WALTER’S SUGGESTIONS
“I’ll come any time you say,” replied Dan.
“All right,” said Ned cheerily. “We’ll fix it up in a day or two. We
ought to start right in on our inter-form games and find out what
material we can count on for the spring.”
Several other boys dropped in and the two visitors departed. There were
continued greetings among the noisy, light-hearted boys, and in spite
of the fact that the work of the new year was about to begin it was
manifest that most of them were glad to be back in school once more.
To Dan the entire scene was so filled with novelty that he was an
interested spectator, taking but little part in the conversations that
occurred whenever the boys came to his room or hailed one another on
the campus. In the dining-hall, which was in a large central building
to which all the boys and many of the teachers came for their meals,
his interest became still more marked, for here for the first time he
saw the boys who were to be his leaders in his new life. It was dusk
when the boys filed out of the dining-hall, and Dan dropped behind his
roommate to walk with Ned.
“I’m glad you came with Walter,” Ned was saying. “We’re in great need
of a new pitcher. ‘Red’ Chandler finished his work here this spring
and has gone up to Harvard. He’ll make the college nine first thing,
you see if he doesn’t. He’s a born ball-player and he had the finest
assortment of curves that the Tait School ever saw. He pitched a
one-hit game against the Yale freshman team in June. Never made a hit,
never got a ball outside the diamond until the ninth inning, and that
was a scratch. The third-baseman of the freshman team let the ball hit
his bat. I don’t believe he ever struck at it at all. If you can come
anywhere near ‘Red’ you can own the whole school.”
Dan listened as Ned rattled on in his noisy boyish way, but he seldom
replied except to certain direct questions.
“Can you pitch a drop?” Ned asked.
“Moulton said I could.”
“Good. He ought to know. Red had a ‘jump’ that was simply fierce. We
always saved it for the third strike. And the beauty of it all was that
I did not have to signal for it, so the other fellows never caught on.
No signal just meant the ‘jump.’ You see, I had caught Red two years
and we became almost like a machine.”
“The boys”――Dan started to say fellows but corrected himself――“must be
sorry to lose him.”
“They are. Last summer when we shut up shop we all felt as if we had
lost our best friend when Red left us. He certainly was a wonder!
But if you can measure up to him or come anywhere near, you’ll wear
diamonds here till you graduate――and forever after, for that matter.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Why――you’ll be all right. Sometimes you know a fellow gets a name for
doing wonders in the place he comes from, but he finds out after he has
been here a spell that――well, that the conditions aren’t just exactly
the same. See, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Dan quietly.
“It’s just this way――you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
If you can make good――――”
“I’m afraid Walter has talked me up more than I deserve,” broke in Dan.
“He’s a good friend――――”
“How long have you known him?”
“Ever since we were little fellows. He has been spending his summers
on his grandfather’s farm, and our farm was close by, so Walter and I
naturally were together a good deal. This summer he hired me to take
him fishing.”
Ned’s keen glance of surprise was not lost upon his companion, but as
he did not speak Dan too became silent as the two boys followed Walter
and Chesty, who were not far in advance. In the silence suddenly the
words of the latter to Walter became plain to Dan and Ned. “Where did
you pick up your bucolic?” Chesty was saying.
“Picked him up in the hayfield,” Walter laughingly replied.
“His hair is full of hayseed.”
“Well, what of it?”
“Oh, nothing. If that is the sort of thing you like, then you like just
the sort of thing you’ve got, that’s all.”
“He can pitch like a fiend.”
“What of it?”
“He’ll own the whole school pretty soon if he can measure up to Red
Chandler!”
“Red Chandler!” retorted Chesty scornfully. “He was just another such
fellow as your friend from the hayfield. He didn’t know how to act like
a gentleman. He was just a great, rough――――”
“He’s the best pitcher the Tait School nine ever had!”
“What of that? He used to say, ‘I done it.’ He never had a suit of
clothes that fitted him. He was not and never could be a gentleman.”
It was too dark to permit Ned to see Dan’s face and yet he was aware
that his companion must have heard Chesty’s words. Impulsively he
turned to Dan and said, “Don’t pay any attention to what that Chesty
has been saying. He doesn’t know anything except what a tailor can tell
him. He doesn’t know what he is here for. He thinks his money can buy
anything. You don’t mind his chaff, do you?”
“I haven’t had much time to find out yet,” replied Dan quietly.
“Well, don’t you mind it! I’ll tell Chesty what I think of him.”
“No, don’t say a word. Don’t let him know that we heard what he said. I
don’t want Walter to know.”
“Just as you say,” said Ned lightly. “If I can arrange with Samson I’ll
get the fellows out for a little baseball to-morrow. You aren’t going
in for football are you?”
“I don’t expect to.”
“Good! Of course football is all the rage in the fall. It’s a good
enough game, but give me baseball every time.”
“I never saw a game of football.”
“How’s that?” laughed Ned lightly. “Where have you lived all these
days?” Then as Dan did not reply he hastily added, as he recalled the
sneering words of Chesty, “There’ll be time enough for all that. I
just don’t want you to get switched off into football, that’s all. Of
course we’ll have to wait till spring before we do much on the diamond.
Football somehow has got the right of way in the fall, but we do a
little trying out now, and that’s about all we can expect. I’ll let you
know to-morrow about the practice. Now don’t fail to show up. And just
forget all about Chesty and his cheap talk.”
Dan did not respond, but turned with Walter and went up the stairway
to their room on the second floor. He did not betray by his manner
that he had overheard the words of Chesty to Walter, and as the latter
suggested that they should at once arrange their belongings in their
rooms he quietly agreed. Dan’s trunk, a somewhat crude and manifestly
antique affair, had been left outside the door and when Walter said,
“Here, Dan, I’ll give you a lift,” and at once took hold of one end of
the trunk, Dan somehow felt that his roommate was more eager to get the
trunk into a bedroom where it could not be seen than he was to help.
Dan, without a word, helped carry the heavy trunk to the bedroom which
had been assigned him and as soon as Walter started to unpack his own
trunk he too began.
There were three rooms in the suite, a bedroom for each boy and
a sitting-room or study which both were to use. In spite of the
simplicity and plainness of the furnishings――a condition duly
emphasized by the school catalogue――Dan’s feeling was that he was
surrounded by luxury. Certainly everything was unlike the plainness
of his own little home on the farm near Rodman. The thought increased
Dan’s feeling of depression. He had a vision of his brother Tom, who
by this time had ended his chores and doubtless was sitting with his
mother on the piazza, talking with her over their loneliness. He
fancied he almost could hear his mother in her calm way, which was
deceptive to many by its very calmness, say to Tom that she was glad
Dan had such a good opportunity to secure an education. He wondered
what she would say if she knew his own feelings at the moment. The
sneering remarks of Chesty had cut deep. Up to this time Dan had not
been aware that his manners or dress were very different from those of
others.
Now that he had, for the first time in his life, been thrown into the
midst of a crowd of boys of his own age, all of whom possessed, or at
least seemed to possess, an indefinable something which he was aware
was lacking in his own person, he felt strongly that something was
wrong. Ned had been cordial, but his keen interest in the possibility
of the nine securing a good pitcher doubtless accounted for that.
Chesty had spoken frankly and without a suspicion that his words had
been overheard. And Dan, in his quiet way, was suffering. His life had
not been like that of the boys in the Tait School. He almost wished
that he had not yielded to Mr. Borden’s persuasive words. At the normal
school there were many who came from homes like his own. Several boys
from Rodman had worked their way through that school. They had been
waiters in the dining-room or cared for the grounds, served as aids
to the janitor or had done various other humble duties by which they
helped themselves.
Dan’s thoughts were busied with these things while he unpacked, until
at last his trunk was empty and its contents bestowed where they
belonged. One of the last things he had found in the trunk was a study
gown upon which his mother had labored evenings after the tasks of
the day were done. The sight of it recalled her love and devotion so
vividly that Dan threw aside his coat and donned the long odd garment
before he responded to Walter’s call and came into the sitting-room.
“Got everything done, Dan?” said Walter cheerily. “Can I help you any?
For the love of country, Dan,” Walter abruptly added as for the first
time he noticed his roommate’s gown, “where on earth did you find that
thing? What is it? Did you use it to milk in?”
“It’s a study gown,” replied Dan, blushing slightly.
“Well, don’t study in it, Dan. If the fellows should see it they’d
never stop guying you. It looks like a relic of the Stone age. Here,
help me tack up this skin. Isn’t it a beauty?” Walter held up to view
the skin of the huge snake which he and Dan had secured on Six Town
Pond and Walter had had prepared by Silas the harness-maker.
“Isn’t that a beauty!” he again exclaimed enthusiastically when the
skin had been tacked to the wall. “That’ll make the fellows stand up
and open their eyes. I wonder what Chesty will say when he sees it? By
the way, Dan, do you want me to give you a pointer?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why――well――you see the ways of the fellows here are not just exactly
as they are in Rodman, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, you want to put your butter on the butter-plate and not on
the rim of your serving-plate. You don’t mind my speaking of it, do
you? You’ll pick these things up in a jiffy, but I thought――I didn’t
know――but you’d like to have me tell you when I happened to see some
little thing that is not just like――that’s a little different――――”
“That’s all right, Walter. I know I’m not used to some things that you
and Chesty――――”
“Never mind Chesty,” broke in Walter a little uneasily as Dan believed.
“There are quantities of points you can give me――a good many more than
I can give you. They’re only little pointers. I say, Dan, I’ve been
talking you up with a lot of the fellows. They are expecting you to do
something big to-morrow if we have the fellows out for practice then.
You won’t go back on me, will you, Dan?”
“I’m afraid you have talked too much.”
“Not a bit!” declared Walter confidently. “You can do it! Just think
you’ve got some of those Benson fellows facing you! I tell you what,
Dan! If you make good the fellows will all be so glad that I made my
‘find’ this summer that they’ll make me captain of the nine next year.”