Rob looked at him in surprise. "You don't have to spend money to be popular. There's Laughlin; he hasn't a cent that he doesn't earn, and fellows like Poole and Lindsay and Cutting don't make any show of money if they have it. And who thinks anything of Bowers with all his dough?"
"They have all they need, at least," returnedCarle, "and I haven't. Laughlin's different, but there aren't many like him. All I say is that it's mighty tough to send a fellow to school, and not give him money enough to keep him there decently."
Rob listened without knowing what reply to make. He recalled the eagerness with which Ned had forced his plan upon his parents, his declaration that he would not let himself be a burden to them, and his promise to be content with what they could afford to give him, and rely upon himself for all other needs. Why should he speak as if he had been sent to school against his will and there neglected, when he had besought his parents to let him go at his own risk? And why should he complain at all when he had apparently had complete success, earned a scholarship, and had such prospects of an important place in school life?
Ned's successes were soon known in Terryville. Mr. Carle repeated often and proudly the tale of his son's high rank in his school, and of the great popularity which he enjoyed among his school-fellows. Ned added the information that heshould probably do the bulk of the pitching on the school nine; he was to begin pitching practice with the regular school catcher after the holidays. When people questioned Rob concerning these statements, as many did, he readily confirmed them; when they asked him further, as some did, why he had not succeeded as well, and why he wasn't "good enough to catch Carle," he laughingly declared his inferiority. When he was safe from observation, however, and the questions returned to him, he had no heart to laugh. The fact that he was "outclassed," as Ned calmly explained it, or better that he had been quietly put aside on the assumption that he wasn't the equal of Borland, while Carle was taken at his own highest valuation and given in advance the honors of achievement—this was indeed an unpleasant subject for reflection. But Rob, though lacking the worldly experience which might have taught him that in the general sifting and settling of life, undeserved elevation usually leads to deserved humiliation, still was fortunate in possessing a modest self-esteem and reasonably good sense. That he envied Carle's rapid rise cannot be denied;but that he in any way wished his friend ill on account of it, or would have liked to pull Carle down that the difference between them should be less manifest,—this feeling, I am pleased to say, was wholly absent from his mind. Rob Owen was no cad.
yard
A Corner of the Yard.
CHAPTER VI
THE THIRD STRING
When the school gathered again after the holidays, Poole called his candidates for baseball together, and after a vehement harangue in which he sought to impress upon each man the importance of doing his utmost to develop a good nine, whether by making it himself or by spurring on some better man to outdo him, arranged the periods and combinations for winter practice. As the general routine, or as much of it as concerns the fielding and batting, has been described in a former book, the subject must be dismissed here with this passing mention. In the work of the batteries we are more directly interested.
Carle and Borland were put at the head of the battery combinations, apparently with as little hesitancy as if they had been veterans carried over from a triumphant season. The first choiceof hours was theirs, their opinions were listened to with respect; their position as fixtures seemed almost as well recognized as that of Poole himself. In spite of all self-preparation, Rob was almost startled to find what a gap existed between himself and his old battery mate; and as he remembered how often in past games when bases were full and things were going wrong with the pitching, he had guided the bewildered Carle out of his difficulties, he could not help a feeling of pique, nor avoid wondering whether Borland would succeed as well. After Carle, O'Connell, one of the class pitchers of the year before, held the next position of favor, and Poole quietly put down the combination, Owen and O'Connell, for cage hours together. There were also Patterson, a new man about whom nothing was known, and Peters, right fielder on the nine the year before, who was learning to pitch. For these, also, practice catchers were arranged.
From the outset, Owen found his practice with O'Connell unpleasant. It could not have been from any prejudice against the pitcher, for Rob, who was eager for any opportunitywhich seemed to offer him a "show," was at first greatly pleased at the prospect of being mated with the man who, before the advent of Carle, had been regarded as the most promising of the school pitchers. Whatever secret hopes he may have cherished of building up a rival battery were in a fortnight wholly dispelled. O'Connell couldn't pitch, and wouldn't learn. He couldn't pitch because his whole idea seemed to be to throw a ball with as big a curve as possible, without much care as to where it was going, or how near the plate it was destined to come; the only ball which he could surely put over was a straight waist ball which any child could hit. He wouldn't learn, because he thought it a pitcher's business to pitch, and a catcher's not to give instruction but to catch. To Rob's suggestions that any kind of a waist-high ball was dangerous, that the best pitcher he ever saw did not cover a width of more than three feet in a whole game, keeping the ball constantly at the plate—O'Connell paid not the slightest attention. He was quite unwilling to suppose that a man who had enjoyed the privilege of Seatoncoaching for a year could learn anything from a country boy from western Pennsylvania. The result was that Rob soon ceased to try to help the pitcher, and contented himself with taking the balls within reach in silence and letting the rest strike the net. The loungers about the cage could not have been impressed with the skill of the catching.
One day toward the end of the discouraging fortnight, when Rob was feeling particularly blue over the situation and wondering whether it would not be better after all to let the catching go altogether and take his chances on his hitting for a fielding position, he fell in with Patterson on the way down street, and asked him casually how he was getting on with pitching.
"Not very well," answered Patterson, ruefully. "I can't seem to learn anything."
"Who catches you?" asked Rob.
"Foxcroft," replied Patterson, gloomily. "He's a good backstop, I suppose, but he never tells me anything, and you can't learn by yourself. Poole ought to fix it so that we can get some instruction, I think."
Rob did not answer. He was marvelling at the contrariness of circumstances. Here was O'Connell who might have instruction but wouldn't take it, and Patterson who wanted it but couldn't get it!
"A man who ought to know told me once that I had the makings of a pitcher in me,—the arm swing, snappy wrist, and all that, you know,—but I've had mighty little chance for coaching and no such experience as these fellows here get, so I don't know whether he was fooling me or not. I don't seem to be getting ahead at all now."
"Oh, you mustn't be discouraged," said Rob, unfairly assuming in his own discouragement the right to blame the other's faint-heartedness. "It takes time to learn to pitch."
"It takes something more than time," Patterson declared with emphasis. "A year of the kind of thing I'm getting won't be much better than a month. You don't have to eat a bushel of apples to find out whether they're rotten or not. One is enough."
Rob hesitated. An idea had suddenly occurredto him, an idea that might be good. Why shouldn't he catch Patterson, and let O'Connell take Foxcroft? He knew nothing of Patterson, it was true, but he did know about O'Connell, and under the circumstances the unknown seemed attractive.
"How would you like to take me for a change, and let O'Connell have Foxcroft?"
Patterson's face spoke instantly a joyful acceptance of the proposal. His words, which came later, evidently represented second thoughts.
"Wouldn't I! But O'Connell would kick, though. He isn't going to swap you for Foxcroft."
"I don't believe he'd mind," returned Owen, with a smile of amusement tinged with sadness. "He can't learn anything from me, so Foxcroft would do just as well. I'd like to catch some one I could work with, and feel an interest in and try to push along. A net would be about as good for O'Connell as I am; all the advantage I have over the net is that I throw the balls back."
"Let's change, then," said Patterson, eagerly."If O'Connell doesn't want your help, I do. You'll find me ready to learn all right. You see Poole,—no, I'll see him and tell him we'd like to bunk in together. I don't believe it'll make any difference to him."
Poole was seen, and gave his consent without suggesting any obstacle except a possible difficulty in arranging new hours. O'Connell growled a little, not at losing Owen, whom he considered too officious, but at the notion that he should be given a third-string catcher instead of a second. But the change was made, and the new pair settled quietly down into obscurity, an obscurity which was the deeper in contrast with the glare of publicity in which the first battery displayed itself.
Carle and Borland were the unquestioned athletic heroes of that winter term. Borland showed himself an excellent backstop. His manner was that of one whom no ball thrown by human arm could disconcert. He could take in-curves with his mitt unsupported, tip them jauntily into his right hand, and toss them back with the best air of a professional in a greatcity team showing his tricks to a big audience before a game. The lads who in a perennial group peered admiring through the netting would nudge each other and exclaim and wonder; the knowing ones would talk with wise patronage; the ignorant ask foolish questions in awe-struck tones. Then the company would exchange places with a similar squad at the pitcher's end, and, big-eyed with amazement, watch the unintelligible signals, and try to detect the jump or the break, the out or the in, the lift or the drop, which the conductor of the party assured them was to be seen. Those were great days for battery one at Seaton school. No disillusionizing games to shatter the sweet ideal with brutal facts, no heartbreaking succession of base hits, no feverish gift of bases on balls, no missed pop fouls, no overthrown bases, but just fancy pitching, with opportunity for flourishes unlimited, and spectators unanimous in admiration. Poole himself, with all his steady-mindedness and fear of fostering vain hopes, yielded to the general exultation and looked forward with full complacency to the contest of batteries in the spring.
Meantime the humble third string was pursuing its unnoticed way. To his surprise, Owen found Patterson possessed of a very good mastery of one or two curves, and pitching with apparent ease and considerable speed. He was very eager to learn, and so modest as to be entirely distrustful of himself. This fault of timidity Rob sought to overcome by encouragement and by plain lessons from the successes of pitchers whom he had known. When once Patterson understood that by good pitching was meant, not "doing things" with a ball, but merely success in fooling batsmen; and that to accomplish this object, control and speed and cleverness in alternating balls, rather than ability to juggle curves, were of prime importance, the pupil took courage and began to learn.
It was now that Rob regretted that he had not paid more attention to McLennan's words of counsel to Carle when the latter had had his lessons. Much that the professional had said he recalled under the stimulus of the need. Some things about which he felt uncertain he found out from Carle, who, as a rule, however, remembered less of the technical teaching than Owen. But in the main it was the fundamental principles which Patterson needed, and as to these his catcher was well informed. They were left much to themselves. The general public had no interest in the third battery. Poole occasionally looked in on them for a few minutes, but on these occasions Rob, with a perversity perhaps excusable, deliberately kept his charge from showing his best work. With O'Connell and Carle, and others who might be expected to look with critical eyes, he followed the same course, as if he courted obscurity. The result was that the two worked on alone during the long winter practice unmolested by critics, and free from distracting suggestions of would-be helpers.
With Patterson, Rob soon felt himself on terms of hearty intimacy, though at times their relation suggested that of patron and client. So frankly modest was the pitcher, so naturally distrustful of himself and ready to follow another's lead, that outside the cage he fell naturally into the position of follower. He studied with Owen, skated with him, loafed in his room, sided withhim in the discussions, profitable and unprofitable, to which boys' conversation usually runs, and confided to him the facts as to his home life which one usually reserves for his most intimate companion. Yet with all his friendliness and willingness to follow the steps of another better fitted to lead, Patterson was by no means weak. There was a substantial basis of character and principle underlying his naturally trustful disposition. He followed only a presumably wiser guide; he yielded only up to a certain point and in certain directions. While possessing the unusual faculty of recognizing his faults before his virtues, when once assured of his power he would push on undaunted by obstacles. It was this peculiar combination of traits that so endeared him as a friend and rendered him so apt as a pupil. Most young athletes need the experience of the contest to dissipate their conceit, and open the way for development. With Patterson experience was necessary before a reasonable self-confidence was possible.
CHAPTER VII
FACILIS DESCENSUS
Carle joined the Omega Omicron. This was evident, even before the acquisition of the distinctive hatband, from the furious and absorbing intimacy which he developed with a certain coterie of fellows belonging to the fraternity. A dispassionate observer—Mr. Graham, for instance—would have perceived two distinct strains in the membership of the Omicron: an extravagant set of sports, courting a reputation for fastness; and a steadier, wiser, more manly group of well-to-do fellows who fell in naturally with others possessing similar monthly allowances, without adopting their views or their principles. It was this latter element which procured for the fraternity the countenance of the faculty. If any member of the Omicron had been asked—by his father, let us say, for nostudent would have ventured upon such dangerous ground—what kind of fellows belonged to the society, he would have answered emphatically "mighty nice fellows." And the answer would have been in the main true, for the tendency toward conformity is strong in boys, often holding in temporary check the individual instinct which is destined to make the character of the man; and boy loyalty is notorious. But between Durand and Hendry, who represented the best of the Omicron, and Jones and Nicholson, who led the fast set, there was as much real difference as between blades of wheat and blades of grass. Poole and Lindsay belonged to another fraternity.
"You'd better look after your pitcher," said Durand one morning to Poole. "He's getting in debt."
Poole stopped short in his walk and stared in amazement into his companion's face.
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I say," returned Durand, soberly. "He's borrowing and running bills."
"Where?"
"Where does he borrow? Well, Jones and Stratton are two he's borrowed from. There may be more. He's running bills at one drug store anyway, and I think with two of those out-of-town agents that show things down at Perkins's."
"Why don't you look after him?" demanded Poole, angrily. "He belongs to your bunch."
Durand shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not his guardian. I don't run the Omicron, either, as I've told you before."
"You ought to!" retorted Poole. "What did you get him in there for anyway?"
"I didn't get him in. In fact, and between ourselves, I voted against him."
"I should think you might have helped him along anyway, or at least not let your gang lead him off. You knew he was a scholarship man and hadn't money to throw away. Why didn't you stop him?"
"I did try to, Phil; honestly, I did," returned Durand, at last becoming warm; "but what could I do against all you fellows flattering him and praising him and kowtowing to him as if hewere a little tin god? You don't suppose he cares anything for my opinion, do you? You don't suppose that Jones and Stratton and Nicholson are going to throw around less money because he's with 'em, do you? Not on your life!"
Poole thought a few moments in silence. Then he looked up with a smile and dropped his hand on his friend's shoulder. "I don't believe it's as bad as you make out," he said. "You always were prejudiced against the fellow, you and Lindsay too; and I think I know why. Owen's soured because he can't catch Carle here as he did at home. That made him throw over O'Connell in a sulky fit; and now, I suppose, he runs down Carle, and you fellows in Hale take his opinion."
Durand was listening with lips parted and eyes set in a stare of astonishment. "Well, of all the crazy ideas that is the limit! Owen has never, so far as I've known, said one word against Carle to any one. He did say why he changed O'Connell for Patterson. Patterson wanted to learn, and O'Connell couldn't be taught becausehe knew it all without telling. You're entirely off about the whole business."
"I hope I am," said Poole.
"By the way, have you seen Owen catch?"
"Of course. I look in on him every now and then."
"What do you think of him?"
"A good, fair man. I was counting on him and O'Connell as second-string battery, but he doesn't seem to want the job."
"Have you heard him coaching Patterson?"
"Why, yes, I suppose so. There was nothing remarkable about it."
Durand laughed a provoking, mysterious, sententious laugh, waved his hand, and disappeared into his dormitory entry, leaving Poole to meditate on the conversation. The meditation concerned but one subject, the possible difficulties of the popular pitcher. Of Owen, he did not think again.
The captain's first active step was to make inquiries among the upper middlers concerning Carle's standing. The answers were various, depending largely upon the standard of the boyquestioned. A few whose own records were high, or who remembered some especially striking failures on the part of Carle, were of the opinion that he was falling in rank. The great majority of middle weights considered him, in general, good. After this investigation Poole had an interview with Carle himself, who protested that he was "all right," declared that his debts didn't amount to anything, and avowed the most superior principles.
Poole returned home reassured. When he met Durand in the afternoon he reported the results of his investigations, and jeered at his little third baseman as a croaker. And Carle, after sitting silent at his desk for an unpleasant half hour, and later having performed a little problem in addition and subtraction which apparently gave him no relief, accepted unhesitatingly the invitation of Jones to join him and two others in a drive with a span of horses, though he knew that the livery charge to be divided would be at least five dollars. You can't be mean, if you want fellows to like you!
As a matter of fact Carle's classroom work wasfalling off. He was not perhaps conscious of the change, and some of his teachers had likewise failed to perceive the trend. When a boy trots his translations, he may, if he is quick and observant in the recitation room, deceive his instructors for a very considerable time. A good teacher necessarily repeats questions and reemphasizes principles, and Carle was bright enough to take full advantage of opportunities afforded by the recitations. But all the time, as his outside interests increased, and the circle of intimates with whom he idled grew, his study became more superficial. The translation book was no longer reserved for special emergency; it lay open on his desk from the first line of the lesson to the last. His newly developed method in mathematics was to gather all possible solutions from his acquaintances before trying any problems himself. He was growing distinctly clever in the art of cribbing. Still he seemed to be doing fair work, for such a process is one of gradual and secret undermining rather than of open destruction. One does not perceive the extent to which the foundations are injured until the crash comes.
"What is the matter with Carle?" asked Mr. Rice, the young teacher of history, at a faculty meeting in February. "Isn't he falling off in his work?"
Mr. Moore turned on him an indulgent smile. "I haven't noticed it," he said, "and I have him five times a week."
As the young instructor had Carle's section but two hours weekly, this answer appeared to the questioner equivalent to a rebuke; so, taking Kipling's advice to the cub, he thought, and was still. The result of his thinking was first that Mr. Moore, being faculty member of the Omicron, must know Carle's habits of work much better than he himself did; and, secondly, that he was but a tyro at the business, with much to learn, both as to boys and the ways of the school. He did not see that the Principal made a note of his question, or that Lovering, one of the Latin men, and Pope, a middle-aged confrère who had sections in mathematics, exchanged a few words in low tones. Otherwise, he might have felt less chagrin over his apparent error.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FIRST PLAGUE
The inhabitants of the east entry of Hale were enjoying a season of unusual quiet. Duncan Peck, because of unacceptable work, lay under the ban of study hours,—a fact which damped the ardor of both the brothers. Clarence Moon had apparently learned wisdom from experience, for he had much less to say about the exalted state in which he lived at home, and in general bore himself with more becoming modesty. Lindsay and Owen and their room-mates had other ambitions than to be disturbers of the peace, and Payner lived solitary and secure in his fortress. There remained but the conscientious Smith and Crossett the absentee, neither of whom was likely to spend time in fomenting discord in the dormitory.
Smith studied continuously. His lamp waslighted at five every morning, he was always in bed at ten at night; but between these two periods, except for the time inevitably wasted on meals and devoted to school exercises, he plodded unweariedly at his books. And did he accomplish great things? I wish I could answer yes. I would not willingly detract one jot from the value of habits of industry. They are rough diamonds which Young America is too prone to throw aside for the flashing brilliants of smartness and wit. But the truth must be spoken. Smith's industry earned no apparent dividends. With the gift of great perseverance, nature had also bestowed on him a very thick head, through which ideas soaked but slowly. He rarely got a conception right without having first tried all the possibilities of error. His influence was ambiguous: some jeered at him as an example of the ineffectualness of grinding; others, among whom was Owen, felt a kind of reproof in the patient, untiring, undiscourageable zeal of this oft-discomfited drudge. To most who knew him he was merely "Grinder Smith."
Owen came in one day from cage practice withPatterson, who had fallen into the habit of doing his afternoon study in Rob's room. At the head of the stairs they met a tall, light-haired boy coming out of Payner's room. Owen nodded.
"Who was that?" asked Patterson, as soon as they were out of hearing. "I didn't suppose Payner had callers."
"His name's Eddy," Rob replied. "No, Payner doesn't have many callers. Eddy and I are about the only ones, I guess."
"Who's Eddy, anyway?"
"He's a senior. I met him once over at Poole's room."
"I wonder what he can find in a freak like Payner," pursued Patterson.
"Payner isn't such a freak as you think," returned Owen. "I couldn't make anything of him for a long time; but when once you've broken through his shell you'll find there's something in him."
"I never shall. No fun in a sour apple like him. Give me the Pecks every time. Payner's just a snapping turtle."
A door slammed in the entry; quick, elastic footsteps, accompanied by a whistle, passed.
"Lindsay," observed Owen.
"Wasn't it great the way he blocked that kick in the Hillbury game!" exclaimed Patterson. "If I could play football as he does, I'd be willing to work a hundred years."
"I'd rather play on a winning nine, myself," observed Rob.
"Would you? I wouldn't. You see, in football you catch the spirit of the thing, and you're swept right along with the gang. There's a swing that carries you. You just rush in and give a big drive for all that's in you. But in baseball it's different. Everybody has to stand around waiting and watching and quivering while one man does the work. When you pitch a hard baseball game, every ball's got to go just so. If it's two inches too high, or two inches wide, or an out when it ought to be an in, it's all wrong. And then there are about a thousand things that can happen whenever a man hits the ball."
Rob nodded in agreement. "And you've gotto be ready for any one of those thousand things. That's where the fun comes in, and the skill. When you know you can handle any ball that's likely to come your way and handle it right, there's fun just in waiting."
"I suppose that's true. I wish I knew as much baseball as you do. Honestly, now, do you think I'm ever going to learn to pitch?"
This was one of the times when Patterson needed encouragement.
"Yes, I do," Owen replied earnestly. "You're gaining all the time. If you're willing to count by the weeks instead of the days, you'll see a gain yourself. You may never be able to do the things with a ball that Carle can do,—he's got a wonderful wrist, that fellow!—but you may be just as good a pitcher."
"As good as Carle!" cried Patterson, with a grin of incredulity. "You're jollying me!"
"Not a bit!" Owen retorted. "You never will see that it isn't what you do to the ball, but what the batsman doesn't do to it, that shows that you are a pitcher. Suppose Carle has ten chances and throws five of them away, and you haveeight and throw away only two, who is the better man?"
Patterson shook his head doubtfully. "It's one thing to stand in the cage and put 'em where you say; it's a different thing to face a batter in a game and feel that he may drive the next one over the fence."
"You can put 'em where I say just the same, can't you?" retorted Owen, sharply, as he opened his books. There was good promise in Patterson, but these attacks of despondency were of distinctly bad omen.
"You didn't tell me how Payner got hold of Eddy," said Patterson, returning again to the topic from which he had been diverted by the ever recurrent baseball.
"Didn't I? Well, Payner is a great fellow for bugs,—in fact, for every kind of animal, big or little, that has more than two legs; and Eddy is cracked on trees and birds. Payner spent all his half-holidays last fall, when he ought to have been at the football games, up the river looking for bugs and slugs. He found Eddy up there watching birds. So they got acquainted."
Patterson emitted a little sniff, midway between a sneer and a chuckle.
"Oh, you needn't laugh! He doesn't loaf away his Saturday afternoons like the rest of us. Why, he's got one of the best collections ofcoleopterain existence!"
"Oh, has he!" exclaimed the bewildered Patterson.
Owen swung round as if to end the conversation, and raising his book to the level of his eyes, sniggered covertly into its pages. Opposite him sat Patterson, awed into silence by the ponderous polysyllable, of whose meaning he was loth to confess his ignorance. So the study began.
That evening Eddy came in after dinner to see some new specimens that Payner had just received from Florida. It was lecture night, and the bell sounded just as Payner opened the case.
"Look here, Eddy, I want to go to that lecture to night. It's on the Grand Canyon, you know. Are you going?"
"I don't believe I shall," said Eddy, absent-mindedly, as he picked up a card to which waspinned a beetle with a rainbow stripe down his back. "That's a beauty, isn't it?"
"Yes, they're all fine. I think I'll hurry over and get a seat. You won't mind, will you? Look at them as long as you want."
"Thank you!" said Eddy.
"And be sure you latch the door, do you hear?"
"All right," said Eddy, passing on to the next card.
Payner hesitated as if not entirely satisfied with Eddy's answer; then turned to the door.
"Just let down the catch, see?" he called once more, pausing with his hand on the fastening.
"Yes, yes, I'll do it," returned Eddy, with a little petulance. It seemed hardly necessary that the injunction should be so often repeated. Payner went out, shutting the door behind him.
Duncan Peck stood in the entry hallooing to some one below. He waited until the steps of the collector of coleoptera died away at the entrance of the building, then crept softly up to the door just closed, and gently tried it as he had done many times before. To his surprise it yielded to the pressure of his hand. Made cautiousby a former experience, Duncan pushed the door very slowly until, through the widening crack, he perceived Eddy, standing before the table intent on the specimens. At this sight the evil-doer closed the door as softly as he had opened it, slipped back to his room, found his brother, and sent him over to the lecture to make sure of Payner's presence there. With great foresight, the Pecks had invented a device suited to just such an emergency as the present. They had prepared a little wooden plug which would almost fill the socket into which the door-latch springs, leaving but a thin edge to catch the latch. This slight hold of the latch would be sufficient to keep the door shut, but quite incapable of resisting pressure. As the locks of all the rooms were uniform, the plug which had been made to fit the Pecks' door could be counted on to produce the same effect on any door in the dormitory. Armed with this burglar's contrivance, Duncan crept back across the hall, pushed Payner's door ajar once more, and inserted his plug; then closed the door again and sneaked back to safety. In a few minutes the twins, secretly watchingfrom their room, saw Eddy come out, slam the door, and go whistling downstairs. His whistle was still audible in the distance when Duncan stole down the entry and gave a hard push at Payner's knob. The door swung on its hinges. The long-desired opportunity had come at last!
The ripping up of Payner's room was not as thorough a job as that by which the unhappy Moons had suffered. The twins were too much excited, and their eagerness to finish was too great to permit much elaboration. They dragged the chief articles of furniture around the desk; piled the bedding on the heap, and wet it down with a dash of water; smashed the lamp-shade in trying to make it sit securely on top, and filled the fireplace with pictures from the wall. To give distinction to the effect, the precious beetles were taken from their case, and pinned up over the fireplace in a hasty attempt to form the letters of the LatinSalve.
When Payner returned from the lecture, half an hour later, he ran into the outworks of the heap, and sent the ruins of his shade crashing to the floor. The twins listened through the crackof their door, and trembled with excitement and eagerness, lashed by guilty consciences and yet defiant. But this one crash was all they heard. The door did not reopen, and no other sound came from within to indicate the feelings of their victim.
Next morning when they went out to breakfast, they noticed that the card in the indicator at the entrance to the dormitory on which had been written opposite No. 7,D. and D. Peck, now bore the legendThe D—D Pecks. It was Payner's defiance, his challenging gauntlet! But the Pecks, in their vainglory, laughed loudly and feared nothing.
Two nights later when Donald, who was the first undressed, jumped into bed and thrust his feet down into the depths, he uttered a shriek and sprang headlong out.
"What is it?" cried Duncan, turning around in amazement.
"Some awful, clammy thing in the bed!" gasped Donald, shivering convulsively.
Duncan instantly swept down the covers, and displayed a long, serpent-like, dark thing stretched across the bed.
"What is it?" shrieked Donald, dancing on one foot.
"An eel!" replied Duncan, calmly. "It's the season for eels. I wonder if I drew one, too."
He threw open his own bed. At its foot lay a similar reptile. To the neck of each was attached a ribbon of paper bearing in neatly printed letters the legend: "The First Plague."
CHAPTER IX
A NEW INTEREST
The midweek Seatonian printed a frantic editorial demanding that more fellows come out to try for the relay team. From the tenor of the article one would suppose that some calamity threatened which could only be averted by the timely arrival of a regiment of candidates. The spirit of the exhortation was worthy of Demosthenes. Ignorant that the new member of the staff who was trying his hand at editorials was substituting vehemence for skill after the manner of tyros, Rob was greatly mystified. He understood neither what a relay team was, nor how it could be so shockingly unpatriotic not to come out and try for it. So he asked Strong, the captain of the track team, for information; and Strong, who treated every inquirer as an over-modest candidate, promptly added his name to the list.
Rob fell in obediently with the squad, and presently learned what it was all about. There was to be a team race of one mile with Hillbury six weeks later, at the great invitation winter meet of the Boston Athletic Association. Some other events besides this race were open to Seaton, and a considerable interest in the meeting had been worked up by Strong and Collins the trainer. Salter, a fat, good-natured senior, the butt of many a joke, but at the same time a favorite with the jokers, acted as captain's assistant. It was Salter who undertook to time Owen on his trial run on the wooden outside track that lies in a big, uneven oval in the hollow behind the gymnasium.
When Owen, aglow with warmth despite uncovered ankles and the icy air of February, slowed down a dozen yards beyond the finish line and turned about to learn his time, the fat boy in the big ulster and tweed cap was not to be seen. He had hurried off to find Collins, leaving the runner to take care of himself. This circumstance, taken with the physical reaction which promptly set in, and the frigidity of the wind which whistled past his bare legs and bellied out his thin running trousers with a cold storage blast, did not encourage Rob in his experiment. He trotted back into the gymnasium, in ill humor with himself and the authorities, convinced that running was not his proper athletic forte, and stoutly resolved to have no more of it.
He was still engaged in piling up fresh arguments to this effect, while he hurried his dressing so as to get back to the tricky geometry original which had caught him in its time-consuming labyrinth. As he buttoned his collar, the tweed cap and voluminous ulster hove in sight.
"I stopped to see Collins," said Salter, "and tell him what good time you made. It's the best any new fellow's done this year!"
Owen stared. "I thought it wasn't any good. I was making up my mind to cut the whole business; I'm not made for a runner."
Salter looked shocked. "Oh, come now, you don't mean that! Why, I told Collins that you were just the man he was looking for to make out the team with Strong, Benton, and Rohrer. You'd be a fool to give up a chance like that to win against Hillbury."
"Or maybe to lose the race for Seaton," Rob replied with some bitterness. "No, I thank you. On a short dash I might do something,—I used to be pretty good at beating out bunts,—but this quarter-mile business is beyond me."
"Didn't I say your time was better than any other new man has made?" demanded Salter.
"But what about the old ones?" Owen retorted.
"Strong and Rohrer can beat it, and Benton probably, but that was your first attempt. You can improve on that."
"So can a lot of other fellows. Here, let me through! I've got to get home and finish an original."
But Salter still blocked the way. "What is it? Tell me and I'll start you on it."
Owen gaped incredulous. "You couldn't do it offhand!"
"I'll have a try at it," said Salter. "Look here, will you drop this quitter's talk about not running if I do the trick?"
Rob hesitated. He knew little of Salter personally, but on general principles he felt himselfsafe. No fellow could know the whole four hundred and fifty originals in the plane geometry, and if Salter was like the average sport he couldn't know a dozen. Besides, Salter's geometry dated from the preceding year. To accept would be the easiest way to get rid of him.
"All right," he rejoined, smiling, "but it's like getting money for nothing." He stated the theorem slowly and distinctly, so as to take no unfair advantage. "Want it repeated?" he asked, leering triumphantly into the serious face of his companion, whose knitted brow and abstracted expression showed that he was thinking hard.
"No, I don't," replied the senior, suddenly breaking into a satisfied grin. "It's too dead easy. Look here!"
He drew forth a block of paper from one pocket, a fountain pen from another, with a single flourish of the pen made an almost perfect circle on the paper, and rapidly threw in chords and tangents and added letters.
"That's what you want to prove, isn't it? Well, this is the way it's done."
At the end of a minute Rob stood with the slip of paper in his hand blushing to think that he had made so much of a simple matter, while Salter was calmly replacing his block and pen in his pockets.
"You're in for it, all right. Of course, you know, I don't mean that you're sure of the team, but you've got a mighty good show, unless something unusual happens. There's Strong now."
Strong stopped just long enough to congratulate Owen on his trial, and to tell him he had a good show for a position. The captain was followed by the trainer. When Rob emerged from the gymnasium a few minutes later he carried in his hand Salter's notes, and in his mind certain regular practice appointments with Collins. Startlingly sudden as had been his precipitation into the ranks of the relay men, he felt less elation on this account than amazement at the quickness with which the senior had opened a rift in the obscurity of the geometry. How could a fellow like Salter, who didn't look remarkably clever and certainly hadn't studied geometry for at least six months, give an impromptu demonstration like that! Was that the way in which originals were to be solved? If so, Rob Owen might as well get accustomed to a back seat; such feats were hopelessly beyond his slow powers!
Unreconciled to the notion that an hour of his time was not equivalent to a minute of another's, he stopped at Lindsay's room to ask for information.
"Salter? Of course I know him,—a good fellow he is, a perfect shark at lessons. You couldn't expect a man of his build to be athletic. What do you want to know about him?"
Rob told his tale, adding rather shamefacedly that he suspected there was some trick about it.
Lindsay laughed. "Not a bit of it. That's just the thing he can do. He's got a kind of X-ray mind for mathematics; he can see in a flash through all sorts of obstacles that we have to take a lot of time to work around. You can imagine what an awfully discouraging fellow he is to be in a class with. Why, he'll short-circuit a solution that a teacher's got out of a key, and find an easier way to do it."
Owen felt relieved. He evidently wasn't such a fool after all.
"Salter's best in mathematics, but he's good in everything. Last year he made a complete card catalogue of all the places and definitions in ancient history, with abstracts and dates and all that sort of thing written out on about three hundred separate cards in the neatest kind of a hand. He might have made a small fortune renting it out the fortnight before the examination, but he just let it go round, and of course some fellow was mean enough to take it off with him."
Owen had his hand on the door-knob. "They've roped me in for that relay business. Strong says I've a show to make the team. Do you think it's worth while? I can play ball a little, and I'd like to make the nine, but I don't care for running."
"If Collins wants you, I'd run," advised the senior. "He knows what he's about. It won't hurt your chances for baseball, and it's worth a lot to beat Hillbury at anything. They have mighty pretty prizes for that meet, too. Oh,have you seen what the school gave the football men?"
It was a little engraved football of gold, bearing Lindsay's name. Rob handled it with reverence and yearning. How he would like to earn a thing like that!
"It's pretty," said Lindsay, "but as I don't wear a watch charm, it's hardly useful. If it were a medal, now, I could put it up somewhere."
Rob's eyes were resting on the mantel. Two silver cups were there which he had never seen before. Lindsay's gaze followed Rob's while his words anticipated the visitor's question.
"I brought those two back with me when I went home last week. Got them both last summer. The two-handled one was for a yacht race, the small one I got in a swimming match."
"What a beauty!" exclaimed Owen, taking up the heavy, ornate cup by one of its handles.
"All the same I prefer the other," returned Lindsay, "for I won that all by myself. Anybody with a fast yacht can win a sailing prize. I had to beat seven men to win that little swimming cup. Two cups don't amount to muchanyway. It's the running fellows that make the collections."
"Strong must have a lot," sighed Owen, in the tone a poor man might use in speaking of a neighbor's millions.
"It takes a college crack to pile them up," Lindsay observed. "Poole has been in Dickinson's room at Harvard, and he says Dickinson has a velvet shield two feet square, just thatched with medals, to say nothing of the cups all around. Just imagine what it must be to go to a great meet like the intercollegiate, and know in advance you're going to beat every one of the hundred men in your event! That's what Dickinson's been doing for the last two years."
Rob tried his imagination, but it would not serve. It was like seeking to conceive stellar distances!
"I must be getting back to work," he said. "I suppose I may as well go in for the relay, even if I don't accomplish anything."
He said good-by, and returned to his desk for another attack on the original. Salter's notes proved an Ariadne's thread for the labyrinth;in ten minutes he was writing Q.E.D. at the foot of his sheet of paper with a satisfaction dimmed only by the fact that the demonstration was not wholly of his own making.
A rattle at the door now announced that he in turn was to be visited. He knew the rattle, for it always heralded the coming of a Peck; but to-day he fancied it lacking in assurance, and he looked up at the door in a momentary thrill of curiosity. There were two Pecks this time, both unusually grave in aspect. One carried in his hand a covered pasteboard box.
"More eels?" asked Owen, giving way frankly to the snicker which would come.
The bearer of the box, whom Rob had provisionally fixed upon as Duncan, grinned sheepishly and answered: "No; guinea pigs this time."
"Guinea pigs! Where?"
"In the desk drawer, two of 'em," went on Duncan, trying hard to be jocose. "They are really quite—quite sweet. Want to see 'em?"
Duncan raised the lid of the box a finger's width and Rob peeped in.
"Pretty, aren't they!" observed the grinningOwen. "What are you going to do with them? I thought animals weren't allowed in the dormitories."
"That's just where the chump's meanness comes in!" burst out Donald. "We couldn't throw the things out alive, of course, and we couldn't kill 'em. Lady Jane" (the matron) "came in on us while we had 'em on the table,—caught us with the goods on us, she thought,—and jawed us like a stepmother for defying the school rules. When we said some one put 'em in the desk drawer, she thought we were lying and threatened to have us fired for breaking the rules and not showing her proper respect. I call it a low-down trick!"
"Here's what we found with them," interrupted Duncan. "What does it mean?"
Rob took the slip of paper on which was written in print: "The Second Plague."
"I suppose it means what it says," he remarked.
"And there are more plagues to follow?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"How many do you suppose!" exclaimed Rob, derisively. "How many plagues of Egypt were there?"
"That's the question," replied Duncan. "I say there were three, and Don says there were seven. Which is it now?"
Owen sniffed. "You fellows had better join Dr. Norton's Bible class, and learn something."
He took down a Bible from his bookcase and fluttered the leaves to the chapters in Exodus in which the plagues are described. "The first was turning the river into blood, so that the fish died, the second frogs, the third lice, the fourth flies, the fifth—"
"Oh, ring off!" shouted the impatient Donald. "Don't harrow our feelings with all that. How many were there, can't you tell us? or don't you know yourself?"
"Ten," answered Rob, curtly, replacing the book.
The brothers stared at each other blankly, each seeking comfort and finding none.
"You don't really think Payner'd be mean enough to put all those on us, do you?" Duncan asked after an impressive period of silence.
"There's a whole menagerie to draw from, if he's cussed enough," growled Donald.
"Who was cussed enough to rip up his room?" Rob's visitors sought information, not judicial criticism; but the opportunity was one that he could not resist.
"How does he know that we stacked his room?" For the moment Donald was like an unfortunate victim of circumstances pleading "not guilty" to a false charge.
"How do you know that he is sending the plagues?" Owen replied quietly.
"He's got you there, Don," said Duncan. "We're up against it all right. There's no use trying to squirm."
"Who's trying to squirm?" retorted Donald. "Let him bring on his plagues—a bunch of mummies if he wants to. He won't feaze me."
With this the pair departed to continue their analysis of the situation in their own quarters, and later to endeavor to sell the guinea pigs to a drug-store man to display in his window.
CHAPTER X
MR. CARLE WANTS TO KNOW
The winter was wearing away. The third battery was plodding steadily along at its task in the cage, with few critical spectators and almost no interference from superiors. A more eager, trusting pupil than Patterson no teacher ever had. So ready was the pitcher to take the suggestion of his catcher as a maxim, that Rob had to set a watch upon himself, that he might not overload the docile learner with useless or questionable directions. He kept to a simple system of coaching, told Patterson nothing of which he was not himself sure, trusted him to throw his curves in his own way, but held him inexorably to accuracy. Owen never would allow practice to begin unless with plate in position and pitcher's distance well marked; he made his pitcher warm up thoroughly before he began with curves; he would not permit a pitch without a distinct understanding as to what the ball was to be.
At the beginning Patterson had but a single ball of which he was sure,—which he could deliver as he wanted it, and when it was wanted. On two or three others he was uncertain, sometimes successful, more often wild. Owen's task was to construct out of these possibilities the "three bread and butter balls" which form the chief stock in trade of the good pitcher. Stated thus simply the task would seem simple; in fact, it was most difficult, although Patterson's implicit confidence in his catcher and absolute eagerness to take his advice smoothed many obstacles from the path.
Few boys are willing to believe that the great pitchers achieve their greatest success through the clever manipulation and variation of a very small number of curves. When Owen repeated McLennan's assertion that three or four good balls, with brains, were enough for any pitcher to use, Patterson believed him and strove for the three good balls; when Owen explained that the most deceptive ball for a good batsman is not a new one with an unexpected curve, but a familiar one with speed disguised, Patterson set to work to acquire a change of pace with the same apparent method ofdelivery. In the beginning Owen would hold his hands where the ball was to come, and hold them there again and again until the right ball did come. When a certain accuracy with the three bread and butters was attained, the catcher would place his hands over the plate shoulder high, and require a certain ball to be thrown at them, repeating the exercise a foot to the right and to the left at the same height, and in the three corresponding positions just above the level of the knee. Sometimes he got in a batter to add distraction to the problem. Having early discovered that Patterson could throw a very good jump ball, he made him practise on the "initial cutter," a ball which just skims the breast of the batsman, and which even an expert is frequently tempted to strike at, though he knows he cannot hit it safely.
The mere fact of Patterson's implicit dependence would have been enough to impress Rob with a sense of responsibility. As the weeks went by, however, another fact which gradually forced itself into recognition added seriously to this feeling. Patterson was splendid raw material, which the catcher was either developing or spoiling inthe course of his lessons. To become a superior pitcher, one must be physically capable of applying great power suddenly and convulsively. This ability may be expected only in an intensely nervous temperament, in which muscles are doubly powerful under excitement, or in one of absolutely cold blood, which grows colder and more tense and more silently fierce as the strain of the contest increases. Patterson was of the former class, quick and snappy in movement, with concentrated impulse and muscles answering instantly to stimulus. In addition to the right temperament he was blessed with the ability to "get up," that is, to start the ball with a full arm swing which makes it possible to bring the body into the movement and increase greatly the radius of the throwing arc. His curves, moreover, came easily, and his arm did not readily lame.
Over against these excellences were to be set lack of experience in the field, and an inclination to nervousness and faint-heartedness which only a series of unquestioned successes or the quiet support of a trusted battery mate would be likely to dispel.
While the third string battery was thus busy with its serious but unregarded work, Carle was riding hard along the road of popularity. He was rarely by himself these days, except when he slept. He loafed away many study hours in other fellows' rooms, spoke contemptuously of serious work, trotted his lessons whenever possible, loved to show himself in the company of supposed swells, was frequently seen lounging in druggists' windows or standing in a group of noisy fellows at the crossings with hands bulging the pockets of his wide trousers, talking loudly and swaggering. Though Carle as a scholarship man was expressly debarred from smoking, Poole neither by admonition nor exhortation could succeed in keeping the cigarette wholly from the pitcher's lips—and why indeed? Did not most of the great professionals smoke even in their playing season!
"He's a dead sport, that Carle!" remarked Duncan Peck one day during an interval between plagues. "I don't see how he can pitch."
"But he can," replied Owen, to whom the remark was made, "or at least he could last year."
"Oh, I know he can," Duncan made haste toreply. "Haven't I seen him do stunts in the cage. It's great, but he doesn't seem quite the kind of fellow that makes a fine athlete, like Laughlin, for example, or Lindsay, or Strong, or any of those fellows."
Owen did not reply. He held no brief for his townsman. Carle had long since ceased to manifest any desire for Owen's society, and Owen, in natural pique, would make no advances on the basis of their old friendship. Their ways seemed destined to lie apart.
One day early in March a letter was delivered at Rob's room, addressed in an unfamiliar hand, yet bearing the well-known postmark "Terryville, Pa." He had just come in from the gymnasium, where Strong had announced to him the final decision as to the make-up of the relay team which was to compete in Boston on the following Saturday. Owen was the choice for fourth man over Jacobson, who, though perhaps no slower, had been adjudged less capable of holding up under strain. With thoughts fluttering excitedly under a variety of emotions, among which half-hearted regret and a sort of dread had place with elation,Rob gazed at the address on the envelope, and vaguely wondered who could be the sender. He felt for the moment actual resentment at being compelled to exchange the temporarily glorified Seaton atmosphere for the uninteresting common air of Terryville. The letter, however, had much more to do with Seaton than with Terryville. It ran as follows:—
"Dear Robert,—"Is anything the matter with Ned? We are worried about him. I have just had a letter from the secretary of Seaton saying he has been put on study hours, whatever that is, for unexcused absences and for neglecting his work. The dining hall also sent me another notice that the last bill had not been paid. I sent Ned the money for it more than two weeks ago. He keeps writing for money, but don't say much about himself, and can't seem to answer any questions at all. We've lived awful close this winter to keep Ned away to school, and the last money I had to take from the bank, which I really hadn't ought to do. What makes the school cost so much more thanthey said it was going to? Are they sticking us, or ain't Ned doing right? I've talked with your father, but he don't seem to know. I wish you'd talk with Ned and put him straight if there's anything the matter. He thinks a lot of you. When he was home Christmas everything was fine; but there's been a change somewhere. I'm a poor man, and can't do for him like your father does for you, so I wish you'd be careful not to put him up to being extravagant. He's free-handed and easy led, and likes to do the same as his friends. Now, Robert, just remember his ma and me kind of hold you responsible for the boy, and try to help him and us."Yours truly,"John H. Carle.
"Dear Robert,—
"Is anything the matter with Ned? We are worried about him. I have just had a letter from the secretary of Seaton saying he has been put on study hours, whatever that is, for unexcused absences and for neglecting his work. The dining hall also sent me another notice that the last bill had not been paid. I sent Ned the money for it more than two weeks ago. He keeps writing for money, but don't say much about himself, and can't seem to answer any questions at all. We've lived awful close this winter to keep Ned away to school, and the last money I had to take from the bank, which I really hadn't ought to do. What makes the school cost so much more thanthey said it was going to? Are they sticking us, or ain't Ned doing right? I've talked with your father, but he don't seem to know. I wish you'd talk with Ned and put him straight if there's anything the matter. He thinks a lot of you. When he was home Christmas everything was fine; but there's been a change somewhere. I'm a poor man, and can't do for him like your father does for you, so I wish you'd be careful not to put him up to being extravagant. He's free-handed and easy led, and likes to do the same as his friends. Now, Robert, just remember his ma and me kind of hold you responsible for the boy, and try to help him and us.
"Yours truly,"John H. Carle.
Throwing the letter with a violent snap into the corner of the room, Rob rested his elbows on the table, dropped his chin into his two hands, and contemplated the rows of books in the case with eyes that saw nothing and a mind upheaved in indignant protest. Relay team and baseball were forgotten, and along with them the French verbswhich he had failed on at the last exercise, and the appointment for an English conference which it was hazardous to miss. Vehement thoughts like his insist on sole possession. He tempt Carle to extravagance, have influence with him, be responsible for him! What an utterly false and unfair assumption! What right had Mr. Carle to send him that kind of a letter, or suppose any such thing, when for two months Ned had done no more than nod to him when they chanced to meet in the street? It was outrageous! It would be better to write the father plainly the facts in the case, incredible as they might appear, rather than suffer longer under the unjust imputation.
To this the feeling of loyalty, strongest and most unreasoning of all healthy student instincts, interposed its veto. He could not write the father of the shortcomings of the son, any more than he could declare them to the school authorities. Indeed, it was not necessary to do so. He had given Mr. Owen in his yesterday's letter a tolerably full account of conditions, and his father might tell Mr. Carle as much as he chose. It was tough business for Mr. Carle.
Rob rose and went to the window, his thoughts now diverted from his own side of the matter to the sacrifice and disappointment of the Carles. It was certainly hard on the parents; he felt sincerely sorry for them. How could Ned play them so false!
Rob turned from the window, picked up the crumpled letter, took his hat, and went out. Mr. Carle had asked him to have a talk with Ned. He hated above all things to do it, but sooner or later his conscience would drive him to it, and it was better to have the disagreeable task over at once than to worry for days and then do it.—Besides, there was very little probability that Carle would be at home.
Haynes White was just coming out of Carter 13 as Rob approached. White was a clever senior who did tutoring in upper middle subjects. The query flashed into Rob's mind, as he knocked at the door, whether White was there to help Carle get ready for the history examination which was due on the following day. There was nothing wrong in this, to be sure, though it was hardly to be expected that scholarship men would have money to spend in tutoring.
Carle greeted him with politeness and visible surprise; then waited to learn the reason of his visit. Rob also, suddenly confronted by the necessity of putting his plea into fitting words, stood for some seconds speechless, unable to think of any diplomatic way of broaching an unpleasant subject. The constraint at last grew too painful to be endured. Abandoning all hope of devising a proper opening, he held out Mr. Carle's letter and said: "Read it!"
In silence, but with flushed face and a defiant hardening at the corners of his mouth, as if he expected reproof, Ned took the letter and read it through. When he had finished, the flush was deeper, and anger as well as defiance displayed itself in his face.
"What does he want to write you all that stuff for! I don't see what business it is of yours."
"He seems to hold me responsible."
"The old man is all off; I should think you'd know enough to let the thing alone."
"But, Ned, he isn't all off," answered Rob, sailing blindly in. "He's wrong if he thinks you're following my lead, but he's right about themain thing. You're living the wrong kind of a life here. A fellow in your place can't run with the fast gang you're going with. You simply can't do it; you'll ruin yourself trying to."
"That's easy enough for you to say," retorted Carle, hotly, "when you can have whatever money you want, and aren't in with anybody. If you're in the swim you've got to spend something. My old man ought to have kept me at home if he didn't mean to give me what's necessary. I'm no long-haired grind."
"But he can't give you more; he says so in the letter. He hasn't it to give."
This was an unfortunate fact against which argument was as powerless as acid against oil.
"Is that all you've got to say?" asked Carle, sullenly, after a brief period of silence. "Because if it is, I've got something I'd like to do."
Yes, that was all. Owen could think of nothing else to say, and took his dismissal willingly. It had been an unpleasant scene, but brief; he had tried to do his duty in the matter, and even if he hadn't been wholly skilful, he felt relieved that it was all behind him. Poor Mr. Carle!
CHAPTER XI
THE RELAY RACE
Only the actual competitors were allowed to leave town for the Boston meet, so unless he could contrive to receive mandatory invitations from friends to spend Sunday in Boston, or devise especial business to call him peremptorily to the city, the average student must abandon all hope of seeing the contest. Wolcott Lindsay, who lived in Boston, went home for the Sunday, and got an invitation for Durand. One boy had to visit his dentist, another his guardian, a third a doctor, a fourth to buy absolutely necessary clothes which could not be procured at Seaton. The twins, who took an extraordinary interest in the event from the moment they learned that their neighbor was on the team, canvassed at great length the prospects of getting away. Duncan was on study hours and could hope for no favors, but he persuaded his brother that the only fair way was that Donald, whose scholarship usuallysecured him the favor of teachers, should ask permission on certain plausible grounds, and the two then draw lots for the privilege of going, the one left behind in any case to represent Duncan. Unfortunately for the scheme, when Donald applied for his permission he was obliged to confess that he had received no specific invitation to visit his aunt in Brookline, and that in the whole course of his stay in Seaton he had never, until this particular Saturday, felt the serious nature of his family obligation. So the scheme came to naught, and the Pecks stayed at home.
The huge space of the Mechanics Building on Huntington Avenue was circled by deep fringes of spectators packed in double galleries and crowded close to the outer edge of the thirteen-lap track. Here were phalanxes of boys from Boston schools, straining their throats in crying up the courage of their schoolmates; college youths in rival camps, their emulous cheers varying through a wide range, from the staccato spelling of some college name to the "three long Harvards" of the Cambridge men; women and girls who brought to the contest tense interest and strongsympathy, if not expert knowledge; men who loved athletics for their own sake, who, if they did not "delight in the strength of a horse," certainly "took pleasure in the legs of a man." It was like a dozen tournaments and a dozen audiences crowded into one.
Saturated with the feeling that the Seaton-Hillbury struggle was the event of the day, and new to the whole medley of many institutions contesting in ceaseless uproar, Owen was at first both bewildered and discouraged. In the terrific din the crack of the starter's pistol and the bellowing of announcers were well-nigh drowned by the blare of band music, the cheers of untiring supporters, and the recurring waves of general applause. He watched the Harvard-Pennsylvania relay match, in which veterans ran like blooded race horses amid tremendous excitement, and felt still more disheartened. The place seemed so vast, the interests of contestants so diverse, the big college teams so all-important, that the Seaton-Hillbury race could hardly prove more than one of the minor details of the meet,—in fact, might be carelessly managed or neglected. And yet,as he knew well, to the impatient waiters for a telegram at Seaton, there was but one contest in the day's programme; and no explanation that it was but a small part of a great performance would be accepted in palliation of defeat.