// ppgen source intheline-src.txt
// 20170529100959dudley
// KD Weeks, The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
// first edit: 12/23/2017
.dt In the Line, by Albertus T. Dudley
.de a:link { text-decoration: none; }
.de div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA;border:1px solid silver; margin:1em 5% 0 5%; text-align: justify;}
.de .blackletter { font-family: "Old English Text MT", Gothic, serif;}
.de .epubonly {visibility: hidden; display: none; }
.de @media handheld { .epubonly { visibility: visible; display: inline; } }
.de .htmlonly {visibility: visible; display: inline;}
.de @media handheld { .htmlonly { visibility: hidden; display: none; } }
.de div.box { text-align:center; border:1px solid black; width:60%; padding:1em; margin:auto;}
.de .column-container { margin: auto; clear: both; }
.de .left { display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: bottom; width:49%; }
.de .right { display: inline-block; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; width:49%; }
.de .sigleft { display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: bottom; width:34%; }
.de .sigright { display: inline-block; text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom; width:64%; }
.de ins.correction { text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray; }
.de .quote { font-size: 95%; margin-top: 1.0em; margin-bottom: 1.0em; }
.de .linegroup .group { margin: 0em auto; }
.sr t |\[oe\]|œ|
.sr h |text-align: left; text-indent: -1em;|text-align: justify; text-indent: -1em;|
.sr h |||
.sr h |||
.sr t || =|
.sr t ||=|
// create errata table page references
.dm cref $1
.if t
$1
.if-
.if h
#$1:corr$1#
.if-
.dm-
// create markup
.dm corr_noid $1 $2
.if h
$2
.if-
.dm-
.dm corr $1 $2 $3
.if t
$3
.if-
.if h
$3$3
.if-
.dm-
.dm start_summary
.fs 90%
.in 4
.ti -4
.dm-
.dm end_summary
.fs 100%
.in
.dm-
//Begin quote
.dm start_quote
.if t
.in 2
.if-
.if h
.dv class='quote'
.if-
.dm-
//End Quote
.dm end_quote
.if h
.dv-
.if-
.if t
.in
.if-
.dm-
// Begin Poetry
.dm start_poem
.sp 1
.fs 95%
.nf b
.dm-
// End Poetry
.dm end_poem
.nf-
.fs 100%
.sp 1
.dm-
.pb
.pi
.dv class='tnotes'
.ce
Transcriber’s Note:
.if t
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical
effects. Italics are delimited as _italic_. Bold characters are
delimited as =bold=.
.if-
The few footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they
are referenced.
.if h
.il fn=cover.jpg w=60%
.if-
.dv-
.bn 001.png
.sp 4
.ce
IN THE LINE
.sp 4
.bn 002.png
.ni
.dv class='box'
.ce
The Phillips Exeter Series.
.hr 20%
.ce
By ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY.
.hr 20%
FOLLOWING THE BALL.
.in 4
.nf l
Illustrated by Charles Copeland. Price,
$1.25.
.nf-
.in
MAKING THE NINE.
.in 4
.nf l
Illustrated by Charles Copeland and from
Photographs of Scenes at Exeter. Price,
$1.25.
.nf-
.in
IN THE LINE.
.in 4
.nf l
Illustrated by Charles Copeland. Price,
$1.25.
.nf-
.in
.dv-
.pi
.bn 003.png
.bn 004.png
.il fn=i004.jpg w=365px ew=60% cw=120%
.ca Down the two went in a whirl of legs.—Page 290.
.bn 005.png
.ce
PHILLIPS EXETER SERIES
.hr 90%
.h1
IN THE LINE
.sp 4
.nf c
BY
ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY
AUTHOR OF “FOLLOWING THE BALL” AND “MAKING
THE NINE”
ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES COPELAND
.nf-
.il fn=i005.jpg w=75px ew=15%
.nf c
BOSTON.
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
.nf-
.bn 006.png
.sp 8
.nf c
Copyright, 1905, by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company.
Published, August, 1905.
.nf-
.hr 10%
.ce
All Rights Reserved
.hr 10%
.ce
In The Line.
.sp 8
.ce
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
.bn 007.png
.sp 8
.nf c
TO MY ADVISERS AND HELPERS
F. P. D. AND W. P. D.
.nf-
.bn 008.png
.bn 009.png
.pn vii
.sp 4
.h2
PREFACE
.sp 2
In the Line is a story of school life and
football rather than of football and school life.
In its football it is meant to supplement Following
the Ball, as With Mask and Mit in
its baseball will supplement Making the Nine,
each book emphasizing a different department
of play. The story is in no sense history, and
no attempt has been made to describe actual
persons.
The case for football presented in Chapters
XX and XXII is believed to be a fair and candid
statement of facts with regard to the game
as they are known to those most familiar with
it. American Rugby football is here, and here
to stay, not because of its æsthetic virtues, but
because it appeals irresistibly to the Anglo-Saxon
heart. In twenty years, against ignorant criticism
and bitter opposition, it has established
.bn 010.png
.pn +1
itself in every section of the country. It has
merits which can neither be argued away nor
overborne by abuse; it has conspicuous faults.
Eliminate “dirty football” and the playing of
unfit or unfairly matched men, provide for the
players proper supervision in their practice and
strict officials in their matches,—and the dangers
of the game, with all serious grounds of
objection, will be removed.
Particular thanks for helpful suggestions as
to guard play are due Mr. Joseph T. Gilman,
a veteran of the Dartmouth eleven, whose mastery
of the technique of his position has been
proved in many a hard contest and against
many a clever antagonist.
.ll 66
.rj
ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY.
.ll
Boston, April, 1905.
.bn 011.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CONTENTS
.ta l:60 r:6
CHAPTER I
| PAGE
Raw Material | #1#
CHAPTER II
Acquaintances | #12#
CHAPTER III
The New Mandolin | #25#
CHAPTER IV
Weighed and Measured | #33#
CHAPTER V
In the Gymnasium | #42#
CHAPTER VI
Industries of the Twins | #52#
CHAPTER VII
No Thoroughfare | #64#
CHAPTER VIII
Politics | #75#
.bn 012.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER IX
The Concert at Eastham | #84#
CHAPTER X
Victims | #105#
CHAPTER XI
Buying Tacks | #113#
CHAPTER XII
The Halo Fades | #124#
CHAPTER XIII
Red Retribution | #136#
CHAPTER XIV
Patron and Client | #150#
CHAPTER XV
The Silent Partner | #164#
CHAPTER XVI
A Celebration | #181#
CHAPTER XVII
Back Again | #194#
CHAPTER XVIII
Football | #207#
.bn 013.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER XIX
More Football | #219#
CHAPTER XX
A Round Robin | #231#
CHAPTER XXI
A Loophole | #240#
CHAPTER XXII
Expert Opinion | #252#
CHAPTER XXIII
The First Half | #263#
CHAPTER XXIV
The Game Ends | #284#
CHAPTER XXV
On the Way Home | #297#
.ta-
.bn 014.png
.pn +1
.bn 015.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
ILLUSTRATIONS
.ta h:50 r:16 bl=n
Down the two went in a whirl of legs | Frontispiece
| PAGE
Durand ... walked deliberately back to the\
cushioned space | #47:i063#
“Pick up that hat, do you hear!” | #118:i137#
The pile that covered the ball three yards beyond | #271:i291#
.ta-
.bn 016.png
.bn 017.png
.pn 1
.pb
.ce
IN THE LINE
.hr 15%
.h2
CHAPTER I | RAW MATERIAL
.sp 2
Wolcott Lindsay Senior, with Wolcott
Lindsay Junior, and Wolcott Junior’s Mamma,
arrived in Boston on New Year’s day, after
buffeting for sixty hours against a furious
northwest storm that left the great ice-coated
liner looking like a glass ship taken from a
globe on the nursery shelf and magnified a thousand
times. Wolcott Junior, being a healthy,
vigorous youth, with thousands of footpounds
of energy running hourly to waste, and having
the overweening confidence in his own powers
which distinguishes some otherwise very attractive
specimens of American boyhood, had found the
restraint of the cabin extremely irksome. Had
.bn 018.png
.pn +1
the voyage lasted much longer, he must have
discovered some means of getting by the barriers
which kept him in safe imprisonment.
In that case there might have been no Wolcott
Lindsay Junior, and no story of “In the Line”
to be written.
“Junior,” as his mother called him, was not
one to slip by a sentinel unobserved. Five feet
eleven in height, unshod; one hundred seventy-five
pounds in weight, unclothed; with heart
and lungs unstrained by growth, and muscles
already swelling in significant bunches and
bands, he looked more like a college junior
than a raw boy not yet eighteen, still unripe
for entrance examinations.
“Ridiculous,” his father had said, lifting his
eyes from their five-foot-six-inch level and
measuring the whole length and breadth of his
offspring,—“perfectly ridiculous to be so big!
Why, if you keep on at this rate you’ll be as
much out of place in an average house as a
rhinoceros in a garret. And not yet even a
sub-freshman!”
“Now, Wolcott!” expostulated Mrs. Lindsay,
.bn 019.png
.pn +1
“you know that’s not fair. If you had told us
we were going to stay in Hamburg two years
instead of six months, we should have put him
in a good school or had a tutor for him. It
isn’t his fault if he’s behind; he hasn’t had a
fair chance.”
At this the expression on the face of Lindsay
père changed. “He shall have chance enough
when we get home. No more conversation lessons
in French and German, or reading novels
for vocabulary, or going to the theatre for pronunciation,
or rowing on the Elster with that
learned fool, Herr Doktor Krauss; but old-fashioned
Latin and Greek and mathematics
in some good, stiff school, under a clear-headed
American teacher. Too bad that the boy
couldn’t have had a touch of the Hamburger
Gymnasium!”
At this suggestion that hard things were in
store for the young man, Mrs. Lindsay looked
worried, and Junior assumed an air of indifference
that cloaked his real feeling, which was
one of joy to be coming home again to boys of
his own race and kind, and of willingness to put
.bn 020.png
.pn +1
up with any school or any work, however
“stiff,” so long as it was American and with
Americans.
Aunt Emmeline met them at the dock. Aunt
Emmeline was Mr. Lindsay’s sister, like him and
yet differing from him as sisters are wont to
differ from brothers. Both were in a sense
aristocrats; both thought much of the family
name and the family history, but their points
of view were widely variant. Mr. Lindsay felt
strongly that the possession of ancestors who
had served their generation faithfully and well,
pledged the descendants to the same ratio of
achievement. His constant fear was that he
should fail to maintain the standard which the
forefathers had set. Aunt Emmeline, on the
other hand, regarded the family past as a legacy
bequeathed for the glorification of the present.
Gentle and charitable and good, she yet loved to
think of the Lindsays as an essentially superior
race, whom it behooved to keep themselves aloof
from the common modern herd, and contemplate
in reverence the ancient family greatness.
Both Mr. Lindsay and his sister were experts
.bn 021.png
.pn +1
in the family genealogy. The brother loved to
tell of the Lindsay who left a comfortable
English benefice to guide a little flock in the
wilderness; of the farmer who, with his
two sons, ambushed a dozen Indians who
attacked his house in the Pequot wars; of
the young lieutenant who followed the desperate
fortunes of Paul Jones, and was cut in
two by a cannon-ball from the Serapis. Miss
Emmeline took little interest in the pioneers and
the farmers of the family tree. Her tales were
of the laces and jewels of Barbara Wolcott, wife
of the attorney-general; of the splendid plate
lost in the mansion of the great-great-uncle in
New Jersey, when pillaged by the Hessians; of
the fine estate of the one Tory member of the
family, whose daughter became the wife of Lord
Stanley of Stanley Hall, Roebuckshire. Aunt
Emmeline hoped that Wolcott would exemplify
the fine manners and superior breeding of his
be-ruffled ancestors; Mr. Lindsay that he might
show some traces of the good sense, courage, and
sterling worth of the builders and defenders of
the colony. And in this hulking, overgrown
.bn 022.png
.pn +1
fellow, no longer a boy and not yet a man, both
felt some disappointment.
A few days were required to get the family
used to solid earth again, and for picking up the
threads of existence severed two years before.
Meantime Mr. Lindsay made inquiries for a
school for his son. He himself believed in the
public schools, not as some of his neighbors, in
theory and for other people’s children, but in
theory and for his own. Mr. Lindsay had ever
the courage of his convictions. So strong was
this faith that Mrs. Lindsay, who favored a
private school, and Aunt Emmeline, who adored
St. Susan’s, had each abandoned her own pet
scheme for “little Wolcott,” in the conviction
that the public school was inevitable. When,
therefore, the head of the family returned one
day with the news that Junior, on account of
the irregularity of his previous training, and
the inflexible system which the public schools
maintained, could not prepare at the Latin
School without great loss of time, the discussion
of schools over Junior’s head, or rather under
his nose, became serious. With the public
.bn 023.png
.pn +1
school out of the field, each lady thought to
see her own choice adopted. Miss Emmeline’s
arguments, boiled down, were that Dr. Cummin,
at the head of St. Susan’s, was “such a good man”
and some very nice boys went there,—boys,
that is, of approved mothers and grandfathers,—and
they certainly came back with lovely
manners. Mrs. Lindsay urged that the private
school offered good instruction, the companionship
of boys of the neighborhood, and what was
to her of much more account, the opportunity to
keep the fledgling a little longer at home. Mr.
Lindsay listened, questioned, and like a wise man
took time to consider and talk with his friends.
And here was the undoing of both the fond
mamma and the solicitous aunt. Mr. Lindsay
met Friend Number One at his club at luncheon.
“Do you know anything about schools?”
asked the father. “I am looking for the best
place in which to put my son. I hear that St.
Susan’s is very highly recommended.”
Number One looked at him a moment in
thoughtful silence. “Do you? Yes, I suppose
some people must recommend it.”
.bn 024.png
.pn +1
“I infer that you do not. What do you
know against it?”
“I know this,” replied the man, energetically;
“my nephew entered Harvard last fall from
St. Susan’s with a reputation for piety and
goodness that any saint might have envied. In
three months that fellow had gone to pieces in
the temptations of the unaccustomed life like
a rotten ship dashed by a hurricane against a
reef. He was about as well fitted for the freedom
the college offers as I am for the prize
ring. Why don’t you put your boy into a good
private school right here in the city?”
A little later Mr. Lindsay fell in with Friend
Number Two. “Do you know anything about
private schools in Boston?”
“Private schools? Yes, there are two or
three good ones here,—a little snobbish, of
course, but good schools none the less. Ask
Tom Smith about them. He’s got two boys
in one of them.”
But Mr. Lindsay had no intention of consulting
Tom Smith. Snobbishness was his pet
aversion; the very mention of the possibility
.bn 025.png
.pn +1
aroused a vehement prejudice. Without stopping
to inquire whether the charge were true or
false, he abandoned all thought of a private
school for the lordly Wolcott Junior, and drifted
on to Friend Number Three with mind swept
clear of all prepossessions.
Friend Number Three had positive convictions.
He was an enthusiastic partisan of
the rah-rah sort, alive to the merits and blind
to the faults of the school of his boyhood. He
knew exactly the place for Wolcott Junior,
democratic, cosmopolitan, of high standard of
scholarship, with a system of government tending
to develop moral independence, and boasting
a history rich in names of men of action and
service. It happened that the merits which the
loyal alumnus ascribed to Seaton were precisely
those which Mr. Lindsay thought it most important
that a school should possess. It happened
also that the next two men consulted gave opinions
which either negatively or positively supported
Number Three. As a result and despite
the preferences of the ladies of the family, Wolcott’s
school future was determined. Within a
.bn 026.png
.pn +1
week after his arrival in Boston he was packing
his trunk for Seaton.
It need hardly be said that this method of
selecting a school, while unquestionably typical,
would not always lead to the same result.
Friend Number Four, for example, might have
contradicted Number Three and Number One,
and by lauding St. Susan’s to the skies, have
sent the son of the house to the school of Aunt
Emmeline’s choice. Or, if the case had been
thoroughly investigated, the private school
might easily have won the favorable decision.
As it was, Mr. Lindsay, in considering the boy
and his needs as well as his own ideals, proceeded
rather more rationally than the average
parent. Many a boy is placed in a particular
school merely on the strength of a specious
advertisement. Some are ejected from home
rather than sent to school, the destination being
of much less consequence to the selfish parents
than their own relief from responsibility. Others
again, through unwholesome dread of evil influences,
are turned over to a family of under-masters
who wait on them and think for them
.bn 027.png
.pn +1
and keep them in prolonged infancy. But these
are extremes of neglect or solicitude. In the
end the school is but the opportunity, the vital
force is the boy. If the boy is wrong, no school
can make him right. Given the right boy in
the hands of competent, conscientious men, and
the form of the school makes little difference.
So thought Mr. Lindsay as he said good-by to
his strapping son at Seaton station; and he
boarded the train with a clear conscience.
.bn 028.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER II | ACQUAINTANCES
.sp 2
Lindsay was registered as a middler. Being
weak in Latin and Greek, and strong in French
and German, he found himself spread over three
classes, pushed ahead in modern languages, and
degraded among the juniors in classics. To
this mixture of classes and associates he resigned
himself the more readily, as he honestly
purposed to do what the school authorities advised,
maintain his position in the middle and
senior subjects and work his way up out of the
junior class. But the experience of the first
few days did not strengthen his confidence. To
hear these young boys rattle off declensions and
principal parts, run through synopses as he
might run through the alphabet, give glib translations
of passages through which he must toil
.bn 029.png
.pn +1
his slow and painful way; to see how with
every question on ablative or subjunctive, the
air quivered with the hands of those eager to
answer—all this, with the distractions of
strange boys and their stranger acts added to
the bewilderment of unfamiliar surroundings,
plunged him in despair.
In the junior class were the Peck twins,
Duncan and Donald. If ever two lads started
in life with an exactly equal chance, it was
this light-haired, snub-nosed, solemn-eyed pair.
Externally as much alike as bullets cast in the
same mould, they wore clothes of the same material
and cut, bought neckties and hats by pairs,
and from the spirit of fun which twinship seems
to develop even in the sedatest couple, habitually
appeared in the same dress at the same
time. In actions, too, they were a unit; they
attended the same recitations, held the same
views, trained with the same set, and, in general,
shared each other’s joys and sorrows and stood
by each other in time of trouble in a manner
most unusual to brothers.
Unfortunately, however, alike as were their
.bn 030.png
.pn +1
appearance and interests, nature had endowed
them with very different mental characteristics.
Donald was an excellent scholar, in fact almost
bookish, easily ranking among the best. Duncan
on the contrary, who inclined decidedly to
heaviness, bumped along at the bottom of the
class, carried by the general momentum. If he
ever was ready with an answer in the class
room, the chances were that he knew as much
about it as the receiver of a telephone knows
about the message which passes through it. A
prompt and correct answer in Duncan’s mouth
was suspicious; it usually came from Donald,
or some other sympathetic friend who understood
the art of conveying information undetected,
and who shared the delusion that in this
way he was performing a neighborly service.
Among boys who really knew the twins, the
heavy Duncan with his slow, droll ways and
never failing good nature was unquestionably
the favorite. As a rule, however, since the
majority could not distinguish them when they
were together, and only their most intimate
friends could identify them singly, the qualities
.bn 031.png
.pn +1
of the brothers were lumped together in a composite,
and credited to “the Pecks.” That this
represented the just point of view, the conduct
of the pair clearly showed, for each was a loyal
admirer of the other, and inevitably shared in
the other’s glory or disgrace.
The system of mutual coöperation which the
twins regularly followed was responsible for
Lindsay’s first failure in recitation. It occurred
in junior Greek. The Pecks sat side by side
as subdued as sleeping kittens, while Mr. Warner
passed along the row with his questions.
Donald responded promptly and correctly.
The instructor beamed with satisfaction over
the success of his method of instruction; the
answers were flawless. Then Tom Riley—Wolcott
did not know him at that time—had
doubts about a contraction, and persisted in his
doubts until Mr. Warner was forced to leave
his chair and chalk the forms in plain view
upon the board. The moment the instructor’s
back was turned, the twins quietly shifted
places, and waited in complacent patience until
Riley was satisfied, when a second flawless recitation
.bn 032.png
.pn +1
was credited to the Peck family. And
while Wolcott was staring and trying to make
out what was happening and which boy was
reciting, the questions had passed from the
twins’ row to his own, and he suddenly heard
his own name called, felt the blood rush to his
face as he strove to find the place and fix his
fluttering attention. There was a moment of
terrible silence, while the lines of type blurred
themselves over the section marks, and the
page seemed to swell and decrease like a landscape
behind a moving lens; then the impatient
hands began again their furious waving, another
boy gave the answer which was hovering on
Wolcott’s lips, and the fire of questions swept
on to another row. It was certainly the fault
of the twins.
In the middle class Lindsay sat between
Laughlin and Marchmont, two neighbors as
opposite as north and south, while just beyond
was Poole. Laughlin was captain of the Eleven
for the next year, a big, broad-shouldered, heavy-featured
fellow of twenty-one, with a face on
which rested the glow of rare physical health,
.bn 033.png
.pn +1
and massive hands in which any book but the
biggest lexicon seemed out of place. His
clothes, though neither of fine quality nor of
good fit, were well brushed and clean, and the
broad thumb which lay at the folding of the
book, covering completely the double margin, if
roughened and hardened by exposure and labor,
still gave evidence of the personal neatness of
its owner. David Laughlin had not a quick
mind,—that one could read in the expression
of his face, in which honesty and determination
were more apparent than alertness. But he
learned his lessons as thoroughly as he knew
how, gave his whole attention to the class-room
work, and as a result ranked above many who
were by nature cleverer.
Marchmont, Lindsay’s other neighbor, has
been called the opposite of Laughlin. He was
tall and slim, possessed delicate, intelligent features
and white, shapely hands; wore clothes of
fine material which in smoothness of fit and
moderation of style showed the skilled hand of
the city tailor; took a negligent interest in the
recitation, and answered questions addressed
.bn 034.png
.pn +1
to him with sufficient readiness to satisfy the
instructor without displaying an unseemly eagerness
for learning.
At the first glance Wolcott made up his mind
that he should like Marchmont and dislike
Laughlin. The impression which the latter conveyed,
of roughness and brute force and determination
to make his way in spite of early
disadvantages, was repellent to the young man
fresh from a European city where distinctions
of class and wealth are everywhere magnified.
Marchmont, on the other hand, had the appearance
and manners of one familiar with the
usages of good society.
Lindsay passed out of his first recitation with
the middlers feeling much alone among the
jostling crowd of chattering boys. Many
glanced at him with curiosity, taking quick
measure of the newcomer, but few wasted words
upon him; an unknown boy stands at zero
in the Seaton world. Laughlin brushed against
him, nodded, said “Hello!” and asked if he
had ever played foot-ball. When Lindsay modestly
answered “a little,” Laughlin gave a sharp
.bn 035.png
.pn +1
look at his shoulders and arms, and turned, apparently
indifferent, to talk with another boy.
Poole, a quiet, dignified lad, whose importance
in the school world one could guess from the
eagerness with which others addressed him,
seemed disposed to be polite to the newcomer,
gave him his hand and the information that he
was “in the best class in school.” Marchmont
joined him in the corridor and accompanied him
to the entrance of Hale, where Wolcott had
slipped into a room recently vacated. Yes,
Marchmont was decidedly the most attractive
fellow he had seen.
A senior, named Tompkins, living next door,
was our hero’s first caller. The visit was an unusual
honor, had Wolcott but known it, for new
boys are ordinarily left alone until they have
shown themselves worth knowing. Tompkins
introduced himself and straddled a rocking-chair.
“Well, how do you like it as far as you’ve
got?” asked the senior, glancing around the
room to see what kind of things Lindsay had
brought with him, and then making a general
summing-up on the new boy himself.
.bn 036.png
.pn +1
“Pretty well,” replied Lindsay. “I don’t
feel quite at home yet.”
“You’ll be homesick for about a week, dead
homesick. After that you’ll begin to get used
to things, like a prisoner to the jail. In two
or three months you’ll think you’ve always
lived here, and by the time you’ve been here a
couple of years you’ll be so fond of the place
that you’ll hate to leave it to go to college.
Where do you live when you’re at home?”
“Boston.”
“Why, you’re right in your own dooryard!
You’ve no call to be homesick. It might be
different if you lived in a cañon twenty-five
hundred miles away, as I do.”
“I didn’t say I was homesick,” protested
Lindsay.
“That’s a fact, you didn’t! I wonder how
I got the idea we were talking about homesickness.”
Wolcott looked sharply at Tompkins, suspicious,
as every new boy in strange surroundings,
that he was being played upon. But Tompkins
merely blinked in return with his blank
.bn 037.png
.pn +1
four-cornered eyes, and Wolcott’s suspicions
vanished.
“I should think it would grow monotonous
after a while,” he said, “just studying and reciting
and going to chapel and the gymnasium.”
Tompkins grinned. “Beastly monotonous;
but that programme doesn’t exist outside the
school catalogue. The fact is there’s so everlasting
much going on that it seems wicked to
waste time on such ordinary things as studying
and going to recitations. That’s what Smith
and Wilder thought.”
And as Lindsay naturally wished to know
about Smith and Wilder, Tompkins consented
to explain.
“They had this room earlier in the year.
Smith came all the way from Omaha for the
benefits of the institution. He cut four recitations
in two weeks and the third week he was
on his way back to the West. Then Wilder
turned up and took the room. He wasn’t a
strong boy, his mother said, and she got him
excused from gymnasium on a doctor’s certificate.
I never heard whether all the cigarettes
.bn 038.png
.pn +1
he smoked were on the doctor’s certificate, too,
but he proved too sickly to stand the strain,
and after a couple of months was sent home to
his mamma. You’re the third.”
Lindsay smiled uneasily. “I hope there
isn’t a hoodoo on the place.”
“Oh, no, nothing special. They fire here by
platoons. According to Tom Riley this is a
record year,—fifty-two to date—and the firing
season is just under way. What are you, middler
or senior? I saw you to-day in senior
French.”
“I’m a mixture of senior and middler, with
two subjects in the junior,” replied Lindsay,
who was beginning to feel ashamed of his amphibious
position.
“Then you must be with the two Pecks.
I’d give a silver dollar to be with that combination.
They’re more fun than a box of
monkeys!”
“They room in this entry, don’t they?”
asked Lindsay.
“Very much so, and they’re always running
in and out, singly and in pairs, and always up
.bn 039.png
.pn +1
to some shine or other. If you didn’t know
that there were only two, you’d feel sure there
was at least a bushel of them.”
“Instead of half,” said Lindsay, smiling.
“Just half,” returned Tompkins. “Know
any fellows yet?”
“Two or three have spoken to me. Marchmont,
who seems a very nice fellow, and Poole,
and that big Laughlin.”
Tompkins rose. “You’d better be a bit careful
about making friends until you know who’s
who. In a school like this it isn’t so easy to
shake friends as it is to make ’em. But you
won’t be going wrong to tie up with Phil Poole,
if he gives you the chance.”
But Lindsay’s thoughts were not so much
with the present members of the school as with
the exiles. “If they fire as many as you say,
I shouldn’t think there’d be any bad ones left.”
“Oh, bless you! fellows aren’t fired merely
because they’re bad! Some are unlucky, and
some are lazy, and some are considered better
off elsewhere, and some are too big blockheads
to keep. There are really only two punishments
.bn 040.png
.pn +1
in this school, firing with warning and
firing without. So they drop off pretty fast.
The main thing, if you want to stay here, is to
behave yourself and do your work. Come and
see me.”
And Tompkins withdrew his body from between
the door and jamb, where it had been
resting during his last speech, leaving the new
boy with many unuttered questions on his lips
and much wonderment in his mind.
.bn 041.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER III | THE NEW MANDOLIN
.sp 2
Wolcott’s acquaintance grew apace, though
limited mainly to fellows of his own class section
or dormitory entry, or of his own table
at the dining hall. His section presented a
wide range of Seaton personality. Tompkins,
who having failed his preliminaries had fallen
into this section in two subjects, declared that
it had samples of everything the place offered
except Japanese, Cubans, and twins—and the
privilege of twins Wolcott enjoyed in another
class.
There were the few greater athletes—members
of the school teams; the many minor
athletes—members of the class teams; the
natural students who did nothing but study;
the natural loafers who studied as little as
possible; the son of the multi-millionaire with
.bn 042.png
.pn +1
resources unlimited; the son of the laborer,
with no resources except his own head and
hands; the religious boy with a strong purpose,
who helped keep on a high level the moral tone
of the school; the rattlehead without purpose,
always on the verge of expulsion; the literary
boy, the musical boy, the embryo artist, the
natural clown, the politician. With most of
these Wolcott was soon on speaking terms,
aided in his knowledge of them by the personal
anecdotes with which any general conversation
bristled.
Marchmont’s desire to be friendly was shown
in an early recitation, when in a very inconspicuous
way he supplied Wolcott with a date
for the question in Greek history which the
instructor had suddenly shot at him. To tell
the truth, Wolcott was not entirely satisfied
with this method of reciting. He meant to
inform Marchmont that he preferred to answer
his own questions without assistance. After
the recitation, however, Laughlin presumed to
take him aside and tell him in very plain
language that it wasn’t a good plan to let
.bn 043.png
.pn +1
fellows prompt him in class; it was against
the rules and risky, and anyway didn’t
pay in the long run. Wolcott thanked the
giver of this unasked advice with cool
politeness and head held high. And when,
immediately after, Marchmont appeared at
his elbow and invited him to “come up to
the room for a few minutes,” he accepted with
ostentatious alacrity, merely to show his disapproval
of the liberty which the football
player had taken.
Marchmont’s very attractive quarters, on
the second floor of a private house, were fitted
up in unusually good taste. The occupant
was indeed a very different fellow from Laughlin.
It was evident that he had not spent his
summers at manual labor, and his winters in
hard study and close economy. Marchmont’s
family belonged to the more pretentious circles
of New York society. He himself had already
been in several schools, had travelled more
extensively than Wolcott, and spoke with an
air of worldly experience and wisdom with
which the new boy could not but be impressed.
.bn 044.png
.pn +1
As Wolcott hurried home for the geometry
lesson, for which he had meant to save two
good hours, he was dismayed to find that his
call had extended well into the second hour.
The next day Marchmont made a return
visit. On Lindsay’s table lay the mandolin
which he had hardly touched since he entered
school. Marchmont took up the instrument
and lightly fingered the strings.
“Has a good tone,” remarked the visitor.
“Get it in Hamburg?”
“Yes. Do you play?”
“A little. I belong to the Mandolin Club.
Play something.”
He held out the mandolin to its owner, who
took it with reluctance and with some clumsiness
of touch, due rather to shyness than
inability, drummed through one of the modern
banjo airs which all amateurs inevitably learn.
Marchmont nodded approval. “That’s good.
Do you play by note?”
“Yes, I think I can do better with the notes,” replied
Lindsay, sinking back in his chair with obvious
relief. “I don’t remember things very well.”
.bn 045.png
.pn +1
“You ought to be in the Mandolin Club,”
said Marchmont. He took up the mandolin
and played over a few bars of the music that
Lindsay had just performed—carelessly and
with his thoughts evidently upon some other
subject, yet with an ease and finish that called
to Lindsay’s lips an exclamation of admiration.
“It’s the proper club to belong to, if you’re
musical,” went on Marchmont; “has the nice
fellows in it, you know—fellows like Poole and
Planter and Reynolds. The common crowd go
into the Glee Club. Laughlin is head bellower
there.”
“Can he sing any?” asked Lindsay, smiling.
“About as you would expect from a big,
rough bull like him. You know it takes something
more than a deep voice and a big chest to
make a singer.”
“I don’t suppose I could get into the Mandolin
Club,” said Lindsay, longingly.
Marchmont considered. “It’s pretty hard
to get a fellow in at this time of year. Of
course, if you are a cracker-jack, the one and
.bn 046.png
.pn +1
only great player, the Club would probably
stretch a little and let you in.”
“But I’m not,” said Lindsay.
Marchmont considered further. “I’ll tell
you what,” he said at length, “I have some
influence in the Club, and I’ll try to persuade
them that you ought to come in. What can
you play best?”
Lindsay enumerated the half-dozen tunes
of his repertoire which he was least likely to
bungle.
“You take ‘Bluebell’ and practise it until
you can do it asleep. Then I’ll give Poole and
Reynolds the notion that you’re a mandolin
artist, and bring them round to hear you.
They’ll ask you what you can play, and when
you name several things, I’ll call for ‘Bluebell.’
You can have an encore ready in case it’s
demanded, and I’ll plan it so that the bell will
ring, or something happen to break off the trial
at that point. I think we can work it all
right.”
Lindsay hesitated. “That doesn’t seem
exactly a square deal.”
.bn 047.png
.pn +1
“Oh, it’s all right. You’ll do as well as
most of ’em when you get in and have some
practice.”
For the next few days Lindsay toiled over
“Bluebell,” until the occupant of the room above
began thumping on the floor whenever the familiar
strains sifted through to his ears. Then
came the appointment of an hour for the hearing,
and the dreaded visitation of the critics.
It was a serious moment for the musician,
when, after the little introductory farce which
Marchmont had arranged, he took his mandolin
and boldly launched forth on the hundredth
presentation of “Bluebell.” What mattered
it if the last bars did receive a staccato accompaniment
by heels on the floor above? The
committee were suitably impressed, heard the
encore with approval, and adjourned with the
assurance that the candidate should have their
unanimous commendation—and the commendation
of the committee, Marchmont confided to
him later in the day, was always equivalent
to an election. Lindsay shook his hand in a
fervor of gratitude.
.bn 048.png
.pn +1
That evening Poole walked up from the post
office with Laughlin and Durand.
“At last we’ve got another mandolin,” said
Poole; “that new Lindsay. You know we’ve
been looking for one a long time.”
“Any good?” asked Durand.
“Not remarkable, but decidedly better than
nothing. We’ve simply got to have some one
to make the balance. Marchmont has promised
to help him, too.”
.bn 049.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER IV | WEIGHED AND MEASURED
.sp 2
From this time on Wolcott began to feel
himself a part of the Seaton life. Through the
Mandolin Club he added several very agreeable
fellows to his list of acquaintances, while his
vanity was flattered by the thought that he was
no longer the last of four hundred, but one of
a selected few. As an immediate result he was
thrown much more with Marchmont, with
whom he undertook to practise regularly, and
soon became intimate.
There was much in the character of Marchmont
to impress the new boy. His attitude was
always that of a person superior to those about
him. He seemed to look up to no one,—instructor,
scholar, senior, or athlete. The faculty
he regarded as good enough in their way, but
narrow-minded. Laughlin he either derided as
.bn 050.png
.pn +1
a country boor, or contemptuously praised as a
Roman noble might have praised a successful
gladiator. Tompkins was a cowboy, Poole a
prig, Planter a very decent sort of a fellow.
Lindsay he seemed to count as one of his own
class—a distinction of which Wolcott was
made to feel the whole complimentary force.
In his general point of view Marchmont
differed wholly from the average Seatonian.
He had no particular ambition, unless to get
through school without being expelled, or to
slip safely into college. He cared little about
lessons, but much about the condition and the
perfection of his attire. He had no interest in
athletics except as a passing show; his notion
of proper exercise was horseback riding and fencing.
He could talk, when necessary, on almost
any subject, but his favorite topics were automobiles,
horse-races, and the theatre. While the
democratic spirit of the school did not please
him and he found few fellows wholly to his
liking among his classmates, his chief grievances
seemed to be the food served at his boarding-house,
and the necessity of getting up for eight
.bn 051.png
.pn +1
o’clock chapel. The first he tried to remedy by
little messes prepared in his room on a chafing
dish; the second, being irremediable, he had
to endure. He was not popular, for his manners
were too supercilious to please the average
boy, who is instinctively democratic and always
admires the fellow who can do something rather
than the fellow who claims to be something;
but in a certain small coterie he ranked as
king.
Lindsay’s introduction to work in the gymnasium
was a novel experience. Here he was
stripped, weighed, measured in height, girth of
limbs and chest; tested in strength of back and
arms and legs. Later he was given a chart with
his measurements and strength plotted in lines
upon it, so as to show his relative condition
compared with the average for his age; and a
card with directions as to the particular exercise
which he needed to develop his weaker
parts. All this the boy took, as he took much
that was new to him in the school, with curiosity
and temporary interest.
There was one circumstance, however, in connection
.bn 052.png
.pn +1
with the examination, that made a
deeper impression. When the measurements
and the testing were over, Mr. Doane asked,
“Did you ever play football?”
A week before entering school Wolcott would
have answered immediately “yes.” But he
had heard so much, in the few days that he
had spent at Seaton, of the hard games played,
of the great contests with Hillbury about which
the athletic life of the school centred, of the
high standard of the school teams, and what
“playing football” really meant to the Seatonian,
that he had almost said “no.”
“A very little,” he replied.
“I think you have football in you,” went on
the director. “By that I mean that you have
fine, solid organs, and muscles developing well;
while from the little I have seen of you, I should
judge that you might be quick. A heavy man
who is quick is a prize to a football team.
Should you like to play?”
Wolcott’s eyes brightened. “Of course I
should!”
“Then try to build yourself up as your card
.bn 053.png
.pn +1
directs. You must strengthen those abdominal
muscles, and harden up your legs and arms. I
suppose you have heard of Nowell, who fitted
here?”
“The old Harvard tackle?” asked Wolcott,
eagerly.
The director nodded. “He was a fine type
of the hard trainer. Whenever I think of
Nowell the picture in my mind is of a solid,
brawny, determined boy standing in the corner
of the gymnasium where the heavy dumb-bells
lie, and swinging his pair of three-pounders the
appointed number of times. He did that in
addition to his class exercise without shirking,
day in and day out, for months—stuck to it
while the other fellows were amusing themselves,
till he got to be a regular gymnasium
joke. Many a time I’ve seen some rascal standing
in front of him mimicking his motions, and
laughing at him. It was his turn to laugh
when he made the Harvard Varsity the second
week he was on the field.”
“There aren’t many fellows with Nowell’s
ability,” said Lindsay.
.bn 054.png
.pn +1
“There are not many with his determination,”
corrected the instructor, with a smile.
The next day Laughlin stopped Lindsay outside
the academy. “I’ve been talking with
Mr. Doane about you,” said the captain. “He
thinks you are good material for football. I
want you to take hold with us and try hard to
get yourself in shape to do well in the fall.”
“I don’t believe I could do much,” Wolcott
replied doubtfully. In reality he felt flattered
and eager; yet the dictatorial abruptness of the
speech disconcerted him, and Marchmont’s
criticisms of the plebeian captain had left their
impression on his mind.
“It is a question of trying, not of doing,” said
Laughlin, seriously. “You can’t tell what you
may turn out to be, if you try. It’s a great
thing to win a Hillbury game; it’s fine just to
play in one, but to win,—win fairly and
squarely, because your team’s better and plays
better,—why, it’s like winning a great battle.”
“But you didn’t win last fall.”
Laughlin’s heavy jaws came together. “No,
we lost, and deserved to lose. But it mustn’t
.bn 055.png
.pn +1
happen twice. It won’t, if we take hold of it
right and get every man out ready to do his
best and help the school on, whether he makes
the team or not. If you don’t make the first,
you can play on the second and learn football all
the time and help a lot. A good second goes far
toward making a good first. Take hold with us
and try, try as Nowell did, and Melvin did, and
big Curtis and all those fellows who used to be
here. It doesn’t so much matter whether you
make the team or not; if you don’t make it, a
better man than you will, and the better you are
the better he’ll have to be to beat you out.”
Lindsay’s was one of those temperaments
which kindle slowly from within; the internal
fire must burn fiercely before the blaze appears.
The captain’s words appealed to him and stirred
him; and yet as his eye rested on the gray
flannel shirt, neat and fresh though it looked
with the harmonious black tie, and eminently
appropriate as it really was to the work that
Laughlin was on his way to do, Marchmont’s
sneers at the “coal-heaver captain,” and sweeping
condemnation of all attempts to tie up
.bn 056.png
.pn +1
socially “such fellows and fellows of our class,”
came instantly to his mind. Theoretically he
had not accepted Marchmont’s sentiments;
practically they were already affecting the
atmosphere of his ideas. The thought of the
cynic’s scornful laugh smothered his enthusiasm
like a wet blanket.
“I’ll think it over,” he said indifferently.
“There really won’t be much of anything to do
until next fall.”
“There’s where you’re wrong,” replied Laughlin,
earnestly. “What you can do next fall
depends on what you do now. Ask Doane, if
you don’t believe me. Every time you do your
gymnasium work you want to think: this work
is for the eleven and the school. And when
you’re tempted to do things outside that you’d
better not do, you want to think: this is the
place where the ‘no’ counts three times, for myself
and the eleven and the school. That’s the
way Melvin did when he learned to kick, and he
made the Harvard Varsity in his freshman year
just on his punting. That’s the way we’ve got
to do here. Football players don’t grow wild
.bn 057.png
.pn +1
like huckleberries in a pasture. They’re made,
and made with hard work.”
“I’ll do what I can,” said Wolcott, carried
away by the other’s earnestness.
“Good! That’s the talk. Now I must be
getting a move on, for I have two furnaces to
clean out this morning. We’ll talk about it
some more in a day or two.”
Later in the day Wolcott had a practice hour
with Marchmont.
“I see you’re getting thick with Laughlin,”
observed Marchmont, as he adjusted the strings
of his mandolin. “Going in for football?”
“He wants me to try,” answered Lindsay,
non-committal.
“I hope you may like it,” returned Marchmont.
“The idea of lying in the mud with two
or three foul, sweaty porkers clutching me by
the neck doesn’t appeal to me. There’s one
good thing about athletics for such fellows.”
“What’s that?”
“They get a bath a good deal more often than
they otherwise would. Shall we try something
new to-day?”
.bn 058.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER V | IN THE GYMNASIUM
.sp 2
The winter gymnastic exhibition occurred in
Lindsay’s third week at school. Influenced
by Marchmont’s contemptuous declaration that
such things were a bore, he had at first decided
to stay away; but a lack of more attractive
occupation for the half holiday, and a strong
though unconfessed curiosity to see what was
doing, drove him to a change of plan. In the
gymnasium he found himself in good company,
for Poole and Tompkins, who had seemed rather
inclined to let him alone since his intimacy
with Marchmont had developed, sat near him,
and in their common interest in the events
were more cordial and friendly than they had
ever been.
Everything was novel and delightful to the
new boy; and the older ones, who had seen the
.bn 059.png
.pn +1
same thing before, seemed as much interested
as he. What struck him most was their
enthusiasm, their eager interest that every
boy should do well, the pride they showed in
the work of their fellows because they were
their fellows, because what they did was in a
way a school achievement.
First came some kind of a squad drill. Then
Guy Morgan and Durand, seniors, and Eddy,
a middler, gave a performance on the horizontal
bar. The first was the expert, as every one
knew, but he kept himself in the background
until the others had shown their skill, when,
after a few less difficult feats, he brought the
event to a pleasing end by his own peculiar
triumph,—the giant swing. He was the only
boy in school who was master of that swing,
and though many had seen him perform it a
dozen times, they were never tired of watching
him.
To-day, with the exhilaration of the public
performance, the lithe, strong body seemed alive
with nervous elasticity. A quick snap brought
him waist to the bar; a hard fling with his
.bn 060.png
.pn +1
feet backward lifted him into position for the
downward swing, which in turn was to furnish
the momentum necessary for the rise on the
other side. Downward he swept at full length,
rigid yet mobile, keeping his feet well behind;
up he floated on the other side of the circle
until nearly at the zenith, when a quick shift
of hands on the bar and a cunning snap of the
body carried the dragging feet suddenly forward
and left the gracefully curving figure for an
instant poised on the hands aloft in perfect
balance. Then slowly the athlete gathered
headway again for the new descent and the
new rise to another balance. It was no less
the accuracy in calculating the momentum to
be gained in the downward rush and spent in
the upward rise than the grace and strength
and deliberateness of the motions that gave
the performance its perfect finish.
“That was just right!” Tompkins was saying,
as the applause died away. “And how
dead easy it looked! You’d never think it
took him two years to learn it, would you?”
“I don’t know,” Poole answered thoughtfully.
.bn 061.png
.pn +1
“As far as I can make out, it takes a lot of
hard work and practice to do anything in
athletics, anyway. That’s why so few really
try. Most of them are too lazy to do the
plugging.”
“How that little Eddy has come on!” said
Tompkins, taking up another subject with the
usual boy abruptness. “You’d never think he
was the same fellow that used to dope around
Bosworth’s room last year. You’ve had a
hand in that change, I guess.”
Poole smiled and shook his head. “It’s no
work of mine. All I’ve done is to encourage
him occasionally.”
“Well, he hangs to you like a Man Friday,
anyway,” answered Tompkins.
So they chattered on through the tumbling
and parallel bars, the rope climbing and the
pyramid building. At last the centre was
cleared and the mats were adjusted for the
wrestling. There were only two or three bouts,
and these short—just enough to show the
quickness and strength of the contestants.
The last pair were Durand and a larger fellow
.bn 062.png
.pn +1
named Frieze. For a few seconds they eyed
each other like two warlike cats, each crouching
slightly with arms held close to the chest,
and edging in a short arc of a circle round
his antagonist. Then Durand made a feint,
Frieze caught for a hold, and in an instant
they were flopping on the mats like two
puppies at play; yet apparently to no purpose,
for both were soon on their feet, breathing
harder and again cautiously edging for an
opening. Frieze made the next start, leaping
for a neck hold. Durand ducked under, and
Frieze, folding his body down on the back of
his opponent so that the two together formed
an animated vaulting-horse, and putting all
his strength into the effort to sweep Durand
off his legs, rushed him furiously across the
cushioned space. In a moment more they
were two yards off the mat on the hard floor
of the gymnasium.
.il id=i063 fn=i063.jpg w=374px ew=67%
.ca Durand ... walked deliberately back to the\
cushioned space.—Page 47.
The official reached out to stop the absorbed
strugglers and bring them back to safer territory.
But Durand suddenly straightened up,
still clutching the legs of his bewildered antagonist,
.bn 063.png
.bn 064.png
.bn 065.png
.pn +1
and lifted him on his shoulders like
a bag of meal. Thus balanced head downward
in the air, Frieze clung fast, not knowing
what to do in the unusual predicament; while
Durand with rare presence of mind walked
deliberately back to the cushioned space and
threw his helpless burden flat on the mattress
with a force that carried the thrower himself
in a somersault over the prostrate form.
A burst of spontaneous applause smote the
timbers of the roof.
“Wasn’t that great!” cried Poole, turning
with glowing face to Lindsay. “Why, if
Durand had smashed him on the floor out
there, he’d have broken every bone in the
fellow’s body. That’s the bully thing about
Durand: he always knows what he’s about.
What a quarter-back he’d make if he were
only big enough for the game! Just think
what he’d be if he were as big as you
are!”
“A second Nowell,” said Tompkins.
“Such a fellow would have a reputation in
school, wouldn’t he?” asked Wolcott.
.bn 066.png
.pn +1
“You can bet your hat he would,” replied
Tompkins, “and out of school, too.”
“Tommy knows,” observed Poole, with a meaning
smile. “He’s pitched on a winning nine.”
“And never will again,” declared Tompkins,
tragically.
The words were evidently spoken in jest, yet
underneath, but half covered by the air of mock
tragedy assumed, rang clear the real tone of
bitter disappointment and regret. Poole said
not a word in reply. Wolcott himself, unfamiliar
as the school spirit still was to him,
understood partially, and was silent. He had
heard among the first items of school gossip
that Tompkins, who had pitched for the school
the year before, had failed his preliminaries
and been forbidden by the Faculty to play
again. The tale, related among a dozen others,
had at the time made little impression on him.
Now, with the example before him of the glory
of what was really but minor athletic achievement;
with these two gloomy faces beside him,
heavy and despondent at the reminder of
Tompkins’s disability, he got his first true notion
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
of the serious part played by athletics in
the life of the school.
Instantly Laughlin’s words came back to him,
“It is a great thing to win a Hillbury game;
it’s fine just to play in one!” The gymnasium
suddenly stretched to the dimensions of a football
field; the circle of good-natured spectators
swelled to a mighty crowd, filling the benches,
tier on tier all about the great rectangle, enthusiastic,
wild, hoarse with cheering; and in
the centre, watched by thousands of eyes, he
stood, Wolcott Lindsay, holding his place in
the line of red. The signal is for him, the ball
comes back, with one tremendous impulse in
which his whole body seems to bound like a
mighty steel spring he sweeps his antagonist
back and opens a way for the ball!
It was the impulse of the athletic temperament,
the call to action of nerves and muscles
yearning for the conflict. But Wolcott knew
only that it was a vision—a vision that quickly
faded, leaving him to the sad reaction of fact.
There was no Lindsay the football player, but
only Lindsay the tenderfoot, the calf, who had
.bn 068.png
.pn +1
no more chance of making the eleven than
Marchmont or the twins or little thirteen-year-old
Simmons, who sat in the corner seat among
the juniors, and answered all the questions.
Outside he met Laughlin, flannel-shirted and
mittened.
“How was the show?” asked the captain.
“Good?”
“Fine! Weren’t you there?”
“No; had to shovel snow all the afternoon.”
Laughlin went whistling on to his room and
his lessons.
“Snow shovellers and furnace cleaners!”
thought Lindsay, bitterly. “Those are the
fellows who make football players. I guess
March isn’t so far out when he calls them brutes
and bullies. It can’t be a gentleman’s game.”
Almost unintentionally he took the direction
of Marchmont’s room.
“Well, how did it turn out? Dull as a sermon,
wasn’t it?”
“Not exactly,” replied Lindsay, hesitating
to own his opinion in the face of authority.
“Some of it I thought pretty good.”
.bn 069.png
.pn +1
Marchmont laughed: “That’s because it’s
new to you. The poorest circus has it beaten
by a mile. I’ve read a novel ’most through this
afternoon.”
Lindsay moved toward the door. He really
had no reason for a call, and many reasons for
being at home at his desk.
“What’s your hurry? You can’t study after
the dead strain of that kind of a show. Let’s
have a couple of hands of poker. We’ll make
the ante small.”
Marchmont opened a drawer for the cards,
while Lindsay picked up his hat.
“I really must go,” said the visitor, shamefacedly.
“I’ve got work I really ought to do.”
“Well, sorry you can’t stay,” replied Marchmont,
smiling politely. “We’ll try it some
other day.”
Lindsay trudged home in ill humor, cursing
himself for not having the courage to say
frankly that he did not play cards for money,
and conscious that Marchmont understood him
full well. All together it had been an afternoon
of very mixed impressions.
.bn 070.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VI | INDUSTRIES OF THE TWINS
.sp 2
On the Sunday after the gymnasium exhibition
came a snowstorm. It began long before
dawn and piled the snow higher and higher all
through the hours of daylight, slackening only
as the early twilight fell. Marchmont was not
the only student who found in the weather an
excuse for staying away from church; but he
was possibly alone in preparing his luncheon at
home, and so establishing his excuse on a consistent
basis. At his boarding-house the Sunday
dinner came fortunately at night.
Wolcott tucked his trousers into his high
arctics and ploughed joyously through the heavy
drifts, his cheeks tingling, his heart beating
strong, his whole muscular system delighting
in resistance to the elements. There were few
people at church. Tompkins presently came in
.bn 071.png
.pn +1
and dropped into a place at the end of the pew
bestowing on Wolcott a nod and a droll, friendly
smile. In that droll smile of Tompkins, Lindsay
could measure the progress of his five weeks
in school. Very different had been its effect a
month before, as it had flashed abruptly over
the Westerner’s puggy countenance in that same
pew. Now Wolcott could receive it as from a
friend, and return it with some sense of equality.
Then his cheeks had burned deep red with
humiliation at the trick which had been played
on him.
It was a very simple trick. On his first
Sunday in Seaton, Wolcott had found on entering
church a pew with a single occupant, a light-haired,
broad-faced fellow in the somewhat worn
clothes which Tompkins clung to by preference,
as to old friends. The rusty youth politely
moved along to make room, and Wolcott took
his seat close by the aisle. As the ushers
appeared with the plates for the offering, Wolcott,
whose father had instructed him to do his
part toward supporting the church which he
attended, glanced guardedly about to learn if
.bn 072.png
.pn +1
possible the standard of giving which prevailed
among the Seaton students. His neighbor,
whose appearance certainly gave no indication
of wealth, drew out a bill and held it in conspicuous
readiness for the plate. The newcomer
reasoned quickly, “If that fellow gives
a dollar, my part is at least two.” He had just
time to reach this conclusion, and hurriedly fish
a bill from his pocket, when the plate was before
him. Dropping his two dollars into it, with a
sense of dignity maintained and duty done, he
passed it on for his schoolmate’s contribution.
The latter, however, had suddenly changed his
purpose. He took the plate gravely, deposited
a cent upon it, and solemnly handed it back.
Then, with a half-perceptible wink at his gaping
neighbor, and his droll smile breaking for a brief
moment the expressionless expanse of his face,
he composed himself for the rest of the service.
As for Wolcott, he did not need to hear the
smothered chuckle behind him to be assured
that his neighbor had deliberately cajoled him.
He did not regret the money, for it was spent
in a good cause; but to prove easy game for
.bn 073.png
.pn +1
a booby like that was a serious blow to his
dignity.
The next day, knowing that the incident
would go the rounds, he had decided to make
the best of it and start the tale himself. Poole
heard it with a broad grin of genuine delight.
“Just like Tommy! You ought to have
seen him last year before Melvin squelched
him. We were all dead sure he’d be fired.
He’s comparatively harmless now.”
“I just wish he’d tried some one else, that’s
all,” said Lindsay, haughtily.
Poole laughed and glanced keenly at his companion.
“You mustn’t take it so seriously.
There’s nothing personal about it.”
“I suppose he thought I looked rather simple,”
said Wolcott, with a smile that seemed a bit forced.
“Not at all. He knew you weren’t used to
things yet, and so he tried his little game. You
ought to see him and the twins. There’s nothing
simple about them!”
“Does he try his tricks on them?”
“Does he? Well, I guess! They’re giving it
back and forth all the time. There hasn’t been
.bn 074.png
.pn +1
a week since the Pecks entered school when
Tommy wasn’t laying for the Pecks or the
Pecks for Tommy. Just keep tabs on ’em
and you’ll see.”
And for the next few days Wolcott had kept
tabs, as well as was possible for a fellow who
was still groping bewildered in the maze of new
experiences. One evening he dropped into the
Pecks’ room to ask about a lesson. The boys
were laboring at their desks with a great air of
diligence. They looked up eagerly as he opened
the door, and then glanced at each other and
laughed.
Wolcott, with the self-consciousness of a new
boy, and with the recollection of his increased
contribution still fresh, turned violently red.
“What are you laughing at?” he demanded,
determined that at any rate these two youngsters
should not flout him.
“Oh, nothing,” returned Peck Number One,
whom Wolcott assumed to be Duncan. “We
thought it was some one else.” Then the pair
laughed together, and Wolcott knew that his
fears were groundless.
.bn 075.png
.pn +1
“Just stay here awhile and you’ll see some
fun,” said Number Two. “There, they’re coming
out now!”
A door opened farther up the hall, there was
the sound of voices, then of stamping and loud
words.
“They’re trying to get ’em up!” said Number
One, giggling excitedly.
Number Two tiptoed to the door and opening
it slightly let in the sound of scraping and
maledictions. “For editors of the Lit, they use
pretty poor language,” he said.
Wolcott could repress his curiosity no longer.
“I think I’ll go out and see what’s up,” he
said. “If there’s anything doing, I should like
a sight of it.”
In front of Tompkins’s door was a group of
four, bending over several pairs of rubbers.
Tompkins on his knees was laboring with a
screw-driver to loosen one from the floor.
“Can I help you?” asked Lindsay, with mock
politeness. The contribution trick still rankled
in his memory.
“Yes, go and drown those two Pecks!”
.bn 076.png
.pn +1
growled the irate Tompkins, as he freed one
rubber from the floor and attacked another.
“They’ve screwed down the whole lot. I’d like
to wear out every blessed rubber on their
backs!”
“How do you know they did it?” asked
Lindsay, much interested.
“Because I saw one as I came up,” said
Planter, eagerly. “I was late to the meeting
and almost ran over one of them right near the
door.”
“Which one?”
“Yes, which!” grumbled Tompkins, “the
one with the mole on his shoulder-blade or
the one without? Of course he doesn’t know
which. They’re as much alike as two leaves
on a tree. The only thing to do is to lynch
them both.”
Lindsay returned to the Pecks’ room, where
the twins were waiting in gleeful suspense.
“Who are they, anyway?” asked Wolcott.
“The editors of the Literary Monthly,” answered
Donald, pompously, “meeting for the
first time with the new member, Mr. Tompkins.”
.bn 077.png
.pn +1
“I wish they’d print their parting remarks
on the rubber question,” chuckled Duncan. “I
guess ’twould be the last number of the Lit
that board would publish.”
The sounds from without now indicated that
the rubbers had been rescued, and on the feet
of their owners were travelling down the stairs.
Presently the door shook under a tremendous
thump, and the angry Tompkins appeared on
the threshold. He was really angry, there
was no disguising the fact. The twins looked
and trembled,—momentarily trembled,—for
the presence of their heavy-limbed caller soon
reassured them, and their awe before the senior’s
wrath was no match for their glee at his discomfiture.
So they grinned up at him with
tantalizing coolness, and Donald, who was nearest
the door, invited him to sit down.
“I didn’t come here to sit down,” Tompkins
began furiously; “I came to punch your two
heads for you!”
“Very kind of you, I’m sure,” said Duncan.
“You don’t mind telling us why, I hope?”
“I don’t need to. You know what I mean
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
too blamed well. You screwed down those
rubbers in front of my door. Planter caught
one of you at it.”
“Which one?” asked Donald, with a snicker.
“How does he know?” retorted the angry
senior. “It makes no difference, anyway.
One’s as bad as the other, whichever did it. If
I thrash you both, I can’t go far wrong.”
“That wouldn’t be square,” said Duncan.
“If one of us did it, that one ought to be punished;
but you’ve got to prove him guilty. Isn’t
that right, Lindsay?”
Lindsay nodded; he owed Tompkins one
himself.
Tompkins snorted. “If you think you’re
always going to crawl out of that hole, you’re
mistaken. Just keep on with your monkey
tricks, and one of these days one of you’ll wake
up with a black eye, and then for a couple of
weeks you can be told apart.”
On this prospect the Peck brothers had no
comment to offer. So Tompkins continued less
violently: “I don’t care so much about what
you do to me; when you strike at my friends,
.bn 079.png
.pn +1
it’s a different matter. They come to see me,
and get their rubbers punched full of holes. I
tell you I won’t stand for it.”
“I’ll tell you what, Tommy!” exclaimed
Duncan, swelling with a great idea, “let’s start
a subscription to buy them some new ones.
We’ll get two long sheets of foolscap, head them
‘Subscriptions to buy new Rubbers for the
Editors of the Lit,’ and send them round. A
cent apiece all over school will pay the bill and
more.”
“I guess that won’t be necessary,” said Tompkins,
who had no desire to become a school
joke. “The thing can’t be settled in that
way.”
“It’ll pay up for that gym scheme you put
up on us,” suggested Donald.
“Overpay,” said Tompkins, significantly, as
he turned to go. “I’m owing you now.”
Only a few weeks had passed since these
things happened, and yet, as Wolcott sat in
church that stormy morning waiting for the
service to begin, these scenes and others flitted
before his mind like recollections of a remote
.bn 080.png
.pn +1
period. He had learned much in the short
interval of ways and places and fellow-students.
Poole, Durand, Planter, Tompkins, and the twins
he counted friends; and with Marchmont he was
intimate. The teachers he knew in name and
lineage, history, peculiarities, faults, and virtues.
He no longer mentioned them to his associates
as Professor A and Dr. B and Mr. C; they
were Peter and Swipesy and Moore, and so on
down to the unfortunate latest comer, Mr.
Owen, who struggled thrice daily against fearful
odds in Room 10.
On the next day the sky was again clear, and
Wolcott as soon as his first recitation was over
put on his snowshoes and started out for an
experimental tramp, in preparation for the expedition
of the Snowshoe Club in the afternoon.
Being out of practice, and quite well aware that
he presented a not altogether graceful figure,
he took a cross-cut over the garden fences to an
outlying field. As he passed the boarding-house
where Laughlin waited on table, he glanced
up at the kitchen window, and beheld the broad
chest and massive face fronting a dish pan, and
.bn 081.png
.pn +1
the big hands working with cloth and plates.
The captain nodded cordially, but Wolcott
hardly returned the greeting.
Dish washing! That was certainly the limit.
A school captain washing dishes! Shovelling
snow, tending furnaces, could be forgiven; but
dish washing, never!
.bn 082.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VII | NO THOROUGHFARE
.sp 2
That same afternoon Marchmont and Whitely
were amusing themselves in Stone’s room; that
is, Whitely and Stone were pretending to study,
while Marchmont, who was above such pretences,
was twirling Stone’s geometry on the point of a
pencil.
“Did you fellows know that Rogers isn’t
coming back?”
Stone looked up from his work. “Let that
book alone, can’t you!” he exclaimed, as he
snatched the geometry from Marchmont’s pencil.
“Drill holes in your own books!—How
do you know that?”
“Jack Butler had a letter from him this
morning. He’s gone abroad with his family.”
“Too bad,” said Whitely. “Ted was a
blamed nice fellow. There’ll have to be a
.bn 083.png
.pn +1
new class president elected to take his place.
I suppose they’ll just move up the vice.”
“That’s Laughlin,” observed Stone.
“Laughlin!” sneered Marchmont. “Is that
jay always going to carry us round in his
pocket? I think it’s about time we struck
for a decent man!”
“Butler would make a good president,
wouldn’t he?” remarked Stone. “I wish
he had some one to back him.”
“Why shouldn’t he have some one to back
him?” demanded Whitely, starting up. “And
why shouldn’t we have some voice in naming
the officers of the class? Laughlin got the
football captaincy away from Butler; it’s right
that But should be president. Let’s put him
in!”
“Can we?” asked Stone.
The trio made a hasty count of the forces
to be relied on. “How about Poole?” asked
Whitely.
“Oh, he’s for Laughlin, sure,” answered
Stone.
“Then Eddy’s gone, too. And Benson?”
.bn 084.png
.pn +1
“We might get him,” said Stone, “if he’s
worked right.”
“And that new fellow, Lindsay,” continued
Whitely, turning to Marchmont. “You’ve got
him well in hand, haven’t you?”
“I guess so,” returned Marchmont, smiling.
“He’s rather green and innocent, and has some
kindergarten notions which he’ll have to get rid
of, but he’ll come round in time. I think I can
deliver the goods there all right.”
So they ran over the catalogue of their intimates.
It appeared that about a dozen could be
counted on at the outset.
“Let’s pledge these and gradually build up a
party,” said Whitely, when the list of sure men
was at last complete. “I believe we can get
such a start before the election that they can’t
get near us.”
“It would be great to give that fellow a good,
hard fall,” declared Marchmont, with enthusiasm.
“He certainly needs it.”
In the evening Wolcott dropped in, as happened
frequently nowadays, for a half hour with
Marchmont.
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
“Kind of all-round man, Laughlin is, isn’t
he?” commented Marchmont, as Lindsay
sprawled on the couch before the open fire
and recounted some of his experiences of the
day. “Football captain, scholar, musician, pillar
of the church, butler, furnace tender, dish-washer—it
isn’t every fellow from the woods
who has a record like that. I don’t think I
should want him to handle my china.”
“What I don’t understand is why the fellows
generally seem to have such a high opinion of
him,” said Lindsay.
“It’s the fashion to be democratic here,”
answered Marchmont, wisely. “And then he’s
a football player, and that makes up for almost
everything. He oughtn’t to have been captain;
there’s where the mistake was made. Of course
you’ve got to encourage such fellows, and it’s
very creditable in them to try to make something
of themselves and all that; but when you come
to the important offices, they ought to go to
fellows of a better class, who could represent
the school decently.”
“Perhaps he was the only candidate.”
.bn 086.png
.pn +1
“No, there was Butler, who played guard on
the other side. He’s an awfully nice fellow,
though perhaps not so good a player as that big
bruiser. The choice lay between the two, and
Laughlin got it.”
“He certainly thinks he’s all right,” remarked
Lindsay, a little spitefully. “He’s given me advice,
on several occasions, about what I ought to
do and not to do here in school.”
“And whom you ought to know, and where
you ought to go, and how you ought to amuse
yourself, and so on. He’s probably advised you
against smoking, and told you always to tell the
truth when you report.”
“That’s about it,” confessed Lindsay.
“That reminds me: have I ever shown you
my postern gate?”
Lindsay stared blankly. “Postern gate!”
“Yes, my secret entrance. Come here.”
Lindsay followed his companion into a closet,
where Marchmont lifted the oilcloth and
showed a rectangular outline on the floor where
several boards had been sawed through. These
boards, which had been fastened together underneath
.bn 087.png
.pn +1
to form a trap door, he lifted, disclosing a
square opening between the floor timbers into
the closet below.
“That shelf under there takes out, so as to
give room to get through,” explained Marchmont,
proudly; “and the box on the shelf
prevents the old lady from getting on to the
game.”
Wolcott gazed into the dark, mysterious hole
in amazement. The job was cleverly done, and
yet of what use could the hole be?
“Who rooms underneath,” he asked; “Salter?”
Marchmont nodded.
“I didn’t know you were so thick with him.”
“I’m not. I don’t care a rap for him. This
isn’t meant for his benefit, it’s for my own.
Salter’s a virtuous chump, who’s always in at
ten o’clock, and always tells the truth when he
reports. He’s a good little boy, but not good
enough to volunteer information. If I come
down into his closet and go out his window, he
isn’t bound to tell of it, and of course nobody
asks him whether his ceiling’s tight.”
.bn 088.png
.pn +1
“I still don’t see much use for it,” said Wolcott,
slowly. “If I am out after ten, I simply
say so, and tell why; I don’t mind that.”
“Supposing you don’t want to tell why,” replied
Marchmont, dryly, as he replaced the oil-cloth
and led the way back into his room.
“Supposing you’re on probation or study hours
or something of that sort, and want to be out.
All you have to do is to say good night to
Mrs. Winter, lock your door, and you have
your evening.”
“You’ll have a chance to use the thing pretty
soon, if you’re only waiting for probation,”
said Wolcott, laughing. “You’re getting below
my level in some studies, and that’s mighty
close to the danger line.”
“If I never get below your level, I shan’t
care,” returned Marchmont. “I’m tutoring
now with Haynes White. He’ll probably pull
me up before probation comes. If he doesn’t,
let it come. I’ve been there before.”
Wolcott gathered up his hat and gloves. A
full evening’s work lay before him, and fortunately
he was ambitious enough or proud enough
.bn 089.png
.pn +1
or loyal enough to his father to resist the influence
of Marchmont’s easy-going indifference to
school duties.
And Marchmont never insisted that his
friends should follow his practices. He was
always self-possessed, always indolent, always
enjoying the sense of his superiority, and, to
those whom he favored, always extremely agreeable.
There was no room in school which to
Wolcott seemed as attractive as Marchmont’s.
The hodge-podge of little pictures, photographs,
emblems, signs, posters, German favors, pipes,
mementos, athletic trophies, inharmonious furniture,
staring carpets, which in various forms
and degrees filled the rooms of other classmates,
was not to be found here. Marchmont’s rugs
were few but fine in quality—soft old Persians
which he had brought from home. A big
leather sofa stretched before the generous old-fashioned
fireplace. The substantial bookcase
was crowded with volumes, though hardly such
as would help a schoolboy in his daily tasks.
The cheap desk which his landlady furnished
was glorified by a quaint set of writing tools
.bn 090.png
.pn +1
bought at the Nijni-Novgorod fair. The
scattered ornaments on the walls and mantel
were unique and striking, picked up in odd
corners of Europe and the West. Altogether
this room and the easy hospitality with which
it was opened to him were strong elements in
the attraction which drew our hero to Marchmont.
“You’ll stand pat with us on the election,
won’t you?” said Marchmont, between pulls of
his pipe. “We want to put an end to this
flannel-shirt rule. Butler is just the man to be
president of the class.”
“I’ll help you all I can,” replied Lindsay.
“I’ll vote right, of course; but I’m afraid I
can’t do much else.”
“Try Poole and Benson. They’re our worst
enemies, because they really ought to be on our
side. Benson’s got some grouch against Butler;
and as for Poole, that man Melvin who was here
last year spoiled him.”
Lindsay’s eye fell on a copy of the Literary
Monthly lying on a table.
“Oh, I read your poem on ‘The Unknown
.bn 091.png
.pn +1
Ship at Sea’ in the last Lit,” he said with eager
cordiality. “It’s fine!”
“Much obliged,” returned Marchmont, apparently
flattered. “I don’t think it’s much, myself,
but they seemed to like it.”
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever known them to
have,” exclaimed Wolcott. “How did you get
hold of the idea?”
Marchmont, who appeared unexpectedly embarrassed
by his friend’s praise, hesitated. “Oh,
something that happened the last time we went
over put it into my head. I jotted down some
lines at the time, and the other day it occurred
to me to fix them up and send them in.”
“You had something in it last month, too,”
continued Lindsay. “I guess you’ll make the
board all right. I’ve sent in two things to the
Seatonian, but they didn’t print either of them.”
“I suppose there’s more competition for the
Seatonian,” said the poet.
Lindsay opened the door and turned for a last
word.
“I’m going to send my Lit home to my family
to show them what we can do here,” he said.
.bn 092.png
.pn +1
“My aunt is stuck on poetry, and she’s got a
notion that we don’t do anything here but play
ball. This will set her right. Good night.”
“Oh, don’t bother them with it,” called
Marchmont; but Lindsay was already out of
hearing.
.bn 093.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VIII | POLITICS
.sp 2
The middlers’ class meeting came a few days
later, interjecting two days of excitement into
the dulness of winter. When Rogers, who had
been made president in the fall, unexpectedly
left school, the natural course would have been
to advance Laughlin, who was vice-president,
and elect a new man to succeed him. This
might have been done without the least flurry
of excitement in a two-minute meeting called
after a recitation. The plot hatched in Stone’s
room made such a course impossible.
Let it not be for a moment supposed that
the Whitely-Marchmont combination kept their
movements secret. The partisanship was too
violent to bear restraint. In the hour when an
eager but unwise member of the Butler faction
undertook to canvass a natural follower of
Laughlin, a Laughlin party came suddenly into
.bn 094.png
.pn +1
existence, and on vague hints of a conspiracy
had a wondrous growth.
In the old days of small classes every boy
would have been pledged beforehand, and
brought personally to do his duty at the polls.
With a class of more than a hundred to deal
with, this was not so easy. Some were too lazy
and indifferent to be stirred by entreaty; a few
serious plodders scorned the whole agitation; a
larger number still, either from actual indecision
or through a desire for fun, declined to commit
themselves in advance. Nevertheless, when
Marchmont and his companions, who had been
hustling all day like busy ward heelers, gathered
their pledged followers for an imposing entry
into the assembly room, they constituted a truly
formidable body.
“It’ll be close,” said Marchmont to Lindsay,
on the way in; “but I think we can turn the
trick. Our fellows are well organized, and this
bunch will influence a lot of the wavering chaps
who want to be on the winning side. We’ve
got a neat little game to spring on them when
the time comes.”
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
“What’s that?” asked Lindsay.
“Stone’s going to nominate Ware to split up
the Laughlin crowd. Ware is sick and can’t get
here to decline, and he’ll take votes away from
the other side, and we’ll win on the plurality
vote. See?”
Lindsay saw, but for some reason did not
greet the scheme with enthusiasm. Ware was
a well-known man in the class, a high-ranking
scholar, editor of the Seatonian, and a prize winner.
He belonged rather to the “grinds” than
to the “sports”; but he was generally respected,
and on a less momentous occasion would have
commanded Lindsay’s own vote. It seemed not
altogether worthy of the superior pretensions of
the party to take this method of defeating their
opponents; but Lindsay the partisan was stronger
than Lindsay the moralist. “All’s fair in love
and war—and politics,” he said to himself,
reassuringly. “The dish washer needs a lesson.”
The secretary called the meeting to order, and
Ransome was made chairman. Then Whitely
nominated Butler in a grandiloquent speech, in
which he called his candidate “a gentleman
.bn 096.png
.pn +1
known and admired by all, who has labored for
the school on the gridiron and on the athletic
field,” repudiated the principle that class office
should be given to a man because he was captain
of a school team, and declared no one worthier
or more capable of representing the class than
Sam Butler. He sat down in a burst of applause
that began on Lindsay’s side, and extended over
the whole room.
Then Poole had his turn at speech making, and
in language somewhat less florid, but just as
laudatory, set forth the merits of candidate
Laughlin, and explained the opportunity the
class now had of honoring itself by honoring
him. Poole also was generously applauded, for
those who were opposed to his candidate were
not opposed to him personally, and were quite
willing to show their feeling by cheering him.
As Wolcott looked round for the next move in
the game of politics, he thought he saw Laughlin
starting to rise. His attention was distracted
at the moment, however, by Stone, who
had gained the attention of the chair and was
already well started in his task of praising a third
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
nominee, Ware. This new nomination, unexpected
and inexplicable to most of the class,
produced the greater consternation on the
Laughlin side, as the eulogy was delivered with
apparent seriousness and with a semblance of
authority which in Ware’s absence could not be
disputed. Guy Morgan, who was standing near
the door, disappeared early in the speech, as soon
as it was evident what the new nomination was
to be; the other Laughlin leaders whispered and
questioned in perplexity.
A silence followed for a few moments, as the
chairman, full of the dignity of his position,
made formal pause for further nominations.
He was just opening his lips to declare the
nominations closed when a big figure rose in
one of the back rows.
“Mr. Chairman.”
“Mr. Laughlin.”
“It seems hardly necessary for me to say that
I am deeply grateful to the members of this
class who have shown a desire to have me as
their president. It is the highest honor from
the largest and best class in school. Ever
.bn 098.png
.pn +1
since I first learned that this contest was likely,
I have been considering: first, whether I am a
fit man for the position; and second, whether,
with the responsibility for the football which the
school has put upon me I ought to assume anything
else. I had about made up my mind
when I came here to-night. The speeches and
nominations which have been made have merely
strengthened me in my purpose. There are
others in the class better fitted to represent you
than I am. There is nothing in my career to
give me place over a dozen fellows that I can
name. One responsibility I have assumed and
cannot shirk. Until I can come before you
with a victorious eleven, I neither deserve nor
want any further honors at your hands. It is
impossible for me to accept the nomination
which you have so kindly made.”
Laughlin took his seat, wiping his heated face.
His followers sat dismayed, almost indignant
that he should suddenly desert them at the
last moment. The Butlerites whispered together
in doubt, and cursed the Ware nomination
as a boomerang, an idiot’s trick. Without
.bn 099.png
.pn +1
it their man would be alone, and the office would
be his. Then the door opened, and Ware,
muffled to his ears in an ulster, his face pale
from several days’ confinement to his room,
shuffled with Morgan’s help to a position near
the front.
“Mr. Chairman,” he began in a weak voice.
“Mr. Ware.”
“I understand that I have been nominated
here to-night for president of the class. I have
given no one permission to use my name in this
way; I positively decline to be a candidate.
Whoever nominated me did it without my
authority for the purpose of drawing votes from
a better candidate. It’s a mean trick which I
hope won’t succeed. I withdraw my name in
favor of Laughlin.”
Ware sat down and unbuttoned his heavy coat.
The partisans of both sides stared at each other
in silence; the less serious began to snicker;
the plot was becoming too complicated to unravel.
A grinning supporter of Butler leaned
forward and called jeeringly to the waiting
Ware:—
.bn 100.png
.pn +1
“Laughlin declined long ago, you Rip van
Winkle. Go home and go to sleep again.”
Instantly Ware straightened up. “Who are
the nominees, then?”
“No one but Butler,” replied the jubilant
heeler. “He’s got it all his own way.”
Ware did not hesitate a moment. “Mr.
Chairman,” he called, rising eagerly, “are the
nominations closed?”
“They are not,” returned the presiding officer.
“Will you kindly tell who have been nominated?”
“Butler, Laughlin, and Ware have been proposed.
The names of Laughlin and Ware have
been withdrawn.”
“Then I nominate—” Ware hesitated and
ran his eye hastily over the astonished audience
“—then I nominate Poole. He needs no recommendation
and no eulogy. You know him too
well. If you don’t happen to know him, ask
any one who was here last June how the Hillbury
game was won; and if you don’t hear
Poole’s name in connection with it, don’t vote
for him!”
.bn 101.png
.pn +1
With that Ware dropped into his seat, and a
din of howling and whistling and stamping of
feet arose that proved Ware’s simple harangue
an inspiration of genius. Twice Poole struggled
to his feet, apparently with an important message
to deliver, and twice he was pulled down
again by his coat tail, ignominiously and hard.
The chairman then declared the nominations
closed, appointed the tellers, and called for votes.
Not a soul, except the thirty fellows pledged,
voted for Butler. Laughlin received two votes,
Ware five, and Poole sixty-two. Butler moved
that the vote be made unanimous, and Laughlin
escorted the president-elect to the chair, where
Poole stammered his thanks, and received and
put to vote a motion to adjourn. Thus ended
the most exciting election of the class of 19—.
.bn 102.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER IX | THE CONCERT AT EASTHAM
.sp 2
“Had a hot time at your class meeting, I
understand,” said Tompkins, who was killing a
quarter of an hour in Wolcott’s room. “I wish
I’d been there. Which side were you on, the
kickers or the kicked?”
“I voted for Butler,” replied Wolcott, with
dignity.
“Oh, you belong to that bunch! What’s the
matter with Laughlin? Isn’t he good enough
for you?”
“He’s all right in his place. I don’t think
he ought to be president of the class. He isn’t
enough of a gentleman.”
“Oh, isn’t he? Who is, then? Marchmont?”
“Yes, or at least he looks like one and acts
like one,” returned Wolcott, warmly.
Tompkins stared. “Laughlin’s no dude, I’ll
admit,” he said after some deliberation. “He’s
.bn 103.png
.pn +1
never been able to get money at a bank just by
signing a check, and I don’t suppose he’d feel
entirely at home in a Fifth Avenue ballroom.
But he’s worth as many Marchmonts as you
can pile in that bedroom there—and a pile of
Marchmonts would settle a good bit; they’d be
pretty flabby.”
“Please remember that Marchmont’s a friend
of mine,” said Wolcott, haughtily.
“Is he?” said Tompkins, coolly. “I’m not so
sure of that.”
This remark Wolcott received with chilling
silence.
“There’s one thing Marchmont can do all
right,” went on Tompkins.
“What’s that?”
“Play the mandolin. He’s ’most as good as
a nigger minstrel.”
“There’s another thing he can do,” replied
Wolcott, quickly, “write poetry. You’re mighty
glad to get it for the Lit.”
“Yes, there was some verse in the last number
over his name,—rather streaky, I called it.
Four stanzas were good and one was bum. The
.bn 104.png
.pn +1
fellow who did the four good ones wasn’t a bad
fist at writing rhymes.”
“Well, Marchmont wrote them, didn’t he?”
“Have I said he didn’t?” responded Tompkins,
with an exasperating grin.
“And he had a prose article in the January
number.”
“That horse business? Yes, that wasn’t bad.
He wrote it as a theme and had to rewrite it
twice afterward before Bain would accept it.
By the time it got to us it was fairly readable.”
“It’s better than the stuff you write,” declared
the indignant Lindsay.
Tompkins smiled and nodded. “Quite likely;
I’m not the only paying mine in the cañon.
Going to Eastham with the band to-morrow
night?”
“Yes,” replied Wolcott, sullenly, “the Glee
and Mandolin clubs are both going.”
“I should like to go myself if I didn’t have
to hear the concert.—Well, there’s the bell.
Always be a good boy and stand up for your
friends, especially if they have good clothes and
nice ladylike manners. So long!”
.bn 105.png
.pn +1
And Tompkins sauntered forth, not forgetting
to keep a sharp lookout for any missile that
might follow him, and leaving the middler
choking with helpless indignation. When
Tommy was in this mood, he was unbearable.
Mean, spiteful, envious, fresh—these were adjectives
that occurred to Wolcott’s agitated mind;
he had feelings which he knew no words to
express. He didn’t like Laughlin, and he would
not have the fellow crammed down his throat,
though he might be the greatest football player
who ever handled a ball; he did like Marchmont,
and he wouldn’t be bullied out of his
opinion if all the cowboys in Montana joined
together to deride him.
Wolcott was still of this opinion when the
evening mail brought a letter from Aunt Emmeline.
He read it, and reread it, and then read a
certain portion a third time. It ran as follows:—
“Thank you so much for sending me the
copy of the Literary Monthly. I had no idea
that the boys could write so well. The poem
by your friend Marchmont is extremely good.
It reminds me so much of one written by my
.bn 106.png
.pn +1
dear friend, Alice Codman, many years ago. It
was published, I think, in the Atlantic. Every
one said that she had a great poetic gift, and
she certainly wrote some very sweet and beautiful
poems. She died in 1870, only twenty-four
years old. It was very sad that one so talented
and full of promise should be taken away so
early.
“How fortunate you were to meet such a nice,
refined boy as Marchmont immediately after you
arrived; it almost reconciles me to Seaton.
Tompkins and Laughlin must be perfectly
dreadful. I hope you will associate as little
as possible with such underbred persons. Of
course one owes it to one’s self to be polite to
all classes, but one chooses one’s friends.”
The last part of this extract for some reason
stirred Wolcott’s bile, in spite of the fact that
he was at that moment feeling inimical to both
the underbred fellows against whom his aunt
warned him. He gave little attention, however,
to this objectionable passage, but the reference
to Miss Codman suggested several disquieting
questions.
.bn 107.png
.pn +1
Could anything be wrong with Marchmont’s
poem? Did Tompkins mean to hint that the
verses published under Marchmont’s name were
really not Marchmont’s? He had not said so
in so many words, and his remarks, as Wolcott
reviewed them, did not necessarily imply such a
meaning; but the tone of contempt and blind
hostility which Tompkins used in reference to
Marchmont proved him capable of any mean
suspicion. Could it be possible that Marchmont
had used some lines of Miss Codman’s as
a model for his own work? Absurd! The poem
was suggested by something that he himself had
seen. And then, what could he have known of
Miss Codman or anything she ever wrote? He
read French novels—in translations—by the
dozen; but old Atlantics never! And though
he might not always be fussy about the authorship
of his Latin composition exercises, or the
perfect accuracy of his reports, it was only because
he drew a line between school authorities
and the rest of the world, not because he lacked
the sense of honor which a gentleman should
possess. Marchmont would never steal a poem
.bn 108.png
.pn +1
and call it his own. It was an outrage to
suggest such a thing!
With four horses and a big barge on runners,
the Glee and Mandolin clubs set out on their
ten-mile drive to Eastham. It had required
some effort on the part of the chorus master,
Mr. Leighton, to obtain permission for the clubs
to leave town. Such permissions were not
lightly granted, and Mr. Leighton, to win
his cause, had both to show that the boys
deserved the favor, and to assume responsibility
for them on the trip. It was a bitter cold
afternoon. Monotonous leaden clouds covered
the sky, and occasional flakes fell deliberately,
like dilatory messengers from the storm king.
But old Jim, who sat on the box muffled in
his dogskin coat, opined that it would “prob’ly
be about like this for a day or two,” while the
boys, crowded hilarious into the long, parallel
seats, had little concern for the weather that
was to be. It was enough that the wind was
not blowing, that the snow was not falling, and
that they were slipping easily over the hard-beaten
road to a lark and a show.
.bn 109.png
.pn +1
Two hours later, as the hungry travellers
gathered round the two long tables at the
Eastham inn and with united voice demanded
the whole bill of fare, whatever discomfort the
journey had involved was forgotten. Marchmont
turned with a chuckle to Wolcott and
called his attention to Laughlin, who was sitting
at the opposite side of the second table, complacently
waiting for his order, with napkin
spread wide across his chest and tucked carefully
down over his collar.
“The style at Liberty, Maine, I suppose,” he
whispered.
“Waiting for a shave,” returned Wolcott, in
the same vein.
Just then Laughlin looked across to the other
table and caught the mocking gaze of the two
fixed upon him. For an instant he stared back
in unconcern, but presently, instinctively following
the direction of their looks, he seemed to
guess the cause of their amusement. An unmistakable
flush overspread his big features as
he turned with a pretence of interest to his
neighbor. Wolcott also blushed and looked
.bn 110.png
.pn +1
away in embarrassment. His mother had explained
to him more than once that to notice
an error of etiquette was a greater fault than
to make the error. What his father would
say if he were present,—in fact, had said on
a similar occasion when displeased by the son’s
superior airs,—he did not like to dwell upon.
Marchmont, who felt no such embarrassment,
enjoyed the spectacle hugely.
“Just look!” he whispered again, “the
lobster has taken off his bib.”
But Lindsay would not look. He had never
enjoyed Marchmont’s society less than at that
very moment.
The details of the Eastham concert do not
concern this narrative. The Eastham Relief
Society for which the entertainment was given
had sold tickets in blocks to the charitably inclined,
so a good audience was assured in spite
of the weather; and fewer people left the hall
before the end of the performance than might
perhaps have been expected. The Glee Club
had the last number, and while they were
struggling to keep on the key, and leave a
.bn 111.png
.pn +1
parting impression of harmony rather than of
discord on the ears of their patient hearers, the
mandolinists were packing up their instruments
and making ready for departure. Dearborn
pressed his forehead against the window pane,
and, sheltering his eyes with his hands, peered
out into the darkness.
“It’s snowing again, by George! and the wind
is howling to beat the band. I see where we’re
going to get it in the neck on the way home.”
“That’s the Glee Club’s pianissimo you hear,”
remarked Poole. “If it’s snowing, the chances
are that it will be warmer.”
“It’s dirty mean to make us go back to-night
in weather like this,” said Marchmont, taking
a turn at the window. “We shall be frozen
to death. We ought to stay over and go back
in the morning. If Leighton weren’t such a
dub, he’d let us do it.”
“I’d rather go back to-night,” said Poole.
“And I can tell you one thing: if anything
goes wrong on this trip, it will be the last permission
the Glee and Mandolin clubs will get
while you’re in school.”
.bn 112.png
.pn +1
“The way to make it go wrong is to drive
down there with this load to-night,” retorted
Marchmont. “Old Jim will be half full, and
won’t know whether he’s in the road or on the
fences.”
“Oh, shut up with your croaking!” called
Planter, impatiently. “If you’re afraid of the
cold, beg off, but don’t speak for the rest of us.”
The singers came pouring into the dressing
room, excited and noisy. Mr. Leighton, who
was detained a few minutes to receive the
thanks of the Relief Society, appeared at the
door to urge haste. “The barge will be here
in ten minutes,” he said, “and we must not
keep the horses waiting in the wind. Don’t
forget anything.”
Stone and Marchmont drew him aside. “It’s
a terrible night, Mr. Leighton,” said Marchmont.
“Don’t you think we’d better stay
over? We should only lose one recitation.”
“Nonsense!” replied the teacher, curtly.
“I’ve promised to deliver the whole party
safe in Seaton at twelve o’clock, and I shall
try to keep my word.”
.bn 113.png
.pn +1
“I don’t feel very well,” said Marchmont.
“I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I
stayed over. Stone has offered to stay with me.”
Dearborn, who stood near, snickered violently.
Mr. Leighton looked sharply into Marchmont’s
face.
“What is the matter?”
“Headache. I often have very bad ones,
when I have to go to bed.”
“If you really think it necessary, I’ll send
for a doctor, and if he decides that you are
unable to go home, I will stay over with you
myself, and send the barge back in charge of
some one else. There is no other way.”
“I couldn’t think of putting you to that
trouble,” replied the invalid, with ill-concealed
chagrin. Turning abruptly away, he picked up
his bag and mandolin and left the room.
As the barge drew up a few minutes later,
Marchmont, who stood with a little group
inside the door of the building, whispered to
Wolcott, “Make a dash when it stops: the
first in have the warmest places.”
The next moment Wolcott was thoughtlessly
.bn 114.png
.pn +1
skurrying in the van of the crowd for
the entrance of the barge. Stone and Marchmont
got the seats immediately behind the elevated
driver’s box, one on either side. Wolcott
sat next to Marchmont. The others flocked in
behind them; the two long benches filled
rapidly.
Laughlin appeared on Wolcott’s side. “Move
down and let Ware in there, can’t you?” he
called to the heads of the lines. “He’s been
sick, you know, and ought to have as sheltered
a place as he can get.”
“We’re all packed in here so tight we can’t
move,” replied Marchmont.
“He can have my seat,” cried Wolcott.
“Don’t be a fool!” muttered Marchmont in
his ear; but Wolcott paid no heed. The thought
that the despised Laughlin should be lingering
outside finding places for others, while his
high-bred self had greedily scrambled for the
best, shamed and angered him. He descended
over the side and helped Laughlin boost the
protesting Ware into the vacant seat. Then
Wolcott and Laughlin crowded into the two last
.bn 115.png
.pn +1
places, Jim tucked himself up on the box, and
the barge moved off into the teeth of the wind.
For a time the occupants kept one another
lively with songs and jokes. Then the two
ends lapsed into silence, the middle gradually
succumbed to the example of the ends, and soon
the sound of a voice was scarcely to be heard
in the barge except from Jenkyns and Wood,
two chatterboxes whose lips were never silent.
Old Jim evidently kept the whip steadily going,
for the horses plunged recklessly down the short
inclines, and the long, narrow barge slewed
sometimes the width of the roadbed, like a
double-runner on a steep bend.
“I hope these sled runners are strong,” said
Laughlin to Mr. Leighton, who was beside him.
“Jim seems to think they’re all right.”
“He’s taken several drops too much to-night,
I am afraid,” returned Mr. Leighton. “But
he knows the road and he knows the horses,
and ought to get us home safely. I will never
go on such an expedition again without a driver
who can be trusted.”
The barge dipped suddenly over another
.bn 116.png
.pn +1
crest; the leaders dashed blindly forward, out
of the road at the curve and into it again with
a sudden jerk, snapping the back sled like a
whiplash far to the left, where the runner
crashed violently against a rock. While the
boys on the right were extricating themselves
from the arms of those on the left, while the
whole barge load was shouting and pushing
and scrambling and demanding what had happened,
Laughlin freed himself from the mêlée
and ran to the horses’ heads. Jim, sobered by
the calamity, soon had them in hand, and
Laughlin, with the driver’s lantern, hastened
back to the injured sled. The runner was
broken completely off.
“I was afraid of that,” he said to Mr. Leighton,
who stood in the midst of a knot of boys
about the sleigh, examining the damage.
“I see where we get a long walk,” said
Wood, to whom belonged one of the heads
projecting over the edge of the barge. “It’s
five miles in, if it’s an inch!”
“I speak for the little bay leader,” said
Jenkyns.
.bn 117.png
.pn +1
“Shut up, won’t you, fellows!” called Planter
from below. “This isn’t a time for nonsense.”
“May as well laugh as cry,” returned Webster.
“There’s Marchmont whimpering in the
corner.”
“It’s a bad job,” concluded Mr. Leighton,
after his inspection—a conclusion which every
one else had drawn at first sight.
Jim was brought around to give his opinion.
“That sled’s done for,” he pronounced with
solemnity.
“Can it be cobbled up so that we can get
home?” asked the teacher.
Jim shook his head. “I don’t know nothin’
to do to it; I ain’t no wheelwright.”
Mr. Leighton was visibly excited. “We
must do something. We can’t stay here all
night, and we can’t walk home.”
“I think I can fix it up so that we can get
home in it,” said Laughlin. “I’ve got out of
worse holes than this down in the Maine
woods.”
Mr. Leighton turned eagerly toward him:
“Can you? How?”
.bn 118.png
.pn +1
“By rigging a temporary runner. We passed
a house a little way back, where the dog barked
at us. If some one will go back with me, we
can probably get something to block the sled up
with. The rest of you had better get into the
barge and keep warm.”
It was a despairing man indeed who could
fail to gain courage from this sturdy giant, with
his honest face and quiet, confident voice.
“I’ll go with you,” cried half a dozen at
once.
Laughlin glanced at the half dozen, and took
Lindsay. Why he did this, of course he did not
explain, and it did not occur to Wolcott even
to ask himself the question. He strode along
at Laughlin’s side, silent and curious, but having
no doubt as to the outcome.
With the assistance of the barking dog they
woke the farmer, who put his head out the
window and demanded what was wanted.
“We’ve broken a sled runner, and want a
couple of poles to patch up with,” said Laughlin.
“Can you lend us an axe?”
“There’s an axe at the woodpile by the shed,”
.bn 119.png
.pn +1
answered the farmer, as he hurriedly closed the
window.
Laughlin pulled out the axe from a log, gave
the lantern to Wolcott, and selected two sticks
from the pile of sled-length wood. One of
these, a smooth hardwood pole, was perhaps
ten feet long and two or three inches in diameter
at its larger end. The other was much
shorter and thicker. He cut out a notch a few
inches from the end of the short piece and
another near the middle of the longer one. By
this time the farmer appeared at the shed door,
shivering in overcoat and top-boots.
“Have you an auger handy?” asked Laughlin.
While this was being found, Laughlin laid
the short piece on the ground, placed the pole
across it at right angles, fitting notch to notch;
and from a short piece of dry wood chipped
out a pin. In the meantime the farmer had
produced the auger, and Laughlin now bored
through both pieces at their intersection and
drove in his pin, joining them firmly together.
“Got any fence wire?” was the next question.
.bn 120.png
.pn +1
“There’s a piece somewhere round, left from the
fence, but I can’t just lay my hand on it now.”
“Let us take a couple of yards from the fence,
then,” urged Laughlin; “we’ll pay for it.”
The farmer hesitated, blinking at the pair in
perplexity.
“Well, ’tain’t quite the right thing to do, but
I guess I can make out to fix it up again. I
don’t want no pay for it. Hope you’ll get home
all right.”
The boys thanked the good man with all the
fervor of which they were capable, said good
night, selected from the woodpile a pole for a
lever, and with their booty tramped back to the
barge.
They arrived none too soon, for the impatient
musicians, left in utter darkness and biting cold,
were already breathing maledictions against
Laughlin, whom they fancied warming himself
in the farmer’s kitchen. While Wolcott was
hacking off a piece of wire from the fence and
breaking it into proper lengths, Laughlin cleared
the boys out of the barge, lifted the side of the
sled with his lever manned by sceptical but willing
.bn 121.png
.pn +1
volunteers, and shoved the pole into the
place of the broken runner so that the end of
the crosspiece rested on the top of the opposite
runner, where a piece of wire soon secured it.
Other pieces of wire served to fasten the pole
to the framework of the broken sled. It remained
to tie the forward end of the pole to the
body of the sleigh with hitching ropes, and to
stay the whole after sled with all available straps.
“All aboard!” cried Laughlin at last, and
the weary boys, raising a feeble shout of joy,
settled again into their places.
Laughlin did not get in. “I’m going on the
seat with Jim,” he said quietly to Mr. Leighton.
“I want to see that my work is given a fair
show.”
“But you’re not dressed for driving,” protested
the teacher. “You will freeze stiff.”
Laughlin gave a sniff of contempt. “I’m not
a baby,” he said. “It’s only my hands that will
trouble me, and I guess they’ll stand it for an
hour.”
Wolcott pulled off the thick fur gloves that he
had brought with him from Hamburg. “Take
.bn 122.png
.pn +1
these,” he said. “They’re big enough even for
your hands. Take them, I say,” he insisted, as
Laughlin hesitated. “I’ll wear yours instead.
If my gloves are working, I shall feel as if I
were doing something myself.”
Laughlin obeyed, and Wolcott, drawing on
the thin woollen gloves, plunged his hands into
his pockets and wondered how the fellow could
think of facing the wind with hands so poorly
protected. Long before the carefully driven
sleigh reached the edge of the town Wolcott’s
fingers were numb.
Laughlin’s sled came safely, though belated,
to the home stable. The next morning the
musicians turned out at an early hour to see
what kind of a vehicle it was that had brought
them home. And when they had examined it,
they brought their friends and explained to
them the marvel. Only Marchmont showed no
interest; he had had quite enough of sleds the
night before.
.bn 123.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER X | VICTIMS
.sp 2
“Hello!” cried Marchmont, as Lindsay
opened his door a few evenings after the Eastham
concert. “Thought you were dead.”
“I’ve been busy,” replied Wolcott; “I’m on
for a debate at the Laurel Leaf Saturday, and
I’ve been studying up my side.”
“So you belong to that, do you?” commented
Marchmont, with good-natured contempt. “I
suppose you joined to please the old man.”
“Partly,” answered Wolcott; “and partly
because I thought I might get some good out
of it.”
“I was thinking of putting you up for the
Omega-Omicron. Like to join?”
“I don’t know,” said Wolcott, with an indifference
more honest than polite.
.bn 124.png
.pn +1
“I shan’t urge you,” said Marchmont, significantly.
“What’s the matter with you to-night?
You look as solemn as your friend Laughlin.”
“Solemn or not, he was a pretty good friend
to us all the other evening,” remarked Lindsay.
“I don’t see why the fellows made so much
of that broken-runner business. Any common
teamster could have done as well.”
Lindsay made no reply.
“I’m getting sore on this monotonous life,”
continued Marchmont. “Can’t we stir something
up? I got a check to-day which I should
like to celebrate on before I go on probation.
Let’s go to Rivermouth.”
“What for?”
“Oh, see the town and have some fun—anything
to break away from this place.”
Lindsay shook his head: “It doesn’t sound
attractive. I’ve no wish to get fired.”
“You’re afraid!”
At another time Wolcott might have felt the
sting of this taunt. The Eastham ride, however,
which had not presented Marchmont exactly in
the light of a hero, had considerably lessened
.bn 125.png
.pn +1
the spell of superior cleverness and experience
which the idealized boy cast over his follower.
Marchmont’s merits were no less commendable
in Wolcott’s eyes; but his faults were no longer
wholly overlooked.
“Yes, I am, if that will please you. There
are some things it’s well to be afraid of.”
“What a good boy!” said Marchmont, covering
his sneer with a smile. “You must be the
delight of your mother’s heart! I really
thought you had more spirit in you.”
But Lindsay to-night was beyond the reach
of Marchmont’s wiles. “Go to bed and take a
long snooze,” he said, laughing; “it will do you
lots more good than trying to think of some
way of getting into trouble.”
As he passed Salter’s room on the way down,
Salter was just coming out.
“Going over to the Yard?” asked Wolcott.
“Yee-up,” replied Salter. He was a queer
person, this Salter, a little of a calf, a little of a
sissy, a great deal of a scholar,—in fact, one of
the best in the class,—yet a favorite with no
one. He was under medium size, fat and clumsy
.bn 126.png
.pn +1
in build, with girlish movements, a manner shy
even to timidity, and modesty that was a fault.
His fellows took him at his own estimate. The
only occasions on which his society seemed really
desired were just before recitation, when one boy
would jostle him into a corner and demand,
“Here, Sal, what’s the answer to 38?” Or
another would pluck him roughly by the
shoulder and insist on being told immediately
how to “do these two lines at the bottom of
the page.” These attentions were due, as Salter
was of course aware, not to friendship but to
necessity. The very persons whom he helped,
nicknamed him “Sal” and “Marm,” called him
a grind, made him the butt of jokes, and even
used him as an example of “the kind of fellow
who has no school spirit, never does anything
for the school.” If the words escaped Salter’s
ears, the general attitude told the story just as
plainly. Salter was not happy in his school life.
“I’ve seen your private way to Marchmont’s
room,” remarked Lindsay, as they walked down
the street.
“It’s not mine!” returned Salter, with an
.bn 127.png
.pn +1
emphasis quite unnatural to him. “If it were, I’d
nail it up so tight it never could be opened again.”
“But you let March use it,” pursued Wolcott.
“I let him use it because I can’t help myself,
not because I like it. It’s bound to get me into
trouble sooner or later, but that’s nothing to him.”
“He probably doesn’t think you really object,”
suggested Wolcott.
“I’ve told him twenty times at least that I do
object,” responded Salter, almost tearful. “I
don’t see what more I can say. Of course I
can’t report him, and I’m not strong enough
to fight him. If I were as big as you, I’d know
what to do fast enough! As it is, some one is
likely to see him going through my window
’most any time, and then I shall get it.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Wolcott.
“You aren’t supposed to see him.”
“I don’t see him, you can depend on that,
and I try not to hear him; but I know who’s
going through the window just the same, and I
can’t say I don’t without lying.”
Wolcott climbed the stairs to his room, feeling
very sorry for Salter and very much grieved
.bn 128.png
.pn +1
with Marchmont. It seemed hardly possible
that March could be so inconsiderate. If the
grieving friend could have heard a conversation
which took place in Marchmont’s room that
same evening, other and stronger feelings might
have mingled with his grief.
Wolcott had been gone scarcely ten minutes
when a timid knock evoked from Marchmont
a surly “Come in!” and Haynes White’s gaunt
figure edged its way into the room.
Marchmont nodded coolly. “Good evening.”
“Good evening,” returned White. “I’ve
come to ask about that money.”
“I haven’t got it yet,” replied Marchmont,
testily. “I told you I’d pay you when I got
the money; you won’t lose it.”
“But I need it now,” continued White, insistently.
“I really need it.”
Marchmont laughed. “So do I, and I’ve
never seen the time when I didn’t. I can’t keep
a dollar two days. If I could, I never should
have borrowed that twenty. Don’t worry, you’ll
be paid. I’m not trying to cheat you.”
“I don’t suppose you are,” returned White,
.bn 129.png
.pn +1
“but I want the money now. It’s mine and I
propose to have it.”
“Oh, you’re going to report me, are you?”
exclaimed Marchmont, in a different tone.
“That’s about what I might have expected.
Here I tutored with you for several weeks at
your own price, though you didn’t teach me a
blamed thing; and now you come and threaten
to report me because I don’t pay spot cash.
Why, there are people in New York who could
buy up this whole town, who only pay their bills
once a year and then merely as a favor. If you
report me, you’ll never get a cent out of me; I’d
leave school first.”
“I’ve got to have something or I’ll starve,”
said White, solemnly. “Pay me that twenty
you borrowed, anyway. That was my own
money that I had earned and saved. I must
have that.”
Marchmont had risen. “Why, I’m going to
pay you all of it as soon as I can. You won’t
starve; people don’t starve nowadays. You
can get credit as well as I can. And don’t fuss
about the money; it’ll be all right.”
.bn 130.png
.pn +1
And White went home to his chilly attic
room at old Miss Rolfe’s, which he paid for by
tending the furnace and shovelling the paths,
and tried to prove to his satisfaction in black
and white that by cutting meat out of his dinner
four times a week he could save enough to carry
him through to the end of the term, when the
scholarship payments would be made. He had
already been boarding himself for a fortnight,
the dining hall having proved too expensive for
his shrivelled purse.
.bn 131.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XI | BUYING TACKS
.sp 2
Not every one in school was in trouble, as the
last chapter would seem to indicate. Tompkins
and the Pecks, for example, were not bored by
the monotony of life, had no unwelcome visitors
descending into their closets by rope ladders, and
enjoyed three square meals every day. Since
the affair of the rubbers, the Pecks’ dormitory
entry had seen days of peace. With Tompkins’s
vague threats of retribution still ringing in their
ears, the twins had walked circumspectly and left
the senior’s dignity unassailed. But with every
day of delay in the coming of that retribution
the threats were losing effect.
The Pecks were sauntering aimlessly down
the dormitory path, when Tompkins overtook
them.
“Where are you going, Tommy, and what
for?” demanded Duncan.
.bn 132.png
.pn +1
“I’m going to Horne’s to buy a paper of
tacks, my sweet half bushel,” responded Tompkins,
who was in fine humor. “May I have
the pleasure of your company?”
“Sure!” said Donald, and Duncan seemed at
first to be of the same mind, but after a few
paces stopped abruptly. “I think I won’t go,”
he said.
“Better come on and see how it’s done,” said
Tompkins. “You may want to buy tacks sometime
yourself.”
“You can show Don, he’s the better scholar,”
Duncan rejoined, as he turned back toward the
dormitory.
But Tompkins and Donald were no sooner out
of sight around the corner than Duncan suddenly
wheeled, and scampering down a side
street and through a back yard, emerged among
the stores on Water Street. He stopped at
Horne’s hardware store, peeped in, and then
boldly walked down to the middle of the store,
where old Mr. Horne himself was sitting behind
the morning paper. It was the noon hour and
customers were few.
.bn 133.png
.pn +1
“Got any tacks?” asked Duncan.
“Yes,” replied Mr. Horne, slowly, eying the
boy over his spectacles as he folded up his paper.
“Then sit on them!”
With that Duncan turned abruptly and hastened
away, leaving the old man speechless
with indignation. Outside the store he dodged
into an alley long enough to avoid Tompkins
and Donald, who were approaching, and then
made full speed for Parker’s, the next hardware
store above.
Meantime Tompkins and Donald had entered
Horne’s. Donald lingered near the door, looking
at the knives and revolvers in the showcase,
while Tompkins went on toward a fierce-looking
old gentleman who glared at his approaching
customer in a markedly inhospitable fashion.
“Got any tacks?” asked Tompkins, innocently.
Mr. Horne’s face grew red and white in spots.
His eyes glittered behind his spectacles. Clutching
his paper in a trembling hand, he shook it
violently before the face of the astonished
Tompkins.
.bn 134.png
.pn +1
“You can’t ketch me again, you young scapegrace!
You git out of this store as fast as you
can git. I know what you’re here for. That
sassbox out there has been puttin’ you up to it,
but it won’t go down again. You git out o’ here
as lively as you can step it, or I’ll call the police
and have you put out!”
Tompkins stared dumfounded while Mr.
Horne unbosomed himself of his strong emotions;
then a half smile broke over the would-be
customer’s face. Donald was grinning from ear
to ear; this was fun that he had not expected.
“It seems to me your manners are a trifle
brusque,” remarked Tompkins, more amused
than angered. “Is this your usual way of
treating customers?”
“Customers! You didn’t come here to buy
anything, you came to insult me.”
“Sorry to differ from you,” replied Tompkins.
“I wanted to buy when I came in, but I don’t
want to now. I don’t feel at home with crazy
people. Come on, Don!”
And the senior strode out of the store indignantly,
followed by the snickering Peck.
.bn 135.png
.pn +1
“Is that the way you buy tacks?” asked Don,
as they reached the street.
Tompkins did not answer, but headed for
Parker’s, a few doors above.
Here also was but a single salesman, a tall
young man with a thin mustache and a circle
of baldness on the top of his head, who was
sorting screws behind the counter. Donald
again remained near the door, but this time
gave no heed to the showcase, while Tompkins
strode defiantly up to the waiting clerk.
“Do you keep tacks?”
The clerk rested his hands on the counter,
looked quizzically into the solemn face confronting
his, then glanced at the boy standing near
the door, who was already tittering in expectancy.
“No, we don’t keep tacks and we don’t sit on
them!” he answered, smiling and clipping his
words short. With the last word he swung his
arm suddenly forward and sent Tompkins’s hat
spinning among the nail kegs.
This was too much. Tompkins emitted a
whoop and sprang for the nearest weapon,
which happened to be a pitchfork. Holding
.bn 136.png
.pn +1
this before him, as a soldier would hold a
bayonet for a charge, he shouted:—
“Come on, you blamed counter-jumper, and
I’ll spear you like an eel! You pick up that
hat and pick it up quick, or I’ll put three holes
through you that I can see through. They
shoot men for smaller things than that out in
my country. Pick up that hat, do you hear!”
As the clerk looked into those blazing eyes
and saw the tines brandished before his nose,
the jocose mood suddenly abandoned him. He
ran round the counter, picked up the hat,
brushed it with his sleeve, and handed it back
to the ferocious knight of the pitchfork.
“I didn’t mean anything, really I didn’t,” he
said humbly. “I thought you were joking, especially
as you came in with that fellow—that
gentleman there. Do you want some tacks?
What size, eights?”
“I want nothing,” growled Tompkins, lowering
the fork. “I wouldn’t buy a rivet in this
place if you’d give me the whole store and
throw in the clerks to sweep up and open the
nail kegs. Come on, Don!”
.bn 137.png
.il id=i137 fn=i137.jpg w=337px ew=65% cw=120%
.ca “Pick up that hat, do you hear!”—Page 118.
.bn 138.png
.bn 139.png
.pn +1
“I’m learning fast,” declared Donald, on the
sidewalk, after several vain efforts to control
his laughter so as to make himself intelligible.
“What’s the next lesson going to be?”
Tompkins was too busy thinking to pay attention
to poor jokes. “You stay out of the next
store—do you hear?” he said threateningly.
At Cutler’s, Tompkins merely put his head
inside. The clerk sat in a chair near the door,
passing the noon hour in idleness. Tompkins
held up a coin.
“I’ve five cents or ten cents or a quarter or
whatever is necessary, and I’d like to buy a
paper of tacks. If you can sell me some without
hitting me or calling me names, I’d like to
come in and buy. There’s something queer about
the tack business in this town.”
“I think I can,” replied the man, good-naturedly.
“Come in.”
As the salesman produced the laboriously
sought tacks, Donald, whose curiosity was beyond
control, opened the door and slipped
in.
“You keep out!” cried Tompkins, warningly.
.bn 140.png
.pn +1
“Oh, he’s here again, is he?” said the clerk,
laughing.
“Has he been here before?” demanded
Tompkins.
“Yes, about five minutes ago.”
“That lad here five minutes ago? Why, he
hasn’t been out of my sight for the last half
hour.”
The clerk shook his head. “He was here not
five minutes ago. He asked me if I had tacks,
and when I said yes, he said, ‘Sit on them,’ and
lit out.”
“By George!” said Tommy, slowly, as the
truth came home to him, “the little rat has
scored again, and scored hard, too. They are
twins, you see,” he vouchsafed in explanation
to the only man in town who would sell him
tacks, “they are twins, and one of them, knowing
I was after tacks, has gone around and
stirred up a hornet’s nest in every store. Then
when I came along with the other twin, I got
stung.”
When Tompkins issued forth from the store
of the willing salesman, Donald was nowhere to
.bn 141.png
.pn +1
be seen. Where the latter had gone, or why, it
is perhaps superfluous to explain. He bounded
up the dormitory stairs, panting a continuous
stream of exclamation and chuckle. Duncan
was standing on the threshold of Number
Seventeen, a picture of ecstatic expectancy.
“Did it work?” he asked eagerly.
“Work!” repeated Donald, casting on his
brother a look of admiration. “It couldn’t
have worked better if you’d spent a week in
planning it. The old duffer we struck first
swelled up like a hot balloon and threatened to
call a cop to pinch him. The second fellow,
the lean chap with the bald head, got funny
and knocked Tommy’s dip off on to the floor.
Tommy got crazy and grabbed a pitchfork, and
I thought sure there was going to be murder.”
Duncan was giggling joyously. “If I could
only have been there! Tell it to me from the
beginning, Don, and be sure you don’t leave anything
out.”
Donald had just finished his second detailed
description when Tompkins’s knock was heard,
and the victim appeared. He walked solemnly
.bn 142.png
.pn +1
into the room and turned directly to Duncan, a
single glance at the two expressive faces having
betrayed the guilty one.
“By rights I ought to get mad as a hatter,”
he said, “and run amuck among the Pecks for
about twenty minutes; but I’m not going to do
it. The trick was so good that I’m going to
forget about it. But let me tell you two fellows
once for all, I’ve had all the things to forget that
I want. The next time that you try any of your
little games on me there’ll be a peck of trouble,—do
you understand?—and a Peck in trouble.
I’m giving you a last warning.”
“Much obliged,” returned Duncan, grinning
broadly. Now that the storm no longer threatened,
his courage and delight were returning.
“Now tell me what put you next that trick?”
demanded the senior.
“That’s my secret,” replied Duncan.
“He invented it himself, of course,” declared
Donald, proudly.
That afternoon, at the slightest chuckle from
Peck Number One, Number Two burst into a
violent titter. And they both had poor lessons.
.bn 143.png
.pn +1
Mr. Moore was actually forced to interrupt the
recitation in order to inform the Pecks that their
conduct was most reprehensible, and that their
recitations were good proof that silly faces and
empty heads were usually found together. All
of which the Pecks received with becoming
humility.
.bn 144.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XII | THE HALO FADES
.sp 2
If Marchmont underestimated White’s urgent
need and conveniently ignored him, there
were others who interested themselves in his
welfare. Ware, who sat near him in the class
room, first began to suspect that the boy was
not getting enough to eat. He took counsel
with Poole, but Poole was as helpless as Ware.
Either would have been glad to advance money
to White, but neither could see a way of approaching
him. If White, without giving any
hint of his condition to school authorities or
fellow-students, was denying himself sufficient
food, it was either because he was too proud to
have his distress known or unwilling to incur
obligation. In either case the boys were likely
to give offence by offering aid. They finally
.bn 145.png
.pn +1
decided to put the matter in Laughlin’s hands,
in the hope that White would prove more amenable
to arguments presented by one who, like
himself, was earning his way through school.
Laughlin lost no time in carrying out the
commission.
“Well, what about it? Were we right or
wrong?” demanded Poole, as the familiar big
shoulders and the square, serious face loomed up
in his doorway.
“You’re right about his starving himself, if
that’s what you mean,” said Laughlin, dropping
heavily upon the window-seat, which he always
considered the safest resting place in the room.
“Would he take anything?” asked Ware.
Laughlin shook his head soberly. “I didn’t
dare ask him. He says he has plenty to eat,
but all he had to-night for supper was mush and
milk, which he pretends to be very fond of.”
“That’s nourishing, isn’t it?” asked Poole.
“Of course it’s nourishing,” replied Laughlin,
“but he can’t live on it entirely. He isn’t a
pig or a chicken.”
“What are we going to do about it?” demanded
.bn 146.png
.pn +1
Poole. “Must we leave him to his
mush and milk?”
“To his mush and milk and me,” returned
Laughlin, quietly. “There’s something back
of all this that hasn’t come out yet. I don’t
understand why he should be so short. He had
some money at the beginning of the year, as I
happen to know. Since then he’s had a scholarship
payment, has done considerable tutoring,
and apparently hasn’t spent anything. He
ought to have money left.”
“Tutored Marchmont, didn’t he?” asked
Poole.
“I believe so,” Laughlin replied.
“I wonder if he got his money,” remarked
Ware.
Laughlin glanced sharply at the speaker as if
a new idea had struck him. “I don’t know
about that,” he said; “I’m not through with
the case yet. He’s going to take one of my
furnaces, that will give him a dollar a week
more; and perhaps by the end of another week
we can find where the trouble lies.”
“But you want the dollar a week yourself,
.bn 147.png
.pn +1
Dave,” cried Poole, indignantly. “That’s like
you. You start out to discover how Ware and
I can help White: the first day you give him
some of your work, the second you’ll be doing
your work and his too. Where do we come in,
I’d like to know?”
“I’ll let you fellows know when there’s a
chance for you,” said Laughlin, smiling. “At
present I’m the whole team.”
“He’s scabbed our job,” said Ware, in disgust.
Two or three days after this Laughlin hunted
up Poole and informed him that his time had
come. Underfed, overworked, worried, White
had at last given out, and he now lay in bed,
feverish and weak, and desperate at the thought
that a long illness might be before him. In his
helpless state his lips had been unsealed and he
had spoken freely and fully of his affairs. It
was Marchmont’s long-continued delay in paying
the debt that had forced him to these privations.
“The thief!” cried Poole. “Think of his
borrowing money from a poor fellow when he
was in debt to him already, and then coolly letting
.bn 148.png
.pn +1
him starve! If that isn’t the lowest-down
trick for a fellow of his front!”
“Here is where you come in,” said Laughlin.
“I wanted him to let me go to Mr. Graham and
get his help to collect it; but White wouldn’t hear
of it—he thinks it wouldn’t be the right thing,
you know. The only way to keep that fellow
out of the hospital is to make Marchmont pay
the bill, and you’re the man to do it.”
“No, I’m not,” replied Poole, slowly. “Marchmont
wouldn’t do anything for me if he could
help it, and I should be mad before I’d said ten
words.”
“And I’m not, either,” sighed Laughlin.
“I’ve never spoken to him a dozen times in my
life, and yet he seems to hate me as if I were his
worst enemy.”
A few minutes later Lindsay looked up in
surprise to see Poole and Laughlin walk solemnly
into his room. The former had made very infrequent
visits of late; the latter had never
appeared there before.
“We’ve come for help in a charity case,” said
Poole. “Will you give it?”
.bn 149.png
.pn +1
“I guess so,” replied Wolcott, cautiously. “It
depends on the case.”
“Laughlin will explain. Fire away, Dave!”
And Laughlin rehearsed White’s tale as he
had heard it, briefly, without adjectives or exclamation
points to weaken the effect of the
simple details, ending with an account of the
victim’s present condition and the need of
prompt action if he were to be saved serious
illness. When he finished, Wolcott was sitting
straight up, with eyes fixed on the narrator’s lips
and a red spot burning on either cheek.
“Do you mean to tell me that Marchmont
still owes that money?” he demanded.
Laughlin nodded: “That’s what I mean.
He still owes it and is likely to owe it indefinitely.”
“Unless some one can get it out of him,”
added Poole. “White won’t let us put it in
Grim’s hands, and we have no influence with
the fellow.”
“Then it’s up to me,” said Wolcott, jumping to
his feet with a look of determination in his face.
“I’ll have a try at him myself.” And before
.bn 150.png
.pn +1
the others could utter a word, he had seized his
hat and dived out the door.
The visitors looked at each other and laughed.
“Dead easy,” said Phil. “He’s the right
kind, isn’t he? How quickly he caught on!”
“I always liked him,” returned Laughlin.
“The trouble is, he doesn’t like me.”
Marchmont looked up from his cigarette and
his novel into Wolcott’s stern face and understood
that something had gone wrong. He did
not ask what, for his visitor left him no
opportunity.
“Do you owe Haynes White any money?”
“I believe I do,” answered Marchmont, unpleasantly
startled at this abrupt opening; “but
that’s our business.”
“It’s other people’s business now,” retorted
Wolcott, hotly. “He’s in bed sick. He’s sick
because he hasn’t had enough to eat. He hasn’t
had enough because you have taken the money
he needed for food and won’t return it to him.
Now you can cough up that money, or I’ll put
the case into Grim’s hands to settle as he
chooses. I won’t see a fellow like that fleeced
.bn 151.png
.pn +1
of his money and starved to death without putting
up some kind of a howl. It’s robbery!”
Marchmont gasped. The look of bravado
had suddenly left him. “I didn’t know it was
as bad as that, really I didn’t,” he said eagerly.
“Here, I’ll give you all I’ve got left. It will
cover the twenty dollars, anyway, and I’ll send
for more to-night. You don’t think I’d keep
money from a starving man, do you now? You
must know me better than that.”
“I should hope you wouldn’t!” said Wolcott,
whose indignation was somewhat appeased by
the ready offer of the money, while the pleading
tones affected him as the defiant ones had not.
“How much more do you owe him?”
“About twenty,” answered Marchmont.
“How long will it take you to get it?”
“A week.”
“He’ll expect it, then, next Thursday night;
and I hope, for your sake as well as his, that
you’ll have it ready for him. Good night!”
Ten minutes after he had left his room,
Wolcott opened the door again, walked to the
table, and deposited the money upon it.
.bn 152.png
.pn +1
“There’s the twenty,” he said coolly; “he’ll
have the rest in another week.”
Laughlin stared; Poole shouted aloud. “How
did you do it?” he cried; “shake it out of him?”
“I told him I wanted it, and he gave it to me.
He didn’t know White really needed it.”
“What do you say to that, Dave?” demanded
Poole, turning with a comical grimace to his
companion.
“I say he was lying,” replied Laughlin,
quietly.
After the callers had departed, Wolcott sat
for some minutes striving to define his opinion
of Marchmont and to determine his future attitude
toward him. Clearly there were other
characteristics to be considered in the fellow
than the graceful manners and airs of superior
gentility which had so imposed upon the new
boy. He was absolutely selfish, indifferent to
the rights and happiness of others, and at heart
a coward. There was as great a contrast between
this weak, self-indulgent character and
the rugged, generous, downright honesty of
Laughlin as between the two exteriors: the
.bn 153.png
.pn +1
ratio of values was inverse to that of appearances.
“I’m afraid Tommy was nearer right than I
that day when he was ranting about a pile of
Marchmonts,” he said to himself in no happy
frame of mind, as he started to clear up his desk.
“I’ve been well taken in by that fellow.”
His Aunt Emmeline’s unanswered letter appeared
from under a pile of papers. He opened
it again and read it through, then seized his
hat and hurried forth.
Two minutes later a hulking six-footer, with
face rosy from rapid walking, presented himself
at the delivery window of the Seaton library.
“Have you bound copies of old Atlantics?”
he asked, with an eagerness quite unusual in
searchers of by-gone periodicals.
“We have a complete set from the beginning,”
replied the librarian, promptly. This set
she had herself completed by researches in the
garrets of the villagers, and she was proud of
her achievement.
“I should like to look at several around 1870,”
said Wolcott. “May I begin with ’67?”
.bn 154.png
.pn +1
The two volumes were brought, and he
eagerly scanned the table of contents. Miss
Codman’s name was not to be found among the
contributors of poetry. Then another year was
examined, and still another. It was in the second
volume of the fourth year, which he had
mentally resolved should be the last he would
ask for, that the title “A Sail! A Sail!” in
roman followed by Alice Codman in italics, at
length caught his eye. Hurriedly he fluttered
the leaves to page 873, as the index directed.
Alice Codman’s poem contained four stanzas,—identical
with four of the stanzas published in
the last Lit over Marchmont’s name!
Wolcott shut the book with a bang, noted
the page and volume on a library slip, and returned
the books to the librarian.
“Can you tell me whether any student has
had this volume in the last two months?” he
asked.
“We keep no record after a book has been
returned,” replied the librarian. “These old
periodicals are seldom called for, but I remember
that a student took out several old Atlantics
.bn 155.png
.pn +1
and Littells four or five weeks ago. I have forgotten
his name. He was tall and slender, very
well dressed, and with extremely polite manners.”
“Was it Marchmont?”
“That’s the name—Marchmont.”
Wolcott’s expressions of gratitude to the
librarian as he left the delivery window, if not
as polite as Marchmont’s, were at least as
sincere. On the way home he stopped at the
post-office, where he mailed a postal card bearing
Tompkins’s address on one side, and on the other:
“Consult Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 25, page
873.”
Then he strode home, reiterating his resolution
with every step. His intimacy with Marchmont
was over.
.bn 156.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIII | RED RETRIBUTION
.sp 2
It must be confessed that the generosity of
Tompkins in forgiving the twins for their second
victory over him was very poorly appreciated.
A dog that merely barks frightens only those
who are afraid of barking. The twins, while
holding bites in wholesome dread, were brave
regarding barks; and collectively they looked
upon Tompkins as a barker. Individually, their
opinions differed. Donald had his doubts as to
the advisability of pressing Tompkins farther.
Duncan, however, in whom the love of mischief
was far stronger than discretion, argued that
Tommy was a bluffer, that he was only waiting
for his chance to get back at them, and that
the team that takes the offensive usually wins
the game. So Donald yielded to plausible
.bn 157.png
.pn +1
arguments, and the Peck solidarity remained
unbroken. As a concession to the demand for
some distinguishing token, however, they began
to wear different-colored neckties, Donald blue,
Duncan red.
Now it happened on a certain Saturday night
that Tompkins had a part in the debate at the
Laurel Leaf on that favorite subject for debating
societies,—the advisability of choosing United
States senators by popular vote. The meeting
was an open one, and Donald, impelled as much
by natural taste as by curiosity to witness his
neighbor’s performance, was among the spectators.
Duncan, to whom debate smacked too
much of the recitation room to be attractive,
even with Tommy as a performer, preferred to
stay at home.
Tompkins had the opening. His task was to
show that the present system was a failure. He
was just about to begin, when he noticed that the
volume of Bryce’s “American Commonwealth,”
from which he intended to quote a clincher to
his argument, was not among his books of
reference. He walked down to Donald and
.bn 158.png
.pn +1
whispered a few words in his ear, whereat the
blue-necktied twin nodded, took up his hat, and
disappeared.
“Tommy’s had to send me back for one of his
books,” said Donald, a minute or two later,
putting his head in at the Peck door. “He’s
just going to start off.”
“Does he look rattled?” asked Duncan. “If
I knew he was going to slump, I’d go over.”
“I guess there’s no danger of that,” replied
Donald, bringing the book nearer the light.
“I hope I’ve got the right volume.”
“How many volumes are there?” demanded
Duncan, suddenly.
“Two.”
“Bring the other, then, while I change my
tie!” commanded Duncan, jumping up and pulling
vigorously at his necktie.
Donald stared.
“It’s the best thing yet,” chuckled Duncan.
“Get a hustle on, there’s no time to lose.”
Donald, with the puzzled expression still on
his face, obediently returned to Tompkins’s room
and brought the other volume. “I told him I’d
.bn 159.png
.pn +1
get him Number Two,” he said doubtfully. “I
can’t take the wrong one.”
“No, but I can,” declared Duncan, giving
the last touch to his blue cravat, which was an
exact duplicate of his brother’s. “How long
has he to spout?”
“Seven minutes.”
“You just stay here three, and then come
along with the right book, as you agreed to.
I’m going over with the wrong one. Where
d’you sit?”
“Two rows from the front in the aisle seat,”
answered Donald, still bewildered.
Tompkins was greatly relieved to see the door
open and the twin with a blue tie walk to
the seat in the second row, bearing the familiar
volume of Bryce under his arm. The speaker’s
argument had been planned to lead up gradually
to an effective climax in a final quotation from
a great authority. For this quotation Tompkins
had been nervously waiting.
“And now in proof of my contention that
the prevailing system of choosing United States
senators is a failure,” he went on confidently,
.bn 160.png
.pn +1
“that it advances to the highest legislative
position not the best and the ablest, but the
richest and the trickiest, the millionaires and
the political bosses, I will add that our wisest
foreign critics lay especial emphasis on this
perilous weakness. Let me quote in conclusion
from that fair and sympathetic student of
our institutions, Mr. James Bryce. On page
492 of the second volume of his ‘American
Commonwealth’ he says:—”
Here the orator, abandoning his notes and
leaving his sentence suspended in the air, took
the book from the twin’s hand and thumbed
the leaves to page 492. It bore the unfamiliar
heading, “State Finance.” He consulted his
notes once more, then looked at pages 490, 494,
and 497. There was nothing on these pages
which he had ever seen before. He turned to
392 and 592, and to the end of the book to
find the index. There was no index! He
whipped the book over and discovered that he
was using Volume I.
By this time the debater’s face was crimson,
the listeners were grinning broadly, and even
.bn 161.png
.pn +1
the presiding officer, whose sense of dignity
was enormous, found difficulty in controlling
his countenance.
“You’ve brought the wrong book,” said
Tompkins, angrily, to the smiling twin. “I
told you Volume II!”
“You didn’t tell me anything,” replied Duncan,
composedly.
Tompkins glared; the audience craned their
necks to get sight of Duncan and snickered aloud.
“I’ve just come in,” continued the twin.
At this the whole company, Tompkins excepted,
burst into a roar which increased rather
than diminished as the tardy Donald opened the
door, walked to the front of the room, gravely
placed a book on the table before the outraged
debater, and took a seat near his brother.
“I am sorry to say, Mr. Tompkins,” said the
chairman, after he had at last brought the
meeting to order, “that your time is up. Perhaps
in view of the peculiar interruption, the
negative may be willing to give you another
minute,” he added, with a glance at Richardson,
who was to open for the negative.
.bn 162.png
.pn +1
Richardson smiled and nodded; and Tompkins
read his quotation from the right book,
and finished his speech with the rhetorical
flourish which he had prepared. But Mr.
Bryce’s opinion and Tompkins’s rhetoric both
fell on unheeding ears.
At the first opportunity the twins slipped
away to their room, and locking the door securely,
waited in awful anticipation for Tompkins’s
knock. It did not come. The next day
they ventured cautiously forth, and sought the
protection of numbers when there was danger
that the injured senior might suddenly appear
from around a corner and wreak vengeance.
But Tompkins, when he passed them, nodded
pleasantly as if nothing had happened. On
the third day he even dropped in after his old
manner for a brief and friendly call. On the
fourth he appeared with a comic paper in which
he wished to show an amusing caricature, and
spread it out on the desk. It was then that
Nemesis came—swift, unexpected, terrible. As
Duncan leaned guilelessly over the table, feasting
his eyes on the cartoon, he felt the hair
.bn 163.png
.pn +1
on the back of his head suddenly brushed up as
by the hand of the barber testing its thickness.
At the same time he heard a noise as of the
sop of a sponge, and felt the chill of a cold
liquid wetting his head and streaming down
his neck.
“There!” said Tompkins, backing away and
holding out a crimson sponge like a shield
before him. “There’s a red that can’t be
changed like a necktie. It’s good dye, this
is, warranted to stand washing and not to
wear off. I think I shall know you, my friend,
the next time I see you.”
With these words the senior escaped, leaving
the unhappy Duncan to make his toilet as best
he could. There was much bathing that day
in the twins’ abode, and shampooing that in
point of thoroughness would have put to shame
the efforts of an expert. The results were not
encouraging. The crimson became but a shade
lighter; while the scalp, scraped and worn by
the process, showed vivid pink beneath. When
it became apparent that home treatment would
not avail to remove the glaring stain, they
.bn 164.png
.pn +1
adjourned to the drug store, where they pleaded
for advice and received only ridicule. A friendly
barber finally came to their relief with the
promise that by clipping off Duncan’s red locks
and dying the stubble to match the rest, he
could make him over as good as new. When
the boy got down from the chair, however, he
was horrified to find that though the gory hue
had disappeared, the clipped portion was several
shades darker than the color nature had intended
it should bear, and of a different tone;
and through the dark patch the skin still glistened
a rosy pink.
“It’ll grow out in three or four weeks and
I can cut it to the right color,” said the barber,
with doubtful comfort. “People won’t notice
it now till they git pretty clost.”
And herewith came an unforeseen break in
the Peck solidarity. Donald declined absolutely
to have his own hair cut and dyed to match;
the weather was too cold and the bull’s-eye effect
too conspicuous. Duncan must either grow hair
or get a wig. All of which Duncan considered
very unbrotherly and unfeeling. And Tompkins,
.bn 165.png
.pn +1
having proved himself a dog that could
bite as well as bark, was baited no longer.
.sp 2
Meantime Wolcott, having given up the society
of Marchmont, was seeing more of others
whom in his intimacy with the polished New
Yorker he had neglected. There was no one
of these whom he liked better to visit than
Poole, partly because of the attractive personality
of Poole himself, partly because of the
pleasant company who habitually gathered in
his study. Planter and Ware he often met
there, while Durand, Morgan, Tompkins, Richardson
of the Seatonian board, and Saybrook
who drew the funny caricatures, also belonged
to the set. Laughlin was made welcome as
often as his many occupations would permit.
With his different experience of life and greater
seriousness, he was not an adept at the gay
banter current among care-free fellows to
whom the pleasant things of life came without
effort. His presence, however, was never
a damper on the merriment, while in the discussion
of graver matters his opinion always
.bn 166.png
.pn +1
carried weight. With Wolcott he talked chiefly
about football, with the result that the interest and
ambition of the new boy were constantly growing.
It was on the last evening before the school
recess that Wolcott was publicly committed to
the captain’s projects. A group of kindred
spirits had gathered in Poole’s room, talking
athletics as vigorously as if the subject had not
been fundamentally discussed a hundred times
before.
“The outlook is certainly bad,” Planter was
saying. “The football is gone, and while we
don’t want to think that we are going to lose
the baseball too, the chances are certainly
against us, and we haven’t any great show for
track. If Dickinson and Todd and all those
fellows could only tie Hillbury last year, I
don’t see what we can expect with a green
team. This looks like a mighty bad year for
us, doesn’t it?”
“You oughtn’t to talk to a member of the
nine about the nine’s losing,” Laughlin remarked
with a jerk of his head toward Poole. “That’s
not the spirit to begin the season with.”
.bn 167.png
.pn +1
“I suppose, then, if any one asks about your
next football season, you’ll say you’re going to
win,” retorted Planter.
“I certainly shall,” replied Laughlin. “There’s
going to be no expectation of defeat on my
team. We mean to win if it’s possible.”
“So do we,” said Poole.
“What about that man Strong? Isn’t he
going to do something in the sports?” asked
Wolcott.
“He has run the hundred in ten and a
fifth, according to Roberts. That’s fast enough
to win ’most anything,” said Durand.
“Some one said he was on probation for not
keeping up with his work,” added Poole.
“Then I don’t believe he’s much of a runner,”
commented Laughlin. “These fellows
who haven’t sand enough to do passable work,
haven’t sand enough to run a hard race.”
“That doesn’t always hold true,” Planter
protested. “Curtis was no scholar at all, and
yet on the gridiron he’d hustle to beat the
band.”
“I wish he were here now,” sighed Laughlin.
.bn 168.png
.pn +1
“It’s hard to get hold of such fellows. Lindsay
here is the only good recruit that I’ve caught
for the line next year.”
Wolcott reddened as the eyes of the company
were turned curiously upon him.
“I’m going to try, that’s all,” he said humbly.
“I don’t know that I shall be able to play.”
“And I’m going to try, though I know I
shan’t be able to play,” lamented Durand. “If
I could gain about forty pounds this summer,
there would be some hope for me.”
Laughlin and Lindsay came downstairs together
a few minutes later.
“I’ve committed you now before witnesses,”
said Laughlin. “You see you have your work
cut out for you.”
“So you guarantee me a place in the line, do
you?” asked Wolcott, smiling.
“Not much!” the captain retorted. “Guarantee
you nothing but the chance to work
for one.”
The next day school closed for the spring
recess. The grip that Wolcott gave to Laughlin’s
big fist was an earnest of growing regard
.bn 169.png
.pn +1
as well as a measure of self-defence. He went
out of his way to say good-by to Salter, whose
loneliness was the more apparent amid the
boisterous leave-takings of friends. For Marchmont
he had but a brief word, and yet a month
before he had written for permission to bring
Marchmont home with him at this very time.
Fortunately the invitation had never been
given.
.bn 170.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIV | PATRON AND CLIENT
.sp 2
The spring term was but a few days old
when Salter received a summons to present
himself at the Principal’s office immediately
after his morning recitation. Such invitations
were not frequent with Salter, who, as we have
seen, led a particularly inoffensive life, gave
scrupulous heed to the rules, and did his work
with exemplary regularity. His record was
clear of all sins of omission and of commission;
but on the score of permission he was not so
innocent. He had a gloomy presentiment, as
he dragged himself up the walk to his destination,
that the long-deferred reckoning for the
trap-door and the nocturnal exits through his
window was now at hand. He went hopeless
and helpless in the horns of his dilemma, forbidden
by the perverse principle of school honor
.bn 171.png
.pn +1
to confess the truth, yet bound to be credited
with deception and wrong-doing if he did not.
“Salter,” began the Principal, with the cautious
deliberateness which he habitually used
in his interviews with suspected boys, “you
were allowed to occupy Mrs. Winter’s lower
room because you were considered trustworthy,
were you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And in taking that room you were put on
your honor to conform to the school rules.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Explain, then, your absence from your room
last night and your return through the window
at half-past twelve.”
“I wasn’t out last night at all, sir,” replied
Salter in a low voice, but without raising his
eyes to meet Mr. Graham’s searching gaze.
“When did you go to bed?”
“About ten.”
“You did not go out or come in by your
window last night?”
“No, sir.”
“Or this morning early?”
.bn 172.png
.pn +1
“No, Sir.”
“And no one else did?”
“I didn’t see any one, sir.”
“Did you lock your door when you went to
bed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was it locked when you woke this morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Graham rested his forehead on his finger
tips and gazed for a few moments into the fire.
He was a wise man, exceptionally successful in
ruling boys, largely because he treated them
with common sense and justice, neither suspecting
them unnecessarily nor by guileless benevolence
inviting deceit. As he always made it
a point whenever he dealt personally with the
boys to state his views with a clearness impossible
to misunderstand, and never to act until he
was sure of his premises, he was never charged
with underhand dealing, and made few mistakes.
In the present case the Principal’s caution
served him well. He had already visited Mrs.
Winter and learned that she herself tried Marchmont’s
.bn 173.png
.pn +1
door at 10 P.M., and found it bolted
within—it had no key. Marchmont, therefore,
was beyond suspicion. It followed, then, that
Salter was lying, or that John Drown, the man
who had reported the entry by the window, was
mistaken, or that all the facts in the case were
not yet known. From his knowledge of Salter
and Drown, Mr. Graham inclined to the last
supposition.
“Salter,” he said, looking fixedly at the boy’s
confused face, “you are keeping something back
that I ought to know. What is it?”
Salter made no reply,—what reply could he
make without telling the whole truth or lying?—but
stared at the floor while his face burned
hotter and his eyes swam, and a lump formed in
his throat.
“I won’t press you,” said the Principal at last,
breaking the terrible silence; “but this I want
you to promise me to do: choose the best boy
in school, the strongest, manliest, most honorable
fellow you know; confide to him all that you
won’t confide to me, and act on his advice.
Will you do it?”
.bn 174.png
.pn +1
“Yes, sir.”
“That is all, then.”
With the feeling that he had escaped a great
peril, Salter sat down in his room and meditated
on the interview. He had told no lies; he had
made no confession; he had given no hint that
could be so twisted as to suggest Marchmont.
But how was he to fulfil his promise to seek out
an adviser and follow his advice? And who
was “the strongest, manliest, most honorable
fellow you know”? Certain names occurred to
him immediately,—names with which we are
already acquainted: Poole, Laughlin, Ware,
Planter. No one of these fellows had ever
taken much notice of him. They had been
polite to him,—all but Planter the senior, who
probably didn’t know him by sight,—but in his
timid soul he shrank from imposing on any of
them his private troubles. Who, then, was this
adviser to be? If he consulted his inclination,
it would be Lindsay, with whom he had already
discussed the affair of the closet, and whose
later treatment of him invited confidence. And
why not Lindsay, indeed? Lindsay was a gentleman,
.bn 175.png
.pn +1
and strong and kind-hearted; had in
three months won a position in the social life
of the school which Salter himself could never
hope to reach; knew Marchmont well, and yet
was not of his sort. Lindsay it should be.
In response to a knock Wolcott looked up
from his books that afternoon to see Salter
standing before him.
“I want to talk with you about something,”
said the visitor, timidly. “May I?”
“Sure!” returned Wolcott, encouragingly.
“Sit down, won’t you? What’s up?”
“You remember what I said to you about
that trap-door in my closet, that sooner or later I
should be pulled up for it? Well, it came to-day.”
“Tell me about it!” cried Wolcott, interested
at once.
And Salter, whose memory never failed him,
went over the conversation with Mr. Graham
verbatim. “He told me to choose an adviser,
and to follow his advice,” Salter remarked in
conclusion, “so I’ve chosen you—that is, if
you don’t object,” he added immediately, as he
saw the color rush into Lindsay’s face.
.bn 176.png
.pn +1
He need have felt no uncertainty. Wolcott’s
cheeks flushed, not from anger, but with pride
that, with all the school to choose from, this
fellow had come to him, a new boy, for advice
and help; and instantly, under the generous
impulse that animates every true man when a
weaker cries for protection, he had adopted
Salter’s cause as his own. If he hesitated, it
was only for effect; he knew immediately what
he wished to say.
“If you want my advice, here it is: go to
Marchmont and tell him the thing has got to
end, and end now; that if he goes through your
room again, you won’t be responsible for what
happens.”
“But what can happen?”
“You could lock him out, if you wanted to,
and let him shift for himself. But it won’t
come to that. Tell him you won’t have it!
Put up a stiff front, and he’ll back down. I’ve
seen him do it before now.”
Salter looked discouraged. “I’m not good at
stiff fronts. He’d know it was a bluff, and talk
me out of it before I’d been there two minutes.
.bn 177.png
.pn +1
When it comes to talking, I’m no match for the
fellow at all.”
“I’ll go with you,” cried Wolcott, springing
up. “You’ve got to make a stand, or he’ll run
over you completely. Spunk up and take your
medicine; it’s the only way.”
Marchmont was at home, and obviously puzzled
as the pair filed into his room, the shrinking
Salter pushed forward by the more aggressive
Lindsay. As Salter never had ventured to visit
his classmate of the second story, while Lindsay
until recently had been a frequent visitor, Marchmont
naturally looked to the latter for an explanation
of the call.
“I’m here only as a friend of Salter’s,” said
Wolcott, significantly. “He has something to
say to you.”
“I just wanted to say that I was called up
to-day to explain how some one came through
my window at half-past twelve last night; and
it seems to me high time for the closet business
to stop.” Salter got through with this very
well.
“But you got off easily enough, didn’t you?
.bn 178.png
.pn +1
Of course the man who thought he saw you
was mistaken.” Marchmont’s tones were smooth
and persuasive.
Salter rallied his courage and went blindly
forward. “It doesn’t make any difference how
I got off. The thing must end or I’ll not be
responsible for the consequences.”
Marchmont laughed. “There won’t be any
consequences. You aren’t mean enough to
squeal.”
“I’ve advised him to give you warning, and
when you go through again, lock you out,” said
Wolcott, coming to the rescue. “He’s put up
with it long enough.”
Marchmont turned coldly: “So you’re butting
in again, are you? I don’t see that this concerns
you in the slightest.”
“As Salter’s backer in case he needs my help
it may concern me a good deal,” retorted Wolcott.
“Shall we go now?”
Salter eagerly assented, and the pair retired
with the honors of battle.
The next day Salter again appeared to consult
his adviser.
.bn 179.png
.pn +1
“I’ve been thinking a lot about that hole. It
ought to be closed up. He may keep out for a
time, but I never shall feel safe as long as it’s
there.”
“Get a carpenter to close it up,” Wolcott
answered promptly.
“It would be all over town in a day. I’d like
to do it on the quiet.”
“Can’t you do it yourself?” asked Wolcott.
“I don’t know a thing about tools,” lamented
Salter.
“Neither do I,” confessed Lindsay in turn.
“I’ll tell you who can help us,” he added after
a pause, as the incident of the trip to Eastham
suddenly occurred to him. “Laughlin! He’s
a corker with tools—almost as good as a
carpenter.”
“Will you ask him?” suggested Salter, dubiously.
“Certainly! I’ll send him round to you.”
Laughlin presented himself that very afternoon
at Salter’s room, and made his examination.
“It’ll be dead easy,” he said in a reassuring
tone.
.bn 180.png
.pn +1
“Must you go into Marchmont’s room in
order to fix it?” Salter asked uneasily.
“No, I can do everything from here. All
you have to do is to put two long strips across
the opening underneath the trap-door and screw
them tight to the door. That’ll prevent his
lifting it up. Then we’ll nail some cleats on
the sides of the joists and tack boards to the
cleats so as to fill up the hole in the ceiling of
the closet.”
Salter pretended to understand. “Can you
come Thursday afternoon? Mrs. Winter and
her niece who helps with the housework are
going to a church club meeting at three o’clock,
and the house will be clear.”
“All right,” replied Laughlin, cheerfully. “I
have the measurements, the school carpenter
will give me boards, and I’ll get them ready
beforehand so that we can whack them right
up. You can smuggle the things in Wednesday
evening, can’t you?”
“Sure!” cried the boy, delighted at the
apparently easy solution of the difficulty.
On Thursday afternoon Laughlin and Lindsay
.bn 181.png
.pn +1
sauntered in, the former bearing nails and screws,
the latter with hammer and screwdriver bulging
his hip pocket.
“Coast clear?” asked the architect.
“They’re both gone, but Marchmont’s up
there,” said Salter, nervously.
“Don’t care if he is,” responded Wolcott.
“Go out on the steps and watch for Mrs. Winter.
We’ll attend to this end.”
The first part of the work went forward noiselessly,
as the screws, driven by Laughlin’s powerful
wrist, drew tight together the trap-door and
the bars which locked it beneath the floor. When
he came to the cleats, however, and the boards
which were to cover the hole in the closet ceiling,
the house resounded with the blows of the
hammer. Laughlin was just fitting in his last
board when Wolcott, turning round, saw Marchmont
peering over his shoulder into the closet.
“What’s going on here?” demanded the newcomer,
in the tone which might be used by a
householder who had suddenly come upon unauthorized
workmen busy on his premises.
Laughlin threw a single look at the questioner
.bn 182.png
.pn +1
and returned to his hammering. Wolcott was
silent.
“I could cut through that in ten minutes,”
said Marchmont, contemptuously.
“You won’t, though, if you know what’s good
for you,” replied Laughlin, preparing to nail
down the shelf. “You’re not dealing with
Salter now.”
Marchmont muttered something under his
breath, of which Wolcott caught but the single
word “mucker.” That one word, however,
was sufficient to swing him suddenly around
and bring him one threatening step nearer the
sneering face. “Repeat that, will you!” he
called, his fists instinctively doubled.
“I said that your friend was a very excellent
workman,” replied Marchmont, smiling mockingly,
as he edged away. “I was wondering
what union he belongs to.”
Again Wolcott found the polished man and
the backwoodsman contrasted, and the comparison
was not to the advantage of the “gentleman.”
As the spring days went by, he saw more and
more of Laughlin, and gradually came to appreciate
.bn 183.png
.pn +1
better the spirit of the independent, determined,
yet wholly sweet-souled giant. If to be
a gentleman was to be gentle and kindly at
heart and every inch a man, Laughlin’s claim
to the title was clear.
.bn 184.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XV | THE SILENT PARTNER
.sp 2
“Did you get it off?” cried several boys,
pressing round Strong as he came out of the
Principal’s office.
“No, I didn’t,” he replied gloomily, “and I
don’t believe I ever shall! You’ll have to count
me out this year.”
Exclamations and laments rose from the
sympathetic audience.
“But won’t they give you another chance?”
demanded Roberts, the track manager, who took
the case especially to heart. He couldn’t let a
ten-and-a-fifth-second man slip through his fingers
like this.
“Oh, yes, they’ll give me another trial in May—if
I am here then,” said the runner, sarcastically.
“But what good is that? Haven’t I
had a tutor for a month, and failed?”
.bn 185.png
.pn +1
“Well, try him some more,” said Freund, the
captain of the team.
“I can’t afford it,” was the dismal answer.
“It isn’t any use, either. I don’t believe the
man did me any real good. He showed me how
to do some problems and helped me along with
translations, but he didn’t seem to strike the
weak spot. I guess what I need is a new head.
I’d swap my legs for one any day.”
In his present state, Strong was unmanageable,
and his friends abandoned him to his own
unpleasant reflections. With hands plunged in
pockets and head sunk between shoulders, the
discouraged fellow walked slowly away, viciously
kicking an occasional pebble from his path.
Around the corner of Carter Hall, Salter
appeared. He glanced bashfully at Strong
slouching along moody and ill-humored, and
catching the dragging step, loitered along at
the runner’s side.
“The track ought to be in fine condition after
the rain,” began Salter, in a high-pitched voice
that suited well his figure and gait.
“I suppose so,” growled Strong, his tone indicating
.bn 186.png
.pn +1
a decided lack of interest in both
questioner and question.
Salter, rebuffed, tried to explain. “Don’t they
say a hard rain is great for a track after it has
been well smoothed and rolled in the spring?”
“Perhaps they do,” Strong replied wearily.
“It don’t matter much to me anyway. They’ve
held me up again with their confounded probations.”
“Same subjects?” asked Salter.
“Yes, German and Latin,—two nightmares!
I can’t pass ’em if I stay here a hundred years.”
“Of course you can,” returned Salter, in a
clumsy effort to console. “You’ve brains
enough.”
“Not the kind they want,” retorted Strong,
with a sneer, “not book brains.”
For the few steps remaining before they
reached the entrance to the dormitory nothing
was said by either boy, and they parted as
silently. The last words of the disappointed
runner’s surly retort followed Salter home, and
still echoed with humiliating clearness in his
ears long after he had seated himself in his
.bn 187.png
.pn +1
own study chair. Salter possessed “book brains.”
He wasn’t good for much else in the opinion
of the school, but he could get marks. He was
careful, did not think one thing and write another,
always recognized clearly the principle
involved, and kept ticketed and shelved in some
convenient lobe of his brain a store of exceptional
forms and expressions, of formulas and
important facts, on which he drew for recitation
and examination as one might draw on an ever
increasing bank balance for the petty expenses
of the day.
And yet in spite of these remarkable gifts
which his fellows used without hesitation when
it suited their needs, poor Salter, as we have
seen, was neither popular nor happy. Why was
it, he often asked himself, that while he was
doing so unquestionably well that which apparently
all boys were sent to school to do, he must
forever be rated in the school life as a drone and
a non-combatant among workers and warriors?
It wasn’t just and it ought not to be, but how
could he help it?
An hour later Strong stalked into the corridor
.bn 188.png
.pn +1
before recitation room No. 7, where a couple of
fellows were holding up poor Salter on sentences
in Latin Composition which each was convinced,
by inscrutable analysis of chances, that he was
to “get” at the forthcoming recitation. Swift
looked over Whitely’s shoulder as the latter
scribbled down the last words of the corrected
Latin. “Bellum gerebat,” said Whitely.
“Gereret,” corrected Salter.
“How’s that?” demanded Whitely.
“Indirect question,” said Salter.
“Oh, yes! And dies, what case is that?”
“Accusative, time how long,” returned the
patient Sal.
“Why, of course! I knew that all the time,”
declared Whitely, folding his paper with the air
of one who had had information forced upon
him. “I’m ready for him now.”
The recitation took its usual course. Strong
flunked his question with a sullen resignation
that drew a sharp look from the instructor.
Whitely kept in the background until they had
got well on toward the sentences which he had
especially prepared, when he suddenly developed
.bn 189.png
.pn +1
an intense interest in the recitation, fixed his eyes
on Mr. Lovering’s face and brandished his arm
aloft. But Mr. Lovering, who was near-sighted,—his
colleagues said he always knew what not
to see,—looked directly past the waving arm
and challenging face to the silent, moody figure
behind. Strong received the sentence which
Whitely had so carefully prepared; and Whitely,
with a face on which chagrin and disgust were
so visibly pictured as to stir the merriment of
the soberest, dragged himself to the board with
a sentence which he had considered beyond the
danger line and so not worth while to study.
“Did you have any assistance on that sentence,
Strong?” asked Mr. Lovering, peering a
little suspiciously over his spectacles. There had
been but one mistake in the work, and that a
slight one which Strong himself had recognized
as soon as his attention was called to it.
“Not in the class, sir,” replied Strong. “I
heard it talked over outside.”
“Explain the mood of gereret.”
“Subjunctive in indirect question,” answered
the runner, promptly.
.bn 190.png
.pn +1
“And the case of dies?”
“Accusative, duration of time.”
Mr. Lovering nodded approvingly. “You
seem to understand it, at all events. Now,
Whitely, we’ll hear yours.”
And Whitely, flushed and confused, blundered
through his poor translation, correcting slight
errors by gross ones, and sitting down at last
in the dismal consciousness that he had committed
two of the particular sins of construction
which, in Mr. Lovering’s eyes, were most unpardonable.
After the recitation, while Whitely was defending
himself from the jeering congratulations
of his friends, Strong found himself again at
Salter’s side. This time he was in better humor
for conversation.
“Well, Sal, what now?” he called jocosely
after the dumpy figure mincing along with the
peculiar gait which had suggested one of his
nicknames. “Going to improve the shining
hour, I suppose.”
“Yes,” replied Salter. “I’ve most of the
German to do.” He hesitated a few moments,
.bn 191.png
.pn +1
lifted a cautious glance toward Strong’s face,
and added, “Don’t you want to come over?”
For an instant Strong stared in amazement.
“Why, yes,” he said with a refreshing cordiality;
“just wait till I get my books.”
Salter finished his preparation of the lesson
that afternoon sufficiently early to have some
minutes to devote to his visitor. It is a fact
well known to schoolmasters that a pupil will
often perceive the true inwardness of his fellow’s
difficulty when the master has failed to discover
it. To Salter things were so perfectly evident
and clear in the lesson that it was a matter of
interest to make out why they were not equally
evident and clear to his companion. Before
the recitation bell rang he thought he saw
the obstacle; by the end of the Latin hour
on the following day he was sure of it. Strong
had a superficial quickness in learning forms and
elements which had prevented his mastering
them. What he learned one day was gone two
days after. His foundation crumbled away beneath
the structure he was striving to build
upon it.
.bn 192.png
.pn +1
Like a good doctor studying a troublesome
case, Salter, having located the weakness, set
to work to remove it. Without special arrangement,
almost without previous appointment, the
sessions before the German and Latin recitations
became regular. As we have learned, Salter’s
room was not a place where boys were likely to
gather. The friends who used to lounge in at
Strong’s to pass an agreeable half hour now
found the door frequently locked and their
bird flown. It was weeks before they knew
that he was “living at Salter’s.” They did
not know, could not know, how much Salter
was doing for their unscholarly friend; how
he kept poor Strong reviewing, reviewing, reviewing,
until certain forms and facts were
stamped into his brain in ineradicable lines;
how faithfully the list of frequently missed
words was kept; how Strong himself at last
grew so much interested in the constant struggle
to master the elusive, mocking, fugitive vocabulary,
that with every new word struck from
the black-list he felt a triumph as of a well-won
race.
.bn 193.png
.pn +1
Out of doors also the two began to appear
together. When Strong did his work on the
track, Salter was likely to be there also, to
hold the sprinter’s sweater, or give him practice
starts, or try to catch his time with the
stop-watch. Collins, the trainer, came at last
to expect them to appear together, and having
found that Salter was developing skill in timing,
not infrequently asked the “second” for other
services. To his own surprise, Salter became
aware that his society and his stop-watch were
both in growing demand.
And so two months slipped by, and the day of
the school meet came. Strong could not run,
for he was still under the ban of probation. He
watched the sports at Salter’s side, and felt the
tingle of eagerness for the fray as he saw other
fellows take the races which he might have
won; and his heart throbbed with an overmastering
yearning like that of the hunting-dog
held back by a cruel leash when the pack
is starting. The more fervently did he hammer
away that night at his treacherous old enemies—the
Latin constructions and the German vocabulary—while
.bn 194.png
.pn +1
the boys discussed the games, on
the dormitory steps.
A few days later the news flashed about the
school that Strong had “passed off” his conditions.
Wolcott and Poole knew how he had
done it; others who had noticed his steady
improvement in recitations were not so much
amazed. But after all, the feeling uppermost
seemed to be that his chances for the Hillbury
meet were not what they had once been. At
the Hillbury school contests the week before,
Howes had done the hundred in ten and two-fifths,
while Joslin had won the two-twenty in
phenomenally fast time. So of these two races,
which in the earlier estimates of the year had
been credited to Strong, Seaton could hardly
expect to win more than one. The school was
discouraged, and so was Strong; but in answer
to all the chatter of question and doubt, Salter
and the trainer smiled wisely and imitated Brer
Rabbit in saying nothing. They had held the
watch on their man too many times to fear
a newspaper hero.
The Seaton-Hillbury games that year were
.bn 195.png
.pn +1
among the closest ever held by the rival schools.
Strong won the hundred yards early in the contest,
proving to the doubters that he really could
run in ten and a fifth. Joslin of Hillbury won
the quarter mile. And then, as the hurdles and
distances were run and the field events yielded
their slow results, the figures posted on the great
announcement board showed as leader now Hillbury,
now Seaton, with every patriotic lad guessing
from event to event in a delightful thrill of
hope and apprehension. When the two-twenty,
the last race of the day, was reached, the score
stood Hillbury 40½, Seaton 39½, the schools having
tied for third place in one event.
Hillbury was jubilant, for was not this Joslin’s
own event? The first prize counted five points,
the second and third together but three. If
Joslin won, Hillbury was victorious; if Joslin
lost—but he could not lose! There was his
record made but a few days before; no one
now in Seaton had come near it. The timid
Seatonian hushed his cheering and prepared
himself for defeat; the braver cheered the
more loudly to keep up his spirits.
.bn 196.png
.pn +1
“If we only had Dickinson again for just five
minutes,” said Poole, as he sat with Lindsay and
Planter on the top bench, “I could enjoy every
second of this race. As it is, I wish it were over.
I’m terribly afraid Strong hasn’t sand enough to
keep ahead of that Joslin on a long stretch. It
would be horrible to get so near and then lose.”
He drew a long breath and passed his hand
hurriedly over his eyes to dispel the blur into
which the strain of intense watching had plunged
the distant figures.
“Oh, pluck up!” returned Planter, whose less
impetuous temperament stood better the strain
of waiting. “A fellow who could lift himself
out of probation as Strong has done has sand
enough.”
Wolcott smiled at the idea of Strong’s lifting
himself out of probation, but he made no comment,
while Poole was too intent on the white-clad
figures across the end of the track to heed
anything else.
Meanwhile another and more serious conversation
was going on at the starting line, where
Salter stood with his champion to give him a
.bn 197.png
.pn +1
last encouraging slap on the back and a last
word of good cheer.
“It’s yours, Bill; you can beat him,” Salter
was saying. “The two-twenty belongs to the
hundred yards man, not to the quarter miler,
remember that!”
“It’s the last two hundred feet that I’m
afraid of,” returned Strong. “He’s used to the
longer distance, and may be going his fastest
when I’m giving out.”
“Get away from him at first, then, but not
too far. Keep something in reserve for a
spurt.”
The starter called the men, and Strong settled
upon his mark. Joslin had the inside—a great
advantage when the course begins with a turn,
like the two-twenty stretch on the Hillbury
track. At the start the four men rose together,
but a second later two were ahead,—number one
and number three. The outside man was moving
a little faster, just enough to keep his position
at the side of number one, as the two on
the same radius swept round the circular end
of the track, neck and neck, until they reached
.bn 198.png
.pn +1
the straight stretch, where Strong forged two
yards ahead and hung. It was this hanging,
this apparent inability to increase his lead, that
set the Hillbury contingent to yelling like crazy
men; for here was being accomplished what the
Hillbury coach had promised—that Strong would
run himself out in the first two-thirds of the
race and let Joslin pass him at the finish.
And Strong sped onward, seeing nothing, hearing
nothing, yet feeling and knowing that his
rival was gradually creeping up, was even, was
a foot,—two feet, ahead. Thirty yards from
the finish line, when the race seemed Joslin’s,—as
safely as any race can be counted before
the yarn is broken,—when Hillbury flags were
already waving in the exultant disorder of
triumph, the Seaton runner, drawing on his
last reserve of strength, dug his spikes into the
track, and with a burst of speed like the convulsive
spurt of a forty-yards man, overhauled
Joslin, passed him, threw up his arms for the
line of colored yarn, and fell, limp and gasping,
into the arms of waiting friends.
Salter still stood alone at the starting line
.bn 199.png
.pn +1
watching the mob that, wild with joy, poured
down tumultuous from the Seaton benches, and
with crimson banners flashing in the sunlight
swarmed about the panting victor. Why was
it that the very event for which he had longed
so ardently and labored so faithfully should now,
as an accomplished fact, find him so lukewarm
in his emotion? Salter knew well the cause,
and, heartily ashamed, strove to throw off the
feeling of depression stealing over him.
“What are you thinking of, you fool?” he
demanded of himself angrily. “Did you expect
them to come and carry you off on their
shoulders? Of course it’s over, and they’ll
forget that you had anything to do with it;
but you had, all the same, and some of them
know it. So behave yourself and get into the
game.”
He went forward bravely to find a place in
the triumphal procession that was now streaming
toward the station. But envious thoughts
still haunted him. The victory was won; he
had helped to win it. The period of anxious
longing was now at an end; and so, too, were
.bn 200.png
.pn +1
the only really happy days his school life had
known—those pleasant weeks when he had been
something more to his fellow-students than a
dictionary to be consulted and thrown aside.
As he neared the throng two fellows came
striding toward him: one big and square-shouldered,
with round, smooth face aglow with
joyful excitement and straw hat tipped back
over light, disordered, hair; the other shorter
and more slender, with snapping black eyes,
and face burned by exposure on the diamond.
“Here he is!” shouted Wolcott.
“You good-for-nothing Sal, why are you
sneaking off by yourself?” cried Poole, almost
simultaneously. “Come, you belong in this!”
And the two swept him off in the wake of
the crowd. No one at that moment—not
Strong the victorious, nor Freund, the captain
of the team—was prouder or happier than Sally
Salter.
.bn 201.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVI | A CELEBRATION
.sp 2
They swarmed forth that evening, in jerseys
and old trousers and shoes that feared neither
mud nor dust, from every dormitory entrance
and every student lodging house; and, like
Parisian revolutionists flocking to the barricades,
gathered to the sound of the drum on
the street before the academy yard. After the
football game in the fall, while the victors were
romping and rah-rah-ing through the streets of
Hillbury, the Seaton lads had gathered in forlorn
little groups, and sadly argued the possibly
different result if A had done this and B had
not done that. Now the tables were turned.
While the good people of Hillbury were looking
forward to the usual quiet evening, the
Seaton citizen resigned himself to the glare of
red fires and the din of bells and yells.
.bn 202.png
.pn +1
With much clamor and vociferation of orders
the procession started. Ahead were torch-bearers,
red-light artists, and cannon-cracker
performers; then the town band, or as much of
it as could be got together—it mattered little
what, as long as there was a cornet to lead the
songs and a drum to stir the blood; then the
barge, loaded with victorious athletes and drawn
by scores of eager hands tugging at the long
ropes; then ranks of boys locked arm in arm,
romping in zigzagging lines back and forth
across the road, singing and cheering and
shouting in the hilarious delight which no staid
grown-up can understand. Wolcott and Laughlin
guided the flopping pole, Tompkins and Planter
led the cheering from the driver’s seat above,
Salter and Poole were at the ropes forward, while
the twins trained with the artillery in the van.
So, illumined by crimson light and the flash
of explosives which drowned, in continuous and
hideous din, their own cheering and songs and
the music of the band they had hired, the celebrants
took their way by the houses of certain favored
teachers to the hill where the bonfire was to
.bn 203.png
.pn +1
be. At the houses the leaders throttled the disorderly
racket, the crowd cheered, the teachers
appeared, made their facetious speeches, and
retired, the mob yelled applause, the hubbub
broke forth again, the procession moved on.
Many a wretched pun and poor, undignified joke
was bitterly repented that night when Dr. X
and Professor Z at last laid their weary heads
to rest, longing to amend their remarks as the
regretful congressman amends his faulty speech
in the Record by striking out everything he
has said and substituting something wholly
different.
But the pith and marrow of the celebration
was about the big bonfire on Jady hill, where
proceedings might vary between the war dance
of an Indian tribe and an open-air meeting
of the Peace Society. The proper mean lay
between these extremes of the extravagant
and the tame, and Mr. Graham, by throwing
responsibility on the older boys, by insisting
that the festivity be public, and by taking
a share in it himself, kept the merriment in
bounds. To-night, after the individual members
.bn 204.png
.pn +1
of the team had been cheered, the Principal
set the pitch for the evening’s song of triumph
in a brief, sensible speech; and Freund, captain
of the team, followed with a disclaimer of
personal desert and an eulogy on “the work
of all the fellows,” delivered with proper
modesty and the usual schoolboy lack of finish
and superabundance of vigor. After Freund,
Collins the trainer had his turn; but after
expressing surprise and delight that the boys
should have done so well, and declaring that
he had known all along that they could do it,
he struck hard on the irreconcilability of these
statements, and went down in a burst of cordial
applause. Then a friendly townsman of
a humorous vein took a hand, and after the
humorist, Mr. Lovering was demanded. The
teacher had the advantage that jokes were not
expected of him, so when he declared that “this
is indeed a day on which the battle has been
to the strong and the race to the swift,” the
audience laughed in pleased surprise, and gave
sympathetic hearing. The speaker then expressed
the pleasure he had felt in seeing
.bn 205.png
.pn +1
Strong win his two hard races, and passing
from this naturally to the ban of probation and
the fine way in which the runner had removed
it, preached a neat little sermon of half-a-dozen
sentences on the value of persistence and grit.
“Strong! Strong!” yelled the crowd.
“Speech! speech!”
And then a queer thing happened that was
down on nobody’s programme. Instead of
hanging back in confusion or disappearing
altogether, as his friends expected, Strong came
promptly forward. There was a look of seriousness
on his face, and he confronted the
crowd boldly, as if he really had something to say.
“For all that has been said about my two
races, and all the help I’ve had from Collins
and a lot of others, I’m much obliged. I did
the best I could, and certainly ran in great
luck. But there’s one fellow here who isn’t
getting his share of the glory. We should have
lost the meet to-day if any one had missed on
his points. Howes and Joslin would have won
my events if I hadn’t got off probation; and
I never should have got off probation in this
.bn 206.png
.pn +1
world if Sally Salter hadn’t spent days and
weeks in driving things into my head. So with
all respect to Mr. Lovering, you see I can’t
honestly stand for that probation.”
At this point Strong, suddenly becoming conscious
that he was making a speech, broke
abruptly off. Some one in the inner circle
sprang forward and swung his hat. And Salter,
Sally Salter, Marm Salter, to his own intense
surprise, was actually cheered.
The celebration was over. Turning reluctantly
from the fast-dwindling fire, the participants
in motley company trooped back to
rooms and beds. The band straggled home by
twos in silence; the multitude, which with
unfailing enthusiasm had tugged the heavily
loaded barge up the long hill, was now scattered;
and only a conscientious few aided by certain
faithful members of the team had a thought
for the borrowed state carriage and the credit
of the school. Wolcott was among the forgetters.
In the confusion of the break-up
he missed his companions and floated away
with the crowd.
.bn 207.png
.pn +1
On a side street a dozen yards from the
lamp post a knot of students were watching
the figures pass beneath the light.
“There’s Lindsay,” said Whitely. “He’s big
enough to hold a man on his shoulders as steady
as a church. Let’s not try to find Bert. O
Lindsay!” he called.
“He’s no use, you chump!” exclaimed Marchmont,
sharply; but Wolcott was already turning
back. “What is it?” he asked, straining his
eyes to distinguish the faces.
“Don’t go home yet; there’ll be more doing
before long.”
“What do you mean?” repeated Wolcott,
eagerly.
He questioned, not from prudence, but from
eager curiosity. The noise, the blaze of lights,
the fervor of enthusiasm, the dazzle of hero-worship,
the hilarity, the freedom and comradeship
of the merrymaking, had piled their
impressions on his excited brain till his personal
patriotism flamed and roared; his chief
desire for the time being was to lose nothing
of this night of exultation. If he recognized
.bn 208.png
.pn +1
Marchmont among the group, no suspicion of
evil occurred to him. He felt only that it was
a great day for Seaton, that all Seatonians
were brothers, and that at this time of universal
joy all differences should be forgotten.
“We’re going to show John Drown how to
celebrate,” replied Whitely. “Come on and see
the fun.”
The troop started, and Wolcott, who was out
to see, started with the troop down Hale Street
and toward the stables whence the barge had
gone forth early in the evening. As they
passed the stable entrance they met a big, square-shouldered
fellow whom Wolcott recognized in
the semi-darkness as Laughlin, and who by
the same token recognized Wolcott overtopping
by half a head his nearest neighbors.
“Lindsay!” called Laughlin, sharply, halting
and turning round.
“Well, Dave,” called back Wolcott, jovially,
“fall in if you want some fun.”
“Come here a minute, won’t you, please?”
continued Laughlin.
The exclamations which this interruption
.bn 209.png
.pn +1
called forth in Whitely’s company, Wolcott
did not notice.
“What are you up to with those fellows?”
demanded Laughlin, earnestly.
“We’re going over to get a rise out of John
Drown,” replied Wolcott, innocently.
“Who are they?”
“Oh, Whitely and Reeves, and Marchmont,
I think, is with them. Want to come along?”
Laughlin laid his hand on Wolcott’s arm.
“Wolcott, don’t do it. You’ll get into trouble
or do something you’ll be everlastingly ashamed
of when you wake up to-morrow. They aren’t
out to-night on any good errand. Don’t go
with them!”
“Nonsense!” cried Wolcott. “I shan’t do
anything out of the way. It’s just a little
fun.”
“I know better about that than you do.
It’s something wrong, or they wouldn’t be in
it. Let it alone and come back with me.”
“Come on, if you’re coming,” called Whitely.
“We can’t stay here all night.”
“It’s all right,” insisted Wolcott, dropping
.bn 210.png
.pn +1
his arm to free himself from Laughlin’s grasp.
The strong fist merely clutched the tighter.
“It isn’t all right. You’re going back on
your word. You promised to try your hardest
to make the eleven, and now you’re doing
something that may prevent your making it at
all, whether you play well or not.”
“I don’t see that,” said Lindsay.
“If you get into trouble and get fired you
can’t make it, can you? You’re taking a risk
that no football man ought to take, and taking
it in spite of warning.”
The conspirators were moving. “Good-by,
darling,” shouted Reeves. “Always do what
Nursey says!” Wolcott muttered an angry
something that he would have preferred no
one should hear. Laughlin clung to his purpose.
“It’s for your own sake and my sake and
the eleven that I ask it, Wolcott,” he pleaded.
“Let them go without you.”
The sound of footsteps and voices died away
down the street.
“Well, they’re gone!” said Wolcott, in sullen
.bn 211.png
.pn +1
tones, after an interval of silence. “Now you’ve
had your way, I hope you’re satisfied.”
“I am,” replied Laughlin, coolly, “and you’ll
be to-morrow. Good night.”
Next morning rumor flew that Drown, the
night watchman, had waked to find the front
of his house unexpectedly decorated. Wolcott
came home from church by a roundabout way
to see what the conspirators of the night before
had accomplished. Above the first-floor windows,
across the whole front of the house, had
been daubed in red paint the score of the games,
and underneath an adjective of personal application
to Drown himself.
Wolcott stared and grew suddenly pale. So
this was the “fun” that he had been invited
to share! But for Laughlin’s interference, he
might have been involved in this contemptible
act of vandalism. With eyes blazing and
cheeks burning he strode away, indignant but
humble, toward Laughlin’s room. His first
lesson in football discipline was learned.
Two days later Marchmont and Reeves severed
their connection with the school. Why
.bn 212.png
.pn +1
these two were punished when Whitely and
others escaped was not clearly explained. The
strokes of school discipline are not always infallible,
though it is safe to say of them as
of the judgments of the criminal courts, that
few innocent are punished, though many a
guilty man goes free. It is possible that Mr.
Drown identified one or two of the vandals;
or that Mrs. Winter, when in the course of
Monday morning’s cleaning, she at last discovered
the patched closet ceiling and the trapdoor
hidden under the oilcloth, also found fresh
spots of paint on Marchmont’s clothes.
It was the only celebration of the year. The
nine went to Hillbury, supported by a numerous
though half-hearted company praying
for a miracle. But the wicked Hillburyites fell
on the hopeful Seaton pitcher as the Philistines
on Samson shorn of his seven locks. When he
put the ball over the plate they hit it; when
he kept it out of their reach, they made runs
on balls. The defeat was crushing.
Wolcott sat all the way home in fierce and
gloomy silence, broken only to answer some
.bn 213.png
.pn +1
unavoidable question. Laughlin watched him
for a long time without a word.
“How would you like to be on a defeated
eleven?” he asked at last with a wise smile.
Wolcott answered and set his lips tight together.
“All I ask is the chance to get at
them.”
Whereat Laughlin laughed with pleasure, and
said no more.
But time and new interests dull disappointment.
The end of the school year arrived with
its fêtes and ceremonies; the college examinations
enforced their exacting demands. Then
came a day when Laughlin and Lindsay stood
together at the station and exchanged a fervent
good-by and words of advice.
“Don’t spend all your time sailing and playing
golf; rowing and swimming are what you
need,” said Laughlin.
“And don’t wear yourself out at that hotel,
throwing trunks,” cried Wolcott. “Light labor
is what you need. If you get a chance, come
over to the Harbor and see us.”
.bn 214.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVII | BACK AGAIN
.sp 2
All day long on the fourteenth of September
the trains disgorged batches of young studiosi
upon the platform of the Seaton station. The
older boys, veterans of at least a year, hallooed
jubilantly over the heads of the crowd to their
returning friends, and in joyous groups which
rapidly formed and dissolved, clinched grips and
thrashed each other’s arms about in gestures
quite contrary to the latest rules of etiquette.
The newcomers, awed and diffident, threaded
their way ungreeted through this waste of welcomes.
Some came with mammas, who viewed
the boisterous crowd with disapproval and
skirted it in haste; some with papas, who
looked and smiled and wished their own lads
among the merrymakers; some with older
.bn 215.png
.pn +1
brothers, who knew the station agents and the
townspeople, but not the boys; and some like
Dick Melvin of old and Laughlin of two years
before, alone, unknown, with little money in the
purse, but in their hearts a valiant purpose to
accept the opportunity the school offered and
climb the hard path others had climbed before
them.
“Where’s Dave Laughlin?” was Wolcott’s
first cry as he jumped from the car steps and
was seized on one side by Durand and Ware,
and on the other by the twins.
“Over there smashing baggage,” said Ware,
pointing down the platform. “He’s delivering
trunks round town.”
“I’ll take him your order,” said a Peck.
“I’ll take it myself, thank you,” answered
Wolcott, scanning the two sunburned faces.
“You’ve grown different during the summer.
I can tell you apart now.”
“Well, which is which?” demanded Durand.
“That’s Donald. He’s the one that has the
mole on his back,” Wolcott replied promptly,
pointing to the twin who had spoken.
.bn 216.png
.pn +1
The Pecks chuckled. Durand hooted:
“Wrong! And they’ve both grown moles by
this time, I’ll bet my hat!”
“How’d the exams go?” asked Ware, coming
to Wolcott’s aid.
“Fine. I got eighteen points, a lot better
than I expected. How were yours?”
“Fair,” replied Ware.
“Four honors, that means,” put in Durand.
“Butler here, and Pope and Jackson?”
“Yes, all back, and every old football man
except the three who graduated last June.
Buist’s failed and is coming back for another
year, so the old back field will be here. If we
have any kind of luck, we ought to have a great
team this year.”
Ware’s words were meant to bear a message
of good news, but they brought instead a quiver
of disappointment to Wolcott’s heart. If the
ranks were so full, the chances for new men
were certainly small. He was ashamed of the
feeling as soon as he recognized it, and he threw
it off with a sudden jerk of the head, as a swimmer
shakes the water from his hair.
.bn 217.png
.pn +1
“That’s bully,” he said. “The best is none
too good for us. I’m going to find Dave.”
Laughlin was standing beside the pile of baggage,
in cap and overalls, receiving checks and
addresses and making out receipts. Two big
wagons were backed up to the platform, and
two assistants were clumsily lifting in the heavy
trunks.
“That’s mine, Dave,” called Wolcott, calmly
reaching over the heads of the row of fellows
who in jolly bustle and with unconcealed desire
to rattle the amateur baggageman were insisting
each on immediate attention.
The big fellow looked up and squared his
broad face, dripping with perspiration, toward
the familiar voice. Over his features spread
a smile fairly glowing with the spirit of welcome.
“Hello, Wolcott!” he cried, grasping the outstretched
hand by the knuckles and shaking it
vigorously. “Awfully glad to see you.”
“Then take this check,” said Wolcott. “I’m
at the old place.”
But Laughlin only nodded shrewdly and
.bn 218.png
.pn +1
retorted: “No, sir! You take your turn at this
shop.”
With this uncompromising reply on his lips,
the deliverer of trunks turned to one of the half
dozen who were shouting: “Here!” “Here!”
“I’m next!” and gave himself up to business.
Wolcott, thus forced to wait his proper time,
waited still longer and watched the scene.
The two assistants stumbled with a heavy
trunk. The boss pushed them aside, grasped the
unwieldy thing and tossed it into the wagon.
“What a hand you’d be in a baggage car,
Dave!” cried Wolcott.
“I’ve done it before,” answered Laughlin.
“It’s not so hard if you know the trick.—Here,
you fellows, get into the wagon and push ’em
up while I throw ’em in.—I’ve got a lot of
things to say to you, but I can’t say ’em now.
I’ll be over this evening sometime.”
It was nearly ten o’clock when Laughlin at
last came slowly up the stairs and with a sigh
of satisfaction stretched out on Wolcott’s sofa.
“About as hard a day’s work as I ever did,”
said the truckman. “One hundred and eight
.bn 219.png
.pn +1
trunks since six o’clock this morning! I could
have done a lot more if I had had another
outfit.”
“I hope you made a good pile out of it,” said
Wolcott, “and that all the fellows will pony up.”
“They paid cash,” replied Laughlin, shrewdly,
pulling out a fistful of halves and quarters. “If
they ever have ready money, it’s when they
come in the fall. One hundred and eight
trunks at twenty-five cents each is twenty-seven
dollars. Taking out two dollars for each of the
fellows who helped me, and six dollars for the
wagons, I have seventeen left. How’s that for
a day’s work?”
“Great! I haven’t earned as much money
in all my life. You won’t do it soon again
either, unless you get paid for playing college
football,” he added with a teasing smile.
“Then I never shall,” returned Laughlin,
quietly. “Those fellows down at X have been
after me again.”
“Same offers?” asked Wolcott.
“Better ones. I can have the earth. They
promise to find me a place to work where all I
.bn 220.png
.pn +1
have to do is to draw my pay, and they’ll see to
it that my expenses don’t worry me. It amounts
to an offer to get me into college, keep me there,
and find me a job when I get out. All I have
to do is to play football.”
“Going?” asked Wolcott, laughing.
“Going!” repeated Laughlin, as he snapped
himself up into a sitting position on the sofa
and stared reproachfully at his questioner.
“Not if I know myself! There isn’t money
enough in the whole institution to buy me.
And what’s more, I’m not going to a place
where they do business in that way. I’d rather
not go to college at all than hire myself out to
play football.”
Wolcott gazed at his big friend in silence, but
the admiration which his lips failed to express
was revealed by the gleam of feeling in his eyes.
Laughlin had toiled away the vacation weeks as
porter in a summer hotel. His school life was
but a routine of close study and hard manual
labor, of plugging at lessons and furnace tending
and snow shovelling and odd jobbing. The
time given to football involved a personal sacrifice
.bn 221.png
.pn +1
to be made good by greater effort after
the season closed. The future had nothing in
store for him except what his own hands and
brain could provide. What a temptation, then,
this promise of an easy and glorious college
course!
“There seems to be a wrong notion of me
going round,” continued Laughlin. “I don’t
see why they should keep after me so. Even if
I were willing to sell myself, I doubt if I could
deliver the goods. I’m really only a fair sort of
player. They seem to think I belong on an all-American
eleven.”
“You’ll make it some day if you keep on,”
declared the admirer, his ardor of feeling finding
expression in emphasis rather than in words.
“Whether I do or not makes mighty little
difference to me at present. All I ask is to win
the Hillbury game.”
“Oh, you’ll do that fast enough. Just look
at the old men you’ve got back.”
“I’ve looked at ’em,” the captain answered
sagely. “Some of ’em will be better than they
were last year and some worse, and all harder to
.bn 222.png
.pn +1
control. It looks like just the kind of a veteran
team that gets done up. You’re coming out
to-morrow, aren’t you?”
Wolcott reddened with pleasure. “Yes, if
you want me.”
“Want you! We want everybody. Give us
your hand.”
Wolcott reached out his hand and clasped the
other’s brawny, callous fist.
“Squeeze!” commanded the captain, tightening
his grip.
Wolcott squeezed. His summer, though
wholly unlike Laughlin’s, had not been spent
in idleness, and he met pressure with pressure.
Second followed second, and still the two hands
trembled in the clasp, while eye searched eye for
sign of wavering. Wolcott’s muscles were failing,
his hand was growing numb; but he marshalled
his nerves to reënforce his muscles,
determined not to show the white feather if his
hand were crushed to pieces, and holding his
own against his antagonist. It was Laughlin
who ended the ordeal by suddenly wrenching
his hand loose.
.bn 223.png
.pn +1
“You’ll do. What have you been doing all
summer—rowing?”
“Yes, lots of it, and swimming and hauling
sails.”
“How much do you weigh?”
“One hundred and seventy-nine, stripped.”
Laughlin nodded thoughtfully. “That’s not
much in these days. I’m under my usual weight
at two hundred and ten. Is that the outside
wall there, behind the sofa?”
“Yes,” answered Wolcott, with wonder.
“Let’s pull the sofa out, then; I don’t want
to smash a partition.”
The sofa out of the way, Laughlin began again.
“You know how to charge?”
Wolcott nodded assent.
“A good way to practise it is to charge
against a wall. You ought to do it outside,
and of course if you have a charging machine
with a padded surface to smash against, it isn’t
so hard on the wrists; but I can show you what
I mean right here.”
Laughlin crouched on the floor a yard from
the wall, resting on his finger-tips and toes, with
.bn 224.png
.pn +1
one foot somewhat behind him. Then he counted
three and at the last number suddenly lifted and
threw himself forward, catching himself with the
palms of his hands against the wall.
“That’s a charging exercise. It’s hard on the
wrists, but it’s good training. The main thing is
to hold your head up and go like a shot when
you hear the word. Try it with me.”
They stooped side by side on the imaginary
line. At first Dave counted, afterward Wolcott.
Each time, however, the old player, in spite of his
weight, got off first and was the first to strike
the wall.
“I beat you,” said Laughlin, reproachfully,
“and they call me slow.”
“I’ll learn it,” declared Wolcott, resolutely.
“I don’t doubt you will,” Laughlin said, as
they resumed their seats, “for you’re naturally
quick. It isn’t all the game by a long shot, but
it’s much better to start right. The same holds
true about tackling. You don’t want to make
a single bad tackle the whole season through.
That means that the first time you try it, and
every time you try it, you go straight for the
.bn 225.png
.pn +1
man’s knees. If you follow that scheme in
everything, you won’t have bad habits to come
back at you later on.”
Wolcott nodded understandingly, and seeing
that Laughlin, weary though he was from his
hard day’s work, was still inclined to talk, smothered
the questions on his lips and listened.
“I believe that most of the end-of-the-season
careless playing comes from poorly learned elements
like tackling, charging, and dropping on
the ball. You see, at the start-off, everybody,
old and new, is hammering away at these
things, and they all do pretty well. Then
weeks afterward, when we’re working at signals,
and practising combinations, and everybody’s
attention is on the team work and
not on the elements, there’s likely to be a big
slump. The poor tacklers go high, and the
fumblers juggle the ball, and the linesmen
get interested in their men and don’t watch
the ball, and break for the wrong bunch. It’s
about then that the new man who has got the
elements so sure that he does them right automatically
elbows the old player off the field.”
.bn 226.png
.pn +1
“I think I’ve learned the elements,” said
Wolcott, cautiously.
“Learn them over again, then,” returned
Laughlin, “and keep learning them till you’d
no more do them wrong than you’d walk backward
over to recitation. It’s one thing to
do a thing right when your mind is on it;
it’s a very different thing to do it right always,
whatever your mind is on. Take a fumbling
back, for example. Let a coach give a fumbler
an awful rake-down before a game, and the probability
is he won’t do any fumbling; but he won’t
do anything else either. His mind is on the
fumbling.”
“I’ll do my best. What had I better try
for?”
“Guard,” replied Dave, instantly. “You are
rather light, but I’ve had a quick, light guard
keep me working my hardest to stop him.
We’ve three fair tackles now, but we need a
guard to play second to Butler. If you work
hard through the season, you may get a chance
for your ‘S’ in the Hillbury game. Well, good
night. Be out at three, sure!”
.bn 227.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVIII | FOOTBALL
.sp 2
Wolcott was out on the next afternoon at
the appointed hour, feeling at first a little
sheepish under the scrutiny of the critical
crowd at the side-lines, but soon oblivious to
everything except the work to be done and
the directions of the coachers. On this first
day the candidates practised little except the
simplest elements, such as tackling and falling
on the ball. The prudent coach sent them all
down early, when to Wolcott it seemed as
if the work had just begun. The next day
the same programme was followed, the green
linesman receiving in addition personal instruction
from the veterans in the rudiments
of line play: how to stand, how to charge,
how to use the hands, or, what was perhaps
more important, how not to use them. Wolcott
.bn 228.png
.pn +1
was not altogether without experience, or
he would have made little out of this amateur
coaching. He kept his eyes open, however,
watching the motions rather than trying to
follow the words of his instructors, and seeking
to learn what was most worth learning.
Laughlin gave him a suggestion now and then
as he went among the squads, and Lauder, the
coach, devoted a few minutes to him. He did
not need to be told that a guard plays close up
to the centre on the offence and loose on the
defence; that he must keep his head up and
his play low, meet the other man harder and
quicker than the other man meets him, throw
himself into the enemy’s country at the earliest
possible instant, and always watch the ball.
All this as theory was tolerably familiar to
him,—so familiar, in fact, that he almost resented
being held down like a greenhorn to
a primary course when he was capable of going
higher. But when, after a few days, he
got into his first line-up, and in five minutes
of play got offside through overhaste, charged
into the air, lost sight of the ball, rushed his
.bn 229.png
.pn +1
man away from the play which he was supposed
to stop, and leaped twice at a runner’s throat
instead of at his shins—he despised the primary
course no longer.
“It does no good to jump around unless
you’re helping some one on your side or stopping
some one on the other,” said Laughlin,
reproachfully, as he talked over the day’s practice
afterward. “You want to be lively, but
every step ought to tell. Always strike for the
ball or the bunch where the ball is. You made
a terrible mess when you tried to tackle Fearns!”
“I know it,” replied Wolcott, humbly. “I’m
afraid I lost my head.”
“I wish you’d do what I told you the other
night,” continued the captain: “make sure of
the rudiments whether you know anything else
or not. If you’re good at those, there’ll always
be a place for a fellow of your size on the second;
but if you take to making neck tackles and shutting
your eyes in a scrimmage, you won’t be of
any use anywhere.”
“I won’t do so any more,” said Wolcott.
And then he added, with an accent of discouragement,
.bn 230.png
.pn +1
“You think I can make the second, don’t
you?”
Laughlin understood the tone quite as well
as the words. “Of course you can if you try,
and I don’t mean that you can’t make the first
either. You’ve got to make the first by way of
the second. The second is just the place for
you, or for any one else who wants to learn;
it’s the regular training-school for the first.
You’re on the field every day, you play against
a better man who can’t help giving you points,
and you’re right where you can be watched.
Don’t you worry about the first. Just play
your hardest all the time, make the man opposite
you work to keep you under, learn his
game and improve on it, and then, if you beat
him out, you’ll be taken on to the first in his
place. But don’t ask now whether you’re
going to land in the first or the second.
You’ve got a chance during the next six
weeks to learn the game and show what
you can do. That’s all any one can ask.”
Wolcott was silent, but he was not at all
convinced that the mere opportunity to play on
.bn 231.png
.pn +1
the second was in itself all he could ask for, and
his later experiences rather confirmed his doubts.
To begin with, he got but little personal coaching,
for the coachers devoted themselves especially
to the first, helping the second, for the
most part, only incidentally. Then he was
pitted against Butler, an experienced man,
fifteen pounds heavier, who had the support of
the best line in school and the best secondary defence.
Bullard, who played centre on the first,
was not counted a great player, but he was
certainly better than thick-headed, heavy-limbed
Kraus, who usually occupied the corresponding
position on the second, and who was likely
either to topple over on Lindsay’s back, or fall
in his way, or in some other inexplicable fashion
deprive the new guard of the fruit of his efforts.
Durand was captain of the second, as clever
and quick and “scrappy” a quarter as one
could desire. But what could the cleverest
quarter do with a centre who couldn’t get the
ball back, and a line which wouldn’t hold long
enough to allow the backs to get started? At
the end of a week of play, Wolcott began to
.bn 232.png
.pn +1
suspect that the second had no other reason
for existence than to be tossed and mauled
about for the good of the first, as the punching-bag
suffers to harden the boxer’s muscle.
Another week went by, and the new player’s
ambition began to wane. He didn’t mind the
hard knocks and the hard words; he was willing
to work and wait and play with all his
might; but it did seem an unfair handicap to
pit him against a veteran player, a stronger
and better-trained line, the head coach and the
captain, and still expect him to distinguish
himself. Laughlin had paid him but little
attention during the last week. The captain
still made occasional suggestions, mostly in the
form of frank and unadorned condemnation of
methods that were wrong, with now and then
a word of praise as a relish; but the old intimate
relation in which they had discussed the
football campaign as a thing in which the two
had a similar interest, no longer existed. Was
Laughlin too much absorbed to notice him?
Or had he already made up his mind that
Lindsay was of no use?
.bn 233.png
.pn +1
“Why didn’t you try for tackle, Lindsay?”
asked Jackson, the quarter-back, that afternoon,
as the two stood briskly rubbing themselves
in the corner of the shower-bath drying room.
“There isn’t much show at guard against a
man like Butler.”
“Because Dave wanted me to play guard,”
answered Wolcott, sharply. He had been puzzling
over that very question himself.
“Did he?” answered Jackson, in a tone of
surprise. “I wonder why.” And then, after
considering a few seconds, he added: “I guess
he thought ’twould be better to have a good
solid centre on the second to buck against than
another green tackle for the first. I guess
he’s right, too. It’s rather hard on you, though,
isn’t it?”
Wolcott forced a laugh. “It makes no difference
to me where I play. I never expect to
get beyond the second, anyway.”
Wolcott’s attention wandered in the recitation
that afternoon, and he went to his room
after dinner in distinctly low spirits. He had
dreamed of making the eleven. Indifferently
.bn 234.png
.pn +1
as he had spoken to Jackson, he could not deny
that the hope had been in his heart daily for
the last six months. All the labor and training
of the summer had been undergone with this
prize before his eyes. If Dave was disappointed
in him, he was still more disappointed in himself;
but in any case he must bear his fate like
a man, not whine over it like a child. After
all, if he did his best, his absolute best, and did
not compass his ambition, he had nothing to
be ashamed of. He certainly wanted the best
team put into the field, and if his greatest
service to the team lay in his furnishing a
“good, solid centre on the second for the first
to buck against,” why should he hesitate?
No, he would think no more of the first
eleven. His place was on the second. But on
the second he would do something worth doing.
He would play his game to the end, without
shirking or shrinking, to the best of his ability
in the place where he was put. And the second
eleven should be a good eleven, as far as he
could make it, or help others to make it!
Full of a new purpose, Wolcott seized his
.bn 235.png
.pn +1
cap and hurried over to Durand’s room. Durand
was writing names on a sheet of paper.
“Hello!” said Durand, “did you meet
Dave?”
“Dave? No! Why?”
“He’s just been in here. He was going over
to see you. He wants us to brace up the
second.”
Wolcott uttered an exclamation. “That’s
just what I was going to talk with you about.”
“Dave says we’re of no use, and we can’t
deny it. He’s given me a free hand to get out
the best team we can. What do you think of
this combination?” And he read his list of
names.
On the following day there were some new
faces on the second. Kraus was put to running
laps on the track, and into the centre went
Scates, a burly White Mountain villager who
had never touched a football until he arrived
in Seaton that September. They planted him
in the line, told him that the opposite centre
was his personal enemy, bade him stand like
a rock, put the ball back when required, and
.bn 236.png
.pn +1
then pile into his enemy as if he were pushing
a log into the Androscoggin. When the other
side had the ball, he was to smash through and
get it. Milliken, a big Pennsylvanian who had
been vainly trying to stop Laughlin, was pulled
out of his position and set to bucking the line.
The practice that afternoon was lively, if nothing
else.
The next day was Saturday, and the Bates
College team appeared for their annual game.
Wolcott lounged at the side-lines in football
clothes with the rest of the big squad, on the
extremely small possibility that a sufficient number
of accidents would occur to bring him into
the game. As the substitutes lounged, they
watched and commented.
“Butler is putting it over his man all right,”
observed Conley, who sat at Wolcott’s elbow, in
characteristic slang.
Wolcott was watching. Both Butler and his
Bates opponent, though starting low, charged
upward, meeting nearly erect. Then Butler,
who was heavier and stronger, would push the
other back or throw him aside, and pass
.bn 237.png
.pn +1
quickly through. Why did they rise like that?
The movement was instinctive, of course, but
why did not the lighter man keep on the ground
where his advantage lay, and not be tempted
into the air? Interested in the pair, Wolcott
followed the play along the side-lines, catching
glimpses from time to time of the attitude of
the two men as they clashed. The advantage
was always on Butler’s side.
In the second half Butler faced a new foe,
who for a time fared no better at his hands
than his predecessor. But presently a change
was perceptible. The new guard did not rise
to meet his enemy’s charge, but instead dodged
past the Seaton man close to the ground on the
defensive, and charged his hips on the offensive.
Gains behind Butler became less frequent; twice
his man stopped the Seaton play behind the
line.
Wolcott kept his own counsel after the Bates
game, but his treatment of Butler when he next
lined up against him was different. When the
first had the ball, instead of dashing himself
against his opponent, he dived past him on his
.bn 238.png
.pn +1
knees. Twice he overran the ball because he
did not keep his head up to see where the play
was going; twice he lost his footing, and was
useless; but several times he was through in
season to smash the interference as it was
forming, or drive the runner in a wasteful
circuit. When his own side had the ball, the
play was not so easy; but by diving into his
opposite the very instant the ball moved, he at
least succeeded in keeping him out of the way.
“It was a good game you put up to-day,
Lindsay,” said the coach, as the line broke.
Lindsay thanked him, beaming with joy.
On the way down Laughlin joined him.
“Good work you did to-day; keep it up.”
Wolcott nodded and smiled again. But the
smiles and the joy were not due to the compliments,
nor to the reawakening of fatuous
hopes of swift promotion to the school eleven.
His present ambition was centred on holding
his own against Butler, and now he knew he
had his man.
.bn 239.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIX | MORE FOOTBALL
.sp 2
From that day there was in practice a growing
trouble on the left of the school centre.
The plays on that side frequently went wrong.
Some one would rise in the path of the ball
from beside Butler’s knees, or there would be
no hole between tackle and guard when it
was called for, or when a hole was made,
big Milliken would be found crouching behind
it, with Lindsay scrambling free from his opponent
within striking distance. And occasionally,
even when the play was aimed at
Laughlin’s side, Lindsay would dive through,
wheel round the centre and tear away the men
who were pushing behind, just at the moment
when their impulse was most needed.
He was not always so successful. Sometimes
Butler would fall squarely upon him, and so give
.bn 240.png
.pn +1
Buist or Wendt a chance to hurdle them both.
Sometimes Butler would catch him badly balanced
on his feet, and throw him before he
could steady himself. At times, also, the older
player would resort to more violent methods,
especially when the second had the ball and the
first were free to use their hands, and would
charge open-handed at Wolcott’s eyes, or with
a sudden upward sweep of his forearm bring
the head of his crouching opponent up to the
desired level. But Wolcott kept both his temper
and his wits. When a new trick was used
against him, he devised a way of meeting it.
He learned to hold his head up long enough
to detect the course of the play, and safely
down when he went for the ball; to start like
a flash without false moves; to strike his opponent,
with his feet not one behind the other
or in each other’s way, but well apart and
strongly braced; to fall, when a heavy man
tried to flatten him, not helpless with legs
and arms outstretched, but on his hands and
knees in a crawling position; to turn his opponent’s
direction by a dexterous twist; and,
.bn 241.png
.pn +1
above all, to play his game on the ground. It
was a personal contest day after day between
the old and the new guard to see which should
prevail over the other—a contest which, though
not bitter, was yet hard and fierce and exciting.
And every day, though the coachers behind the
first exhorted and reviled, Lindsay’s advantage
grew.
The second was transformed. The efforts
and example of Durand and Lindsay and Milliken
had put life into the whole faint-hearted
flabby set. Their plays often did not work;
the right side of their line regularly broke
after a momentary struggle, to let Laughlin
through. But on the other side Lindsay and
Peters, his tackle, could usually open some
kind of a hole; and when Milliken hugged
the ball in his two arms and butted, bull-like,
at an opening, something usually gave way.
And now and then Durand would get a
chance to run back a punt, or would slip
round the school tackle on a quarter-back
run, and with the jerky, zigzag, dodging
movement that made him disappear under
.bn 242.png
.pn +1
the hand like a flea, would work his way a
third the length of the field. Such occurrences
were, however, exceptional; the practice
of the second was mainly on the defence.
“It’s too good to last,” said Durand, mournfully,
after a game in which the second had made
an unusually good resistance. “They’ll soon be
taking Milliken away from me, and swapping
Butler for you. That’s the trouble with a
second eleven: as soon as you develop a good
man, they steal him.”
“Well, they won’t steal me,” returned Wolcott,
laughing. “I’m more useful to them
where I am.”
On the next day there was a “shake-up”
on the second. Milliken was put on the first,
and Lindsay was transferred to left guard,
opposite Laughlin.
“You see I was right,” he said to Durand,
as the players shifted positions. “I’m the animated
tackling dummy for the first to practise
on. When one man’s got enough of me,
they turn me over to another. Well, here goes!
My work’s cut out for me this time all right.”
.bn 243.png
.pn +1
And he went to his place with the spirit of
battle burning like a fire within him.
There was fierce struggling that day between
right guard on the first and left guard on the
second. Wolcott early found that the methods
used with success against Butler would not all
serve against Laughlin. Sometimes the captain
lifted him up and threw him over; sometimes
he simply swept him back by his immense
strength and weight. Only by extreme rapidity
of attack could Wolcott scramble by his enemy
on the defensive; only by playing on his knees
and charging low could he keep the heavier
man from the play. The fight took all his
strength and all his attention. It was lift and
smash, and smash and lift, regardless of time or
distance. He did not know whether one touchdown
had been made or four; whether he was
doing well or ill: he merely played his man to
the limit of his powers. And when the whistle
finally sounded, and he gave a last look into
Laughlin’s face before turning to hunt up Ware
and his sweater, he noticed for the first time
how the perspiration was pouring down the
.bn 244.png
.pn +1
captain’s face and the big body shook with
panting.
Wolcott went to bed that night at eight
o’clock, completely tired out, but supremely
content. He had given Laughlin the hardest
tussle that the doughty veteran had faced in
many a long day.
On Saturday came a match, and Wolcott
played in Butler’s place during the second half.
The crowd at the side-lines made various comments
on the merits of the two players. But a
guard occupies an inconspicuous place. With
the centre he forms the backbone, the anchor
of the line; but his best work is hidden by the
scrimmage. It may have been merely because
they were in better training than their antagonists
that Seaton played a so much stronger
game during the second half; it may have been
due entirely to his freshness that Lindsay was
so effective in holding up his men and dragging
them along, after they were tackled, several
times to a first down. The bleacher critics
were uncertain, and the coachers, who knew
best, would not commit themselves.
.bn 245.png
.pn +1
Again Wolcott took his practice opposite
Laughlin. The head coach was most of the
time behind the second; and though he kept
close watch on the general game, he always had
one eye on Laughlin and Lindsay. Wolcott had
lost something of his fear of his redoubtable
antagonist. As the game advanced, he discovered
that though he could not stand before
the captain in a contest of strength, Laughlin
was inclined to be slow, and when once started
in a given direction could not quickly change
his course. With this new light to guide him,
he succeeded in giving the dread guard a most
lively and absorbing ten-minutes bout. At the
end of that time Lauder took him out and put
him in Butler’s place on the first. In the
signal practice that followed the general game,
Lindsay found himself still occupying Butler’s
position.
“He must play with the first from this time
on,” said the coach that evening, as he discussed
Lindsay’s case with Laughlin. “We’ve only
ten days more of good practice left, and that
allows us little enough time to work him well
.bn 246.png
.pn +1
into the attack. He’s good enough on the
defence now.”
“I suppose you’re right,” responded Laughlin;
“but I’d like to have one or two more tries
at him. He’s the toughest proposition I’ve
struck this year. The second’s been the making
of that fellow. If we had put him on the first
as soon as he began to show what was in him,
he wouldn’t be half so good.”
“Give me that man for two years, and I’d
make him the greatest guard that ever played!”
cried Lauder, who had the true trainer’s enthusiasm
for his pet athlete. “Light as he is,
he’s a match for ’most any man twenty pounds
heavier, and he’s growing all the time. Why,
he’s all you can handle now, and just think
how green he is!”
“That’s the trouble with Wolcott,” said
Laughlin, thoughtfully, “he’s had so little experience.
The Hillbury game is a pretty hard
strain on a green man. If he only keeps his
head!”
“He’ll do it, I’m sure,” the coach answered
with confidence. “He’s a natural player, and
.bn 247.png
.pn +1
fellows of that kind play by instinct; they think
more with their nerves than with their minds.
We’ll see how he gets along with that Harvard
Second man.”
The game with the Harvard Second was at
the same time Wolcott’s glory and his undoing.
He had opposite him a player of the familiar
college type,—big, strong, experienced, well
versed in the tricks of the trade, but without
the power or the brains or the temperament
necessary to make a first-class varsity man.
He played a game of smash and drive, much
like that which Wolcott had learned to expect
from Butler,—high in the air and slow. The
ease with which the Seaton left guard did the
work expected of him set the coaches on the
side-lines dancing with joy. So unsuccessful
was the bulky Harvard man in stopping his
troublesome opponent that toward the end of
the second half he lost his head or his temper;
and in his struggles, by accident or design, one
of his fists landed smartly on Wolcott’s nose.
As luck would have it, in the same scrimmage,
Wolcott also received a hard, numbing blow in
.bn 248.png
.pn +1
the leg from some heavy Harvard boot. Though
the limping fellow protested that he was quite
able to play, Laughlin, fearing to take risks
with a valuable man, sent him to the side-lines
and called in Butler to finish the game.
“Lindsay’s nose wasn’t broken, was it?”
asked Mr. Graham, meeting the school physician
a few hours later.
Dr. Kenneth laughed. “Oh, no; he had
nothing worse than nosebleed. His thigh will
be lame for a day or two from the kick that
he got in the last scrimmage, but neither injury
requires my care.”
And while Wolcott was having his leg rubbed,
and gossiping joyously with Laughlin about the
work of the eleven of which he was at last
a full-fledged member, the professional disseminator
of evil tidings was preparing the following
“story” for the Boston Trumpeter:—
“The Harvard Second went to Seaton yesterday
and received a drubbing to the tune of 16
to 0. It wasn’t as easy as the score seems to
indicate, for the game was a fight from start
to finish, only the gilt-edged training and
.bn 249.png
.pn +1
splendid team work of the Seatonians enabling
them to pull out a victory. Milliken was the
sledge hammer most successfully used to smash
the Harvard line, though Buist also proved no
slouch in pushing the pigskin forward. Laughlin
was as invincible as usual, while Lindsay,
Seaton’s new left guard, put up an especially
lively, scrappy game, until he was carried off the
field near the end of the second half, with the
blood streaming down his face. It is to be
hoped that his injuries won’t keep him permanently
off the gridiron, as he seems to be
the great find of the season.”
Wolcott read the account the next morning
when he returned from his first recitation, and
hooted with amusement. Mr. Lindsay read it at
his breakfast table and shuddered. He carried
the paper down town with him to his office to
keep it out of Mrs. Lindsay’s hands; and all the
way down he grew more and more indignant.
The first thing he did at the office was to call up
the school authorities at Seaton and demand a
report of his son’s condition. The reassuring
answer did not change his purpose. He sat
.bn 250.png
.pn +1
down at his desk and wrote the misguided
youth a letter, ordering him peremptorily to
play football no more. Then, having by parental
ukase rescued his son from threatening
peril, he took up with relief the business of
the day.
Wolcott received the letter that afternoon,
as he came in from the field where he had
been watching the practice. He read it
through in amazement. He reread it with
quickened breath and a mist forming before
his eyes. And then, big fellow as he was,
he threw himself on his bed and wept.
.bn 251.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XX | A ROUND ROBIN
.sp 2
There was keen unhappiness at the training
table that night, and discussion rampant. It
was no longer a question of losing one man
who was a little better than another, but of
parting with a star. Butler was no worse
than he had been all through the season; but
to play Butler now in place of Lindsay was
like playing a substitute. And in student
opinion it was not only unfair and unnecessary,
but preposterously silly, to take a strapping,
husky lad like Lindsay out of the game,
when during the whole season, as an inexperienced
learner, he had been mauled up and
down the field by heavier men and rougher
teams, and had emerged smiling and strong,
with red cheeks and clear eyes, and every
joint working as if on ball-bearings. This
.bn 252.png
.pn +1
opinion was general. Only Lindsay’s presence
and Lindsay’s evident respect for his father,
even when he felt that his father was hopelessly
wrong, checked the more violent expression
upon the tongue.
Various were the suggestions offered. “Don’t
receive the letter,” advised Hendry. “It was
lost in the mail.”
“Say nothing and keep right on playing,”
counselled Read. “It’s only nine days to the
game now.”
“Play under an assumed name,” urged Milliken.
“He won’t be there to see.”
All this Wolcott received with a contemptuous
smile, and Laughlin gave no heed. Both
knew that the advisers were not serious.
“I’ll be over about eight with Poole and
Ware,” said Laughlin, as they rose from the
dinner table, “and we’ll see if there isn’t
some way out of the hole. I don’t propose
to give you up till we’ve tried every chance
there is. I’m going over now to consult Grim.
He may know of some way of influencing Mr.
Lindsay.”
.bn 253.png
.pn +1
But at eight o’clock, when the captain appeared
with his two counsellors, he had a discouraging
report to lay before the meeting.
Mr. Graham declined to interfere. Mr. Lindsay
had not consulted him, and he certainly
should not assume unasked the responsibility
of urging that a boy be exposed to what a
parent considered a dangerous strain.
“Never mind,” said Ware. “I didn’t expect
any help from him, anyway. It’s up to us to
convince Mr. Lindsay, if he’s to be convinced.
Now, Wolcott, first tell us exactly what the
trouble is. Are you weak somewhere, or is
your father scared by newspaper stories, or
what is the matter? Did he ever see a football
game?”
“I don’t think he ever did,” replied Wolcott,
answering the last of the triple volley of questions.
“The fact is, he never has liked the
modern system of college athletics. He says
that in his time they used to sit under the
trees and talk of what they were going to do
in the world, and a prize oration was the
highest honor of college life; now the ideal
.bn 254.png
.pn +1
is a professional ball player or a pugilist; and
instead of gathering to listen to a debate or
an essay, they troop to the field and howl
for a lot of gladiators. I’ve heard that kind
of thing so many times that I can repeat it
word for word,” he added with a melancholy
smile. “Most athletes, according to his idea,
are an inferior lot who never are heard of
after they leave college. And then, as you
say, he reads all the stories of injuries in the
papers and takes them all for gospel truth.”
“Does he refuse to let you go out in a sailboat
with a proper skipper, because so many
greenhorns try to sail boats and are upset;
or to go driving, because horses run away?”
demanded Poole, addressing himself vigorously
to the argument implied in Wolcott’s words.
Wolcott smiled grimly, but made no reply.
It seemed a bit hard to be held responsible
for his father’s views.
“That’s no use, Phil,” said Laughlin. “You
aren’t arguing with Mr. Lindsay. What we
want to do is to present our case so that he’ll
take our point of view. Now in the first
.bn 255.png
.pn +1
place, how many accidents have we had here
in Seaton with about a hundred fellows playing
every fall?”
“None this year,” said Ware. “Elkins
broke his collar-bone last year, and the year
before a fellow smashed his nose. Of course
there were bruises and lame shoulders, but
they don’t amount to anything.”
“Both these fellows you mention were green
men,” said Laughlin. “That’s the point we
want to make. It’s the green, untrained boys
who get hurt—fellows who haven’t had proper
care and teaching, and who go floundering into
the game without knowing how they ought to
dress or what to do with their arms and legs,
or how to tackle or how to fall.”
“A good many of the cases of accident in
the newspapers are fakes,” said Ware; “the
dead man is attending recitations the next
morning. Most of the real accidents happen
to absolute greenhorns—fellows playing for the
first time, without the slightest knowledge of
the rudiments of the game,—and it’s almost
always off in some remote place where they
.bn 256.png
.pn +1
don’t know much about football, not in the
centres where the game has been going on
for a long time.”
“Put those things down,” said Laughlin to
the last speaker. “You act as secretary, Dan.”
“There are some accidents in games where
little, young fellows are played against heavy
teams,” said Poole; “but that’s the fault of
the management.”
“None of these conditions are found here,”
commented Laughlin, “and as a result we
don’t have accidents of any account. Got that
down, Dan?”
“There’s one thing you’ve forgotten,” suggested
Wolcott. “There are the accidents
that come from foul play.”
“Dirty football!” ejaculated Laughlin.
“That’s true; but we shan’t have that in
the game with Hillbury.”
“Put it down, just the same,” said Poole.
“Let’s give him all the facts.”
“Now about the newspaper stories,” said
Ware, looking up after a few minutes of scribbling,
during which he had translated “dirty
.bn 257.png
.pn +1
football” into terms less concise but more comprehensible
to Mr. Lindsay. “Wouldn’t it be
well to send him Walter Camp’s investigations
of football accidents reported in the newspapers,
and those figures that a Western college professor[1]
got out? I have them both somewhere.”
.fm rend=th
.fn 1
Professor Edwin Grant Dexter, of the University of Illinois,
in the Educational Review, April, 1903.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
“That’s good,” said Laughlin, “and give him
a good straight statement of this poor chap’s
condition. Collins said to-day he never saw a
fellow thrive on the game like Lindsay. Gaining
all the time, aren’t you, Wolcott?”
Wolcott nodded without a smile. His heart
was wholly with the arguments, but that they
would prove effective he had little hope. He
knew well the strength of his father’s convictions,
the honesty and sincerity of his desire to
do the best possible for his only son. He could
hardly be imagined as yielding to the arguments
and sentiments of a lot of boys.
“Who’ll explain about that slap in the head
and taking him out of the Harvard Second
game?” asked Ware.
.bn 258.png
.pn +1
“I’ll do that,” said Laughlin, “in my part.”
The meeting broke up after arranging for a
round robin in three sections, Ware to set forth
the facts as to accidents, Laughlin the exigency
of the school, and Wolcott a plea from his own
point of view. He sat down to this after the
others were gone, and put into his letter all the
longing and disappointment of his heart. He
went back to the year before, when he had gradually
learned to appreciate the manly, forceful
character of the captain, and had caught the eagerness
of his ambition for the team; he dwelt on
his hard work through the summer to strengthen
himself to take a place in the line; he told modestly
of his laborious pushing up through the list
of candidates; of his study of himself and his position
and the men he had to meet, and his final
unquestioned triumph. He had grown under
the discipline, not rougher and more brutal, but
stronger and firmer physically, and more collected,
more resolute, more capable mentally.
The great climax of all his labor was but a
week away. He was perfectly able to play;
the team needed him. There was but the
.bn 259.png
.pn +1
slightest chance of physical injury. To drop
out now would be a terrible sacrifice. He was
ready to make it, of course, if his father insisted,
but would he not reconsider and let him play
the season out?
In the morning the trio gathered after chapel
and put the three missives together in an envelope.
Laughlin’s contribution was the shortest,
Ware’s the longest. Ware weighed the
package and affixed two stamps.
“Will he read all this?” queried Laughlin,
suspiciously, as he poised the heavy envelope in
his hand.
“Sure! every word of it,” replied Wolcott,
promptly.
“Will it have any effect on him, do you
think?” demanded Ware.
Wolcott smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid not.
You’d better not count on me any longer in
the game.”
“Come out and watch the signal practice,
anyway,” said Laughlin. “That can’t hurt you.
Keep up the training, too, and take a little
exercise every day. I’m not giving up yet.”
.bn 260.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXI | A LOOPHOLE
.sp 2
There was not the slightest chance that Mr.
Lindsay’s reply could reach Seaton that night.
None the less, three heavy-hearted fellows
escorted Wolcott to the carrier’s window at the
post-office, after the evening mail had arrived,
and gazed eagerly over his shoulder while the
clerk drew a bundle of letters from a certain
pigeonhole, and, after rapidly slipping one over
another, bestowed on the waiting students the
regretful nod and smirk of sympathy familiar to
disappointed applicants at post-office windows.
From the office they crossed the street to the
telephone station, and asked if Wolcott Lindsay
had been called up by Boston. Receiving here
also a negative answer, Wolcott demanded to
talk with his father. When the connection was
made, Ware squeezed into the booth behind him,
.bn 261.png
.pn +1
while Laughlin, hopelessly crowded out of the
narrow quarters, projected his head through the
partly closed door.
“Is this you, father?” asked Wolcott. “Did
you get my letter?”
Laughlin heard dimly the sound of a voice in
reply; Ware caught a few of the words.
“You’ll decide it to-night, won’t you?” went
on Wolcott. “It’s awfully important—you
can’t possibly understand without being here
how important. I’m really as sound as a nut.
And they do need me. It seems as if I couldn’t
possibly crawl out now.”
The answer this time came more distinctly;
Ware at the words and Laughlin at the tone
felt their hearts drop within them. On Wolcott’s
face settled an expression of black despair
as he listened with hurried breath to his father’s
sympathetic yet unyielding response.
“But you’ll surely write to-night,” said the
boy, when his chance to speak came; “and
think of it as favorably as you can, won’t you?
And remember that there are lots of competent
judges who don’t agree with you. It can’t be
.bn 262.png
.pn +1
as bad as you think if it has done me so much
good.” Wolcott hung up the receiver and rose.
“What does he say?”
“It’s no go, I’m afraid. He will decide to-night,
and write so that the letter will get to me
to-morrow morning. The only good thing he
sees about football is that the players are capable
of getting up so good a brief for a bad
cause.”
“Does that mean that he’s laughing at us?”
demanded Poole.
“No, he was in earnest. He’ll give the arguments
a fair hearing, and then decide against
me.”
“It won’t be a fair hearing,” said Ware, “if
his mind is already made up.”
Wolcott turned sharply. “He’ll do what he
thinks is right, anyway—that I’m sure of.”
Laughlin gave his manager’s arm a tug that
pulled him half across the room. “Come home,
Dan, and let Wolcott alone. You can’t gain
anything now by arguing. We’ve just got to
take what Mr. Lindsay says and make the best
of it.”
.bn 263.png
.pn +1
They parted for the night with few words.
Wolcott, who would not listen to criticism of his
father’s judgment from his friends, yet felt a
very human resentment that he should be
treated as a child whose opinion was valueless,
in a matter with which he was familiar
and his father obviously not, and that his
father’s prejudices should be the only guide
to the momentous decision. Great as was his
mortification and his sense of ill treatment, he
betrayed it openly to no one; and never had
he the slightest notion of defying his father’s
command.
The letter-carrier was waylaid next morning
as he turned into the schoolyard and forced
to deliver instantly. With the fatal scroll in
their possession, the four boys hurried upstairs
to Poole’s room, which lay nearest on their way,
and sat in solemn silence while Wolcott read.
The letter was as follows:—
.pm start_quote
“My dear Boy: I regret extremely to write
that after carefully considering your letter and
the letters of your friends, Ware and Laughlin,
.bn 264.png
.pn +1
I cannot see a sufficient reason for changing my
opinion with regard to your playing football.
Your appeal touches my heart, but the arguments
offered impress me as clever efforts to
make the best of a bad cause, rather than as
bona fide reasons for a reversal of my decision.
The evening paper, which I was reading when
you called me to the telephone, reports among
the day’s football news that Harvard has several
good men ‘among the cripples’; that ‘Yale’s
hospital list is large’; that Jones of Dartmouth
will be out of the game for a fortnight at least
with his shoulder; while Smith of Princeton is
laid off with water on the knee, which will prevent
his playing again the present season. These
may be ‘insignificant and temporary injuries,’ as
your friends maintain, but they seem to be real
enough to affect the prospects of the teams
concerned. Cripples and the hospital are not
terms which I like to hear habitually mentioned
in connection with a sport in which my only son
is engaged.
“Now don’t misunderstand my position. I
am no champion of effeminacy. I do not ask
that you be shielded and coddled—in your
.bn 265.png
.pn +1
own words ‘wrapped in lamb’s wool and shut
up in a bureau drawer.’ I want you able to
take your share in the rough things of life.
There are hard knocks to be endured in almost
all athletic exercises; in many, such as riding,
sailing, swimming, there is actual risk. But
the risk in these sports is slight and occasional—not
much greater than that incurred in the
ordinary course of life. In football the danger
seems to be serious and constant. It is by no
means necessary that you should play on the
Seaton eleven; there are other sports in which
you can develop strength and skill; there are
other boys ready to take your place on the
team. Desirous though I am to gratify your
wishes in every reasonable way, it seems to me
that I have no right to allow you to risk life or
limb in a dangerous pastime.
“It may be that, as you say, many other competent—I
might perhaps add more competent—observers
do not hold my views. I am inclined
to think, however, that the older men,
who are unaffected by the glamour of the arena
or who have opportunities to trace the results of
these ‘slight injuries,’ will be found on my side.
.bn 266.png
.pn +1
At the same time I do not wish to seem arbitrary
or tyrannical. If you can find among the
best half-dozen surgeons in the city—men like
Hinds or Rawson or Seaver or Brayton—a single
man who can assure me that you are risking
nothing or little by playing the game, I will
waive my objection. I want to be reasonable
and sympathetic. I would not hold you, in the
present-day conditions, to all the limitations of
school and college life which I look back upon
as proper and beneficial in my own boyhood;
but I would not have you pay the price of a
single broken bone or twisted sinew for all the
football trophies of the season.
“Kindly thank your friends for the interesting
and clever letters they have written me, and
express to them my appreciation of their loyal
friendship to you. I trust they will forgive me
for not yielding to their arguments, and that you
may not find the sacrifice I am requiring of you
as hard as you fear.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Affectionately,
”W. Lindsay.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
“That settles it,” said Ware, heaving a sigh
as Wolcott ceased reading. “When your father
.bn 267.png
.pn +1
makes up his mind that his facts are the only
ones, you may as well knuckle under.”
Laughlin and Wolcott said nothing. The
former was cudgelling his brains to discover
some new point of attack; the latter, convinced
that the final decision had been made, sat dumb
and hopeless, crushed by the weight of disappointment.
At that moment nothing in the
world seemed so wholly desirable as the privilege
of playing in the Hillbury game, and no
fellows so wholly enviable as those whose
parents were undisturbed by anxieties as to
broken joints and twisted sinews. He was
roused from his fit of sullen brooding by Poole’s
voice.
“Read it again, Wolcott,” commanded Phil,
who was standing erect before his chair, his face
bright with a new idea. “Read it again, or at
least that part where he speaks of other competent
judges.”
Wolcott found the place and reread the latter
portion of the letter.
“Will he stand by what he says there, that
if one of them will say you risk little or
.bn 268.png
.pn +1
nothing, he’ll withdraw his objection?” demanded
Poole.
“Of course he will!” returned Wolcott, hotly.
“What kind of a man do you take him for?”
“Do you know any of these doctors?” continued
Poole, paying no attention either to the
indignant question or to the offended tone.
Wolcott shook his head sadly. “Only old
Dr. Rawson who lives near us. He set my
collar-bone five years ago, when I broke it falling
down the front steps.”
“I’m surprised your father let you go down
such a dangerous place,” remarked Ware. “I
suppose he made you avoid danger after that by
coming in the back way.”
“Shut up, Dan, I’m doing the talking now,”
ordered Poole, wheeling quickly upon the interrupter.
Then, turning to Wolcott again, he
added, “Dr. Rawson would be likely to help
you out, wouldn’t he?”
Wolcott made no reply unless the melancholy
smile that appeared on his face at the suggestion
of help from Dr. Rawson could be
considered an answer.
.bn 269.png
.pn +1
“I believe there’s one man who will help
us,” persisted Phil. “That Dr. Brayton is a
Seaton alumnus, and knows football down to
the ground—everything about it good and bad.
If any one of the four doctors your father mentions
will back you up, it’s Brayton. The thing
for you to do is to get Grim to let you off for a
day, and go up to Boston and see Brayton. If
you tell him the story, and let him look you
over, it’s an even chance that he’ll give you a
clean bill of health. If he does, your father will
have to back down.”
Wolcott leaned suddenly forward in his chair
and fixed his eyes eagerly on Poole’s, while an
expression of intense joy lighted his face. In a
moment, however, the flash of hope had passed,
and he sank back into his old position more
despondent than ever.
“Is he the Brayton who was on the Seaton-Hillbury
athletic committee last year?” asked
Ware.
“Yes, and he helped save Dickinson for the
team when they were trying to run him off, on
a perfectly false charge of professionalism,” said
.bn 270.png
.pn +1
Poole. “Dr. Brayton is as square a man as
ever lived, and what’s more, believes in athletics.”
“I don’t suppose father knew that,” observed
Wolcott.
“I don’t care whether he did or not,” retorted
Poole, sharply. “All I say is, that if your
father has agreed to take Brayton’s opinion, and
there’s a chance of its being favorable, you’re a
great fool if you don’t try to get it—unless
you really don’t care to play.”
“He wants to play fast enough,” said Laughlin,
taking the words out of Wolcott’s mouth, “and
I’ll see that he tackles Dr. Brayton. If anybody
thinks I’m going to play a poor man in that
game when I can get a good one, he’s mistaken.
The best we can scare up may not be good
enough to beat Hillbury.”
Wolcott smiled feebly. “Of course I’ll try it,
but I don’t expect anything to come of it.”
That night he arranged by telephone for an
interview with Dr. Brayton, and on Saturday
took the early train for Boston. It was a forlorn
hope, but a hope none the less; and that
.bn 271.png
.pn +1
was enough for the sanguine friends who gave
him godspeed on his way. As for Wolcott’s
own feelings, he had already suffered so much
from suspense and disappointment that he went
indifferent, expecting nothing good, fearing
nothing bad.
.bn 272.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXII | EXPERT OPINION
.sp 2
Wolcott was waiting in Dr. Brayton’s reception
room. Dr. Brayton had been delayed at
the hospital, the maid explained, but would soon
be in. So Wolcott, curbing his impatience,
gazed with half-hearted curiosity at the decorations
of the room, and alternately wished that
his father would act like other fathers, and wondered
what kind of a man Dr. Brayton would be.
There were books and magazines on the table,
but at this moment books and magazines offered
no attraction. Through a door opening into
another room he caught a glimpse of one end
of a framed diploma, and as he moved restlessly
to the next chair, two photographs of football
teams hanging one above the other came into
view.
Now framed diplomas had no possible interest
for Wolcott Lindsay, Jr., but pictures of football
.bn 273.png
.pn +1
teams, probably famous teams, belonged to an
entirely different category. He strained his eyes
to make out the letters on the jerseys and
sweaters, for the elevens were of the period
when uniforms always bore the college initial.
Failing in this, he advanced to the door, and,
still tempted, boldly crossed the room and stood
face to face with the pictures. Yes, they were
Yale and Harvard elevens. Odd that the two
should be hanging together like this! They
were fine-looking fellows, beyond a doubt, but
light! Not one in either picture looked a match
for Laughlin.
An authoritative voice from behind startled
him.
“Well, what do you think of them?”
Flushing deeply at being discovered in a place
where he was perhaps not expected to be, Wolcott
turned round upon his questioner. Before
him stood a man a little shorter than himself,
though heavier, whose breadth of shoulders was
not due to tailor’s padding, nor his girth of chest
to shirt front. He looked like the older brother
of one of the players in the upper picture. The
.bn 274.png
.pn +1
head prematurely bald, the streaks of gray in
the close-clipped mustache, the serious lines
about the mouth significant of heavy responsibilities
faithfully borne—all this befitted a
man well on in middle life. But the figure was
still alert and young, the complexion still fresh,
and the eyes still shone with the vivacity and
friendliness of youth.
“They look rather small for members of big
college elevens,” answered Wolcott. “They
must have been quick, though, and I don’t suppose
they needed to be so heavy for the game
they used to play then.”
The surgeon’s gaze swept him from head to
foot, resting fleetingly on his chest and thighs,
and returning again to his face.
“It was a more open game in those days,”
said Dr. Brayton, “and less elaborate. The
crushing wedge attack and the complicated system
of interference hadn’t yet been developed.
So the play was livelier, less dangerous, and I
think more interesting to watch.”
“So he calls it dangerous, too,” thought Wolcott,
with a sinking at the heart. Depressed at
.bn 275.png
.pn +1
the doctor’s words, and shy under the searching
gaze of the strange eyes, he turned again to the
pictures, rather to hide his embarrassment than
because his interest in them was still keen. In
the moment of silence that followed it occurred
to him that this was a strange way in which to
conduct himself in the office of a distinguished
man who had interrupted his daily programme
to give him a special hearing, and still more dissatisfied
with himself he swung round again and
opened his mouth to explain his business. Just
then Dr. Brayton began to speak, and the
formal phrase on Wolcott’s lips took flight.
“Yes, as players they may not—I say may
not—have been the equals of the football
heroes of to-day; but your heroes of to-day will
have to be something more than football players
to match the work some of these little fellows
are doing now.”
“What are they doing?” asked Wolcott,
eagerly. Here was one of his father’s criticisms
anticipated.
“Their part in the world,” Dr. Brayton answered.
“Take the backfield of that Harvard
.bn 276.png
.pn +1
team, for example. The full-back is head of an
important city church; the right half-back is
manager of one of the great Western copper
mines; the other half is perhaps the cleverest
surgeon of his age in Boston; one of the quarter-backs
is professor at Columbia, and the substitute
half is president of one of the largest
publishing houses of the country. The team
has been out of college considerably less than
twenty years.”
“You don’t say anything about yourself,”
said Wolcott, with complimentary naïveté.
Dr. Brayton laughed. “I belong to the second
class—those who have been faithful in
small things.”
“Have the Yale men done as well?” asked
the young man.
“I don’t know so much about them. That
man holding the ball is a full professor at Yale.
The man at his left is governor of the Hawaiian
Islands.”[2]
.fm rend=th
.fn 2
These records of Harvard and Yale ex-football players are
taken from the teams of a certain year between 1885 and 1890—teams
with which the author happens to be familiar. They
are quoted not as remarkable, but as typical.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
.bn 277.png
.pn +1
“I’m much obliged to you for telling me all
this,” said Wolcott. “My father thinks football
players are an inferior kind of men, who
never will amount to anything, and I’m glad to
know some facts that prove the contrary. I
suppose I ought to introduce myself,” he added,
his shyness suddenly recurring.
“You don’t need to do that,” replied the doctor,
laughing pleasantly. “When I have an
appointment with a young man who wants an
examination for football, and I find a stalwart
youth in my inner room so absorbed in studying
old football pictures that he doesn’t hear me
come in, it isn’t difficult to guess who he is.
But now for business. What is it that you wish
me to do?”
Wolcott explained his situation. He wanted
Dr. Brayton to look him over and see what condition
he was in, and then he hoped—he really
had no hope—that the report to his father
might in some way permit him to slip back into
the game.
“If you have any idea that I’m going to say
that football is not a dangerous game, you are
.bn 278.png
.pn +1
mistaken,” said the doctor, gravely, poising his
stethoscope in his hand. “It is a dangerous
game; but while for some the danger is considerable,
for others it is insignificant—not greater
than in any sport where physical strength and
endurance are severely tested. In my judgment
football doesn’t compare in risk with bicycle
riding or automobiling, or sailing or swimming.
Given the right man in the right conditions,
and the danger is trifling. The only
question is whether you are the right man,
and whether you play under the right conditions.”
For some minutes the thumping and sounding
went on. When at last the stethoscope went
back into the drawer, Wolcott asked eagerly,
“Am I the right man?”
But Dr. Brayton, instead of answering, started
a series of questions as to how long he had
played, what injuries he had received, whether
he had gained or lost in weight during the
season, how he felt at the present time, whether
listless and tired, or elastic and eager for the
game; whether the coach and trainer were capable
.bn 279.png
.pn +1
and trustworthy men, what kind of a game
was played at Seaton, and between Seaton and
Hillbury; and a dozen similar questions. The
last question touched on the accidents of the
season.
“There have been hardly any at Seaton this
year,” said Wolcott. “A few have been out for
a while with bad ankles or Charley Horse, and
one fellow had a football ear. Why, the manager
told me this morning that the doctor’s bill
for the care of the first and second elevens—thirty-five
men—for seven weeks was only
nineteen dollars.”[3]
.fm rend=th
.fn 3
The bill for medical and surgical attendance on the school
football squad (thirty-five men) at Exeter in the season of 1904,
reckoned at full rates, was twenty-two dollars. The injuries were
mainly muscle bruises and strained ankles. The most troublesome
case was a neglected scratch on the foot. The trainer reports
for the same season, among the one hundred and twenty-five
fellows playing football on the various school and class teams,
“practically no injuries at all.” The record for the year 1903
was much the same. In a private school in Boston, where seventy-five
to one hundred boys, from ten to eighteen years old,
were engaged during the fall of 1904 in playing football, the only
accident of the season was a broken nose, suffered by a boy who
did not wear a nose guard. At Harvard, after a peculiarly
unfortunate season, in which, it is feared, men were sometimes
played when not in the pink of condition, those best acquainted
with the facts could still report in January, 1905, “We had no
injuries that could be called serious.” From New Haven a
most trustworthy authority writes: “We have been fortunate
here for many years in having no serious accidents. The most
incapacitating accidents this season have been muscle bruises,
generally called ‘Charley Horse,’ which, while in no sense permanent
and, as the surgeons would put it, with a distinctly
favorable prognosis, cripple a man’s speed so much as to make
it almost impossible to use him if he is a player in the backfield.
For this reason Yale’s backs in the Harvard game were
different from those who faced Princeton a week before. Yet
though these two hard contests came close together, no Yale
man left the field in the Harvard game, and no time was taken
out on Yale’s account.”
It is safe to say that no harder football is played in the
country than at Exeter and Yale; yet the reports from these
centres of the game bear little resemblance to the lurid tales of
murder and mutilation which newspaper correspondents delight
in. The worst injuries from football known to the writer have
occurred in games played by workingmen out for a holiday,
or by untaught, unfit lads trying what they imagined to be
football.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
.bn 280.png
.pn +1
Dr. Brayton stared incredulously. “I shouldn’t
want that doctor’s job. You must have a good
trainer.”
“We have,” said the boy, simply.
The interview was apparently over. Wolcott
put on his coat. “Would you mind telling me
what kind of fellows it is dangerous for?” he
asked.
.bn 281.png
.pn +1
“The overtrained and the undertrained; the
weak and the flabby; and the man who plays
against dirty football.”
“What about me?” asked Wolcott.
But Dr. Brayton would not answer. “I’ll
see your father this evening, and he may hand
on to you my opinion, if he chooses. If he does
let you play, I shall expect of you two things:
first don’t get hurt; second, beat Hillbury, as
in my day we sometimes failed to do.”
That evening Wolcott hovered within sound
of the door-bell, and watched from a retired
place as the parlor maid opened the door. He
heard Dr. Brayton ask for Mr. Lindsay and
saw him shown into the reception room. After
an endless half-hour he was ushered out, and
Wolcott went boldly in. Mr. Lindsay was
standing in deep thought.
“I want to know my fate, father,” said the
son, looking eagerly down into his father’s eyes.
“Do you still want to play in that foolish
game?”
“There is nothing in this world I want
more.”
.bn 282.png
.pn +1
“Then if you hold me to my promise I shall be
forced to let you do it, though it is against my
better judgment. Brayton has gone back on me.”
Wolcott’s face shone with joy. “It’s awfully
good of you to give in. Can’t you come
to the game? You’ll see that it isn’t so bad
as they pretend.”
“Thank you for the invitation, but it is unnecessary,”
said Mr. Lindsay, grimly. “I shall
be there! And if I’m convinced in the course
of the contest that you are risking life or limb,
I shall take you out, Dr. Brayton or no Dr.
Brayton.”
There was joy in the football clique on Monday
morning when Wolcott returned with the
good news. He joined in the practice once
more that afternoon, and went into his game
like a storage battery recharged, full of fire and
dash and strength. The head coach and the
trainer took his case to heart in their after-practice
consultation, and the result was that
the work of the last week was materially
lightened. The last signal practice left the
team fresh, vigorous, and eager for the fray.
.bn 283.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIII | THE FIRST HALF
.sp 2
Mr. Lindsay sat in one of the upper rows of
seats close to the cheering sections, and gazed
with amazement at the streams of people pouring
in through the gates and along the side of
the white-checked rectangle. It was a beautiful
sight in the bright sunlight of this clear, cold
November day, the circle of sober buildings
keeping dignified watch on the hillside, the
slopes thronged by an impatient crowd, and the
wide circumference of field animate with floating
banners, gay-ribboned dresses, and eager,
joyous, expectant faces. Around him on every
side were merriment and youth and a fulness
of vigorous, happy, hopeful life. Men whose
schooldays lay a dozen years behind them
hallooed to their mates over his shoulder; college
boys revived school memories in his ears;
.bn 284.png
.pn +1
at his knees sat the “kid brother” of some
Seatonian, awed into silence by the importance
of the occasion; while the boy’s elder sister,
excited by the novel scene and less concerned
for the outcome, chattered gayly with her escort.
In these surroundings, with his antipathy to the
whole proceeding strong within him, Mr. Lindsay
felt like a survivor of a past generation, as
isolated as a man who knows only his own language
in the strange babel of a foreign port.
A few tiers below, the solicitous father caught
sight of a fringe of gray beard appearing on
either side of a round, fur-capped head. Here
at last must be a kindred spirit, mourning with
him this squandering of money, this waste of
time, this wanton imperilling of young lives.
But the fur cap revolved, and a merry, smiling
face turned toward the seats above—the youngest,
happiest, jolliest face in all the Seaton
sections! Mr. Lindsay was discouraged. He
lost hope of sympathy from this audience—more
like Spaniards at a bull-fight than reasonable,
civilized Americans.
From the hill beyond came the sound of a
.bn 285.png
.pn +1
low-pitched staccato chant, growing gradually
clearer till from behind the red-steepled building
emerged a dark, compact line of advancing boys.
It was the Seaton school marching to a man to
support their team. They came slowly on, four
abreast, planting the left foot to each letter as
they spelled the school name, chanting their way
around the field to the cheering sections. It
was the chant of conquerors,—strong, hopeful,
revealing and inspiring confidence. Mr. Lindsay
thawed a little under the warmth of the
general enthusiasm as he watched these stanch
followers crowd to their seats.
“They evidently believe in their team,” he
thought to himself, and he felt a natural touch
of pride as he recalled the praises of Wolcott
contained in those letters from Ware and Laughlin.
The present scene threw a new light on
their earnestness.
Meantime on the Hillbury side the band appeared,
with the whole contingent of Hillburyites
trooping after. They pushed on to their
seats in silence, leaving to the music a free hand;
but once established, their cheers rang sharp and
.bn 286.png
.pn +1
clear across the field. Mr. Lindsay watched with
admiring interest the four distant cheer leaders
swinging their batons with identical stroke, and
ruling the three hundred voices as a conductor
rules an orchestra.
“They are better cheerers,” he was thinking,—the
crowd across the field always seems to
cheer the better,—“yes, they are certainly
better cheerers, but our marching was more effective.”
And while he was laughing softly to
himself that he should thus identify himself with
these youthful, misguided lunatics, a great roar
rose about him at the sight of a score of strapping,
brown-suited, red-legged wild men who
came tumbling over the side ropes into the field.
Here they divided, a knot of eleven following
the ball in signal practice up the field, while the
rest in red blankets and sweaters streamed across
to the Seaton side-lines.
The Seaton volley of welcome was still reverberating
when over the same side ropes leaped the
Hillbury squad, looking massive in heavy, blue-lettered
sweaters, and a knot of blue legs flashed
down the field behind another ball. And now
.bn 287.png
.pn +1
were heard cheers and counter cheers,—cheers
of Hillbury by Seaton and of Seaton by Hillbury,
cheers for both captains from both sides, cheers
for the general cause, cheers to keep up the
spirit, cheers of hope and of defiance. The
practice squads broke up; big blue legs and big
red legs met in the centre of the field; the gladiators
shook each other by the hand, and turned
to a wiry little man wearing a white jersey with
a college letter upon it, who tossed a coin into
the air and examined it as it lay upon the
ground. Red-legs said something, the referee
nodded, the captains hurried to their men,
sweaters came off, headguards went on, the
players scattered to their places. When the
field cleared itself of sweater bearers, sponge
holders, and water-pail carriers, the Hillbury side
was singing its well-learned song of defiance
which Seaton was straining its vocal chords to
drown. The Hillbury tackle was propping the
ball with a bunch of moist earth for the kick-off,
and the Seaton eleven was sprinkled over the
field with their backs to wind and sun.
Mr. Lindsay looked across the field at Laughlin
.bn 288.png
.pn +1
and marvelled; he looked at Wolcott, whose
place was nearer, and admired. Laughlin was
ponderous and powerful, built for strength but
also for slowness; Wolcott was alert, graceful
even in his clumsy clothes, his face aglow with
perfect health, his every movement showing
physical strength, but the strength of the horse,
not of the ox.
The referee lifted his arm: “Ready, Seaton?[4]
Ready, Hillbury?”
.fm rend=th
.fn 4
The Seaton line-up. Line from left to right: Read, Hendry,
Lindsay, Bullard, Laughlin, Bent, Pope; quarter-back,
Jackson; half-backs, Wendt and Buist; full-back, Milliken.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
The captains cast a final look behind them
and nodded. The referee’s whistle sounded.
Davis, who kicked off for Hillbury, dashed at
the ball and sent it flying up to the Seaton ten-yard
line, speeding after it with the whole
heavy Hillbury line. Buist caught the ball,
dropped it, picked it up again, and twisted his
way behind the backs a dozen yards down the
field. Here he went down on the ball with
half a dozen upon him, and the first scrimmage
was on.
.bn 289.png
.pn +1
The shouts died on Seaton lips as the partisans
waited for the first prophetic play. They could
not cheer, for their hearts were in their throats,
and no one regarded the cheer leaders, and the
cheer leaders regarded only the lines poised for
the spring. Would the Seaton attack penetrate?
Would Hillbury’s strong line hold?
Wolcott, resting on his knee, with eyes fixed
on the ball, waited for the signal. He knew
what it was to be, for the plan had already
been made to send the first assault beyond him,
not on Laughlin’s side, where it would be expected.
At the first number of the signal he
was on his finger-tips and toes. As the ball
moved he shot forward, caught the heavy man
opposite with full momentum just as the latter
was getting under way, and forced him back
upon the line half. When, an instant later,
Buist came smashing into the hole with the one
hundred and eighty pounds of bone and muscle
known as Milliken driving behind him, Wolcott,
abandoning his man, swung round to meet the
back, and holding him up with the aid of Milliken
and Read, swept him on yard after yard until the
.bn 290.png
.pn +1
Hillbury men finally dragged them all to the
ground together. For the fraction of a second
the two elevens became two squirming heaps
and a connecting link—a heap where the ball
had been, a heap where it now was, and a trail
of prostrate bodies marking the route of advance.
“Terrible, terrible!” thought Mr. Lindsay, as
he gazed fascinated at the unintelligible scene.
But the Seaton supporters thought it anything
but terrible, for they cheered and cheered again
in ecstasy at the ten-yard gain, while the heaps
of bodies resolved themselves as by miracle into
two lines of very vigorous men. At the next
signal Wendt bucked the line beyond Laughlin,
by which three yards were gained; and Milliken
ripped through the narrow crack between Lindsay
and Bullard, and falling his length beyond
the line, made the first down. Then Jackson
tried a quarter-back run to open up the line, and
thanks to his interference, to his surprise and
joy, got round the end and ran out a dozen yards
down the field.
.il id=i291 fn=i291.jpg w=338px ew=60%
.ca
The pile that covered the ball three yards beyond.
Page 271.
.ca-
The play was now near the middle of the
field, bringing the rear of the Seaton line for
.bn 291.png
.bn 292.png
.bn 293.png
.pn +1
the first time within Mr. Lindsay’s line of vision.
He saw Milliken receive the ball and leap at the
line like a tiger springing on its prey. He saw
the centre open and take him in, saw the struggling
mass behind the Hillbury line and the
pile that covered the ball three yards beyond;
but he had not seen that it was the Seaton
left guard who opened the way and made the
play possible. Around him the spectators were
exclaiming and chuckling with delight, and
exchanging explosive praises of the irresistible
Milliken. On the side-lines, however, where
the experts were gathered, another name was
mentioned first, the name of the Seaton guard
who was “handling” his heavy man.
The team was going now with the momentum
of success and hope. Buist drove his way
through behind Laughlin. Wendt found a hole
inside left end, Jackson called back his right
tackle and sent him through the left side for
a decided gain; then he brought back the left
tackle, and apparently started a similar play for
the other side. The interference charged hard
and fought desperately as they struck the line,
.bn 294.png
.pn +1
but the ball was not with them. Jackson, after
pretending to pass to the tackle, had held it
a moment and tossed it to Wendt, who sped
through the centre unexpected, and with Wolcott
at his side, and Read, the Seaton end, not
far away, seemed for a moment likely to get by
the last Hillbury back and score a touchdown.
Wendt, however, slowed down to let Wolcott
interfere, and a Hillbury pursuer overtook him
and laid him low.
“Twenty yards now to a touchdown,” said
the Harvard student on Mr. Lindsay’s right.
“They’ll make it in about six downs if they can
only hold the ball.”
Mr. Lindsay nodded and smiled. He still disapproved,
but he was enjoying where he could
not wholly understand and did not at all wish
to enjoy. He turned to his friendly neighbor
with a question on his lips, but before the question
was out, the game again drew his whole
attention and that of his neighbor. In some
strange way the ball had slipped from the grasp
of the Seaton back, and the quick Hillbury
tackle had thrown himself upon it. The blue-stockinged
.bn 295.png
.pn +1
back, who had been playing far in
the rear, came running up to the Hillbury line,
while Jackson turned and scampered back to
the centre of the field. A groan ran along the
Seaton benches; the ball was Hillbury’s!
“What a rotten fumble!” ejaculated the
Harvard student. “Who made it, Bill?”
“Milliken,” snapped back the disgusted Bill.
“He ought to be hung!”
On the field no one asked that question, but
the men in the line said things under their
breath; and sore at heart that the fruit of their
toil should be lost just as it seemed within
their grasp, turned discouraged but dogged to
their defensive game. “Never mind, fellows,”
rang out Laughlin’s voice. “We can hold ’em.
Get into the game, every man. Watch the
ball!” And they stooped to their places, determined
to hold the ground they had gained.
The first attack was straight at centre, but
the Seaton trio played low, and the Hillbury
runner struck a wall and stopped short. Then
came a double pass for an end run by Joslin,
the speedy back; but Hendry, the Seaton tackle,
.bn 296.png
.pn +1
burst through and drove the runner into Read’s
arms with a loss of a yard. So Hillbury was
forced to punt, Jackson got under the ball in
the centre of the field, and was downed in his
tracks by the Hillbury end.
Then began another series of short advances
toward the Hillbury goal-line, through Laughlin,
through Lindsay, Hendry through the other side,
an attempt at an end run, a wing shift with
Milliken plunging outside tackle, Hendry again,
another delayed pass, left guard back, and
straight hard smashes of backs through the
centre. The result of the experimenting was
that Wolcott’s side of the line was the more
frequently called upon, especially the hole between
guard and tackle. Hendry and Read did
not always succeed in boxing their end. Wolcott
sometimes failed to get his man where he wanted
him; the Hillbury secondary defence often nullified
his efforts; but for some reason Jackson found
that here was the line of least resistance. On
the defence no one held like Laughlin. On
the attack he was always sure, always eager to
do his own work and help out Bent, crushing
.bn 297.png
.pn +1
his way like an ice-breaker through the line.
Two yards behind Laughlin were always to be
counted on with assurance. His very weight
and strength and hardness made him terrible.
Yet the gains through Wolcott were often
greater. He blocked no one’s way; he made
his hole and turned in it to drag the runner on;
he got into plays for which he might have
shirked the responsibility; he was where the
ball was, where it was going to be the next
instant, wherever his strength and help were
needed, pushing and pulling and dragging and
keeping his men on their feet.
They were on the ten-yard line now. The
spectators around Mr. Lindsay were excitedly
guessing on the distance yet to be covered, which
some put at five yards, others at fifteen. On
the Seaton side not a cheer was uttered. The
whole student audience hung on the play in
tense and eager silence. Hillbury was shouting
full and strong and regular, “Hold! hold! hold!”
which fell on the ears of the Hillbury champions
like a rallying trumpet call. Hendry came flying
from his post, took the ball from the quarter,
.bn 298.png
.pn +1
and swung hard into the line, beyond the
other tackle. Down he went without an inch of
gain. Laughlin dropped back and drove Buist
through Hall. “Three yards! The third
down!”
“Hold! hold! hold!” Into these syllables the
whole Hillbury cheering force was concentrating
its strength and hope. The Hillbury line heard
and gathered themselves together for a final
desperate resistance. Wolcott heard and heeded
not, for the signal was ringing in his ears, and
he knew that the last responsibility was upon
him. Laughlin was back once more, this time
to play the shunting locomotive for Milliken.
The track lay over the spot on which Wolcott
was standing. Hendry did his work well.
Wolcott’s shoulder was at Moore’s hip almost
before Moore had moved; the tandem jammed
its way into the narrow opening, over the line
half-back, like a squadron of horse over a thin
line of infantry, and down in a wild heap of
friend and foe four yards farther on!
It was a first down with but three yards to
the goal line!—three yards in three downs, an
.bn 299.png
.pn +1
easy task for a strong line flushed with victory,
which had already battered its way from
the middle of the field. Wendt made a yard
outside of right tackle in a cross buck. Then
Hendry fell back for the ball, and the heavy
wedge, with Laughlin at its apex, Hendry in the
centre driven along by Buist and Milliken and
Jackson pushing behind, piled the Hillbury
defence on either side of its course as a snow-plough
masses the snow right and left as it
drives its way through a heavy drift. Hendry
was yards across the goal-line when the
wedge broke.
While Jackson was bringing out the ball and
adjusting it for Bullard’s kick for goal, Wolcott
with dry lips and panting breath, but joy unspeakable
in his heart, was watching the antics of the
Seaton audience, which danced and yelled and
cheered and waved flags in a frenzy of delight.
Somewhere in section D was his father, in what
state of mind he hardly dared guess; but he remembered
with relief that but few stops had
been made on pretence of injuries, while not one
on either side had left the field; and he fervently
.bn 300.png
.pn +1
hoped that his anxious father was observing the
scene of carnage without distress. As a matter of
fact, Mr. Lindsay was at that moment thinking
very little about carnage and very much of the possibility
that Bullard would fail to kick the goal.
The ball sailed between the tips of the goal-posts,
the crowd shouted, the players scattered to their
new places, and Mr. Lindsay resigned himself
with surprising cheerfulness to a continuation of
the brutal contest. Above him the enthusiastic
Harvard men were extolling the Seaton line in
general, and in particular the solid centre, where
the big captain and “Beefy Bullard” and that
green man Lindsay, “as quick as nine cats and
strong as a bull,” held the line with an anchor
that wouldn’t drag.
Seaton kicked off and Joslin of Hillbury got
the ball and zigzagged back to the twenty-five-yard
line. Thence Hillbury worked ahead a
dozen yards and punted. Jackson, who received
the punt, was too eager to get away,
and fumbled. In an instant the Hillbury end
was upon the ball. Now the bank of blue
ribbons had something to cheer for, and the
.bn 301.png
.pn +1
vehemence and volume and splendid evenness of
the mighty chant which swept across the field
put hope into the hearts of the blue, and suggested
to the red that the first score might after
all have been a mistake. Wolcott remembered
Laughlin’s remark of the night before, that a
punter and two good ends, with the help of a
fumbling back on the other side, could beat the
best line that ever played; and felt his heart
sink. Had Hillbury detected the Seaton weakness?
But Laughlin showed no sign of discouragement.
“Hold ’em, fellows, hold ’em! Stop ’em right
here!” And the first charge was downed in a
heap as it struck the line. The ball went back
to Cates, the Hillbury quarter, who dashed
toward the end of the line.
“Quarter! quarter!” yelled Laughlin, bursting
through at Cates’s heels. The whole Seaton
line poured after Cates. But Cates had held the
ball only a moment, and shot it to Joslin, who
darted for the other end of the line, where one of
his backs and the end and tackle were in waiting.
The Seaton end fell before the assault, and
.bn 302.png
.pn +1
Joslin, running clear, raced down the field with
Brooks, the Hillbury end, before him, and only
Jackson between himself and the goal-line.
What happened then happened quickly.
Jackson flung himself at the critical moment
straight at the man with the ball. His arms
enclosed three legs, two belonging to Brooks and
one to the man with the ball. He went down
with the two legs tightly clasped, but the one
tore away; and Joslin, free and swift as an
arrow, sprinted over the white chalk-line to the
Seaton goal-posts.
A few minutes later, with the score six and
six, Hillbury lined up for the third kick-off.
Wolcott felt relieved as he saw the ball settle
into Read’s grasp, for Read was safe. The ball
was down on the thirty-yard line, and the heavy
Seaton machine started immediately to hammer
its way down the field. A delayed pass gave ten
yards, a quarter-back run another ten, but the advance
was mainly by steady driving of strong men
in unison against a desperate, but yielding defence.
Now on one side, now on the other, with Laughlin
back, or Lindsay or Hendry locked in an irresistible
.bn 303.png
.pn +1
interference with Milliken, Wendt, and
Buist, the ball drew nearer the Hillbury goal.
Now a swaying mass rolled its way through the
struggling line as a steam shovel eats into a sandbank;
now a narrow gap would open and a single
man be dashed into it, as an express train into a
tunnel.
Mr. Lindsay watched, fearful yet fascinated.
What strength! what splendid unity of action!
what perfection of training! The admiration
for physical strength and vigor inherent in the
Anglo-Saxon race, the love of a fair fight in an
open field, was asserting itself in him. He
apprehended something of the absorbing joy of
the game. Here was a contest of men, not in
jugglery and sword play, not at arm’s length
and with dainty tricks of hand and wrist,
but face to face and breast to breast, with
foot-pounds counting double and weakness a
sin.
Again the ball drew near the Hillbury goal.
The half was nearly over; a score if made must
come soon. On the fatal ten-yard line Jackson
again fumbled, and though Buist fell on the
.bn 304.png
.pn +1
ball, his quickness was of no avail, for it was a
fourth down. With despair in their hearts the
panting Seaton line saw the fruit of their labors
wrested from them. Hillbury took the ball,
Rounds fell back and waited with outstretched
hands for the pass.
“Through on him now!” cried Laughlin.
“Wolcott!”
In the last word was an appeal which wrung
Wolcott’s heart. He had broken through in
practice games and blocked kicks, but here it
seemed impossible. Taking in the position of
his adversary at a single glance, he riveted his
eyes on the hands that held the ball, and waited
tense as a coiled spring. As the Hillbury centre’s
hands contracted on the ball, he leaped forward,
caught Holmes by the left arm and jerked him
around, and shot by toward the ball.
The pass was high. Rounds reached for it
and drew it down into position for a punt. As
he caught the ball Lindsay struck the quarter
and bowled him over; as the ball rose Lindsay
rose, met it squarely with his chest and sent it
bounding beyond the goal-posts against the
.bn 305.png
.pn +1
fence which separated the spectators from the
end of the field.
The Seaton rushers had streamed through the
broken Hillbury line at Wolcott’s heels, and
without slackening speed raced for the ball; the
Hillbury backs were no less quick. Together
they dived for the ball, covering it in an instant
under a heap of bodies which were still squirming
when the referee’s whistle called a peremptory
stop. Little by little the tangle was loosened.
At the bottom lay Hendry and under Hendry
the ball! The half closed a few minutes later
with the score eleven to six.
.bn 306.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIV | THE GAME ENDS
.sp 2
In the short intermission both teams took account
of stock and heard some vividly suggestive
words from the coaches. The problem for
Seaton was to keep the score as it was. A successful
trick play, the fumble of a punt, a lucky
end run by the fleet Hillbury back, might turn
the present advantage into ultimate ruin; for
from two touchdowns and two goals results a
score of twelve points, while the two touchdowns
and one goal which Seaton had achieved had
yielded but eleven.
“If they get another touchdown, they’ll beat
us,” declared Laughlin; “we’ve simply got to
hold ’em.” And the others nodded emphatic
agreement, and in various forms repeated the
sentiment. There was no lack of comprehension
of the situation.
.bn 307.png
.pn +1
The coaches drew the captain into a corner
apart.
“I’ll bet you’re going in,” whispered Wolcott
to Durand. “These fumbles have sewered Jack,
and they’re afraid of a punting game. If you
do go in, try to forget where you are and play
just as you did last Tuesday on the second.
Yell your signals good and loud, and don’t try
to be so terribly fast. I’ll risk you for tackling
and hugging the ball.”
Durand didn’t answer, but he felt a thrill
from crown to toe, a sudden uplift of joy, and
as sudden a reaction of doubt and fear.
The coaches turned. “Durand starts at
quarter,” said Laughlin. “No fumbling now!
If we get the ball, hang to it like death and
fight for every inch. Hold ’em on the first
down, and we’ve got ’em licked.”
Jackson winced under the pitying glances.
He had failed,—failed terribly; but for that
blocked kick? the score would now be a precarious
tie. Yet it was hard to be cut off from
any chance to retrieve himself; to know in advance
that his error, though forgiven, would not
.bn 308.png
.pn +1
be forgotten; that whatever befell the team, his
own defeat was assured. He turned hard round
to wink back the tears that would well into his
eyes; but a moment later he was running over
the signals with Durand and trying to help him
to a knowledge of the weaknesses of the men
against him.
Hillbury was already out, the men alert and
hopeful, as if the odds were in their favor; for
their coaches had laid out a plan which was to
lead to victory. A new man was in guard’s
place opposite Wolcott; but the Seaton player
had less thought for his opponent than for
Durand’s experiment, and less for Durand than
for the game to be played. He charged fiercely
down on Bullard’s kick-off, as if he felt no
heaviness in his weary limbs. The Hillbury
end got the ball and dashed furiously down on
Wolcott’s side; but the Seaton guard caught
him squarely and low, and downed him hard.
Then Hillbury tried a double pass for an end
run, and finally smashed her way through left
tackle to a first down. After that Seaton held
and Rounds punted. The ball went to the new
.bn 309.png
.pn +1
back, of course; and Durand, though he held
the ball, was pulled down before he had run
it back across the second chalk-line. Seaton
pushed up the field again a dozen yards and was
forced to punt, and Hillbury had a chance again
on her forty-yard line.
Hillbury tried a single quick dash outside
Bent, gaining three yards with apparent ease,
then unexpectedly kicked. It was a long sailing
punt, that seemed to float on and on with
the help of the wind as if it were never to drop.
Durand, who was playing well back, whirled
suddenly and ran, then turned and gathered the
ball in. Squeezing the precious thing tight in
the hollow of his arm, he shot forward, sidestepped
clear of the Hillbury end, who lunged at
him, and tacking in and out of the loose swarm
of friend and foe, he threaded his way with
erratic, darting, shuttlelike movement beyond
the middle of the field. When he went down,
every spectator around Mr. Lindsay was on his
feet yelling admiration.
“Now’s our chance,” cried the Harvard
student jubilantly, as he resumed his seat.
.bn 310.png
.pn +1
“Rip ’em up there, quarter-back; smash ’em
through the centre; put another knot in that
score!”
But instead the quarter sent Buist at the end.
The Hillbury end dodged into the interference
and threw the Seaton runner back a yard.
Through the centre only two were gained, and
Seaton, fearing to lose the ball, punted. Howe
got it on his ten-yard line and carried it valiantly
back across several white lines.
The Hillbury full drew back to punt. Buist
was already scuttling into his back field when
Hendry, who saw something in the attitude of
the backs to arouse suspicion, exclaimed sharply,
“Fake! fake!” But it was too late. While
he was speaking the ball was snapped, the
Seaton guards ploughed through to block the
expected kick, and Joslin with the ball under
his arm, and two interferers beside him, darted
for the right end. Hendry was boxed; Read
got tangled in the interference; Wendt just
touched the runner with his finger ends as he
flung himself at the fleeting mark; and Joslin,
the fastest sprinter, barring one, in both the
.bn 311.png
.pn +1
schools, had almost an open field to the Seaton
goal-posts.
The “almost” was the little quarter-back
crouching in the distance, his eyes glued upon
his fast approaching foe. It was an awful moment;
the Seaton sympathizers caught their
breaths and sent their hope in a single mighty
yearning to the aid of the last defender of their
goal. Durand saw nothing but the man charging
with the ball, felt no fear of the critical instant,
but only intense eagerness to meet the
man squarely and get his arms around those
flashing legs. Step by step he moved forward,
in catlike watch of every movement of his opponent,
who was bounding toward him in strong,
free leaps. A dozen yards away Joslin swerved
suddenly to run around his man. At the moment
Durand shot forward to cut the runner’s
path. For one critical instant only was the Hillbury
man within his reach; but that instant
Durand felt in every nerve of his body, and his
body acted of its own volition. He did not
reason nor question; it was as if some mysterious
electric force suddenly caught him with
.bn 312.png
.pn +1
irresistible impulse and launched him against his
foe. Down the two went in a whirl of legs; and
only when Durand had disentangled himself
from the quickly formed heap and scrambled to
his feet, did his mind awake to the success of
the play.
But the stop to the Hillbury advance was
only temporary. Three yards were gained
through Bent, and on a second trial three yards
more. They had “found” Bent. Laughlin
tore off his head-guard and flung it far away
to the side-lines, hoping to see better where to
strike. He played still farther out to support
the weak side. Again the Hillbury charge
went crashing through the Seaton tackle. When
the players extricated themselves from the
mêlée, one big form still lay outstretched
upon the ground. It was Laughlin!
The trainers came hurrying in with water-pail
and sponge and liniment. The fallen man
was got upon his feet, his face mopped, his condition
eagerly inquired for. A bruise at the
edge of his hair above his eye showed the mark
of a heavy boot.
.bn 313.png
.pn +1
“Dizzy?” asked the trainer, anxiously.
“A little,” responded the player; “but it
doesn’t amount to anything. I can go back
now.”
“You’d better take your head-guard again,”
urged the trainer.
But Laughlin tore himself away from the
solicitous group. “I’m all right,” he declared
savagely. “Play the game!”
The lines formed again amid tremendous
applause from the Seaton side, as the injured
man went bravely back into the fray.
The Hillbury quarter, shrewdly guessing on
the probabilities, drove his heaviest back against
the Seaton captain. For the first time in the
game a hole was found at right guard, and
when Milliken and Buist stemmed the charge,
the ball lay six yards down the field. The next
attack was at Bent, the third through Laughlin.
The fourth in the same place stretched the
Seaton captain again upon the ground.
“Dave, you’re hurt! You oughtn’t to go
on,” pleaded Wolcott, taking Laughlin’s head in
his lap. The captain’s eyes moved uncertainly;
.bn 314.png
.pn +1
he seemed suddenly stripped of his strength. In
a moment, however, the old spirit returned, and
he rose determined.
“I’m all right,” he insisted. “I’m all right;
play the game!”
Laughlin was the captain; his orders were
not to be questioned.
A plunge at the Seaton left was squarely
met, another on the right penetrated five yards.
Laughlin was down again. Time was called, and
Collins came running in with his water-pail.
“Tell him to go off,” urged Wolcott. “He
doesn’t know what he’s about. It’s cruel to let
him stay here!”
The trainer shrugged his shoulders; he was
not master on the field. Laughlin lifted himself
unsteadily to his feet. The applause on the
Seaton side had ceased; instead, ominous shouts
of “Take him out! take him out!” were heard
along the bank of crimson and gray.
“I’m all right,” persisted the captain; “I
can play;” and he started back to his place.
Wolcott grasped his arm.
“Dave!” he cried in despair, “you aren’t fit
.bn 315.png
.pn +1
to play. Go off and let us finish the game.
You aren’t yourself at all. Do what I say,
please!”
But Laughlin snatched his arm away and
turned toward the line.
Wolcott threw himself before him. “Answer
me one question, and I won’t say another word.
Where are you going to college, Harvard or
Yale? Just answer me that.”
With stupid eyes Laughlin gazed into his
friend’s face. “Harvard or Yale? Harvard or
Yale?” he repeated. “It’s one or the other,
but I don’t seem to know which—” Then
straightening up, he shouted: “We’re wasting
time! Set ’em going there! Get into the
game!”
But Wolcott’s test question had shown convincingly
Laughlin’s incapacity. The coach was
allowed to come on the field, and together they
labored with the bewildered but stubborn fellow,
who, like the famous Spartan captain, refused to
retreat while the enemy was still before him.
Only when Poole and Ware were called in,
and their personal appeal was added to the
.bn 316.png
.pn +1
pleas of Wolcott and the coach, did the dazed
captain give way, and allow his friends to lead
him from the field. Wolcott, who had sometimes
played on the right side, went over into
Laughlin’s place, Butler succeeded Wolcott, and
Conley replaced Bent.
“Lindsay will act as captain,” said the coach,
as he left the field.
“Hold ’em, fellows, you can do it! Keep
watch of that ball!” The new captain took
naturally to his duties.
The Hillbury quarter tried the new guard,
but Butler was fresh and strong, and determined
to prove his value; he charged hard and quick,
and the attack was thrown back as a sea wave
from a cliff. Joslin was sent at Pope’s end; but
Conley went through and shattered the interference,
and Pope downed the sprinter before he
had reached the line. Then the Hillbury full-back
retired for a try at goal, and the Seaton guard
on one side and tackle on the other sifted
through the line and plunged upon him. The
ball went wide; Durand, getting it safely,
touched it behind the goal-line, and the team
.bn 317.png
.pn +1
went back to the twenty-five-yard line. A sigh
of relief, like the whisper of the wind, soughed
audibly along the Seaton benches, as the ball
was punted far up the field, and the play started
once more in less dangerous territory.
The game was now near its end. The sun
was setting; darkness would soon descend upon
the field. Hillbury, discouraged at the failure to
score when the opportunity had seemed so bright,
played with less fire and speed. On the third
down, with but a yard to gain, a Seaton linesman
scented the play and tackled the runner
behind his own line. The ball was in Seaton
hands in the middle of the field. Wolcott
whispered to Durand, the signals rang out, the
quarter-back took the ball, dodged around Hendry,
edged by the Hillbury back, and behind Lindsay
and Wendt twisted his jerky, slippery course
past half-a-dozen frantically grasping Hillburyites
to the open field. Here, if his speed had
equalled his agility, Durand might have carried
the ball directly to a touchdown; but Joslin
caught him from behind, and throwing him
without mercy, strove to wrench the ball from
.bn 318.png
.pn +1
his hands. Durand clung to it desperately, and
Seaton had the ball on the twelve-yard line.
From here across the goal-line was but a question
of half-a-dozen determined drives.
After this third touchdown there was no
more anxiety on the Seaton side. The followers
cheered from happiness now, and assurance
that the great contest was won—not because the
team needed support. It was hearty cheering,
but tumultuous and ragged.
Across the field Hillbury, undaunted to the
end, with full volume and in splendid unison,
sent forth their exhortation. And when, a few
minutes later, with the weary lines still struggling
in mid-field, the referee’s whistle announced
the end, the Hillbury sky-rocket call was still
sounding clearly in Seatonian ears.
.bn 319.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXV | ON THE WAY HOME
.sp 2
Mr. Lindsay climbed stiffly down the tiers of
seats, and edged his way past the side-lines into
the field, over which the exultant crowd had suddenly
scattered, like leaves flung broadcast by a
whirlwind from the gardener’s neatly ordered
pile. He wanted to make sure that Wolcott was
unhurt and to congratulate him upon his escape.
This, at least, was his avowed object. Within
his heart, however, lurked another motive, less
definite and unacknowledged, to show some recognition
of the work the boy had done; some
appreciation of the skill, the physical power, the
coolness and alertness of mind, the tremendous
persistence, which had marked Wolcott’s play
from the beginning. There are boys before
whom a teacher must sometimes feel like standing
uncovered, so much more faithful and sufficient
.bn 320.png
.pn +1
do they seem in their places than he in his.
Some such impulse of respect Mr. Lindsay felt,
as he pushed by the stragglers toward the
groups about the players. It was not the victory,—he
cared nothing for that,—nor the
silly boys’ enthusiasm for an athlete; the play
as an achievement, as an example of what
training and determination and hard endeavor
could accomplish, appealed to him in spite of
himself.
But to know where Wolcott was to be found
was one thing, to get at him another. Around
each group of players crowded the hero-worshippers,
who, though they shifted and squirmed
and danced in and out of their places, still kept
a serried line of backs to the outer world, and
offered no practicable opening to a middle-aged
intruder, awkwardly conscious that he was out
of place. As he stood wavering on the outskirts
of the throng, there passed within his reach an
eager, glad-faced youth, with a red badge on the
lapel of his coat, a megaphone in his hand, and,
as Mr. Lindsay discovered on addressing him, a
hoarse voice in his throat. The youth halted,
.bn 321.png
.pn +1
heard the stranger’s appeal, and dived unceremoniously
under the elbows of the outer circle.
Soon the circle parted again and Wolcott popped
forth, making haste a little stiffly, and showing
a face on which smears of mud were streaked by
rivulets of sweat, but shining with exultation.
“We did it, father, didn’t we?” he cried, as
he caught Mr. Lindsay’s clean glove in both his
grimy hands. “Oh, it was splendid! You
can’t imagine the fun; I wouldn’t have missed
it for anything! Didn’t Milliken buck the line,
though? When he once got his nose by my
shoulder, they simply couldn’t stop him. And
Hendry was all over the lot—there seemed at
least two of him. And Paul Durand! Wasn’t
that the cleanest tackle that ever was made?
If Joslin had got by that time, I believe we’d
have been done for. You’ll never see anything
better than that if you go to a hundred
games!”
“I dare say not,” calmly interposed Mr. Lindsay,
who had no desire to see one more game,
not to mention a hundred. “Did you get
hurt?”
.bn 322.png
.pn +1
“Not a bit!” answered the young man, cracking
the smooch of mud by a sudden laugh.
“I’ve a scratch or two, and my left hip seems to
work as if it needed a little oiling, and I’m
pretty tired, but that’s all. How did you like
it? Wasn’t poor Dave in hard luck to have to
go out just when we needed him most? It was
dead silly in him to throw away his head-gear
like that!”
“I’m glad it wasn’t you,” observed Mr. Lindsay,
dryly.
“He’s all right now except for a headache,”
went on Wolcott, eagerly. “He really didn’t
know what he was about when he went off.
The first thing he asked when he came to
himself was whether Hillbury got the touchdown.”
“Come, Lindsay, don’t be hangin’ round here,
gettin’ cold,” interrupted an authoritative voice
from behind. “Hustle over to the gym, there,
and get a bath and rub-down as soon as ever
you can.”
Mr. Lindsay turned in surprise and beheld a
businesslike man in a sweater, whom he immediately
.bn 323.png
.pn +1
recognized as the guardian of pail and
sponge, who had so suddenly scurried into the
field on several occasions when an ankle was to
be rubbed or a face bathed.
“This is Mr. Collins, our trainer,” said Wolcott,
looking ruefully at his father. “I shall
have to do what he says. You’ll find me over
at the gymnasium if you care to come.”
And while Wolcott trotted slowly away
toward the Hillbury gymnasium, the trainer
continued, as if his interruption needed excuse:
“It’s risky for ’em to be hanging round in
sweaty clothes after a game like that; but they
will do it. You have to watch ’em all the time,
if you want to keep ’em up to the mark.
They’re boys, not men, and it’s sometimes pretty
hard to make ’em take proper care of themselves.”
“I judge that you have succeeded,” remarked
Mr. Lindsay. “They seem to be in excellent
condition.”
A smile of perfect satisfaction lighted Collins’s
face. “Right on edge! That son of yours
played the game to-day. I knew it was in him.
.bn 324.png
.pn +1
He’ll make a great player in college if they
don’t spoil him.”
Mr. Lindsay received this prophecy with less
enthusiasm than might have been expected of
a proud father, and turned to watch the boys
gathering for their triumphant march to the
station. They were off now in a long line,
proudly counting the score as a marching chant.
They counted loud and strong as they circled
the field; they counted up the hill and past the
brick buildings on its crest. And as they filed
away into the twilight on the other slope, the
sound of their counting still came back to vex
the much-enduring ears of Hillbury.
The trainer’s last words were in Mr. Lindsay’s
mind as he wended his way toward the gymnasium,
following the direction given him by a
sad-eyed Hillbury lad. He knew little about
football,—though more perhaps than he wanted
to know,—but he had heard enough and seen
enough to be sure that Wolcott had contributed
quite as much as any one else to the Seaton success.
Yet not a word had passed the boy’s lips
that showed any consciousness of superiority.
.bn 325.png
.pn +1
“Fine!” thought the father, with pride. “But
that is in the boy, not in the game. It’s
the old strain reappearing. The Lindsays
have always been men of action rather than
braggarts.”
At the gymnasium door he proved his right to
be admitted, and some one showed him to the
Seaton quarters. There he found Wolcott with
a towel about his loins, and Milliken similarly
clad, Hendry just getting into his shirt, and
Durand dressed still more simply in nature’s
garb of muscles and sinews, with a most glorious
smile crowning his athletic figure, like the laurel
wreath of a Greek victor. The boys greeted
him cordially, and went on undisturbed with
their rubbing and dressing, gloating over the
grand events of the day. Over in the corner,
propped against the wall, sat Laughlin, nursing
a splitting headache, but clothed and in his
right mind, and keenly interested in every
reminiscent detail. Presently Poole came in,
and accompanied Mr. Lindsay to a more convenient
waiting-place outside. There after a time
Wolcott joined them, and together they strolled
.bn 326.png
.pn +1
toward the station at a pace adapted to the supposedly
weary condition of the player.
Here was hilarious confusion. The little
station was full, the platform thronged, while
the constantly increasing crowd were straggling
over the tracks indifferent to danger. The cheer
leaders saw their opportunity, and bellowing
through their megaphones, kept the way clear
for the passing trains. In the press on the
platform Wolcott found Mr. Graham, whom his
father was glad to meet again; also Mr. Lovering,
and Tompkins, who had of course come out
from Boston to see the game. Later Poole presented
Ware, and while Mr. Lindsay exchanged
compliments with the manager, Poole laid hands
on a passing Peck, and brought him to be displayed.
“This is Donald Peck, Mr. Lindsay,” said
Poole. “You have probably heard of him from
Wolcott.”
“Oh, of course,” answered Mr. Lindsay, who
during the exciting afternoon had seen so many
boys, dressed and undressed, and heard so many
names, that he was not quite certain where to
.bn 327.png
.pn +1
place the newcomer. “I am very glad to meet
you. Were you one of the players, too?”
“Oh, no!” said Donald, shocked at the assumption.
“I never could get on any team.
I’m not man enough.”
“You are probably just as well off,” replied
Mr. Lindsay. “I don’t entirely believe in this
athletic craze.”
Poole now ventured a remark, and Donald
slipped away. A moment later Wolcott appeared
from the other side with another lad in
tow.
“Here is Duncan Peck, another of my friends.
He rooms on the same floor with me.”
“I’m very glad to meet you, sir,” said Duncan,
who, slow though he might be in the classroom,
was always ready with a polite phrase.
“You came to see your son play, I suppose.”
But Mr. Lindsay was not to be taken in. “I
am happy to meet any of your friends, Wolcott,”
he said, “but this young gentleman hardly needs
a second introduction. Poole brought him up a
moment ago.”
“Oh, no, sir,” replied the smiling Duncan,
.bn 328.png
.pn +1
promptly. “You must have mixed me up with
some one else. I am sure that you have never
seen me before.”
Mr. Lindsay stared blankly at the glib youth,
wondering what could be the object of this evident
falsehood.
“This is Duncan,” explained Wolcott. “It
was another copy of him named Donald, that
Poole introduced. You really must see them
together. They’re the pride of the menagerie.”
At this moment Poole brought up the fugitive
again, and standing him beside his brother,
asked Mr. Lindsay to tell which he had first met.
And while Mr. Lindsay stood in puzzled amusement,
there was a scream from a near-by locomotive,
and the cheer leaders began shouting
through their megaphones again: “Keep off
the track! This is not our train! This
is the train for Boston! Keep off the
track!”
“That’s my train,” said Mr. Lindsay.
“Come back with us and see the celebration!”
cried Wolcott.
For a moment Mr. Lindsay felt tempted, not
.bn 329.png
.pn +1
by the celebration, of course, but by a desire to
linger in the society of these friendly lads among
whom he felt the full charm of vigorous, light-hearted,
unsoured youth. Second thoughts
came quickly. “I think I have had about all
the celebration that is good for me; I am as
tired now as if I had played the game.”
The train crept cautiously in. Mr. Lindsay
said good-by, and, jostled by other passengers
eager for seats, climbed the steps of the platform.
The circle of boys at his back cried
good-by again and waved their hands. Behind
them still others roguishly took up the shout,
and violently swung their arms, until the whole
platform seemed to be waving salutes and shouting
adieus. And Mr. Lindsay, squeezed by the
crowd and deafened by the shouts, dropped into
a seat exhausted, thankful for the comparative
quiet of the rumbling train. After all it seemed
hardly as dangerous for a boy to play football as
for his father to attend the game.
The happy throng left behind by the departing
train waited, patient though by no means
silent, for its own long line of cars.
.bn 330.png
.pn +1
“I say, Wolcott,” said Tompkins, sidling up
for the fifth time with congratulations; “this
isn’t much like our funeral here last June, is it?
That was a terribly sour-looking bunch! There
wasn’t a man in it who didn’t look like a yaller
dog born with a tin can tied to his tail.”
Wolcott laughed, not at Tompkins, but from
pure joy of heart. At the moment there flashed
into his recollection the words Laughlin had
uttered when the possibilities of football had
first presented themselves to the new boy.
“It’s a great thing to win a Hillbury game;
it’s fine just to play in one, but to win,—win
fairly and squarely, because you’re a better team
and know more football,—why, it’s like winning
a great battle.” He understood it now,
understood it all; and his face sobered as he
contrasted the joy of an accomplished victory
with the uncertainty and discouragement of the
heavy task which Phil was facing, as captain of
the nine, with but a scanty nucleus of a beaten
team to support him.
Some such thought must also have entered
Tompkins’s ecstatic brain, for he turned toward
.bn 331.png
.pn +1
Phil, who was staring in solemn vacancy out
across the tracks, and dropped his hand affectionately
on the ball player’s shoulder.
“It won’t happen again, will it, Philly?
You’re going to give us a winning nine!”
“I’m going to try to,” replied Phil, quietly.
How he tried, and what came of the trying,
will be told among other things, in the next volume
of the series, “With Mask and Mit.”