Up the gallery of the Hyperion Theater, the Freshman class went bouncing with a great clatter and stamping of feet. It was the night of the Glee Club concert, toward the end of January, which, in the days of Frank Armstrong's Freshman year, opened the festivities of Junior Promenade, the great social function of Yale. The Promenade has for generations been known as the "Junior Prom," but it is not strictly a Junior occasion. Seniors, and even Sophomores whose finances are not too low to permit the purchase of a ticket, may go, but in spite of the fact that many of these classes do go, the Prom is still largely a Junior affair. Around the Prom, or ball, which brings the social gaiety to a close, have grown in the course of years other entertainments for the fair guests and their chaperons, who gather in New Haven by the hundred from the length and breadth of the land. Of these the Glee Club concert was one wherethe Freshmen in those days, for it has all been changed since, were tolerated in the upper gallery of the theater. They could not sit in the pit or balcony of the house. Custom had allowed them certain rights and their "stunts" were looked forward to as a part of the entertainment. The Freshmen were not supposed to interfere with the concert itself but frequently did interfere in spite of the restraining influence of Junior guards who were scattered through the gallery. But the throwing of confetti, streamers and cards to the fair guests was tolerated and expected. Occasionally the Freshmen overdid the thing and not infrequently a "rough-house" of considerable proportions held sway.
Frank's class was a lively one, as had been shown on several occasions during the fall and early winter. A number of the members had a faculty for getting into trouble on all occasions. Half a dozen of them had been only a few days before up before the Freshman Committee for attempting to break up a dance in one of the local halls of the city, which necessitated the rushing of a squad of police to the scene. Minor mischief was always being done. Rumors were rife that the Freshmen were going to perpetratesomething new on the night of the Glee Club concert. Therefore the Junior guards were more than usually vigilant.
"What's that you have under your coat?" demands a Junior as a tall Freshman appears on the landing of the stairs with the skirts of his raincoat bulging suspiciously.
"Nothing but myself," backing away.
"Come on, open up! What have you got?"
"Nothing, I tell you," but the Junior lays violent hands on him and after a moment's search drags forth a squawking hen! She flaps herself free from the grip of her rescuer and creates a disturbance which brings scores up to the landing on the double quick.
The hen is finally captured and carried out, squalling tremendously at the unaccustomed usage.
Other Freshmen are captured with noise-making devices, living and mechanical, and thrown out bodily or the objectionable instruments of torture taken from them. But some have slipped past even the vigilant eyes of the guards, and are ready to carry out the Freshman part of the entertainment as classes before them have done.
Inside the theater the gallery is jammed tillit can hold no more. There is a babel of voices through which occasionally cuts the sharp Yale cheer, that the Freshmen now, with three months of practice, have learned to perfection. Cheers, howls and catcalls make that gallery a perfect bedlam.
Over the gallery front, looking fearfully insecure in their high perch, hang scores of boys angling for the attention of the Juniors' young ladies with a long string to which is attached a card and perhaps a pencil. One side of the card bears a fond message to the fair guest below, and the other side is blank for the answer, which the Freshman above hopes to catch in his angling. And frequently he does. The Junior takes it all in good part.
"O, lovely creature, will you be mine, will you let me hold your lily-white hand when I'm a Junior?" is the rather disconcerting message a young lady in one of the boxes pulls down after it has been dangled in front of her nose for a minute or two by Freshman hands in the top gallery. The Freshman above having established communication, waits impatiently for an answer. Presently it is written in the box below and is pulled up eagerly.
"No, I don't like the color of your hair."
"I'll dye it blue if that will help any," may be the next message. Fifty men are angling at a time and the lines sometimes get crossed. It is all great fun for the girls who enter into the spirit of the thing and are not disturbed, after the first shock, at the ardent messages that are swung in front of their faces.
Of course, every one cannot angle for love messages in the pit because, although the front of the gallery resembles a grape-hung garden wall with the clustering heads, there are several hundreds behind the first row. They content themselves with throwing confetti and paper streamers into the pit and boxes until there is a jungle of it below, through which a late-comer must literally break his way. The floor itself is covered with confetti and cards whereon are printed in prose and verse amazing praises for the class in the upper gallery, recounting what that class will do when it becomes a Junior class two years later and shall have the position of honor.
On this particular night everything went well in the gallery until the program was half over. Then trouble broke loose, for all legitimatemeans for attracting attention had been exhausted. At the moment the quartet was delivering itself of a touching melody and quiet was temporarily established even in the gallery. The tenor, striving for one of his highest notes, suddenly broke off with a violent sneeze. Some one in the gallery had thrown a tissue paper wad of snuff against the scenery behind the quartet. The paper broke and the snuff, light as feathers, permeated the air.
The bass singer of the quartet immediately followed the tenor with a resounding bellow at which the audience, not knowing the cause, burst into roars of laughter. But soon they changed from laughing to sneezing, for handfuls of the snuff were now pitched over the gallery rail by the offenders, and the coughing and sneezing became general. No one was exempt. Dignified chaperons, pretty girls and their escorts joined in the chorus. The quartet retired in confusion, holding onto their noses.
"Stop it, stop it!"
"Get out, Freshmen," yelled the guards, but so thick was the press in the gallery that the guards were powerless to get at the offenders. To cap the climax, a Freshman emptied about abushel of fine, powderlike confetti on the heads of the people below, while still another opened a pillow of fine down feathers which, dropping to the pit of the theater in a cloud, covered the gowns of the ladies. The feathers insinuated themselves down the necks of everyone.
Having worked their last indignity, two score of the Freshmen tumbled down the gallery stairs like a hurricane, and broke pell-mell for the street with the guard after them. Some punches were delivered, but most of the Freshmen escaped, yelling, with whole skins.
Then the Glee Club concert went on again and was not interrupted but once, when someone threw a small rubber ball from the gallery which struck the leader fairly on top of his head and bounced twenty feet into the air to the great amusement of the audience and the discomfort of the leader.
"Some night!" observed the Codfish as the boys reached their room in safety. "I got hit three times in the overflow. Gee whiz, how those feathers stick!"
"Were you the pillow man?" inquired Frank.
"I was that same. Have you noticed the absence of two of our best cushions?"
"My cushions," gasped Frank, "and where are the cases?"
"When the storm burst I didn't have time to get them under cover. They go to the Hyperion management as a souvenir."
"More likely to the Junior scouts," suggested Jimmy.
"Thoughtful kid, my initials were on them," said Frank. "You could create trouble for someone if you were alone on a desert island."
But no trouble did come out of the incident for the great dance itself coming on the next evening, as it did, overshadowed such minor things as the Freshman class and its doings.
But the affair had one result. It was the last time that the Glee Club concert was ever held at the Hyperion. After that year it went to one of the University halls where Freshmen, fishing from the top gallery, tantalizing feathers and tormenting snuff were not known, and where the concert went its full length without disturbance of any kind.
Frank Armstrong, while a frequent visitor at the swimming pool, had not gone out for the Freshman team. Football had claimed his attention in the fall when swimming practice first began,and although urged to join the Freshman team by classmates, who had seen him in the pool, he had declined.
"I want to have a good big deposit in the education bank when baseball opens up," he used to say.
"You're a blooming old grind," the Codfish would retort when Frank advanced his reasons for keeping the time free for studies. "You aren't doing as much as I am for the class."
"But I'm doing as much as I can for the class and something for myself."
"Selfish, selfish. Here's the Freshman swimming team staggering along——"
"Floundering along, you mean."
"Fishes flounder, and there's no fish on the team, human or otherwise. That's the reason they ought to have a good, able-bodied fish like yourself, scales and all, to help 'em out."
But in spite of Frank's desire to keep away from swimming, other than as a pastime, and to keep in fair condition, he became drawn into it unintentionally. One day, sprinting down the length of the pool to overtake Jimmy, he attracted the attention of Max, the swimming instructor,who kept an eagle eye on the outlook for promising talent.
"Where you learn to svim like dat?" inquired Max as Frank pulled himself out of the water at the end of the pool while Jimmy hung gasping with his exertions on the edge.
"O, paddling around," returned Frank.
"Pretty good paddlin', I guess. Vhat's your name?"
"Armstrong."
"Freshman?"
"Yes."
"Ever do any racing?"
"A little."
"Here, let's see if you can svim fifty yards fast."
"O, but I'm not in training."
"Don't make no difference about dat. Svim up one length and back again. I see your time. Come on, I tink you can svim fast."
Frank, thus urged, took a racing dive, paddled easily to the other end of the pool, turned leisurely and came back to the starting point.
"Umph!" grunted the swimming instructor. "Dirty-five seconds, dat's bad. You ought to do it five seconds bedder!"
Frank grinned, thinking he was nicely out of the difficulty, for he argued with himself that in justice to his work he could not give the time necessary this year at least to go in for swimming.
But he reckoned without Max who stood squinting at him.
"Now," said the instructor, "vhen you've got your vind again I vant you to do dat over again. Und doan loaf along so much, move dose arms and legs a little bid faster."
Jimmy laughed, for he knew Frank was trying to get out of swimming training. But Frank was fairly caught now, and there was nothing for him to do but to swim the distance again. He perched on the edge of the pool end, and balanced for the start as Burton had shown him. He took the water as cleanly as a knife and using a graceful but powerful crawl shot down to the further end, turned half under water and came back with a quickening gait until his hand touched the pool end where Max stood with his eyes glued on the watch.
"Dirty seconds," said the instructor half to himself. And then to Frank. "Vhy didn't you dell me dat before? I vant you to come hereeffery day and svim. Dis Freshman bunch of mine ain't no good. You'll help? Who showed you how to svim like dat anyway?"
"O, a fellow named Burton."
"Who?"
"Burton, one of your Yale captains."
"O, Burton, hey? Are you de fellar Armstrong dat svam down at Travers Island last summer?"
Frank nodded.
"Py jiminy, vhy didn't you dell me dat before? Dat settles it. Now you got to come and help out this Freshman bunch."
That was the end of Frank's resolution not to get mixed up in athletics until the baseball practice opened. Every day found him at the pool, and under the careful guidance of the instructor he improved steadily, and when the Freshman-Sophomore relay race came off he was selected as the man to swim the last relay for his class. This he did so well that, although starting with a handicap of ten feet, he beat out his opponent by the breadth of a hand, and won the event for the Freshmen.
Frank might have been induced to continue in the swimming game, for the love of it, but in thelast part of February the overpowering call for baseball candidates caught him, and he joined the uniformed crowd that daily haunted the cage in the rear of the Gymnasium; and through the afternoons, when recitations permitted, he took his share of batting, base-running, pitching, stopping grounders, and all that goes to the training of a Yale baseball player.
He was at first enrolled among the candidates for pitcher, but as there seemed to be a great plenitude of pitchers, he was relegated to the outfield, but glad to be on the squad on any position.
"What, our young Christy Mathewson out in the lots! Fie upon them!" exclaimed the Codfish when he heard.
"Even Napoleon had to begin," returned Frank. "Maybe they'll back me off the field before long. College baseball isn't school baseball, you know."
With the coming of warmer weather, the crocuses and chirp of the robin in late March, the baseball and track men forsook the cage for the open field, and there during the long afternoons the candidates were put through their paces by the different coaches.
Coach Thomas, who had been appointed by the 'Varsity captain to drill the Freshman nine, was a believer in hard work and gave his pupils plenty of it to do. Naturally, men from the larger preparatory schools, who had come to Yale with a reputation made in their school, had the first call. When they made good they held their positions. Armstrong and Turner, coming as they did from a school not among the half dozen prominent ones in the country, had to show their merit by hard fighting. But the coach played no favorites and when a player showed merit in the practice he had due consideration.
Turner and Armstrong, the former as catcher and the latter as pitcher, worked as a battery for some of the early practice. Frank's remarkable control stood him in good stead at first, but as the batters improved in their hitting of straight balls, Frank dropped behind in the race, and was now used only occasionally for batting practice. He was one of the half-dozen substitutes in the outfield. Turner fell into a more fortunate situation as catchers on the squad were scarce, and before two weeks of practice had elapsed, was in second place in the race for the position of backstop on the Freshman nine.
The fact that the Freshman diamond lies very close to the running track, and more particularly that the right field foul-line impinges on the back stretch of the track, by a peculiar circumstance had a very important influence on the college life of Frank Armstrong. And so do great things turn on small incidents.
On a particular day in May, Freshman baseball practice was in full swing. Frank was still an humble outfielder with little hope of a promotion to the pitcher's box, for three men of more experience were ahead of him. Thomas, however, attracted by the bearing of Frank, had held him on the squad in spite of the fact that he was not an exceptional fielder. He was attentive to instructions and because of his willingness and earnestness to do whatever was told him to do, held his place as a substitute right fielder.
"In these days," the coach told him, "no pitcher can get along without a good assortment ofcurves. Your straight ball is fine, but they get to it. You can curve the ball but you can't get it over the plate when you do curve it."
"That's my trouble, but I'll learn if you'll show me," said Frank, "that is, I'll do my best to learn."
But Thomas was not a pitcher and therefore could not show him just how to get that puzzling break to the ball which assured a pitcher of success with even a moderately good control. So Frank languished in the outfield much to the disgust of Turner and the Codfish who thought he was being done an injustice.
A practice game was in progress between the First and Second nines, and the First nine was at bat. Frank was playing right field. Down along the first base line came a sizzling grounder just inside the base. An undercut to the ball caused it, when it struck the turf, to pull off into foul ground. At once the man on second shot for home. Frank started at the crack of the bat, while the batter set sail for first base with the evident intention of making second at least on the hit which seemed good for two easy bases.
Frank, who was playing closer in than he should have been, went for the grounder with allhis speed, but seeing no hope of intercepting it by ordinary means, leaped in the air to a point in the line of the rolling ball. His feet, as they struck the ground, formed a barrier which the ball struck and jumped into the air in easy reach of his hand. He recovered his balance, seized the ball and drove it like lightning to the plate, catching the runner. The catcher snapped the ball to second, completing the double.
It was a pretty play and brought forth hand-clapping from the two score of bystanders who were watching the game.
Now it chanced that the trainer of the track team, Johnny Black by name, was looking over his runners as they loped around the back stretch of the track. His eye for the moment was off his half-milers, and was attracted by Armstrong's leap for the rolling ball. He crossed the track to the Freshman outfield, searching for the mark of Frank's cleats when he left the ground. Having found the starting point, he searched carefully till he found the marks of his landing, which happened to be on a bit of ground bare of turf where the cleat marks showed plainly. A ball whizzed past his ear, but he paid no attention, and even the shout of the Freshmancoach that he was in the field of play apparently had no effect upon him. He measured the distance of Armstrong's jump with his eye, then stepped it deliberately.
"Hey, right-fielder," demanded Johnny, as Frank, the batting side having now been retired, trotted toward the plate, "what's your name?"
"Armstrong," shouted that individual over his shoulder.
"Come here, Armstrong," said the trainer in peremptory tones.
Frank halted and went back to him.
"You look to me like a jumper. What are you doing over here when you can jump 18 feet with baseball clothes on?" he demanded.
"Trying to play ball the best I know how."
"Any chance to make it?" said the trainer as he walked along toward the plate while the First team went to their places in the field.
"Not very good looking now," returned Frank. "I'm sort of a seventeenth sub-pitcher and outfielder."
"So! I want you over at the track for a day or two. You ought to jump a mile. Say, Thomas," this to the coach, "let me have Armstrong for a day or two. I'm in an awful holefor jumpers and he ought to make one or I miss my guess. If he doesn't turn out right, you can have him back again. If he does, you'll never get him!"
"That's right, come and take my men away from me," grumbled Thomas. "But I can spare him just now as he is a pitcher and I've got three pretty good ones. Send him back here if he doesn't make good."
"All the work I'll ask him to do in training for the jump, if he has the goods, won't prevent him from working with you if he wants to, but I want him first."
"All right," said Thomas. "Armstrong, report to Black to-morrow afternoon, and when you have shown him how far you can't jump, come back here for what practice you can get."
"All right, sir," returned Frank.
"Two o'clock to-morrow at the track house. Bring a track suit with you and jumping shoes if you have them."
"All right, I'll be there," said Frank but he did not relish the change. His heart was set on baseball, and it was a great disappointment to him to be pulled into the track work. But his motto was to do the best that was in him withoutquestion, which is the starting point for success in most things.
The coming of the Freshman jumper did not create much interest on the track squad. His jumping did not please the trainer.
"Your form is bad," Black told him. "In jumping, form is everything. You may get to twenty-one or twenty-two feet the way you are going, but that will be the end of it. You must get higher in the air at the take-off."
Frank worked hard to master the new style. In school he had jumped naturally and without much coaching, but felt himself that he was not getting his greatest distance. He redoubled his efforts but could not lengthen out beyond nineteen feet or a little better. Then he began to fall below that even.
"You're jumping like an old brindle cow," said Black one day. "Are your legs sore?"
"My shins feel as if they would crack every time I land in the pit," said Frank, feeling the offending legs gingerly.
"Why in thunder didn't you tell me that before? You can't work at the broad jump the same as you do at football or baseball. Lay off for a day or two and keep off your feet."
The rest did Frank a world of good for when he returned to the jumping pit he cleared over twenty feet in his first trial, much to the trainer's delight. Thereafter he was watched with the closest attention by Black. In the spring games which came the last week in April he won third place in the handicap broad jump; and after a hard fight succeeded in beating out Warrington, the Freshman jumper who had done the best work up to that time.
Two weeks later at the Princeton Freshman meet Frank won second place with a jump of 21 feet 5 inches, and first place in the Harvard Freshman games a week later, bettering his mark by three inches.
Armstrong was ineligible, of course, for the 'Varsity meets with Princeton and Harvard, but kept at work perfecting his form and watching closely the work of Hotchkiss, the Junior, who was a consistent performer around 22 feet 6 inches, and who occasionally approached 23 feet. But as Frank daily increased his marks, the interest of Hotchkiss waned.
The Intercollegiates came and went, and Hotchkiss maintained his position as Intercollegiate champion by winning the broad jump forYale at 22 feet 10 inches. But Armstrong never ceased his efforts. A trip to Cambridge for the finals in the Intercollegiates showed him the styles used by the greatest collegiate jumpers, and after returning to New Haven he put his observations to such good effect that he cleared 22 feet 4 inches.
"What's the use of keeping up that old grind at the track," said the Codfish one night. "Why don't you go over to the Freshman baseball squad? You may get a chance there yet."
"I'm after something," returned Frank, "and it's coming so fast that I don't want to let go."
"And that something?"
"Don't laugh, it's Hotchkiss. He's been so blamed cocky that I'd give my shoes to lick his mark in the Intercollegiates just for personal satisfaction. I'm too late to do anything with the baseball squad now anyway."
"Noble ambition," said the Codfish, "but what's the use? There's nothing more for the track men this spring."
"Just the same I'm going to keep at it."
"Go ahead then, jump your legs off, while Turner and I win the glory."
Turner had by steady improvement workedhimself into the position of first catcher on the Freshman team. The Codfish, leaving temporarily his ambition to break into the exclusive ranks of the Mandolin Club, had won the position of official scorer of the Freshman, a place which he filled with great credit.
"Another sit-down job," said Turner laughing. "Trust the Codfish to get something easy."
"Why not? I don't love violent exercise. If I hanker for the cool shade of the scorer's bench and can record the glorious deeds of our young catcher and ease up on him when he makes flub-dubs, who is to say me nay? But I'm a believer in hard work, just the same——"
"For the other fellow," broke in Frank.
"Sure, that's what gives Yale her prestige, doesn't it? If it becomes necessary for me to don the baseball suit to uphold the athletics of Yale, then I'll do it. Till then, with all you good workers around, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't take the shade."
"Noble youth," said Frank. "We'll keep on in the sun and let you take the shade," and nothing either the Codfish or Turner could say changed Frank's determination to keep everlastinglyat his jumping practice, uninteresting though it appeared to his roommates.
"Now I know why you stuck to the jumping," said the Codfish one morning as he scanned the first page of theNews.
"Elucidate," said Frank.
"Here it is right in our lively little daily. Oxford and Cambridge-Yale-Harvard meet arranged. Teams about evenly matched. Sail for England July 2nd, and a whole string of likely candidates in which I see your name."
"O, but I'm a Freshman, and a Freshman can't compete in 'Varsity matches," said Frank, but his heart gave a bound just the same.
"You won't be a Freshman after June 17th, you bonehead," returned the Codfish joyfully, "provided you don't flunk your examinations. You'll be a jolly Sophomore with all the blackness of Freshman year behind you."
"But there's Hotchkiss. He's better than I am, and a Junior."
"He'll be a Senior, don't you savez, but that will make mighty little difference if you can outjump him. They will take only the best, or I'm a galoot."
"You generally are, Codfish, but I'll work my head off to make that team."
"You've nearly worked it off already, and you've got to make that team. Pictures in the papers, details of your early life, moving stories about your many virtues, weeping relatives at the dock as the ship sails out of the bay and all that sort of thing. I can see it all now."
Frank laughed at his enthusiastic friend. But his pulse quickened at the thought of the possibility of making the team which should represent America in this international contest. Turner, too, was wild with delight at the turn affairs had taken. "Now I wish I had been a jumper. We'll read the cable dispatches every day. You're bound to make it."
"Don't count your chickens," said Frank, "till they are safely hatched. You forget that Hotchkiss is doing nearly 23 feet."
Two days later a call in theNewsbrought all the first string track men together in the trophy room of the Gymnasium, and Frank Armstrong was among them. Captain Harrington read the challenge from the English Universities, and told them what was expected of them.
"This is going to be a free field, and everyonewill have his chance. The team will be the best that Harvard and Yale can get together. Practice will be held at the Field every day as usual, and the trials will be at Cambridge a week before we sail. Only first place counts in this meet with the Englishmen so it will not be necessary to take any but the best men in each event. I want you to give the best in you. We must give a good account of ourselves here at Yale."
The captain got a rousing cheer at the end of his speech which was a long one for him, and the athletes clattered down the wide, marble steps in excited discussion of the coming event and Yale's possibilities.
"Armstrong," said the trainer next day at the field, "you have a chance to make this team. I want you to go to it as hard as you know how."
"I've been doing that for the last month."
"Well, you've improved a lot in that time. You've got to beat Hotchkiss to win out. It's up to you."
During the remainder of the college year Frank put every spare minute in the preparation for the final test for the team. Even in the trying time of examinations he managed to squeeze out half hours at the Field, and when it was notpossible to get out there, he studied the theory of broad-jumping, searched the library for information on the subject and found little enough. At Commencement a famous jumper of former years took him in hand and gave him some advice which helped him greatly. Steadily, if slowly, he continued to improve his marks, until one hot morning he raced down the runway and cleared 22 feet 10 inches, much to the discomfort of Hotchkiss who, in spite of his experience, did not relish the fact that the Freshman was drawing nearer and nearer to equality with him.
"Twenty-two feet ten inches," announced Black. "Hotchkiss, you've got to look out for your laurels. This Freshman will beat you out if you don't improve your jump."
Hotchkiss scowled and tried harder than ever, but he seemed to have reached his limit, and was unable to surpass his distance in the Intercollegiates.
That night Frank wrote to his mother: "Mother, I have a chance, only a chance, mind you, to make the team that is going to England to represent Yale and Harvard. If I win a place are you and dad willing to let me go?"
And the answer came back on the next mail: "Yes."
"That settles it," cried Frank, flourishing the letter above his head as he capered about the room. "I'll win out or die trying."
The Codfish spoke up: "Perhaps you don't know that I'm going too."
"For what?" inquired Frank.
"To see that you keep in strict training and out of mischief."
"You actually mean you would go across if I should make the team?"
"Bettcher life," came the quick answer. "I've got to do something this summer, and I can't imagine anything better than to see the Johnny Bulls properly tanned."
"Jimmy, how about you?" inquired Frank.
"I'm not a bloated bondholder like the Codfish. It's work for mine this summer. But I'll read all the cablegrams and pray for you!"
It was the day of the try-outs at Cambridge when the best that Harvard and Yale could muster were gathered to contest for a place on the team which should meet Oxford and Cambridge.
"One week more and we will be on the briny," observed Gleason confidently to Frank. The speaker, Jimmy and David had all journeyed to the big Stadium to see their classmate compete for a place.
"Gleason, if you talk like that much more, you'll hoodoo me. Don't forget that I'm a novice at this game. I've got about one chance in ten."
"You'll come through all right," said David Powers. "I've noticed that you do pretty well under pressure."
"As, for instance, football on the Yale Freshman team!—Go to, David, go to! I know what you fellows are trying to do. You're trying to keep up my sinking spirits. Much obliged."
Frank was dressing for the trials along with the point-winners of the 'Varsity track team, but he felt strange and shy with the older and more seasoned athletes. He was the only Freshman who had been taken with the Yale squad, and his three friends, David, Jimmy and the Codfish, had made it a point to be with him.
"I don't see any particular reason for anyone going over to represent us in the broad jump anyway," said Frank.
"How's that?" inquired someone.
"Didn't you see the morning papers? No? Well, Vare, that Oxford man, jumped 23 feet 5 in practice, and they think over there there's nothing but England to this coming meet. All the prophets have it settled."
"I've heard of prophets slipping before now," said the Codfish gaily.
"And Vare is a consistent jumper, better than 23 feet most of the time, from all I can learn," went on Frank. "Cambridge has a pretty good jumper, too, better than we have, but away behind Vare. So if the unexpected happens and I should win out, which doesn't look bright, I'd be nothing but an also-ran when it comes to the scratch over there."
Out on the track where the contestants were now hurrying, a crowd of officials and friends were gathered along the straightaway and the various jumping pits. Halloby had already won his place in the high hurdles and was receiving the congratulations of his friends as he walked smilingly back to the track house.
"Good boy, Halloby," came the greeting from all sides. A Yale man had been second. Both would be taken.
Hotchkiss was at the jumping pit when Frank reached there, and was engaged in marking with the greatest care the length of his strides just before the "take" of the jump so that he would get the best results. Up and down the runway he went, measuring and pacing. He gave Armstrong a curt nod as he walked to the jumpers' bench to the right of the runway.
Just as the quarter-mile ended, giving Harvard two men and Yale none in this event, the broad jumping contest was started with Hotchkiss leading off. On his first try, Hotchkiss overran the jumping block. McGregor, a Harvard man, cleared 21 feet 8 inches, another Harvard man 21 feet 6, and then it came Frank's turn.
"Now, Armstrong," said the trainer as hewalked down the runway toward the point where Frank had left his jersey as a starting mark. "Keep your head, get a breeze up in those last six strides and hit the block hard. Go ahead."
Frank loped down the runway for perhaps fifty feet, speeding up toward the middle of the run. Then within six or eight strides of the block he burst into full speed, hit the block squarely, and shot into the air. It looked like a magnificent jump but when he struck in the soft sawdust and loam of the pit he could not hold the full distance, and fell backwards, breaking the ground a good three feet to the rear of where his heels first touched. Naturally, the jump was measured from the block to the point where his hand broke the ground.
"Twenty feet four inches," sang out the judge of the event.
"This Yale Freshman isn't such a wonder, after all," whispered a Harvard competitor to another sitting next him on the bench. "If he could have held his distance, it would have been a peach, though."
"Your old fault, Armstrong," said Black coming over to him. "That jump was actually better than 23 feet. Now, try to stay up on your next."
As the trainer spoke, Hotchkiss came rushing down the runway. He got a perfect take-off, rose in the air, turned halfway round in his flight, but held the distance he had made on the jump, which was a moment later announced to be 22 feet 10 inches.
McGregor followed with a pretty jump of 22 feet 6, while his teammate did not better his first jump, which was not good enough even to be measured.
Again it was Frank's turn, and so well did he heed the coaching of Black that the judge gave him credit for 22 feet 8 inches, the second best jump of the afternoon. Hotchkiss still held the lead, however, and swaggered a little as he walked around. The jumpers followed each other in rotation. Frank's next try was a failure, but on the following one, gathering all his energies for a supreme effort, he sailed into the air like a bird.
"Twenty-two feet ten and three-fourths inches," called the judge, showing in his voice an awakening interest in the event.
Hotchkiss, stung at the thought that the Freshman had beaten his best mark, showed very plainly in his preparations for his trials that hemeant to wipe him out. He moved his marks a trifle, stepped the distance carefully, and then, seemingly satisfied, walked slowly to the end of the runway.
"He's peeved," remarked Turner.
"What difference does it make to him anyway, he's sure to be taken, isn't he?" inquired David.
"Hotchkiss is one of those chaps who hate to be anything but first."
"He has a head like a rhinocer-hoss," said the Codfish. As he spoke, Hotchkiss turned at the far end of the runway. Every eye was on him now, which was not at all displeasing to him. Down the runway he came like a race horse, his gaze fixed steadily on the take-off block where the supreme effort was to be made. But so great was his speed in his endeavor to eclipse all previous efforts that he struck the block badly, sprang in the air, lost his direction and landed partly in and partly out of the pit in an awkward straddle. Unable to keep his balance he fell over sideways on the hard ground and lay there groaning.
In an instant a half score of bystanders had run to the aid of Hotchkiss. He was picked upand set upon his feet, half stunned, but when he attempted to take a step, he sank down groaning.
The trainer sprang to the side of the injured jumper. "Where is it?" he demanded.
"My ankle," moaned Hotchkiss. "I twisted it in some way. Here, let me try it again." But try as he might, he could not bear a particle of weight on the injured leg, and had to be carried to the Locker Building in the arms of two of his teammates.
Immediately a buzz of excited conversation rose.
"That hurts our chances in England, doesn't it?" inquired one of the officials.
"Yes, it does. Hotchkiss was good enough to win over the Cambridge man in case anything should happen to the Oxford man, Vare. He didn't have a chance to beat Vare because Hotchkiss has never done as well as 23 feet, while Vare is a consistent performer at several inches better."
"The broad jump is one of the events that we've got to count out, then, isn't it?"
"It certainly is now," said the trainer. "If Armstrong had a year more of experience he'dgive the Oxonian a good battle. Armstrong is a natural jumper, but has not perfected his form yet. It will take another year."
When the excitement over the injury to Hotchkiss had passed, the trials continued and Armstrong created a ripple of interest when on his last trial he came within an inch of the coveted 23-foot mark.
The result of the contest in the broad jump was that Armstrong, representing Yale, and McGregor, representing Harvard, were selected for the team. In all, twenty-six men were chosen that afternoon for the fourteen events to be contested in England, fourteen from Harvard and twelve from Yale. These men were the very flower of both teams. In the hammer and shot events only two from each college were selected since the best hammer throwers were also the best shot putters.
To say that it was a jubilant quartet of boys who tumbled off the train at Milton, would be expressing it in weak terms.
"Open up the cupboard," cried Frank after the home greetings were over. "You have four champion diners with you to-night."
"A little soup, slice of mutton and toast forthe athlete, Mrs. Armstrong. Frank isn't allowed to eat anything rich, you know, training table grub and all that."
"You chase yourself around the block, Mr. Codfish. The training table has a rest for a solid week—apple dumplings, strawberry shortcake and all the fixings belong to me."
"Seems as if you had earned it, son," said Mr. Armstrong.
"Grand little muscles, Mr. Armstrong," said the loquacious Codfish. "Nice, hard and knotty, warranted pure steel, made in Germany—just feel them, best set in Yale—delivery of goods guaranteed——"
The dinner gong cut the speaker's flow of language short, but at the table he kept the conversation moving at a lively pace.
"Well, boys," said Mr. Armstrong, edging into the torrent of talk, "do you like Yale as well now as ever?"
"Yale is great stuff," came the ready chorus.
"It would be better if we didn't have so many studies," added the Codfish.
"How's that?"
"Well, a fellow just gets settled down to doing something like baseball or football or trackathletics when the recitations break in. And the profs. get so peeved when a fellow isn't up to form that they have an unkind habit of flunking him."
"And do you flunk, Mr. Gleason?" inquired Mrs. Armstrong.
"Does he flunk! O, my!" laughed Jimmy.
"I hold the record in the class," said the Codfish proudly. "Four in one day. Such a successful flunker that I have three conditions for next year."
"Conditions, what are they?"
"O, just little attachments that they sometimes put onto Freshmen," laughed Frank.
"Have you any, Frank?" inquired his father.
"In athletics a fellow has to keep up to the scratch, you know. If he doesn't, he can't go into athletics. The Codfish is the free-lance."
"Yes, he's gone into everything," interjected Jimmy, "and so far hasn't won a battle."
"O, but he will," said Mrs. Armstrong.
"Thank you for your confidence," said that individual rising and making a sweeping bow. "'Familiarity breeds contempt,' so they say, and my familiar roommates fail to see the outcroppingsof genius as clearly as you do. I've nearly won several battles already."
And then Jimmy gave the history of the Codfish's unsuccessful onslaughts on theNews, the Crew and the Mandolin Club to the amusement of the older members of the family.
"The difficulty is," said the Codfish, "that the individual has no chance at college. It is all for the development of the average man, like Jimmy there, for instance. Genius is frowned upon. I could have revolutionized theNewsif they'd given me a little longer chance at it."
"Demoralized it, you mean," said Frank. "Mother, give me another piece of that shortcake. My, but it tastes good after so much training table."
Training hours were broken that night, and for several nights to come, for the boys played with as much vigor as they worked. But Frank did not neglect his physical training. Swims at Seawall, where our friends foregathered for the first time several years before, rowing, and walks in the country, kept him in trim for the work which was to come.
Ten days after the trials at Cambridge, Frank, with the Codfish at his side, stood on the promenade deck of the great White Star linerOlympic, and waved good-by to his friends on the dock as the big boat moved slowly out into North River.
"Bring back their scalps, you Indians," shouted someone.
"Don't let the Johnny Bulls get your goats, you Yaleses!"
"Show them how they do it in Yankeeland, Harvard!"
To all of which the outgoing athletes, in a little group apart from the rest of the passengers, smiled and waved hands in acknowledgment.
"Gee whiz," said the Codfish as the big ship slipped swiftly down the bay, "I never thought of it before, but what if I should be seasick?"
"It doesn't make so much difference aboutyou," said Frank heartlessly, "but what ifIshould? That's the question!"
Fortunately, the ocean was calm and none of the team suffered in the slightest from the dreaded sickness. With the first meal on the ship the athletes were seated together, and soon Yale and Harvard lines were forgotten. The men from the two universities fraternized with each other and the team was neither Harvard nor Yale, but an American team with only one object in view,—victory from their English cousins.
Training regulations were established at once, and while the routine was not so strict as on land, the trainers saw to it that their athletes retired not later than 10:30 and that they were up at 7 in the morning for a jog around the decks before the passengers were about. The long decks of theOlympicmade a surprisingly good training ground. A training stunt which amused the passengers was dancing, not in the ordinary sense of the word, but "standstill sprinting" as the Codfish called it, on a cork mat, on which the runners got practically the same leg action as they would running on the open track. A large cork mat was spread on the boat deck, and relays of men, four at a time, pranced merrily,rested and pranced again. Then came a cold salt water shower and a rub-down. In the afternoon the dancing exercise would be repeated. Skipping the rope was another deck exercise which played a large part in keeping the men in good condition.
"Where do you keep yourself nowadays?" said Frank one evening after dinner. He had noticed that Gleason disappeared for long periods during the day.
"O, just sitting about and thinking. Can't think where you athletes are romping around. You make more noise than a bunch of magpies. I'm sick of athletic chatter, that so-and-so ought to do 10 seconds, and that Mr. Blinks of Harvard should win his half if he doesn't get too fast a pace in the first quarter, that Mr. Jenks of Yale is likely to pull a tendon, and so on and so on."
"So you sneak off and improve your mind?"
"Right-O, sonny. I'm doing that same."
But the next day Frank discovered the cause of the Codfish's long absences. The Codfish did not have his meals at the athletes' table but at a table nearby. Adjoining the table where he sat, Fate, in the person of the steward's assistant,had placed Mr. and Mrs. Mortimore Hasbrouck, their daughter Marjorie and son William. Fate went a step farther than the location of the Hasbrouck family and undoubtedly had a hand in the business of seating Marjorie at this table where her bright face was in range of the Codfish's roving eyes.
Now, Marjorie was fair to look upon as the Codfish admitted to himself when she made her appearance in the dining saloon the first night at sea. "But she's only a kid," he said to himself, "just fresh out of some boarding school if I dope that pin on her shoulder right."
The Codfish looked and looked, but the eyes of Marjorie were on the athletes' table beyond him, and were not for him. Her gaze continually traveled over his head, and now and then he could hear the words "Harvard, Yale, track athletes——" for, of course, everyone knew that the teams were aboard even before the ship left the dock.
"She doesn't know I belong to the party," thought the Codfish, gloomily, "or she wouldn't waste all her looks at the next table. I've got to fix that!"
That night he made it a point to speak toBillie, while the latter hung on the outskirts of the crowd of athletes, and Billie was, of course, overjoyed to be spoken to by a college man, for he was only in his third year in prep. school, and considered a collegian a kind of demigod.
"Are you one of the athletes?" inquired Billie.
"I'm one of the Yale men," said the Codfish feeling his chest expand.
Billie jumped to the conclusion that he was one of the competitors, and was duly elated at the fortunate acquaintance.
"Gee whiz, I'm glad to know you. I'm going down to Yale myself next year if I get through my exams. Should have been there this year but flub-dubbed the exams. Dad says if I don't make it next year it's good-night for mine."
"Stick to it, stick to it, my boy! A college life is a great thing,—training of the mind, associations, mental and physical development and all that sort of thing." As he talked he led the way up the deck in the direction of the Hasbrouck family chairs. The Codfish shot a look out of his eye and observed the object of his search, the fair Marjorie. But the expected didn't happen. Billie, glorying in the companionship of a Yale man and a member of the greatteam of athletes, led his new-found friend up and down the deck half a dozen times to let the full weight of its significance sink into the family.
Getting impatient at last, and tired of the walking, the Codfish said: "Seems to me I've seen you and your sister before somewhere. Perhaps it was down at the game last fall."
"Wish I had been there, but nothing doing! Just at that time I got into trouble at school and the Pater shut down on me. Beastly luck. But, say, Mr.— Mr.——"
"Gleason."
"Mr. Gleason, won't you come and meet the family? Sis will be delighted to know a Yale man."
Thus came the Codfish to the Hasbrouck family, where, being properly presented, he bowed low and with supreme dignity. When Marjorie offered him her hand he held it a trifle overtime and looked unspeakable things.
"What is your specialty, Mr. Gleason?" inquired Mrs. Hasbrouck.
"O, a little of everything," said the Codfish noncommittally.
"O, isn't that lovely," cried Marjorie. "He does everything!"
"Well, I try a few things," struggling to produce a modest smile and with indifferent success.
"Tell us about Yale, Mr. Gleason," said Mrs. Hasbrouck. "I'm so sorry John isn't here because William is going down to Yale next year, I hope. I went to a game there years ago, a football game I think it was, in June——"
"Baseball, I think," corrected Billie. "They don't play football in June."
"Well, baseball then. I thought it a wonderful place."
"O, it's a pretty good place," said Gleason, and then nothing loath to talk, particularly when Marjorie made the inquiries, he launched into a dazzling word picture of Yale and her glories. At the end of ten minutes he had made such progress with Marjorie that she readily accepted his invitation to take a promenade with him. From that moment the affairs of the Yale-Harvard track team, and even the more intimate concerns of his roommate began to decline from the zenith of his attentions. Marjorie was in the ascendency.
It was on the second day out that Frank Armstrong, noticing the Codfish's absence, had askedhim where he kept himself, and was not at all satisfied with the answer he got. "The Codfish sitting around, thinking! Never!" said Frank to himself. And shortly after, Frank had ocular demonstration as to the real trouble. He met Codfish and Marjorie, and the former was so much absorbed that he didn't even see his roommate.
"By Jove!" cried Frank. "Wait till I see him!"
When the Codfish turned up that night in the stateroom, Frank pounced upon him.
"So you've been sitting around, thinking, have you?"
"Sure thing, thinking what I'd do next. I say, Frank, she's a pippin. Billie's an awful bore, but his kid sister is a peach, believe me!"
"I thought you were an out-and-out woman-hater."
"I used to be in my younger days," said the Codfish, earnestly, "but this Marjorie girl has certainly got me going. Some eyes, boy, some eyes."
"So, that's why you've been neglecting your poor roommate, is it? I thought you came over here to see that I had good attention and kept in training. I might be at almost anything, evenenjoying a pipe in the smoking room with John Hasbrouck as far as you are concerned."
"I guess you will be all right looking after yourself. Now in Marjorie's case—" he had reached the point already of calling her "Marjorie," and he lingered a little over the name—"in Marjorie's case, it is different. She needs a strong arm to lean on," and the Codfish stretched his legs out luxuriously.
"And you are furnishing the arm?"
"Precisely."
"And how about her father and mother and even her brother? They have no protecting arms, I suppose?"
"Frank, they don't understand her. She seems quite alone. This is in confidence, Frank,—she's going to go on the stage as soon as she's through school. She'd make a hit, I tell you! She has great ambition, that girl has!"
"And what does her mother say about the stage?"
"O, just laughs at her, has no conception of the depths of that girl's nature. I doped her out for myself soon as I saw her. Frank, old chap, I love her!" At this astounding piece of intelligence Frank howled with laughter.
"All right, go ahead and laugh, but I tell you this is serious. Say, Frank, you wouldn't mind if I went on to Paris with the Hasbroucks, would you? You won't need me for anything. I'll get back to London for the meet maybe."
"You'll get lost snooping around Paris all by yourself," said Frank as soon as he could regain the breath that Gleason's question had knocked out of him.
"O, but I'll not be alone. I'll travel with the Hasbroucks. My heart tells me to go."
"Very well then," said Frank. "If you have such an unreliable heart, there's nothing for it but to go I suppose. You may change your mind or your heart before we dock."
"Never!" said the Codfish. "This is a deep and lasting feeling I have. It has changed the whole course of my life. I came onto this boat a mere boy, now I feel I'm a man with all the responsibilities of a man."
Codfish's infatuation was too good a story to keep, and Frank took McGregor, the Harvard broad jumper, with whom he had struck up a friendship, into his confidence. "That friend of mine, Gleason, has a love attack and tells me he is going to desert and go on to Paris with thefair charmer. How are we going to head him off?"
"Win his girl away from him," suggested McGregor.
"But he doesn't give anyone a chance," said Frank, laughing. "He sticks around from morning till night. He certainly has a terrible case."
"Get him up on the boat-deck for a game of shuffleboard," suggested McGregor, "and then we'll get someone to talk to Marjorie. When that fellow gets tired, we'll have someone else take up the relay and so on."
"Great," said Frank. "Let's try."
That afternoon, the Codfish, all unsuspecting, was led off for a try at the popular deck game, and in his absence one of the team, who was in the plot, contrived to get an introduction to Marjorie, took the vacant chair of her father, and began a lengthy conversation. When the Codfish, who had been detained at the game as long as possible, hurried back to his lady-love he found his place occupied. Back and forth he paced, casting longing looks in the direction of the Hasbrouck chairs, but Marjorie was deeply interested in the young man alongside of her, and did not even look in the Codfish's direction.After half an hour of agony, the Codfish observed with joy that his rival was preparing to leave, but just at that moment, up strolled another of the athletes to the coveted chair, and being asked to sit down, did so and continued the conversation, while plotter No. 1 went on his way. For two mortal hours the Codfish was held at bay, pacing the decks and railing at his luck while the relays continued.
"How in the deuce did she come to know all these fellows?" growled the Codfish to himself. "Next time I'll not go playing shuffleboard and leaving her alone, so help me Bob!"
When finally the Codfish thought his inning was about to come, Marjorie tripped gaily off with the last of her suitors, and after a promenade around the deck, disappeared somewhere below to Gleason's great distress of mind.
That evening Marjorie was again carried off, this time by the Yale half-miler, and the only thing left for the Codfish was to occupy her vacant chair, which he did, and proceeded to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Hasbrouck, though his eyes followed Marjorie on her promenade up and down the deck.
"Mighty attractive girl, that Miss Hasbrouck,"said Frank that night as the boys were preparing to retire. "She's made a great hit with the team, did you notice it?"
"Did I notice it?" cried the Codfish petulantly. "Yes, I noticed it. Where in the name of the Great Horn Spoon did she meet all those fellows?"
"Mutual attraction, I s'pose," said Frank. "I saw you holding forth with her mother most of the evening. Charming lady, eh?"
"O, yes, all right. Interested in philanthropy and all that sort of thing. Wanted me to help her raise something for the Widows and Orphans Fund for Sailors; subscription papers, and all that sort of thing."
"And you're for it?"
"O, yes, Marjorie's mother you see. Couldn't do anything else. I've got to stand in right with her mother."
"Noble youth," said Frank. "First catch the mother and the daughter will come easy. Is that it?"
"You have a glimmer of intelligence, Armstrong, a rare thing in your case."
"We have him on the run," said McGregor the next morning at breakfast. "I suggest a round-robinletter to the young lady. How would this suit?" He hauled a letter from his pocket and handed it to Frank, who read it while a smile stole over his face.
"Will she take it all right, do you think?" said Frank as he handed the letter back to the conspirator.
"Sure thing. The Codfish cuts no figure now since she's had a taste of bigger game. I'll write it out and get everyone to sign it."
"Go to it," said Frank. "We must save our little Codfish."
That afternoon while Miss Hasbrouck was curled up in her deck chair with the Codfish in attendance, a deck steward handed a letter to her. A long list of signatures followed.
"A wireless?" inquired the Codfish, much interested.
"Too funny for anything," said the girl. "I wonder if I had better let you read it? It concerns you."
"Me?" said the Codfish in astonishment, reaching out for the letter.
"Promise not to get mad if I let you see it?"
"Cross my heart, hope to die if I do."
"All right, then, but remember your promise."She passed the letter over to him, and this is what he read:
"Dear Miss Hasbrouck:—"We have observed with growing anxiety the attention which one of our party has been paying to you. While we do not wish to alarm you, we feel you ought to know that this young man is afflicted with mental aberration. In other words, he is slightly off his head. As far as we know he has never had a dangerous spell, but you can never tell. Please pardon us for seeming to intrude, but we thought you ought to know."
"Dear Miss Hasbrouck:—
"We have observed with growing anxiety the attention which one of our party has been paying to you. While we do not wish to alarm you, we feel you ought to know that this young man is afflicted with mental aberration. In other words, he is slightly off his head. As far as we know he has never had a dangerous spell, but you can never tell. Please pardon us for seeming to intrude, but we thought you ought to know."
Then followed a long list of signatures of practically every man on either team.
Gleason was just finishing the perusal of the note when McGregor pranced up to Miss Hasbrouck. "Take a walk around the deck?" he queried, and that young lady hastily jumped up without even excusing herself to the Codfish, and started off at a brisk pace with the young Harvard man.
"Nutty, am I?" said the Codfish. "I'll show them," gritting his teeth, "I'll show them. They're trying to queer me," and then to Mrs. Hasbrouck who had just come up from her stateroom: "O, Mrs. Hasbrouck, I'm going to helpyou with that fund. Guess pretty nearly everyone of the two teams will subscribe to it."
"That's very sweet of you, indeed. It is a noble thing to do to help such a good cause to provide for the widows and orphans of the sailors who go down in the great deep."
"Sure thing," said the Codfish, enthusiastically. "All our fellows are very generous on such a thing as that. I never saw such a noble bunch of fellows as we have with us."
Mrs. Hasbrouck beamed over her spectacles. "I think we ought to collect as much of the fund as we can to-day; only a little more of our sea voyage is left, you know."
"'A bird in the hand is said to be worth two in the bushes!'" returned the Codfish. "I'll be back in a minute," he added. On the way down to the bulletin board in the companionway where were inscribed the signatures of those who were willing to help along the fund with contributions, he came upon Marjorie and McGregor, their heads together in deep conversation. Neither saw him or they pretended not to see him as he passed, and the fires of revenge burned the deeper in his heart. Five minutes later he was back at Mrs. Hasbrouck's chair.
"The names of pretty nearly every one of our fellows are down under that subscription paper," he informed her. "I've made a copy of them all and the amounts opposite each name."
"This is wonderful," said Mrs. Hasbrouck, enthusiastically as she ran through the list. "Mr. McGregor $25; Mr. Armstrong $25; Mr. Wallace $10; Mr. Burrows $10; why, this is really wonderful. You will certainly get your reward for your kindness. I'll call the steward's attention to this, and suggest that he ought to collect to-day, for to-morrow will be our last day on shipboard, you know."
"Yes, I think he ought to get after them to-day. So much hurry and scurry on the last day that he might miss some of the contributions."
A little later consternation was thrown into the "contributors" to the Widows and Orphans Fund. A very businesslike young steward armed with a list, began his collections. Two or three of the collegians paid up without protest for they supposed such collections were the regular thing, but when the collector reached McGregor, who was still holding the fort with Marjorie in the shade of one of the lifeboats, he met a refusal.
"Twenty-five dollars for the Widows and Orphans Fund! I never heard of it before!" protested the "contributor."
"There must be a mistake, sir," said the steward, "you must have forgotten, your name is one of those on the subscription paper in the companionway bulletin board."
"My name on the paper? Quit your kidding."
"O, but it is, sir. I made a careful copy myself, sir, of all the names, and I'm sure I'm right."
"Then I must have done it in my sleep," exclaimed the puzzled McGregor. "Where is the bulletin board?"
"I'll show you, sir," and the steward led the way to the saloon deck. Shortly they stood before the board in question. There were a number of notices on the board, but the steward pointed out the one in question. "There it is, sir, and there's your name," triumphantly.
"We, the Undersigned, subscribe to the Widows and Orphans Fund the amount set after each of our names:"
"We, the Undersigned, subscribe to the Widows and Orphans Fund the amount set after each of our names:"