Читать книгу Acres of Unrest - Max Brand - Страница 5

Table of Contents

The scholastic reports were not so flattering as the athletic ones. In the fall, Peter roamed across the gridirons and did great, flashing things. In the winter he was a member of the ice hockey team for the school. In the spring he was on the baseball nine, and in the hot summer days he was straining his back over an oar in the Huntley eight. All of these things he did surpassingly well, and now and then a flattering note came like air from heaven to the eye of Ross Hale, far off in the mountain desert.

In his studies, Peter was just a bit above average—below that, at first—but making slow, sure progress. He had his stumbling blocks. Terse and uncommunicative as his letters always were, they once contained a wail on account of Latin, the bane of his soul. Immediately afterward a greater curse entered—clad in strange garments—Greek! Between them, they were nearly the undoing of poor Peter, but he managed to struggle through.

When he came into his seventeenth year, everything seemed much better to Peter. Studies went more easily. On the athletic field he was triumphant, and in his eighteenth year he completed his course in a blaze of glory—football captain—crew stroke. He stood on a peak even in brilliant Huntley School.

Then came the fall, and the heart of Ross Hale swelled with anticipation. He could not help writing to Peter:

Look here, Pete. I know that college is a place where you go to get an education. But I tell you what—I like to hear about you doing good in athletics. I can't understand what tackling a Greek verb may be like. But I can understand what smashing up a football line may be. I'm proud of your studies, Pete, my boy, but I'm a lot prouder of what you're doing in athletics—and most particular on the football field. Folks are reading a lot about you here in the papers—maybe you understand what I mean.

How hard it would have been for Peter really to understand. He could not know that another vast chunk of the old ranch had been sold to Andrew Hale, and that the remainder had been heavily mortgaged. And still there were three mortal years during which this education affair must be carried on.

The first college year brought more glory to Ross Hale. It was only freshman football; the Crimson would not take a player on the college eleven until his second year. But in that freshman team, Peter Hale roved up and down fields, breaking the hearts of opposing teams. They had made him an end. Eighteen-years- old and 190 pounds of him, but so lightning fast that he was always first down the field under a punt. And he was forever smashing through the other line to get at the ball carrier—to say nothing of the moments when he looped far out and speared passes out of the air, then zigzagging down the field, ripping the enemy apart as lightning divides the startled sky.

Track and crew also held his attention. He carved a name for himself in each. The heart of Ross Hale swelled big with expectation of the next fall, when his boy would stand in the varsity eleven. Then real fame would come to him.

The fall came, and there were no press notices about Peter Hale—only this strange line in one paper:

The Crimson is not so strong in advancing the ball as it was expected. Simpson failed in his studies and cannot represent the Crimson on the gridiron this fall. Above all, the brilliant Hale, of whom so much was expected after his grand work on the freshman team, has been thrown out by a severe accident.

That was all.

It made Ross Hale ride half the night to get to town and send off a telegram:

Are you badly hurt, and when can you play again?

Father

He did not get a reply for two days. The answer read:

Out for a month or two. Nothing serious.

Pete

That somewhat allayed the anxiety of Ross Hale. Still, an accident that put a boy out for a month or two must be a rather bad one. He waited a week. Then he rode over to tell Crowell what was worrying him.

"Why," said Crowell, "don't you know what happened to your boy?"

"Good heavens," said the rancher, "you talk like it was serious, Mister Crowell!"

"Serious?" echoed Crowell, with a strange glance, Then he added hastily: "Now, I suppose it might have been worse."

"Yes," said the rancher, "it'll only keep him out for a month or two."

"Is that all he wrote to you?" Crowell asked.

"Yes," said Hale.

Crowell murmured something and looked hastily away. He seemed a little moved.

But Ross Hale rode back to his ranch and went on waiting.

Late October came—November—and still there was no word of Peter in the line-up.

Well, it was a crushing blow, but there were still two years left of Peter's varsity career, and perhaps it was all for the best. He would be bigger and stronger and better able, in every way, to make football history in the following fall. Therefore Ross Hale steeled himself with patience and endured for another year. Small consolations came to him along the way. Sweetest of all was the news in the early summer that Peter had done well—extremely well in his studies. The strangest part was that Peter had not appeared in the varsity crew—or in the varsity nine.

I am saving myself for football, wrote Peter.

But the junior year brought not a bit of better luck. October came, and still there was no word of Peter in the college line-up. So Ross Hale wrote to the coach—to the famous Crossley himself—asking: Why doesn't my boy make good, after the fine start which he had? Doesn't he measure up to your varsity standard?

In due time—but that was November and the big games were already played for the year—there came a bittersweet letter for Ross Hale. It was quite long and it was all written out in the hand of the great Crossley himself and signed with his very own name at the bottom of the last page.

It said in part:

Peter is good enough to play for the varsity. He is head and shoulders above any man on the team as it stands at present. It is a dreadful blow to us that we can't play him. But his leg was never properly treated, and it gave way during practice again.

However, even if Peter were never to play a game of college football, you have a right to know that we who really watched him in action in his freshman year understand that he was a great athlete, one of the very finest, I think, that I ever saw break up a football line. In addition, he has a heart of oak. But you are his father, and doubtless you know that for yourself.

For my part I should like to add only this: That sometimes great disappointments, even in little things, will ripen a man and make him truly worthwhile.

There was much more to this kind letter. But the major fact remained that Peter had not played football this fall again.

Andy Hale said with a smile and a shrug: "Pete don't seem to be tearing them up quite so much this year, Ross."

"Wait till next year and you'll see him break all records," Ross said savagely.

Yet with the coming of the next fall there was still no word of Peter Hale in the line-up.

A poor team had taken the field for the great Crimson, and it was passing through a most disastrous season. The big fellows trampled it under foot, and the little fellows rose up and battled it on even terms. Surely, surely there was room on such an eleven for Peter Hale. His anxious father, reading Eastern sporting pages with an anxious heart, waited and waited, swearing to himself that life would be worthwhile if Peter could only stand in the Crimson line for a single period, for five minutes. But it was not to be. No college letter would come to Peter.

A dreadful winter followed. Twice Ross went to the banks, and twice the banks refused to talk to him. They had heard the old story before, and there was nothing in it to interest them. They did not care how great an amount of interest he was prepared to pay. He sold off almost all of his remaining stock. For his own part he lived on milk and bread and what rabbits he could reach with his rifle. He had furniture for two rooms—the kitchen, into which he had moved his own bed, and Peter's room, kept exactly as it had been in the old days, when Peter left his home.

But the rest of the house had been denuded. It was true that it did not bring much when it was sold to the second-hand stores; yet it brought something. Even so, he could not get enough, it seemed.

"I am afraid, from the size of your last check, Dad," said a letter from Peter, "that you haven't been having as much luck as usual on the farm. Now, if you will say the word, I can easily raise enough money to see me through commencement week."

But Ross Hale had begun this thing eleven years before and he would see it through. He took his last dollar into a poker game and came out with a couple of hundred. Every penny of it he sent East. This would see his boy through. It was the last stroke and it crowned his work. Now he had only to sit back and reap the fruits of his labors.