CHAPTER IVFRIENDSHIPS
David learned that the handicap track meet held every autumn by the Pythians and Corinthians would take place in the latter part of October. He entered his name for the quarter-mile as a representative of the Pythians.
He found that he had outgrown the running shoes that he had worn in the spring when he had been the “crack” quarter-miler of the high school. So he put on his tennis “sneakers” and practiced daily on the track in those. Most of the candidates for the track meet proved to be very casual in their training; they were nearly all out trying for a place on one of the Pythian or Corinthian football elevens, and that meant that they had to do their track work in the half-hour recess before luncheon or on occasions when they were excused from football. There was no regular coaching for them; Bartlett, the Pythian captain, and Carson, the Corinthian, were alike devoting their chief energies to football, but occasionally found time tosupervise the work of their candidates, and more often Mr. Dean, though superannuated so far as active participation in athletics was concerned, gave hints and advice out of a historic past.
Among those who were playing football on the Corinthian eleven was Wallace. He told David, however, that he meant to enter the quarter-mile, too, and that he was coming out a couple of days before the meet to see if he could get back his speed; he had finished third in the championship meet of the preceding spring. When he made his appearance in running clothes two days before the race he asked David to time him and was much pleased because he ran the distance in only one second more than at the spring meet. “And if I’d had to, I could have pushed myself a little. Now I’ll time you, Ives. You haven’t got on your running shoes—spikes hurt your feet?”
“Yes, the old shoes are too small. But these will do.”
David started off, and while he was circling the track Bartlett came over from the football practice and watched him.
“Look here!” exclaimed Wallace in excitement when David stopped, panting, in front of him. “As nearly as I can make it your time is the same as mine to a fraction!”
“Then I guess I shall have to push myself a little, too,” David said.
“Both Johnson and Adams, who licked me last year, have left the school, and I thought I had a cinch,” Wallace complained. “And now you turn up, running like a deer!”
Bartlett put in a word of praise. “You’re going pretty well, Ives. To-morrow be sure to come out in running shoes.”
“I haven’t any,” David replied.
“You can get them at the store in the basement of the study.”[see Tr. Notes]
“I’m sorry, but I can’t afford to buy them.”
“You needn’t pay cash. You can have them charged on your term bill.”
“I can’t afford it, anyway.”
Bartlett looked at him perplexed, unable to see why a fellow could not afford to have a thing charged on his term bill—for his father to pay.
Wallace spoke up. “Maybe you could wear an old pair of mine,” he said. “What’s your size?”
“Eight, I think.”
“So is mine. I’ll see if I can’t fit you out.”
“Thanks. I guess, though, I can run in these.”
“No, you can’t,” Bartlett said. “It will bemighty decent of you to lend him your extra pair, Wallace.”
Half an hour later David entered the basement of the study and went to the locker room to hang up his sweater. Returning, he passed the open door of the room in which athletic supplies were kept for sale and saw Wallace trying on a pair of shoes; a second glance showed David that they were running shoes. He flushed with instant understanding, and without letting Wallace know of his presence he went upstairs.
Before dinner that evening Wallace came to his room, bearing a pair of spiked shoes.
“Yes, I found I had an extra pair,” he said carelessly. “Here you are. I hope they fit.”
David gravely tried them on. “Yes they’re a perfect fit,” he said. “I hope your new ones fit you as well.”
“My new ones?”
“Yes. You’ve been running in these right along, and you’ve just bought yourself a new pair in order to give these to me.”
“Oh, you’re dreaming.”
“It was no dream when I saw you trying them on in the store. You oughtn’t to have done it, Wallace. It was awfully good of you.”
“Oh,” Wallace said, trying to conceal his embarrassment, “I didn’t want to have you run in sneakers and lick me. That would be too much. Besides, old top, we’ve got to stand by each other; we come from the same town.”
If David could not express his appreciation fully to Wallace, he could at least tell some one who would appreciate Wallace’s act, and it came into his mind to tell Mr. Dean. Not only would Mr. Dean, who had followed his practice, be interested, but he might be moved to look more leniently on Wallace, who was giving very casual attention to his Latin.
A good opportunity presented itself the next afternoon. Mr. Dean watched him while he made his trial and after it congratulated him on his speed and commented on the improvement produced by the aid of the running shoes.
“I owe them to Wallace,” David said, and then he described the manner in which Wallace had relieved his need.
“Very thoughtful and tactful as well as very sportsmanlike,” commented Mr. Dean. “That’s the kind of thing I like to hear of a fellow’s doing. I’m almost tempted to raise his Latin marks.”
“I hoped you might be.”
“Even if I were, it wouldn’t help his prospects for passing his college entrance examinations. The trouble with Wallace is he has never yet learned how to study.” Mr. Dean paused for a moment; then he said, “Come up to my rooms after you’ve dressed, and we’ll talk over Wallace’s case.”
So in half an hour they were holding a conference.
“I suppose that you’d like to help Wallace if you could,” Mr. Dean began, and David assented earnestly.
“It may be possible—just a moment till I change my seat; my eyes are bothering me; the light troubles them. Now! As I said, Wallace hasn’t learned how to study. Would you be willing to teach him?”
“Of course, if I could.”
“Now suppose that you and Wallace were excused from the schoolroom for an hour each day and given a room to yourselves in which to work out the Latin together, without interference or supervision from anybody—just put on your honor to study Latin every minute of that hour—couldn’t you be of some use to Wallace?”
“I might be,” said David thoughtfully. “I should try.”
“The trouble with him is, sitting at his desk in the schoolroom he doesn’t concentrate his thoughts. He studies, or thinks he studies, for a few minutes; then he changes to another book, then his eyes wander and with them his thoughts, then he takes up a pen and begins to practice writing his signature; it’s really wonderful, the variety of flourishes and the decorative illegibility that he has managed to impart to it through such frequent idle practice. Of course when he’s detected wasting time he’s brought to book for it, but the master in charge of the schoolroom can’t ever compel him to give more than the appearance of studiousness. And that, I am afraid, is the most that he ever does give. But he’s an honorable fellow; and I believe that, put on his honor to study where there was no watchful eye to challenge his sporting spirit and with you to guide him, he might achieve results. On the other hand, for a while, anyway, such an arrangement would probably slow you up.”
“I should try not to let it. Even if it did, it wouldn’t be a serious matter.”
“No more serious probably than slipping from first place to second or third.”
“That wouldn’t be important.”
“If it happened as a consequence, I should writeto your father and explain. I hope, by the way, that you have good news of him?”
David’s face clouded. “Not very. He doesn’t say anything himself, but mother writes that his vacation seems to have done him no good. She says he looks bad and seems played out. But he goes on working.”
“That’s a habit of good doctors. Remember me to him when you write. I will have a talk with the rector and see what arrangements we can make for you and Wallace. Good luck to you in your race to-morrow. The handicapping committee are putting you and Wallace together at scratch.”
David expressed his satisfaction at that news.
The event justified the handicapping committee’s arrangement. Besides David and Wallace there were only two contestants in the quarter-mile, a fourth-former named Silsbee, who was given twenty yards, and a sixth-former named Heard, who was given ten. It was a chill and windy day, a fact that reduced the number of spectators to a small group who stood near the finish line with their hands in their pockets and their overcoat collars turned up; on the turf encircled by the track the football squads continued to practice, more or less oblivious of the races that were being run;what chiefly marked the day as different from one of trial tests and dashes was the table placed on the grass near the athletic house and bearing an assortment of shining pewter mugs and medals.
It was toward the end of the afternoon that the quarter-mile was called. David and Wallace started together at the crack of the pistol and held together, shoulder to shoulder, halfway round the course. There they passed Heard, and a little farther on they passed Silsbee, and then Wallace forged a little ahead of David. But David had planned out his race; he was not going to be drawn into a spurt until he was a hundred yards from home. So he let Wallace lengthen the distance between them from one yard to five, and from five to ten; and then he set about closing up the gap. It closed slowly but surely—one yard, two yards, three yards gained; then four and then five. For a moment Wallace, who heard David coming up, held that lead, but for a moment only; then David put on all his speed and the five yards’ difference vanished in as many seconds. Twenty yards from the finish the two were racing neck and neck, but David crossed the line a good three feet ahead.
In the athletic house Wallace panted out his congratulations, and David gasped his thanks.
“Handicapped by new shoes, I guess,” David suggested.
“No; you’d have won in stocking feet. Best quarter-miler in school,” Wallace answered. “You wait, though. Lay for you next spring.”
They finished dressing and got outdoors just in time to see the last event on the programme—the finals of the hundred-yard dash, which was won by a sixth-former named Tewksbury. Then the spectators moved over in a body to the table that bore the prizes. David saw Ruth Davenport take her stand next to Mr. Dean, who waited beside the table, ready to speak.
“I am here merely as master of ceremonies,” said Mr. Dean, “and my chief duty and privilege is to introduce to you Miss Ruth Davenport, to whom, of course, you need no introduction. She will hand to each prize-winner the mug or medal to which his efforts have entitled him. As I call off the names each fellow will please come forward. First in the mile run, W. F. Burton; time, six minutes and fifty-one seconds. Second, H. A. Morton.”
Burton and Morton advanced amidst clapping of hands. David saw the smile that Ruth had for each of them as she presented the trophy, andwhen in his turn he faced her and took from her hand the cup he was aware of a shining eagerness in her eyes; she bent toward him and said, “Oh, I saw you win! It was splendid!”
He went back to his place in the crowd, feeling incredibly happy.
That evening Mr. Dean said to him as he passed him in the dining-room: “It’s all right, David—the matter about which we had our talk. I’m going to have an interview with Wallace to-night, and I hope that he will recognize at once the benefit he is to derive from the arrangement. You and he can have room number nine to yourselves between eleven and twelve each day.”
The thought of the trust placed in him, of the freedom implied, and of the closer association with Wallace was pleasant to David. He hoped that Wallace would not be unfavorably disposed toward the plan. On that point Wallace himself a couple of hours later reassured him. David was getting ready for bed when there was a knock on his door and Wallace entered.
“Mr. Dean tells me that you have me on your back, Dave,” he said. “Pretty hard luck: I don’t see what there is in it for you.”
“Never mind about that,” David answered. “Ihope you are going to like the arrangement, Lester.”
“Oh, it’s fine for me. All I can say is, I’ll try not to be any more trouble to you than is necessary.”
In spite of that excellent resolution, in the succeeding weeks Wallace was a good deal of trouble to David. Not only was he naturally dull at Latin, so that even the simplest matters had to be explained over and over to him, but he was restless and impatient. David would get absorbed in his own work and would suddenly remember that he had a duty to Wallace to perform. And a glance would show him Wallace sprawling on a bench with his eyes fixed vaguely on the opposite wall, or fiddling with his pencil or twirling his key ring on his finger, or scribbling the dates of such coins as he found in his pockets. Then it would be David’s part to say: “Buck up, Lester. What’s the matter? Need some help?” Usually Wallace thought that he did, and it would take David five or ten minutes to get him started and prove to him that he really did not.
“You wouldn’t quit at football just because tackling was hard to learn,” David said. “You oughtn’t to be any more willing to quit at Latin or anything else that you have to try.”
“Why aren’t you out playing football, Dave?” Wallace seemed not at all interested in taking the moral to heart.
“Oh, I’m no good at it. I’ve never played very much. Here, start in now.”
“You ought to make a good end or back, with your speed. Why don’t you come out and try?”
“Why don’t you settle down to your job? We’re not here to talk football.”
As a matter of fact, it was David rather than Wallace whose thoughts went straying after that conversation. In view of the episode of the spiked shoes, how was he to tell Wallace that he could not come out for football simply because he had no clothes? Wallace would probably at once play the fairy godmother again and furnish him with an outfit. David was eager to play; he had gained in weight and strength in this last year; there was nothing he would like better than to test his ability and skill, nothing that he hated worse than to be thought soft and timorous. And that, of course, was what most fellows would think.
But his mother’s letters stiffened his self-denial. She wrote that his father seemed preoccupied and worried, and that patients were not paying their bills, and that, though she knew it was selfish,she could not help wishing every minute that David were at home. So he said to himself that he did not care what people thought; he was not going to cost the family a penny more than was absolutely necessary.
Three days after the track meet he was invited to the rectory for supper.
“You’ll get awfully good food,” said Wallace enviously. “I was there at a blow-out last week.”
The rectory was a hospitable house, and on this occasion there were eight other guests besides David, all fifth-formers, who sat down to supper with the family. The food justified Wallace’s prediction; David blushed under congratulations from both Dr. and Mrs. Davenport, and still more under Ruth’s statement from across the table—“It was a corking race.” After supper the rector walked with him out of the dining-room and said a pleasant word, complimenting him on the assistance he was giving to Wallace.
Then they all sat in the library while Dr. Davenport read them a story from Kipling, after which he excused himself and, departing to his study, left the further entertainment of the guests to his wife and daughter. With charades and “Consequences” and “Up Jenkins,” they beguiledthe time hilariously. David, when it was possible, followed Ruth with his eyes; she was so nimble, so joyous, so radiant, that she quite fascinated him; in watching her and in waiting for her voice he sometimes lost the thread of the action and bungled the part that he had to play. But he did not mind, for her laughter seemed to him even kinder and sweeter than her applause.
The guests prepared to take their departure; in schoolboy habit they formed in line to shake hands with their hostesses and say good-night. David happened to be the last in the line, and Ruth detained him a moment while she said:
“You know I’m a Pythian, David, so I was glad you won. Aren’t you going to play football, too?”
“No, I don’t play football much,” David answered.
“You could if you tried—anybody that can run like that!”
David blushed and laughed and departed from the house feeling very much as if he had been knighted.
And wonderfully enough, three days later he was out playing football on the Pythian scrub, with Ruth, the most consistent of all partisans, lookingon. A letter had come from his father enclosing ten dollars—a cheerful letter very different from those that his mother had been writing and one that caused David’s spirits to soar. Dr. Ives wrote that “business” had been very slow but that it was picking up a bit; that he realized that David was probably in need of cash and that he was the kind of fellow who would never ask for it; and that he was sending him a little money, which he must spend for whatever he most wanted. As for himself, Dr. Ives declared that he was feeling like a fighting-cock, now that cool weather had come.
It did not take David long after receiving that letter to get what he most wanted. For the rest of the football season he reported for practice every day. He displayed no striking ability, but he won a place as half back on the second Pythian eleven; and in the game with the second Corinthians he made one of the three Pythian touchdowns and latertackled a runner in the open field and got a wrenched ankle, which necessitated his being assisted to the side lines.
TACKLED A RUNNER IN THE OPEN FIELD AND GOT A WRENCHED ANKLE
TACKLED A RUNNER IN THE OPEN FIELD AND GOT A WRENCHED ANKLE
TACKLED A RUNNER IN THE OPEN FIELD AND GOT A WRENCHED ANKLE
While he lay there wearing the stoical expression expected of the injured, Ruth Davenport came up and said, “Oh, I hope you’re not much hurt, David!”
“Oh, no; it’s nothing.” He was immensely pleased by her interest.
“You were playing so well, too. What a shame!”
He mumbled inarticulately and squirmed, but not in pain. He knew that if he had played all through and made touchdown after touchdown he could never have got quite such a soft look from her eyes.
And then there was a shout and a long Pythian run, and the exultant Pythian crowd went streaming down the field, with Ruth fluttering and dancing behind.