THE WARDROBE TRUNK
As Jerry opened the door he was greeted with a joyous shout from Tom
Hartley.
“A-a-ay, Jerry! You old renegade, where have you been?”
Tom, who was nearly a year Jerry’s junior, a fine-looking boy of
sixteen, brown-haired and brown-eyed, swung himself from the window
seat and seized his roommate’s hand.
“I couldn’t get here any sooner, Tom,” answered Jerry, his rather wide
mouth curved in a smile of pleasure. “Pap ain’t been so well lately and
I had to stay around. How you-all been, Tom?”
“I-all’s been fine,” laughed Tom. “Didn’t you get the letter I wrote
just before I left home? I went down to New York Monday and stayed
until Thursday morning.”
Jerry shook his head. “It takes a good while for the mail to get to
Huckinsburg. Reckon your letter got there about this morning.”
“When did you leave?”
“Yesterday noon. I wrote Mr. Ledyard I couldn’t get here on time.
Reckon he’s going to mind?”
“No. He told me Thursday he’d heard from you. I’d have met you if I’d
known when you were coming. You didn’t say in your letter.”
“I didn’t know.” Jerry pulled his satchel toward him and opened it. “I
wasn’t right sure I’d get here at all, Pap was so poorly.”
“That’s too bad,” murmured Tom politely. “What’s the trouble?”
“Sort of a general misery,” replied Jerry gravely. “Pap ain’t so young
as he was. Reckon he’s pretty nigh seventy years old.” Jerry pulled
a pair of worn and scuffed shoes from the bag and began to unlace
the ones he had on. “Got me a new pair of shoes the other day,” he
explained, with a grimace as he removed the right one, “and they ain’t
broke in yet.”
“You got them too small, you chump,” said Tom. “Don’t you know you
can’t put that hoof of yours into a pointed-toe shoe? Where’s your
common sense?”
“That’s what I told the feller that sold them to me, but he said he
didn’t have no wider ones. They’re right good-looking, ain’t they?”
“Jerry, they’re absolutely fierce,” responded Tom severely, “and you
know it!”
Jerry chuckled. “Shucks, Tom, I’m right sorry! I thought sure you’d
like these shoes. Thought maybe you’d be asking me to get you a pair
just like ’em.”
“I will when I join the negro minstrels! Where’d you get them?”
“Home.”
“In Huckinsburg? You mean you sold them to yourself?”
“Yes, and I had hard work doing it, too!”
“I’ll bet you did!” laughed Tom. “How much did you charge yourself for
them?”
“Six dollars and eighty-five cents. That’s just what they cost.”
“Well, the price is the best thing about them. You’ll have to remember
that when they hurt you.”
“Yes, I’ve been remembering it all day,” replied Jerry sadly. “It don’t
help like you’d think it would! Reckon I’d better go over to Hall and
tell ’em I’m here. And I’ve got to see about having my trunk fetched
up, too.”
“Hello, got a trunk, have you? Traveling in style, eh? You’re getting
to be a regular swell, Jerry.”
Jerry grinned broadly. “Had so many things I couldn’t get them in a
valise. Bought me one of those wardrobe trunks.”
_“What?”_
Jerry nodded gravely. “Yep, there’s some class to me nowadays, Tom.”
“A wardrobe trunk!” marveled Tom. “Jerry, you certainly are coming on!
Got your claw hammer with you? Or just a dinner coat?”
“Nary one. I was thinking about a claw hammer, but when the feller
looked me over he said a tack hammer would come nearer fitting! So I
didn’t get one. How’s every one, Tom?”
“All right, I guess. I’m kind of missing some of the old faces. Lory
Browne’s gone, and Wayne Sortwell, of course, and Pop Lord. It’s going
to be funny without Pop. He was a corking chap, Jerry. And he was
certainly a dandy baseball captain. We’ll miss him.”
“Reckon the new captain’s just as good, Tom.”
“The new captain knows better, but he’s certainly going to try to make
good, Jerry. Fall practice starts Wednesday, by the way.”
“Mean you-all play baseball now?” exclaimed the other in surprise.
“Of course! We practice right into November. We don’t have any outside
games, but we do a lot of hard work. It’s mostly for the new fellows.
Fall work gets them broken in for spring. How’s your batting eye,
Jerry?”
“I don’t know.” Jerry shook his head. “I ain’t――haven’t had a bat in my
hand since that Cumbridge game.”
“Not since you knocked out the homer that won the old ball game, eh?
Thought you played in Huckinsburg.”
“Some of ’em did, but I was right busy at the store this summer. Reckon
Joe Kirkham’s back.”
“Sure! Joke’s out with the football crowd. So’s Tub Keller. And Andy
Jackson and two or three more. That makes it bad, because I need them
for the nine. Well, it can’t be helped. You’ll have to give me a hand
with some of the new chaps.”
“Learn ’em, you mean?”
“Well, _teach_ them,” answered Tom, with a smile.
Jerry frowned. “Reckon my grammar’s sort of backslid since I’ve been
home,” he said. “But, golly, Tom, I couldn’t teach nobody noth――anybody
anything!”
“Oh, yes, you can, son. Anyway, you’ve got to try. I can’t do it all.”
“Won’t Mr. Keegan be around?”
“No, the coach doesn’t show up in the fall, Jerry. Not the baseball
coach. Thorne’ll be here in a day or two, though.”
“Who’s he?” asked the other.
“Football coach. Didn’t you ever hear of Wesley Thorne?” Jerry shook
his head a trifle apologetically. “‘Watch Me’ Thorne they used to
call him. He was an All-Southern tackle for two years. Played with
University of Virginia. He was a crackajack player, but he doesn’t get
on here very well. He has a three-year contract with us and this is his
last. I don’t believe he will be back.”
“Don’t they like him?” asked Jerry.
“Not much. He isn’t what you’d call popular. Guess he’s too strict.
With due apologies to you, Jerry, you Southerners are rather hard to
manage. Seems as if you just couldn’t stand authority. Thorne is always
treading on some fellow’s toes. I don’t mean that he’s disliked; a lot
of the fellows like him; I do, myself, although I don’t know him very
well; but the football crowd hang away from him, and that won’t do if
you expect to win. He managed to turn out a mighty good team the year
before last that licked Cumbridge to a fare-ye-well, but last Fall
every one pulled in different directions and we got licked for keeps. I
hope things will work better this year.”
“What for do they call him ‘Watch Me’?” asked Jerry.
“They say that was a favorite expression of his when he was playing.
‘Watch me,’ he’d tell the fellow he was playing against, ‘Watch me!
Watch me!’ And the other chap would get so busy watching him that
he couldn’t see him for looking! And ‘Watch Me’ would pile through
him nine times out of ten! That’s what I’ve heard. He knows a lot of
football and I guess he could turn out a good team if the fellows would
let him. But take a fellow like Mansfield, Jerry. You know him, don’t
you?”
“To speak to.”
“Well, he’s not a bad sort, and he’s a corking player, and he’s pretty
well liked, but he ought never to be football captain. All you’ve got
to do to get Hal Mansfield down on you is contradict him. He thinks he
knows it all and can’t stand any one telling him a thing. Of course
there’ll be trouble the minute Thorne tries to run the team the way he
wants it run. Well, it’s not my funeral. Look here, are you going over
to Hall or are you going to sit there nursing your foot the rest of the
day?”
“I’m aiming to go over,” replied Jerry mildly. “I was just pondering.”
“What were you pondering, you idiot?”
“Whether I could play football. Reckon I could, Tom?”
“You? No, I don’t. Now look here, son, don’t get that bee in your
bonnet. You aren’t cut out for football. Besides, there’s no sense in
spoiling a good baseball man to make a punk football player. Also――and
mind this, Jerry――I need you a heap more than Mansfield does! Come on,
and I’ll walk over with you.”
Crossing the yard, Tom reverted to the subject. “What put football in
that crazy bean of yours anyway?” he demanded.
“Well, I seen――saw them playing it when I came along,” answered Jerry,
“and it looked so plumb foolish I got a hankering to try it!”
“Yes,” responded Tom scathingly, “you would if it was anything foolish!
You keep away from that football field, son, or I’ll tan your hide!
Hear me?”
“Yeah, but maybe I’d make a right smart football feller,” said Jerry,
shaking his head doubtfully. “You can’t tell.”
“Can’t you? I can!” Tom propelled him rudely up the steps of Founders’
Hall. “The only football job you’d ever get would be understudying the
dummy!”
Ten minutes later, returning from a perfectly satisfactory interview
with the school secretary, Tom announced: “You’re at our table, Jerry.
I got them to keep a place for you. We’ve got a dandy crowd: Joke and
Tub Keller and Billy Conger and Pete Norris――――”
“How’s any one else going to get anything to eat if Norris is there?”
asked Jerry.
“Oh, ‘Fat’ is on the eleven this fall and is dieting,” laughed Tom.
“Doesn’t eat anything at all――for him!”
Jerry held quite a reception in the corridor of the Hall later. He
and Tom arrived several minutes before the dining room doors were
opened and about every second fellow to enter claimed a handshake.
Jerry was palpably surprised at the number of his acquaintances, and,
perhaps, noting the seemingly genuine pleasure shown at his return, he
recalled his first appearance at North Bank eight months before. Then
half-concealed amusement had greeted him, and “Tarheel” and “Towhead”
had followed his progress around the yard. Supper was a very merry meal
this evening, and afterwards Joe Kirkham accompanied the chums back to
Baldwin. Tom led the way into the darkness of Number 7 and instantly
there came from him an exclamation of anguish as he banged his shins
against some unlooked for obstacle just inside the door.
“Reckon it must be my trunk,” said Jerry apologetically.
“That’s a fine place to leave it!” snorted Tom, feeling of his wounds.
“Turn the light on, some one!” Jerry found the switch and as the room
became suddenly illumined the source of Tom’s annoyance stood revealed.
It was a small cowhide covered trunk with a rounded lid held in place
by a rope. It was not over two feet long nor more than sixteen inches
high. The remains of a brass lock adorned the front and there was a
leather handle at each end. In places the hair still adhered to the
hide, but for the most part, as Tom remarked subsequently, mange had
done its worst!
Tom gazed at it a moment with open mouth and then sank into the nearest
chair and gave way to riotous mirth. Joe observed the trunk amusedly;
Jerry, with apparent pride. At last Tom recovered sufficiently to speak
gaspingly.
“Joke! Look!” He pointed weakly at the object on the floor. Joe nodded.
“I see. What about it?” he asked, grinning. “Quite a trunk, I’ll say!”
“That――that’s Jerry’s――――” But it was no use. It was many moments
before he could continue. Then, with a supreme effort, he gurgled: “He
told me――he’d bought――a wardrobe trunk! L-look at it! _Oh, gee!_”