A BONE OF CONTENTION
The game was played again under prescribed conditions, and the upper
middlers won once more, this time in consequence of practice gained
in playing together, by good use of the forward pass, and through
Kendrick’s splendid plunges and fast runs. In fact, Kendrick was easily
the hero of the game. Late in the season as it was, the coach took him
immediately on to the school eleven as a substitute back, and as luck
would have it, he got his S by slipping into the unfortunate Hillbury
game at the very end. Of this we shall speak later or not at all.
Sam Archer too, in much less conspicuous fashion, won credit in the
class match, though the senior centre got under him several times and
carried him off on his back. Big Ames of baseball fame played with his
usual ungainly determination, and a fellow named Mulcahy was much in
evidence during the game.
It was on the subject of this Mulcahy that Archer and Peck came to
their first open disagreement. They naturally talked the game over
that evening--Sam with frank elation, Peck in a spirit of good-natured
forgiveness. When Mulcahy’s name was mentioned, Peck’s attitude changed
instantly.
“He’s a mucker!” he said, with contemptuous curtness.
“Why?” demanded Archer.
“Because he is,” answered Peck. “Anybody with half an eye can see it.
He held Wildes twice to-day.”
Sam smiled wisely. “If everybody is a mucker who held in to-day’s
game, Mulcahy isn’t the only fellow in the class. Putnam tripped Ames
deliberately. I saw it myself.”
“It was probably a knee tackle that slipped down.”
“No, he stuck out his foot and Ames fell over it.”
“Well, that’s just because he doesn’t know the game. No one who is
acquainted with Harry Putnam would charge him with dirty play. If he
did that, it was because he didn’t know any better, or forgot himself.”
“But if Mulcahy did the same thing, it proves he’s a mucker!”
Sam was quite satisfied with this rejoinder. If Duncan Peck had any
sense at all, he must recognize the absurdity of his prejudice. Sam,
at the age of seventeen, with several generations of locally honored
ancestors behind him, had become, since his arrival at Seaton, an
ardent democrat. He believed firmly that a boy was as good as his
mind and character made him, without regard to the clothes on his
back or the money in his pocket or the social position of his nearest
relatives. Rebelling instinctively at the pretensions of certain
fellows whose fathers had “struck it rich,” and whose money gave them
a kind of importance, he was disposed to see in the poorer fellows
who were carrying the burden of their future on their own unaided
shoulders, examples of a sturdy, manly independence wholly admirable.
“Whether he did the same thing or not,” replied Peck, coolly, “Mulcahy
is a mucker.”
“The real difference is that Mulcahy works his way and Putnam doesn’t,”
asserted Sam, warmly.
Duncan smiled scornfully. “The real difference is that Mulcahy works
other people and Putnam doesn’t!”
“Putnam doesn’t have to,” retorted Sam.
“Neither does Mulcahy.”
“Why, he has to earn every cent he spends,” returned Sam, eagerly. “It
takes a lot more stuff in you to do that than to wear good clothes
and keep your hands white on the money your father gives you. It’s
these fellows who earn their way who do things when they get into real
work. They’re used to hard knocks, and they go straight ahead when
fellows like Putnam flat out. That’s proved by the whole history of the
Academy.”
“What’s proved by the whole history of the Academy?” asked Peck, with
irritating calmness.
“Why, that fellows that earn their way make the most successful men.”
“I haven’t said a word against fellows who earn their own way,”
retorted Peck, sharply. “They may make the most successful men and they
may not. I don’t care anything about that. But if you think that the
history of the Academy proves that every scholarship fellow becomes a
great and good man, you’re sadly off. The scholarship fellows are of
all kinds--good, bad, and indifferent. Some are nice fellows; some are
dead beats, getting their board and clothes off the Academy because
it’s less work and more fun than it would be to milk cows or work in
the shoe-shop; some seem to be training for crooks or anarchists. They
work their way because they have to, that’s all. You don’t suppose they
prefer it, do you?”
“Mulcahy plays football, and is on the ‘Seatonian,’ and does well in
his studies, and he is a good speaker in the Laurel Leaf,” remarked
Archer, feeling suddenly his inexperience, and returning to the
personal example when general assertion proved unsafe. “He amounts to
more than Kendrick, and yet you don’t make any objection to Kendrick.”
“Kendrick is a good fellow,” said Duncan, enigmatically.
“But Mulcahy isn’t!” completed Archer, with a sarcastic grin.
“No, Mulcahy isn’t.” Duncan’s assertion was made in the nonchalant
fashion which we use in stating generally accepted facts. A slight
pause ensued, which he broke with a sudden accession of vehemence.
“It’s no use to argue about such fellows. Either you like ’em or you
don’t. It’s a matter of taste, and the way you have of looking at
fellows. We shan’t agree, because we don’t think alike. You have your
kind and I have mine. You’ve a right to admire Mulcahy and his gang if
you want to. I suppose you’ve got a right to bring him in here, too--as
half the room is yours.”
“I shall if I want to,” answered Sam, with head high. “He’s just as
good as--as we are.”
“That depends on the value you set on yourself,” returned Duncan,
coolly, taking his books into his bedroom with the air of one who
wished to be alone.
Sam sat down at his desk, declaring scornful indifference to Duncan
Peck and his snobbish notions, but his thought ran rather on the
discussion just held than on the lesson before him. Notwithstanding his
assertion to the contrary, he soon decided that he should not bring
Mulcahy round. It wasn’t the fair thing to impose an unwelcome guest
upon his room-mate. At the same time he was clearly convinced that
Peck’s attitude was unworthy and contrary to the spirit and ideals of
the school. If he must choose between Peck’s favor and the friendship
of deserving boys who were struggling to overcome the handicap of
poverty and make something of themselves, he should not hesitate as to
a choice. The steady fellows toiling along the path trodden by Webster
and Lincoln were more honorable companions than the sleek, empty-headed
brats of the newly rich!
This resolution to keep Mulcahy away from 7 Hale out of consideration
for Peck, Sam broke that very day--broke because he couldn’t help
himself. Mulcahy would come. To be sure, he had a reason for
coming,--to discuss the election of the Laurel Leaf, of which literary
society Archer had become a member; but he stayed longer than was
necessary for this purpose and talked mainly about himself. Mulcahy was
a striking figure in the school. Of good size, with well-poised head
and bold, regular features lighted up by brilliant dark eyes, ready of
speech and confident in manner, he gave the impression of one who had
a distinguished future before him. He had not only the plausibility of
a natural politician, but a certain insinuating way of taking another
fellow into his confidence as if he alone appreciated the other’s true
value. Sam had been captivated by Mulcahy’s winning attentions early in
his school career; he believed in him and admired him.
Mulcahy was frankly ambitious. He was bound to lift himself. When he
had finished school--he explained to Sam--he meant to study law and
get into politics in some large city; he might go to college first if
the way opened. He expected to have to work hard to accomplish these
ambitions, especially as he believed in going in for the outside things
as far as possible--the “Seatonian” and athletics and the literary
societies. He tried to keep safely above the scholarship line, and
he did well with the influential profs. He belonged to the Christian
Fraternity, too; it helped you with the profs to belong to that.
“When you have to fight your own way in the world, you must take
advantage of everything that comes along,” he declared.
“It’s a great thing to do that, to educate yourself,” said Sam,
enthusiastically. “It develops an ability that puts you ahead when you
come to real work in the world.”
Mulcahy looked at him sharply. “Yes, it sounds well, but it isn’t all
it’s cracked up to be. If you tried it a month, you’d find out. Lots of
fellows in this school look down on us scholarship fellows.”
“Not those whose opinion is worth anything,” answered Sam, promptly.
“Not the best fellows, or the profs.”
“The profs don’t count,” said Mulcahy, “and it’s hard to tell who are
the best fellows. There’s your room-mate, Peck, for instance. He speaks
to me on the street in a kind of condescending way, and he wouldn’t be
above taking a crib from me in recitation, but you don’t suppose he’d
invite me up here, do you?”
Sam blushed and twisted in his chair; he felt thoroughly ashamed of his
room-mate, sufficiently ashamed to report with open indignation the
discussion which had recently been held on this very subject. But an
instinctive regard for honorable dealing, an instinct which Sam felt
even when his faulty reason would have misled him, closed his lips.
“I’ve heard him speak highly of Kendrick,” he said, at length finding
a clue. “He’s a scholarship man.”
“Kendrick!” ejaculated Mulcahy. “What’s there to him? A common grind
who’s had the luck to be taken on the football squad!”
“Why, I thought he was a nice fellow,” remarked Archer, puzzled at
Mulcahy’s vehemence. “What’s the matter with him?”
“Oh, he’s good enough as fellows go,” replied Mulcahy, “but it’s always
seemed to me a green kind of goodness. He doesn’t know any better.”
“Know any better!” echoed Sam, still puzzled.
“I mean he isn’t very keen,” Mulcahy explained. “His wits are dull.
You could take him in as easy as looking. He’s an honest fool, and
good-natured.”
Sam did not answer. He was wondering why two fellows with the same hard
problems of life to solve shouldn’t sympathize with each other. Mulcahy
rose to go.
“I’ll count on you, then, in the election. Of course, I don’t want
the office, but we can’t have those fellows running things to suit
themselves all the time. It’s contrary to the whole spirit of the
place. I wish you’d see Lord and Kendrick and get them with us. They’d
bring others.”
“I’ll do all I can,” said Sam, cordially.