Читать книгу The Land of Joy - Ralph Henry Barbour - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Phillip couldn’t help thinking, when, attired in his new football togs, he faced his reflection in the mirror, that he was doing himself and perhaps the college an injustice in trying for the freshman team instead of the ’varsity. He grew quite uneasy about it and wondered for a moment whether Chester Baker’s sudden friendship was not part of a deeply laid plan to secure his services for the minor eleven. But he kept his misgivings to himself when, at half-past three the next afternoon, he found himself being conducted over to Soldiers’ Field by Chester Baker and Guy Bassett.

The latter youth looked to be a year or so older than Chester, and was tall and distinguished-appearing even in the well-worn canvas trousers and faded sweater. He had what Phillip was sure were “chiseled features,” with very steady brown eyes set far apart and brown hair that was parted in the middle and which was as smooth and glossy as though newly ironed. Phillip thought his manners wonderful; he had shaken hands with a degree of empressement which in most would have been unpleasant but which in his case seemed absolutely natural. He said strange things in a grave voice and with a perfectly serious countenance, and during the first few weeks of their acquaintance Phillip never knew for certain when the other was in earnest. Sometimes he took his cue from Chester and echoed that youth’s laughter, but more often he made use of a happy compromise and smiled wisely, as one to whom sad experience had taught the futility of either laughter or seriousness. And Guy, perceiving the other’s predicament, excelled himself in the utterance of extravagances.

Phillip had acknowledged cheerfully his ignorance of all save the rudiments of football, and Guy had nodded commendingly.

“I think you’ll make a success at it,” he said gravely. “I only wish I had your ignorance of the game.”

“Why,” exclaimed Phillip, “I should think that ignorance was something of a drawback to a fellow.”

“Yes, that’s the popular impression, but, like most popular impressions, it’s quite erroneous. It is ignorance that wins every time. Take your own case for example. You know no more of the game than you have learned from seeing it played on three occasions. You are free from prejudices; you do not insist that the ball must be handled in a certain way. It makes no difference to you whether the quarter holds it with a stiff hand or a loose one, whether he has the belly of the ball or the end. You haven’t played the game until you’ve got yourself into a rut hemmed in by customs and precedents. Consequently, if left to your own devices you will play the game naturally. If it comes easier to you to kick the ball with your heel than with your toe, you’ll do it. If you think you can obtain better results by tackling the referee instead of the runner, you’ll do that. Your mind, so far as the game of football is concerned, is virgin. You learn the game naturally, as a child learns to talk. You will not be restricted by rules, regulations or customs; and so who knows but that you’ll improve on the present methods?”

Phillip smiled doubtfully and shot a glance at the speaker’s face. But Guy was looking straight ahead, thoughtfully serious, as though enjoying a vision of a gridiron contest in which the players, emancipated from the iron heel of the despotic coach, were battling each as his natural impulse taught. Chester was grinning; but then he generally was grinning, thought Phillip.

“But there would always have to be rules, wouldn’t there?” he asked.

“Not at all,” answered Guy calmly. “Rules are laws; laws are unnatural mandates invented by man to govern the conduct of persons whose conscionable impulses have been so thwarted that they no longer have the power to influence.”

Chester gurgled rapturously.

“In football,” continued Guy, “there is a rule which prohibits a player from throttling his opponent or striking him with his fist. Now where is the advantage of that rule? It very often happens—I know that it has in my case, at all events—that a player can put his opponent out of the play more speedily and certainly by striking him forcibly between the eyes with the fist than by pushing him to one side. The natural impulse is to do so. Then why not do it?”

“But—but——” Phillip stuttered in his amazement. “But that would be brutal! You might—might injure the other fellow.”

“Certainly; I believe that if done scientifically and with sufficient force it would kill him. And there we are again. The natural impulse is to kill enough of the opposing team to enable you to win the game. The object of the game is to win. The surest way to win is to kill off the other team as fast as possible. But there the very persons who should do all in their power to advance the sport step in with a foolish, contradictory rule prohibiting you from slaying your man in any save one or two almost impossible methods. Any one who has played football at all knows that you can’t kill your opponent by throwing him or by pawing him on the chest with the open hand. It’s the dreariest nonsense! Consider the one or two real killings that football history shows. In each case the deed has been done either by stamping the fellow’s brains out or jumping onto his spinal column so as to break his neck, or in some way that the idiotic rules prohibit. Rules! Why, they’re the very things that are retarding the true development of the game.”

“Oh, shut up, Guy!” sputtered Chester. Phillip laughed uncertainly. Of course Bassett was only fooling, but he did it with such a straight face, thought Phillip, that any one might be deceived. They turned in at the Newell Gate and followed the path around the Locker Building. The field was already well dotted with fellows; it looked to Phillip as though every man who could beg, buy or borrow a pair of football trousers had turned out.

“Think over what I’ve said,” pleaded Guy, as they approached the group of waiting candidates for the freshman team. “You’ve got the making of a great football player, Ryerson; you start in with the most valuable asset of all, ignorance. Be true to your impulses and resist to the last drop of blood in your veins the coercion of narrow-minded, hide-bound, bigoted coaches and captains. You have a great future before you, my boy. Remain true to yourself, and Chester and I will look back to this day in which we were privileged to know you ere you were discovered to fame as the proudest day of our lives.”

A half-hour later Phillip had begun to doubt whether he was destined to cut such a wide swath in the football landscape as he had believed. His opinion of his prowess had shrunk to such modest dimensions that he was ready to acquit Chester of all such designs on him as he had momentarily suspected him of. And, moreover, he was rather glad that he had not attempted the ’varsity team, as he had at first intended doing. Physical fatigue is conducive to self-disparagement, and Phillip ached in all the bones that he had known himself the possessor of and in several the presence of which inside his anatomy came to him as a startling and painful surprise.

He had taken part, together with some half-hundred other hopefuls, in a number of strange exercises. First the candidates had been lined up on the thirty-yard mark and, at the flourish of the coach’s cap, had raced frantically at top speed to the goal line. This had been repeated exactly five times, and at the end of the last dash Phillip sank down onto the turf and hung his tongue out. Falling on the ball, in all its variations, had followed. As Phillip had never attempted the feat before, his success was negative, judged from the coach’s standpoint, but really wonderful in other ways. He found it very thrilling and was ready to believe that as an exercise it was far ahead of any method he had tried. Punting succeeded falling on the ball, and from this he would have extracted not a little enjoyment had it not been that it hurt him terribly every time he lifted his foot into the air. At last practice was over for that day and he wandered out of the crowd looking rather dejected. He had given his name and had been instructed to report the next afternoon at the same time. But anticipation of the next day’s proceedings occasioned him no delight, and he wondered whether second-hand football togs, worn only once, had any market value.

Chester and Guy discovered him and dragged him across to the ’varsity gridiron, in spite of his emphatic requests to be allowed to go home and study.

“Study?” cried Chester. “How you do talk! What, in the name of all that’s sensible, do you want to grind on a nice afternoon like this for? Come on; we’ll go over and sit on the seats and criticize the ’varsity chaps. How did you get on?”

“Not very well, I reckon,” answered Phillip. “I couldn’t get the hang of falling on the ball, and when I tried to kick my legs ached so I couldn’t. In fact, I ache mighty near all over.”

Chester grinned and Guy raised his eyebrows in polite surprise. “You’ll feel better to-morrow,” assured the former, and the latter murmured: “ ’Tis sweet to die for one’s class.”

Beyond the fence the ’varsity candidates were punting and catching and jogging about the field in little groups that paused for a moment over the ball and, at the signal, shot forward as though about to tear down the gridiron, but who instead suddenly appeared to change their minds and paused, took breath and did it all over again. There were five coaches present, and each took his turn at interrupting the captain, who was instructing an assortment of backs in the art of getting down under kicks.

Phillip seated himself beside his companions on the little bench by the jumping standard and stretched his tired legs before him with a sigh of luxurious content. The scene interested and pleased him. The grass was still green, the white clouds floated lazily overhead, the river was blue with queer bronze ripples, and the breeze that stirred the damp hair over his forehead was fresh and invigourating. For a time he divided his attention between the doings of the crimson-stockinged candidates and the conversation of the two beside him. But presently his thoughts wandered off into a series of veritable day-dreams. Very pleasant dreams they were, in which he saw himself successful and popular, and heard the plaudits of the admiring multitude. Just what variety of college fame he had won did not appear; but whatever it was it was extremely satisfying, and Phillip saw himself bowing before the storm of approval with a nice mixture of pride and modesty. They were calling his name wildly, enthusiastically:

“Ryerson! Ryerson! Ryer——!”

He opened his eyes and sat up with a start. Chester was shaking him by the neck and laughing.

“Wake up, you sleepy cuss, and answer to your name!”

“I—I don’t think I was asleep,” murmured Phillip.

“Well, you’ve got another think. I was telling Guy that I met the famous John North last night. Laurence took me over to his room in Little’s. I told him about you and he says he’s called on you.”

“Called on me?” repeated Phillip. “Did he say when? I reckon I was out. I’m sorry.”

“Why, that’s the funny part of it,” answered Chester. “I said I’d met you, and he asked kind of dryly whether I’d found you belligerent. I told him no, and said that you’d spoken of expecting a call from him. He said he had called and that you and he had had a very interesting talk. He looked so darned queer, though, that I thought maybe he was stringing me.”

Phillip looked puzzled for an instant; then a great dismay overspread his countenance and he gripped Chester by the arm.

“What does he look like?” he cried.

“Why, he—— Say, what is this—melodrama?”

“No, no; go on. Tell me!”

“ ‘Give me the chee-ild!’ ” exclaimed Chester, tragically. Then, observing Phillip’s expression of anxiety, he went on soberly: “He’s about six foot tall, I guess; about three foot broad; he has—— Why, hang it, there he is, crossing the field—the fellow talking with the head coach; see?”

Phillip followed the other’s gaze and his heart sank.

“That—that’s not John North!” he faltered.

“You’re a liar,” answered Chester sweetly. Phillip groaned.

“Why, that’s—that’s——”

Guy leaned over and patted him reassuringly on the back.

“Hold hard, old man; don’t give way to it. Give him air, men; stand back everybody!”

“You were about to observe?” asked Chester.

“Nothing.” Phillip sat with flushed cheeks and watched the approach of his caller of Wednesday, praying that the latter would not come near enough to see him. But John, in earnest conversation with the head coach, came straight on toward the bench and only paused when the edge of the running track was reached. Phillip sank back and tried to make himself smaller. Chester observed him with interest and curiosity. John talked for a minute, his back toward the three, and then, apparently in explanation of the subject under discussion, took the head coach by the shoulders and swung him slowly to the left. The head coach nodded and John glanced up and caught sight of the trio on the bench. His gaze swept over them and he nodded smilingly, his eyes upon Chester.

“How are you?” responded that youth.

Phillip, his cheeks on fire, wondered miserably whether the senior had recognized him as the “very fresh little boy” who had ordered him out of the room. He shot quick glances to left and right with the half-formulated idea of sneaking out of sight. What, he asked himself, must North think of him?

“Come over and I’ll introduce you,” said Chester, starting up. But Phillip dragged him back onto the seat.

“No, please! Not now!” he begged.

“Why not?”

“Because—— There, he’s going!” North and the head coach turned and strode off to a group of players. “I reckon I’ll go back now,” said Phillip.

“Well, I guess it’s time,” answered Chester. “The mosquitoes are getting plaguey familiar with my neck. Coming, Guy?”

When they reached the bridge the river had changed its hue. It was the colour of steel now, shot with ripples of lemon yellow. Across the stream and to the left the windows of the University Press were aflame with the rays of the sinking sun, and the lights along Charles River Road were pale yellow pin-points. The sound of oarlocks caught their ears and they paused and leaned over the rail. A crew was swinging its way up stream, the eight backs rising and falling in unison. The shell shot under the bridge, followed an instant later by the launch. At the bow of the latter the coach knelt on one knee, crimson megaphone at mouth, shouting unintelligible things. In the wake the waves lapped the shingle softly. Off the university boathouse the rowers ceased and let the shell run, turning widely through the darkening water, followed by the puffing launch. Phillip drew a long breath. He wanted to quote poetry but could think of nothing.

Guy hummed softly.

Chester lighted a cigarette.

“That was Laurence at Four,” he said.

Farther on Phillip turned and remarked in the manner of one who has reached a conclusion after long deliberation:

“I think I should like to row.”

Chester laughed; Guy, however, nodded approvingly.

“Your ambition does you credit,” he said gravely. “ ‘Aim high and fall soft’ is an excellent motto.”

Phillip wondered what he meant.

Among John North’s mail the next morning was a letter which he read twice and then handed to David. It was signed Phillip Scott Ryerson, and had occasioned the writer much thought, many sheets of paper and some two hours to compose. It was as follows:

“Dear Mr. North:

“I hardly know how to approach the subject upon which I wish to address you. Please believe that the whole thing was a most unfortunate mistake. I allude to the call you were so kind as to pay me on Wednesday afternoon last. I did not know who you were. You will say that that was no one’s fault but my own, and you are right. And even as it was, not knowing who you were and believing you to be a proctor, I had no right to act in such an impolite” (the word was erased) “ungentlemanly manner. The only excuse I have to offer is that I was much out of temper when you called owing to a dispute, part of which you witnessed, with an expressman who wanted to overcharge me for bringing my baggage from the city and placing it in my rooms.

“I had looked forward with great pleasure to meeting you, especially since my mother and Mr. Corliss had hoped so much of my being acquainted with you during my freshman year, and cannot tell you how sorry I am that I should have received you so rudely, even though, as I do hope you will believe, I did not know who you were when you called. I hope you will accept my apology and, if you can, forgive my rudeness. I have no right to ask you to call again, but if you can forget what happened on Wednesday last I wish you would allow me to see you. I only know two fellows here and have thought of you as a friend all along, hearing Mr. Corliss speak of you, and my mother having been so pleased at the idea of my meeting you, and hope you will overlook my discourtesy of last Wednesday.

“Hoping to have a reply from you, and with earnest apologies,

“Respectfully,

“Phillip Scott Ryerson.”

David handed back the letter with a grunt and looked up at John.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well?” echoed John.

“Oh, if you ask me, I think you’d better forgive and forget.”

“That of course,” replied the other. “The fact is, Davy, I made up my mind yesterday to look him up again. After all, it wasn’t altogether the boy’s fault. And the weather Wednesday was beastly. But what do you think of the epistle?”

“Why, it sounds sincere, Johnnie, in spite of a certain—er—involution.”

“Yes; I believe the boy’s the right sort after all, Davy. Who knows but what we’ll be able to do something with him yet?”

“We!”

“I meant to say I.”

“I wish,” growled David severely, “that you would break yourself, Johnnie, of the growing habit of seeking to involve me in your kindergarten duties and difficulties. I have troubles of my own.”

“Well, anyhow,” remarked John, as he picked up a book and pulled his cap on, “I’m glad that I’d decided to try him again before the letter came. It eases my conscience.”

“Your what?” gasped David.

“Conscience. Wait until you get into the foster-mother business, Davy, and you’ll develop one yourself. And besides, there’s not only the boy to think of, but—Margaret.”

“Who’s Margaret?” asked David suspiciously.

“That, my friend,” replied John amiably, as he passed out, “is none of your business.”