuine Ricker dashes. The Ricker of the
Westcott second was alumnus Bill Ellery, Harvard junior, who could cover
the two-twenty in twenty-three, and started like a deer. Two active old
Westcottites from across the Charles personated Trowbridge tackles, and
another guarded right end. Yards practiced his linesmen in breaking
straight through, with a spring and a dart and a slap of the open hand
against the opponent’s headguard; he forced them to make gripping
tackles on the slippery dummy; he taught them how to master, not to
kill, the men in front of them; he furnished practicable plays adapted
to the powers of the team, and drilled the players in signals until
obedience was automatic—but it was Sumner who prepared them for Ricker
and the deceptive end runs.
“This last week’s work has been the best of all,” said Yards, the
evening before the game. “If Pete’s knee holds out, we ought to be able
to put up a pretty good offence, and Sumner’s second has developed our
defence wonderfully.”
“And he won’t even make his W!” lamented Harrison.
“No, he won’t!” answered Yards, who could afford to be outspoken now
that the end of the season was at hand. “On every point of the game
McDowell is better.”
“Then you don’t think there’s any chance for Jack to get in?” asked
Harrison, wistfully.
Yards shook his head. “Not unless Mac is laid out or we get a big lead.”
[Illustration: REGULAR WESTCOTT DEFENCE—OPEN (Outside thirty-yard
line)]
Harrison smiled feebly at the sarcasm of this last suggestion. There was
about as much chance of getting a big lead on Trowbridge as that Mac
would make half a dozen goals from the field or that Bumpus would find
big Hubbard an easy victim; while it was quite within the range of
probability that Pete would injure his knee again and deprive the team
of its only good punter, or that some accident would befall Eaton or
Hardie or some other strong player whose place no one could fill.
Subconsciously he shared the view prevalent in school that Trowbridge
was likely to win, though he did not admit the possibility even to
himself. He had never wholly approved the system of open defence which
Yards had adopted from the Harvard theorists. To one used to a solid
line of bodies before the ball it seemed a reckless scheme to pull the
centre out of his place and put him behind the line, thus leaving open,
in the wall of defence, an avenue wide enough for a cart. He could see
that this method of resistance strengthened the wings, through which the
longest gains are made, and rendered it possible to keep two backs in
reserve for on-side kicks and forward passes; but would not this open
highway through centre furnish an easy route for heavy plunges? Yards
maintained that if Ford and the guards would but watch the play
carefully, the gains through centre could be made unprofitably small;
yet Harrison’s doubts, though unuttered, were none the less real.
[Illustration: REGULAR TROWBRIDGE DEFENCE—CLOSED]
Roger Hardie’s heart was beating quick with eagerness to get into the
play, when Talbot opened the game by sending the ball spinning down to
the lower corner of the field. Cowles took it on the bounce, and had
worked it back fifteen yards before he ran into Eaton’s arms. Through
the centre highway Ricker pushed for five yards before Ford and Talbot
reached him and brought him down. Another assault at the same place gave
a first down. The open defence was showing its weak side. Then they
sought a hole outside Bumpus, but Bumpus got free and threw the runner
into Talbot’s hands. Another dash at centre yielded two yards, and with
five to gain Cowles punted. Mac took the ball safely on his thirty-yard
line, and sent Horr twice against the Trowbridge right flank behind
Eaton and Hardie, each time gaining five yards; and Bradford once just
inside Harrison, who, tugging with Tracy and supported by Talbot behind,
dragged the runner eight yards before the Trowbridge men pulled him
down. A tandem through right guard yielded a first down. After that an
end run was blocked with the loss of a yard through the quickness of the
Trowbridge tackle, and Mac decided to kick.
Pete’s punt, which was got off so quickly that the defence was hardly
ready for it, went diagonally down the field, and, by rolling out at the
Trowbridge thirty-yard line, prevented any running back. Trowbridge
tried an end run from a fake kick, but Harrison was not deceived, and
threw the runner behind the line. Then recourse was had to punting once
more, but the back was slow in getting off his kick, and Bumpus, who had
slapped his way through the line and leaped wildly in the air in the
path of the ball, took it on his chest and beat it down to the ground.
Three men threw themselves at it as it struck, and buried it deep under
struggling brown bodies; but the one who lay closest to it, hugging it
ecstatically in his arms, proved to be the Westcott left end.
The wave of the referee’s hand which moved the measurers down was the
signal for shrill whoops from the excited band of youngsters in the
Westcott cheering section. Sumner on the side-lines flung his arms about
the coach in a transport of delight.
“Our ball on the fifteen-yard line!” he cried jubilantly. “We’ve got ’em
now!”
“Don’t be too sure,” answered Yards, who, though just as eager, had
himself under better control. “It’s a hard fifteen yards to cover.”
The players were in position now, nerved for the great struggle. Behind
their forwards, the Trowbridge backs stood in a line of three. Each
linesman recognized that the success or failure of the next play might
depend on the quickness with which he leaped. The signal which rang out
in Mac’s clear, sharp voice called for a tandem play between left tackle
and guard, with Talbot carrying the ball. Eaton, straining to get the
jump on his antagonist, moved before the ball, and was off side. The
umpire blew his horn; the referee counted back five yards; the lines
formed again.
“O dear!” groaned Sumner. “What’ll he do now?—I believe he’s going to
try a drop!”
“It’s a fake,” said Yards, composedly. “He’d try another down if he
meant to do that.”
McDowell was back holding out his hands, the backs had taken the
formation for interference. Ford passed, but it was Talbot who received
the ball and made a short, quick kick over the right side of the line.
Harrison charged after it with all his speed, but Ricker beat him in the
sprint, took the ball on the bounce, and ran round the Westcott captain
for a gain of fifteen yards before Talbot forced him out of bounds.
From his chagrin at this failure Sumner was aroused by a loud chuckle of
mirth close behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes met
the exultant gaze of President John.
“Wasted his chance,” remarked the dignitary, with an oily grin of
recognition. “I’m afraid he won’t get another.” Sumner nodded and moved
down the line.
And now the Trowbridge men, taking courage from their escape, began to
put new life into their play. Ricker shot through centre and squirmed
forward ten yards. His second attempt was blocked by Ford and Channing
after a short gain. Then a trick was sprung; the guards, tackles, and
ends moved out suddenly six paces, leaving the centre all alone before
the ball, with a great space on either side of him. The movement was
supposed first to confuse the enemy, then to draw them out of position
so as to leave a big hole near the centre, or to furnish a close
interference for a run at end. But the Westcott rushers, having had
experience with this very play as practiced by Sumner’s eleven, took it
coolly as a matter of course, went through evenly along the line, and
downed the dangerous Ricker before he got well under way. On the third
down Trowbridge tried a forward pass on a crisscross formation, but Horr
blocked off the end, and the ball, striking the ground, fell once more
to Westcott’s. McDowell wasted a down in a fruitless effort to push
Bradford through centre, and Horr fumbled. Trowbridge made seven yards
and kicked, Talbot punted back, and for ten minutes the play oscillated
between the thirty-yard lines.
At last—it seemed to Sumner that the half must be nearly at an end—a
rash attempt on the part of Trowbridge to gain four yards after a third
down gave Westcott’s the ball fifty yards from their opponents’ goal.
Mac, who had by this time “sized up” the Trowbridge defence, now ceased
experimenting, and applied his whole mental power to the task of
matching the strong points of his team against the weaknesses of the
foe. On the defence, Trowbridge played the centre in the line, with but
a single line half-back. The Westcott quarter brought his end over, and
drove his backs outside tackle and outside end, now on the short side,
now on the long, gaining satisfactory distances at each stroke.
Presently a second Trowbridge back came up to support the line, leaving
the back-field clear. Mac recognized this opportunity for a forward
pass, and seized it. Pete’s long spiral throw fell into Eaton’s hands on
the enemy’s twenty-yard line. It was a close shave, for Cowles was upon
him as he leaped for the ball, but Eaton held it, though he was thrown
hard. A crash through centre, a skin-tackle play, a split play on a
delayed pass, and Westcott’s brought up at the third down on the
Trowbridge thirteen-yard line with three yards to gain, the enemy’s
linesmen on their knees, and their whole back-field pushed up to support
them.
But two minutes remained. If the ball were lost now, the opportunity to
score would go. Harrison shouted a signal from his end. McDowell nodded,
and fell back to a kicking position, giving his signals clearly as he
went.
“Look out for an on-side kick!” yelled the Trowbridge captain. “Get
through on them now!”
While he spoke, the ball went back. The line in the centre swerved, but
held; the Trowbridge ends, followed by the tackles, swooped down upon
the waiting quarter, but the Westcott backs blocked them off from the
danger zone. Mac got his drop away safely, and, holding his breath,
watched the ball floating upward beyond the reach of human hands. It
crossed the bar three feet inside the post.
The play during the rest of the half was comprehended in two kicks.
Trowbridge sent the ball on the kick-off deep into Westcott territory;
and Talbot on the first down punted it far back.
Sumner, dancing with joy round Mike and the water pail, found himself
again in the presence of the lord of the league.
“What about that chance that wasn’t coming?” he asked, with a sudden
accession of friendliness.
“The game isn’t over,” answered President John, sourly. “A single
touch-down will wipe that gain out.”
At the dressing rooms the usual discussion of the developments of the
game was going forward. The bedraggled players, their mud-streaked faces
aglow with hope, lay stretched on the floor about the coach, listening
eagerly to his last directions. In one corner, Duane, of the Harvard
Second, was explaining to Bumpus how, by proper use of his knee, he
could hold Hubbard on the offence at least a second longer. Yards,
having finished his general exhortation, drew McDowell aside to talk
over with him the strategy of the second half, which was, in brief, to
play safely, keep the ball in opponents’ territory, and watch for
chances.
“If we hold them well, you’ll put in Sumner at the last, won’t you?” Mac
asked.
“Not with the score three to nothing,” answered Yards, quickly.
“If we should make a touch-down, then?” persisted Mac.
The coach hesitated a moment before replying, but when he spoke, there
was no uncertainty in his words. “It wouldn’t be safe. Sumner is a good
fellow, and he’s worked hard for the team, but we’re playing the game to
win, not to give good fellows a chance to make their W’s. I sha’n’t take
any risks.”
The Westcott players trotted forth at the call, determined to make at
the outset such a show of power and dash as would put Trowbridge
immediately on the defensive. The Trowbridge rushers strung out across
the field on a line with the ball. Westcott’s took the usual defensive
positions, the centre ten yards back from the ball, the guards flanking
him, but behind, the tackles outside the guards and still farther back.
Cowles ran forward for his kick-off, but instead of driving the ball to
the limit of his powers down the field, he sent it with a little stab of
his foot diagonally across toward the side-line. It struck the line
outside the Westcott left guard. Bumpus, perplexed at the unexpected
play, hesitated a moment before he leaped for the ball. His hesitation
cost his side dear, for two Trowbridge rushers crashed into him before
he had taken three steps, and the Trowbridge end flung himself on the
ball just ahead of Eaton, who pounced upon him like a wild beast upon
his prey. Trowbridge had gained the ball on Westcott’s forty-yard line!
Sumner’s heart was like lead, as he saw the Trowbridge line open in wide
gaps for a trick play. If the Westcott rushers lost their heads now,
there was no hope for the team. But a line that sifts evenly through,
with each man keeping well within his own territory, is a hard line to
work tricks upon; and a strong, aggressive tackle is a dangerous
obstacle to end plays. The Westcott line did sift evenly through, and
Eaton was a good tackle—so good, indeed, that he burst straight into
the Trowbridge interference, and, hooking the runner with a long reach,
swung him directly into Hardie’s arms. The next play, which was directed
at the open centre, was spoiled by Bumpus, who burned to retrieve
himself, before it had advanced three yards. Then, with six yards to
gain, Cowles drew back for a kick.
“Fake!” shouted Harrison. “Look out for a forward pass!”
His warning proved false; it served only to check his own line, and give
Cowles a better opportunity to get off his kick. He punted high and with
such splendid accuracy that the ball fell at the Westcott six-yard line.
McDowell stood under it as it came down, holding his hand high aloft and
claiming the privilege of a fair catch. All about him thronged the
menacing Trowbridge forwards, ready to seize the ball and carry it
across the line should Mac fail to hold it.
“I’m glad I’m not there!” thought the anxious Sumner. “I’d fumble it
sure! If it should slip out of his hands, now—”
But it didn’t. As calmly as if he were in mid field with no one near to
disturb him, Mac gathered in the descending ball and heeled his mark.
Twenty seconds later Pete’s long punt rolled out at the Westcott
forty-five-yard line.
Again Westcott’s held Trowbridge to a seven-yards gain in two downs, and
Trowbridge, as a last resort, tried a complicated forward pass; but
Tracy worked through on the end who had come round to make the pass, and
threw him before he could complete it. Now, for the first time during
the half, the Westcott lads took the offence, though Mac still preferred
to rely on Talbot’s foot. Down sailed the ball to the Trowbridge
twenty-yard line, only to be kicked back beyond the centre of the field
a few minutes later. Here for some minutes the play wavered within the
neutral zone. On the exchange of punts there was little advantage except
that gained by
[Illustration: SWUNG HIM DIRECTLY INTO HARDIE’S ARMS.]
Hardie and Harrison as they dodged down the field under the kicks, and
nailed the receiver of the ball at his first step; but on the rushes
Westcott’s covered more ground, and the play gradually drew near the
Trowbridge end of the field.
A series of successful line plunges had brought the Westcott offence to
the Trowbridge twenty-yard line, when the referee announced at the third
down that four yards of the necessary ten were still lacking. Mac
conferred with Harrison, and, falling back to the kicking position,
knelt at Talbot’s side. The quarter caught Ford’s pass, but instead of
placing the ball for a kick, he waited until the Trowbridge men were
sweeping down upon him, when he passed to Talbot, who threw the ball in
a long spiral that bored its way through the air far over the left side
of the line. Hardie was ready to receive it, and so was Ricker. They
came together with a shock, but Ricker was short and Roger tall, and the
Westcott man clutched the ball over his rival’s head, as the latter
tumbled him to the ground. The eight yards to the goal line Pete covered
in two downs.
Sumner did not see the goal kicked; he was coasting along the side-lines
in search of his friend Smith. He found him at last, just as the elevens
were changing ends, standing alone near the corner of the field.
“Great game, sir!” offered Sumner, politely.
“I call it a very poor game,” answered President John, staring straight
before him. “That Trowbridge line is rotten.”
“It’s hard to understand how they could beat Newbury seventeen to
three,” remarked Sumner, cheerfully. “About time enough left for another
touch-down, isn’t there?”
Smith made no reply to this question, unless a scowl and an
unintelligible exclamation could be construed as a reply. But even thus
Sumner seemed to consider the conversation worth while, for as he
hurried back to the side of the Westcott coach, he was bubbling with
glee.
With the score nine to nothing and the game nearly over, there seemed no
serious doubt as to the outcome. So thought Mac, at least, when Harrison
recovered the ball on a fumble near his fifty-yard line, and Pete punted
down close to the Trowbridge goal. It was high time that Sumner should
appear if he was to be sent into the game at all, but Yards made no move
to send him. Mac considered the matter at intervals, while he stood far
back waiting for his friends in the line to gain possession of the ball.
The result of his consideration was to arouse in his mind the suspicion
that Yards was working, not for a safe victory, but for a score which
would leave no doubt as to the success of his coaching.
“Jack deserves a chance, and he is going to get it!” muttered Mac to
himself. “If it can’t come one way, it shall another.”
The Westcott defence had just thrown back another attempt at a
skin-tackle play, and Harrison signalled to his quarter to be ready for
a kick. Mac was under the ball when it came down, and slipping by the
end, zigzagged a dozen yards up the field before he succumbed to two
hard Trowbridge tacklers. Ford came puffing back and took the ball from
his hand; but Mac, instead of scrambling to his feet and calling out his
signals as the team gathered, remained squirming on the ground.
“What’s the matter?” asked Harrison, anxiously, as he knelt beside him.
“My right ankle!” groaned Mac, twisting his face into an expression of
frightful pain.
Time was called; Mike appeared with his water pail and sponge, closely
followed by Yards. Together they rubbed the injured joint, while Mac
writhed and moaned.
“How much time is left?” he asked.
“Three minutes.”
“I’ll see if I can stand.”
Yards and Harrison lifted the sufferer to his feet. He took a step with
his right foot, rested his weight on it,—and went down in a heap.
“Do you think it’s broken?” asked the coach in alarm.
“I guess not,” replied Mac, transforming a grin into a grimace, “but
you’ll have to send Jack in.”
Yards called for Sumner, and the maimed quarter went hobbling off the
field, supported by Yards and Louis Tracy, and saluted by a booming
salvo from the graduates, and an impassioned cheer from the schoolboy
section. Yards proposed to send him directly to the dressing rooms and
call in a physician, but Mac pleaded piteously to be allowed to see the
game out. So he stood at the side-lines, leaning on Louis’s shoulder.
“We should have made another touch-down if you hadn’t got hurt,” said
the coach, in a resentful tone, as Horr at the first signal was pushed
through outside Ben Tracy for a gain of five yards. “We had ’em on the
run.”
“Jack will do just as well,” answered Mac, calmly. “He’s better on the
offence than I am.”
In truth, Sumner had the advantage over Mac in some respects. He was
heavier, he got into the plays better, and he profited by his close
study of the game from the side-lines. The team reacted to a fresh
voice, while Sumner’s strength, applied at the critical instant, helped
to break the resistance and roll the wedge along. Outside guard, outside
tackle, around the end, changing his attack from side to side, Sumner
pushed his backs to a first down, to another, to a third. Then, when the
Trowbridge secondary defence concentrated close behind the line, he
worked a forward pass himself, running backward to make sure of his
throw, and delivering the ball safely into Tracy’s hands. Westcott’s was
on the Trowbridge ten-yard line, pressing hotly forward, when the
referee’s whistle put an end to the game.
Mac lingered on the side-lines, waiting for an opportunity to
congratulate Sumner on his playing. As they walked together to the
dressing rooms, escorted by a half-dozen admiring youngsters, the
injured quarter forgot to limp. Close by the entrance Yards accosted
them.
“You ran the team finely, Sumner,” he exclaimed, with radiant face.
Then, suddenly recalling Mac’s misfortune, he turned upon him and
demanded, “How’s that ankle?”
“It seems all right now,” replied Mac, with an abrupt lapse from his
gayety.
Yards gave him a sharp glance, and his eyes darkened ominously. “I
believe you—” he began, but the beseeching look on Mac’s face checked
him. “I’m glad it’s no worse,” he finished lamely.
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CHAPTER XV
DUNN’S DISAPPOINTMENTS
JUBILATION and swaggering self-satisfaction reigned triumphant at
Westcott’s Monday morning. Certain small boys who had acquired a habit
of arriving half an hour before the time of opening so as to have
opportunity, before the advent of interfering teachers, for tag through
the play room and up the stairs, found their numbers doubled. Instead of
scampering wildly off like frolicsome kittens, they gathered in solid
clusters at their end of the big schoolroom and exchanged opinions and
reminiscences, sprinkling their conversation richly with comments like
“Wasn’t it great when Mac made that goal!” “Did you see Fat Bumpus slide
on his nose?” “I was dead scared that time when Trowbridge got down to
our ten-yard line!” “The paper said—” “Papa thought—” and so on, in a
series that developed itself by arithmetical progression. Richard
Sumner, who had a gift for drawing, spent ten minutes, hedged in by a
semicircle of admirers and supervised by Mike, in chalking on the board
a splendid figure of a plunging half-back, armed cap-a-pie, which he
reproduced by memory from a magazine cover. The breast of his player
rampant he covered with a huge W, and underneath he printed in neat
characters the score by games. When this was done, Mike produced a list
of an All-Triangular eleven, which he had elaborated over Sunday, and
defended with a great show of expert knowledge the right of seven
Westcottites to a place thereon.
Then the older boys came in a bunch, driven in by the cold from the
corner outside. They took places in the alcove that commanded the
street, on watch for the members of the team as they arrived. Each one
as he appeared was signalled at a distance, and hailed by name and
applause as he entered the room. Harrison, of course, received a
prolonged salvo, but Talbot, Eaton, and Hardie were welcomed almost as
heartily, while Bumpus’s bruised face, and Mac’s complacent grin, called
forth a special demonstration. Last of all Sumner was seen, hurrying
late across the street, and an original salutation that would be sure to
rattle him was suggested by Wilmot—but the bell rang and spoiled it
all.
At noon, by general agreement, ten minutes were taken from recess and
another ten from recitation,—a phenomenal concession on the part of Mr.
Westcott,—speeches were made, and the school cheered their throats and
enthusiasm out. It was a new experience for Roger Hardie to hear the
leader call his name, and to feel in the wholehearted volley, to read in
the enthusiastic faces bent upon him, that he was accounted worthy the
gratitude of the school; and his content was not lessened by the fact
that he had gained his place, against the general expectation, by his
own merit. Yet proudly happy though he was in the consciousness of a
certain success achieved, he felt no temptation to that silly vanity
which is too often the result of public praise, and transforms a
reasonably attractive boy into a bumptious, overweening cad. There was a
reason for this, other than natural modesty. Roger had conceived a new
ambition—to row on a school crew. Here again he stood at the foot of a
ladder. To gain a place he must push ahead of a dozen others whose
experience gave them a right to laugh at his pretensions.
Dunn cheered with the rest, but every “rah” which he forced himself to
utter cost him as much effort as a line of Virgil dug out with a
vocabulary. He had been badly frightened by the incident of the Newbury
protest. The upper school had held him in a measure responsible for the
false position in which they found themselves—most unjustly, Dunn
maintained, since he had been but the bearer of a message. Certain
persons, more frank than polite, had said unpleasant things in his
hearing; his closest friends had for a time been cool toward him. When,
with the decision of the committee, the cloud passed, Dunn plucked up
spirit again, and for the last week of football practice really tried
hard to retrieve his reputation. He succeeded so far, indeed, that
Harrison held out hopes to him of getting into the Trowbridge game in
the second half, if things went well. But things did not go well, at
least from Dunn’s point of view, for at no time during the game had
Yards considered it safe to exchange the steady, clear-headed,
hard-tackling end for a substitute of doubtful quality. So Dunn was left
minus the coveted W, and plus a strong conviction that he had been
ill-used. It was not easy for him to forgive Hardie for robbing him of
his place and gaining the opportunity to achieve a triumph which Dunn
felt sure he could have achieved just as well. Equally unpalatable was
the fact that Hardie seemed to be established on good terms with the
influential set, of which Talbot, Sumner, Wilmot, and Trask formed the
solid centre. On the other hand, while there were many whom Dunn called
his friends, no one showed any great liking for his society except Ben
Tracy and Stover, neither of whom was able to help him along toward that
popularity for which his heart yearned. His poor recitation work also
seemed to count against him in this strange school in which the boys
actually held it the proper thing to work on lessons, and while they
pretended to make light of low marks, at bottom despised a numskull. Can
we wonder, then, that the disdain with which Dunn first regarded his
quiet housemate, Hardie, should have turned to envy?
That afternoon Roger went down town with McDowell to buy their football
hatbands—a white background striped three times with blue, the outer
stripes wide, the inner one narrow. McDowell took his hat off as they
emerged from the shop, and gave the new decoration a long look of
admiration, regardless of the jostling crowd. “It’s not so pretty as the
crew band that Pete wears,” he said slowly, “but I’d a lot rather have
it. It means something.”
“So does the crew mean something,” answered Roger. “It means more than
any band there is. Only a few fellows can get it, and at least a dozen
can sport football bands.—Put on your dip, you lunatic. They’ll think
you’re crazy!”
Mac replaced his hat, pressing it down carefully on his hair, and giving
the brim a downward tilt. “The second crew get bands if they win their
race,” he said; “that’s eight, and the two coxswains make ten.”
“But they don’t all get crew W’s. Only five fellows in the school have a
right to them. I’d rather wear a band as a member of the first crew, if
it were just one dirty yellow streak, than have both baseball and
football combined.”
Mac laughed. “Why don’t you, then? All you have to do is to make the
crew.”
“You can’t make the crew just by coming out for it. You’ve got to know
how to row, and it takes lots of practice to learn. There isn’t any
chance for an inexperienced man, with six or eight old fellows in school
who have all had a year or more of it.”
“Isn’t there?” answered Mac, absently. He was looking about him at the
faces hurrying past, wondering that no one seemed to mark the
significant symbol that he bore. Just then a small boy in knickerbockers
and light top-coat, wearing a flat hat with white band edged with
blue—the regular Westcott hatband—appeared in front of them. He caught
sight of the new bands, glanced at the faces below, smiled, and,
stopping short in the crowd, fixed his gaze upon them, revolving in his
tracks as they passed. Here was one who knew the token.
It is ever thus. The small boy looks up with veneration to the wearer of
the school letter. The school athlete admires the member of a freshman
team; the freshman adores the varsity captain who has so long worn the
stately letter that it has quite lost its glamor. The varsity captain
thinks chiefly of the task which he has taken upon his shoulders, and
admires only some lucky captain before him who won his race or his Yale
game, or some frail, pretty, unathletic girl whose weakness her
schoolboy brother flouts. So the chain is looped.
“Who was that?” asked Roger.
“Stanley Hale,” answered Mac, with a grin. “The football band is good
enough for him.—But why isn’t your chance for the crew as good as any
one’s? Pete’s a friend of yours.”
“That’s just it: for that reason he wouldn’t put me on unless he had to.
But what’s the use of talking about it? I shall be lucky to get on to
the river at all.”
That night Louis Tracy appeared at the dinner-table a little late. “Did
you get your bid for the Fridays, Ben?” he asked, turning to his cousin
as he unfolded his napkin. “I’ve got one.”
Ben nodded. “Mine came this afternoon.”
“I got mine this morning,” said Cable.
“So did I,” announced Roger, who was feeling particularly happy.
Talbot’s brother had procured him a good seat for the Yale-Harvard game,
and Sumner had got his name put on the list for the dancing class.
Dunn looked up inquiringly. “What’s that?” he demanded. “I didn’t get
anything.”
“Just the Friday dancing class at the Crofton,” said Ben, carelessly. “A
good many of the fellows go.”
Dunn pondered a few seconds, then blurted out, “How do you get into the
thing?”
“I was on the list last year,” replied Ben.
“So was I,” said Cable, answering a look from Dunn.
“My Aunt Mary got me my invitation,” Louis Tracy explained.
There was a moment of silence which to some at the table seemed a bit
awkward; but Dunn, who was determined to probe the matter to the bottom,
pushed boldly on. “How did you work it, Hardie?”
“Mine came through Mrs. Sumner. She is one of the patronesses. Jack
asked me last week whether I’d like one, and I jumped at the chance.”
At this point Mrs. Adams interposed a new topic of conversation, and the
tongues were soon flying at the usual rate over a safe course; but
Dunn’s voice, commonly the loudest and most insistent, was only heard
when a question was put directly to him. He ate his dinner in moody
silence, his face darkly clouded. In the middle of dessert he excused
himself, leaving the ice-cream half eaten on his plate.
“It’s tough on poor Jason to get left out of the Fridays,” said Cable,
as the door closed behind him.
“What in time did you want to bring it up for?” exclaimed Ben, turning
reproachfully on his cousin.
“I didn’t think about it,” answered Louis. “Jason had no business
butting in, anyway.”
“He’d have found out about it sooner or later,” suggested Cable. “We
were all as much at fault as Louis.”
“Can’t you do something to help him out?” asked Roger. “You might get
him an invitation, Ben, I should think.”
“Well, I can’t,” Ben answered impatiently. “I don’t run the things, and
none of my people do, either.”
Later in the evening Dunn came into Ben Tracy’s room and sat down on the
bed. “Say, Ben,” he began, “can’t you help me to get an invitation for
that dancing class? I don’t care anything about the dancing part of it,
but it’s going to be awfully disagreeable to hang round here all winter
and be the only fellow left out. I shall be ashamed to live.”
Ben didn’t answer. He knew very well that if he took Dunn’s name to his
Aunt Mary, she would want to know all about the applicant, his
character, appearance, manners, habits, church relations,—all about his
father, mother, relatives, acquaintances, ancestors, his father’s
business and his grandfather’s. And after her nephew had undergone the
cross-examination, she would probably refuse to help him and admonish
him to avoid such associations.
“You might try Mr. Westcott,” said Ben, jumping at a stray idea, as
Jason jumped at answers in the history class. “He could get your name on
the list easily enough.”
“He wouldn’t do it if he could,” answered Dunn, despondently. “He’s down
on me and would be glad of a chance to sting me and preach at me. If
your Aunt Mary can get one for Louis, she can get one for me, too. Try
her, won’t you? It’ll be the greatest favor you could do me. I’ll pay it
back sometime, I swear I will. Say you will, please!”
Ben looked hard at the floor. He didn’t want to say yes, and he hadn’t
the heart to say no; yet something he must say. He lifted his eyes for a
moment to Dunn’s pleading face.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
Dunn leaped forward and gripped his hand. “That’s the way to talk. You
can fix it up all right. I’ll make it good to you some day before the
year is out, ten times over!”
Dunn went back to his own room, leaving his anxieties behind him. They
had settled on unlucky Ben, who brooded for a long time on the best way
to approach his hypercritical aunt. When he crawled into bed at last, he
was no nearer a satisfactory conclusion than when Dunn left him.
“If I ask her and she refuses, Jason will be worse off than he is now,”
he muttered to himself as sleep crept over him. “I don’t know what to
do!”
He knew no better when he awoke the next morning. As a result he did
nothing at all, except to pity himself as a victim of unkind fate.
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CHAPTER XVI
MIKE ADVISES
THE next morning—it was the day for election of a football
captain—Roger found Pete and Jack Sumner in the cloak-room talking
earnestly together. “I want to ask a favor of you fellows,” he began, as
soon as he caught sight of them. “Everybody out at Adams’s has
invitations to the Fridays, except Dunn. He is awfully cut up about it.”
“I can’t help it,” said Talbot. “It isn’t my fault if he doesn’t deserve
any.”
“He’s no worse than Snobson and Newgeld,” insisted Roger. “They both got
in.”
“Not with my help,” retorted Talbot. “What are _you_ bothering about it
for? He wouldn’t do it for you.”
“I don’t care whether he would or not. It just isn’t a fair deal to
leave him out.” Roger turned to Sumner. “There’s no use talking to Pete;
he’s nothing but a savage. You’ll get it for him, Jack, won’t you? You
can work your mother for it. Think what it would be yourself to be left
out of a thing when all the others are in!”
“Think what it would be to be Dunn,” said Pete; “that’s a much more
horrible thought.”
But Sumner was a friendly soul. “If you’re really set on it, I’ll see
what I can do,” he said. “I shouldn’t want him to commit suicide out at
Adams’s!”
Sumner’s words were exactly those which Ben Tracy had used to Dunn the
evening before, but his deeds, as will appear later, were wholly
different.
Before the football meeting, Talbot suggested that Horr deserved the
captaincy, and would perhaps make as good a captain as any one else.
Roger assented readily, and cast his vote in accordance with Pete’s
suggestion. With Harrison, Eaton, Talbot, Sumner, and other boys of the
first class out, there was left little room for choice. He had not
thought of himself as a possible candidate. When the votes were counted,
and the announcement was made that Horr had eight votes, Hardie four,
with one each for McDowell and Ben Tracy, Roger felt grateful that four
fellows had thought so well of him as to give him the compliment of
their votes, but it did not occur to him either to question the loyalty
of friends or to wonder why Horr should be preferred before him.
A day or two later Dunn came to the dinner-table beaming with joy, and
slapped Ben Tracy hard on the shoulder.
“I’ve got it!” he announced jubilantly. “It’s all right.”
“Got what?” asked Ben, staring blankly. The face which for the last
forty-eight hours had reflected nothing but spleen now shone with
satisfaction.
Dunn flourished a square white envelope. “My invitation for the Fridays.
It was just delayed.”
“Good for you!” exclaimed Cable. “I congratulate you,” purred Mrs.
Adams. Hardie smiled, but said nothing; Ben Tracy continued to stare,
puzzled to find that some good angel had relieved him of his unwelcome
task.
After dinner Dunn drew Ben into the corner of the general room, and
poured fervent expressions of gratitude into his ear. “Talbot and Hardie
thought they were going to get me stung,” he exclaimed, “but they didn’t
succeed. I had some friends myself! You’ve helped me in this thing, all
right, Benny, and I won’t forget it!”
“I haven’t done anything,” protested Ben, weakly, “at least nothing
worth while.”
“It’s worth a lot to me. I’ll get even with you for it some day,—and
I’ll get even with that sucker, Hardie, too; he’s put those fellows
against me.”
Dunn’s first step in getting even with Hardie was taken that very
evening, and the method of it showed that some of Jason’s brain cells
were more highly developed than those on which he relied in the
preparation of lessons.
Just before bedtime he knocked at Roger’s door. “Hello!” he cried,
putting his head into the room. “Will you give me a lift on this
confounded Virgil?”
“Certainly,” answered Roger. “Come in—. Doesn’t your trot tell you
about it?” he added with a sly grin. Dunn still adhered to the theory
that the literal translation affords an excellent short cut to
proficiency in an ancient language. The twenties and thirties that he
received on examinations were fully offset, Dunn maintained, by the
great success of his daily recitations. He always knew what the Latin
ought to say, anyway; he never made any crazy blunders such as Redfield
perpetrated.
“I can’t make connections with the trot in this place,” answered Dunn,
calmly, “and Ben can’t. I don’t believe you can, either, if you did get
eighty on the exam.”
Roger soon proved that he could—indeed, the problem presented no
difficulties except such as Dunn’s stupidity had raised or his cunning
invented. Having thus paved the way for his main business, Dunn leaned
against the door-post, and, holding a finger between the leaves of his
Virgil to strengthen the impression that he was stopping casually on the
way back to his interrupted work, began to talk.
“You didn’t get the captaincy, did you?”
Roger gave a good-natured little laugh. “No, I didn’t, and I didn’t
expect to.”
“You came mighty near it.”
“Four votes out of fourteen—that’s not very near.”
“I don’t mean that. You know what I mean.”
Hardie shook his head.
“The day before the election it was all settled that you were to get it.
I heard so from McDowell and Bumpus and two or three others. Then
something happened, and the vote went the other way.”
“What happened?” Roger was listening eagerly.
“Talbot went against you and bulldozed ’em into electing Horr. You know
he’s always got to have his way.”
Roger smiled bravely. “He probably thought Horr would make a better
captain.”
“I don’t know what he thought. I know what he did. He pretends to be a
friend of yours, too.”
“He _is_ a friend,” said Roger, quickly.
“The way he treated you didn’t look much like it. Good night.”
Dunn returned to his room fairly well satisfied with himself; he had
given Hardie something to think of that would take down his insufferable
conceit, a conceit which Dunn was convinced must be the worse since it
was masked by such a quiet exterior.
In fact, if thinking was all Roger was expected to do, Dunn’s mission of
malice was wholly successful. Roger did think, lying awake an hour after
he went to bed, and fighting vainly against an insistent mental activity
that would not be cajoled by firm resolutions or new arrangements of
pillow; but the direction which his thoughts took was different from
what Jason had anticipated. A week before, he would have ridiculed the
idea of his being made captain; his ambition did not fly so high. Now,
when the opportunity had come and gone, when the honor which, it seemed,
had been almost within his reach, was bestowed upon another, he
understood how much he should have prized it. Why had Talbot interfered
against him? Surely not from ill-will, for the record of the season
proved him as stanch a friend as an insignificant new boy ever acquired;
nor from personal liking for Horr—they belonged to wholly different
sets in school. It must be, then, that Pete regarded him as incompetent
for the position. Moreover, if Pete thought so, it was probably true; he
was just a meek, harmless, flabby sort of fellow who happened to be able
to play a fair game at end, but wasn’t fit for leadership! Dunn’s shot
had wounded, but not in the spot at which it was aimed. Hardie’s
self-esteem was hurt, not his trust in Pete.
The next morning he turned over the subject again as he dressed. “Pete
was right to think as he did, and yet he was wrong,” he said to himself.
“I should have made just as good a captain as Horr. The trouble with me
is that I’m always waiting for some one to recognize me and push me
forward. I haven’t confidence enough in myself; there’s where I’ve got
to change. I can do things when I have to. Why do I always act as if I
couldn’t?”
He rode into town that morning with Mike. Mike’s society was usually a
pleasure. His mind was always brimful of the present. He knew exactly
what he thought on all the matters that entered into his experience, and
exactly what he wanted to do. Mike never hesitated through bashfulness,
nor wasted opportunities because of lack of faith to accept them!
“You ought to have been football captain,” declared Mike, as they stood
on the back platform of a crowded in-bound car. “You’d make a lot better
one than Horr. Horr really doesn’t know the game. I told Pete Talbot so,
too. They needn’t think that because you’re quiet, you haven’t any push
in you. I know better!”
“Thank you for your good opinion, Mike,” returned the smiling Hardie.
“What did Pete do, fire you out?”
“No, he said he didn’t know but I was right. It ’ud have been fine to
have a captain at Adams’s. We haven’t had one since I’ve been in school.
There’s no one else there who’ll ever come near it.” He stopped, and a
sudden gleam flashed over his face. “I’ll tell you what to do,” he
exclaimed, “make the crew and be crew captain. That’ll be better yet!”
Roger laughed aloud. “Make the Harvard Varsity, why don’t you say? I may
make the pair-oar if I’m lucky.”
“You’ll never make anything if you talk like that,” answered shrewd
Mike. “You’re as bad as Jason, only the other way round. Jason thinks
he’s everything when he isn’t anything, and you tell people you aren’t
anything, and they believe you! You tell it and act it both. That’s not
the way to do.”
And Hardie, being an open-minded youth, accepted this wisdom from the
lips of a babe, and resolved immediately that he wouldn’t act the
incapable any more, even if he must needs remain such. He didn’t tell
Mike so, however; that would be throwing improper encouragement to small
boys who criticised their betters. Instead, he gave a sudden jerk to the
visor of the boy’s cap that brought it forward on his nose, and said
reprovingly: “There’s one thing certain, Mike, _you’ll_ never suffer
from over-modesty. Now don’t say anything more about the football
captain. Horr’s elected, and we’re all going to help him the best we
can.”
“Sure!” answered Mike, as he calmly restored his cap to the proper
place. “Don’t you suppose I know enough for that? I wouldn’t say what I
did to any one but you.”
Dunn went to his first Friday in high feather, picturing to himself in
advance the conquests he should make. Dancing, he felt, was his strong
point. But Trask and Wilmot, the head ushers for the day, had laid
strict commands on their subordinates, and Jason was introduced to none
but “pills.” He did not suspect this fact until the afternoon was
two-thirds gone, when after beseeching three ushers in succession to
present him to Molly Randolph, a much talked-of “queen,” and being put
off with flimsy pretexts, he at last discovered that there was a plot
against his dignity. After that he sulked in the corner to which
ungallant youths retired when the attractive partners were taken and
only pills remained disengaged. Hardie, blest beyond his deserts, made
the acquaintance of numerous favorites and danced the german with Helen
Talbot, who amused him with a vivacious narrative of certain disputes
with Joe, in which, with the help of her older brother, she came out
victorious. Miss Helen vanquished Roger also, for she got him to promise
her a football hatband, which, as she frankly confessed, “Joe would
never give me in the world.”
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CHAPTER XVII
A KINDLED AMBITION
WESTCOTT’S was in some ways a bit old-fashioned. Holidays were
grudgingly given, visitors were not suffered to intrude on recitations,
and every school day was made a working day, with enforced privileges on
Saturdays if the week’s work was not satisfactorily done. Scholastic
flummery, the advertising quackery of shows and visitors’ days and
special programmes, found no favor with the authorities. If any
exception is to be made to this general rule, it must apply to the day
on which school closed for the Christmas holidays, when for half an hour
at the close of recitations the boys themselves took charge of the
schoolroom, and celebrated in their own way their approaching liberty
and their loyalty to the school.
Even here the programme was very simple. When the twelve o’clock gong
sounded, the whole school assembled in the big room. Old Westcottites
from college poured in, thronging the wide doorway of the library, and
circling the end of the schoolroom in a long line. A representative of
the first class came forward, and in a little speech, delivered usually
with a flushed face and in a faint, agitated voice, presented to the
school a gift which should be a permanent reminder of the affection and
esteem of the outgoing class. Mr. Westcott then made a response, which
was followed sometimes by a few words from some teacher. After this
various boys chosen from the managing class stepped forward and led
cheers for the school, for the individual teachers, and for the athletic
teams. Then old boys, if any were bold enough, or unable to resist the
pressure put upon them, took their turn, and exhorted the school or
praised it, as inspiration (or their confusion) led them. No boy who was
present on the day when three captains of Harvard teams and two
class-day marshals—all old Westcottites—followed each other to the
platform, will soon forget the impression made by those stalwart
figures, intelligent faces, and sincere if inartistic speeches. Not the
bishop nor the learned professor nor the governor himself could so stir
the hearts of the school. These college men were authorities, men who
had achieved, heroes within the range of every boy’s admiration.
This year, only one of these representatives from the upper world was
booked to address the school, but as he was no less a personage than
captain of the Varsity crew, he counted in general estimation tenfold.
Roger Hardie, being in the second class, played spectator and common
soldier in the cheering battalion. Mr. Westcott’s speech and Mr. Cary’s
left him rather cold; he had heard these gentlemen many times before in
various forms of discourse from cautious praise to unreserved
condemnation. But when Deering was demanded, and in response a tall,
broad-shouldered, deep-chested, bronzed young man emerged from the
library and pushed forward through a tumult of welcome, Roger’s heart
leaped to greet him.
For half a minute Deering stood with his hand on the desk, waiting for
the din to subside. Roger fixed his eyes upon him, and in an intense
stare drank in an impression of the man. He was quietly dressed, his
necktie subdued, his trousers—Dunn might perhaps have noticed—not
absolutely fresh from the tailor’s goose. But Deering was one for whom
clothes could do little. Such bigness, honesty, cleanness,
determination, and withal such fresh unconquerable strength of youth, no
smart costume could adorn. In some manner he suggested Talbot—Talbot as
he might be four years hence, when his body had reached its growth and
the maturing influences of college life had tamed his explosive
violence.
Deering’s speech was addressed to the first class. When the boys before
him reached college, he said, they would find certain men doing all
sorts of things that they’d better not be doing, wasting their money and
time and strength, and thinking that they were cutting a great figure.
There were plenty of such fellows hanging round the college, who were of
no use to the college or to themselves. They make a great mistake. No
one cares anything about them, and they don’t make good. The fellow who
has principles and tries to live up to them, who is willing to work hard
and keep faced in the right direction, is the man who is respected,
whether he makes a name for himself or not.
“You’ve got to mean right and work right,” he said in closing. “You
can’t mean right unless you have principles to follow, and the only way
to work right is to work hard. Here in school is the place to make a
good start. I don’t need to say anything about your studies, for your
teachers will see to that, but in your athletics, unless there’s been a
big change since my day, there’s room for improvement. You want to play
fair and play like gentlemen, but play hard. Give the best of yourselves
to your practice as well as to your matches. Don’t fool, and don’t
shirk, and don’t quit. And when you come to college, don’t let any one
persuade you that the ideals and moral standards you’ve learned here
will have to be changed.”
Had the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric from across the Charles been
present in the Westcott schoolroom that morning, he would have listened
patronizingly and given the speaker a passing grade in consideration of
his earnestness and good intentions. Had the professor spoken in
Deering’s place, the boys would have closed their ears to his careful
sentences and mentally marked him F—flat failure. They voted Deering A,
and after their reserved fashion, assented to his maxims and treasured
up his words. Even Dunn had visions of a time coming—in the dim future,
of course—when he should throw off his indolence and self-indulgence,
be a “good boy” and a grind, work like a Trojan in school and out, and
win back the ground that he had lost. When it came to baseball, he could
show them a few things!
As for Roger Hardie, Deering’s exhortation, and even more Deering’s
personality, was as a match applied to tinder. His zeal took fire
immediately. If the rowing men were like Deering, if rowing made such
men, rowing was the thing for him! If honest, serious work profited at
all in this untried sport in which experience was held to be so
important, Roger would give that work ungrudgingly as long as his
presence was tolerated on the squad. This resolve sent him to the
gymnasium to exercise every day during the Christmas recess, when, save
for himself and Mike and two smaller urchins, Adams’s was bereft of
boys. It forced him to look upon himself as, in a fashion, consecrated
to a special ambition, none the less wholesome and potent because
cherished in secret. It made it easier for him to keep faith with his
parents and his own conscience in the presence of the insidious
temptations to which he, in common with all boys of his age, was
subjected.
The tide of boys flooded back to school on the second of January, noisy
with reminiscences of good times enjoyed. Talbot came from a camp on the
shore of Cape Cod, where he had been shooting with Trask; Ben Tracy from
Montreal. Dunn had spent his freedom in New York, where he had “been to
something every night and had the highest old kind of a time.” The
anecdotes of his experiences furnished him amusement for a week; his
listeners tired of them in a much shorter time. Aside from these
anecdotes, Dunn brought back little that was new from his vacation,
certainly nothing so beneficial to himself or the school as an earnest
purpose. He continued to slide downhill with careless content, finding
specious excuses to present to teachers for classroom failures, and
flattering himself that he was playing a grand rôle in the eyes of his
mates as a jaunty, devil-may-care loafer.
The winter term in all schools is sacred to work. The boys at
Westcott’s, under pressure at home and in school, on the whole did their
full stint with faithfulness and good-will. But there was no lack of
distraction abroad or fun at school. Outside were the official
amusements at Adams’s, skating at the Country Club, occasional dancing
parties, lectures for the intellectual, theatre for the frivolous, and
jolly visiting among friends for all. At school, some petty excitement
was always to be found. A lively recitation has its interest for a
keen-witted boy, especially if it exhibits a Dunn trying to palm off an
old excuse or a Redfield to originate a new blunder. Some one was
usually in trouble, and the trouble of a school-mate, if not too
serious, is always interesting to the bystanders. And there were
occasions when the amusement was not wholly innocent.
The great fault with the Westcott lads was their thoughtlessness. They
had never known the sting of poverty, nor suffered from the want of
anything which it was at all desirable that they should have. Some of
them had feeble sense of the sacredness of property; a thing that could
be bought by a small requisition on their pocket-money possessed in
their eyes slight value. When Wilmot unscrewed an electric-light bulb in
the lower hall and flung it the whole length of the play room to smash
into a hundred pieces against the brick wall, he was simply yielding to
a reckless impulse of fun. He would have taken his punishment without
complaint if he had been caught, and he would have confessed the deed
honestly if he had been questioned; but he had no idea that he was
stealing. When Cable dropped a new stiff hat at the cloak-room door, and
half a dozen rascals immediately kicked it into tatters, they thought
they were having fun with Cable—until after an interview with Mr.
Westcott. If a book was left about the halls,—the owner had no business
to drop his books around,—some one was quite likely to use it as a
missile on his way out. Talbot and Hardie and Harrison and others of the
older boys regarded such an act as “kiddish”; Wilmot would commit it
because of uncontrolled recklessness, Dunn because he was a fool.
It was the laboratory at the top of the building that offered to
heedless spirits the greatest temptation. Here both the chemistry and
the physics classes performed their experiments and made their
recitations. Mr. Cary, the instructor, was neither incompetent nor a
weakling; but he couldn’t be in the laboratory all the time nor in all
parts of it at the same time. Interesting experiments were tried that
had no place in the text-book. For two weeks a jar hidden in the corner
served as a receptacle for odds and ends of chemicals, and was visited
surreptitiously every day by various members of the class, curious to
see what new color it had taken on. Reeves discovered that a cent could
be silvered by dipping it in nitric acid, then in mercury, and then, for
an instant, in the acid again. Thereupon a mania for silvering objects
suddenly developed which had to be repressed by official order. With a
piece of glass tubing drawn to a point and attached by a rubber hose to
a faucet, Trask found that he could throw a fine jet of water to a
considerable distance. He used to train this with great effect on
persons standing yards away, the spray being invisible but very
distinctly felt. It struck Hardie one day in the back of the neck just
above his collar, as he was standing beside Mr. Cary’s desk. He couldn’t
turn round or dodge the stream, for Mr. Cary was looking over his
note-book, and any movement would have betrayed the offenders. So he
stood helpless, furtively swabbing with his handkerchief at the back of
his head, but failing with all his efforts to dam the stream that
trickled down his back.
Impunity encourages. One day at recess, some scapegrace made an
obnoxious mixture in an open dish by means of iron sulphide and
hydrochloric acid, and fled for his life, leaving the laboratory door
open. The fumes descended the stairways and reached the noses of
innocent sufferers below. Mr. Westcott and Mr. Cary arrived at the
laboratory simultaneously, hot on the scent, and took counsel together.
Later in the day Mr. Westcott called the laboratory classes into his
room and demanded the culprit. No one volunteering, he explained the
danger and wrong of fooling in the laboratory, and declared that he
should punish severely any further misdemeanor, even if it were
necessary to inflict the penalty on the whole class.
As Mr. Westcott was not given to idle threats, there was seriousness on
the top floor—for a time.
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CHAPTER XVIII
THE SHOOTING MATCH
SATURDAYS Roger usually had to himself. On these days he took advantage
of his freedom to visit the library or a museum, or strolled about the
city, entertaining himself with the shop windows and the mob of
bargain-hunters. Occasionally he hunted up some landmark of history
which appealed to his interest, turning aside on the way for a glimpse
of the waterside or the markets or the queer foreign quarter where the
native-born American feels himself a trespasser and is grateful for the
presence of a policeman a block away. As he was new to the fascinating
variety of city scenes, his attention was often caught by objects which
his town-bred companions passed without noticing, either because they
lacked curiosity, or because familiarity with city streets had made them
indifferent.
On two or three occasions, while traversing an irregular old square,
Roger had noticed a second-story sign bearing the words: “Professor
Pillar, Magicians’ Supplies and Novelties. Outfits for Professionals and
Amateurs. Come In and See Us.” One morning in February he decided to
accept this invitation. He found himself in a little dusty room packed
full of juggler’s paraphernalia. A friendly old man with very nimble
fingers greeted him warmly, and pressed upon him various tricks and
trinkets with such persuasiveness that Roger left the wizard’s cave
poorer by a dollar and a half, and richer by a variety of queer
acquisitions.
When he reached his room, he spread out his purchases on the desk before
him and assured himself with some heat that it was unquestionably true
that a fool and his money are soon parted. While he was thus making
himself uncomfortable with reproaches, Mike happened in and became
enthusiastic over the collection.
“I’ll sell them to you,” offered Roger.
Mike considered. “How much?”
“Just what I gave for them.”
“You wouldn’t do that unless you wanted to get rid of ’em,” remarked
Mike, shrewdly. “I’ll give you a dollar for the lot.”
The haggling spun itself out to a length which would prove tedious to
the reader if the conversation were reported in detail. The upshot of it
all was that Roger reserved two articles from the collection, and sold
the balance to Mike for the sum which the latter had first offered.
“Now what are you going to do with them?” asked Roger, when the dollar
had been paid and the goods delivered.
“I’ll tell you,” returned Mike, proudly, “but you must keep it to
yourself and not bring in anything more to spoil the market. I’m going
to show one of ’em downstairs when there are a lot of kids around, and
then auction the thing off. After a few days I’ll bring out another and
auction that off, and so on, till they’re all gone. If I don’t make
fifty per cent on the trade, I’ll give you back your money.”
It took Mike three weeks, we may add in dismissing the incident, to
carry out his programme, but in the end he got back his dollar, together
with a clear profit of seventy-one cents.
Among the objects which had caught Roger’s eye at the juggler’s were
so-called “shooting matches,” which came in little boxes like those
which contain safety matches. In appearance they resembled cigar
lighters, with a smooth brown coating running up two-thirds of an inch
from the tip; in action their vigor was such as to fill the heart of a
non-possessor with envy. If you held one in your hand after the first
flare of ignition, you got a very pretty series of tiny explosions that
gave you a pleasant little thrill, and to the ignorant onlooker an
amusing little shock. If the ignorant onlooker could be beguiled to
strike one himself before he saw any of its fellows at work, he
furnished you pleasanter thrills by dropping his match in a panic at the
first pop and jumping about delightfully as it finished its performance
on the floor.
In his deal with Mike, Roger reserved two boxes of these fireworks,
meaning to exhibit them at the next afternoon gathering in Trask’s roof
chamber, where special cronies occasionally assembled on Trask’s
invitation and amused themselves with jokes and gossip. Here, if the
truth is to be told, some boys smoked a little,—as a rule smoking was
considered not the thing at Westcott’s,—and it would be a great joy to
offer the innocent brown-tipped object to the desperate character who
announced that he was going to try a pipe. On this occasion Wilmot was
one of the first to arrive and the first to be tricked; afterwards he
became a leader in entrapping the others. As smokers were few,
non-smokers had to be drawn on; they were beguiled with invitations to
light papers in the fireplace. Talbot, who appeared late and found a
circle of ten eager to see him light a match, became suspicious and
declined the privilege. “Light it yourself, if you want it lighted!” he
said grimly. “What’s the good of doing it, anyway?”
“Just for the fun,” pleaded Wilmot. “You needn’t be scared; it won’t
hurt you.”
“We all did it, and you’ve got to,” announced Trask. “If you don’t,
you’ll have to smoke a big cigar.”
“It’ll take more than this bunch to make me do that,” answered Pete,
looking round in smiling defiance. “I’m no cigarette sucker!”
“He’s trying to get out of it!” declared Wilmot, triumphantly. “A
football player and captain of the crew hasn’t the sand to light a piece
of paper!”
“He’s just contrary-minded, that’s all,” Sumner threw in. “He won’t do
it because we want him to.”
“Oh, if you want me to, that’s different,” answered Pete. “Anything to
oblige such dear friends. Only I won’t take Steve’s match; he’s too
forward. Here, Roger, give me one. I’ll trust you.”
Roger drew out his second box, took a match from it, and handed both to
Talbot. Pete stooped to perform the task expected of him, read the
inscription on the box, and decided instantly on the course to be
pursued. At the first explosion he whirled about with the sputtering
thing in his hand and plunged toward Wilmot, who sprang away from him
with a yell of fright.
“Aha!” cried Talbot, dramatically, as he threw the spent match into the
fireplace, “who’s the sandless one now? He’s afraid of his own innocent
little matches!”
“They aren’t mine,” replied Wilmot, a little rattled by the fact that
the laugh had turned against him. “They belong to Hardie, and he won’t
tell where he got ’em.” This last statement was added in the hope that
it might lead the conversation away from his own discomfiture. “Did you
ever know such a hog?”
“Let him discover the place himself, as I did,” protested Roger. “He’s
lived in the city all his life.”
“Don’t tell him,” advised Talbot. “He’s better off without ’em.”
And then the whole company fell to questioning Roger, as in a game,
concerning the kind of shop at which the matches were procured. He
answered all questions truthfully, though insulting doubts as to his
honesty were cried aloud before the end of the list was reached, a list
which began with possibilities such as groceries, drug stores, cigar
stands, news stands, street fakirs, toy-shops; proceeded with dealers in
firearms, fireworks, sporting goods—and tailed out into the most
idiotic suggestions that foolish brains could originate. Wilmot capped
the climax by declaring that it was from a school-supply house that the
matches came. “They’re for use in school,” he shouted with glee; “that’s
what they’re for!”
Hardie laughed and shook his head.
Then Wilmot started on a new course, and pleaded for a few out of the
new box.
“You’ve got a whole boxful, and I’ve only one left,” he urged. “Go
halves, and I won’t call you a hog any more.”
But Hardie was still obdurate. “Children shouldn’t have matches,” he
said.
Wilmot turned away in disgust. “You’re worse than a hog, you’re a whole
drove of swine! I wouldn’t look over the edge of the sty at you!”
The next morning Roger relented. He didn’t feel at all sure that Wilmot
was to be trusted with tools of such potential power for disturbance;
but like all right-minded boys, he hated to be considered stingy. He
hunted up Wilmot as soon as he reached school the next morning and
reopened the case.
“Do you still want those things, Steve?” he asked.
“Sure I do,” answered Wilmot, promptly. “I think you might at least tell
me where you got ’em.”
“Well, you can have my box. Only you must be careful with them.”
Wilmot pocketed the box with alacrity. “I’ll be careful, all right. You
don’t suppose I’d set the building on fire, do you?”
“No, not that! You don’t have to do that to get into trouble.”
“You needn’t worry. I’m not looking for trouble.”
Wilmot never was looking for trouble; he had no need to do so, as it had
a habit of coming to him unsought. The caution, too, which he had
promised to exercise, was rather of a wily than a practical character,
as was demonstrated by his conduct when he reached the laboratory that
morning. Six or eight fellows were already there waiting for the new
experiment to be announced; Mr. Cary was still on the stairs; and
Redfield and a few others had gone down for books.
“I’ve got Hardie’s matches!” Wilmot called eagerly to the waiting
audience, “and I’m going to put ’em in the back part of my drawer. If
any fellow should happen to take one out, break off the end, and put it
into Reddy’s sand bath, why, I shouldn’t know anything about it. See?”
“None of it for me,” remarked Trask. “I’m not going to run my head into
any noose.”
“You haven’t the nerve,” said Wilmot.
“Neither have you, or you’d do it yourself!”
Mr. Cary now appeared with the laggards, and the class was soon set to
work. On one boy Wilmot’s short address made a deeper impression than
the directions of the teacher. Dunn had long been casting about for some
easy means of raising himself in the popular esteem. While he felt no
doubt that his true worth must appear as soon as the baseball season
began, he was unwilling that this recognition should be postponed to so
late a day if he could achieve it earlier. Here was an opportunity to
take a long step forward by accepting the general challenge which Wilmot
had issued, and proving himself a bold fellow when Trask had
acknowledged that he did not dare and Wilmot himself hung back.
A sand bath, as most of my readers know, is a bowl-shaped vessel filled
with sand in which fragile glass flasks are placed in order to insure an
even heat. A bunsen burner under the sand bath heats the sand, and,
through the sand, the flask and its contents. Redfield had just lighted
his burner and was busy weighing out his chemicals. Dunn passed behind
him, and directing his attention to something across the room, tucked a
match-end into the sand in Redfield’s bath and went on to his own table.
Scarcely three minutes had elapsed when the half-dozen lads who had been
watching furtively over their work heard a slight explosion, followed
immediately by an exclamation from Redfield, who went crashing back on
the row of tables behind. At the same time they beheld a small geyser of
popping sand spurt into the air and descend in a shower about the
burner.
Mr. Cary rushed to the spot, likewise all the boys, both those who were
in the secret and those who were not. “Go back to your work!” ordered
the teacher, and the boys slunk away, though not beyond earshot. “What’s
this, Redfield?” he asked sharply.
The victim of the explosion, having recovered from his fright, stood
giggling with nervousness. “My sand blew up, sir,” he said.
“Do you know what made it do so?” demanded Mr. Cary, sternly.
“No, sir. I was standing right here waiting for the thing to heat. It
went off all of a sudden, right up in the air, and kept snappin’ all the
way up.”
“And you know absolutely nothing more about it?”
“Not a thing!” answered Redfield, with evident honesty. “I wouldn’t blow
myself up if I could help it.”
There seemed no reason to doubt the truth of Redfield’s statements; he
was not only incapable of skilful dissembling, but also, as was
generally known, a favorite target for heartless schoolboy pleasantry.
Mr. Cary, therefore, asked no further questions, but turned off the gas
from the burner, and dumping out the smoking sand poked it over in
search of clews to the explosion—to the great delight of the half-dozen
unworthies who were in the secret. Finding nothing, he bade Redfield
start again with fresh sand, and returned to his desk.
A half-hour later Fluffy Dobbs’s mess blew up in the same way. This time
the instructor, being hardly a dozen feet away, caught the full effect.
He came directly to the smoking bath, but though his face blazed with
indignation, he was too wise to embark on an interrogation which was
unlikely to yield positive results.
“Don’t you think something is the matter with the sand, sir?” asked
Wilmot, innocently. “Perhaps there’s nitre in it.”
“It isn’t likely.”
“Can this have anything to do with it?” suggested Wilmot, offering a
charred bit of wood which he had picked up from the floor. The
instructor took it, smelled of it, and shook his head. “I don’t know,”
he said. “If these explosions are due to the sand, it is a remarkable
occurrence. If they were deliberately caused, it is a very dangerous and
culpable form of joke. We shall take only one experiment to-day. As soon
as you have finished with that, you may go.”
Mr. Cary stood close to Wilmot’s desk during the rest of the exercise,
either because it was in a central position or because he saw in the
disturbance the fine Italian hand of that young gentleman. One awkward
result for Wilmot was that, not daring to take the match-box from his
drawer in the presence of the teacher, he was obliged to leave it behind
when he went. Dunn, too, made a misplay. He had used two of the three
matches taken from Wilmot’s box on Redfield and Dobbs; not knowing what
to do with the third, he broke off the end and poked it into the bag of
fresh sand which stood at the end of his table.
The first thing Mr. Cary did after the boys had left the laboratory was
to examine the sand in the bag. At the very top, like Benjamin’s cup
hidden in the mouth of the sack, he found the match-end which Dunn had
placed there. He compared this with the charred piece picked up by
Wilmot. Over these he mused a few minutes; then, with the instinct which
sends the police, after an important break, to the haunts of certain
well-known criminals, he went straight to Wilmot’s drawer. There, under
the soiled laboratory coat, he discovered the fatal box. He broke off a
match-head, put it into a sand bath, and in five minutes had an
explosion of his own. After that he gathered up his exhibits and hied
him to Mr. Westcott’s office.
The laboratory excitement furnished a topic of deep interest to certain
groups during the lunch hour. Dunn, who was sure that he had made a hit,
talked largely of his achievement. Wilmot, though pleased with the
unexpectedly full success of his idea, was a little worried that he had
been forced to leave his treasure in the laboratory. It wouldn’t do to
use the thing too often, and Dunn was capable of firing off all the
precious matches in a day. By the end of recess, largely through Dunn’s
enthusiastic narratives, the incident had been aired among the older
boys. Towards two o’clock word came to Wilmot that he was wanted in the
head-master’s office.
What happened in the half-hour during which Wilmot was closeted with Mr.
Westcott was never fully known to the boys. Steve spoke of it very
unwillingly, and his memory of such scenes was never good. The instant
he saw the fatal box of shooting matches on the table before him, he
knew that it was all up with him, and his only course was to obtain the
best terms of surrender possible. The terms were hard. He was suspended
from school for a week. His parents were to be notified; he was to make
up all lost lessons at home with a tutor; the school was to be informed
of the misdeed and the penalty; he was not to return to the chemistry
class unless Mr. Cary expressed a desire to give him another trial.
Against the suspension Steve pleaded piteously; he would copy thousands
of lines, stay after school hours every day, apologize to anybody and
everybody,—if only the message didn’t go home. But Mr. Westcott was
inexorable; the letter was posted that very afternoon.
The next day was a bitter one for Steve Wilmot. Immediately after
breakfast his mother retired to the privacy of her chamber to weep; his
father paced the library for some time before he could calm himself
sufficiently to give the boy a hearing. It was not the first occasion on
which Steve had brought unhappiness upon his family. From the day when
he began to walk he had been blundering into scrapes. He had been dealt
with by all recognized methods of discipline. Severe punishment,
denunciation, threats, gentle remonstrance, pleading, exhortation, loss
of allowance—none had prevailed to change his nature. A psychological
expert had once declared that since Steve’s escapades were mere boyish
tricks without malice, they would be outgrown in time. The hope born of
this assurance had carried the parents over such shocks as the visit of
policemen to warn against trespassing in the public garden, or an
indignant letter from a good lady whose cat Steve had snowballed as the
dear animal was taking an innocent walk on the alley fence. Now it
appeared that their hope had been a delusion, for suspension from school
was a humiliation which the family had hitherto been spared. Mr. Wilmot
talked gravely about putting the young man to work, but he didn’t mean
it. In the end, he accepted Steve’s promise that he would walk
circumspectly hereafter all the days of his life. Mrs. Wilmot also found
comfort in the reflection that Steve was at bottom neither dishonest nor
vicious, and that the salutary effect of the lesson might be expected to
outlast the four remaining months of his school career. After all, he
might have done worse things than carry shooting matches into a school
laboratory. So she dried her tears and hoped again.
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CHAPTER XIX
A LOSS TO THE NINE
MEANTIME the school had heard the proclamation of the sin and its
punishment, and looked upon Wilmot’s vacant seat. The exile was missed.
Dunn chuckled ecstatically over the amusing fact that the official
lightning had passed by the bold man of action and struck the crafty
suggester. His merriment was coldly received.
“You’d better shut up, Jason,” said Trask, roughly. “Any fool can stick
a match into a sand box when he’s given the match and told how to do
it.”
“And no one but a fool would have put that one into the bag,” declared
Eaton. “I believe that’s what gave poor Steve away.”
“That’s right,” said Sumner, in confirmation. “And Steve said one, not
three. If only one had gone off, Cary wouldn’t have suspected anything,
and Steve wouldn’t have got stung. You gave the thing dead away.”
Dunn, who had by this time lost all pride in his handiwork, glowered
across the table. “If he was afraid of getting stung, he ought to have
kept clear of the thing altogether,” he growled. “He took his risk, and
I took mine. It isn’t my fault if he left his matches in the drawer!”
“He wouldn’t have left them there if Cary hadn’t forced him to, and Cary
wouldn’t have been standing over him if you hadn’t tried to burn the
whole box at once.” This, from Trask, was but a repetition of Sumner’s
argument.
“You both ought to be spanked,” remarked Talbot. “It isn’t fair that one
should be soaked and the other not.”
“Would you have me go to Westcott and say, ‘I’m guilty, please sting me
too?’ I see myself doing that!” Dunn gave a derisive laugh at the idea.
“No one who knows you would expect that of you,” replied Talbot,
significantly. “It wouldn’t do any good, either. Hardie tried to help
Steve out by confessing that he brought the matches to school and
offering to take part of the punishment, but it wouldn’t go.”
Dunn sniffed his contempt. “And old Westcott soaked him for it.”
“No!” answered Talbot, shortly. “He isn’t that kind of a man.”
After this conversation Dunn avoided all reference to the laboratory
incident, and would have been glad to have the others forget it, but
they continued to regard him as responsible for Wilmot’s misfortune, and
withdrew their favor from him. Those were unpleasant days for Archibald
Dunn; no one at Adams’s would have much to do with him, and the
conviction, in part justified, that he was not receiving from the boys a
fair deal kept him morose and sulky. Moreover, frank letters concerning
his work were going home to his parents, which served to plunge him more
deeply in trouble. Having shirked and trifled so long, he was well-nigh
incapable of doing anything else.
About the time of Wilmot’s return to school, Talbot called out the
candidates for the crew. They came in a flock, ranging in size from
Bumpus the fat to McDowell the small, and in degrees of chance according
to the popular estimate, from Talbot the sure-to-make-it to any one of a
half-dozen equally sure not to make it.
“What’re you doing here, Bump?” asked Mac. “You don’t suppose any crew
could pull you, do you?”
“I’m out for the exercise,” responded Bumpus, unruffled. “What’re _you_
doing here? You don’t suppose you could pull any one, do you?”
“I’m out for the fun,” explained Mac. “There’s nothing doing, and I’m
tired of the gym.”
These two, of course, were among those considered sure not to make it.
Where Hardie stood, no one could tell until he began to row on the
machines, and then the experts opined unanimously that his chances were
slim. The captain arranged the candidates in fours to suit himself.
There was a first four, which Talbot stroked, made up of the fellows
left in school who had rowed in the first or second boat the year
before. Then a second containing those of unofficial rank but known
experience; and after these, squads of four taken without much care in
grouping. All the instruction they received was such as could be given
by the captain or his aids.
Roger got a place at two in the third squad, and did what he could to
carry out the directions given him—pull his stroke through hard all the
way, recover sharply, start his slides back with a gradual, deliberate
movement, and use his legs. It was all new and strange to him, so
totally different from anything he had tried before that experience in
rowing in an ordinary skiff with an ordinary pair of oars seemed of no
help whatever. He perceived his awkwardness quite as clearly as the
bystanders who whispered together as they watched him,—and he felt it
besides, as they could not. The secret ambition which he had cherished
since the day when Deering made the speech in school assumed the form of
an absurd presumption. But he had no thought of giving up.
Bumpus got his exercise, and Mac his fun. The others got fun, too, when
Bumpus rowed, for he proved the jolliest clumsy porpoise that ever
tried to sit in a boat. He was too big for his seat. He couldn’t get
forward to begin stroke, and when he finished, the chances were even
that he couldn’t recover at all. His candidacy was of short duration.
Talbot had to get rid of him to keep his squad under control.
Mac, on the other hand, took to the practice as if he had done it for
years. Every suggestion made to him was translated immediately into his
stroke. From catch to finish, from recovery to catch, his stroke seemed
one blended, graceful movement.
“What a pity he isn’t bigger!” said Talbot to Eaton, who stood beside
him. “He’s a natural oarsman.”
The second day McDowell stroked the third crew, while Hardie blundered
along on the fourth. A fortnight later he was still blundering along,
with nothing to sustain his courage but a resolution to hang on as long
as there was anything to hang to.
And now Dunn received a blow that hurt. The call had gone forth for
candidates for baseball, and Dunn’s name appeared near the head of the
list. Mr. Westcott then summoned Dunn to an official interview, in which
he informed the sanguine ball player that in consequence of his
continued poor performance of school work, he could not be allowed to
play on the nine. “We have kept you here,” said the head-master, “in
spite of your neglect, only because we were not willing to believe that
a boy could be six months among us without catching from teachers and
boys something of the spirit of serious work. So far, we have apparently
failed to make any impression upon you. At the present time there is not
a single subject in which you could be recommended for college
examinations. This being the case, we cannot allow you to assume new
responsibilities which would interfere still further with your study.”
And then the teacher made a serious attempt to bring home to the
misguided boy the wrongfulness and folly of his course, but Dunn heard
nothing but the fact that for him there was to be no baseball. His
answers were given in stolid monosyllables; he went forth suffocating
with rage.
No one knew better than Dunn that his school life had been a failure,
but his point of view was very different from that of his teachers.
Dunn’s scholastic ideal was formed somewhat on the lines of Kipling’s
Stalky. To dodge one’s work, outwit one’s teachers, and triumph at
examination by luck and cleverness represented to Dunn the only truly
desirable way of conquering school drudgery. The real thing was to be
popular, to be in the important set, to play on the teams, and be talked
about. When Stalkyism, as exemplified in Dunn’s recitation career,
proved a flat failure, and the expected popularity turned out to be only
a kind of contemptuous freedom to disregard him, he had consoled himself
with assurances of a different experience on the baseball field, where
he should shine with no uncertain light. Now with a single word Mr.
Westcott had robbed him of his opportunity. He felt like a soldier who
at the critical moment of defence finds that his cartridges have been
stolen and that he is at the mercy of the enemy.
Stover listened to his tale, deeply disgusted. Braggarts are usually
liars or victims of delusion, but occasionally one is found to make good
some of his boasts. Stover had investigated Dunn’s baseball career and
believed in him.
“It’s a low-down trick!” he burst forth. “That’s the way they do here.
If they find a fellow who can play something, they scare up some excuse
to rule him out. Anything to discourage athletics!”
“I suppose it’s no good to kick,” said Dunn, despairingly.
“I’ll tell you what to do. Go to the old man and play the penitent. Tell
him that you’ve done wrong, and that you’re going to study hard from now
on. If you can put it up to him strong enough, he’ll fall on your neck
and forgive you. You’ll have to make a good bluff at work for the next
two or three weeks until you get your reputation up, but it won’t hurt
you any to do that. Some of the fellows out there at Adams’s will give
you a lift. There’s Hardie, now; he’s a good-natured fellow and a pretty
good scholar; he’d help you out if he knew what you’re up against.”
“I guess not,” said Dunn, hopeless. “He’s always been down on me.”
“I don’t believe it. He got you that invitation last fall for the
dancing school. I don’t see why he shouldn’t help you now.”
“It wasn’t Hardie. Ben Tracy got it,” corrected Dunn, quickly.
“Ben Tracy nothing! It was Hardie. I heard Sumner talking about it at
the time. It was Hardie that did it. He isn’t so conceited as some of
that crowd. If you go at him right, he’ll help you. Now do as I say, and
see what comes of it.”
This news concerning the invitation to the dancing class—he had not
forgotten his anxiety at the time—set Dunn’s thoughts in a new
direction. The more he recalled the circumstances, which included Ben’s
clumsy disclaimer, the more he was inclined to believe that Stover was
right. For the first time during the year Dunn clearly perceived that he
had been in some respects a silly fool. For the first time it dawned
upon him that some of these fellows whom he had been so ready to
disparage might be in reality better and more deserving of honor than
he. He was honest enough to recognize that if he had been in Hardie’s
place he would have acted in a far different way.
Following Stover’s counsel, he went to Mr. Westcott with an artificial
penitence on his lips; but there was already a half-formed, half-real
penitence in his heart. By what means Mr. Westcott pierced his shell and
made this half-penitence wholly real, we may not inquire. The
head-master had a skill in such interviews, the product of much
experience and a genuine desire to help rather than to punish; and
Dunn’s career offered few points capable of defence, when considered
with frankness and honesty. That his repentance was indeed real, and his
resolution to face about, was, for the moment at least, genuine, is
proved by two circumstances: first, he acquiesced, though sadly, in Mr.
Westcott’s decision that if he was to regain lost ground, he could not
afford the time and the thought which school baseball required;
secondly, he confessed, unsolicited, many of his misdeeds, including his
part in the episode of the sand bath.
“I suspected it,” said Mr. Westcott, “but we won’t consider that now.
That belongs to the past. We start anew to-day.”
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CHAPTER XX
IN THE PAIR-OAR
DUNN’S change of heart was not as sudden as it seemed. A boy often
builds for himself a certain structure of false principle which it
gratifies his vanity to consider his permanent philosophy of life. When
faults in this structure develop, he shuts his eyes to them or patches
them with flattering sophistries; and even when the foundations are
actually crumbling away, he affects a firm confidence because he is too
weak to face the task of rebuilding. In the end some bitter experience
may undermine the last support and bring down the edifice with a crash.
So it was with Dunn. He had been aware for some time that he was on the
wrong track, but he could not bring himself to acknowledge the fact. The
information that even when he felt most bitter against Hardie, Hardie
had secretly done him a good turn, stirred his sense of shame and
disproved his assumption that all the boys had been down on him from the
beginning. He recognized clearly enough now that he had been making a
fool of himself, and that the only sensible course was to retrace his
steps and start anew in a different path. He went that evening to
Hardie’s room, announced that he was going to turn over a new leaf, and
asked if he might drop in occasionally for a lift over a hard place. He
said nothing of the dancing-school invitation; that lay now too far away
in the past.
Hardie met him so cordially that Dunn was moved to open his heart still
further. “What is the matter with me, anyway?” he demanded bluntly. “I
wish you’d give me the bottom facts, right out straight.”
Hardie smiled. “You don’t do any work.”
“Oh, I know all about that. I’m a loafer and a goat besides. I don’t
mean about studies. Why don’t the fellows like me?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Hardie, warily. “Don’t they like you?”
“No, they don’t. You know they don’t. Now, what is it?”
Roger looked shyly across the table at the questioner; he didn’t know
what to answer.
“Spit it out!” insisted Dunn. “Just give me the truth. I can stand it.”
“Well,” said Roger, slowly, “for one thing, you talk too much.”
Dunn stared. “I don’t think that’s such a crime. I’m nothing compared
with Wilmot. His tongue’s going all the time.”
“Oh, he’s different,” exclaimed Roger, hastily. “He talks a lot of
trash, but he’s amusing, and the fellows like it. He never talks about
himself.”
“And my talk isn’t amusing and is always about myself.”
“Not that exactly, but you’re always thinking about yourself. You don’t
take much interest in anybody else.”
“It isn’t easy to do it if they won’t let you,” said Dunn, with a gloomy
smile. “What else?”
“Your ideas are different from theirs. You think things are funny that
they don’t. They don’t like your way of looking at things.”
“In other words I’m all wrong,” growled Dunn, in disgust, as he rose to
go. “I couldn’t please ’em, anyway, and I shan’t try it, but I’m going
to stop talking and cut out smoking and get right down to work.”
“For how long?” asked Roger, with a grin of incredulity.
“Right through the year,” returned Dunn, hotly. “You don’t believe me,
but you wait and see!”
With this bold assertion on his lips, Dunn made for his room. The door
was just closing behind him when Roger called out, “Oh, Jason!”
Dunn returned, closed the door and backed against it.
“Aren’t you going to play ball at all?”
“No; what’s the use? If I can’t play on the team, I might as well cut
the whole thing out and study.”
“You can’t study all the time. You might come out just the same and play
on the second and pitch for batting practice. It would show the right
spirit, and the fellows would appreciate it. You know how they all felt
about Sumner.”
“I won’t do it,” answered Dunn, stubbornly. “I’ve been cut off from the
team, and now it’ll have to get along without me. Sumner always had a
chance to get on the team again; I’m out of it for good.”
The time had come for the crews to take to the river. The Boston schools
row under the patronage of the Boston Athletic Association, which
provides boats and coaches, arranges for the races, and furnishes
prizes. Each school enters two fours, a first and second, which compete
in separate races. As Westcott’s possessed a pair-oar of her own, there
were places in the boats for ten men exclusive of the coxswains. Talbot
narrowed down his squad to eleven, allowing an extra man for accidents
and illness, and getting rid of the rest by the easy method of not
inviting them to report on the river. Hardie, to his delight, received
orders to bring his rowing clothes to the boat-house. He did so fully
conscious that his destination was neither the first nor the second.
Talbot had said nothing to this effect,—indeed, Talbot, now that the
rowing season was actually to begin, abated something of his
intimacy,—but there was a general agreement as to the provisional
formation of the crews which was almost authoritative. Of the new men
who had come out, three had shown promise of skill as oarsmen. One of
them was Bursley, a quiet fellow who came in every day from a suburb a
dozen miles out, tall, muscular, and teachable. Louis Tracy was another,
and finally McDowell, who, though he had grown during the year, was
still undersized. On the first crew were to be tried—so the report
ran—Talbot, Bursley, Eaton, and Pitkin; on the second, Weld, Sumner, L.
Tracy, and McDowell; Wilmot, Hardie, and Redfield would thus be left
over for the pair-oar.
This forecast proved correct except in one particular. To his surprise,
Roger got a trial the first day out, at two on the second. We may well
call it a trial, for such it surely was to all concerned. More
accurately described, it was a demonstration of incapacity. Roger’s
struggles with his oar stirred his rowing companions to fierce growls,
the coxswain to abuse, the loiterers on the float to gestures and grins
of malicious enjoyment. Poor Number Two couldn’t get his oar in right;
it twisted in his hand and pulled under, it wouldn’t come out when it
ought and as it ought. Delayed by the insidious clutch of the water, he
started his slide before he had freed his blade, and his knees rose and
blocked the backward movement of his handle. Though he put forth
extraordinary efforts to master the oar, the oar insisted on mastering
him. By good luck and violent slide rushing, he managed to avoid taking
Number Three in the back, but half the time he was holding or backing
water, and all the time he was preventing bow from keeping stroke.
Strive as he might with mind and body, his strength wrought nothing but
confusion. A half-hour of this fruitless wrenching and blundering was
all the crew could stand; the boat was headed in, and Roger was
unceremoniously dumped upon the float.
Louis Tracy took his place—and kept it. After that, the disenchanted
but still determined Roger rowed bow on the pair-oar to Wilmot’s stroke,
and toiled over the unmanageable oar. It had a way of plunging under,
every few strokes, and pulling the side of the boat down; then it stuck
deep in the water, and Coolidge, the cox, would reprove, and the
offending bow would grip his handle still tighter and vow that this
particular fault shouldn’t occur again. But it did occur again, and
others as heinous. He couldn’t get his oar away after he had raised it
from the water; he rushed his slide instead of drawing it gradually back
so as not to check the motion of the boat; he could not put into
practice the apparently simple direction that the legs were to bear the
burden of the work. As a result his back suffered,—and the temper of
his mates, who poured out on his head reproach and sarcasm until the
ineffectualness of words was made apparent, when they relapsed into a
humorous pessimism that was more unflattering than abuse.
The crew of the pair-oar was under another disadvantage: very little
coaching trickled through to them. Caffrey, the Westcott coach, gave his
attention chiefly to the first and incidentally to the second: the
pair-oar shifted for itself, or received one set of amateur directions
one day and another the next. As Roger thought of it, he and Wilmot were
in the position of a slow steamer trying to overtake one which was
several knots faster. Only a breakdown in the leader could prevent the
distance between them from growing hourly greater.
“What’s the matter with Hardie?” asked Talbot, one day, as he walked
down with Wilmot to the boat-house. “He doesn’t seem to be gaining at
all.”
“He’s just rotten,” answered Wilmot, despairingly. “A low-caste baboon
would do better!”
“He may get it yet,” said Talbot.
“He may!” echoed Wilmot, derisively; “oh, yes, he may! But I’ll bet you
a dollar to a cent that he won’t!”
A fortnight passed: Bursley was making good in the first, and Mac had
been promoted to stroke on the second, but Roger’s improvement was
scarcely noticeable. He was beginning to fear that rowing was something
for which he was physically unfitted, as a fat man for pole vaulting. In
spite of his hardened muscles he became easily tired; his poor form wore
on his back and wrists and arms. Good rowing is easy rowing: Roger’s was
both bad and hard. Yet in spite of all discouragement he enjoyed the
practice. It was interesting to struggle for the hoped-for improvement,
even though the hope proved vain, to observe the other crews on the
water, to rest on the oar, a little out of the channel, and watch the
Varsity eight sweep magnificently by, with the nose of the coaching
launch close at the shell’s rudder, the oarsmen’s bodies bending in
beautiful unison, the water boiling back from the driving blades. Roger
never saw Deering’s crew without a thrill of that awe which the
subaltern feels when he stands in the presence of a famous general. It
represented power, skill, and determination concentrated; in it was
embodied a kind of majesty before which the schoolboy oars bowed with
instinctive reverence. Every crew on the river gazed at the Varsity in
rapt admiration, but the Varsity recognized the presence of no one but
itself.
One afternoon in early May, Coolidge turned the bow of the pair-oar
upstream. For a mile Hardie’s oar played its old tricks, twisting in his
hand and pulling under, tipping the boat, spoiling the stroke, filling
with disgust and despair the hearts of the little crew. Near the Cottage
Farm bridge they stopped to watch a college eight pass. When they
started again, it occurred to Roger to see whether the rowlock would not
carry his oar, and permit him to concentrate his attention on his slide
and the recovery. To his surprise the oarlock did carry the oar. His
wrists were relieved of an exhausting strain; his blade plunged under no
longer. He found that a little easy toss of the oar at the end of the
slide would bring the blade squarely into the water.
“What’s the matter with you, Bow?” called Coolidge, amazed. “You’re
rowing right!”
[Illustration: AND WATCH THE VARSITY EIGHT SWEEP MAGNIFICENTLY BY.]
“It’s about time,” growled Wilmot.
Hardie, delighted, gave his whole mind to his movement, ceasing to steal
side-glances at his blade, and watching Wilmot’s back more closely. The
oar was beginning to catch spontaneously and hard, his slide to return
naturally with the motion of the boat. The pair-oar continued upstream
to the edge of Soldiers’ Field, then turned and retraced its course,—a
three-mile row,—but Roger felt no weariness. The relief from the
awkward strain which he had been putting upon himself made the work seem
like a rest. Just above the Harvard bridge they met the first boat,
which stopped to enable the captain to watch them, and Pete sang out
something which could not be heard. Later when they were all dressing in
the boat-house, Coolidge asked what this message was.
“Oh, nothing of importance,” answered Talbot. “I only said that bow was
doing well.”
“It seems to me of importance,” said Roger, whose face glowed with joy.
“That’s more than you’ve said so far this year.”
“I’ve been thinking lately that I might never be able to say it at all,”
said Talbot.
Meantime on the ball field things were going badly for Westcott’s. Dunn
reconsidered his resolution and went out to give the batters practice
and play general helper, but he couldn’t make Ben Tracy a good pitcher
or Stover a forceful captain. The school appreciated Dunn’s efforts and
thought better of him for them. Jason was studying, too, though with no
very startling classroom results. He had a tutor for an hour every
afternoon, and he often worked the whole evening in Hardie’s room.
“I’m almost glad that I couldn’t play on that nine,” he said one evening
as he brought in his books; “they’re a terribly poor lot, and Stover
doesn’t get anything out of ’em. Think of Newbury beating them twelve to
two the other day!”
“They may brace up near the second game,” suggested Roger.
Dunn shook his head; “No, they won’t. It isn’t in ’em. Did you see
Smithy leading the cheering at the game? He was wild to beat!’
“If they can win the baseball and the crew now, they can get along
without the football.”
“Oh, they won’t win the crew,” declared Dunn, “we’ll have ’em there.”
“Lanning says they’re going to,” said Roger. “He coaches Newbury.”
Dunn considered a moment. “I don’t see how Pitkin can be strong enough
to row a hard race. He’s bow on the first, isn’t he?”
“Yes, and he rows well, too.”
“You ought to be there. You could stand the pace.”
Roger laughed. “I can’t even make the second. A little while ago Wilmot
wanted to kick me off the pair-oar.”
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CHAPTER XXI
THE SECOND CREW
NEVER did small boy yearn for the swimming-hole as Roger Hardie for the
next practice. He lay awake for an hour, going over the details of the
stroke as he hoped to use it. He had got control of the oar now, he was
sure; he didn’t swing out, he didn’t rush his slide, and he did pull
straight through—all positive virtues. The problem now was to catch
sharply, to pick up the movement with the legs as his trunk came up,
shoot the whole body back in one continuous and even strain, throwing
his entire weight against the stretcher—“jump right back from the
stretcher,” as Caffrey had once said. After that he must make a smart
recover, get the hands away promptly, and rest as his slide went
cautiously back, so as to be able to put all his strength and weight
into the next push against the water. It wasn’t the back that was to do
the rowing, nor the arms, but the whole body, and especially the legs.
All this as theory was splendidly clear, but how much could he put in
practice? What right had a clumsy fellow like him to expect to attain a
skill which other fellows had failed to gain with years of practice?
He fell asleep with this question echoing in his brain, alternately
vowing that he would do it and convinced that he could not. The rising
bell woke him. He was unspeakably glad to be waked, for he was dreaming
that he had fallen back into his old bad ways, that the water sucked the
oar blade down after every stroke, that Coolidge and Wilmot had rebelled
and Pete had told him to try baseball, and put Redfield into his place.
He was inclined to take the dream as a bad omen until at luncheon Talbot
informed him that Weld was out with a sore finger, and that he would
have to row bow on the second that afternoon. He bethought himself then
that dreams are said to go by contraries, and took heart.
Caffrey seated himself in Mike’s place when the crews went out—Mike was
cox of the second—and coached the first from the second boat,
occasionally transferring his exhortation to the crew that pulled him.
Hardie put his whole soul into his rowing and listened with all his
ears. Caffrey’s principal point of attack in the first boat was Pitkin
at bow, whom he accused of minor shortcomings and one very serious
fault—not rowing hard enough. “You’re late all the time, Bow. Your oar
must move as soon as it strikes the water, otherwise you back water.
You’re shirking, Bow! Don’t let the boat finish out your stroke. Keep
over the keel, Two; you’re rolling round too much. Don’t follow your
arms around, that makes you swing out. Together there—you’re awfully
sloppy!”
And then he gave his attention for a time to the second. “Pull straight
through, Three. Keep your hands down and pull straight in. Quicker on
the recover, Bow. Don’t feather under. Take your oar out square and
feather as you drop your hands and shoot away. That’s better. Don’t bury
your oar so deep!”
How different it was from knocking about with Wilmot in the pair-oar!
There was a feeling in the boat as if boat and oars and men worked in
unison, a swift, steady, exhilarating, forward glide that gave the
oarsmen a sense of power and skill. Every one worked intently with
Caffrey’s eye upon him. Every stroke was a contest against one’s own
treacherous faults, with the feel of the boat, the facility of the oar,
the criticism of the coach as test of success. By this test Roger was
satisfied that he had acquitted himself well. When, at the Cottage Farm
bridge, the coach called, “Let her run,” he rested on his oars, with
such a feeling of delight as he had not experienced even when Westcott’s
won the Newbury football game, back in November. To make clear what
happened during the rest of the row that day, and to set forth certain
events of the remainder of the week, we cannot do better than transcribe
Roger’s own letter to his mother, written on the following Sunday.
Nine-tenths of it was about rowing, in which Mrs. Hardie could only feel
the reflection of her son’s interest; and half of what she read she did
not understand. Perhaps my reader can do better.
“DEAR MOTHER:
“This has been a great week for me, and I’m going to tell you all about
it, though I can’t make you see it as I do. You know I got saved over
for the pair-oar when the Westcott squad was narrowed down to two crews
and a pair-oar, with coxes for each. This is the final narrowing down
except that the day before the race the pair-oar bunch gets the hook. I
had been slopping along in the pair-oar with Steve Wilmot, being more or
less rotten all the season, never at all decent, and often for long
stretches _absolutely_ ROTTEN, making both cox and Steve awfully sore,
and doing much worse than the worst school crew on the river, which is
saying a good deal. A few days ago I went out as usual and began badly,
but after a while I seemed to catch on all at once, and began to row
decently. We went a long way up river, and I kept on getting the habit
of pulling somewhat right. By the time I got home my rowing had improved
several thousand per cent. Pete saw me just as we came in (Pete is the
captain) and seemed awfully surprised that I was doing so well.
“The next day Eliot Weld was out with a sore finger, and they put me
into his place in the second. Caffrey acted as cox, and I felt that if I
ever was going to have a chance to show what I could do, I had it then.
I did pretty well, I think, for Caffrey didn’t say much to me. The two
crews went along together for a while, then the coach sent the first
down and made us all stop and put on sweaters. Then he pulled out a
clipping about the adoption of a new, unorthodox stroke in England by
some of their colleges, and read it to us, making comments and
illustrating and explaining. He had found some one who had the same idea
he had and who believed in the same stroke that he tried to teach us.
“We started down just as an inferior college eight came along, pulling a
regulation good hard stroke. Caffrey said: ‘We may as well race this
eight now they are here,’ and started us up. He is heavy, but he knows
more about managing a crew than all the other coxes together, and
everybody has confidence in him and doesn’t get rattled. He pushed us
along as fast as we could go to a bridge. We had a fraction of a length
start, but we gained until we went through the bridge a length ahead of
the other crew. Of course the eight was not racing, but it was pretty
good for us, to spurt a four-oar faster than an eight goes when rowing
at a good pace. This was not one of the Varsity eights, of course, but
an upper class eight, or a club eight. It would have been the height of
ridiculousness and especially of freshness to row against the freshmen
or the 2d or 3d Varsity. After a short stop to tell us what he wanted us
to do, we went all the way back to the boat-house without a break and at
a good pace. On the way down Caffrey talked to us, telling us how to
save strength or favor some muscle, and trying to get us to rest on the
recovery.
“I was dead tired when we got to the boat-house, but I think I pulled
just as hard on the tired stretch as at any other time, excepting, of
course, the race. I think Caffrey raced us to give us confidence and to
get us into the habit of not getting rattled. And now for the most
important thing of all. _I was promoted to the second._ It was because I
pulled so hard and didn’t give in or weaken. Pete told me so while we
were dressing. Weld must take the pair-oar. I’m out of that. I may get
kicked back in a little while, but it will not be from lack of effort on
my part if I do. I would rather make the second crew than anything else
(except the first), as that means something; for our crews are in a
different class from any of our other teams, and 2d crew this year means
_1st crew next year_ (if I can possibly make it)!
“That was on Tuesday. Since then I’ve been rowing on the second every
practice without being kicked, but I live in a continual state of terror
that some one will oust me from my place. Of course there’s only Wilmot
and Weld, and Wilmot’s too short and fat to be any good, while Weld is
not supposed to have the staying power, but I shan’t be free from worry
until the race starts (and that’s still nearly three weeks off). Even if
I can hold my place, I might get sick or hurt somehow, and so be thrown
out.
“On Friday we went out in the worst weather we ever had. The rain blew
so fast that sheets of it would go into Mike’s megaphone, so that he
really spent more time in blowing out water than in talking, though this
was only when we were bucking the wind. We were all soaked about five
minutes after we left the boat-house. The waves were very bad, often
piling right over the boat. The rain came down so fast that it looked
like a mist, and you couldn’t see the shore from the middle of the
river. We didn’t stay out long, for there was no chance for good rowing.
When we came in, we found that the roof leaked. Little Mike was down on
the Newbury bunch because some one of them pinched his collar buttons
one day, so that he hadn’t anything to button his collar to. So he put
the clothes of the Newbury crews, who were still out, under the leak.
“This is a terribly long letter and will cost something to send it to
Buenos Aires, but I wanted to tell you all about the crew business even
if it does bore you. It means a lot to me. If you went to Westcott’s,
you would understand. You can read between the lines that my health is
good and the studies are going all right. I got 82 in a history exam, on
Monday. Love to all.
“Your affectionate son,
“ROGER.”
“What do you think of that?” asked Mrs. Hardie, four weeks later, after
her husband had patiently toiled through the letter. “Fancy their going
out in a tempest that soaked them in five minutes!”
“I don’t care about that,” said Mr. Hardie. “It’s the race that troubles
me. It is a great strain on the heart, and the Hardies have a tendency
to weak hearts.”
“Roger takes after me, and my family have good tough hearts,” returned
Mrs. Hardie, quickly, seeing, as she thought, a disposition on the part
of her husband to disapprove the boy’s rowing. She was touched that her
son should count on her loving interest in all that occupied his
thoughts; she objected strongly to making use of his confidences to
thwart the ambitions which he cherished most deeply, thus perhaps
banishing forever the frankness in which her mother heart delighted.
“Besides,” she added, “I wrote him all about that last week. He can be
trusted to look out for himself.”
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CHAPTER XXII
A SHIFT IN THE BOAT
A FORTNIGHT later another letter packed full of the inevitable rowing
gush started on the long journey to Buenos Aires.
“DEAR MOTHER:
“I have so much to tell you about the crew this time and such a
wonderful story of luck that I must answer your questions right off at
the beginning or I shall surely forget to. You must let me know what
boat you’re coming on in June so that I can meet you at the dock. It
must seem funny to get two summers in the same year. If summer vacations
went with them, I should like that myself. It is all right about the
Comptons. I called there a long time ago. I did not want to go, but as
you wanted me to, I went, and had a very decent time after all. They
asked me to dinner a few days afterward. I had to accept because I
couldn’t very well get out of it. They gave me a swell feed, and there
were two girls there whom I had met at dancing school. Joe Compton is a
conceited little mutt. I will make my party call when the rowing is
over, as it will be after another week. I think I shall get
recommendations for 16 points, though the English isn’t certain yet. You
must not expect me to pass them all off. Nobody does that but the
sharks, and you know I am not a shark. Jason Dunn, the boy you ask about
who turned over a new leaf, keeps it turned all right, but as far as
studies are concerned, it is still blank. You don’t need to ask me to
help him, I couldn’t prevent it if I wanted to, as he studies in my room
almost every night. I don’t dislike him as I used to. I will order the
new suit, but I think the old one would do, and I could spend the money
more profitably on something else. The boys here don’t care much about
outside clothes, though they’re terribly keen about having fresh socks
and shirts every day, and they run wild on neckties. My laundry bill is
a whopper. Now for the real news.
“I rowed on the second a whole week. Of course we did not get a great
deal of Caffrey, but Mike is pretty good, and Pete Talbot would tell me
after the practice some special fault he had seen in me, and then I
worked with all my might to straighten it out. I kept on getting
accustomed to use my legs and run the leg motion into the body and arms
(that doesn’t sound right, but it is the best I can do to explain it),
and I found the work a lot easier. You see if you row with a fixed seat,
the whole strain is on the back and arms, and the pull is with strength
alone. On the sliding seat, you row against your stretcher (that’s the
foot-board) and the legs furnish most of the power. The skill comes in
in blending everything together in one easy, natural motion, and getting
back to take your next stroke without checking the boat by the return of
your slide. I could feel all along that I was gaining, though I was slow
on the recover, and bungled my oar still. The fellows all seemed to
think I was going to make good in the second, and I was delighted, for
our second is about the best second on the river, and Mac sets a
_perfectly wonderful_ stroke.
“One day near the end of the week Caffrey went out with us. He watched
me all the time, but he didn’t say anything to me in particular except
to get away on my slide hard at the start and slow down at the finish,
and to keep the top edge of my blade just below the surface of the
water, and not feather under. I knew all this before, but rowing
directions are awfully hard to apply. You have to watch the back of the
man in front of you for your stroke, and yet start at the very instant
he does. That means that you must feel when he is going to start and
start with him. That’s an example of what they expect of you in a boat;
other things are a good deal harder.
“On Friday the first went to Suffolk to race the Suffolk School. They
have a little course out there of about a quarter of a mile, and they
practice for just this short distance with an awfully quick stroke. Of
course they always beat the crews that come to row them because the
visitors are not used to rowing that way. It is like putting a
half-miler to run a hundred yards with a sprinter. Well, our crew pulled
an awfully snappy race and came within a quarter of a length of winning.
They would have won, too, Rust said (the cox), if Pitkin had not got
rattled with the fast stroke and caught a crab and lost a good
half-length. He was all in, too, at the finish, while Pete and Jim Eaton
and Bursley felt as if they were just beginning to row. The Suffolk
fellows always row themselves out. Rust told me all about it. Of course
I did not go. The crew had to leave at 12 o’clock to get the train, and
they don’t let you cut recitations here to see races. They think they
are terribly generous to let the crew off.
“Monday was our day on the river. We don’t row every day, because there
are not boats enough to go round, and only two coaches for eight
schools. Caffrey coached us for a while from a launch that belongs to
one of the boys, and then sent both crews up to the starting-place of
the regular mile course and told us to race down to the boat-house. The
first gave us a length start. Caffrey had said that we must think of our
form all the time and pull for all that we were worth every instant the
oar was in the water. It was the hardest work I ever did in my life, but
I gave all my attention to my form and my oar, and I didn’t notice how
tired I was till we got nearly to the Harvard bridge. For a while I
occasionally got a glimpse of the first behind us, and that kept me
encouraged, but about halfway down they passed us, and then I just had
to pull blind, and I did my best. I knew I could stand it if the rest
could. A little above the bridge, Mike called for a spurt, and Mac hit
it up three or four strokes faster. I saw Sumner’s head begin to wabble,
and I knew that he was getting to the end of his rope, and I began to
worry about what I should do if he gave out. But Jack is good stuff, and
he held out to the finish. By and by Mike cried out, ‘Ten strokes more!
Make ’em hard now!’ and I found I had plenty of strength left after all.
It is strange that though you seem to be pulling yourself out, there is
always something left over!
“When Mike called ‘Let her run!’ I was so tickled to think that I had
kept my form all the way and rowed a good race that I sat up and
grinned. That grin was worth a lot to me as you will see. Pitkin slumped
down in the boat as soon as he stopped rowing. Caffrey had been
alongside of us all the time watching every man. Afterwards he had a
talk with Pete. I heard him say, ‘Pitkin’s face was all screwed up the
last quarter, he was rowing weak; the other fellow just went white, and
at the end he sat up and laughed.’ They saw me look up at that so they
moved away. I guessed they were speaking of me, and I felt good, I can
tell you, to think I had done well and proved my right to be in the
second boat instead of the pair-oar.
“Pete asked me to wait for him (he’s an awfully slow dresser), so I hung
round on the float and watched some of the other boats. Caffrey had gone
out with Waterville High who were waiting for him. Their crew is pretty
good too. By and by Pete came along, and we went up together to the car.
And what do you think he said to me? _Pitkin and I were to change
places._
“I was so set up and so happy that I couldn’t study much, and I couldn’t
get to sleep for a long time.
“Since then I have rowed bow on the first all the time, and there is
practically no chance at all of my being put back, as the practice is
over now. To-day the pair-oar bunch was fired. They knew it was their
last time, so Wilmot and Weld got Trask for cox and came out, all three
smoking cigarettes with a great air of superiority and rowing about as
they liked. They came down to where we were practicing racing starts
with the second, above the Harvard bridge, and watched us. They were in
very good spirits and jollied the two boats, sitting in attitudes of
ease in the pair-oar in the warm sun, and occasionally rowing. They
thought they were having a fine time, but any one of them would have
given almost anything to sneak into the boat—except Trask, perhaps, who
has a heart and isn’t allowed to row. There was a lot of talk as to
whether any one would dare to call Caffrey ‘Bill,’ as it was the last
day, but no one was fresh enough to.
“The preliminary heats come on Wednesday. Our second stands a good
chance to get the championship, but the first, which is the most
important, of course, has to face much better crews. I hope we can get
into the finals, anyway. Some of the papers say Bainbridge is going to
win, and some say Newbury, which has a husky, big crew.
“All we want is to beat Newbury. They’ve won the championship at
baseball already, though they have to play us one more game. If they
beat us in the crew, they get Smithy’s cup for a year; if we beat them,
we get it. Smithy has come out again. He was at the baseball game in all
his importance, and they say he’s trying to work the officials for the
races so that Newbury can get the best course. By the time I write my
next letter it will be all over. I’d cable you about it, only it costs
so much and you’ll have sailed by that time. I am writing this on Friday
to give it a good start.
“Affectionately,
“ROGER.”
The next morning Roger slept late. He got up feeling listless and
dispirited; and though he assured himself as he dressed that he had
every reason to feel both happy and vigorous, the lethargy clung to him
so insistently that after breakfast he returned to his room and lay
down. In addition he was troubled by an occasional stitch in the left
side. Was it possible that he was going to fall ill, at this of all
times? Could it be that he too had developed a weakness of the heart
such as his father suffered from? The thought sent a shiver down his
spine. It couldn’t be so, it shouldn’t be so! He would not be cheated
out of his reward after all these weeks of hard uphill work.
Towards noon Dunn came whistling in from school, where he had been
spending his Saturday morning in enforced diligence. He pounded on
Roger’s door, opened it, and dexterously flipped a letter across to the
figure on the sofa.
“Buenos Aires,” he said curtly. Then, suddenly perceiving that Roger was
lying in an unusual state of quiet, or reading signs of discouragement
in his face, he added: “Hello! You aren’t sick, are you?”
“I guess not,” answered Roger, smiling drearily; “I felt a little
tired.”
“You’ve been overdoing, that’s all, I guess. Talbot works you too hard.
You ought to cut practice for a day or two.”
“Practice is over, anyway,” responded Roger.
“You want to take it easy until the race, then, and not think about it,”
said Dunn. “We can’t afford to have you overtrained.”
Dunn departed and Roger took up his letter. He read with keen interest
until he came to the last page, when a look of dismay swept over his
face. “Your father is greatly concerned about your rowing,” ran the
fatal passage. “We know an English gentleman here who rowed on the
Cambridge crew, and he says that oarsmen not infrequently get some form
of heart disease from the great strain put upon the heart in racing.
Your father wanted to write immediately and forbid your rowing, but I
told him that if you could play football without harm, you ought to be
able to row a mile, and prevailed on him to leave the matter in your
hands. Before you take part in any race you must see a good physician,
Dr. Long, for example, and make sure that your heart is sound. You can’t
afford to purchase the petty glory of rowing in a schoolboy race at the
price of ill-health for the rest of your life.”
Roger dropped the letter from his hands and groaned aloud. “He won’t
pass me, I’m sure. It’s all up with me if I go to a doctor. Why couldn’t
the confounded letter have got lost on the way!”
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CHAPTER XXIII
THE WEAKENED HEART
THE rest of the day Roger spent in moping, fuming, and intermittent
attempts to divert himself by reading or work. Feeling wholly without
appetite, he did not go down to luncheon when the bell rang. As a
consequence Mr. Adams came up, inquired sympathetically about his
condition, and proposed to telephone for a physician. But a physician
was, at that moment, the last person that Roger desired to see; he could
not reconcile himself to the thought of submitting his dearly cherished
hopes to the decision of some bigoted foe of rowing who would condemn
him on principle and flatter himself that he had saved another body from
destruction. He had passed the Athletic Association doctor at the
beginning of the season; why was not that enough to satisfy his mother’s
requirement?
“I don’t think it’s necessary,” he said, avoiding Mr. Adams’s eye. “I’m
just a little off my feed. I shall be all right by to-night.”
“It’s always better to attend to these things at the outset,” rejoined
the teacher. “The doctor wouldn’t hurt you.”
“I don’t want him!” persisted Roger, fretfully. “He’d just stir me up.”
Mr. Adams observed him with curiosity. Here was a childish
unreasonableness which he had never before seen in Roger Hardie. “I’ll
wait till to-night, then. Isn’t there something Mrs. Adams or I could do
to make you more comfortable? Shouldn’t you like something to read, or
some one to read to you?”
Roger thanked him, but thought he should take a little nap and then
perhaps go for a walk. So Mr. Adams was induced to leave, and Roger lay
back on his couch, with eyes staring wide open and thoughts pounding
hard. He had staved off the doctor for a time at least.
As he lay there assuring himself that nothing could be the matter with
his heart and that he should certainly be quite well by night, reviling
himself for being such a fool as to fall ill on the eve of a race and
vowing that he would row anyway, Dunn came softly in on new rubber-soled
shoes. He was going to Cambridge to see the Harvard-Princeton game, but
before he went he wanted to express his sympathy and offer consolation.
Dunn did not use these trite expressions nor did he talk like a phrase
book of etiquette, but he meant well and Roger understood him. The
consolation took the form of a lurid, six weeks’ novel which Dunn
commended as “pretty fair.” An hour with this pretty fair tale of
Jason’s lending was about all Roger could stand; he threw it down gladly
when Mike appeared to invite him to go out and watch the game between
the Weary-Willies and the Easy-Resters which Mike was to umpire.
He fared forth, therefore, with Mike, and established himself at the
shady end of the players’ bench, prepared to be quietly amused. Dickie
Sumner thrust a sheet of paper and a pencil into his hand and bade him
keep score. It was a great game and most amusing, but totally devoid of
quiet. The Easy-Resters rested not at all, but tore up and down the foul
lines, jeering at the battery of their opponents and abusing the umpire.
The Weary-Willies answered unweariedly jeer for jeer. When, in the
middle of the fifth inning, the E-R’s assaulted Mike, and, sweeping him
off the field, dragged Roger out to take his place, the new umpire could
not for the life of him determine whether the score stood seven to six
in favor of the E-R’s or six to five for the W-W’s. So he left Mike to
continue the score after his own fashion, and devoted himself to
securing order on the diamond and enforcing his decisions by threats of
injury from the baseball bat with which he had armed himself.
The game was over, and the players were arguing noisily about the
score—Mike had made the E-R’s pay dearly for the violence offered to
the sacred person of the umpire—before Roger bethought himself of his
illness. He was apprised of it now by a sensation of faintness, and a
startling dizziness that fell upon him suddenly and for the moment
frightened him with the fear that he was the victim of one of the
“spells” to which, as he vaguely knew, people with weak hearts are
subject. But the fear was overborne by a fierce determination that
surged up in a defiant flood, insisting that the undesired was the
untrue. It was not his heart! His heart was as strong as any one’s,
whatever his father might fancy. He would not be ill, he would row! He
set his teeth and clenched his fists and steered his way straight for
the house. There he threw himself into a chair in the common room, and
taking up a paper, turned to the sports page, on which a reporter had
given his opinion as to the probable outcome of the schoolboy races.
Newbury was picked for first place, with a good fighting chance for
Bainbridge Latin,—both coached by Lanning. Westcott’s was the best of
the Caffrey crews, but did not look like a winner; the Back Bay boys
rowed in good form, but they lacked the power of the big men in the
other boats. While form was unquestionably an important element in the
success of a crew, mere style could never take the place of endurance
and strength.
So much Roger at last comprehended after several readings and with much
effort to control his trembling hands and wavering eyes. He put down the
paper in disgust, and resting his heavy head on his hand, mingled in a
dizzy confusion despairing self-reproach and genuine prayers for help.
The dizziness had worn off, but the weakness still remained, and the
consciousness of this weakness undermined the props of determination as
fast as they were set up. The boys were gathering for dinner; they threw
curious and not unsympathetic glances at the disconsolate figure in the
lounging chair, and talked in tones uncommonly subdued of the effect
Hardie’s illness would have on the chances of the crew. Presently Felton
came in from the long corridor, surveyed the room, and catching sight of
Hardie in the chair slapped him roughly on the shoulder.
Roger started and shot a menacing look at the offender. “What’s the
matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with _you_?” retorted Felton. “Pete wants you at the
telephone.”
Roger dragged himself to the telephone. “Is that you, Roger?” sounded
Talbot’s clear voice.
“Yes.”
“How are you? They told me this afternoon that you were under the
weather. You aren’t going to be sick, are you?”
“No, it’s all right. I’m better to-night.”
“That’s good. Be careful what you eat, and get to bed early. We can’t
afford to lose you. They assigned places this afternoon for the trials.
We got the outside.”
“That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so. There won’t be any current to help us, and a head wind
would set us back a lot. They’re counting on our weakening at the
finish. They don’t know us. I’m not afraid of any weakening in the first
boat now that Pitkin is out.”
Roger groaned audibly. “What’s that?” asked Talbot.
“Where’s Newbury?” substituted Roger.
“Inside, next to the wall. Smithy got that arranged all right.”
“How does he come in?”
“How does he come into anything? Pulls wires and works his friends in
the B.A.A. He’ll be on the referee’s launch in some official capacity,
I’ll bet my head. I’m willing to let Newbury beat us in the trials, but
we must make second place so as to get into the finals. I should like to
save our strength as much as possible for the real thing. We ought to
find Brookfield High and Boston Latin pretty easy; they are the others
in our heat.”
“That’s right; our second could put it over either of them.”
“Well, take good care of yourself. Remember about eating and getting to
bed. Good-by.”
Roger hung up the receiver and returned to the common room. The talk
with Pete had put new life into him. Excited by the news and the
prospect, he thought of his illness only as something which he had
really left behind him, and which might be wholly disregarded. His
mother’s instruction as to the examination of his heart he would not
consider just now. There must be some way out of the dilemma. He must
row, whatever happened; on that he was determined.
The dining-room doors opened just as he came down the corridor, and
Roger went in with the first rush. Acting on the assumption that he was
well, and hungry from a day’s fasting, he fell to greedily. Soup, roast,
vegetables, pudding, fruit—he took them all, like any of the
perpetually hollow boys who called the food at Adams’s “bum,” yet
devoured it like cormorants. Mr. Adams was not at dinner; if he had been
there he must have marked with uneasiness the feverish glitter in
Roger’s eye and the abnormal convalescent’s appetite.
After dinner the company sallied forth to the playground, the younger
lads to indulge in a screaming game of scrub, the older ones to sit
round on the grass and watch Dunn trying to teach Cable to hold a
pitched ball. Dunn had declared that Cable should learn, and Cable had
declared that he couldn’t. In the contest Cable very clearly proved his
case—to Dunn’s disgust and the infinite amusement of the onlookers. The
sport terminated at half-past seven, when Jason, spying his tutor coming
across from the street, drove a particularly vicious in-curve at the
unfortunate Cable, who dodged the missile by an awkward sprawl, and
trudged submissively after it to the distant elm trees.
Roger followed Dunn into the house. For the last fifteen minutes a
sensation of approaching calamity had been growing upon him. The proud
spirit of defiance with which he had declared himself well had forsaken
him. His brain reeled under a dull, oppressive weight. The dinner which
he had so recklessly devoured seemed like a mass of hardening cement in
his stomach; his lips trembled, perspiration broke out on his forehead.
Utterly wretched, he dragged himself upstairs to his room and sank into
a chair by the open window.
“And you thought you could row!” he groaned. “You poor fool!”
And then he was sick, violently sick, with convulsions that shook his
whole frame, sending great throbs of pain crashing through his brain. He
dropped his clothes in a pile on the floor and crept into bed, where he
lay with cheek buried in the pillow, listening horrified to his own
heart beating “tub-up! tub-up! tub-up!” in his ear. There was no longer
any doubt of his condition. “It’s my heart!” he muttered wildly to
himself. “My heart has gone back on me. They knew more about it than I
did. I’m not fit to row!”
The head throbs subsided after a time, and Roger began to think. He
recalled certain occasions in his childhood when he had suffered from
sick headaches. His mother used to sit beside him then, holding his
hand, and, with her quiet, soothing presence, helping him to bear the
pain. He missed her now, terribly. He felt, too, that he had forfeited
his right to her ministrations; he had been disloyal to her, in intent
at least, when she had been steadfastly loyal to him. The very command
against which he had rebelled was proof of her sympathy, for it was the
result of her effort to save his rowing when his father would have
forbidden it out of hand. “She did her best for me,” he thought in keen
self-reproach, “and she trusted me, and I was going back on her. It’s
all up with the rowing now; I shall never sit in a boat again, but I’ll
have the examination if I ever get out of this, just to prove that I’m
what she thinks I am.”
This resolution brought him a certain composure. He ceased to mourn, and
presently fell asleep. The sun was already slanting down through his
open window when he awoke. Mr. Adams stood at the bedside.
“How do you feel this morning?” asked the master. “If sleep can cure
you, you ought to be well. You’ve slept over breakfast in spite of all
the noise.”
“I’m better,” answered Roger, who had profited by the interval to get
his bearings. “My head doesn’t ache any more, but I feel rather weak and
hollow.”
“We’ll send you up something to eat. What shall it be?”
“I think I’d better see a doctor before I eat anything,” replied the
boy, humbly. His attitude had changed over night.
Mr. Adams nodded approval to this sentiment. “That’s right. You ought to
have seen one yesterday. I’ll telephone for Dr. Brayton. In the meantime
I’ll have them send up a little toast. You can nibble on that if you
feel faint.”
The toast came, and Roger nibbled on it as long as it lasted. He felt
better, far better. The heart spell was evidently passing. Dunn came in
and sat on the bed for half an hour, telling a long tale of his tragedy
of hard work and not forgetting at its close to exhort the patient to
keep up his courage and get well before Wednesday. The exhortation drew
a strained smile to Roger’s face, such a smile as we assume to shield
from intruding eyes the knowledge of a hurt—and the hurt smarted long
after the complacent Jason had left the room.
Mike was the next visitor. He sat down with sober face in a chair
fronting the bed, and said nothing after his “Hello, Roger!” for some
time, though he stole occasional shy glances at his sad-eyed friend.
“Are you much sick?” he asked at length.
“I don’t know,” answered Roger. “The doctor will tell me when he comes.”
“Won’t it be terrible if you can’t row?” sighed the boy, his big eyes
soft with pity.
Roger squirmed. “It’ll be hard, of course, but if I can’t, I can’t.” He
tried to speak lightly, but the attempt was a failure.
There was silence again for a time. Mike looked obstinately down at the
cap which he was smoothing on his knee. Roger was thinking of his
condition and of the sacrifice which he was making. He felt so much
better this morning that had it not been for the fatal heart weakness,
he could have fancied himself within a few hours of complete recovery.
He should be like Trask, apparently perfectly well, but barred from
everything worth while—no more rowing, no more football, no more long
swims, or hard all-day tramps over the mountain peaks with the joy of
covering, between breakfast and supper, the score of steep miles which
the average tramper was happy to bring within the limits of two whole
days! Henceforth he must nurse himself and avoid over-exertion and be
content with golf or tennis, playing with girls, perhaps, or kids! What
a dreary, disgusting prospect!
“Pitkin shirks,” offered Mike, who had been pursuing his own train of
thought.
Roger stared for an instant without comprehension. Then, as he perceived
that practical Mike was worrying over the change in the first boat, he
answered hopefully, “He won’t shirk in the race; he’ll put in all he
has.”
“But he hasn’t the power.”
Before Roger could meet this objection, a knock was heard at the door.
As Mr. Adams came in with the doctor, Mike slipped away unnoticed. Dr.
Brayton sat down by the bedside, and in a very friendly, comrade-like
way asked the boy questions. Then he felt the patient’s pulse, looked at
his tongue, put the stethoscope to his chest, took his temperature.
Afterwards he drew out a little block in a neat leather case and wrote
on the top leaf certain mysterious words.
“What’s the matter?” asked Roger, with an anxious quaver in his voice.
“Over-eating and worry,” answered the doctor, laconically.
“Is it bad?”
The doctor smiled. “We shouldn’t call it a very serious case.”
“I mean my heart,” faltered Roger.
“Your heart! Have you had trouble with your heart?”
“No-o, but my father has a bad heart, and I could hear mine beat awfully
hard last night. I was afraid something was the matter with it.”
The doctor took up his instrument and again listened long and carefully.
Roger could feel his breath come and go with hurried, uneven pace as the
examination drew out. He was excited, anxious, shrinking from the truth
yet eager to know the worst. It seemed ten minutes before the doctor
folded up his stethoscope and returned it to his bag.
“What’s wrong with it?” demanded the boy, faintly, after waiting for
some seconds for the doctor to speak.
“Nothing. It’s perfectly normal.”
Roger gasped. “And it isn’t weak?”
“It’s as strong as a prize fighter’s. Your trouble is with the
digestion.”
“Shall I be laid up long?”
“Not if you obey directions. You’ll have to be careful for a day or
two.”
A wonderful change swept over the patient’s face. The dismal air of
resignation to an evil fate fell from him like a mask. His eyes flashed
bright with hope and eagerness. He popped into a sitting posture with a
quickness of recovery that would have delighted Caffrey’s heart, and
stretched out both hands toward the physician.
“Can I row on Wednesday? Oh, doctor, please say I can!”
Dr. Brayton laughed aloud. “Not if you act in that way. Lie down and
keep quiet, and do what you’re told.”
“I’ll do anything, starve or eat slops or lie here like a log till
Wednesday,” declared Roger, as he fell back again in obedience to
orders, “but you’ve got to make me well enough to row. You’ll do it,
won’t you?”
“We’ll see. Stay quietly in bed to-day, take only the nourishment which
I have ordered, and don’t get up to-morrow until I come. You must get
your strength back before you can think of rowing.”
For the rest of the day Roger lay in uneasy happiness, taking with
Fletcher-like deliberateness the sloppy messes that were brought to him,
receiving visitors as they drifted in after church, and kicking his legs
like a lusty infant. The burden of his despair had suddenly lifted as a
cloud cap lifts from a mountain peak and discloses miles of glorious,
sunny landscape that had seemed but a little before as hopelessly buried
in gloom as the peak itself. At times he could hardly restrain himself
from leaping forth from bed and dancing out his joy. In the afternoon,
when the fellows went off for walks, he took a nap; he awoke refreshed
and impatient to be moving. He obeyed his orders, however, helped out by
a book and the presence of various friendly souls who had time on their
hands and could talk indefinitely of nothing. At night he slept again
for long, unbroken hours.
In the morning the doctor came, looked him over, ordered a beefsteak for
his breakfast, and told him to go back to school. Roger ate the
beefsteak with the satisfaction of a hungry tramp who has chanced upon a
square meal after an experience of two days with dogs and crusts; but
before he left for school he slipped into the gymnasium and tried a
dozen strokes on the rowing machine.
It was all right; he was a little weak, but he could pull his old
stroke. He had two days in which to recover his strength.
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CHAPTER XXIV
THE TRIALS
PRESIDENT JOHN, glorious in apparel and self-importance, strutted along
the boat-house float, blowing cigarette smoke into the faces of waiting
oarsmen, playing the patronizing oracle to the newspaper men, and
juggling rowing terms for the benefit of everybody within earshot. What
strings the genius of the Triangular League had pulled with the Athletic
Association to obtain his appointment as race official we may not
inquire; of the fact there was no question. A certain Mr. Henderson
shared with him the responsibility of being judge at the finish, but the
glory of office President John took to himself. In his eyes Henderson
was but the zero which added to one makes ten. He himself was both the
one and the ten.
On a heap of sweaters in a corner of the open room of the boat-house lay
stretched the Westcott crews, awaiting, under pretence of calmness, the
moment for carrying out their boats. They could not start until the
arrival of the launch which was to bear the officials. Meantime various
friends who had smuggled themselves into the close quarters clustered
about to stay up their champions and divert their minds from the race.
“Ben has got his quinquereme out,” said Mike, coming in from a visit to
the float. “They’re rowing round here challenging everybody to race.”
“What’s the quinquereme?” asked Roger, raising himself on his elbow.
“It’s an old eight-oared ship’s cutter from some Spanish war vessel,
that Ben discovered down by the East Cambridge bridge,” explained Pete.
“He’s filled it full of fellows who want to see the races.”
“Why does he call it a quinquereme?”
“Because he likes the name, of course,” declared Eaton, laughing. “He
doesn’t care what it means. Fluffy and his gang have picked up a big
dory thing they call a bireme. They’re going to row the quinquereme.”
“That’s all over,” said Mike. “The quinquereme beat out the bireme and
the pair-oar. Tracy says he’s going to challenge the second next.”
“Let’s go out and see them,” proposed Roger. He raised himself into a
sitting position as if to carry out his suggestion, but Talbot pulled
him back.
“No, you don’t,” ordered the captain. “You aren’t here to amuse
yourself!”
Just then the cry arose that the launch was coming, and the
non-combatants crowded to the door. Through one of the wide arches of
the bridge, its parapet topped for a hundred yards by a dense row of
heads, the slender _Veritas_ was speeding down upon the boat-house.
“Second crew out!” commanded Talbot. McDowell and his men fetched their
oars from the corner and laid them side by side at the edge of the
float; then they brought out their boat, and, dropping it into the
water, fitted their oars into the locks and took their places. When toe
straps were well adjusted and the slides fully tested, friendly hands
laid hold of the blades of the port oars at Mac’s signal, and shoved the
boat forth.
“Attention!” called Mike. “Ready!—Row!”
The four oars took the water with a hard clean catch. Backward swung the
blue, white-lettered jerseys in perfect unison; forward they came again,
their slides returning easily with the motion of the boat, and again the
blades snatched at the water and drove it back in one steady, prolonged
push. The lads in the untippable old quinquereme mounted their benches
and yelled the school cheers in a fierce burst of loyalty. A knot of old
Westcottites on the bank echoed the cheer.
“What a stroke that kid sets!” said Talbot. “If he were only six inches
taller and twenty pounds heavier—”
“I shouldn’t be on the first crew,” offered Roger, as Pete hesitated.
“Some of us wouldn’t, that’s a sure thing,” returned Talbot. “We’ll
watch the launch off, and then go back and lie down.”
The _Veritas_ took on board the officials and the newspaper men, and
headed up river after the crews. President John had elected to go with
the launch. He posted himself beside the steersman in the bow, standing
proudly erect to be seen and admired of all men, and cast a long glance
backward at the common herd that thronged the float.
“Doesn’t he make you sick?” growled Talbot, as they watched the
_Veritas_ plough her way upstream. “I suppose Newbury isn’t responsible
for him, but I’d give my allowance for all summer to be sure of getting
ahead of him. I’d row till I dropped dead rather than let that goat see
us beaten.”
“He won’t see our second beaten, to-day,” said Eaton. “We’ve got the
best thing in seconds on the river.”
“But he’ll see _us_ beaten,” returned the captain. “I hate to give him
so much rope, but second place is good enough for us to-day. On Friday
we’ll have a real try at ’em.”
They lay down again in their old corner, telling Rust to call them out
when there was anything to see.
“This is the worst part of it,” said Pete. “There’s nothing so hard as
waiting. How goes it, Roger?”
Roger shook his head with a melancholy little smile that barely lifted
the corners of his tight-closed lips. Pete threw at him an uneasy look.
“You don’t feel sick again, do you?” he asked quickly.
This time Roger’s lips parted to a full grin, “No,” he answered with
emphasis. “I’m nervous, that’s all. I want to be doing something.”
“You’ll feel all right as soon as we get into the boat,” rejoined
Talbot, relieved. “What we want is some one to jolly us up a little.”
Just at that moment, as if in response to the captain’s wish, a young
man, displaying under a panama hat a face wreathed with smiles, appeared
at the door and trotted towards the Westcott corner.
“It’s Happy Hutchins!” cried Pete. “Hello, Hap! Why didn’t you come
before, you old fraud?”
Hutchins was shaking hands violently all round, calling every one by
name as if he knew the whole crew as well as he knew Pete and Eaton.
“I couldn’t get here. I was afraid they weren’t going to let me off at
all. If they hadn’t, I’d have cut the job entirely. How I’d like to be
in you fellows’ shoes! The Newbury cox will be the only one on their
boat to see Westcott’s to-day. Gee, but I wish I was pulling an oar!”
Roger glanced with curiosity at Pete’s face to see what effect this
boundless confidence had upon him. Pete was grinning broadly, but only
with pleasure in Happy’s society. He didn’t need the stimulus of
artificial encouragement.
“What’s the job, Hap?” asked Eaton.
“Arlington Trust. Fill ink-wells and run errands. Three dollars a week.
It nearly pays for my lunches.”
“Don’t get discouraged,” urged Pete. “Perhaps you’ll be made a
vice-president next year.”
“I’ll probably get a raise next year that’ll pay my car fares,” answered
Hutchins, calmly. “Where’s old Withers? Do you suppose he’ll remember
me?”
“He’ll never forget the man that stepped through the bottom of the
pair-oar!” declared Pete. “He’s sore about it yet.”
That was the first link in a chain of reminiscences that sent the
minutes flying. Hutchins had not succeeded in getting into college in
spite of an extra year, and two long summers of arduous slaving; but he
was the jolliest, best-hearted chap that Westcott’s had ever failed to
make a scholar of, and he couldn’t open his mouth without being
entertaining. Eaton had just reminded him of his historic attempt to
prove to the coach by argument that he wasn’t feathering under, when two
harsh toots of a steam whistle cut his explanations short and sobered
all faces.
“Trowbridge!” exclaimed Eaton and Pete, in unison.
“What’s ours?” asked Hutchins, quietly.
“Three. If Trowbridge is ahead, we’re close behind, you can depend on
that,” said Talbot.
“Let’s go out,” proposed Roger.
“Not yet. They’re some distance up, still.”
For two minutes they waited in silence, listening. Then the whistle
screeched once more, this time distinctly nearer.
“One! Two!” counted Hutchins. “Trowbridge! Come on out!”
The captain made no objection, and the crowd broke for the float. They
were none too soon. The launch was breasting the water a length out from
the arch in midstream. Alongside, but still under the bridge, was Mac’s
crew, an indistinct streak in the shadow. From the second arch inshore,
the bow of the Trowbridge boat was just emerging. Ten seconds later,
both boats were clear of the bridge, sweeping towards the finish line.
No other crew was in sight.
“Pull there, Westcott’s!” yelled Hutchins, as if he could reach the
distant crew with his voice. “Hit it up, stroke!”
Talbot said nothing, but his eyes were glued on the approaching boats,
now hardly twenty strokes from the finish line. His heart was heavy with
disappointment. He had expected much from this second crew. When doubts
as to his own assailed him, his faith in Mac’s crew had never wavered.
He had expected them to win their trial heat with ease, to make up in a
measure for the chagrin the school would feel if the first only gained
second place.
“Gee! see ’em hit up the stroke!” cried Hutchins, suddenly gripping
Pete’s arm and dancing in the water that flooded the float. “Look at ’em
gain! That’s the way, Westcott’s! They can’t meet it! Look at their
heads roll round! They’re all in. You’ve got ’em, Westcott’s. Hold ’em!
Hold ’em!”
At this point Hutchins broke off his wild ejaculations to splash across
to a cluster of old Westcottites standing near the boat-house and lead a
cheer. While the cheer rang out, Mike was counting the last half-dozen
strokes, and urging his men to row them hard. His boat cut the finish
line half a length ahead of Trowbridge, whose exhausted oarsmen fell
forward upon their oars as the coxswain bade them cease rowing. The
spurt had caught them with no surplus of strength to draw upon.
After this there was no need of artificial diversion in the boat-house.
The fellows on the second vowed that they had lots of strength left,
that they were holding back so as to keep Trowbridge from pushing too
hard, and that they could have kept the lead from the beginning if they
had wanted to—all of which was believed because it was pleasant to
believe. The exchange of questions and answers, explanations and
congratulations absorbed every one’s attention until the toots of the
launch again called the crowd forth to see the finish of the last heat
of the seconds.
And now the moment was come which Talbot’s crew had been both longing
for and dreading. As he helped carry the boat out, Roger was conscious
of a shrinking—a nervous, unsettling fear that his strength and skill
might not be equal to the test before him. He glanced at Pete to see if
he too felt the depressing influence, but the captain’s face showed only
a deeper line of determination about the mouth, and his voice as he gave
the necessary orders sounded calm and reassuring. The unnatural tension
was at its height as Roger sat with arms outstretched for the catch,
waiting for the coxswain’s word. It clung to him still during the first
strokes, as the boat got under way from the float. Then gradually the
familiar movement absorbed his attention, and the grip on his heart
loosened. The harmony of the swaying bodies, the monotonous creak of the
slides on their rollers, the wash of the water against the sides, the
“feel” of the boat beneath him as it drove steadily forward—all
contributed to wake in him the old confidence and exhilaration.
As the crew passed under the bridge on their way to the starting line,
the cheers from admirers above descended in a loud blare, but by this
time he was beyond the need of such encouragement. He knew that the boat
was going well, he exulted in the conviction that he had his form and
his strength, and could row that day as well as any other.
The crews got off well. The dozen quick starting strokes put the nose of
the Westcott boat six feet ahead of Newbury. Brookfield High and Boston
Latin were still farther behind. Roger was a little dilatory in obeying
the starting signal, and as a result, in his efforts to follow his
leader, he rowed his first strokes too much with his arms; but by the
time Pete lengthened out, he was in form again, his legs thrusting
strongly against the stretcher, his blade catching the water sharply and
hard, his pull straight through to the end of the long stroke. He bore
in mind the last warning he had received from the coach, and gave
particular attention to getting his hands away quickly, keeping in the
middle of the boat and avoiding the abrupt return technically known as
“rushing the slide.” He saw nothing but the back of the man in front of
him, heard nothing but the exhortations of the coxswain, until four
blasts of the whistle close at hand assured him that the Westcott boat
was leading. Soon after this he began to feel tired, and wondered
vaguely if he were not pulling too hard, but with the second toot of the
whistle this sense of weariness yielded somewhat, and a glimpse caught
over Eaton’s shoulder of Brookfield High, lengths behind, gave him
courage.
“Halfway!” called Rust. “Keep it up now, Newbury’s gaining. Watch your
form, Bow!”
From the launch came the signal that Westcott had lost the lead to
Newbury. Roger wondered if he were really rowing badly or was just being
warned to prevent a slump. He wondered also whether Talbot would spurt
or let Newbury go ahead. And while he wondered, toiling at his oar and
watching his slide, he felt the stroke quicken and rallied to meet it.
And then a new sound reached his ears, the sound of school cheers from
the bridge. Again the launch whistled four times. They were ahead again!
The cheers were clearer now and close at hand. Roger’s breath was coming
hard with every stroke; he got no rest on the returning slide; his legs
were weakening, he was tired all over, but not too tired to row; and he
drove his protesting muscles as if they were things separate from
himself, and he a cruel master lashing them on.
As they passed into the shadow of the bridge, the launch sent forth a
single long shriek. The sound filled the Westcott bow oar with furious
resentment. Was Pete going to let Newbury slip in ahead now, after
holding them the whole distance? Why didn’t he spurt? Why didn’t he give
his crew a chance to win its proper place? The spirit of battle that
surged through Roger’s heart blotted out the consciousness of weariness
and feebleness; he yearned for the opportunity to do something more than
pull with all his might at the stroke set him.
But Pete did not respond to the ardent wish of the bow oar. The race was
approaching its end. The launch gave its final signal—one hateful
blast.
“Ten strokes more!” yelled Rust. “Make it good now. Hard! Hard!”
Then Talbot, either to test his crew or to show what he could do if he
tried, suddenly “hit her up.” Bow oar met the challenge with a burst of
furious energy. He was mad all through. He felt like tearing his
outrigger from the side, like driving his stretcher into Eaton’s back.
Those ten strokes were the hardest Roger had ever rowed. The boat leaped
forward. The lead of three-quarters of a length which Newbury had, grew
less with every push of the Westcott oars.
“Let her run!” called Rust, and the crew rested. Newbury had won, by a
quarter of a length. Roger held himself upright, though breathing
heavily. His limbs were in a quiver, his heart was sore against Pete’s
cautious policy. They had lost a race that might have been won!
Brookfield was splashing along five lengths away, trying hard to avoid
the ignominy of being last.
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CHAPTER XXV
THE FINAL STRUGGLE
PRESIDENT JOHN hurried from the launch to the Newbury crew, who were
stiffly disembarking at the side of the float.
“A splendid race!” he cried exultantly, as he grasped the hand of the
victorious captain; “a splendid race! That’s the way to do the
thing,—get the lead in the first half of the course and hold it. And
you had plenty of strength in reserve, too, didn’t you?”
Downs glanced a little doubtfully at his men. “I think so.”
“You’ll do it easier next time,” asserted the distinguished man. “A
defeat like this breaks the spirit of a crew. What you want now is a
good rest. I’ll see if I can’t get you a holiday for to-morrow.”
“That would be great! Do you think you can?”
President John’s knowing smile suggested mysterious reaches of influence
which he was much too modest to mention. “I guess it can be arranged. We
can’t afford to take any risks. The first name on that cup has got to be
Newbury Latin.”
Westcott’s paddled in to the float, turning their boat over directly to
Bainbridge Latin. Roger stripped for the shower in silence with lowering
face.
“How do you feel now it’s over?” asked Pete, after staring for some
seconds at his sullen companion. “All in?”
“No! Mad and disgusted!”
“You’ve nothing to be disgusted about,” said Eaton. “Rust says you
pulled like a fiend the whole way. I’m the one to be disgusted. I didn’t
row myself out at all.”
“That’s just it! If Pete had put up the stroke two minutes earlier, we’d
have left ’em behind half a length! Now they’ll crow and the newspapers
will call us a sandy but outclassed crew, and half the fellows will
believe it.”
“Cut out the growling!” commanded the captain. “What I did was right,
and I’d do it again. I didn’t know how you fellows were standing it, and
there was no use in killing ourselves, with the finals on for day after
to-morrow. But I’ll give you one sure pointer: you’ll have all the
spurting you want on Friday.”
“Bring on your spurt!” snapped the bow oar. “We’ll meet you.”
Roger felt calmer after his shower—calm enough to regret his rash
boast. Pete had the pluck inherent in good blood, the indomitable spirit
that faces odds undaunted, and only fails when brain and body can no
longer serve it,—and Pete was not one to forget. It was a foolish thing
to say, especially for an inexperienced oar who had rowed but one race
in his life, but as the boast could not now be retracted, the only
course for Roger to pursue was to carry it out. This he secretly
resolved to do if his good-for-nothing legs didn’t go back on him.
The papers next morning were scanned with eagerness. They generally
considered that first place in the finals would lie between Bainbridge
Latin, which had run away from its rivals in the second heat, and
Newbury, with Westcott’s a good third. All agreed that Westcott’s was
likely to win the race for seconds.
“It’s a wonder they concede that much,” said Pete, sarcastically. “They
always act surprised if we win anything.”
Dickie Sumner, made audacious by the knowledge that he was the bearer of
important news, came pushing into the group of older boys that filled
the big bay window. “Have you heard about the Newbury crew’s getting a
holiday?” he demanded.
His brother Jack seized him roughly. “What is it?”
“They’re going down to Cohasset to spend to-day and to-night. They
aren’t coming back to school until ten o’clock to-morrow, and they don’t
have to prepare any lessons.”
“Who told you?” asked Jack, suspiciously.
“Winny Thorne. I saw him on the car. His brother’s on their crew.”
“And we’ve got to stay here all day and study all the evening on
to-morrow’s lessons!” exclaimed Louis. “It’s a roast!”
“They ought to let the first crew off, anyway,” said Eaton. “The second
doesn’t need it so much.”
“They could come down with me to Manchester,” offered Rust. “The house
is open, and I could take care of five perfectly well.”
“Do you suppose the old man would let us?” asked Eaton.
Talbot considered. “He might, if we could make him see that it’s
necessary. I’ll try him, anyway.”
After the opening Bible-reading, the captain of the crew followed Mr.
Westcott to the office. He returned in three minutes, crestfallen. “It’s
no go,” he passed the news along. “He wouldn’t even discuss it.”
Some very sour faces scowled over the tops of books for the next
half-hour. Those near the windows stole occasional glances into the
street and across to the Garden beyond. It was a perfect June day, warm
and quiet, with limpid air sleepily stirring and the sun beaming
benignly over all. The autos of the unimprisoned idle slid by in endless
succession, bearing their fortunate occupants whithersoever fancy
called. The new green leaves on the trees in the Garden quivered
soothingly over the groups of nurses and perambulators and playing
children, and the poverty-blessed loafers slouching in unambitious
contentment on the benches. And this beautiful day Newbury could enjoy,
care-free, on the rocks at Cohasset, while the Westcott fellows were
mewed up in a stuffy schoolroom, grinding out loathsome lessons. It was
wicked!
The day passed as others before it. Lessons had to be learned and
recitations made. That night every oarsman was pledged to be in bed at
half-past nine. Out at Adams’s all noise was forbidden after nine
o’clock, on pain of frightful tortures. Roger slept ten hours without a
break, and awoke at sound of the rising bell, feeling strong enough to
row the race alone.
The school hours of Friday dragged out their wonted course. At two,
Talbot was called to the telephone, and emerged, chuckling tremendously,
to meet McDowell at the foot of the stairs.
“It’s the biggest joke I ever heard. The Newbury fellows sat round on
the rocks all day yesterday in sleeveless shirts, and burnt their arms
so that they couldn’t sleep at all last night. And we slept like tops!”
“Gee, but that’s great!” crowed Mac. “I hope the old man won’t hear
about it, though!”
“Where you going?” demanded the captain, as Mac started up the stairs.
“You ought to be getting out to the boat-house.”
“Volunteer French,” answered Mac, calmly. “I can’t afford to miss it. I
only got fifty on my last exam. The race doesn’t come till three-thirty.
I’ll be out in time.”
Talbot gaped after the lithe figure as it scurried up the stairs.
“After-school work on the day of the race!” he gasped. “And Newbury with
two days off! This is a pretty school!”
Mac turned up at three o’clock, whistling as unconcernedly as if he were
out for an ordinary practice, quite undisturbed by the reproaches hurled
at his head. By the time he was dressed the _Veritas_ was in sight,
bringing the whole Varsity crew to see the races, and sailing under the
command of Deering himself. President John again elected to go on the
launch, convinced that here his light would shine more brilliantly, and
desiring to make sure in advance of the best vantage-point from which to
gloat over the whole triumphant course of his crew when the great race
came off.
The atmosphere on the launch that day was unfavorable to the shining of
lesser lights. Deering’s authority and Deering’s personality dominated
the little craft. Though the Varsity captain spoke pleasantly to the
referee, discussed the arrangement for sending off the boats with the
starter, and greeted one of the newspaper reporters cordially as
“Billy,” he ignored completely the presence of the father of the
Triangular League, who sat obscurely in the stern, scowling with
affected indifference over his cigarette.
“He won’t speak to me, eh! Just like a Westcott snob!” the president
muttered to himself. “What do I care? He won’t be so proud when he sees
Newbury lead his school by four or five lengths. I hope Yale will lick
his crew to their knees!”—a feat, by the way, which Yale failed to
achieve by some quarter of a mile.
To the Varsity men in the bow of the _Veritas_, the race for second
crews seemed a tame affair. Westcott’s got a lead of half a length at
the start, increased it to a whole one at the quarter, doubled this
advantage during the next half mile, and added still another length in a
pretty display-spurt beyond the bridge. Hoarse and happy, Mike brought
his boat in to the float past a crowd of yelling, dancing friends who
were putting to an extreme test the boasted stability of the old Spanish
cutter. The members of the first crew, delighted to consider the
complete victory of their schoolmates a good omen for their own race,
helped Mac and his men out of their boat and poured sweet praises into
their ears.
“Nothing like a little extra French after school to get you ready for a
race,” panted Mac, as Talbot wrung his hand and blessed him with a dozen
different kinds of exclamation. “I hope you fellows won’t suffer from
lack of it.”
“Suffer from lack of it, you old idiot! Do you suppose we have strength
to throw away?”
“Get a lead in the beginning,” urged Mac, becoming serious. “It’s a lot
easier to keep it than to get it after you’ve lost it. Newbury will quit
if you can once show them your rudder.”
Pete nodded.
“And drive your crew,” continued Mac. “They can stand a lot more than
they did on Wednesday.”
“I think they’ll have a chance for all the work they want to do. I’ll
try to satisfy even Roger.”
Bow oar reddened, but said nothing. He knew well that Pete would push
the crew to its last gasp, and he had doubts as to his ability to hold
his own with the hard-muscled, strong-headed stroke, who was as
incapable of yielding as the Old Guard of surrendering, or the dying
bulldog of relinquishing his grip on his enemy. There was one method, of
course, by which Roger could meet the strain, and come out fresh at the
end to smile at Pete’s challenge. He might weaken just a little on his
pull as the labor told, might put a trifle less than his best into his
stroke, and thus shrewdly save himself from extreme exhaustion. But to
do that was to be a quitter, and bow oar’s scorn for a quitter was equal
to Pete’s. “I’ll give him all I’ve got, anyway,” he said to himself. “If
I break, it will be because I can’t row any more, not because I won’t.”
There was trouble in starting. Westcott’s and Bainbridge got twice into
position and drifted away again before the others, shuffling for places,
reached the line. Waterville was badly cox-swained; Newbury apparently
loitered on purpose, hoping, after the manner of certain Varsity crews
at New London, to worry opponents by prolonged suspense. So at least
Pete opined, and his word, passed back through the boat, set four pairs
of jaws tight together and swamped all nervous fear under a hot wave of
determination. When the pistol-shot rang forth, Newbury’s oar-blades
were already in the water. As the stroke lengthened out, after a hundred
yards, Newbury and Bainbridge were neck and neck, half a length ahead of
Westcott’s, which was rowing a steady, smooth stroke which looked like
an exhibition of skill, yet carried with it the united heave of four
straining bodies.
“Those Westcott fellows aren’t bad,” said Deering, who stood beside
reporter Billy and watched the struggling oarsmen with the eye of an
expert. “They move well, catch together, and get their hands away
quickly.”
“Good crew!” answered Billy, wisely, “but too light to last well.
They’re coming up on Newbury now. It’s about time for Bainbridge to
shake ’em both.”
Deering was silent for some seconds, gazing with that concentration of
attention which a horse fancier gives to the movements of a blooded
steed. “That crew is going to be hard to shake,” he said finally.
“They’ve got a half length on Newbury without raising the stroke more
than a point. There’s hardly any check between strokes.”
“And Bainbridge has got a length,” said Billy, significantly.
In the Westcott boat Rust was urging Two to be careful about his slide,
and informing Talbot of the relative position of the crews. Pete raised
the stroke slightly, and his crew pushed a whole length ahead of
Newbury, which likewise spurted, but lost through inferior form the
advantage gained by the accelerated stroke.
“Halfway!” yelled Rust. “We’ve got a good length on Newbury. Steady now!
Hard all the way through! Don’t rush your slide, Two!”
Talbot held to the increased stroke, sure that the critical moment of
the contest with Newbury was at hand; if he could open water between the
boats, he was confident that Newbury would never rally. His men followed
him in splendid unison. For Roger the first great weariness had passed.
He was rowing mechanically now, putting into his drive all the strength
which he thought safe to force from himself, his whole attention
concentrated on his oar and his slide and the back of the man before
him. He heard the four blasts of the whistle which announced that
Bainbridge was leading, but he cared little for that; he was rowing to
beat Newbury, and Newbury was behind!
“Open water!” exclaimed Billy. “Half a length of open water! I wish I
had taken that bet of three to one on Newbury against Westcott’s.
Newbury’s out of it for sure.”
“Not yet!” said a stifled voice at his elbow. “I’m not giving up yet.
They’ll come up on ’em. They’ve got to.”
Billy turned to find John Smith at his side, occupying the place of the
Harvard captain who had gone aft to his crew. President John’s eyes were
fixed upon the Westcott boat in a hostile glare, his hands tightly
gripping the rail, his face drawn with suppressed emotion.
“Make it up!” answered the unsympathetic Billy. “How are they going to
make up two lengths against that crew? Why, the more they try to spurt,
the worse they row! Number Three there is about all in now. You can see
it yourself.”
“Bainbridge will beat ’em anyway,” muttered Smith, fiercely. “Go it,
Bainbridge! Kill ’em, Bainbridge!”
[Illustration: “GO IT, BAINBRIDGE! KILL ’EM, BAINBRIDGE!”]
Billy threw a glance of curiosity at his neighbor’s face and grinned
broadly. “Been betting heavy against Westcott’s and feels sore,” he said
to himself; but Billy was mistaken. It wasn’t a losing wager that
charged that face with venom, but defeat and wounded vanity. President
John considered himself a sportsman; in fact he was only a partisan;
rabid, narrow, unforgiving. He hated the crew that was vanquishing his
own, that was stealing from him the triumph which he had confidently
expected and in the prospect of which he had openly gloried.
The crews were close to the bridge now. Roger longed for the comfort of
its shadow, longed for the word of the coxswain that the end was near.
He felt now as he swung forward to his catch that he had but a
half-dozen more strokes in his body. To row another hundred yards seemed
absolutely impossible.
“Bainbridge only two-thirds of a length ahead!” shouted Rust. In answer
Pete bellowed over his shoulder: “Get into it now! Don’t quit!” Roger
felt the stroke quicken and mechanically followed. For the first time
during the race the remembrance of Pete’s challenge recurred to him. He
was worn and weak; his eyes bleared, his head was a dull depressing
weight upon his shoulders, every muscle in his body cried aloud for
mercy; but his spirit rose in defiance and sent along the quivering
nerves a command which the muscles could not disobey.
“Only half a length now!” cried Rust, as the boat emerged beyond the
bridge. “You can do it, only twelve more!”
Talbot lifted his stroke another notch, and Rust counted. At each pull
Roger assured himself that he could do one more, and threw into that one
all the power that was in him. He could hardly see Eaton’s back as it
swayed before him. The race had lost interest for him; he was fighting
Talbot, proving that he was no quitter.
“Seven—eight,” counted Rust. “Pull! Pull! You’re almost there!”
Four more! To Roger those four strokes seemed like four of the labors of
Hercules. He could do but one before he broke,—but one more after that.
Dizziness came sweeping over him, he gasped hard for breath. One more
before he fainted!—
“Let her run!” screamed the coxswain.
Roger dropped, but caught himself by a supreme effort as Pete turned his
dripping, heaving shoulder to look at his crew. Over the stooping bodies
of Three and Two he saw the upright form of Bow, smiled faintly, and
lurched heavily forward, while Rust splashed water into his face. Behind
him Bow slumped down upon his oar.
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CHAPTER XXVI
CONCLUSION
“WESTCOTT’S by six feet!” announced Mr. Henderson, judge at the finish,
as the crowd pressed about him to learn the official verdict.
Mac and his men burst forth in a howl of joy. Trask threw up his arms
and yelled the news across the water to the crew of the quinquereme, who
went wild with excitement. Their historic boat, which had escaped the
missiles of war unscathed, very nearly succumbed to the perils of peace.
The _Veritas_, swinging round to the float after the laggard crews had
crept in, found the cutter shoved directly into its path through the
efforts of two lads who continued to chop the water vehemently while
they yelled, as oblivious to the direction they were taking as stokers
in the hold of a steamship to the course laid down by the navigator. The
Varsity manager, who was steering the launch, backed his engine and
saved the cutter for another race day.
Meantime Billy was scribbling notes on a block of yellow paper, Deering
was smiling in dignified exultation among his crew, and President John,
his face white with ill-suppressed rage, was reviling to two curious
reporters the folly of the Newbury oarsmen who had thrown away a sure
victory.
“The very best crew on the river!” he declared with emphatic spacing of
words and savage jerks of the head. “Look at the weight and strength in
that boat! Why, they pulled away from Westcott’s on Wednesday without
half trying. It was just a little practice spin for ’em. Then I got ’em
a holiday yesterday at the shore, and what did they do? Trotted round on
the rocks and played ball in the red-hot sun in sleeveless shirts! Burnt
their arms raw, of course. They didn’t get a wink of sleep all last
night.”
“Westcott’s had it on ’em to-day all right”, remarked the reporter.
“That crew looked pretty good to me!”
“It’s a fair enough sort of a crew, but they had luck and we didn’t.
That’s just what beat us, hard luck.”
Smith turned away to leave the launch, which was already fast. The
_Ledger_ man glanced after him and winked at his companion.
“Sore!” said the latter, tersely.
By this time the Westcott oarsmen had revived and brought their boat in
to the float. Here, in the forefront of the enthusiasts, stood a tall,
deep-chested young man, wearing a hatband with the revered crimson and
black vertical stripes, who shook hands with each weary rower as he left
the boat and gave him a personal compliment which was destined to remain
a cherished memory when the general events of school life should have
faded into the limbo of things forgotten. Then Deering returned to the
launch, which was soon speeding up the river to its moorings; and the
Westcott crew, already recovering from the grinding strain through the
quick recuperative power of sturdy boyhood, and too happy to heed their
exhaustion, carried their boat into the house, where they gave
themselves up to the refreshing luxury of the shower bath and the
delight of mutual congratulations.
The next day was a happy one for the boys at Westcott’s. From the older
fellows who hailed the triumph of their fortunate mates with a delight
untouched by envy, to the little chaps in knee trousers in whose eyes
the members of the first crew were as demigods, complacency and pride
pervaded the school like a mild intoxication. Mr. Westcott made a speech
of congratulation in which he expressed himself as especially pleased
that such excellent crews had been developed without interference with
the regular daily work—a sentiment which the boys, if they did not
appreciate, were, under the circumstances, willing to forgive. Pete,
too, made a speech—a jerky, inartistic, vehement little harangue,
strong in patriotism though weak in rhetoric, which was uproariously
applauded. Then the cheers were let loose, a din that made the windows
rattle and caused the neighbors for half a block to regret that they had
not fixed upon an earlier date for migrating to the quiet of the
country. “_It clamor cœlo_,” muttered Mr. Stevens, senior classical
master, with a quiet smile, and he stole away to his own recitation room
to save his ear-drums.
Almost as noisy was the welcome given a few days later to the cup
itself, when it made its second appearance before the school, coming
this time for a year’s sojourn. President John, who had gulped down the
bitter medicine which had been forced upon him, and now was trying to
forget the taste of it, sent with the trophy a flowery note which Mr.
Westcott read to an appreciative audience.
“I’ll bet he swore when he wrote that,” whispered Wilmot to his
seat-mate.
Pete nodded. “It must have come hard. When he showed the thing to us
last fall, I never expected to see it here again.”
“They probably can’t keep it another year,” said Steve, loftily. “There
won’t be much here after we leave.”
But the little boys of big faith, in the front seats, who were straining
their eyes to make out the inscription on the first shield, had not
shared the anxieties of their elders, nor did they now worry about the
year to come. They had known all along that their champions could be
trusted to bring the school colors out on top, while as for the
future—what future was there but the June examinations and the summer
vacation?
One more formality had still to be attended to before the athletic
season could be declared closed,—the election of a captain of the crew
for the next year. It was merely a formality, for, since Roger Hardie
was the only one of the five who would not graduate, the choice was
strictly limited.
“It’s a great honor to be captain of the Westcott crew,” said Roger, as
he came downstairs with Pete after the meeting, “but I wish there had
been some competition. It’s like winning a race by default.”
“You didn’t do any defaulting in the race,” replied Talbot, somewhat
illogically, “though I was a good deal troubled about you early in the
season. I had a guilty conscience for several weeks.”
“Why?”
“Because I had prevented your being made captain of the eleven.”
“I knew you did. You didn’t think I was fit for it. I didn’t blame you.”
“Nonsense! I wanted you for the crew captain next year. I took long
odds, and I couldn’t explain because I couldn’t be sure you’d make good.
At one time I thought you never would.”
Roger gave a laugh of contentment. “I was an awful dub at first. Wilmot
wanted to fire me out of the pair-oar.”
“And I wouldn’t let him,” said Pete, complacently. “I thought you had
the stuff in you, if we could only bring it out. Next year you’ll be
first lord of the school, and I shall be lost among six hundred
freshmen.”
“Lost!” echoed Roger, derisively. “Anybody can find _you_ easy enough,
if he’ll only search the freshman boat. Your seat will be down somewhere
near the stern.”
THE END.
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were only made consistent
when a predominant form was found in this book: e.g. “practice”
and “programe.”
○ Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The School Four" ***
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