"Chi Rho Omega Lambda Chi!We meet to-night to celebrateThe Omega Lambda Chi!"
"Chi Rho Omega Lambda Chi!We meet to-night to celebrateThe Omega Lambda Chi!"
"Chi Rho Omega Lambda Chi!We meet to-night to celebrateThe Omega Lambda Chi!"
"Chi Rho Omega Lambda Chi!
We meet to-night to celebrate
The Omega Lambda Chi!"
Grotesquely, lumberingly, tripping and confused, they tried to imitate the forward classes, who were surging in the billowy rhythm of the elusive serpentine dance.
"How the deuce do they do it?"
"Get a skip to it, you ice-wagons."
"All to the left, now."
"No, to the right."
Gradually they found themselves; hoarse, laughing, struggling, sweeping inconsequentially on behind the singing, cheering college.
Before Dink knew it, the line had broken with a rush, and he was carried, struggling and pushing, into a vacant lot, where all at once, out of the tumult and the riot, a circle opened and spread under his eyes.
Seniors in varsity sweaters, with brief authoritative gestures, forced back the crowd, stationed the fretful lights, commanding and directing:
"First row, sit down."
"Down in front, there."
"Kneel behind."
"Freshmen over here."
"Get a move on!"
"Stop that shoving."
"How's the space, Cap?"
In the center, Captain Dana waited with an appraising eye.
"All right. Call out the lightweights."
Almost immediately, from the opposite sophomores, came a unanimous shout:
"Farquahar! Dick Farquahar!"
"Come on, Dick!"
"Get in the ring!"
Out into the ring stepped an agile, nervous figure, acclaimed by all his class.
"A cheer for Farquahar, fellows!"
"One, two, three!"
"Farquahar!"
"Candidate from the freshman class!"
"Candidate!"
"Robinson!"
"Teddy Robinson!"
"Harris!"
"No, Robinson—Robinson!"
Gimbel's voice dominated the outcry. There was a surging, and then a splitting of the crowd, and Robinson was slung into the ring.
In the midst of contending cheers, the antagonists stripped to the belt and stood forth to shake hands, their bared torsos shining in high lights against the mingled shadows of the audience.
The two, equally matched in skill, went tumbling and whirling over the matted sod, twisting and flopping, until by a sudden hold Robinson caught his adversary in a half nelson and for the brief part of a second had the two shoulders touching the ground. The second round likewise went to the freshman, who was triumphant after a struggle of twenty minutes.
"Middleweights!"
"Candidate from the sophomore class!"
"Candidate from the freshman!"
"Fisher!"
"Denny Fisher!"
The sophomore stepped forth, tall, angular, well knit. Among the freshmen a division of opinion arose:
"Say, Andover, who've you got?"
"Any one from Hotchkiss?"
"What's the matter with French?"
"He doesn't know a thing about wrestling."
"How about Doc White?"
"Not heavy enough."
The seniors began to be impatient.
"Hurry up, now, freshmen, hurry up!"
"Produce something!"
Still a hopeless indecision prevailed.
"I don't know any one."
"Jack's too heavy."
"Say, you Hill School fellows, haven't you got some one?"
"Some one's got to go out."
The sophomores, seizing the advantage, began to gibe at them:
"Don't be afraid, freshmen!"
"We won't hurt you."
"We'll let you down easy."
"Take it by default."
"Call time on them."
"I don't know a thing about it," said Stover, between his teeth, to Hungerford, his hands twitching impatiently, his glance fixed hungrily on the provokingly amused face of the sophomore champion.
"I'm too heavy or I'd go."
"I've a mind to go, all the same."
McCarthy, who knew his impulses of old, seized him by the arm.
"Don't get excited, Dink, old boy; you don't know anything about wrestling."
"No, but I canscrap!"
The outcry became an uproar:
"Quitters!"
"'Fraid cats!"
"Poor little freshmen!"
"They're in a funk."
"By George, I can't stand that," said Stover, setting his teeth, the old love of combat sweeping over him. "I'm going to have a chance at that duck myself!"
He thrust his way forward, shaking off McCarthy's hold, stepped over the reclining front ranks, and, springing into the ring, faced Dana.
"I'm no wrestler, sir, but if there's no one else I'll have a try at it."
There was a sudden hush, and then a chorus:
"Who is it?"
"Who's that fellow?"
"What's his name?"
"Oh, freshmen, who's your candidate?"
"Stover!"
"Stover, a football man!"
"Fellow from Lawrenceville!"
The seniors had him over in a corner, stripping him, talking excitedly.
"Say, Stover, what do you know about it?"
"Not a thing."
"Then go in and attack."
"All right."
"Don't wait for him."
"No."
"He's a clever wrestler, but you can get his nerve."
"His nerve?"
"Keep off the ground."
"Off the ground, yes."
"Go right in; right at him; tackle him hard; shake him up."
"All right," he said, for the tenth time. He had heard nothing that had been said. He was standing erect, looking in a dazed way at the hundreds of eyes that were dancing about him in the living, breathing pit in whichhe stood. He heard a jumble of roars and cheers, and one clear cry, McCarthy crying:
"Good old Dink!"
Some one was rolling up his trousers to the knee; some one was flinging a sweater over his bared back; some one was whispering in his ear:
"Get right to him. Go for him—don't wait!"
"Already, there," said Captain Dana's quiet, matter-of-fact voice.
"Already, here."
"Shake hands!"
The night air swept over him with a sudden chill as the sweaters were pulled away. He went forth while Dana ran over the rules and regulations, which he did not understand at all. He stood then about five feet ten, in perfect condition, every muscle clearly outlined against the wiry, spare Yankee frame, shoulders and the sinews of his arms extraordinarily developed. From the moment he had stepped out, his eyes had never left Fisher's. Combat transformed his features, sending all the color from his face, narrowing the eyes, and drawing tense the lips. Combat was with him always an overmastering rage in the leash of a cold, nervous, pulsating logic, which by the very force of its passion gave to his expression an almost dispassionate cruelty—a look not easy to meet, that somehow, on the instant, impressed itself on the crowd with the terrific seriousness of the will behind.
"Wiry devil."
"Good shoulders."
"Great fighting face, eh?"
"Scrapper, all right."
"I'll bet he is."
"Shake hands!"
Stover caught the other's hand, looked into his eyes,read something there that told him, science aside, that he was the other's master; and suddenly, rushing forward, he caught him about the knees and, lifting him bodily in the air, hurled him through the circle in a terrific tackle.
The onslaught was so sudden that Fisher, unable to guard himself, went down with a crash, the fall broken by the bodies of the spectators.
A roar, half laughter, half hysteria, went up.
"Go for him!"
"Good boy, Stover!"
"Chew him up!"
"Is he a scrapper!"
"Say, thisisa fight!"
"Wow!"
Dana, clapping them on the shoulders, brought them back to the center of the ring and restored them to the position in which they had fallen. Fisher, plainly shaken up, immediately worked himself into a defensive position, recovering his breath, while Stover frantically sought some instinctive hold with which to turn him over.
Suddenly an arm shot out, caught his head in chancery, and before he knew it he was underneath and the weight of Fisher's body was above, pressing him down. He staggered to his feet in a fury, maddened, unreasoning, and went down again, always with the dead weight above him.
"Here, that won't do," he said to himself savagely, recovering his clarity of vision; "I mustn't lose strength."
All at once, before he knew how it had been done, Fisher's arm was under his, cutting over his neck, and slowly but irresistibly his shoulders were turning toward the fatal touch. Every one was up, shouting:
"Turn him over!"
"Finish him up!"
"Hold out, freshman!"
"Hold out!"
"Flop over!"
"Don't give in!"
"Stick it out!"
With a sudden expenditure of strength, he checked the turning movement, desperately striving against the cruel hold.
"Good boy, Stover!"
"That's the stuff!"
"Show your grit!"
"Hold out!"
"Show your nerve!"
In a second he had reasoned it out. He was caught—he knew it. He could resist three minutes, five minutes, slowly sinking against his ebbing strength, frantically cheered for a spectacular resistance—and then what? If he had a chance, it was in preserving every ounce of his strength for the coming rounds.
"All right; you've got me this time," he said coldly, and, relaxing, let his shoulders drop.
Dana's hand fell stingingly on him, announcing the fall. He rose amid an angry chorus:
"What the deuce!"
"Say, I don't stand for that!"
"Thought he was game."
"Game nothing!"
"Lost his nerve."
"Sure he did."
"Well, I'll be damned."
"A quitter—a rank quitter!"
He walked to his seconds, angry at the misunderstanding.
"Here, I know what I'm doing," he said in short, quick breaths, forgetting that he, a freshman, was addressing the lords of creation. He was a captain again, his own captain, conducting his own battle. "I'll get him yet. Rub up this shoulder, quick."
"Keep off the ground," said one mentor.
"You bet I will."
"Why the deuce did you give in so easily?"
"Because there are two more rounds, and I'm going to use my head—hang it!"
"He's right, too," said the first senior, rubbing him fiercely with the towel. "Now, sport, don't monkey with him until you've jarred him up a couple of times!"
"That's what I'm going to do!"
"Time!" cried the voice of Dana.
This time he retreated slowly, drawing Fisher unwarily toward his edge of the ring, and then suddenly, as the sophomore lunged at him, shot forward again, in a tackle just below the waist, raised him clear off the ground, spun him around, and, putting all his force into his back as a wood-chopper swings an ax, brought him down crashing, clear across the ring. It was a fearful tackle, executed with every savage ounce of rage within him, the force of which momentarily stunned him. Fisher, groggy under the bruising impact, barely had time to turn on his stomach before Stover was upon him.
Dink immediately sprang up and back, waiting in the center of the ring. The sophomore, too dazed to reason clearly, yielding only to his anger at the sudden reversal, foolishly struggled to his feet and came staggering toward him. A second time Stover threw all his dynamic strength into another crashing tackle. This time Fisher went over on his back with a thump, and, though he turned instinctively, both shoulders had landed squarelyon the turf, and, despite his frantic protests, a roar went up as Dana allotted the fall to Stover.
This time, as he went to his corner, it was amid pandemonium:
"You're a corker, freshman!"
"Oh, you bulldog!"
"Tear him up!"
"You're the stuff!"
"Good head, freshman!"
"Good brain-work!"
Several upper classmen came hurriedly over to his corner, slapping him on the back, volunteering advice.
"Clear out," said his mentor proudly. "This rooster can take care of himself."
Fisher came up for the third round, visibly groggy and shaken by the force of the tackles he had received, but game. Twice Stover, watching his chance, dove under the groping hands and flung him savagely to the ground. Once Fisher caught him, as they lay on the ground, in a hold that might have been decisive earlier in the match. As it was, Stover felt with a swift horror the arm slipping under his arm, half gripping his neck. The wet heat of the antagonistic body over his inflamed all the brute in him. The strength was now his. He tore himself free, scrambled to his feet, and hurled Fisher a last time clean through into the scattering crowd, where he lay stunned, too weak to resist the viselike hands that forced his shoulders to the ground.
Dana hauled Stover to his feet, a little groggy.
"Some tackling, freshman! Bout's yours! Call out the heavyweights!"
Scarcely realizing that it was his captain who had spoken, Dink stood staring down at Fisher, white and conquered, struggling to his feet in the grip of friends.
"I say, Fisher," he said impulsively, "I hope I didn't shake you up too much. I saw red; I didn't know what I was doing."
"You did me all right," said the sophomore, giving his hand. "That tackle of yours would break a horse in two. Shake!"
"Thank you," said Stover, flustered and almost ashamed before the other's perfect sportsmanship. "Thank you very much, sir!"
He went to his corner, smothered under frantic slaps and embraces, hearing his name resounding again and again on the thunders of his classmates. The bout had been spectacular; every one was asking who he was.
"Stover, eh, of Lawrenceville!"
"Gee, what a fierce tackler!"
"Ridiculous for Fisher to be beaten!"
"Oh, is it? How'd you like to get a fall like that?"
"Played end."
"Captain at Lawrenceville."
"He ought to be a wonder."
"Say, did you see the face he got on him?"
"Enough to scare you to death."
"It got Fisher, all right."
While he was being rubbed down and having his clothes thrust upon him, shivering in every tense muscle, which, now the issue was decided, seemed to have broken from his control, suddenly a hand gripped his, and, looking up, he saw the face of Tompkins, ablaze with the fire of the professional spectator.
"I'm not shaking hands on your brutal old tackling," he said, with a look that belied his words. "It's the other thing—the losing the first fall. Good brain-work, boy; that's what'll count in football."
The grip of the veteran cut into his hand; inTompkins's face also was a reminiscent flash of the fighting face that somehow, in any test, wins half the battle.
The third bout went to the sophomores, Regan, the choice of the class, being nowhere to be found. But the victory was with the freshmen, who, knit suddenly together by the consciousness of a power to rise to emergencies, carried home the candidates in triumph.
McCarthy, with his arms around Stover as he had done in the old school days after a grueling football contest, bore Dink up to their rooms with joyful, bearlike hugs. Other hands were on him, wafting him up the stairs as though riding a gale.
"Here, let me down will you, you galoots!" he cried vainly from time to time.
Hilariously they carried him into the room and dumped him down. Other freshmen, following, came to him, shaking his hand, pounding him on the back.
"Good boy, Stover!"
"What's the use of wrestling, anyhow?"
"You're it!"
"We're all for you!"
"The old sophomores thought they had it cinched."
"Three cheers for Dink Stover!"
"One more!"
"And again!"
"Yippi!"
McCarthy, doubled up with laughter, stood in front of him, gazing hilariously, proudly down.
"You old Dink, you, what right had you to go out for it?"
"None at all."
"How the deuce did you have the nerve?"
"How?" For the first time the question impresseditself on him. He scratched his head and said simply, unconscious of the wide application of what he said: "Gee! guess I didn't stop to think how rotten I was."
He went to bed, gorgeously happy with the first throbbing, satisfying intoxication of success. The whole world must be concerned with him now. He was no longer unknown; he had emerged, freed himself from the thralling oblivion of the mass.
Stover fondly dreamed, that night, of his triumphal appearance on the field the following day, greeted by admiring glances and cordial handshakes, placed at once on the second eleven, watched with new interest by curious coaches, earning an approving word from the captain himself.
When he did come on the field, embarrassed and reluctantly conscious of his sudden leap to world-wide fame, no one took the slightest notice of him. Tompkins did not vouchsafe a word of greeting. To his amazement, Dana again passed him over and left him restless on the bench, chafing for the opportunity that did not come. The second and the third afternoon it was the same—the same indifference, the same forgetfulness. And then he suddenly realized the stern discipline of it all—unnecessary and stamping out individuality, it seemed to him at first, but subordinating everything to the one purpose, eliminating the individual factor, demanding absolute subordination to the whole, submerging everything into the machine—that was not a machine only, when once accomplished, but an immense idea of sacrifice and self-abnegation. Directly, clearly visualized, he perceived, for the first time, what he was to perceive in every side of his college career, that a standard had been fashioned to which, irresistibly, subtly, he would have to conform; only here, in the free domain of combat, the standard that imposed itself upon him was something bigger than his own.
Meanwhile the college in all its activities opened before him, absorbing him in its routine. The great mass of his comrades to be gradually emerged from the blurred mists of the first day. He began to perceive hundreds of faces, faces that fixed themselves in his memory, ranging themselves, dividing according to his first impression into sharply defined groups. Fellows sought him out, joined him when he crossed the campus, asked him to drop in.
In chapel he found himself between Bob Story, a quiet, self-contained, likable fellow, popular from the first from a certain genuine sweetness and charity in his character, son of Judge Story of New Haven, one of the most influential of the older graduates; and on the other side Swazey, a man of twenty-five or six, of a type that frankly amazed him—rough, uncouth, with thick head and neck, rather flat in the face, intrusive, yellowish eyes, under lip overshot, one ear maimed by a scar, badly dressed, badly combed, and badly shod. Belying this cloutish exterior was a quietness of manner and the dreamy vision of a passionate student. Where he came from Stover could not guess, nor by what strange chance of life he had been thrown there. In front of him was the great bulk of Regan, always bent over a book for the last precious moments, coming and going always with the same irresistible steadiness of purpose. He had not been at the wrestling the opening night, he had not been out for football, because his own affairs, his search for work, were to him more important; and, looking at him, Stover felt that he would never allow anything to divert him from his main purpose in college—first, to earn his way, and, second, to educate himself. Stover, with others, had urged him to report for practise, knowing, though not proclaiming it, that there lay the way tofriendships that, once gained, would make easy his problem.
"Not yet, Stover," said Regan, always with the same finality in his tone. "I've got to see my way clear; I've got to know if I can down that infernal Greek and Latin first. If I can, I'm coming out."
"Where do you room?" said Stover.
"Oh, out about a mile—a sort of rat-hole."
"I want to drop in on you."
"Come out sometime."
"Drop in on me."
"I'm going to."
"I say, Regan, why don't you see Le Baron?"
"What for?"
"Why, he might—might give you some good tips," said Stover, a little embarrassed.
"Exactly. Well, I prefer to help myself."
Stover broke out laughing.
"You're a fierce old growler!"
"I am."
"I wish you'd come around a little and let the fellows know you."
"That can wait."
"I say, Regan," said Stover suddenly, "would you mind doing the waiting over at our joint?"
"Why should I?"
"Why, I thought," said Stover, not saying what he had thought, "I thought perhaps you'd find it more convenient at Commons."
"Is that what you really thought?" said Regan, with a quizzical smile.
The man's perfect simplicity and unconsciousness impressed Stover more than all the fetish of enthronedupper classmen; he was always a little embarrassed before Regan.
"No," he said frankly, "but, Regan, I would like to have you with us, and I think you'd like it."
"We'll talk it over," said Regan deliberately. "I'll think it over myself. Good-by."
Stover put out his hand instinctively. Their hands held each other a moment, and their eyes met in open, direct friendship.
He stood a moment thoughtfully, after they had parted. What he had offered had been offered impulsively. He began to wonder if it would work out without embarrassment in the intimacy of the eating-joint.
The crowd that they had joined—as Gimbel had predicted—had taken a long dining-room cheerily lighted, holding one table, around which sixteen ravenous freshmen managed to squeeze in turbulent, impatient clamor.
Bob Story, Hunter and his crowd, Hungerford and several men from Groton and St. Mark's, Schley and his room-mate Troutman made up a coterie that already had in it the elements of the leadership of the class.
As he was deliberating, he perceived Joe Hungerford rolling along, with his free and easy slouch, immersed in the faded blue sweater into which he had lazily bolted to make chapel, a cap riding on the exuberant wealth of blond hair. He broached the subject at once:
"Say, Hungerford, you're the man I want."
"Fire away."
Stover detailed his invitation to Regan, concluding:
"Now, tell me frankly what you think."
"Have him with us, by all means," said Hungerford impulsively.
"Might it not be a little embarrassing? How do you think the other fellows would like it?"
"Why, there's only one way to take it," said Hungerford directly. "Our crowd's too damned select now to suit me. We need him a darn sight more than he needs us."
"I knew you'd feel that way."
"By George, that's why I came to Yale. If there are any little squirts in the crowd think differently, a swift kick where it'll do the most good will clear the atmosphere."
Stover looked at him with impulsive attraction. He was boyish, unspoiled, eager.
"Now, look here, Dink—you don't mind me calling you that, do you?" continued Hungerford, with a little hesitation.
"Go ahead."
"I want you to understand how I feel about things. I've got about everything in the world to make a conceited, pompous, useless little ass out of me, and about two hundred people who want to do it. I wish to blazes I was starting where Regan is—where my old dad did; I might do something worth while. Now, I don't want any hungry, boot-licking little pups around me whose bills I am to pay. I want to come in on your scale, and I'm mighty glad to get the chance. That's why my allowance isn't going to be one cent more than yours; and I want you to know it. Now, as for this fellow Regan—he sounds like a man. I tell you what I'll do. I'll fix it up in a shake of a lamb's tail."
"Question is whether Regan will come," said Stover doubtfully.
"By George, I'll make him. We'll go right out together and put it to him."
Which they did; and Regan, yielding to the open cordiality of Hungerford, accepted and promised to change at the end of his week.
In the second week, having satisfactorily arranged his affairs—by what slender margin no one ever knew—Regan reported for practise. He had played a little football in the Middle West and, though his knowledge was crude, he learned slowly, and what he learned he never lost. His great strength, and a certain quality which was moral as well as physical, very shortly won him the place of right guard, where with each week he strengthened his hold.
Regan's introduction at the eating-joint had been achieved without the embarrassment Stover had feared. He came and went with a certain natural dignity that was not assumed, but was inherent in the simplicity of his character. He entered occasionally into the conversation and always, when the others were finished and tarrying over the tobacco, brought his plate to a vacant place and ate his supper; but, that through, though often urged, went his purposeful way, with always that certain solitary quality about him that made approach difficult and had left him friendless.
On the fourth afternoon of practise, as Stover, restraining the raging impatience within him, resolved that at all costs he would not show the chafing, went to his place on the imprisoning bench, watching with famished eyes the contending lines, Dana, without warning, called from the open field:
"Stover! Stover! Out here!"
He jumped up, oblivious of everything but the sudden thumping of his heart and the curious stir in the ranks of the candidates.
"Here, leave your sweater," shouted Tompkins, who had repeated the summons.
"Oh, yes."
Clumsily entangled in the folds of his sweater, he struggled to emerge. Tompkins, amid a roar of laughter, caught the arms and freed him, grinning at the impetuousness with which Stover went scudding out.
On the way he passed the man he was replacing, returning rebelliously with a half antagonistic, half apprehensive glance at him.
"Take left end on the scrub," said Dana, who was not in the line of scrimmage. "Farley, give him the signals."
The scrub quarter hastily poured into his ears the simple code. He took up his position. The play was momentarily halted by one of the coaches, who was hauling the center men over the coals. Opposite Stover, Bangs, senior, was standing, legs spread, hands on his hips, looking at him with a look Stover never forgot. For three years he had plugged along his way, doggedly holding his place in the scrubs, patiently waiting for the one opportunity to come. Now, at last, after the years of servitude, standing on the coveted side of the line, suddenly here was a freshman with a big reputation come in the challenge that might destroy all the years of patience and send him back into the oblivion of the scrubs.
Stover understood the appealing fury of the look, even in all the pitilessness of his ambition. Something sharp went through him at the thought of the man for whose position, ruthlessly, fiercely, he was beginning to fight.
Five or six coaches, always under the direction ofCase, head coach, were moving restlessly about the field, watching for the first rudimentary faults. One or two gave him quick appraising looks. Stover, moving restlessly back and forth, his eyes on the ground, too conscious of the general curiosity, awaited the moment of action. The discussion around the center ended.
"Varsity take the ball," called out Dana; "get into it, every one!"
The two lines sprang quickly into position, the coaches, nervous and vociferous, jumping behind the unfortunate objects of their wrath, while the air was filled with shrieked advice and exhortation.
"On the jump, there, Biggs!"
"Charge low!"
"Oh, get down, get down!"
"Break up this play!"
"Wake up!"
"Smash into it!"
"Charge!"
"Now!"
"Block that man!"
"Throw him back!"
"Get behind!"
"Push him on!"
"Shove him on!"
"Get behind and shove!"
"Shove!"
"Shove! Oh, shove!"
Attack and defense were still crude. The play had gone surging around the opposite end, but in a halting way, the runner impeded by his own interference. Stover, sweeping around at full speed, was able to down the half from behind, just as the interference succeededin clearing the way. At once it was a chorus of angry shouts, each coach descending on the particular object of his wrath.
"Beautiful!"
"You're a wonder!"
"What are you doing,—growing to the ground?"
"What did I tell you?"
"Say, interference, is this a walking match?"
"Wonderful speed—almost got away from the opposite end."
"Say, Charley, a fast lot of backs we've got."
"Line 'em up!"
Two or three plays through the center, struggling and squirming in the old fashion of football, were succeeded by several tries at his side. Stover, besides three years' hard drilling, had a natural gift of diagnosis, which, with the savagery of his tackling, made him, even at this period, an unusual end, easily the best of the candidates on the field. He stood on guard, turning inside the attack, or running along with it and gradually forcing his man out of bounds. At other times he went through the loose interference and caught his man with a solid lunge that was not to be denied.
The varsity being forced at last to kick, Bangs came out opposite him for that running scrimmage to cover a punt that is the final test of an end.
Stover, dropping a little behind, confident in his measure of the man, caught him with his shoulder on the start, throwing him off balance for a precious moment, and then followed him down the field, worrying him like a sheep-dog pursuing a rebellious member of his flock, and caught him at the last with a quick lunge at the knees that sent him sprawling out of the play. Up on his feet in a minute, Stover went racing after his fullback, in time togive the impetus of his weight that sent him over his tackle, falling forward.
"How in blazes did that scrub end get back here?" shouted out Harden, a coach, a famous end himself. He came up the field with Bangs, grabbing him by the shoulder, gesticulating furiously, his fist flourishing, crying:
"Here, Dana, give us that play over again!"
A second time Bangs sought to elude Stover, goaded on by the taunts of Harden, who accompanied them. Quicker in speed and with a power of instinctive application of his strength, Stover hung to his man, putting him out of the play despite his frantic efforts.
Harden, furious, railed at him.
"What! You let a freshman put you out of the play? Where's your pride? In the name of Heaven do something! Why, they're laughing at you, Ben,—they're giving you the laugh!"
Bangs, senior society man, manager of the crew, took the driving and the leash without a protest, knowing though he did that the trouble was beyond him—that he was up against a better man.
Suddenly Harden turned on Stover, who, a little apart, was moving uneasily, feeling profoundly sorry for the tanning Bangs was receiving on his account.
"Look here, young fellow, you're not playing that right."
Stover was amazed.
"What's the first thing you've got to think about when you follow down your end?"
"Keep him out of the play," said Stover.
"Never!" Harden seized him by the jersey, attacking with his long expostulating forefinger, just as he had laid down the law to Bangs. "Never! That's grand-stand playing, my boy; good for you, rotten for the team.The one thing you've got to do first, last, and always, is to know where the ball is and what's happening to it. Understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now you didn't do that. You went down with your eyes on your man only, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"You never looked at your back to see if he fumbled, did you?"
"No, sir."
"And if he had, where'd you have been? If he holds it all right, knock over your end, but if he fumbles you've got to beat every one to it and recover it. You're one of eleven men, not a newspaper phenomenon—get that in your head. You didn't know I was trying you out as well as Bangs. Now let it sink into you. Do you get it?"
"Yes, sir, thank you," said Stover, furious at himself, for if there was one thing that was instinctive in him it was this cardinal quality of following the ball and being in every play.
It was a day of the hardest, trying alike to the nerves of coaches and men, when the teams were driven without a rest, when tempers were strained to the snapping point, in the effort to instil not so much the details of the game as the inflaming spirit of combat.
It was dusk before the coaches called a halt to the practise and sent them, steaming and panting, aching in every joint, back to the gymnasium for a rub-down.
Climbing wearily into the car to sink gratefully into a seat, Dink suddenly, to his confusion, found himself by the side of Bangs.
"Hello," said the senior, looking up with a grin, "I hope every muscle in your body's aching."
"It certainly is," said Stover, relieved.
Bangs looked at him a long moment, shook his head, and said:
"I wish I could drop a ton of brick on you."
"Why?"
"I've plugged away for years, slaved like a nigger at this criminal game, thought I was going to get my chance at last, and now you come along."
"Oh, I say," said Stover in real confusion.
"Oh, I'll make you fight for it," said the other, with a snap of his jaws. "But, boy, there's one thing I liked. When that old rhinoceros of a Harden was putting the hooks into me, you never eased up for a second."
"I knew you'd feel that way."
"If you'd done differently I'd slaughtered you," said Bangs. "Well, good luck to you!"
He smiled, but back of the smile Stover saw the cruel cut of disappointment.
And this feeling was stronger in him than any feeling of elation as he returned to his rooms, after the late supper. He had never known anything like the fierceness of that first practise. It was not play with the zest he loved, it was a struggle of ambitions with all the heartache that lay underneath. He had gone out to play, and suddenly found himself in a school for character, enchained to the discipline of the Cæsars, where the test lay in stoicism and the victory was built on the broken hopes of a comrade.
For the first time, a little appalled, he felt the weight of the seriousness, the deadly seriousness of the American spirit, which seizes on everything that is competition and transforms it, with the savage fanaticism of its race, for success.
After a week of grueling practise, the first game of the season came like a holiday. Stover was called out after the first few minutes, replacing Bangs, and remained until the close. He played well, aided by several fortunate opportunities, earning at the last a pat on the back from Dana which sent him home rejoicing. The showing of the team was disappointing, even for that early season. The material was plainly lacking in the line, and at full-back the kicking was lamentably weak. The coaches went off with serious faces; throughout the college assembled on the stands was a spreading premonition of disaster.
Saturday night was privileged, with the long, grateful Sunday morning sleep ahead.
"Dink, ahoy!" shouted McNab's cheerful voice over the banister, as he entered the house.
"Hello, there!"
"How's the boy wonder, the only man-eating Dink in captivity?"
"Tired as the deuce."
"Fine. First rate," said McNab, skipping down. "Forget the past, think only of the bright furniture. We've got a block of tickets for Poli's Daring-Dazzling-Delightful Vaudeville to-night. You're elected. We'll end up with a game at Reynolds'. Seen theEvening Register?"
"No."
"My boy, you are famous," said McNab, brandishinga paper. "I'm lovelier, but you get the space. Never mind, I'll be arrested soon—anything to get in the papers!"
While McNab's busy tongue ran on, Stover was gazing at the account of the game, where, among the secondary headlines, there stared out at him the caption:
STOVER, A FRESHMAN, PLAYSSENSATIONAL GAME.
The thing was too incredible. He stood stupidly looking at it.
"How do you feel?" said McNab, taking his pulse professionally.
There was no answer Stover could give to that first throbbing sensation at seeing his name—his own name—in print. It left him confused, almost a little frightened.
"Why, Dink, you're modest," said the irrepressible McNab; and, throwing open the door, he shouted at the top of his voice: "I say, fellows, come down and see Dink blush."
A magnificent scrimmage, popularly known as a "rough house," ensued, in which McNab was properly chastised, though not a whit subdued.
McCarthy arrived late, with the freshman eleven, back from a close contest with a school team. They took a hurried supper, and went down a dozen strong, in jovial marching order.
The sensations of the theater were still new to Stover, nor had his fortunate eye seen under the make-up or his imagination gone below the laughter. To parade down the aisle, straight as a barber's pole, chin carefully balanced on the sharp edge of his collar, on the night of hisfirst day as end on the Yale varsity, delightfully conscious of his own startling importance, feeling as if he over-topped every one in the most public fashion, to be absolutely blushingly conscious that every one in the theater must, too, be grasping a copy of that night'sEvening Register, that every glance had started at his arrival and was following in set admiration, was a memory he was never to forget. His shoulders thrown up a little, just a little in accentuation, as behooved an end with a reputation for tackling, he found his seat and, dropping down quickly to escape observation, buried himself in his program to appear modest before the burning concentration of attention which he was quite sure must now be focused on him.
"Dobbs and Benzigger, the fellows who smash the dishes—by George, that's great!" cried McNab, joyfully running over the program. "They're wonders—a perfect scream!"
"Any good dancing?" said Hungerford, and a dozen answers came:
"You bet there is!"
"Fanny Lamonte—a dream, Joe!"
"Daintiest thing you ever saw."
"Sweetest little ankles!"
"Who's this coming—the Six Templeton Sisters?"
"Don't know."
"Well, here they come."
"They've got to be pretty fine for me!"
Enthroned as lords of the drama, they pronounced their infallible judgments. Every joke was new, every vaudeville turn an occasion for a gale of applause. The appearance of the "Six Templetons" was the occasion of a violent discussion between the adherents of the blondesand the admirers of the brunettes, led by the impressionable McNab.
"I'm all for the peach in the middle!"
"Ah, rats! She's got piano legs. Look at the fighting brunette at this end."
"Why, she's got a squint."
"Squint nothing; she's winking at me."
"Yes, she is!"
"Watch me get her eye!"
Stover, of course, preserved an attitude of necessary dignity, gently tolerant of the rakish sentimentalities of the younger members of the flock. Moreover, he was supremely aware that the sparkling eyes under the black curls (were they real?) were not looking at McNab, but intensely directed at his own person—all of which, as she could not have read theRegister, was a tribute to his own personal and not public charms.
The lights, the stir of the audience, the boxes filled with the upper classmen, the gorgeous costumes, the sleepy pianist pounding out the accompaniments while accomplishing the marvelous feat of reading a newspaper, were all things to him of fascination. But his eye went not to the roguish professional glances, but lost itself somewhere above amid the ragged drops and borders. He was transported into the wonders of Dink-land, where one figure ran a hundred adventures, where a hundred cheers rose to volley forth one name, where a dozen games were passed in a second, triumphant, dazzling, filled with spectacular conflicts, blurred with frantic crowds of blue, ending always in surging black-hatted rushes that tossed him victoriously toward the stars!
"Let's cut out," said McNab's distinct voice. "There's nothing but xylophones and coons left."
"Come on over to Reynolds's."
"Start up the game."
Reluctantly, fallen to earth again, Stover rose and followed them out. In a moment they had passed through the fragrant casks and bottles that thronged the passage, saluting the statesmanly bulk of Hugh Reynolds, and found themselves in a back room, already floating in smoke. White, accusing lights of bracketed lamps picked out the gray features of a dozen men vociferously rolling forth a drinking chorus, while the magic arms of Buck Waters, his falcon's nose and little muzzle eyes, dominated the whole. A shout acclaimed them:
"Yea, fellows!"
"Shove in here!"
"Get into the game."
"Bartender, a little more of that brutalizing beer!"
"Cheese and pretzels!"
"Hello, Tough McCarthy!"
"Over here, Dopey McNab."
"Get into the orchestra."
"Good boy, Stover!"
"Congratulations!"
"Oh, Dink Stover, have we your eye?"
The last call, caught up by every voice, went swelling in volume, accompanied by a general uplifting of mugs and glasses. It was the traditional call to a health.
"I'd like to oblige," said Dink, a little embarrassed, "but I'm in training."
"That's all right—hand him a soft one."
For the first time he perceived that there was a perfect freedom in the choice of beverage. He bowed, drained his glass, and sat down.
"Oh, Dopey McNab, have we your eye?"
"You certainly have, boys, and I'm no one-eyed manat that," said McNab, jovially disappearing down a mug, while the room in chorus trolled out: