AN ENCOUNTER ON THE BEACH
“Doing anything this afternoon, Tucker?”
George Tubb paused with a foot on the stairs to the third floor
of Whitson and put the question with elaborate carelessness. Toby
hesitated the fraction of a moment. He knew whither the inquiry led
and he wanted to answer in the affirmative, but he really wasn’t doing
anything special, and Arnold could never be counted on for Sunday
afternoon entertainment, and so he said, after a scarcely noticeable
pause: “Why, no, I guess not, Tubb.”
“Wondered if you’d care to take a walk somewhere,” continued the other,
hurriedly. “It’s a corking day and――and everything.”
“All right. About three? I’ve got a letter to finish.”
“Any time.” Tubb’s tone held perfect indifference. Toby felt as if he
had made the proposal himself and as if Tubb were doing him a favor!
For an instant he was riled and had something tart on the end of his
tongue. But he kept it there, and only said: “Three then. So long!”
Tubb’s feet pounded on up the stairs and Toby pushed open the door of
Number 12. Inside, his slight frown vanished and he chuckled. “Silly
chump!” he murmured. “Afraid I’d guess how much he wanted me to go with
him. Gee, I wonder why! I’m never more than fairly decent to him. Must
be my――my fatal beauty that attracts him!” And Toby’s chuckle grew into
a laugh as he caught sight of his smiling but unclassic features in the
mirror over Arnold’s dresser.
The trouble with writing letters after a Sunday dinner is that a Sunday
dinner is likely to be a rather hearty affair, affecting not only the
body with torpidity but the brain as well. So it was that while the
first three pages of Toby’s weekly epistle were brilliant enough the
last page fell off badly in interest. In fact, he only reached the
bottom of it by desperate effort and by shortening the lines. Then,
when he had thumped a stamp on the corner of the envelope and found cap
and sweater, he clattered down and dropped the letter in the mail-box
in front of Oxford. After that he backed away to the edge of the
Prospect, as the grassy terrace in front of the buildings was called,
fixed his gaze on the window of Number 31 and hailed.
“O Tubb! A-ay, Tubb!”
After several seconds had elapsed, Tubb’s face appeared in the open
window and he looked down at Toby with simulated surprise. Then, as
he looked, recollection dawned, and, “Oh! All right, Tucker! Be right
down!” he called.
Toby kicked at a pebble. “Serve him right if I beat it,” he muttered
vexedly. “Cheeky beggar! Still, he did it pretty well.” Unwilling
admiration softened his rancor, and, “I’ll wait,” he added to himself.
Tubb clattered out of the entrance by the time that resolution of
clemency had been reached and the two crossed the Prospect as if by
mutual consent and took the graveled path that descended the terrace
until it reached the winding road at the foot of the hill. Then, “Which
way?” asked Toby.
“I don’t care,” answered Tubb. “It’s warmer along the beach, I guess.
The wind’s sort of west to-day.”
“About northwest by north,” said Toby, to whom the direction of the
wind and the look of the sky were matters of real interest. “It will
be good and cold to-night, I guess.”
They crossed the road and went on by the path, over the deep cut
through which the shining rails of the double tracks ran. Westward,
they could follow the straight roadway to the Wissining station and the
drawbridge beyond, eastward the railway vanished presently around a
curve. A rod or two further on the path led into the woods, dividing,
and they followed the right-hand trail. The oaks and beeches still held
most of their leaves, but the other trees had stripped their branches
for the winter, and underfoot the colorful litter rustled pleasantly.
A moment later the Sound showed through the trees, softly blue in the
afternoon sunlight. There wasn’t much talk until the two boys had
reached the beach and turned eastward along the firm, hard sand. The
tide was well out, and just above the little ripples of waves gleaming
expanses of wet sand caught the sun blindingly. They by no means had
the beach to themselves, for the mild afternoon had brought out many
of the villagers and not a few of the school fellows, and, looking
ahead down the gently-curving strand, they could see many darker specks
against its golden surface. Out on the water a few pleasure craft
were flitting under a light but steady breeze and Plum Island looked
startlingly near.
“A peach of a day,” said Toby, breathing in the familiar scent of
sea and shore, and experiencing a tiny qualm of homesickness. Tubb
assented. He was looking fixedly at two boys who were approaching them
along the beach. A moment later he grunted.
“There comes Frick,” he said. “Guess I’ll ask him something.”
“No, you won’t,” said Toby decisively. “You promised to behave
yourself.”
“I didn’t promise,” denied Tubb. “I said maybe I’d――Anyhow, I’m not
going to _do_ anything; I just want to let him understand――――”
“You keep your mouth closed, Tubb.” Toby took his arm tightly. “No
nonsense now!”
“We-ell――――” Tubb eyed the approaching couple irresolutely. Frick’s
companion was a stranger to both, a chap whose name Toby believed to be
Cotting, a tall, lanky youth with a wide mouth and outstanding ears.
Just now he appeared to be intensely amused at something Frick was
saying, and his high-pitched laughter, accompanied by surreptitious
glances at Toby and George, was too much for the latter. Wresting his
arm from Toby’s restraining clutch, Tubb swung off to meet the others,
who were passing a dozen yards up the beach. Toby followed more slowly,
thinking unflattering things of Tubb.
“Talking about me, were you?” challenged Tubb from a few paces away.
Cotting shot a startled and questioning glance at Frick. Evidently
Cotting had no desire for trouble. Frick, however, pushed forward
swaggeringly.
“What if I was?” he demanded, scowling.
“Don’t do it!” Tubb’s voice had an unsuspected edge, and Frick stared
an instant in surprise.
“Calm yourself, kid, calm yourself,” he laughed finally. “I talk about
any one I like to. Then what?”
Toby “butted in” at that moment, nodding coldly to Frick and joining
arms with Tubb again. “Come on, Tubb, let’s hurry,” he urged.
“That’s right, Tucker,” said Frick approvingly. “He might get hurt if
he stays around here.”
Cotting had stopped a pace or two away and was digging a hole in the
sand with the toe of one shoe in a very absorbed way. Toby found time
to be amused at his tactful withdrawal.
“I’m not going to get hurt,” responded Tubb. “Don’t worry about me,
Frick. And I’m not going to hurt you――to-day. I just stopped to tell
you that I’m keeping my affair till later on. Didn’t want you to think
you were getting away with what you did last week, because you’re not.
It’s chalked up against you and you’ll get what’s coming to you when
it’s time. There’s no hurry――――”
“Shut up, Tubb,” begged Toby. “Come on!”
“Mind your own business, Tucker!” snarled Frick. “You’re a nice one
to talk that stuff! I’ve got something for you, too, you swell-headed
little carrot! As for you, Tubb, or whatever your silly name is, I’m
ready whenever you are! Right now if you like! I’ll take on the two of
you! Come on! What do you say?”
“There’s going to be no scrapping here,” said Toby resolutely. “There’s
going to be none anywhere for awhile. You keep what you’ve got for me,
Frick. I’ll ask for it when I’m ready. Tubb, you――――”
“You’ll get it when _I’m_, ready!” growled Frick. “I’d give it to
you now if――――” He glanced over the beach and, furtively, toward the
school, whose upper windows were visible above the stretch of woods.
“Yes, and get thrown out of school,” assented Toby grimly. “Not for
me, thanks! There’s time enough. Come on, Tubb.”
“All right,” Tubb smiled cheerfully. “No use getting in trouble about
this guy. See you again, Frick. Be good to yourself!”
“Yes, run along, little boys,” answered Frick, laughing angrily. “For a
plugged nickel I’d bang your fool heads together!”
Toby tightened his hold on Tubb’s arm, but Tubb only laughed and went
on. “Gee, that did me a lot of good,” he said contentedly. “He’s a big
bluff, I guess, Tucker.”
“Maybe. Still, they say he’s pretty handy with his fists. Anyhow, I’m
glad you’re out of that, Tubb. We’d all been finished for fair if you
two had scrapped here on Sunday afternoon!”
“I forgot about its being Sunday,” said Tubb. “I suppose that would
have made it worse. Say, he’s got it in for you, too, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, I guess so,” answered Toby tranquilly. “But I should feel faint!
Anyhow, he will have to keep the peace until football’s over. I don’t
intend to lose my place on the Second for the likes of him!”
“Say, why doesn’t that ninny take you over to the First?” asked Tubb.
“Meaning Mr. Lyle? You have pretty names for your Big Boss! Well, I’ve
been thinking about that, Tubb, and I’ve just about concluded that it’s
because he doesn’t want me!”
“But, joking aside,” protested the other earnestly, “you play a better
game than that guy Clarke, and I’ll bet you could beat Noyes, too, if
you had a chance. Noyes is scared all the time. He gets his signals all
balled up. No one feels any――whatyoucallit――any――any――――”
“You mean that he doesn’t inspire his team with confidence in his
ability to――er――meet successfully the――――”
“Say, what’s wrong with you?” demanded Tubb anxiously.
Toby chuckled. “That’s what comes of trying to make practical
application of what I’ve learned in my English course. Just as soon as
I try to speak the language correctly some one jumps on me! It’s no
use!”
“I should say not!” agreed Tubb, relievedly. “You talk like an
examination paper!”
“Then I’ll stop. Those are things I don’t want to think of. By the way,
how are you getting along in your classes, Tubb?”
“Fine. I never had much trouble with studies. Guess I learn easily.”
“I think you must,” responded Toby thoughtfully. “Wish I did. Shall we
turn back?”
“Do you mean that you have trouble with your studies, Tucker?” asked
Tubb when they were retracing their steps. “I thought you were a
regular shark for work.”
“A shark,” answered Toby, “is a much misunderstood fish. Most folks
think that a shark swallows things whole, but he doesn’t. He has to
bite off a chunk at a time, just as I do. Where we differ, Mister Shark
and I, is on chewing. He doesn’t have to chew what he bites off, and
I do. I have to chew it a long while. And even then it isn’t always
digested. I guess, Tubb, the truth of the matter is that I can learn
easily enough if I set out to do it, but I have a rotten fashion of
trying to do two hours’ study in one!”
Tubb laughed. “I know. If the instructor’s easy you can get by that way
sometimes, but here at Yardley you can’t. I found that out the first
week. Well, I suppose we’ve got to learn the dreary stuff, eh? What’s
the good of it, though? A lot of it, I mean?”
“Don’t know, Tubb. I’ve wondered. Seems to me sometimes that if
they’d teach us less Greek and Latin and higher mathematics and more
things like horseshoeing and plumbing and――and ditch-digging we’d have
a better chance when we got through. A lot of us will never get to
college. I hope to, but I don’t know. If I don’t, what use to me is
Latin and trigonometry and Greek? I suppose I’ll build boats most of my
life――maybe. Being able to read the Odyssey in the original odiousness
isn’t going to help me a whole lot!”
“Well, there are schools where a fellow can go and learn those things,”
said Tubb. “Blacksmithing and electricity and――and practical things,
you know.”
“Yes, but why not teach a little of them at every school? Seems to me
a lot of us would be a sight better off if we knew something about a
practical trade when we got out of prep school. Of course, we couldn’t
learn much, but we might have a start. I guess it’ll come to that some
day, Tubb.”
“Really? Well, I wouldn’t mind. I don’t know what I’m going to do when
I get through here. Go home and tend store, I guess.”
“Store? What kind of a store is it?”
“Oh, just a regular general store like you find in small towns. Dad
sells everything from sugar to plows. And he makes just enough to
live on, I guess. He used to be in the lumber business, and he did
pretty well for awhile. Then――something happened and it went bust. No,
by jiminy, I won’t do it, Tucker! Running a country store isn’t good
enough! I’ll be a――a lawyer or something first!”
“Sounds desperate the way you say it,” laughed Toby. “I’d sort of like
to be a doctor myself, only you can’t be President if you’re a doctor,
and of course I’d rather be President.”
“Can’t you?” asked Tubb innocently. “Why not?”
“Don’t know.” Toby shook his head. “You never heard of a President
who’d been a doctor first, did you? Maybe there’s something in the
Constitution prohibiting it.”
“You say the craziest things!” laughed Tubb. Then, soberly: “Do you
mean that you really think about things like that, Tucker?” he asked.
“Things like what? Being a doctor?”
“No, being President. I never do.”
“Sure, why not? Some one’s got to be President, Tubb. Might as well be
me if I’m fitted for it. Or you, if you are! Every President was a kid
once, you know. I wonder if they ever thought about it when they were
kids. Maybe you’re not supposed to. Anyway, if you’re a lawyer and I’m
a doctor, you’ll get the presidency, because lawyers seem to have it
all over every other profession when it comes to copping that job!”
Later, climbing the hill again, Toby asked: “Changed your mind any
about this place, Tubb?”
“How do you mean?” But, in spite of assumed ignorance, he understood,
and in the next breath he went on. “Yes, I have, Tucker,” he said
frankly. “I said a lot of things I didn’t believe, anyhow. I had an
awful grouch at first. Guess you――guess you must have thought I was a
perfect blamed nuisance!”
“N-no, not exactly. You got me riled pretty often, though.”
“Did I? I suppose I must have. Well――――” Tubb hesitated. “Say, I want
you to know that I appreciate everything, Tucker; everything you did
to make me――make me get onto myself. Of course I know that I’m not the
sort of fellow that other fellows take to, but――but I’ve been――sort
of――getting along lately. Football’s done it, I guess, and you started
me on that. That’s why I say that I’d like you to know――――”
“All right.” Toby chuckled. “Tubb, I decided a long while ago that when
you got straightened out here I was going to do something to prove to
my own satisfaction that――well, that you were a regular fellow.”
“What was it?” asked the other, puzzled.
“I was going to call you something,” answered Toby gravely. “I guess
you have got straightened out pretty well and so I guess I’ll do it
right now.” They had reached the second floor of Whitson and Toby had
started toward Number 12. “See you later, Wash-Tub!”
Then his door closed behind him hurriedly. But George Tubb, continuing
his way upstairs after a moment, looked anything but vengeful!