Fish stood gazing with stupid astonishment at the closed door for some seconds after the sound of Birdie’s footsteps had died away. He was alone, with no check whatever upon his Hunnish craving for mauling and smashing. Yet mauling and smashingin sewere not what delighted the heart of John Fish. He liked to stroll about a room when its occupants were at home, and goad them gradually into a destructive fray. He liked to do accidental damage under the eyes of the sufferers. In the corner near the door of Fowle’s bedroom had once stood a handsome and solid chair. By sitting in this chair whenever he came in, by tipping it back on its hind legs and wrenching it and twisting it with silent disregard of the protests of its owner, he had at last brought it to complete collapse—of course, unintentionally. In the embroidered scarf whichhung from the mantelpiece were two big scorch-rimmed holes; here he had accidentally held a lighted cigarette behind him as he stood in front of the fireplace. He had enjoyed himself in this room, but always in the presence of spectators. The pleasure of laying waste dwindled to nothing, if the victims were not on hand to expostulate and mourn. He really was at a loss what to do with his liberty.
While he was still ruminating, the door flew open and Sam Archer rushed in. The new-comer threw his coat into a corner, turned up his cuffs, and opened the door. Then he spoke, briefly and to the point, “Get out!”
Fish looked across the table into Archer’s face and recognized there an expression different from that worn by the challenger to an amicable rough-and-tumble. He had no mind for a serious set-to with the vanquisher of the redoubtable boxer Runyon, neither did he wish to retire tamely before a mere threat.
“Get out yourself!” he answered. “It isn’t your room.”
“No, it’s Fowle’s room, and he wants you outof it. You know well enough that rough-housing will fire him. I’m here in his place. Now, beat it!”
“I’ll go when I get ready,” growled Fish in return.
They began circling the table. As Fish passed the door, he slammed it to. When Sam reached it, he opened it again and shoved a heavy arm-chair against it. Then he removed the lamp to the mantelpiece, and made another half turn round the table. This movement brought Fish near the door again. He stooped over to swing aside the arm-chair which kept the door open, and at the same moment Sam vaulted the barrier.
As Fish beheld his assailant’s long legs swinging over the edge of the table in a hurdler’s leap, and the sinewy body bearing down upon him, it flashed into his brain, and from his brain with instantaneous impulse into nerves and muscles, that by dodging the frontal attack and delivering an immediate rear charge, he could put Archer himself out of the room and close the door upon him. His dodge, however, was not quite quick -----File: 249.png—- -----File: 250.png—-enough. The hurdler came down with long arms flying, and one of these flying arms, or the clenched fist attached to it, as it swung up, caught the ducking Fish under the eye. It was an unintentional blow, but it had force, and Fish went back against the door-post, for a moment dazed. When he got to his feet again, he found himself in the entry. The door was locked behind him; over the banisters he beheld the head of the descending Archer.
At the same moment Sam vaulted the barrier.—Page 228.
At the same moment Sam vaulted the barrier.—Page 228.
On the second floor at the foot of the stairs Mr. Alsop was standing, peering suspiciously upwards. “Another disturbance in Fowle’s room, I judge,” he said, frowning.
“I’ll explain, sir, if you’ll let me,” said Sam, breathing hard. “Won’t you come in here?”
He threw open his door and let the teacher pass in ahead of him.
“Now, what is it?” said Mr. Alsop, when they were inside.
“It’s this,” responded Sam. “Fowle has been trying his best to keep his probation and live up to the faculty’s orders. This morning a fellow came into his room to stir up a rough-house,and Fowle, knowing that he couldn’t keep out of it if he stayed at home, cut out and left the fellow there. He’s over in the library now.”
“Who is, Fowle or the fellow who came to rough-house?” asked Mr. Alsop, sarcastically.
“Fowle! He stopped on his way down and told me about it; I went up and—”
“And what?”
“Threw the fellow out,” continued Sam. “I had to, or he’d have smashed everything in the room.”
Mr. Alsop smiled with an air of incredulity. Sam drew himself up to his full six feet. The look of wounded self-respect that he flashed into the teacher’s face was unmistakably real.
“I suppose you don’t believe me,” he said proudly. “If you will go to the library, you’ll find Fowle there. He’ll let you into the room, and you’ll see my coat just as I dropped it.”
“I have not said that I don’t believe you. I do believe you,” interposed Mr. Alsop, hastily. “You probably would not care to tell me who this intruder was?”
“No, sir, I couldn’t,” returned Sam. “Idon’t believe he’ll come again,” he added, looking ruefully at his knuckles, still numb from the blow which had felled the audacious Fish. “I didn’t mean to say anything against anybody. I just wanted to have you know that Birdie—that Fowle—wasn’t in it at all.”
Mr. Alsop felt no disposition to discuss Fowle. Having frequently proclaimed the young man to be the pernicious influence in his domain, he did not like to acknowledge that he had erred. He therefore contented himself with repeating certain hackneyed sentiments as to the responsibility for order in the well and the offended spirit of the school,—and withdrew.
As far as his dormitory master was concerned, Fish certainly possessed a charmed life. When he appeared the next day with the darkly obvious marks of a bruise about his right eye, he had no difficulty in drawing upon Mr. Alsop’s sympathies by his explanation of the flying ring which had struck him in the face in the gymnasium. It did not occur to the instructor to put together the fact of the black eye and Sam’s account of the forcible expulsion of a trespasser.
This example of the unique way in which order was maintained in his well, Mr. Alsop repeated with satisfaction to several of his colleagues, among others to Dr. Leighton.
“And you have no suspicion as to who this rough-houser was?” asked Dr. Leighton.
“None whatever.”
“Have you noticed Fish’s black eye?”
“Yes; he got that in the gymnasium from a flying ring. Bad bruise, wasn’t it?”
“There seems to be a different version about that eye going round the school. They charge it up to some fracas with another boy.”
“They would anyway,” replied Mr. Alsop, sagely. “Boys always joke over a black eye. Fish told me all about it himself.”
The comment on Dr. Leighton’s lips remained unspoken. He had his own opinion as to Fish, formed from investigations which were not yet complete. He did not wish to hazard his plan by setting Alsop to pounding along the trail. If his suspicions were well founded, Fish would sooner or later betray himself.
Fish had grown incautious. Of late he hadtaken to keeping liquors in his room. He had found an excellent hiding-place, the pedal compartment at the bottom of Moorhead’s piano. It was closed by a lid which swung down on hinges set at the lower edge. Moorhead came in one day just in season to find Fish closing the door of this borrowed cupboard.
“What are you doing to my piano?” he demanded sharply.
“Nothing, just seeing how it works.”
Moorhead went straight to the piano, and opening the compartment, discovered Fish’s two bottles and a glass.
“Do you call that nothing?” he asked, reddening with anger.
“Yee-up, I do,” answered Fish, complacently. “The faculty might not.”
“I don’t want them there, do you hear?” announced Moorhead. “I don’t want to be mixed up with the things at all.”
“They won’t do any hurt. Nobody ever opens the place.”
“I don’t care!” retorted Moorhead. “I won’t have them there.”
“Oh yes, you will,” Fish answered complacently, and went about his own affairs as if the matter were settled.
A few hours later Fish discovered his precious bottles on the floor in the back of his closet. He restored them to their appointed place in the piano, and lay in wait for Moorhead.
“You dirty little scut!” he shouted, as the rebel appeared. “Didn’t I tell you to leave those bottles alone?”
“I said I wouldn’t have them in my piano,” faltered Moorhead.
“And I said you were to leave ’em alone. You might as well have handed ’em over to Lady Jane while you were about it. If you touch ’em again, you’ll find your pretty music box there scratched from top to bottom.”
And Moorhead, who knew what Fish was capable of, gave heed to the threat and held his tongue.
It was not long after this that slow-moving justice at last overtook Mr. John Fish. One morning when Moorhead was just starting for breakfast, he noticed that the lid of the pianocompartment was down. Feeling under no obligation either to replace the lid, or to remove the chair which screened it from the casual observer, he took his book from the top of the piano and went his way. At the clang of the first chapel bell, Fish crawled forth from bed and for the next seven minutes devoted his energies exclusively to the task of throwing on his clothes and getting into chapel before the second bell ceased to ring. He had no leisure to waste in idle contemplation of his study.
The chambermaid, making her rounds, observed the bottles and called the matron. The matron came, closed the lid, and reported to Mr. Alsop. Mr. Alsop, scandalized and incredulous, made an examination of the premises and demanded an explanation separately from each occupant of the room. Each disclaimed ownership of the bottles. Fish declared, in addition, that he did not even know that there was any such cupboard in the piano; Moorhead acknowledged that he knew that the bottles were there, but would give no information as to their owner. As the piano belonged to Moorhead, Mr. Alsopwas inclined to hold him either the criminal or an accomplice.
But this time the truth proved stronger than the lie. When the matter came before the faculty, every individual teacher to whom Moorhead recited conducted himself like an attorney engaged to defend him. After Dr. Leighton brought forward the report of his investigation into Fish’s manner of life, the august body voted that Fish be dismissed; and the yea vote was so overwhelming that Mr. Alsop did not venture to raise a dissenting voice. The evidence that came to light a few days after the disgraced student left town, evidence which showed that Mr. Alsop had been shamelessly imposed on since the beginning of the year, was a severe blow to that gentleman’s self-esteem.
With the departure of Fish, the east well of Hale ceased to be a scene of mysteriously fomented disturbance. Mr. Alsop, having been wofully betrayed through blind following of his own prejudices, resolved to be more cautious in forming opinions in the future, and less hasty in the performance of duty. He had yet to learn that a teacher may make a reputation in a week which he cannot live down in the whole subsequent school life of his pupils.
For Sam now began the busiest, most exciting period of the year. The college examinations were near enough to render devotion to lessons a matter of personal advantage; the outdoor school meet and the track contest with Hillbury challenged his zeal and ambition. Besides these serious interests, May and June offered their usual lavish opportunities for innocent but distractingamusement, ranging from tennis and scrub ball games and long walks, to the convention of wags, wits, and philosophers, which gathered every pleasant evening after dinner on the high steps of Carter, and intermittently sang songs and discussed men and things—mostly men—to the vast entertainment of the listeners. Here Brantwein, released for the time from the burden of the peanut basket, was a protagonist, with socialism as a general theme and every exposed head as a target for his verbal shillaleh. The crowd yelled applause for every crack he gave, and lavished double measure on every telling return.
Good practice in the high hurdles amounts to something more than daily exercise in starting, running, and jumping. The course is one hundred and twenty yards over ten hurdles, with fifteen yards clear before the first, and fifteen more after the last. Between each pair of hurdles lies a distance of ten yards; each barrier is three feet and six inches high. The runner must clear the barrier in such a way as to interrupt his advance as little as possible, by rising neither too highnor too low, by taking his jump neither too long nor too short, by landing in the right position, by adjusting his inter-hurdle strides to the distance and to his own powers. It has been known since the race was first practised that the average man must take three strides between hurdles; but the length of the jump, and the proper arrangement of short and long strides, are even now matters of dispute.
Collins’s theory, which of course Sam followed, was that the jump should be short rather than long. He insisted that to prolong the distance covered while in the air on the force of previous effort is to cut short the opportunity to use the legs; to overjump is to introduce into the race a series of dead periods when the runner is passively waiting for his feet to touch the ground before he can become active again. So the trainer labored with Sam to bring him over the hurdle to the ground at the earliest possible moment; to teach him the quick rotary whirl of the legs that neither drags nor interferes with the step, the forward leg doubled and slightly swung, the other brought quickly around after it in a wide arc; to forcehim to take the landing step short—in order to bring his feet under him—and to stretch the other two strides. Sam’s handicap was his slowness and a tendency to make his strides too long. His advantage lay in staying power; he could do twelve hurdles as well as ten. So the clever trainer worked him day after day on starts and over two or three hurdles, and once a week sent him over eleven.
“You don’t put me over the course enough, it seems to me,” complained Sam, one day. “I’m tired of that everlasting thirty-five yards.”
“If you can do two hurdles right, you can do ten,” answered Collins, calmly. “If you can’t do the first two, you can’t do any.”
“I should say that it’s speed between that I lack,” pursued Sam. “I get over the hurdles pretty well, but I lose momentum somewhere between jumps.”
“You take your first step too long, as I keep telling you. Four to five feet is all you ought to cover in that first stride after the hurdle. If you come down right and take the first step right, you can put speed into the other two and get justthe right take-off to drop you over the next hurdle. Speed will come in time.”
“I wish it would!” lamented Sam.
“It isn’t all in fast running,” said Collins, “nor half. Taking the hurdles is the main thing. There’s really only two running steps between, if you throw out the short step. And what a fast runner makes in those two steps, he’ll more than lose on the hurdles, if he doesn’t do ’em right. Three feet lost on a hurdle is thirty feet on the race, a good second and a fifth. No one wins a race by that much. The work that’s cut out for you is to get your jump so near perfect that you don’t lose anything in going over. Then just steady, hard running will put you ahead of the fellow who hasn’t your staying power.”
“We all seem to have about the same amount of that.”
Collins hesitated. His first impulse was to deny Sam’s statement; his second to let it go unchallenged. After all, there was nothing so important for Sam’s progress as that he should continue to think that everything depended on hard, steady work. Sam was one who couldstand work. While he was occasionally discouraged, he never became despondent; he did not grow irritable under defeat nor refractory at criticism. He disclaimed high expectations, smiled at discomfiture, and plodded on.
The school meet came and went, bringing little glory to the name of Archer. That Fairmount would beat him in the hurdles, Sam fully expected. The start was fairly even, but Fairmount was in the air above the first hurdle when Sam was leaving the ground on his first spring; at the fifth Fairmount was yards ahead. Yet at the tenth, strange to say, Sam had almost caught him. Archer finished less than two yards behind the leader, and fully six ahead of Sanderson, his nearest pursuer. Fairmount’s time was sixteen and four-fifths. So Sam, according to Collins’s estimate, had come close to seventeen seconds, a gain of at least a second by a year’s work. From this result, with which the trainer was fully satisfied, Sam was at least inclined to draw more consolation than discouragement. He had still another school year before him.
It was his defeat in the pole vault which causedhim the most chagrin. Jones, of course, rose like a bird soaring against the wind; his light, lithe body arched the rod gracefully at ten feet, six. Sam surmounted nine feet, six—but Mulcahy reached nine feet, ten. It was not jealousy that beset the defeated vaulter, nor wounded pride, nor the mean ill-will that grudges success to a rival. Sam’s heart had harbored only feelings of congratulation towards Fairmount, who had beaten him in the hurdles; his enthusiasm over Jones’s achievements was genuine and whole-souled. These two were sportsmen through and through, to whom the joy of the contest, the delight of winning, the promise of gaining points for the school in the meet with Hillbury, constituted the whole stimulus and reward. Mulcahy cared for none of these things. At heart it mattered not two straws to him whether the blue or the red triumphed, as long as his own advance was assured. To Mulcahy, athletics were but a ladder by which he could mount, the means necessary to a desired end. He wanted prominence in school, distinction, prizes. He wanted the Yale Cup as the crowning honor of his schoolcareer. To win this, he professed an enthusiasm for athletics, as the unscrupulous politician professes the principles that win votes.
Ten days later Sam took part in his first contest with Hillbury. In the interval he did some work in preparation for the event which is not set down in the coaching directions. When Collins received from the secretary of the Academy the list of those whose work was “up” and who were therefore allowed to compete, the names of Fairmount and Chouder were missing. There was a hurried consultation with the faculty, resulting in the announcement that if the backward work were made up to the satisfaction of teachers by the day before the games, the prohibition on the two men would be removed. Bruce called upon Mulcahy, who was known to have had experience in tutoring. Mulcahy could not possibly find time for extra work. Then Sam undertook the case of Fairmount, and Moorhead volunteered to coach Chouder. Both tutors labored early and late to bring their charges into a condition acceptable to the authorities. Moorhead had the more difficult task, for Chouder was behindin two subjects, and learning came harder to his slow, unreceptive mind than chopping wood or running races to his sinewy body. It was Moorhead’s first opportunity to do something tangible for the school athletics, and he gave the best that was in him, freely and patiently, hour after hour, oblivious to the fact that there could be no public recognition of his service, no personal glory in victory. Fairmount triumphed over his geometry with a C, while Chouder, to his infinite satisfaction and the relief of his anxious tutor, scraped through his examinations on a brace of D’s.
So it happened that Moorhead, as he perched high on the cheering section at the Hillbury games, felt that he had more part in the contests than those who sat about him, mere longing hearts and vociferous units in the chorus. When Chouder took the two-twenty yards from Merton of Hillbury, running from the start like a predestined victor, Moorhead thrilled with the consciousness that it was in part his race and his victory. In the low hurdles his candidate was not so successful, as the redoubtable Kilham of Hillbury led at thefinish, though Chouder pressed him hard. Fay and Shirley had to content themselves with second and third places in the hundred yards, but Bruce won the quarter in a grand burst of speed that cut the time down close to fifty seconds, and Weatherford made sure of the half-mile. Jones sailed deftly over the vaulting bar at ten feet, seven, with Mulcahy a safe third at nine feet, eight. And old Brandy Brantwein, feeling unusually free from the trammels of society by reason of the absence of the peanut basket, showed what socialism will do for a man by throwing the hammer four feet beyond the best cast of the Hillbury individualist, and putting himself into second place in the shot contest.
The general issue was already decided when the high hurdles were called. Seaton had won. Under the inspiration of victory, Sam felt that he, too, might achieve something worth while. His start was good, but at the second hurdle the two outside men, Kilham and Fairmount, were already ahead of him. At the fourth they were still farther ahead, but he pressed steadily on, clearing his hurdles by two inches, dropping shortand driving himself forward with the routine pace. At the seventh hurdle only Kilham kept his distance; Fairmount was nearer. The tenth he passed at Fairmount’s side, with Kilham but a stride beyond. In the finish, Fairmount sprinted better and gained a yard, but was still behind the leader by the thickness of his body.
“If you hadn’t coached up Fairmount so that he could pass his condition, you’d have been second in that race instead of third,” remarked Duncan, as they discussed the events of the day, after the celebration.
“And we should have lost one point,” answered Sam.
“One point wouldn’t have made any difference in the result. You deserved second, anyhow, by the way you’ve worked. Fairmount will be gone next year, and then you’ll have things your own way.”
“There’s Kilham,” said Sam, wistfully. “He’s only an upper middler. He’ll be in Hillbury next year and beat me out again; then he’ll go to Yale and I to Harvard, and he’ll beat me four years more. That’s what I’m up against!”
“Oh, cheer up!” returned Duncan. “You’ve improved a lot this year. You may beat him all to pieces next year. They said that your race to-day was in mighty good time, and you weren’t much behind Kilham.”
Sam shook his head with a smile of resignation. “I haven’t won a thing this year, and I probably shan’t do any better next, but I’m going to keep right on. I’m too much used to losing to mind, and there’s always a chance that by a fluke I may win something.”
“It’s a shame!” thought Duncan to himself. “I’d never coach a fellow up just so that he could take a prize from me, if the school never won an extra point.”
On the Monday following the Hillbury games, Duncan rushed in with a letter in his hand, and an eager look on his face.
“Look here, Sam! Bob Owen’s sent me two tickets to the Harvard-Yale Freshman ball game on Wednesday. Do you suppose they’d let us off to go?”
“Who’s us?”
“You and me.”
Sam’s eyes sparkled. “Wouldn’t it be great! Good seats?”
“Right behind the back-stop. Just think of seeing Owen bucking against McPherson and Hayes! O’Brien, who used to pitch for Hillbury, is going to be in the box for the Harvard Freshies, and several old Hillbury men are playing with Yale. It’s a queer jumble; Seaton catcher and Hillbury pitcher against a mixed mess,—half of them old Seaton and Hillbury fellows.”
“I shouldn’t think you’d care much who wins,” observed Sam. “You’ve got friends on both sides.”
“I do care,” answered Duncan. “I’m with the Harvard lot every time, and you are, too, only I’ve got more reason for my stand than you have. It’s Don’s class and Bob Owen’s class, and old Bob’s captain.”
“Well, I hope his nine will win. The Yale fellows beat ’em in football, didn’t they?”
“Yes, and Bob was on the eleven. He’s aching to get back at them. It’ll be a hot old game, all right. The only question is whether we can break away to see it. Who’s the most likely prof for you to tackle? You’ll have to get the permissions. I haven’t a pull with a single man in the faculty, worse luck!”
It was decided that Sam should try to win Dr. Leighton to the cause, and through the strong influence of the teacher float Duncan’s uncertain craft across the bar. Duncan suggested various subtle methods of appealing to Dr. Leighton’s favor, but Sam preferred a simple, straightforward course,—which was unquestionably the best one. He called on his patron saint of the faculty thatafternoon, explained to him with eager enthusiasm the special opportunity which had been offered, urged that neither had had out-of-town leave for a long time, and promised, if they were allowed to go, not only exemplary conduct while absent, but compensation in diligent work on their return. Dr. Leighton smiled a little mournfully at this conception of diligence in school work as a favor granted to a teacher, and promised to think the matter over and do what he conscientiously could. Sam departed, greatly encouraged.
Two circumstances counted in favor of the boys’ request: the fact that the invitation came from Robert Owen, for whom Dr. Leighton cherished a sincere regard, and his full confidence in Sam. He believed, moreover, that an honest petition for a legitimate purpose from an honest boy should receive at least as much consideration as some fictitious excuse of necessity trumped up to satisfy a formal rule. More than once, as he was sadly aware, had A’s candid request been refused by the authorities, when B, who followed with a lie on his lips, obtained a permission which was used for precisely the same purpose. Dr.Leighton’s commendation carried weight at the office.
They boarded the eleven o’clock train, jubilant in spirit as any schoolboy released for a lark, but self-contained as conscious Seatonians, who pride themselves on being above the “kiddishness” of minor schools. In Boston they snatched a hasty lunch and took a car for Cambridge. The car filled quickly. The Harvard track meet was to be held in the Stadium at the same time with the Freshman game on the ball field, and many outsiders were tending Cambridgeward. On Boylston Street a large, serious-faced young man climbed upon the running board of the car, and looking calmly over the crowded seats to spy out an unoccupied place, winked solemnly at a familiar face.
“Look, there’s old Brandy!” exclaimed Sam, nudging Duncan sharply in the ribs. “How did he get here?”
“How does he get anywhere?” retorted Duncan. “On his cheek, of course.”
Brantwein swung himself along to the seat occupied by Sam and Duncan. He was dressedin his best, and carried himself with a noticeable air of importance.
“Going out to the game?” he asked coolly.
“Yes, are you?”
“I’m going to something, I don’t know what. Either the track or to see the freshmen play.”
“How did you get off?” questioned Sam.
“I had business in Boston.”
“Buying peanuts?”
Brandy smiled. It was his regular armor-plated smile against which all personal jokes fell dead and harmless. “No, buying a peanut farm and a burying-ground for fools. I’ve got to lay out about a dozen up there at Seaton before I leave. You fellows are feeling lively to-day.”
“Yes, we’re going to see Owen beat Coy again.”
“Do you expect to see that?”
“We hope so.”
“I don’t know but I’ll go there, too,” said Brantwein, meditatively.
“You may not be able to get a seat now.”
“I don’t care about seats.”
The three approached the entrance to thegrounds together, but there in the crowd Brantwein disappeared. Our friends gave little heed to the movements of their eccentric schoolmate, being taken up with the pleasant excitement of the quest of places. Duncan hailed several fellows whom he knew, and pointed out several others whom he knew about. While they were waiting for the nines to appear, with Duncan still busy over his search for familiar faces, Sam’s eyes fell upon a well-known figure seated on one of the benches reserved within the side lines for coaches and old players.
“Look there, Duncan,” he cried, “on the first bench on the side line! Isn’t that Brandy?”
“As sure as guns!” returned Duncan. “How did he get there?”
“Search me!” returned Sam. “He has the most colossal nerve! He told me once that with a two-foot rule in his hand he could get into any building going up,—construction work, he called it,—even if a man stood at the door to keep people out. Perhaps Owen let him in.”
“Owen nothing!” retorted Duncan. “He’s worked one of his bluffs on the ticket-taker.One of these days his nerve’ll carry him inside a jail.” Duncan did not fancy Brantwein, even as an amusement.
But the players were appearing, and Brantwein and his arts were forgotten.
“That’s Owen, the solid fellow with the white sweater, and the mask on his arm,” cried Duncan; “and the tall fellow behind him is O’Brien, the Hillbury man. The one just going out to left field is Latter. He played on our nine last year.”
He paused to watch the men taking their positions for practice.
“There come the Yale fellows!” exclaimed Sam, whose gaze was wandering over the field. “Now, which is McPherson?”
Duncan hesitated for some time; the unfamiliar uniforms confused him. “I think that’s McPherson over by third base,” he said. The man at third took a short bound and shot it underhand to a companion. “Yes, that’s Mac. I should know that twist of the shoulder in California. Isn’t it a shame!”
“What?”
“Why, that he should be playing under Coyagainst Bob Owen. In the Hillbury game last year Coy came near assaulting Mac for tagging him too hard at second. Now they’re pals.”
“I don’t see anything strange in that,” rejoined Sam. “He’s playing for his college as Owen’s playing for ours.”
So they chattered on, till the Harvard men took the field for the game and a businesslike pair of blue-stockinged legs appeared beneath a bat at the plate. Then they watched with straining eyes, their talk running to brief exclamations, sighs for the discouraging gains of the visitors, vain cries of exultation when the Harvard men made promising plays.
Three innings passed without a run on either side. Then Coy, the first man up in the fourth, hit a bounder which the Harvard third baseman found too hot to handle, and Coy beat the ball to first base. The next man waited while O’Brien tried to tempt the runner to steal, and thus got his base on balls. His successor hit to third again, and while Manning hesitated and tried to touch Coy, likewise made first. Number four went out on a long fly to right field, but the speedy Coygot safely across the plate on the return throw, with score number one. McPherson now made a lucky single over shortstop’s head, which brought in a second run. Then O’Brien caught the Yale man playing off too far from second, and the next batsman struck out.
“That’s Owen.”—Page 255.
“That’s Owen.”—Page 255.
“Bad!” said Duncan, sadly. His unhappiness was not relieved when the three Harvard men went out on a fly and two easy infield hits.
“They’re finding the ball, anyway,” remarked Sam, trying to be courageous; “the game’s young yet.”
“It’s nearly half grown,” rejoined Duncan, gloomily; “and you can see what kind of a beast it’s going to be. Two runs is an awful handicap.”
He was depressed still further in the fifth inning, when the first ball pitched yielded a hit that put a Yale man again on first. The Yale coachers took a risk and bade their man steal second. It was a poor risk, for Owen shot one of his perfect throws down ahead of the runner, and Williams, the Harvard shortstop, thumped him with the ball as he slid gallantly into his fate.
“What a daisy throw!” cried Sam, ecstatically.
“He can do those by the dozen,” remarked Duncan, airily. “He has a special wire to second base.”
Manning now captured a foul off third, and Latter took a long fly in left field. A Harvard man got as far as second base and was left there. The sixth inning profited neither side.
The seventh began with another shock to our friends’ nerves. Bryant made a two-bagger. His two successors, however, went out on hits to O’Brien, and presently Bryant himself, working too far from his base, was cut off by a sudden throw to second, and run down ignominiously between second and third.
“Now, Mr. Owen, do something!” muttered Duncan, as the Harvard catcher came to the plate. Owen responded to the unheard appeal by a hot bounder over second which the Yale centre fielder allowed to bounce past him, thus helping the runner to second. Williams drove a troublesome ball into McPherson’s hands, and while the old Seaton second baseman was struggling to get hold of it, Owen reached third and Williams crossed first. The Harvard freshies now trieda squeeze play, and Manning not only met the ball, but made a pretty little hit over Bryant’s head, that would have brought Owen in, if he had not already crossed the plate. A sacrifice now advanced Williams and Manning to third and second. Then Gooding, the Yale pitcher, got three balls on his first three pitches to Silverton, and the Harvard man, waiting for his good one, drove a long single out between right and centre fields that let in Williams and Manning with scores two and three. Two easy outs followed.
“Three to two!” cried Sam, joyfully. “Two more innings!”
“It’s too close for comfort yet,” said Duncan, nervously. “I’d give a month’s allowance to see the game end now. That’s Coy up, isn’t it?”
But Coy swung three times in vain at his old pitcher’s curves. One of his successors reached first, but two others went out and left him there. The Harvard men fared no better.
“Three more outs. It ought to be dead easy,” muttered Sam, as the ninth began. The first Yale man at the bat drove a ball into left fieldthat looked good for two bases. But Latter got in front of it and sent it in to second in season to scare the runner back to first. A big bony chap followed at the plate.
“That’s Kleindienst. He used to play with Hillbury. He can hit. They’re going to do us right here. I feel it in my bones.” Duncan jerked out his words in curt explosives. “There! he’s done it!” he groaned, as the batsman drove the ball in a long sweep over third base.
“No, it struck outside the foul line!” cried Sam, eagerly, as the applause on the Yale side died suddenly away. “See! he’s gone back to the plate!”
“And got a strike for it, too,” said the reviving Duncan. “That’s where the foul strike rule hits ’em.”
While he spoke O’Brien sent in another pitch. Kleindienst hit another foul. This time the ball careened over towards the stands opposite first base. Owen tipped off his mask and ran headlong in pursuit. He took the descending ball with hands outstretched; and while the howl of applause was yet at its beginning, he turned sharplyand threw to first base. The Yale man scrambled wildly back, but the ball was there before him. Williams fielded the next man out at first.
“Come on! Let’s find him!” sang out Duncan, and dashed down the aisle before the rising crowd got under way. Sam followed. They rushed out into the field and made for the close circle gathering rapidly round the catcher.
“I’ll wait for you,” said Sam. “He won’t care anything about me.”
“Won’t he!” cried Duncan. “Come and see!” And dragging Sam along behind him, he screwed his way into the cluster at the centre of which Owen was fighting off the vehement attentions of admirers. At the sight of Duncan he broke through the circle and pulled the boy in.
“Duncan Peck! I was wondering whether you were here. Didn’t we have luck! Glad to see you, Archer. How are things at Seaton?”
But before the question could be answered, the questioner was rushed in another direction, and Sam and Duncan found themselves whirled to the outside of the circle.
Sam looked at his watch. “There’s just forty-fiveminutes before the train leaves. We’ve got to hustle to catch it! We promised to take it, you know.”
“I suppose we did,” sighed Duncan. “I hate to leave now. I haven’t seen Don at all. Go ahead!”
It was well for our young men that they could share Owen’s victory, for Patterson, their school captain, gave them none of their own to enjoy. A pitcher cannot win a game alone; and Patterson’s cleverness availed only to keep the Hillbury score down; his followers balked his efforts with errors, and only O’Toole hit the Hillbury pitcher with any readiness.
After the Hillbury game, Sam focused his interest on the college examinations. Mr. Alsop had at the last moment, with much misgiving, granted him a provisional recommendation in French; and Sam, eager no less to vindicate himself than to get rid of the troublesome subject, hammered away at it during the last few weeks with a determination worthy of a great cause. He was sure of his history and mathematics, and reasonably confident in Greek and Latin; butEnglish, the crank-ridden, and French, the elusively easy, mocked him with promise of failure.
Duncan likewise yielded himself to the spirit of industry which was turning 7 Hale into the workshop of scholastic cyclops. The latch was kept down perpetually during these days of preparation. Only Duncan’s tutor, the useful Moorhead, and occasionally the irresistible Bruce found entrance. Duncan was at last serious; actually confronted by the alternative of passing certain examinations and going to Harvard, or failing and going to work, he understood that the time for trifling was past. It is safe to say that Sam Archer’s example and encouragement, and Moorhead’s patient readiness to explain and help, were of more use to Duncan in his weary battle than class instruction or tutor’s drill.
Duncan did pass his examinations,—he fell sprawling, but across the line,—and Archer got every point he had worked for. He missed an honor which he had hoped to get, but he triumphed in Mr. Alsop’s subject with a C, which, boy-like, he regarded as a decision awarded him against the teacher’s doubts, not as a proof of good instruction.There followed for Sam an untroubled summer of loafing and tennis, rowing and sailing; of reckless squandering of time on pure play; of reading books that were not required and dreaming dreams of triumphs that would never come to pass. He took back with him to school greater physical vigor and clearer comprehension of his own personal problem.
Sam settled with Moorhead very comfortably in his old room, and entered upon the tasks of his senior year with the quiet purpose of making it count. To accomplish this, he understood vaguely but sufficiently that he must keep himself, physically and morally, under good control, must work steadily rather than frantically, and pursue a sane ambition. This sane ambition, so far as athletics were concerned, lay along the hurdle path. Unless some phenomenon unexpectedly appeared, he could reasonably count on becoming the school champion in the high hurdles. To be school champion, however, was but a half-success. The Seatonian grudges honor to a man who leads merely because there happens to be no one better. The Seaton champion must prevail over thechampions of other schools, if he is to have the credit of achievement.
Sam knew this quite as well as any one else; he appreciated its personal bearing as no one else could. In the background of every picture called up by a hopeful imagination, hovered the figure of Kilham of Hillbury. Wherever Sam foresaw a chance of distinction, there was Kilham to contest it with him. At the winter competition in Boston, at the interscholastic games, in the Hillbury-Seaton dual meet, he must struggle against this quick-starting, strong-running rival, who was at least half a second better on the high-hurdle course. Should he ever be able to beat that fellow? Sam considered his own vain endeavors to put speed into his long legs, and confessed frankly that the odds were heavy against him. But none the less, being of the smilingly persistent kind, he went on with his practice undaunted, as if he had battles to win instead of to lose. He also gave close attention to his school work. Birdie Fowle informed him one day that he was no good any more; Moorhead had made a grind out of him. Sam’s laughing comment was that hewanted to get into college decently if possible, with a point or two to the good. This was true, but it was not the fundamental reason for his devotion to his studies.
During the summer Archer had run across a Hillburyite named Denton, at the seashore. When he inquired of this Hillburyite what kind of a fellow Kilham was, Denton declared him the very finest sort of a fellow. Later Sam chanced to ask how Kilham did in his studies, and Denton returned a report distinctly favorable; he was not the very best, of course, but much better than the average. Sam considered these facts a full week. At the end of that time he had made up his mind that if he had to run second to Kilham in the hurdles, he wouldn’t fall behind in the classroom, too. This secretly nourished ambition to maintain a rank that he need not be ashamed to have compared with that of his Hillbury rival, increased rather than diminished as the year slipped away. Certain teachers who grew from month to month more complacent over their stimulating influence on Archer, would have been much surprised to learn that the steady up trend of his rank line wasdue to an unacknowledged, unreal competition with a student in another school.
Sam’s fall hurdle practice was interrupted by the summons to class football. Before the season was far advanced, the captain of the senior team was promoted to the first eleven squad, and Sam was chosen captain in his place. With the care of his eleven and the class games and the duty of punting to practise the school backs, Sam found small opportunity to play with his pair of hurdles.
The season was a fortunate one for the school eleven, and still more fortunate for Mulcahy, who stepped in mid-season into the shoes of a big tackle who had ignominiously succumbed to the measles; and he kept his place through half the Hillbury game. He was thus a member of a victorious school eleven, in a position to reap the glory of the successful efforts of others. As a matter of fact, the game was won by Kendrick, or by Kendrick and Illerton, the new end, together, after the line had been ignobly crowded to and fro, up and down the field, for three quarters of the playing time. But a victory is a victory,and Mulcahy retained his good share of the prestige which the members of a winning team enjoy.
He made immediate use of this prestige to attain a long-cherished ambition. In the fall of the previous year, and again in the spring, he had been balked in his efforts to become president of the Laurel Leaf, largely through the influence of Duncan Peck and his following. Duncan Peck was now gone and many new fellows had come. This time Mulcahy adopted less open methods of soliciting. Swan was his manager, a natural politician who loved the excitement of a campaign. Swan cared nothing about Mulcahy, but was down on Archer, who had scorned an invitation to join the Mu Nu, Swan’s fraternity, which ranked as the “yaller dog” of school societies. Sam and Moorhead tried to persuade Kendrick to run for the Leaf, and failed. Then they fell back on Blankenberg, a substitute on the eleven, who possessed solid qualities and would have filled the office with dignity. Then it was that Swan whisked into the field to the support of the candidate whom Archer opposed.
The contest was uneven. On the one side Mulcahy, football player, editor of the “Seatonian,” ready-tongued, of imposing personality, offering a fine show, both of talent and of school spirit; on the other Blankenberg, plain, honest, conscientious, modest. Mulcahy triumphed with votes to throw away. He came over to Blankenberg after the affair was over with a very pretty display of personal sympathy.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get it, really I am,” he said. “I shouldn’t take it if so many hadn’t voted for me.”
“I’m glad you won, if the majority want you,” returned Blankenberg, honestly.
“I think your manager lost you votes,” Mulcahy went on, pretending to joke, but avoiding Sam’s eye. “I wouldn’t trust him again.”
Blankenberg and Sam walked out together. “Isn’t he the limit,” exploded Sam, when they were alone, “for pulling the wool over people’s eyes! He’s got everybody on the string from the faculty to Dunbar Hall, and he hasn’t a principle to his name. The school’s training that fellow for a political boss.”
“He didn’t need to be unprincipled to win to-night,” remarked Blankenberg. “It was too easy. I rather think he’ll find some way of getting ’most anything he wants.”
Sam struggled with an impulse to quote Mulcahy’s statement that his supreme ambition was to win the Yale Cup; but the feeling that Mulcahy had spoken in confidence prevented his mention of it. It seemed quite reasonable now that this ambition should be attained.
“There’s one thing he can’t get,” he said with pardonable bitterness, “class day offices. The class knows him too well.”
But therein Sam was mistaken. The Omega Omicron clashed with the Alpha Beta Gamma over the election of President of the Day, neither being willing to give in to the other. As a result, the unfraternified, moulded into a temporarily coherent force through the influence of the vengeful Swan and the despised Mu Nu, united on Mulcahy and swept him into office.
“There seems to be nothing that that fellow can’t rake in if he tries,” Sam grumbled to himself, as he swung moodily homeward from theclass election. “Of course you’d expect the faculty to be fooled, but here’s half the class voting for him when nine out of every ten know he’s a rotten fakir. Think of our bringing all our relatives to class day, and that fellow sitting up on the platform as the representative man of the graduating class of Seaton Academy! The Yale Cup?—Mulcahy, of course! Anything he wants. He’s our color-bearer, sure enough! Rah, rah, rah, Mulcahy!”
The hurrying weeks brought Sam once more face to face with his rival of Hillbury. Again one of thirty-odd numbers, he mingled with the confused throng of candidates near the starting line of the forty-yard hurdles in Mechanics’ Hall.
“Who’s that fellow with the blue stripes across his shirt?” asked a boy at his elbow, who wore the colors of a Boston school.
Sam gave his benighted neighbor a sharp glance of surprise. “That’s Kilham of Hillbury!”
“Any good?”
“Good enough to beat me!” returned Sam.
“I guess it lies between Sage of Worcester and Doane of Noble’s,” said the lad.
Sam smiled grimly. He knew that it lay between Kilham of Hillbury and—somebody else.
The first heat was run: Kilham led at the tape; Sage of Worcester fell out. In the second heat Number Eighteen was at the fore,—the programme showed Number Eighteen to be Archer of Seaton. The third went to Doane of Noble’s; the fourth to Jessop of Boston Latin; the fifth—but why detail the process of sifting? The final heat was called. In it stood Kilham, Archer, Doane, Whelan of the Boston High, and a nameless white shirt from a small school, who by luck and good natural ability had squeezed through the early heats.
Kilham gave Sam a nod of recognition. “We’ve been up against each other before.”
Sam smiled assent. “Twice.”
“And shall be again, probably. Don’t let those small school fellows beat us, anyway. If I can’t win, I hope you will.”
“The same to you,” answered Sam; but his voice was lost in the starter’s call.
On the “set” Doane tried to beat the starter, and was put back a foot. All hung well on the next trial, and the pistol shot sent them away. Doane flashed into the front rank at the outset,but he was clumsy on the second hurdle and lost his advantage. Kilham and Archer rose from the start together. Kilham reached the first hurdle a foot ahead, but Archer gained on the hurdle jump. It was the same on the second. At the third hurdle, four runners seemed to sweep the air abreast, but Doane and Whelan lost a fraction of a second in clearing, and fell a foot behind Kilham and Archer. On the final stretch the Hillbury man drove himself to the front. Sam strained at his sluggish muscles with every power of nerve and brain, but Kilham was the faster. Sam’s frantic efforts, though insufficient to carry him past Kilham, at least enabled him to hold a place ahead of his pursuers. He crossed the line second, adjudged to have the better of Whelan by a few inches.
“What do you honestly think, Collins?” demanded Sam, as the two talked over the day’s happenings on the train that evening. “Shall I ever be able to beat that fellow, or is he going to do me right along for the next four years?”
“I don’t know,” returned Collins, frankly. “Kilham’s a mighty good hurdler for a schoolboy,but he isn’t the best there ever was. I’ve seen him weaken a good bit on the last thirty yards of the one-twenty. You’re about even on starting, and he’s faster, but you’ve got the staying power. It’ll depend on how you learn to take the hurdles. You wouldn’t have the ghost of a show on the low ones, but on the high—well, I’ve seen a lot of good men beaten on the last twenty yards of the high hurdles.”
Such was the dubious form which Collins’s encouragement took. Collins believed thoroughly in the efficacy of work; he was also convinced that Archer was slowly “coming,” but he was not one to raise false hopes.
“Then you really think I can improve on the hurdle work?” pursued Sam.
“Of course. You jump too high, and that first stride when you come down is too long. You bring your outer foot around well, but it goes out too far. You ought to better that a good bit in the spring practice.”
Whatever Collins may have expected from the spring training, he had no reason to complain of Sam’s diligence. The average boy will workwith great zeal for the first and last weeks of his preparation for an important contest. He usually starts with enthusiasm, allows his ardor to ebb under the tiresome monotony of the daily drudgery, and warms to his work again as the crisis approaches. And not infrequently does it happen that the loss by this middle period of neglect proves so serious that the candidate drops out discouraged before the test arrives. It was one of Collins’s strong points as a trainer that he tried to carry his charges all the way. He did not trust all reports or accept every excuse. He strove to know what his boys were doing, how they were spending their time, what they ate and drank, where they went. He made no apologies for searching closely into the lives which the boys were leading. Unless they lived properly, played honorably, worked faithfully, he would have none of them.
If Collins had possessed a magic wand by the touch of which slow muscles could be endowed with marvellous speed, he certainly would have given Archer the benefit of the first application of it. Sam took the privations of training, aswell as the regular drill, as parts of his normal day. While he longed to win, and still dreamed of the happy moment when he should show his back to Kilham on the hurdle path, he could laugh good-naturedly at his ambitions, and speak frankly of the likelihood of failure. He did not worry and did not lose courage. He played tennis, enjoyed his friends, did his school work as well as he could, got good hours of rest, shunned the things that weaken,—and grew hard of muscle and sound of wind, living his life with happiness and zest.
Toward the end of May he was sent with a batch of Seatonians to take part in the inter-scholastics in Cambridge. In the final of the one-twenty hurdles, he fell in once more with Kilham and Doane of Noble’s.
“Hello, Archer!” called Kilham, cheerily. “We meet again. It’s your turn to-day.”
“I wish it was,” said Sam.
But luck turned against him. The starter held them a long time on the set, and Sam fell over before the trigger was pulled. He was put back a yard. On the next attempt he erredthrough overcaution, and lost another yard on the start. Always slow in getting into his stride, he saw his two rivals dash well ahead of him for the first two hurdles. As Sam was topping the third, Kilham and Doane were close to the fourth. Hopeless though the race seemed, he pressed on, taking his jumps in his best form, driving himself in the inter-hurdles paces, as if each were the finish of the race. And lo! he gained! With every hurdle he drew up on the leading pair. At the eighth he was at Doane’s heels. The tenth he crossed abreast of the second man and beat him out through greater strength in the final dash for the line,—but Kilham as usual was first, this time by only two feet.
For a time Sam was disheartened. When he compared the two feet advantage which Kilham had over him at the finish with the two yards lost at the start, and realized that he had plenty of reserve force on the last stretch while Kilham was running weak, he felt that fate was indeed against him. But Collins soon got hold of him and altered the hue of his thoughts. He had never before been put back in a race; it wouldn’thappen again; he had run a yard farther than the victor and finished but two feet behind him. He would have another chance at the Hillbury meet; let him but keep up his courage and work hard, and he would win out yet!
Yes, keep up your courage and work! That had been Collins’s song these two years. But what availed courage and work against fate and a better man?
“He’ll probably beat me,” thought Sam, as the day of the Hillbury meet approached; “he’ll probably beat me, for he always has beaten me, but I’ll run him harder than I’ve ever done before!”
On the day before the meet, Sam dropped in at the Sedgwicks’ to offer two tickets to the games, which his father had written that he could not use. Margaret clapped her hands with delight at the prospect. “We must go, mother, and see Sam win. It’s our last chance. Do go!”
“It’s my last chance, all right,” said Sam, “but don’t go expecting me to win. I always lose.”
“You’ll have to win, if we go. And we are going, aren’t we, mother?”
“We’ll see,” answered the cautious mother. “Sam had better stay to dinner and talk it over with your father.”
“Invite me next week, and I’ll come with joy,” answered Sam, ruefully. “You have too many good things to eat for a fellow in training.”
Mrs. Sedgwick and Margaret were on the Seaton special that carried the school to Hillbury. Sam sat in the seat opposite them, and for the time enjoyed complete relief from anxious thoughts of the contest. They parted at the station, when Sam went forward to join the other members of the team in the barge that was awaiting them.
“You must show me your gold medal when we go back,” said the girl, gayly, as she bade him good luck. “You know we’ve come on purpose to help you win it.” Sam lifted his cap and ran smilingly away to quiet the barge-load of impatients who were clamoring for Archer to quit his “fussing” and get aboard. Miss Margaret’s blind confidence had driven Sam’s fatalism to cover. Could it be his day after all?
It was clear, two events before the high hurdles came, that Hillbury was to win the day. In four races Seaton had been beaten by feet and inches in desperate finishes. It may have been luck that the leaders in these four contests were Hillbury men; luck certainly had nothing to do with the fact that in each of the four the third prize went to a wearer of the blue. Kilham had taken the two-twenty hurdles; Hillbury with Kilham in the lead had swept every place in the broad jump. Mulcahy could crawl no higher than third in the pole vault. Collins took the issue philosophically, as a man might well do who had toiled early and late to work second-class material into a first-class product, and who, incidentally, had accomplished more than any three members of the faculty toward establishing throughout the school a standard of right living and honest striving.
But stoically as Collins took the issues of fate, his real feelings broke through the mask of calmness when the one-twenty hurdles were called, and Sam and Pearson, wearing Seaton colors, took the places assigned them and dug their starting holes. Defeat may have its consolations; and to Collins no consolation could be quite so satisfactory as a victory for his long-legged pupil, who had done his work month in and month out like a man of years and responsibilities, and had come up smiling after every knockdown, with determination unquenched. Miss Margaret, on the Seaton benches near the finish line, strained her eyes to see the starting, oblivious to the fact that her pulse was beating ten counts faster than it had any right to. Sam himself, having something definite to do, and something definite to think of, was less agitated than Miss Margaret, or even Collins. The something definite to think of was the uncommon solidity of the Hillbury hurdles. If he struck one, it would throw him—or at least so he feared. He must be sure to clear, even at the waste of a few inches; and unnecessary inches in the risemeant, he knew full well, a fraction of a second in total loss. On the full extent of this handicap he did not dwell. It was enough that he must keep well above the hurdles.
The start was even—at least for Kilham and Archer. They sprang for the first hurdle in step together, like well-matched horses. Sam’s leap was needlessly high; Kilham gained thereby a small advantage, which he increased to a yard as the third hurdle was passed. Then Sam, becoming less fearful of the rise, brought his jump down nearer the top of the hurdle and began to regain lost ground. On the fifth they were together again. After that Sam forged ahead, clearing every obstacle just in front of his rival. As he struck the ground after the tenth he realized that his hopes depended on his holding his advantage against a faster sprinter for a distance of less than fifteen yards. He had been running at full tension throughout the race; he could do no better now.
As the runners swept past the seats where sat Mrs. Sedgwick and Margaret, the girl uttered a trembling scream of joy which was drowned in the disorderly cries of the Seaton followers. Archerwas ahead! The blue hurled shouts of encouragement at their struggling champion, who tore along after his rival. Seaton yelled congratulations and encouragement, and Hillbury encouragement and congratulations, for Kilham did close up on Archer. The Seatonians thought they had it, and then feared that they had lost it; while the Hillburyites feared loss, and later exulted in the thought that they had won. It all happened in the shortest possible time, and at first nobody knew the result, not even the judges. Collins, who stood on a line with the finish, said it was very close, but it looked like Archer; Bruce declared that it was Archer by six inches; the Hillburyites capered about, shouting that Kilham had it by a foot. One judge said Archer; the second Kilham; the other wasn’t sure. Kilham ran off to his rub-down straightway; Sam lingered, panting on Collins’s shoulder, to hear the decision. Of course it was not for him to judge the race, but he had felt the worsted thread tighten against his breast, and he knew that a beaten man never brushes the finish cord.
The judges conferred and reported to theannouncer, who bellowed forth the news: a tie! Whereat all hands applauded, except the special friends of either contestant, who agreed in considering it “a steal,” but disagreed as to the party whose rights had been stolen. Sam’s first emotion was one of grievous disappointment. Kilham had beaten him often—but this time! After all, it might have been worse. The judges might have given the first place to Kilham, and adjudged him second. Judges are but mortal. The thought of the fate escaped comforted him in a measure for the disappointment. At any rate, he was not a loser. He had won the race as much as Kilham had.
An official appeared with the medals in his hand, pretty shining things, one gold, the other silver, bedded on heavy ribbons marked with the colors of the two schools.
“You’ll have to toss for these,” he said in a businesslike way. “Where’s the other fellow?”
The other fellow had disappeared. Richmond Noyes, the Hillbury baseball captain, pushed forward. “Kilham’s gone to get his rub-down,” he said. “I’ll toss for him.”
The official hesitated a moment as if uncertain as to the propriety of the substitution, but a colleague reassured him. “All right! You call, Archer!” he said, and his practised hand sent a coin spinning in the air.
“Tails!” cried Sam, who had drawn an induction from several experiences that tails were luckier for him than heads.
The official stooped and picked up the coin. “Heads it is!” he announced cheerfully.
Noyes clutched the gold medal and scurried away in quest of Kilham. Sam took his portion of the spoil, and dodging alike compliments and condolences, went his leisurely way toward the Seaton quarters. Could anything be more symbolic than that toss! When after two years of uphill work he was at last wholly ready to meet Kilham in a square, even race, those heavy, clumsy hurdles had to turn up and lose him three or four feet; of course! Kilham, actually beaten by some inches, was considered by the wall-eyed judges to have led; of course! With equal chance to draw the gold medal, he must needs get the silver; of course! Did ever any one have such luck!
“Archer! Oh, Archer! Hold on!”
Sam turned in the direction of the unfamiliar voice and beheld trotting toward him a bareheaded youth, whose chief article of attire was a bath robe. Behind the bath robe strode Noyes, his blue-ribboned hat tilted back on his head, wearing upon his face an expression of desperate disgust.
“Look here, Archer,” began Kilham, eagerly, while still a dozen feet away, “I don’t want this thing. It belongs to you.”
The “thing” in question was the gold medal, which Noyes had carried off in a burst of delight but a few minutes before. “Give me the other one and take this,” Kilham went on, holding out the first prize to the astonished Seatonian.
“Why?” asked Sam, blankly.
“Because I won’t take it, because it doesn’t belong to me, because Rich here had no business to butt in and get it. I didn’t want to toss for the thing.”
A look of eager joy flashed into Sam’s face, only to fade away again as the character of the offer which Kilham was making came home to him. It was generous of Kilham, who had lots of prizes,to refuse to deprive his rival of the only good one which he had ever won. It was a fine thing to do; but Sam could not profit by the pitying generosity of a kind-hearted rival.
“It didn’t make any difference who tossed for it,” said Sam. “We accepted Noyes as your representative. The judges gave the race a tie, and we tossed for prizes. That settled it.”
“It didn’t settle anything,” returned Kilham, warmly. “Noyes had no more authority to toss for me than that kid there. I didn’t win the race and I’m not going to take the prize. You won the race. I almost got you at the finish, but not quite. You touched that thread before I did. I’m sure of it.”
Sam stared and pondered. “The judges declared it a tie,” he said at length.
“Then it will have to be a tie so far as the official record goes. We can’t dispute the judges, but we can divide the prizes as they ought to be divided. I won the second prize. I’ll have that or none!”
“Then I’ll take the gold one,” decided Sam, in a subdued voice. When the exchange was effected,he held out his hand to his old rival, who seemed to him at that moment more unreachable than ever, and blurted out, “If there are many fellows like you in Hillbury, I wish I had gone there!”
So it happened that Sam Archer really did have a gold medal to show Miss Margaret when he met her again at the train, and with it a little tale to tell of schoolboy honesty and generosity.1