Читать книгу Fourth Down! - Ralph Henry Barbour - Страница 6

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“Hello,” answered the other gruffly.

To Toby’s further annoyance he slid into the end seat, as he did so producing a folded but rather crumpled handkerchief from a pocket. This he held across to Toby.

“’Tain’t very clean,” he said, “but it’s the best I could do.”

“What is it?” asked Toby, accepting it doubtfully. “Oh, I see; my handkerchief. You needn’t have bothered. I told you to throw it away. Still, much obliged.” It had quite evidently been washed by the boy himself and ironed by the simple expedient of laying it while wet on some smooth surface, perhaps a windowpane. Faint brownish stains had defied the efforts of the amateur laundryman. Toby dropped it into a pocket, aware of the close and apparently hostile stare of the other. “Much obliged,” he repeated vaguely, for want of anything better to say.

“’At’s all right,” answered the other. “Too good a handkerchief to throw away.” An awkward silence followed. Toby wished the youth would take himself off, but that idea was apparently far from the latter’s mind. Instead, he thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers, stretched his thin legs before him and scowled down at the busy scene. He looked to be about fifteen, Toby thought. His features were not bad in themselves, but his expression was sullen and dissatisfied and his complexion was too much the color of putty to be pleasant to look at. Also, his skin didn’t seem clean and healthy. The same was true of the youth as a whole. Toby thought a thorough application of hot water and soap would improve him a whole lot, at least externally. His clothes were of good enough material and fairly new. But they were full of creases and needed brushing. His shoes were scratched at the toes and would have been better for dressing and polishing. His collar was cleaner than yesterday, but creased and rumpled, and the blue four-in-hand scarf needed tightening. On the whole, this chap was not a prepossessing member of Yardley Hall society, and Toby had no desire to increase the acquaintance. But so long as he was here some sort of conversation seemed in order, and so, breaking the silence:

“How’s the cut getting on?” Toby asked.

“All right,” the other answered without turning his head. Then: “Say,” he challenged.

“Yes?”

“Your name’s Tucker, ain’t it?”

“Yes. What’s yours, by the way?” Toby was sorry he had asked as soon as the question was out.

“Tubb,” was the answer, “George Tubb.” There was a pause. Then, defiantly: “Middle name’s William. Go on and say it!”

“Say it? Why, George William Tubb,” responded Toby obligingly.

The other turned and viewed him suspiciously. Then he grunted. “Guess you don’t get it,” he muttered. “George W. Tubb, see?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” answered Toby indifferently.

“You would if you saw it written,” said Mr. Tubb gloomily. “Everybody does.” He pitched his voice to a falsetto. “‘What’s the W. stand for? Wash?’ Gee, I’m sick of it. I tried to tell the guy in the office where you get registered that my middle name was Harris, but he said it couldn’t be that and begin with W. It’ll be W. in the catalogue, so you might as well know it now. Well, I’ve been ‘Wash-tub’ ever since I was a foot high, so I guess it don’t matter here!”

“What’s the difference?” asked Toby. “One nickname’s as good as another, isn’t it? Names don’t matter.”

“Some don’t. I suppose they call you ‘Red’ or ‘Carrot’ or something like that. I wouldn’t mind——”

“Hold on, Tubb!” Toby’s voice dropped a note. “No one calls me what you said. Some fellows have tried to, but they changed their minds. Understand?”

Tubb grinned. “Don’t like it, eh? Thought you said names didn’t matter! Well, I don’t like my nickname any more than you like yours; I mean what fellows started to call you.” The grin faded and Tubb’s countenance became overcast again with the settled expression of sullenness. “Anyway, what they call me here doesn’t cut any ice. I won’t be here long.”

“How’s that?” asked Toby, trying to make his question sound politely interested.

“I’m going to beat it. This ain’t any kind of a school for me, Tucker. Gee, what would I do here? Look at the gang of highbrows and mamma’s darlings! They’d stand for me about two days. I know the sort. Some of ’em come to our town in summer. Think they ever have anything to do with us town guys? Not on your life! We’re too common for ’em, the dear little Willie Boys!”

“Why did you come here then?” asked Toby coldly.

“It was Pop’s idea,” replied Tubb. “Aunt Sarah died last spring out in Michigan and she left Pop some money. The will said some of it was to go for my schooling. I wanted to go to Huckins’s, in Logansport. Know it? It’s an all-right school and two or three fellows from my town go there. It don’t cost much, either. But Pop was set on this dive. About ten years ago Pop was in partnership with a man named Mullins in the logging business, and this Mullins had a boy who went to school here. Pop thought a lot of the Mullinses, and when he learned about Aunt Sarah’s will he said right off I was to go here. He got the high school principal to coach me all summer. I kept telling him I wouldn’t like it here, kept telling him it wasn’t any place for a storekeeper’s son, but he wouldn’t listen. He said he’d lick the hide off me if I didn’t pass the examinations, and I knew he would. So I passed. He’ll lick me if I go back home, too, so I’ve got to go and get me a job somewhere. Guess I’ll enlist in the Navy. I’ll tell ’em I’m seventeen. They don’t care. I know a fellow got in when he was a couple of months younger than I am.”

Toby viewed Tubb distastefully during a brief silence. Then: “Seems to me,” he said slowly and emphatically, “the Navy is just the place for you, Tubb!”

“Sure,” began the other. Then something in Toby’s tone made him pause and view the other suspiciously. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

“Just what I said. What you need is discipline, Tubb, and a whole lot of it, and you’ll get it in the Navy. And I wish them joy of you!” Toby arose and crowded past to the aisle.

“Ah, go to thunder!” snarled Tubb. “You’re like all the rest of them, ain’t you? Silk-sox! Who cares what you think? Say, I hope you ain’t caught anything, sitting alongside me like that!”

There was more, but Toby didn’t hear it. Going down the aisle he was uncomfortably conscious of the curious looks bent on him by the occupants of the nearer seats who had been aroused from their sleepy occupation of following the practice by Tubb’s strident voice. He was glad when he had reached the ground and turned the corner of the stand. Passing between the busy tennis courts, he reflected that befriending strangers didn’t work out very satisfactorily for him. After this, he decided, smiling whimsically, fellows might drown or be cut to pieces for all the help he would offer!

Just before supper, when Arnold came back to Number 12, a trifle washed-out looking and not moving very spryly, Toby narrated the outcome of the incident in the train. By this time he was able to tell of the meeting with George W. Tubb with a touch of humor and Arnold listened amusedly, stretched at length on the window-seat.

“You’re right, Toby, the Navy’s just the place for friend Tubbs.”

“Tubb,” corrected Toby. “There’s only one of him, praise be!”

“We’re getting some strange freaks here of late, anyway,” reflected Arnold. “There were several on the field this afternoon. Well, it takes all sorts to make a world—or a football team! Say, T. Tucker, the new coach is a peach. Fan’s crazy about him, and so are the others. Did you hear the song-and-dance he gave us before practice? Some sane and sensible little speech, that was.”

“What did he say?” asked Toby.

“We-ell,” Arnold hesitated, “I don’t know that he said anything much different from what all coaches say at the start of the season. It was more the way he said it, I guess. Of course he insisted rather painfully on hard work, and told us what a fine, intelligent-looking lot we were.”

“Must be nearsighted,” murmured Toby.

“And said something nice about Fan. Oh, it was much the usual speech, only—well, it did sound different, somehow. One thing he did say, though, T. Tucker, may interest you.”

“You may proceed, Mr. Deering.”

“He said he wanted every fellow in school who had the possible making of a football player in him to report not later than Monday, and that if they didn’t volunteer he’d draft them! That ought to give you something to think about, old thing.”

“Meaning that I have somewhere concealed about me the making of a football player?” asked Toby.

“Exactly. You’d better keep out of Lyle’s way or he will grab you.”

After a moment Toby, who had armed himself with towel and soap-dish preparatory to a trip to the lavatory, moved to the door but paused with his hand on the knob. “He can’t draft me, Arn,” he said.

“Why can’t he, I’d like to know?”

“Because I’m going out for the Second to-morrow.”

“What! Honest? When—How——”

But Toby had closed the door behind him.