THE SECOND CREW
NEVER did small boy yearn for the swimming-hole as Roger Hardie for the
next practice. He lay awake for an hour, going over the details of the
stroke as he hoped to use it. He had got control of the oar now, he was
sure; he didn’t swing out, he didn’t rush his slide, and he did pull
straight through—all positive virtues. The problem now was to catch
sharply, to pick up the movement with the legs as his trunk came up,
shoot the whole body back in one continuous and even strain, throwing
his entire weight against the stretcher—“jump right back from the
stretcher,” as Caffrey had once said. After that he must make a smart
recover, get the hands away promptly, and rest as his slide went
cautiously back, so as to be able to put all his strength and weight
into the next push against the water. It wasn’t the back that was to do
the rowing, nor the arms, but the whole body, and especially the legs.
All this as theory was splendidly clear, but how much could he put in
practice? What right had a clumsy fellow like him to expect to attain a
skill which other fellows had failed to gain with years of practice?
He fell asleep with this question echoing in his brain, alternately
vowing that he would do it and convinced that he could not. The rising
bell woke him. He was unspeakably glad to be waked, for he was dreaming
that he had fallen back into his old bad ways, that the water sucked the
oar blade down after every stroke, that Coolidge and Wilmot had rebelled
and Pete had told him to try baseball, and put Redfield into his place.
He was inclined to take the dream as a bad omen until at luncheon Talbot
informed him that Weld was out with a sore finger, and that he would
have to row bow on the second that afternoon. He bethought himself then
that dreams are said to go by contraries, and took heart.
Caffrey seated himself in Mike’s place when the crews went out—Mike was
cox of the second—and coached the first from the second boat,
occasionally transferring his exhortation to the crew that pulled him.
Hardie put his whole soul into his rowing and listened with all his
ears. Caffrey’s principal point of attack in the first boat was Pitkin
at bow, whom he accused of minor shortcomings and one very serious
fault—not rowing hard enough. “You’re late all the time, Bow. Your oar
must move as soon as it strikes the water, otherwise you back water.
You’re shirking, Bow! Don’t let the boat finish out your stroke. Keep
over the keel, Two; you’re rolling round too much. Don’t follow your
arms around, that makes you swing out. Together there—you’re awfully
sloppy!”
And then he gave his attention for a time to the second. “Pull straight
through, Three. Keep your hands down and pull straight in. Quicker on
the recover, Bow. Don’t feather under. Take your oar out square and
feather as you drop your hands and shoot away. That’s better. Don’t bury
your oar so deep!”
How different it was from knocking about with Wilmot in the pair-oar!
There was a feeling in the boat as if boat and oars and men worked in
unison, a swift, steady, exhilarating, forward glide that gave the
oarsmen a sense of power and skill. Every one worked intently with
Caffrey’s eye upon him. Every stroke was a contest against one’s own
treacherous faults, with the feel of the boat, the facility of the oar,
the criticism of the coach as test of success. By this test Roger was
satisfied that he had acquitted himself well. When, at the Cottage Farm
bridge, the coach called, “Let her run,” he rested on his oars, with
such a feeling of delight as he had not experienced even when Westcott’s
won the Newbury football game, back in November. To make clear what
happened during the rest of the row that day, and to set forth certain
events of the remainder of the week, we cannot do better than transcribe
Roger’s own letter to his mother, written on the following Sunday.
Nine-tenths of it was about rowing, in which Mrs. Hardie could only feel
the reflection of her son’s interest; and half of what she read she did
not understand. Perhaps my reader can do better.
“DEAR MOTHER:
“This has been a great week for me, and I’m going to tell you all about
it, though I can’t make you see it as I do. You know I got saved over
for the pair-oar when the Westcott squad was narrowed down to two crews
and a pair-oar, with coxes for each. This is the final narrowing down
except that the day before the race the pair-oar bunch gets the hook. I
had been slopping along in the pair-oar with Steve Wilmot, being more or
less rotten all the season, never at all decent, and often for long
stretches _absolutely_ ROTTEN, making both cox and Steve awfully sore,
and doing much worse than the worst school crew on the river, which is
saying a good deal. A few days ago I went out as usual and began badly,
but after a while I seemed to catch on all at once, and began to row
decently. We went a long way up river, and I kept on getting the habit
of pulling somewhat right. By the time I got home my rowing had improved
several thousand per cent. Pete saw me just as we came in (Pete is the
captain) and seemed awfully surprised that I was doing so well.
“The next day Eliot Weld was out with a sore finger, and they put me
into his place in the second. Caffrey acted as cox, and I felt that if I
ever was going to have a chance to show what I could do, I had it then.
I did pretty well, I think, for Caffrey didn’t say much to me. The two
crews went along together for a while, then the coach sent the first
down and made us all stop and put on sweaters. Then he pulled out a
clipping about the adoption of a new, unorthodox stroke in England by
some of their colleges, and read it to us, making comments and
illustrating and explaining. He had found some one who had the same idea
he had and who believed in the same stroke that he tried to teach us.
“We started down just as an inferior college eight came along, pulling a
regulation good hard stroke. Caffrey said: ‘We may as well race this
eight now they are here,’ and started us up. He is heavy, but he knows
more about managing a crew than all the other coxes together, and
everybody has confidence in him and doesn’t get rattled. He pushed us
along as fast as we could go to a bridge. We had a fraction of a length
start, but we gained until we went through the bridge a length ahead of
the other crew. Of course the eight was not racing, but it was pretty
good for us, to spurt a four-oar faster than an eight goes when rowing
at a good pace. This was not one of the Varsity eights, of course, but
an upper class eight, or a club eight. It would have been the height of
ridiculousness and especially of freshness to row against the freshmen
or the 2d or 3d Varsity. After a short stop to tell us what he wanted us
to do, we went all the way back to the boat-house without a break and at
a good pace. On the way down Caffrey talked to us, telling us how to
save strength or favor some muscle, and trying to get us to rest on the
recovery.
“I was dead tired when we got to the boat-house, but I think I pulled
just as hard on the tired stretch as at any other time, excepting, of
course, the race. I think Caffrey raced us to give us confidence and to
get us into the habit of not getting rattled. And now for the most
important thing of all. _I was promoted to the second._ It was because I
pulled so hard and didn’t give in or weaken. Pete told me so while we
were dressing. Weld must take the pair-oar. I’m out of that. I may get
kicked back in a little while, but it will not be from lack of effort on
my part if I do. I would rather make the second crew than anything else
(except the first), as that means something; for our crews are in a
different class from any of our other teams, and 2d crew this year means
_1st crew next year_ (if I can possibly make it)!
“That was on Tuesday. Since then I’ve been rowing on the second every
practice without being kicked, but I live in a continual state of terror
that some one will oust me from my place. Of course there’s only Wilmot
and Weld, and Wilmot’s too short and fat to be any good, while Weld is
not supposed to have the staying power, but I shan’t be free from worry
until the race starts (and that’s still nearly three weeks off). Even if
I can hold my place, I might get sick or hurt somehow, and so be thrown
out.
“On Friday we went out in the worst weather we ever had. The rain blew
so fast that sheets of it would go into Mike’s megaphone, so that he
really spent more time in blowing out water than in talking, though this
was only when we were bucking the wind. We were all soaked about five
minutes after we left the boat-house. The waves were very bad, often
piling right over the boat. The rain came down so fast that it looked
like a mist, and you couldn’t see the shore from the middle of the
river. We didn’t stay out long, for there was no chance for good rowing.
When we came in, we found that the roof leaked. Little Mike was down on
the Newbury bunch because some one of them pinched his collar buttons
one day, so that he hadn’t anything to button his collar to. So he put
the clothes of the Newbury crews, who were still out, under the leak.
“This is a terribly long letter and will cost something to send it to
Buenos Aires, but I wanted to tell you all about the crew business even
if it does bore you. It means a lot to me. If you went to Westcott’s,
you would understand. You can read between the lines that my health is
good and the studies are going all right. I got 82 in a history exam, on
Monday. Love to all.
“Your affectionate son,
“ROGER.”
“What do you think of that?” asked Mrs. Hardie, four weeks later, after
her husband had patiently toiled through the letter. “Fancy their going
out in a tempest that soaked them in five minutes!”
“I don’t care about that,” said Mr. Hardie. “It’s the race that troubles
me. It is a great strain on the heart, and the Hardies have a tendency
to weak hearts.”
“Roger takes after me, and my family have good tough hearts,” returned
Mrs. Hardie, quickly, seeing, as she thought, a disposition on the part
of her husband to disapprove the boy’s rowing. She was touched that her
son should count on her loving interest in all that occupied his
thoughts; she objected strongly to making use of his confidences to
thwart the ambitions which he cherished most deeply, thus perhaps
banishing forever the frankness in which her mother heart delighted.
“Besides,” she added, “I wrote him all about that last week. He can be
trusted to look out for himself.”
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