spectacle of a stern chase, two figures well in front, striving for the
mastery of the fates, and behind the futile, scrambling, exulting, or
desperate mass of players, sweeping helplessly on the tracks of destiny.
Forty yards to the interminable goal! Piggy remembered with dread the
stories of Hickey's fleetness. He glanced back. His pursuer had not
gained an inch. On the contrary, his freckled face was distorted, his
arms were churning, his teeth were horribly displayed, biting at the
stinging air, with the agony of the effort to increase his speed. So
he was beating out Hickey, the famous Hickey! Then the touchdown was a
fact! Above the uproar he heard a strident shriek:
"Piggy, oh, you damned Piggy!"
The terror of that familiar voice gave a new impetus to his chubby
legs. Some one else must be gaining on him. Thirty yards still to go!
He ran and ran, hugging the ball in his arms, his head thrown back,
gasping for breath. Twenty yards--fifteen yards! Suddenly swift,
glorious visions rose before him, scenes of jubilation and exultation,
of cheering comrades, celebrations that would wipe out the long record
of humiliation. Hickey was closer now, but Piggy did not dare to turn
his head; five yards more and the game would be over and the kingdom of
the Kennedy in his grasp. He sped over the last white chalk line and
dropped triumphant behind the goal posts. The next moment, Hickey, wily
Hickey, screaming with laughter, flung himself on him.
Piggy gazed about wildly with a sudden horrible suspicion. He had run
over his own goal line and scored a safety for the Dickinson.
Then Hasbrouck arrived.
[Illustration: chapter title decoration]
THE FUTURE PRESIDENT
"Snorky" Green, at the fourth desk of the middle aisle, gazed dreamily
at the forgotten pages of the divine Virgil. The wide windows let
in the warm breath of June meadows and the tiny sounds of contented
insects roaming in unhuman liberty. Outside were soft banks to loll
upon, from which to watch the baseball candidates gambolling over the
neat diamond, tennis courts calling to be played upon, and the friendly
"jigger" ready to soothe the parched highway to the aching void. And
for an hour the tugging souls of forty-two imprisoned little pagans
would have to construe, and parse, and decline, secretly cursing the
fossils who rediscovered those unnecessary Latin documents.
Eight rows of desks, nine deep, were swept by the Argus eye of the
master from his raised pulpit. Around the room, immense vacant
blackboards shut them in--dark, hopeless walls over which no convict
might clamber, on which a thousand boys had blundered and guessed and
writ in water.
Lucius Cassius Hopkins, "The Roman," man of heroic and consular
mould, flunker of boys, and deviser of systems against which even
the ingenuity of a Hickey hurled itself in vain, sat on the rostrum,
pitilessly mowing down the unresisting ranks.
Snorky's tousled hair was more rumpled than ever, a smudge was on one
cheek, where his grimy, ball-stained hand had unknowingly left its
mark. He was dirty, bored, and unprepared. The dickey at his throat,
formed by the junction of a collar and two joined cuffs, saved the
proprieties and allowed the body to keep cool. But the spirit of dreams
was upon Snorky, and the hard, rectangular room began to recede.
He heard indistinctly the low, mocking rumble of the Roman as his
scythe passed down the rows.
"Anything from the Simpson twins to-day? No, no? Anything from
the Davis House combination? Too bad! too bad! Nothing from the
illuminating Hicks? Yes? No? Too bad! too bad!"
Snorky did not hear him; his eyes were on the firm torsos of Flash
Condit and Charley De Soto before him--Condit, wonder of the football
field, hero of the touchdown against the Princeton 'varsity, and De
Soto the phenomenal shortstop, both Olympian spirits doomed to endure
the barbed shafts of Lucius Cassius Hopkins.
He, too,--Snorky,--would go down in the annals of school history. He
remembered the beginning of an out-curve he had developed that morning
in the lot back of the Woodhull--a genuine out-curve, Ginger Pop Rooker
to the contrary, notwithstanding. With a little practice he would
master the perplexing in-curve and the drop. And the Woodhull needed
a pitcher badly. McCarthy had no courage; the Dickinson would batter
him all over the field in the afternoon's game, and then good-bye to
the championship. In his mind he began the game, trotting hopelessly
out into left field. He saw Hickey, first up for the Dickinson, get
a base on balls--four wide ones in succession. Slugger Jones, four
balls--heavens, to be beaten like that! Turkey Reiter, third man
up, hit a two-bagger; two runs. Doc Macnooder knocked the first ball
pitched for a clean single; a two-bagger for the Egghead! Again four
balls for Butcher Stevens! The Red Dog, of all people in the world,
to hit safely! And still they allowed the slaughter to go on! The
Dickinson House was shrieking with joy, dancing war-dances, back of
third, and singing derisive songs of triumph. Flea Obie went to first
on another base on balls, filling the bases. And five runs over the
plate! Hickey and Turkey on the line began to dance a cake-walk. From
the uproarious Dickinsonians rose the humiliating wail:
"We're on to his curves, we're on to his curves;
Long-legged McCarthy has lost his nerves."
McCarthy _had_ lost his nerves. Five runs, the bases full, and "Wash"
Simmons, the Dickinson pitcher, to the bat. The infield, badly rattled,
played in to catch the runner at home in approved professional
style. Snorky stole in closer and closer until he was almost back of
shortstop. Simmons he knew couldn't send it out of the diamond. But
Wash knocked what looked to be a clean single, clear over the heads of
the near infield. That was what he had been waiting for; on the full
run he made a desperate dive, caught the ball one-handed, close to the
ground, turned a somersault, scrambled to second base, and shot the
ball to first before the runner could even check himself!
Nothing like it had ever been seen in Lawrenceville. Even the
Dickinsons generously applauded him as he came up happy and flushed.
"Snorky, that's the greatest play I ever saw pulled off. I wish I had
made it myself."
He looked up. The speaker was the dashing De Soto. That from Charley,
the greatest ball-player who ever came to Lawrenceville! Snorky's
throat swelled with emotion. At last they knew his worth.
One run for the Woodhull. Again the Dickinsons to the bat, and again
the rout; one single, a base on balls, two bases on balls--oh, if he
only would get his chance! One ball, two balls, three balls. Suddenly
McCarthy stopped and clutched his arm with an exclamation of pain. The
team gathered about him. Snorky sniffed in disdain; he knew that trick,
pretending it was all on account of his arm! What a quitter McCarthy
was, after all! Still, what was to be done? The team gathered in grave
discussion. No one else had ever pitched.
"Give me a chance," he said suddenly to "Rock" Bemis, the captain.
"You!" said Rock, with a laugh; "you, Snorky!"
"Look at me! I can do it," he answered, and met the other's glare with
steady look as heroes do. Something of the fire in that look convinced
Bemis.
"Why not?" he said. "The game's gone, anyhow. Go into the box, Snorky,
and put them over if you can."
The teams lined up. With clenched teeth and a cold streak down his
spine he strode into the box. An insulting yelp went up from the enemy.
Three balls, no strikes, and the bases full! Turkey at the plate
stepped back scornfully to wait for the fourth ball.
"Strike one!"
Turkey advanced to the utmost limit of the batter's box, turned his
back deliberately on Snorky, and called out:
"You hit me, and I'll break your neck!"
"Strike two!"
Turkey turned in surprise, looked at him, and deliberated.
"He can't put it over," yelled the gallery. "Yi, yi, yi!"
Then Turkey seated himself Indian fashion, his back still to Snorky,
and gazed up into the face of "Tug" Moffat, the catcher. A furious
wrangle ensued, the Woodhull claiming that his position was illegal,
the Dickinson insisting that nothing in the rules prohibited it.
"Stonewall" Jackson, the umpire, a weak-minded fellow from the Rouse
House, allowed the play.
"Strike three!"
Turkey, crestfallen and muttering, arose and dusted himself amid the
jeers of the onlookers. Doc Macnooder smote high and low, and then
forgot to smite--three strikes and out. The Egghead, despite the
entreaties of the Dickinson to bring in his house-mates, could only
foul out. The Woodhulls went wild with delight. He heard Tug, the
catcher, whispering excitedly to De Soto.
"Charley, just watch him! He's got everything--everything!"
Then the Woodhull tied the score on two bases on balls, and his own
two-bagger.
When he walked lightly into the box for the third inning, Stonewall
Jackson had been replaced by De Soto with the imperious remark: "Here,
get out! I want to watch this."
He gave the great Charley a modest nod.
"When did you ever pitch?" said De Soto, critically.
"Oh, now and then," he answered.
"Well, Snorky, let yourself out."
"Tug can't hold me," he said impudently. "That's the trouble, Charley."
"Try him."
Tug signalled for an in-shoot. He wound himself up and let fly.
Butcher Stevens flung himself from the plate, Moffat threw up his mitt
in sudden fear. The ball caromed off and went frolicking past the
back-stop.
"Strike one!"
Tug, puzzled and apprehensive, came up for a consultation.
"Gee! Snorky, give me warning! What do you think I am--a Statue of
Liberty?"
"Charley wants me to let myself out. I'll slow down on the third
strike," he said loftily. "Let the others go if you want."
Tug, like a Roman gladiator, with undying resolve, squatted back of the
plate and signalled for an out. No use; no mit of his could ever stop
the frightful velocity of that shoot.
"Stri-ike two!"
"Now ease up a bit," cautioned De Soto.
He sent a floating out-drop that seemed headed for Butcher Stevens's
head, and finally settled gently over the plate at the waist-line.
"Striker out!"
Moffat no longer tried to hold him, admitting himself outclassed by the
blinding speed of ins and outs, jump balls, and cross fire that Snorky
hurled unerringly across the plate. The Red Dog and Flea Obie, plainly
unnerved, died like babes in their tracks. Five strike-outs in two
innings!
Then De Soto spoke.
"Here, Snorky, you get out of this!"
A cry of protest came from the Woodhull.
"Yell all you like," said De Soto; "Snorky is going with me where he
belongs."
And, to the amazement of the two houses, he drew his arm under Snorky's
and marched him right over to the 'varsity diamond.
How the school buzzed and chattered about the phenomenal rise of
the new pitcher! He saw himself pitching wonderful curves to burly
"Cap" Kiefer, the veteran back-stop, built like a mastodon, who had
all he could do to hold those frightful balls. He saw the crowds of
boys, six deep, who stood reverentially between times to watch the
amazing curves. He heard pleasurably the chorus of "Ahs!" and "Ohs!"
and "Gees!" which followed each delivery. Then suddenly he was in the
box on the great, clean diamond, with the eyes of hundreds of boys
fastened prayerfully on him, and the orange-and-black stripes of a
Princeton 'varsity man facing him at the plate. To beat the Princeton
'varsity--what a goal!
He saw each striped champion come up gracefully and retire crestfallen
to the bench, even as the Dickinson batters had done. Inning after
inning passed without a score; not a Princeton man reached first.
Then in the seventh an accident happened. The first Princeton man up
deliberately stepped into the ball, and the umpire allowed him to
take his base. It was outrageous, but worse was to follow. On the
attempt to steal second, Cap lined a beautiful ball to the base, but
no one covered it--a mistake in signals! And the runner kept on to
third! Snorky settled down and struck out the next two batters. The
Lawrenceville bleachers rose _en masse_ and shrieked his praises. Then
suddenly Kiefer, to catch the runner off third, snapped the ball to
Waladoo a trifle, just a trifle, wild; but the damage was done. 1 to 0
in favor of Princeton. Even the great Princeton captain, Barrett, said
to him:
"Hard luck, Green! Blamed hard luck!"
But Snorky wasn't beaten yet. The eighth and ninth innings passed
without another Princeton man reaching first. Nine innings without
a hit--wonderful!--and yet to be beaten by a fluke. One out for
Lawrenceville; two out. The third man up, Cap Kiefer himself, reached
first on an error. "Green to the bat," sung out the scorer.
Snorky looked around, picked up his bat, and calmly strode to the
plate. He had no fear; he knew what was going to happen. One ball, one
strike, two strikes. He let the drop pass. What he wanted was a swift
in-shoot. Two balls--too high. Three balls--wide of the plate. He was
not to be tempted by any such. Two strikes and three balls; now he must
get what he wanted. He cast one glance at the bleachers, alive with the
frantic red-and-black flags; he heard his comrades calling, beseeching,
imploring. Then his eye settled on the far green stretch between right
and centre field and the brown masses of Memorial, where no ball before
had ever reached. A home run would drive in Kiefer and win the game!
The chance had come. The Princeton pitcher slowly began to wind up for
the delivery. Snorky settled into the box, caught his bat with the grip
of desperation, gathered together all his sinews, and--
* * * * *
"Green!" called the sharp, jeering voice of Lucius Cassius Hopkins.
Snorky sprang to his feet in fright, clutching at his book. The great
home run died in the air.
"Translate."
Snorky gazed helplessly at the page, seeking the place. He heard the
muffled voice of Hickey behind him whisper:
"The advance, the advance, you chump!"
But to find the place under the hawk eyes of the Roman was an
impossibility. He stared at the page in a well-simulated attempt, shook
his head, and sat down.
"A very creditable attempt, Green," said the master, now with a gentle
voice. "De Soto?--Nothing from De Soto? Dear, dear! We'll have to try
Macnooder then. What? Studied the wrong lesson? How sad! Mistakes
will happen. Don't want to try that, either? No feeling of confidence
to-day; no feeling of confidence." He began to call them by rows.
"Dark, Davis, Denton, Dibble--nothing in the D's. Farr, Francis, Frey,
Frick--nothing from the F's; nothing from the D. F's. Very strange!
very strange! Little spring fever--yes? Too bad! too bad! Lesson too
long? Yes? Too long to get any of it? Dear! dear! Every one studied
the review, I see. Excellent moral idea, conscientious; wouldn't go on
until you have mastered yesterday's lesson. Well, well, so we'll have a
beautiful recitation in the review."
How absurd it was to be flunking under the Roman! Next year he would
show them. He would rise early in the morning and study hours before
breakfast; he would master everything, absorb everything--declensions
and conjugations, Greek, Roman, and mediæval civilisation; he would
frolic in equations and toy with logarithms; his translation would be
the wonder of the faculty. He would crush Red Dog and Crazy Opdyke;
he would be valedictorian of his class. They would speak of him as a
phenomenon, as a prodigy, like Pascal--was it Pascal? What a tribute
the head master would pay him at commencement! There on the stage
before all the people, the fathers and mothers and sisters, before
the Red Dog, and Ginger Pop Rooker, and Hickey, and all the rest,
sitting open-mouthed while he, Snorky Green, the crack pitcher and
valedictorian of his class, a scholar such as Lawrenceville had never
known--
"Green, Gay, and Hammond, go to the board. Take your books."
Snorky went hastily and clumsily, waiting as a gambler waits for his
chance.
"Gay, decline hic, hæc, hoc; Green, write out the gerundive forms of
all the verbs in the first paragraph top of page 163."
Snorky gazed helplessly at the chronicles of Æneas, and then blankly
at the inexorable blackboard, where so many gerundives had not been
inscribed.
He drew his name in lagging letters exactly midway, at the top, with a
symmetrical space above.
_R. B. GREEN_
Then he searched anxiously for the gerundives that lurked somewhere in
the first paragraph, top of page 163. Then returning to the board he
rubbed out the name with little reluctant dabs and wrote
_ROGER B. GREEN_
Abandoning the chase for gerundives, he stood off a few feet and
surveyed his labours on the blackboard, frowned, erased it and wrote
dashingly,
_ROGER BALLINGTON GREEN_
Satisfied, he drew a strong line under it, added two short crosses and
a dot or two, and returned to his seat.
* * * * *
Once more in the abode of dreams he was transported to college,
president of his class, the idol of his mates, the marvel of the
faculty. He hesitated on the border-line of a great football victory,
where, single-handed, bruised, and suffering, he would win the game
for his college;--and then found higher levels. War had been declared
swiftly and treacherously by the German Empire. The whole country
was rising to the President's call to arms. A great meeting of the
University was held, and he spoke with a sudden revelation of a power
for oratory he had never before suspected.
That very afternoon a company was formed under his leadership.
Twenty-four hours later they marched to the station, and, amid a
whirlwind of cheers and godspeeds, embarked for the front. During the
night, while others slept, he pored over books of tactics; he studied
the campaigns of Cæsar, Napoleon, Grant, and Moltke. In the first
disastrous year of the war, when the American army was beaten back at
every point and an invading force of Germans was penetrating from the
coast in three sections, he rose to the command of his regiment, with
the reputation of being the finest disciplinarian in the army. Their
corps was always at the front, checking the resistless advance of the
enemy, saving their comrades time after time at frightful loss. Then
came that dreadful day when it seemed as though the Army of the South
was doomed to be surrounded and crushed by the sudden tightening of the
enemy's net before the Army of the Centre could effect a junction. In
the gloomy council he spoke out. One way of escape there was, but it
meant the sacrifice of five thousand men. Clearly and quickly he traced
his plan, while general, brigadier-general, and general-in-chief
stared in amazement at the new genius that Hashed before their minds.
"That is the plan," he said calmly, with the authority of a master
mind; "it means the safety of a hundred thousand, and if a junction can
be made with the Army of the Centre, the Germans can be stopped and
driven back at so-and-so. But this means the death of five thousand
men. There is only one man who has the right to die so--the man who
proposes it. Give me five regiments, and I will hold the enemy for
thirty-six hours."
He threw his regiments boldly into the enemy's line of march, and by
a sudden rush carried the spur that dominated the valley. The German
army, surprised and threatened in its most vulnerable spot, forced to
abandon the pursuit, turned to crush the handful of heroes.
All day long the desperate battalions flung themselves in vain against
the little band. All day long he walked with drawn sword up and down
the thinning ranks, stiffening their courage. Red Dog and Ginger Pop
called to him, imploring him not to expose himself--Red Dog and Ginger
Pop, whose idol he now was; yes, and Hickey's and Condit's, too. But
carelessly, defiantly, he stood in full view, his clothes pierced, his
head bared. Then came the night--the long, fatiguing night, without
an instant's cessation. The carnage was frightful. Half of the force
gone, and twelve hours more to hold out! That was his promise. And the
sickening dawn, with the shrouded clouds and the expectant vultures,
came stealing out of the East. Until night came again they must cling
to the spur-top and manage to live in that hurricane of lead. He went
down the line, calling each man by name, rousing them, like a prophet
inspired. The fury of sacrifice seized them. They fought on, parched
and bleeding, while the sun rose above them and slowly fell. A thousand
lives; half that, and half that again. Five o'clock, and still two
hours to go. He looked about him. Only a few hundred remained to meet
the next charge. Red Dog and Ginger Pop were cold in death, Hickey
was dying. Of all his school friends, only Flash Condit remained,
staggering at his side. And then the great masses of the enemy swept
over them like an avalanche, and he fell, unconscious but happy, with
the vision of martyrdom shining above him.
* * * * *
Red Dog, on his way back to his seat, knocked against him, saying
angrily:
[Illustration: "All day long he walked with drawn sword"]
"Oh, you clumsy!"
Red Dog, of all the world! Red Dog, whom he had just cheered into a
hero's death. Snorky, thus brought to earth, decided to resuscitate
himself and read the papers, with their big page-broad scareheads of
the fight on the spur. This accomplished, he decided to end the war.
The President, driven by public clamour, put him in command of the Army
of the South. In three weeks, by a series of rapid Napoleonic marches,
he flung the enemy into morasses and wilderness, cut their line of
communication, and starved them into surrender; then flinging his army
north, he effected a junction with the Army of the Centre, sending a
laconic message to the President: "I am here. Give me command, and I
will feed the sea with the remnants of Germany's glory."
Official Washington, intriguing and jealous, cried out for a
court-martial; but the voice of the people, echoing from coast to
coast, gave him his wish. In one month he swept the middle coast
bare of resistance, fought three enormous battles, and annihilated
the armies of the invaders, ending the war. What a triumph was his!
That wonderful entry into Washington, with the frenzied roars of
multitudes that greeted him, as he rode simply and modestly, but
greatly, down the Avenue at the head of his old regiment, in their
worn and ragged uniforms, with the flag shot to shreds proudly carried
by the resuscitated Hickey and Flash Condit, seeing in the crowd the
tear-stained faces of the Roman and the head master and all his old
comrades, amid the waving handkerchiefs of frantic thousands.
At this point Snorky's emotion overmastered him. A lump was in his
throat. He controlled himself with difficulty and dignity. He went over
the quiet, stately years until a grateful nation carried him in triumph
into the Presidential chair, nominated by acclamation and without
opposition! He saw the wonderful years of his ascendency, the wrongs
righted, peace and concord returning to all classes, the development
of science, the uniting into one system of all the warring branches
of education, the amalgamation of Canada and Mexico into the United
States, the development of an immense merchant fleet, the consolidation
of all laws into one national code, the establishment of free concerts
and theatres for the people. Then suddenly there fell a terrible
blow, the hand of a maniac struck him down as he passed through the
multitudes who loved him. He was carried unconscious to the nearest
house. The greatest physicians flocked to him, striving in vain to
fight off the inevitable end. He saw the street filled with tan-bark
and the faces of the grief-stricken multitude, with Hickey and Red Dog
and Ginger Pop sobbing on the steps and refusing to leave all that
fateful night, while bulletins of the final struggle were constantly
sent to every part of the globe. And then he died. He heard the muffled
peal of bells, and the sobs that went up from every home in the land;
he saw the houses being decked with crape, and the people, with aching
hearts, trooping into the churches: for he, the President, the beloved,
the great military genius, the wisest of human rulers, was dead--dead.
* * * * *