THE "IMPOSSIBLE FELLOW"
Dobbins was gone the better part of half an hour and when he finally
returned his expression showed that he had met with failure. "Still," he
explained hopefully, "Hoyt says he will give me the first vacancy that
turns up. Sometimes fellows have to drop out after school begins, he
says. Fail at exams or something. He says maybe he can put me somewhere
else within a week. Mind you, he doesn't promise, but I made a pretty
good yarn of it, and I guess he will do it if he possibly can." Joe
Dobbins chuckled reminiscently. "I told him that if he didn't separate
us I wouldn't answer for what happened. Said we'd already had two fights
and were spoiling for another. Said you'd pitched my things out the
window and that I'd torn up all your yellow neckties. Maybe he didn't
believe all I told him: he's a foxy little guy: but I guess I got him
thinkin', all right!"
"You needn't have told him all that nonsense," demurred Myron. "He will
think I'm a--a----"
"Not for a minute! I told him you were a perfect gentleman.
Incompatibility of temperament is what I called it. He said why didn't
I leave off the last two syllables. Well, that's that, kiddo--I mean
Foster. Better leave it lay until we see what happens, eh?"
"Not at all. I shall send this telegram, Dobbins. I don't believe he has
any idea of--of doing anything about it."
"We-ell, you're the doctor, but--Say, where'll you go if you leave this
place?"
"I don't know yet. There are plenty of other schools around here,
though. There's one up the line a ways. I think it's called Kenwood. Or
there's----"
"Kenwood? Gee, boy, you don't want to go there! Don't you read the crime
column in the papers? Why, Kenwood is filled with thugs and hoboes and
the scum of the earth. A feller on the train told me so coming down
here. Parkinson and Kenwood are rivals: get it? You don't want to throw
down this place and take up with the enemy, eh?"
"I don't see what that has to do with it," Myron objected. "I'm not a
Parkinson fellow. And I dare say that Kenwood is quite as good a school
as Parkinson."
But Joe Dobbins shook his head. "That feller on the train talked mighty
straight. I wouldn't like to think he was lying to me. He said that
Kenwood was--was--now what was it he said? Oh, I got it! He said it was
an 'asylum for the mentally deficient.' Sounds bad, eh?"
"Rot!" grunted Myron. "I'm going over to the telegraph office."
"All right. If the Big Boss drops in I'll tell him."
When Myron had gone Joe promptly removed coat and vest once more,
dropped his suspenders about his hips and kicked off his shoes. "Might
as well be comfortable when His Majesty's away," he sighed. "Gee, but
he's the limit, now ain't he? I suppose I ought to have spanked him
when he called me a stable--or whatever it was. But I dunno, he's sort
of a classy guy. Guess he isn't so worse if you hack into him. Bark's a
little punk, but the wood's all right underneath, likely. Don't know if
I could stand living with him regular, though. Not much fun in life if
you can't slip your shoes off when your feet hurt. Well, I guess I'll
get these satchels emptied. What was it he called those bureaus, now?
Chiff--chiff--I'll have to get him to tell me that again. One thing,
Joey: living with Mr. Foster'll teach you manners. Only I'd hate to
think I'd ever get to wearing a lemon-yellow necktie!"
Still feeling deeply wronged and out-of-sorts, Myron made his way back
to Maple Street and set out toward the business part of Warne. The
breeze that had made the late September afternoon fairly comfortable had
died away and the maples that lined the broad, pleasant thoroughfare
drooped their leaves listlessly and the asphalt radiated heat. Myron
wished that he had shed his waistcoat in the room. Students were still
arriving, for he passed a number on their way to the school, bags
in hands, and several taxis and tumble-down carriages went by with
hilarious occupants oozing forth from doors and windows. One of the
taxi drivers honked brazenly as his clattering vehicle passed Myron and
the latter glanced up in time to receive a flatteringly friendly wave
and shout from Eddie Moses. Myron frowned. "Folks here are a lot of
savages," he muttered.
The telegram despatched, he made his way to a nearby drug store, seated
himself on a stool and asked for a "peach-and-cream." The freckle-faced,
lanky youth behind the counter shook his head sadly. "Ain't got no peach
today. I can give you vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, rasp----"
"I didn't mean syrup. Haven't you any fruit? I want a peach-and-cream."
"Don't know what that is. Anyway, we ain't got it. How about a chocolate
sundae with puffed rice? Lots of the fellers call for them."
"No, thanks." Myron descended from the stool and went out, more than
ever assured of the undesirability of Parkinson School as a place of
sojourn. Think of a town where you couldn't get a peach-and-cream! Why,
even the smallest shops in Port Foster knew what a peach-and-cream was!
He cast contemptuous looks upon the modest stores and places of business
along Adams Street, and even the new Burton Block over on the corner
of School Street, six stories high and glittering with broad glass
windows, only drew a word of derision. "Suppose they call that thing a
skyscraper," he muttered. "Huh! Puffed rice!"
Returning, he went through School Street to Washington Avenue. The
south side of that shady thoroughfare, called Faculty Row, presented
a pleasing vista, in each direction, of neat lawns and venerable elms
and glowing beds of flowers. Here and there a sprinkler tossed its
spray into the sunlight. Myron had to acknowledge, albeit grudgingly,
that Port Foster had nothing prettier to offer. Facing him, across
the Avenue, since School Street ended there, was the main gate to the
campus, and straight ahead a shady tunnel roofed with closely-set linden
trees led the eyes to the gleaming façade of Parkinson Hall, which,
unlike the other school buildings, was of light-hued sandstone and was
surmounted by an imposing dome. From the gate in front of him two other
similar paths led diagonally away, and choosing the right-hand one Myron
found grateful relief from the sun. He removed his hat and wiped the
perspiration from his forehead with an immaculate handkerchief, and when
he had finished returned the handkerchief to his breast pocket very
carefully, allowing a corner--it happened to be the corner bearing the
embroidered monogram--to protrude carelessly.
As he neared Sohmer he passed a group of four boys lying on the grass
beneath the trees. Their conversation dwindled as he approached, ceased
entirely as he came abreast and then went on again subduedly after he
had gone by. His former irritation returned. What was there about him
to make fellows stare or giggle or smile? Even down town he had noticed
it, and now, although he could not hear what was being said behind him,
he felt that he was being discussed. He was conscious of being better
dressed than any of the boys he had seen yet, there was nothing unusual
in his looks so far as he knew and he believed that he carried himself
and walked in an ordinary manner. He decided again that they were all a
lot of savages or "small town" gykes. He was glad he was leaving them
tomorrow.
Back in Number 17, he found that Dobbins had gone out. In the bedroom
that remarkable youth's suit of rough red-brown material--it was
much too heavy for summer wear and reminded Myron somewhat of a
horse-blanket--that he had worn on his arrival lay carelessly tossed
across a bed. It was the bed that Myron had chosen for himself, and he
distastefully removed the clothes to the other one. As he did so he
looked for the maker's tag inside the collar and smiled ironically when
he read "Bon Ton Brand."
"Ready-made," he murmured.
Dobbins had decorated the top of his chiffonier with two photographs
and Myron examined them. One was a group picture of four persons; a
woman rather thin and angular but with a kind and sweet face, a girl
of some fourteen years, awkward and staring, and two younger girls,
the littlest perhaps six. All were dressed in their finest and all, at
least to Myron's sophisticated sight, were dowdy. He concluded that the
persons were Dobbins' mother and sisters. The second photograph was a
more ambitious affair and showed a man of about forty years. He had a
square, much seamed face from which two keen eyes looked straight at the
beholder. A funny little patch of beard adorned the chin and above it
a wide mouth was drawn severely down at the corners. In the photograph
the man looked stern and hard and even cross, Myron thought, but there
was something nice about the countenance in spite of that, something
suggesting that behind the weathered face were clean thoughts and
kindliness.
"That's the Spruce Gum King," he reflected. "I guess if he hadn't been
scared at the camera he'd have looked rather a fine old chap, in spite
of the little bunch of whiskers. He looks something like Dobbins, too:
same sort of eyes and--and same expression about the chin. Only Dobbins
is more lazy and good-natured, I guess."
Later, his trunks came--there were two of them--and he had the
expressman set them behind the door, one atop the other. There was no
sense in opening them, for his kit-bag provided all he needed for the
night. By that time it was nearing the supper hour and there was a
rustling in the leaves of the lindens and the air was cooler. He told
himself that whether Dobbins ever returned was nothing to him, and yet
he found himself listening for the other's heavy tread in the corridor.
He wondered where Dobbins had gone, and rather resented his absence.
The magazine which he had been reading beside the open window ceased to
hold his attention and he glanced at his watch. A quarter to six. The
supper hour was six o'clock. He had looked that up in his copy of the
school catalogue. And you ate in Alumni Hall, which, as the plan of the
school showed, was the building on the extreme left of the line. Finally
Myron stripped to his waist and had a good splurge with soap and water.
Some kindly soul had supplied a towel and it wasn't until he was through
using it that he saw the inscription "Dobbins" on one end.
"Well, how was I to know?" he grumbled. "Maybe I'd better dig into the
trunk and get out a few of my own."
But after supper would do, and just now he was feeling decidedly hungry,
and washing up had refreshed him and made life look more pleasant.
He hoped there would be something fit to eat, but he didn't expect
it. He was getting back into his clothes when the approach of his
temporary room-mate was announced from some distance down the hall
by the _clump-clump_ of heavy shoes. Dobbins was peculiarly ungentle
with doors. He flung them open and didn't care what happened to them
afterwards. In the present case the door crashed back against the trunks
behind it with a most annoying _bang_, but Dobbins didn't appear to have
heard it. He was strangely attired, was Dobbins, and Myron, one arm in
his shirt, gazed in astonishment and for a moment forgot to go on with
his dressing.
A faded yellowish-brown jersey with half of the left sleeve missing
and the other torn and mended--and torn and not mended--was surmounted
by a canvas football jacket held together down the front with a black
shoe-lace and a piece of twine. The jacket was so old and stained that
Myron could easily believe it an heirloom, something handed down through
generations of football-playing Dobbinses! A pair of rather new khaki
pants, woollen stockings of brown twice ringed with light blue that
well matched the jersey in condition, and scuffed and scarred football
shoes completed the costume. Dobbins' hair was every which way and
there was more or less dirt on his broad countenance through which the
perspiration had flowed in little rivulets with interesting results.
"Hello, kiddo!" Dobbins greeted jovially. "How's the grouch coming on?
Say, they've got a swell gridiron here; two or three of 'em, in fact.
Wonderful turf. It's a pleasure to fall on it, honest! Hear from your
old man yet?"
"Hardly," replied Myron drily. "What have you been doing?"
"Me? Sweating, son, mostly. Practising football some, too."
"Oh! I didn't know you played."
"Me? That guy Camp and I wrote the rules! Looks like we had enough
fellers to build forty teams. Must have been 'most a thousand of 'em
over there. Every time I turned around I trod on some one. You didn't go
over, eh?"
"No, I--I was busy. Besides, I didn't know they were holding practice
today. I supposed they'd start tomorrow."
"Been at it three days already, I hear. Got a coach here that looks like
he knew his business, Foster. Ever try football?"
"I've played some," answered Myron, with a smile that seemed to combine
patience and pity. "I expect to go out for it when I get settled
somewhere."
"Still thinking of leaving, are you? You're going to lose a mighty good
school, son. I sure do like this place. Well, I've got a hunger like a
river-boss. Guess I'll get back to store clothes and find the trough.
You going now?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Well, tell 'em to save a little of everything for me." Dobbins' voice
came muffled from above the basin in the bedroom, and Myron, remembering
the towel, hurried out.