Читать книгу For the Honor of the School - Ralph Henry Barbour - Страница 6

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Wayne lounged down the steps of the Academy Building, a little bundle of books under his arm, and listlessly crossed the grass to the wall that guarded the river bluff, from where an enticing panorama of stream and meadow and distant mountains lay before him. The day was one of those unseasonably warm ones which sometimes creep unexpectedly into the month of November, and which make every task doubly hard and any sort of idleness attractive. The river was intensely blue, the sky almost cloudless, and the afternoon sun shone with mellow warmth on the deep red bricks of the ancient buildings.

Wayne tossed his books on the sod and perched himself on the top of the wall. The last recitation of the day was over and he was at a loss for something to do. To be sure, he might, in fact ought to study; but study didn’t appeal to him. Now and then he turned his head toward the building in hope of seeing some fellow who could be induced to come and talk with him. Don was doing laboratory work in physics and Dave and Paddy were undoubtedly on the campus. At a little distance a couple of boys whom Wayne did not know were passing a football back and forth as they loitered along the path. A boy whom he did know ran down the steps and shouted a salutation to him, but Wayne only waved his hand in reply. It was Ferguson, who talked of nothing but postage stamps, and Wayne had outgrown stamps and found no interest in discussing them. Ferguson went on around the corner of Academy Building toward the gymnasium, and with a start Wayne recollected that at that moment he should be making one of a squad of upper middle-class fellows and exercising with the chest weights. He looked doubtfully toward the point where Ferguson had disappeared. What right, he asked himself, had a preparatory school, where a fellow goes to learn Greek and Latin and mathematics, and such things, to insist that a fellow shall develop his muscles with chest weights and dumb-bells and single sticks? None at all; the whole thing was manifestly unjust. Schools were to make scholars and not athletes, said Wayne, and he, for one, stood ready to protest, to the principal himself if need be, against the mistaken system.

The moment for such protest must be drawing near, thought the boy, with something between a grin and a scowl, for he had already twice absented himself from gymnasium work, and only yesterday a polite but firm note from Professor Beck had reminded him of the fact. Well, he was in for it now, and he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. He gathered his books together and started along the river path toward the campus in search of Paddy or Dave. He wanted to tell some one about it.

Wayne had been at Hillton two months, and was apparently no nearer being reconciled to the discipline and spirit of the Academy than on the day he entered. He found the studies many and difficult and the rules onerous. Everything was so different from what he had been accustomed to. At home he had attended a small private school where laxity of discipline and indifference to study occasioned but scant comment. The dozen or so scholars studied practically what they pleased and when they pleased, which in many cases was very little. Wayne’s mother had died when he was five years of age; his father, who had labored conscientiously at the boy’s upbringing, had erred on the side of leniency. Wayne had been given most everything for which he had asked, including his own way on many occasions when a denial would have worked better results. A boy with less inherent manliness might have been spoiled beyond repair. Wayne was—well, perhaps half spoiled; at all events unfitted for his sudden transition to a school like Hillton, where every boy was thrown entirely on his own resources and was judged by his individual accomplishments.

Wayne envied Don and Paddy, and even Dave, their ability to conquer lessons with apparent ease. He was not lazy, but was lacking in a very valuable thing called application, which is sometimes better than brains. And where Don mastered a lesson in thirty minutes Wayne spent twice that time on a like task. It had required two months of the hardest coaching to fit Wayne for admission into the upper middle class at the Academy, and now he was making a sad muddle of his studies and was beginning to get discouraged. He wished his father hadn’t sent him to Hillton; or, rather, he would wish that were it not for Don—and Paddy—and Dave—and, yes, for lots of other things. Wayne sighed as he thought of what a jolly place the Academy would be if it wasn’t for lessons—and chest weights! And this brought him back to his grievance, and, having reached the campus, he looked about to find some one to whom he might confide his perplexities and resolves.

But both Paddy and Dave were too busy to heed any one else’s troubles. Paddy, in a disreputable suit of football togs, his face streaming with perspiration, was being pushed and shoved about the gridiron, the center of a writhing mass of players, while the coach’s whistle vainly proclaimed the ball not in play. Dave, his good-natured face red with exertion, was struggling with his beloved hammer amid a little circle of attentive and facetious spectators.

“Say, Dave, you ought to stop, really you had,” one of the onlookers was saying as Wayne joined the circle. “If you keep at it much longer you won’t be able to throw that thing out of the circle.”

“Three feet four inches short of the first mark,” said a youth with a tape as he rose from measuring the last flight of the weight. “Better rest a bit.”

“Why don’t you take the hammer off, Dave, and throw the handle?” asked a third boy.

“Well, I wish you’d step up here and have a try at it,” answered Dave good-naturedly.

“Oh, but I’m not a strong man like you. If I was half as big I’d throw the old thing twice as far as that.”

“Well, perhaps you’ll grow in time, Tommy. Hello, Wayne,” he continued, as he caught sight of that youth, “why don’t you say something funny? I don’t mind; go on.”

“Can’t think of anything right now,” answered Wayne. “The funniest thing I know of is tossing an iron ball around when it’s too warm to move. You look like a roast of beef, Dave.”

“Do I? Well, I’ve been roasted enough; I’m going to knock off. Besides, I’m in poor form to-day. Let’s go over and watch Paddy, poor dub. I guess he’s having a hard time of it, too.”

Dave picked up his sweater and hammer and the two strolled over to the side-line and sat down. The first and second elevens, the latter augmented by several extra players, were putting in a hard practice. Less than a fortnight remained ere the game of the season would be played with St. Eustace Academy, and hard work was the order of the day. The head coach, an old Hillton graduate named Gardiner, was far from satisfied with the team’s showing. As Paddy had pointed out, he and Greene were the only members of the first eleven who had the experience that participation in a big game brings. Greene was the captain and played right end, and to-day he was visibly worried and nervous, and was rapidly working his men into much the same state when Gardiner called time and allowed the almost breathless players to strew themselves over the field on their backs and pant away to their heart’s content. Paddy caught sight of the two boys on the side-line and crawled dejectedly over to them on all fours, his tongue hanging out, in ludicrous imitation of a dog.

“It’s awful, my brethren, simply awful. We are probably the worst lot of football players in the world. Greene will tell you so—and glad of the chance, bad luck to him! He’s got the ‘springums.’”

“What are those?” asked Wayne.

“Oh, those are nerves; when you can’t keep still, you know. That’s what’s the matter with Greene to-day. And I don’t much blame him; the weather’s unfit for practice, and every chap on the team feels like a sausage, and the St. Eustace game’s a week from Thursday. I heard March tell Gardiner——”

“Is Joel March here?” asked Dave.

“Yes; see him over there talking to ‘Pigeon’ Wallace? He said to Gardiner a few minutes ago, ‘There’s one great trouble with that eleven, Mr. Gardiner, and that is that it’s not the kind that wins.’ He didn’t know I could hear. Of course I wouldn’t tell Greene for a house and farm. But March is right; I’ve felt that way all the fall. And if March says we can’t win, we’re not going to.” Paddy sighed dolefully.

“Tommyrot, Paddy!” answered Dave. “Joel March isn’t infallible, and the team may take a big brace before Thanksgiving.”

“Who’s Joel March, anyway?” asked Wayne.

“Joel March? Why, Joel March is—is— Say, haven’t you ever heard of March?” exclaimed Dave, in deep disgust. Wayne shook his head.

“I reckon not; if I have I’ve forgotten it. What did he do—run a mile in eighteen and three-fourth seconds or throw an iron ball over Academy Building?”

“Neither, my sarcastic and ignorant young friend from the Sunny South,” answered Paddy, with asperity. “But he’s the finest half-back in college; and if you knew anything about the important affairs of the day you would know that he made the only score in the Harwell-Pennsylvania game last Saturday, and that he ran over fifty-five yards to do it! Also, and likewise, and moreover,” continued Paddy, with great severity, “when I was a little green junior, two years ago, I sat just about here and watched Joel March kick a goal from the field that tied the St. Eustace game after they had us beaten. And I yelled myself hoarse and couldn’t speak loud enough at dinner to ask for the turkey, and Dave ate my share before my eyes! That’s who Joel March is.”

“You don’t say,” responded Wayne, without displaying the least bit of awe. “And who’s the swell with him?”

“That’s West, his chum. West is the father of golf here at Hillton,” answered Dave, with becoming reverence. “I used to follow him when he went around and wish that I could drive the way he could. He was a member of the team that Harwell sent to the intercollegiate tournament last month. Is March going to coach the backs, Paddy?”

“Don’t know; but they could stand it. There’s going to be a shake-up next half, I’ll bet. Gardiner says if the second scores on us again before Thanksgiving he’ll send it to Marshall instead of the first. Gardiner’s a great jollier. Here we go again like lambs to the slaughter,” added Paddy as the whistle blew.

“You remind me of a lamb,” said Dave; “you’re so different.”

Paddy playfully pommeled the other’s ribs and then cantered off to the center of the gridiron, where Gardiner, Greene, and March, the old Hillton half-back, were assembled in deep converse.

“Want to go back,” asked Dave, “or shall we stay and see the rest of the practice?”

“Let’s stay,” said Wayne. “I suppose Paddy is sure of his place, isn’t he? I mean they won’t put him off, will they?”

“No; I guess Paddy’s all right for center. But the big chap next to him, at left-guard, is sure to go on the second, I think. They ought to have made Paddy captain last fall. Greene’s an awfully decent fellow, but he’s liable to get what Paddy calls the ‘springums.’ He’s too high-strung for the place. Watch Gardiner now; he’s doing things.”

The head coach was a big, broad-shouldered man, with a face so freckled and homely as to be attractive. Many years before he had been a guard on the Hillton eleven and his name stood high on the Academy’s roll of honor. As Dave had said, he was “doing things.” Four of the first eleven players were relegated in disgrace to the ranks of the second, their positions being filled by so many happy youths from the opposing team. Wayne noted with satisfaction that Paddy’s broad bulk still remained in the center of the first eleven’s line when the two teams faced each other for the last twenty minutes of play. Joel March, with coat and vest discarded, took up a position behind quarter-back and from there coached the two halfs with much hand-clapping and many cheery commands. Greene appeared to have recovered his equanimity, and the first eleven successfully withstood the onslaught of the opponents until the ball went to Paddy and a spirited advance down the field brought the pigskin to the second’s forty-yard line and gave Grow, the full-back, an opportunity to try a goal from a placement. The attempt failed and the ball went back to the second, but the first’s line again held well, and a kick up the field sent the players scurrying to the thirty-five-yard line, where, coached by March, Grow secured the ball and recovered ten yards ere he was downed. Later the first worked the ball over for a touch-down, from which no goal was tried, and the practice game ended without the dreaded scoring by the second eleven, much to Paddy’s relief.

The three boys hurried back together, and Wayne, parting from his companions at the gymnasium, sought his room, reflecting on the athletic mania that seemed to possess every fellow at the school.

“I’ll have to do something that way myself,” he thought ruefully, “or I’ll be a sort of—what-yer-call-it?—social outcast.”

Then he recollected that he had forgotten to consult Dave regarding his proposed declaration of right, and was rather glad that he had; because, after all, he told himself, Dave Merton was not a chap that would sympathize with a protest against gymnastics and such things. But that evening, as the two sat studying in their room after supper, Wayne told his plans to Don and asked for an opinion. And Don looked up from his Greek text-book and said briefly and succinctly:

“Don’t do it!”

“But, I say, Don, I’ve got some voice in the business, haven’t I? What right has Professor Beck or Professor Wheeler or—or any of them got to make me develop my muscles if I don’t want my muscles developed? When it comes to study, you know, why, that’s another——”

“Well, if you’ll take my advice you’ll stop worrying about your rights and obey the rules.”

“But——”

“Because if you don’t, Wayne, you’d much better have stayed at home. I—I tried asserting my rights once and it didn’t pay. And since then I’ve tended to my own affairs and let the faculty make the laws.”

“Just the same,” answered Wayne, with immense dignity, “I don’t intend to put up with injustice, although you may. I shall tell Professor Wheeler just what I’ve told you, and——”

Don looked up from his book with a frown.

“Wayne, will you shut up?”

“But I’m telling you——”

“But I don’t want to hear. It’s all nonsense. And, besides, if you’re going to say it all to ‘Wheels’ what’s the good of boring me with it? Talk about injustice,” groaned Don, “look at the length of this lesson!”

Wayne opened his book and, as a silent protest against his friend’s heartlessness, began to study.