A BOTTLE OF MEDICINE
They all listened intently, looking the while curiously at Kindlings. He
seemed to be hearing something inaudible to the others.
“I don’t ‘hark’ to anything,” remarked Tom, “unless you mean a sort of
pattering noise, and----”
“That’s it!” interrupted Dan with a glad cry. “It’s the pattering noise
I mean. Fellows, there’s a way out after all. It’s raining, and if it
keeps up long enough the games will have to be called off. Now, if any
of you have any sort of pull with the weather man have him make it rain
like the old scratch, and keep it up. It’s our only salvation. A
postponement means a week, and in that time Tom and Sid will be fit as
fiddles. Come on, oh you rain drops!”
For a moment or two the students all stared at Dan as though they
thought he had taken leave of his senses. Then, as the patter on
the window ledge outside became more pronounced, and as the gentle
shower became a veritable downpour, all understood Dan’s elation.
Postponement--delay--was the thing they needed most of all, and it
seemed likely to be their luck.
“Oh, if it only lasts!” half-whispered Tom. “If it isn’t just a little
shower, that will only lay the dust!”
Dan jumped up, and made his way to the window, shoving Phil to one side
so forcibly that he toppled into one of the armchairs, with impact
enough to almost wreck it.
“Hey! Look out what you’re doing!” cried Phil. “What are you up to,
anyhow?”
“I’m going to stick my head out, and get soaked, then maybe the rain-god
will take that as a sort of votive offering, and keep the faucets turned
on all night,” replied Dan.
As he spoke there came a downpour harder than ever, and as he thrust
forth his head he was drenched in an instant.
“I guess it’ll keep up all night,” he remarked. “It seems a mean thing
to wish, perhaps, for it will spoil a lot of people’s fun, and the other
colleges won’t like the postponement, but it’s Randall’s only hope. Rain
on! Rain on!”
And rain it did, with increasing violence.
“How’s the wind?” asked Tom, with a memory of the days spent on the
farm, when the weather was a fruitful source of talk, and when much
depended on reading the signs.
“I can’t see it,” replied Dan. “Besides, what difference does that
make?”
“Lots,” replied Tom shortly. “Let me take a look. If we’ve got a good
east wind it means a long rain.”
He thrust his head out of the open window, into the darkness and storm,
while his chums awaited his verdict.
“It’s all right,” he announced after a moment. “It’s in the east.
There’ll be no games to-morrow.”
“You’ve got good eyes, to see wind in the dark,” remarked Sid.
“I didn’t see it--I felt it, you amiable cow,” answered Tom.
For a time they listened to the patter of the drops that meant so much
to Randall, and then the gathering broke up, the visitors going to their
rooms, leaving the inseparables to themselves.
It rained all night, and was still at it when morning broke. Several
times during the night Tom, or some of his chums, got up to see if the
storm was still doing its duty, and when they found that it was, they
returned to rest with sighs of satisfaction.
Of course there was nothing to do but call the games off. Boxer Hall and
Fairview, to whom Holly telephoned early in the day, agreed to this.
Exter held off, her manager saying he thought it might clear. Perhaps
he realized what the delay meant to his rivals. But even he had to give
in finally, and formal announcement of the postponement was made, it
being stated that all tickets would be good the following Saturday.
“And now, Tom and Sid, you’ve got to train your heads off and be fit to
the minute,” declared Holly. “Into the gym until it clears, and you
won’t have any rest as soon as it’s dry enough to get on the track.”
“We’ll sacrifice ourselves on the altar of duty,” replied Tom,
mockly-heroic.
“And you ought to be glad of the chance,” retorted Phil. “I wish I was
in your place.”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this trouble occurred,” said Frank
to his two friends and some of the others as they were gathered in the
room of the inseparables the afternoon of the day when the games were to
have been held, and while it was still pouring. “I feel as if I ought to
have spoken of the chance of the professional charge being brought
against me, and then I could have kept out. But I never dreamed of it.
There never would have been any question of Randall’s honor then.”
“And there isn’t now,” declared Kindlings sturdily. “It’s all right for
those fellows to take the stand they did, but I don’t believe they were
right in your case, Frank, and I don’t propose to let the matter rest
there.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Phil, as he shook the alarm clock to
cure it of a spasm of stopping that had developed that day. “Are you
going to raise a row over it?”
“Not a row, but I’m going to write to the heads of the A. A. U. and
state the case. Then I’m going to ask if Frank can be regarded as a
professional. This can’t stop here. We need Frank for something else
besides these games. We may have a rowing crew this year, or next;
besides, there’s football and baseball to consider. I’m going to the
bottom of this thing.”
“And I’m glad of it,” declared the Big Californian. “I don’t want this
charge hanging over me, and if you hadn’t asked for a ruling I would.
But it’s better to come from you, I guess.”
“And to think that now, if something hadn’t happened, we might be
sitting here, trying to figure out how we lost, if the games had been
held,” remarked Sid, as he listened to the rain.
It rained all the next day--Sunday--which had the effect of keeping the
lads indoors, making them fret, for they were all lovers of fresh air,
and were seldom in their rooms except to study or sleep. In the
afternoon Tom and the other three, in their raincoats, braved the
downpour, which had suddenly increased, and paid a visit to the girls
at Fairview.
“I believe you boys did this on purpose,” challenged Madge, as they
talked about the rain and the postponement.
“Don’t tell anybody--but we did,” whispered Tom with a smile. “The rain
spells success for Randall.”
The girls denied it, of course, but in spite of the jokes of our heroes
there was more or less of a feeling that Tom was right. The Fairview
boys fretted over the delay, but were good-natured about it.
Toward evening the rain slacked up a little, and the girls granted the
entreaties of the boys to come out for a walk, Miss Philock according
the necessary permission rather grudgingly.
It was too wet on Monday for out-door work, and Tom, Sid, and the others
kept to the gymnasium. There was a grim spirit about the work now, for
the boys felt that chance had played into their hands and if they did
not take advantage of it that there would be no more hope for them.
“Luck doesn’t strike twice in the same place, even if lightning does,
the proverb to the contrary,” said Holly Cross.
Tom had a letter from his father that day, announcing that the final
hearing in the lawsuit might come off any day now.
“And I wish I could know how it’s coming out,” Mr. Parsons
wrote to his son. “It has me bothered and worried more than a
little. I don’t want to take you out of college, Tom, my boy,
but I’ll have to if I lose all this money. I may need you to
testify in the case, but if I do I suppose I can reach you by
telegram. If you do get a wire, don’t delay.”
“Wow!” mused Tom, as he read that. “I hope dad doesn’t send for me
before the games. Not that I’m such a muchness, but it would sort of
break up the combination if I had to leave suddenly. Well, there’s no
help for it. If I have to go, I’ll have to go. If I don’t, in case dad
should telegraph for me, he might lose the case, and I’d have to leave
Randall.
“And yet if I left we might lose this contest. I wonder what is better
to do? Delay, in case dad sends for me, and help Randall win, which may
mean that I’m down and out afterward, or take a chance on Randall
losing, so I can come back? Pshaw! Of course I’ve got to help win, no
matter if I can’t come back. And yet for dad to lose all that money----”
“Hang it all! I don’t know what to do!” burst out Tom. “I’m not going to
think any more about it. I’ll wait until the time comes, and if dad
does telegraph, I’ll tell the boys about it, and see what they say.”
Then Tom resolutely put the affair as much out of his thoughts as he
could, for he found it interfering with his practice and training, and
he knew that he must bend every energy to win the mile run.
The practice went on unceasingly. The weather cleared, being finer than
ever, and the candidates went out on the track and field.
Meanwhile Holly and Kindlings had composed a letter to the proper
authorities of the Amateur Athletic Union, asking a ruling on Frank’s
case. Nothing more had been heard from Shambler, excepting that he had
sent for his baggage, and it was surmised that he had quietly taken
himself to parts unknown.
It was Wednesday afternoon, and Tom, coming from the gymnasium, after a
refreshing shower, following a hard spell of practice in all-around
work, was met by Wallops.
“Oh, Mr. Parsons,” said the messenger, “there was a young man looking
for you, with a package a while ago. I couldn’t find you, so I sent him
to your room with it. I guess he left it.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a telegram?” asked our hero anxiously, thinking
of his father’s lawsuit.
“No, it was a package. It came by express, he said.”
“All right, Wallops. I’ll look out for it. Did you pay anything on it?”
“No, it was prepaid. I say, Mr. Parsons, do you think we’re going to win
the championship?” and the diminutive messenger looked at the runner
anxiously.
“Of course we are, Wallops. Why? You aren’t betting, I hope.”
“No, but you see--well, er--yes, I am in a way. A friend of mine bet a
box of candy--I mean I bet the box of candy and----”
“And _she_ wagered a necktie, I suppose,” interrupted Tom with a laugh.
“Well, Wallops, I hope the young lady bet on us, and that you lose,
though I’d buy her the candy, if I were you.”
“Thanks, Mr. Parsons, I guess I will,” answered the messenger with a
cheerful grin. “She’s an awful nice girl.”
“Humph!” mused Tom, as he walked on. “Every fellow thinks that I
suppose, about his own. But I wonder what that package is?”
He found it outside the door, which was locked. None of his chums was in
as Tom swung the portal, and soon he was unwrapping the bundle.
“Ha! A bottle of medicine,” remarked Tom, as the last paper came off,
revealing a flask of some dark fluid. “I wonder who could have sent it
to me?”
He looked at the wrapper, but it bore no sender’s name, and his own
address was in typewriting.
“Hello! What you got?” demanded Sid, as he entered at that moment, and
saw Tom holding the bottle up to the light.
“Search me,” was the answer. “It’s a bottle of some kind of training
dope I guess, to judge by the label.”
Sid looked at it.
“That’s good stuff,” he announced. “It’s a sort of iron tonic. I’ve used
it. It’s a patent medicine, but lots of fellows use it in training. Who
sent it?”
“I don’t know.”
Sid looked at the wrapper.
“It came from Fairview,” he declared. “Tom, some of the girls thought
you were losing your nerve, and they sent this. Well, a dose of it won’t
hurt you. They meant all right, I guess. Going to take any? It’s fine
for the stomach.”
“No, I don’t feel the need of it,” and Tom set the bottle of medicine on
the shelf.