DUNN’S DISAPPOINTMENTS
JUBILATION and swaggering self-satisfaction reigned triumphant at
Westcott’s Monday morning. Certain small boys who had acquired a habit
of arriving half an hour before the time of opening so as to have
opportunity, before the advent of interfering teachers, for tag through
the play room and up the stairs, found their numbers doubled. Instead of
scampering wildly off like frolicsome kittens, they gathered in solid
clusters at their end of the big schoolroom and exchanged opinions and
reminiscences, sprinkling their conversation richly with comments like
“Wasn’t it great when Mac made that goal!” “Did you see Fat Bumpus slide
on his nose?” “I was dead scared that time when Trowbridge got down to
our ten-yard line!” “The paper said—” “Papa thought—” and so on, in a
series that developed itself by arithmetical progression. Richard
Sumner, who had a gift for drawing, spent ten minutes, hedged in by a
semicircle of admirers and supervised by Mike, in chalking on the board
a splendid figure of a plunging half-back, armed cap-a-pie, which he
reproduced by memory from a magazine cover. The breast of his player
rampant he covered with a huge W, and underneath he printed in neat
characters the score by games. When this was done, Mike produced a list
of an All-Triangular eleven, which he had elaborated over Sunday, and
defended with a great show of expert knowledge the right of seven
Westcottites to a place thereon.
Then the older boys came in a bunch, driven in by the cold from the
corner outside. They took places in the alcove that commanded the
street, on watch for the members of the team as they arrived. Each one
as he appeared was signalled at a distance, and hailed by name and
applause as he entered the room. Harrison, of course, received a
prolonged salvo, but Talbot, Eaton, and Hardie were welcomed almost as
heartily, while Bumpus’s bruised face, and Mac’s complacent grin, called
forth a special demonstration. Last of all Sumner was seen, hurrying
late across the street, and an original salutation that would be sure to
rattle him was suggested by Wilmot—but the bell rang and spoiled it
all.
At noon, by general agreement, ten minutes were taken from recess and
another ten from recitation,—a phenomenal concession on the part of Mr.
Westcott,—speeches were made, and the school cheered their throats and
enthusiasm out. It was a new experience for Roger Hardie to hear the
leader call his name, and to feel in the wholehearted volley, to read in
the enthusiastic faces bent upon him, that he was accounted worthy the
gratitude of the school; and his content was not lessened by the fact
that he had gained his place, against the general expectation, by his
own merit. Yet proudly happy though he was in the consciousness of a
certain success achieved, he felt no temptation to that silly vanity
which is too often the result of public praise, and transforms a
reasonably attractive boy into a bumptious, overweening cad. There was a
reason for this, other than natural modesty. Roger had conceived a new
ambition—to row on a school crew. Here again he stood at the foot of a
ladder. To gain a place he must push ahead of a dozen others whose
experience gave them a right to laugh at his pretensions.
Dunn cheered with the rest, but every “rah” which he forced himself to
utter cost him as much effort as a line of Virgil dug out with a
vocabulary. He had been badly frightened by the incident of the Newbury
protest. The upper school had held him in a measure responsible for the
false position in which they found themselves—most unjustly, Dunn
maintained, since he had been but the bearer of a message. Certain
persons, more frank than polite, had said unpleasant things in his
hearing; his closest friends had for a time been cool toward him. When,
with the decision of the committee, the cloud passed, Dunn plucked up
spirit again, and for the last week of football practice really tried
hard to retrieve his reputation. He succeeded so far, indeed, that
Harrison held out hopes to him of getting into the Trowbridge game in
the second half, if things went well. But things did not go well, at
least from Dunn’s point of view, for at no time during the game had
Yards considered it safe to exchange the steady, clear-headed,
hard-tackling end for a substitute of doubtful quality. So Dunn was left
minus the coveted W, and plus a strong conviction that he had been
ill-used. It was not easy for him to forgive Hardie for robbing him of
his place and gaining the opportunity to achieve a triumph which Dunn
felt sure he could have achieved just as well. Equally unpalatable was
the fact that Hardie seemed to be established on good terms with the
influential set, of which Talbot, Sumner, Wilmot, and Trask formed the
solid centre. On the other hand, while there were many whom Dunn called
his friends, no one showed any great liking for his society except Ben
Tracy and Stover, neither of whom was able to help him along toward that
popularity for which his heart yearned. His poor recitation work also
seemed to count against him in this strange school in which the boys
actually held it the proper thing to work on lessons, and while they
pretended to make light of low marks, at bottom despised a numskull. Can
we wonder, then, that the disdain with which Dunn first regarded his
quiet housemate, Hardie, should have turned to envy?
That afternoon Roger went down town with McDowell to buy their football
hatbands—a white background striped three times with blue, the outer
stripes wide, the inner one narrow. McDowell took his hat off as they
emerged from the shop, and gave the new decoration a long look of
admiration, regardless of the jostling crowd. “It’s not so pretty as the
crew band that Pete wears,” he said slowly, “but I’d a lot rather have
it. It means something.”
“So does the crew mean something,” answered Roger. “It means more than
any band there is. Only a few fellows can get it, and at least a dozen
can sport football bands.—Put on your dip, you lunatic. They’ll think
you’re crazy!”
Mac replaced his hat, pressing it down carefully on his hair, and giving
the brim a downward tilt. “The second crew get bands if they win their
race,” he said; “that’s eight, and the two coxswains make ten.”
“But they don’t all get crew W’s. Only five fellows in the school have a
right to them. I’d rather wear a band as a member of the first crew, if
it were just one dirty yellow streak, than have both baseball and
football combined.”
Mac laughed. “Why don’t you, then? All you have to do is to make the
crew.”
“You can’t make the crew just by coming out for it. You’ve got to know
how to row, and it takes lots of practice to learn. There isn’t any
chance for an inexperienced man, with six or eight old fellows in school
who have all had a year or more of it.”
“Isn’t there?” answered Mac, absently. He was looking about him at the
faces hurrying past, wondering that no one seemed to mark the
significant symbol that he bore. Just then a small boy in knickerbockers
and light top-coat, wearing a flat hat with white band edged with
blue—the regular Westcott hatband—appeared in front of them. He caught
sight of the new bands, glanced at the faces below, smiled, and,
stopping short in the crowd, fixed his gaze upon them, revolving in his
tracks as they passed. Here was one who knew the token.
It is ever thus. The small boy looks up with veneration to the wearer of
the school letter. The school athlete admires the member of a freshman
team; the freshman adores the varsity captain who has so long worn the
stately letter that it has quite lost its glamor. The varsity captain
thinks chiefly of the task which he has taken upon his shoulders, and
admires only some lucky captain before him who won his race or his Yale
game, or some frail, pretty, unathletic girl whose weakness her
schoolboy brother flouts. So the chain is looped.
“Who was that?” asked Roger.
“Stanley Hale,” answered Mac, with a grin. “The football band is good
enough for him.—But why isn’t your chance for the crew as good as any
one’s? Pete’s a friend of yours.”
“That’s just it: for that reason he wouldn’t put me on unless he had to.
But what’s the use of talking about it? I shall be lucky to get on to
the river at all.”
That night Louis Tracy appeared at the dinner-table a little late. “Did
you get your bid for the Fridays, Ben?” he asked, turning to his cousin
as he unfolded his napkin. “I’ve got one.”
Ben nodded. “Mine came this afternoon.”
“I got mine this morning,” said Cable.
“So did I,” announced Roger, who was feeling particularly happy.
Talbot’s brother had procured him a good seat for the Yale-Harvard game,
and Sumner had got his name put on the list for the dancing class.
Dunn looked up inquiringly. “What’s that?” he demanded. “I didn’t get
anything.”
“Just the Friday dancing class at the Crofton,” said Ben, carelessly. “A
good many of the fellows go.”
Dunn pondered a few seconds, then blurted out, “How do you get into the
thing?”
“I was on the list last year,” replied Ben.
“So was I,” said Cable, answering a look from Dunn.
“My Aunt Mary got me my invitation,” Louis Tracy explained.
There was a moment of silence which to some at the table seemed a bit
awkward; but Dunn, who was determined to probe the matter to the bottom,
pushed boldly on. “How did you work it, Hardie?”
“Mine came through Mrs. Sumner. She is one of the patronesses. Jack
asked me last week whether I’d like one, and I jumped at the chance.”
At this point Mrs. Adams interposed a new topic of conversation, and the
tongues were soon flying at the usual rate over a safe course; but
Dunn’s voice, commonly the loudest and most insistent, was only heard
when a question was put directly to him. He ate his dinner in moody
silence, his face darkly clouded. In the middle of dessert he excused
himself, leaving the ice-cream half eaten on his plate.
“It’s tough on poor Jason to get left out of the Fridays,” said Cable,
as the door closed behind him.
“What in time did you want to bring it up for?” exclaimed Ben, turning
reproachfully on his cousin.
“I didn’t think about it,” answered Louis. “Jason had no business
butting in, anyway.”
“He’d have found out about it sooner or later,” suggested Cable. “We
were all as much at fault as Louis.”
“Can’t you do something to help him out?” asked Roger. “You might get
him an invitation, Ben, I should think.”
“Well, I can’t,” Ben answered impatiently. “I don’t run the things, and
none of my people do, either.”
Later in the evening Dunn came into Ben Tracy’s room and sat down on the
bed. “Say, Ben,” he began, “can’t you help me to get an invitation for
that dancing class? I don’t care anything about the dancing part of it,
but it’s going to be awfully disagreeable to hang round here all winter
and be the only fellow left out. I shall be ashamed to live.”
Ben didn’t answer. He knew very well that if he took Dunn’s name to his
Aunt Mary, she would want to know all about the applicant, his
character, appearance, manners, habits, church relations,—all about his
father, mother, relatives, acquaintances, ancestors, his father’s
business and his grandfather’s. And after her nephew had undergone the
cross-examination, she would probably refuse to help him and admonish
him to avoid such associations.
“You might try Mr. Westcott,” said Ben, jumping at a stray idea, as
Jason jumped at answers in the history class. “He could get your name on
the list easily enough.”
“He wouldn’t do it if he could,” answered Dunn, despondently. “He’s down
on me and would be glad of a chance to sting me and preach at me. If
your Aunt Mary can get one for Louis, she can get one for me, too. Try
her, won’t you? It’ll be the greatest favor you could do me. I’ll pay it
back sometime, I swear I will. Say you will, please!”
Ben looked hard at the floor. He didn’t want to say yes, and he hadn’t
the heart to say no; yet something he must say. He lifted his eyes for a
moment to Dunn’s pleading face.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
Dunn leaped forward and gripped his hand. “That’s the way to talk. You
can fix it up all right. I’ll make it good to you some day before the
year is out, ten times over!”
Dunn went back to his own room, leaving his anxieties behind him. They
had settled on unlucky Ben, who brooded for a long time on the best way
to approach his hypercritical aunt. When he crawled into bed at last, he
was no nearer a satisfactory conclusion than when Dunn left him.
“If I ask her and she refuses, Jason will be worse off than he is now,”
he muttered to himself as sleep crept over him. “I don’t know what to
do!”
He knew no better when he awoke the next morning. As a result he did
nothing at all, except to pity himself as a victim of unkind fate.
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