Читать книгу Guarding His Goal - Ralph Henry Barbour - Страница 7

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Arnold had his wish that Christmas, for when Toby awoke on the morning of the twenty-fifth in his little room under the eaves he found that a miracle had occurred while he slept. In fact the miracle was still occurring! Greenhaven was smothered in snow, and big, lazy flakes were still falling from a leaden, misty void. Harbor Street, as it wound northward, showed a single line of footprints, and those were fast being obliterated. The boat yard, across the road, was covered with a white mantle. Beyond, the Cove was dimly discernible, gray-green. The stern of a coal-scow peered through the white mist from the end of Rollinson’s Wharf and a little black fishing boat swung at moorings near by. It was a white, silent and, to Toby, very wonderful world that met the sight that Christmas morning. But Toby didn’t linger long at his window, for the room was cold. Instead, wondering whether Arnold had discovered the snow yet, and deciding, with a chuckle, that he hadn’t, since it was only seven and Arnold was not a very early riser when at home, he hurried into his clothes and was presently on his way down the creaky staircase.

Appetizing odors came from the kitchen, but the dining-room was deserted save for Mr. Murphy. Mr. Murphy’s greeting was a strident “Hello, dearie! Won’t you come in and take off your bonnet?” After which he sidled lumbersomely along his perch, put his head coyly on one side and chuckled.

“Hello, you old scoundrel,” said Toby. “Merry Christmas to you.” He rubbed the parrot’s head with a finger and Mr. Murphy closed his beady eyes and enjoyed it. Toby was glad there was no one there, for it gave him an opportunity to place the packages he had brought around the table. Others, he saw, had been ahead of him, for already each plate held its quota of mysterious parcels tied with red ribbon. Then Phebe came in from the kitchen and Mr. Tucker stamped in from outdoors and Christmas greetings mingled, while Mr. Murphy, who loved excitement, bobbed about on his perch and cried “All hands stand by!” and “Come to breakfast! Come to breakfast! Come to breakfast!” And in the middle of the hubbub appeared Toby’s mother bearing a big platter, and a minute later they were all seated at the table.

That was a very merry meal. One after another the packages were undone and the contents exclaimed upon and passed from hand to hand to be admired and every one quite forgot to eat anything until all the presents had been opened. Mr. Tucker was very much pleased with his shaving set, and Phebe, who was thirteen and fast becoming a very pretty young lady, wound the blue-and-white silk scarf Toby had given her round her throat and refused to be parted from it. Toby’s gift to his mother was a pair of gloves which Mrs. Tucker declared very much too fine for her. The fact that they were a full size too small was not divulged. Toby’s own presents were simple and practical; a dressing-gown and handkerchiefs from his mother and sister, a five-dollar gold piece from his father, a pair of woolen mittens from Long Tim and a watch-fob of braided leather from Shorty Joe. Tim and Joe worked in Mr. Tucker’s boat yard. When, later in the day, Billy Plank, the postman, plowed up to the door, there was another gift for Toby. Of course he guessed right away who it was from, and his guess proved right. There was a card on top of the little blue box which read: “Merry Christmas to Toby from Arnold.” When the layer of cotton had been removed, as well as much white tissue paper, the gift resolved itself into a pair of gold cuff-links with the letters T. T. intertwined on them. Of course, as Toby said, they were much too expensive for his use, but they pleased him immensely and he carried them around in his pocket all day and viewed them proudly at intervals. By comparison, his gift to Arnold, an inexpensive little leather case for pins and studs, looked rather mean, but he was much too sensible to be worried over it.

After breakfast he set out to visit Long Tim and Shorty Joe and deliver the presents he had brought them, two ties of most remarkable hues which, judged solely as color effects, had been stupendously cheap at thirty-seven cents apiece! Fortunately, as Toby well knew, both Joe and Tim were fond of bright colors, and his gifts were received with open-eyed admiration. It was almost noon when he at last got away from Shorty Joe, who had much to tell him of happenings during his three months’ absence from Greenhaven. They weren’t very important happenings, but they were of interest to Toby. Dinner was at two o’clock, and Toby’s Uncle Benedict and Aunt Sarah, from Good Ground, arrived a few minutes before, Aunt Sarah bringing him a pair of worsted gloves which she had knitted. Toby was sorry that he had neglected to provide a gift for her, but Aunt Sarah didn’t appear to notice the omission. Dinner was a very jolly and very hearty affair, and after it was over, Toby, resisting a desire to go to sleep, persuaded Phebe to don her new muffler and go for a walk with him. It was getting well along toward dusk by that time and the snow, which had fallen steadily since before midnight, had almost stopped. They took the road through the town and then turned up the hill behind the little village from which a wonderful view of Spanish Harbor and the bay lay before them. They had lots to talk about and Phebe was full of questions regarding Toby’s school adventures. On the way back they met two of Toby’s friends, Billy Conners and Gus Whalen, and the quartette went on to the little white cottage around the end of the Cove and satisfied surprisingly vigorous hungers with slices of cold turkey and cranberry tarts.

Toby returned to New York Monday afternoon and spent a glorious four days with Arnold. They went twice to theaters, had several sleigh rides far out into the country, patronized the “movies” two afternoons, explored the Park, lunched one day with Arnold’s father at a sumptuous club and, in short, were busy every moment and went to bed each night so tired that they fell asleep the instant their heads touched the pillows.

On Friday Arnold went back to Greenhaven with Toby and shared the latter’s none too generous bed, since a guest chamber was something the little house didn’t boast, until Sunday. A sharp breeze Friday night provided fair skating on the marsh and it was on Saturday that Toby received his first instruction in the duties of a hockey player. They had no hockey sticks and so they used two lengths of wood that Long Tim cut for them in the boat shed and a block of mahogany. Toby found that while he could out-skate his chum in a straight-away race, the latter could out-maneuver him with ease. Arnold could stop and turn and dodge with the quickness of a cat! Toby’s efforts to emulate him resulted in many laughable and sometimes jarring upsets. Perhaps that lesson didn’t increase his knowledge beyond showing him what a lot he had to learn, but it provided a heap of fun. Sunday morning they tramped over to the Head, through a biting easterly gale, and Arnold, who had provided himself with the key of his father’s summer house there, rummaged through the dark rooms for an elusive baseman’s glove. Eventually it came to light, but not before the two boys were pretty well chilled through. They tried to light a fire in the kitchen range to warm themselves by before setting out on the return journey, but the range absolutely refused to draw and they had finally to flee, choking and coughing from the smoke that billowed through the cracks. Half-way back Arnold suddenly began to laugh and in answer to Toby’s concerned inquiries explained that the reason the stove hadn’t drawn was because the chimney-tops were carefully covered, a fact which he had forgotten until the moment!

Arnold went home in the afternoon, Toby and Phebe accompanying him as far as the station at Riverport. After that the remainder of the Christmas vacation simply melted away, much as the snow did on Monday when the easterly gale swept around to the south and a radiant sun smiled down on the dripping world. It didn’t seem to Toby that he had been away from Yardley Hall more than a half-dozen days, but here it was Tuesday and he was on his way back again! But going back wasn’t unpleasant. On the contrary, if anything had happened to prevent his going back he would have been a most unhappy youth. There was lots to look forward to, hockey, amongst other things, for Toby had by now decided that it was his bounden duty to go to the aid of the School in its commendable endeavor to turn out a winning seven. As there was a whole hour and a quarter to spend before he was to meet Arnold at the station, he set out, not without trepidation, to purchase one of those invaluable little blue-covered books which tell you how to perform every sort of athletic stunt from swinging Indian clubs to throwing a fifty-six-pound weight. Of course Toby wasn’t interested in clubs or weights just now. What he was after was a handbook on hockey, and after some searching up and down and across the town, with one eye on the clock, so to speak, he found it. You may be sure that Toby’s scant funds lay at the bottom of his most inaccessible pocket. Had he so much as sighted a brown overcoat he would have run! When Arnold found him he was sitting in a seat in the waiting-room, his feet on his old yellow valise and his eyes glued to page 19 of “How to Play Hockey.”

They boarded the ten-forty train and were soon gliding through the long tunnel on their way back to school and duties. But they didn’t sit in a parlor car this time. Toby would have none of such luxury, and rather than be parted from him Arnold shared his seat in a day coach. There were some twenty or thirty other Yardley fellows on board and the time went swiftly, and almost before they knew it they were crossing the little bridge and the school buildings were smiling down welcomingly from the hill and the trainman was calling “Wissining! Wissining!” at the top of his voice.

Well, it was good to be back again, Toby thought as, spurning carriages and valiantly lugging their bags, they set off along the road to school. Oxford Hall, imposing and a bit grim by reason of its gray granite walls, met their sight first as they left the tiny village and started up the hill. At the top of the tall pole in front the flag was snapping in the brisk breeze. Merle Hall, the home of the Preparatory Class boys, peered around the corner of Oxford, almost frivolous by comparison with its red brick and limestone trimming. A moment later, following the road to the right at the beginning of its wide swing around the base of the Prospect, as the plateau was called, other buildings came into sight: Whitson, like Oxford, of granite; Clarke, a replica of Merle; and, just showing between the other buildings, Dudley Hall, the exclusive residence of the graduating class. The buildings at Yardley follow the curve of the Prospect, forming a somewhat stunted letter J, with the Kingdon Gymnasium, out of sight from the road, doing duty as the tip of the curve and Dudley set in back like a misplaced dot. From the gymnasium the ground slopes gently back to the river, and there is the playing field and the boat house and landing and, further beyond, a fair nine-hole golf course. Across the river from the field lies a wide expanse of salt meadow known as Meeker’s Marsh. A little way upstream is Flat Island and a little further downstream is Loon Island. And not far from Loon Island is the footbridge that connects Wissining with Greenburg and the railway bridge across which trains dash or trundle at almost every hour of the day or night. From the bridges the little river runs fairly straight to the Sound, a mile or so away.

But we have got far from the two boys who, bags swinging—and beginning to feel extremely heavy by now—are breasting the last slope of the well-kept roadway. The old gray granite front of Whitson greets them and Arnold, followed by Toby, seeks the portal and climbs the worn stairs to the second floor. There, while Arnold unpacks his bag, Toby lodges himself on the window-seat and, hugging his knees, talks and gazes off over the tops of the trees to the sparkling waters of the Sound and feels for the moment very glad to be back there and very determined to study hard all through this new term. And presently Homer Wilkins bangs the door open and comes in dragging a big kit-bag and conversation becomes ejaculatory and somewhat noisy, and questions and answers tumble over each other. Wilkins, who shares Number 12 with Arnold, is a big, jolly looking chap of seventeen, a third class boy who should be in the second but who never has time enough to do the necessary amount of studying. Another train reaches the station and another influx of returning students comes up the hill, and Arnold and Toby and Homer squeeze their bodies half out the window and hail them. And soon after Toby takes up his bag again and climbs the last flight and finds himself once more in his little room under the slates, with the frayed armchair and the wardrobe whose doors won’t stay shut unless wedged and the old worn-out rug and—yes, a distinct odor of benzine!