MR. AMES TELLS A STORY
The next day was Sunday. For a week the weather had been suggestive
of early December rather than the first week in October, but to-day
it had relented and there was a warmth and balminess in the air that
would have coaxed a hermit out of his cell. There was nothing of the
hermit about Hansel and so he required very little coaxing. There was
church in the morning at Bevan Hills, and the boys who lived on the
grounds--the “Schoolers,” as they were called--walked thither in two
squads under the care of Mr. Ames and Mr. Foote. They were required to
walk, if not exactly in procession, at least in an orderly manner on
the way to church, but coming home, as there was a full hour between
the close of service and the time for dinner, restrictions were largely
removed, and the fellows loitered or made excursions afield about as
they chose. Mr. Ames’s squad was always the larger of the two, since he
was rather more popular than Mr. Foote, and allowed the boys greater
liberty, at the same time maintaining, seemingly with little trouble, a
far better discipline. As Harry Folsom explained to Hansel on the way
back:
“You don’t mind doing what Bobby tells you to, somehow. But Foote--oh,
I don’t know; you always feel like worrying him; and he’s not a half
bad sort, either. Bobby, though, seems more like one of us fellows; I
guess he understands what a fellow wants and--and all that, you know.”
The sun was pretty warm on the way back, and when they left the road to
take the well-worn path across the green--a route which cut off a full
quarter of a mile of the distance between village and school--some one
proposed a halt for rest before they tackled the slope.
“That’s a good suggestion,” answered Mr. Ames, seating himself on the
grass in the shade and fanning himself with his hat. “I wanted to make
it myself, fellows, but I was afraid you’d think I was getting old and
infirm.”
The fellows followed his example and threw themselves down on the grass
out of the sunlight, all save one or two who roamed away into the
little patch of forest across the dusty road to see how the chestnut
crop was coming along. For a time the conversation, what little there
was, was half-hearted and desultory. The explorers returned with an
encouraging report, and proceeded to cool off. Presently, one of the
older boys sat up and turned to the instructor.
“Tell us a story, Mr. Ames,” he said, and there was an immediate and
unanimous indorsement of the request. Mr. Ames smiled and looked at his
watch.
“I guess you fellows have heard all of my yarns,” he answered.
“No, sir, I haven’t!”
“Nor I, sir!”
“I’d like to hear them all over,” added a third.
“Well, I won’t inflict that calamity on you,” laughed the instructor.
“But let me see. What sort of a story do you want?”
“A funny one, sir.”
“Tell us about the time you went to New Haven as sub and got in in the
last half and won the game.”
“Come now, Strafford, I never did that! You’ve let your imagination run
away with you. I’ll not tell you anything more except fairy stories if
you twist things around that way.”
“Mr. Ames,” answered the boy earnestly, “you did win that game, sir. I
heard a man at home telling all about it last summer. He said Harvard
was going all to pieces when you went in at quarter and that you just
shook the men right together and just _made_ them score that time. He
said if it hadn’t been for you the game would have ended nothing to
nothing.”
“Oh, I guess he was just having fun with you,” said Mr. Ames somewhat
embarrassedly. “I don’t remember anything like that.”
“He wasn’t telling me about it at all,” protested the boy. “I was just
there and heard it. I wanted to tell him that you were our coach here,
but I didn’t know him.”
“It was just as well, then, under the circumstances,” laughed the
instructor. “What was the chap’s name; do you know?”
“Yes, sir, it was Higgins; a big, tall----”
“Mortimer Higgins! Is that so? I haven’t heard of him for a long time.
We called him ‘Mort’ at college. And, by the way, if you still want a
story I can tell you one, and it’s about this same Mort Higgins. It
isn’t exactly a funny story, but it’s a true one; and if you don’t
believe it, why, Strafford here will show you the hero!”
“That’s fine!”
“Go ahead, sir!”
“Shut up, you fellows! Mr. Ames is going to tell a story!”
“Well, I’ll try and make it short,” began the instructor, “for it’s
getting along toward dinner time. Let’s see, now. Mort was in the class
ahead of me, and I never knew him until my sophomore year. He was a
junior then. I wonder if I can describe him to you, so that you’ll see
him as I did. He was tall--a good six feet, I guess--and a bit lanky
and ungainly. He came from one of the Carolinas--North, I think, and
was sort of slow and careless in his movements, used to throw his
shoulders all around when he walked, and when he shook hands with you,
you felt as though your fingers were tied to a pump handle and the
pump was going until it ran down. He had black hair, coarse and long
and all rumpled up. It used to fall down over his forehead, and he had
a way of brushing it aside with his big hand as though he was trying
to dash his brains out. He had a long nose and a long neck, and he
always wore those turndown collars that made his neck look longer than
it really was. His eyes were gray, I think, and were always laughing
at each other; at least, that’s what I used to think. His mouth was
big and sort of--what shall I say?--sort of loose, and altogether he
was about as homely a chap as there was in college. But his homeliness
was of the kind that attracted you. When you first saw him you said
to yourself: ‘My, isn’t he homely! Talk about your mud fences--’ Then
you looked again and began to think: ‘Well, now, he may be homely, but
bless me if it isn’t becoming to him!’
“He had a queer sort of a drawl that made his most serious remarks
sound funny; Mort only had to open his mouth to start you smiling. He
was awfully good-hearted and good-natured; he’d do anything for you if
he didn’t absolutely dislike you; and I don’t believe Mort Higgins
ever really disliked anyone. He was one of the sort that can always
find good in folks. No matter how mean a chap was, Mort could always
point out a few good things about him. And, on the other hand, I don’t
suppose there was a fellow in college who didn’t like Mort--whether
they knew him or not. But most everybody did know him. Mort never
waited for introductions. If he ran up against a fellow and had
anything to say he said it; and no one ever resented it; you couldn’t
with Mort Higgins. You only had to glance at him to see that he was
simply bubbling over with human kindness.
“He was a smart scholar; did all kinds of things in his last year, and
graduated with honors. But that isn’t what I started out to tell about.
There used to be lots of stories around Cambridge in those days about
Mort. Some of them were true, I guess, and a good many of them weren’t.
One of them was about Mort and his school club.”
“Tell it, sir, please,” said Harry Folsom.
“Well, at Harvard we had a good many clubs and societies, you know.
If you were from the South, you joined the Southern Club; if from
California, you joined the California Club. If you went to school at
Exeter, you belonged to the Exeter Club; and so on. Every school,
pretty near, was represented by a club, which met once a month or
once a fortnight, as the case might be. I think Mort belonged to the
Southern Club, but that wasn’t enough for him. His friends all had
their school societies, and so Mort thought he ought to have his.
It seems that he was prepared for college--or so he said; I have my
doubts--at Turkey Creek Academy. I suppose it was some little village
school in the backwoods of Mort’s native State. Wherever it was, it
soon began to become celebrated. One day there was a notice in the
_Crimson_--that’s the college daily, you know--saying that it was
proposed to start a social club of Harvard men who had attended Turkey
Creek Academy, and that a meeting for that purpose would be held that
evening in Parlor A of one of the hotels in town. Well, for a couple
of days everybody was talking and joking about Turkey Creek Academy;
it got to be a byword. A week later there was another notice in the
_Crimson_ announcing a meeting of the Turkey Creek Club in Mort’s
room. Then came the announcement the next day--of course it was a paid
advertisement--that at a meeting of the Turkey Creek Club Mortimer
Higgins had been elected president, Mort Higgins secretary, and M.
Higgins treasurer. And then Mort appeared, wearing a green, yellow, and
purple hatband on his old gray felt hat, and a pin about as big as a
half dollar on the front of his vest. He said they were the insignia of
the Turkey Creek Club. He had a grip, too, and he’d show it to you by
shaking hands with himself. For, of course, Mort was the only member.
“Well, he had lots of fun, and so did everyone else. ‘Turkey Creek’
spread through college until you heard it everywhere. The principal
drug store got up a ‘Turkey Creek College Ice,’ and a quick-lunch
place advertised a ‘Turkey Creek Egg Sandwich.’ Mort got the name of
‘Turkey’ for a while, but it didn’t stick, probably because ‘Mort’ was
shorter. He kept up the Turkey Creek game all the rest of the year.
Every now and then there’d be a notice in the _Crimson_; and everyone
used to watch for them. Finally, though, it dawned on the _Crimson_
that it was being used to perpetrate a joke, and it turned Mort down;
the _Crimson_, you know, is the most serious paper in the world outside
of the _Congressional Record_! After that he used to post his notices
up on the notice board in the union and the gym. One day there was a
notice saying that at half-past twelve the Turkey Creek Club would
have its photograph taken on the steps of Matthews Hall. Of course
everyone who could get there was on hand, and sure enough there was the
photographer waiting. And pretty soon Mort steps up, dressed in his
best clothes and wearing his green and yellow and purple hatband and
his club pin, and stands on the top step and folds his arms. You can
imagine the howl that went up as Mort faced the camera as serious as a
judge!”
“I thought you said it wasn’t a funny story!” gurgled one of the
audience when the laughter had died down.
“That’s so, but that wasn’t the story I started out to tell,” answered
Mr. Ames. “I was going to tell about Mort’s baseball experience, but
I guess I’ve wasted too much time and we’ll have to let that go until
another day.”
“Oh, go ahead, sir! It isn’t late!” The instructor looked at his watch.
“Well, maybe there’s time if I hurry up with it. When Mort came to
Harvard he’d never seen a game of baseball played, and he fell in
love with it right away and went out to try for his freshman team. He
didn’t make it, but he wasn’t discouraged, and the next year he made
the sophomore team; they let him play at right field, I think. The
next year he went out for the varsity nine. He slipped up on that,
but he made the second. And somehow he began to get a reputation as
a heavy hitter, and, as the varsity was weak at batting, they nabbed
Mort and took him to the varsity training table. But he spent most of
that spring on the bench, for while at times he’d just about knock the
cover off the ball, he wasn’t a bit certain, and there was no telling
whether he’d make a home run or strike out; and usually it was a case
of strike out with Mort. And in the field--they tried him at left and
then at right, and it didn’t seem to make any difference to Mort--he
was a good deal of a failure. If he ever got his mitten on the ball he
clung to it, but he didn’t seem to be able to judge the direction of
flies, and like as not would be four or five yards out of the way when
the ball came down. But he tried terribly hard, and everyone liked him,
and so he stayed with the team, even though he didn’t get into any of
the big games.
“In his senior year he was out again, and the coach, who was a new
man, got it into his head that Mort could be taught to field. And he
was taught, after a fashion. At least, he did a whole lot better that
spring and only disgraced himself a couple of times. But those times
were enough to queer him, and back to the bench he went. Now and then,
when the varsity was up against a weak team, they’d let Mort take a
hand, and it was a pretty sure thing that he’d stir up some excitement
by getting a couple of two-baggers or a home run before he was through
with the enemy’s pitcher. We used to laugh and cheer like anything when
Mort went to bat. But the real fun came when he got to base. At base
running he was like an elephant in a forty-yards sprint. To see him
try to steal was more fun than a circus. He’d get the signal and start
off at a lope for second. The batsman would strike at the ball without
hitting it, the catcher would throw down to second, and second baseman
would stand there with the ball in his hand and wait for Mort to come
galloping up to be tagged out. Oh, it was beautiful! And Mort would
come ambling back to the bench smiling and unruffled.
“Well, that’s the way things stood when the team went to New Haven
for the second Yale game. We’d won the first at Cambridge, and if we
could get this one we had the series. I was playing short. It was a
pitchers’ battle all through. We managed to get two runs in the second
inning, and after that there was nothing doing until the sixth, when
Yale’s first man was hit with the ball and stole second on a bad throw
down. The second man went out on a pop fly, and the third struck out.
The next man got his base on balls, and then there was a three-bagger
that brought in two runs. So the score stood two to two until the
last of the eighth. Then came a bunch of errors--I had a hand in it
myself--and finally a squeeze that brought in another run. We settled
down then and our pitcher struck out the next two men, and we went to
bat in the first of the ninth with the score three to two against us.
“I was first up and managed to get a scratch hit, beating the ball to
first by about an inch. I had my instructions to wait for a sacrifice
and I waited. But the next man was struck out. Then came a long fly
into the left-fielder’s hands, but I managed to sneak down to second
on the throw-in. There were two out and it looked as though there was
going to be a third game to the series that year. The Yale stands were
cheering incessantly and beating drums and having a high old time.
The next man up was our first baseman. He was the slugging kind of a
batter; if he hit the ball he made good, but he was easily fooled.
Well, this time he wasn’t fooled. He cracked out a clean base hit over
second and I started home. But there was a fine, swift throw to the
plate and I had to go back to third--and I didn’t get there any too
soon! And meanwhile the other fellow had got to second. And there we
were; a man on third and a man on second, two runs needed to win, and
the weakest batter on the team up! That was our pitcher. He was a bully
pitcher, but, like nine pitchers out of ten, he couldn’t bat a little
bit. I was feeling pretty sore when I saw him pick up his bat and start
for the plate. But he didn’t get there, for the coach called him back,
and suddenly there was a burst of cheering from the Harvard section.
They were sending Mort Higgins in to bat for him.
“Well, that was all right, thought I, for Mort couldn’t do any worse
than the man whose place he had taken. But I didn’t look for any luck,
for the Yale pitcher was one of the best on the college diamond that
year, and we had made only four hits off him in the whole game. I
wondered whether I could make a sneak for the plate and tie the score.
Mort struck at the first ball and missed it. He looked surprised,
and the Yale crowd howled. Then he let the next one go by and the
umpire called it a strike. My heart went down into my boots. Then Mort
refused the next one. I can still remember the feeling of relief with
which I heard the umpire say ‘Ball’! The Yale pitcher tied himself
up again and unwound and the ball shot away. And then there was a
nice, clean-sounding _crack_, and I was racing for the plate. The ball
went whizzing by my head along the base line, but I didn’t stop to
see whether it was going to be fair or foul. And neither did the man
behind me. We put out for the plate like sixty, and we both made it
ahead of the ball, which had struck about a foot inside the line. There
were things doing in the Harvard section about that time, I tell you,
fellows!”
“And did Mort get in, too?” asked some one eagerly. Mr. Ames laughed.
“No,” he answered, “Mort didn’t score. Catcher threw the ball back to
second, and second ran half way over to first and met Mort coming along
like a human windmill, waving his arms and pawing the earth.”
“And Harvard won?”
“Yes, four to three. We shut Yale out in her half of the inning. And
that’s how Mort Higgins saved the day. Come on, fellows; we’ll have to
hurry or we’ll be late for dinner.”
“Gee!” said one of the boys, as they scrambled to their feet and
started up the path, “that was bully! I’d like to have been there, Mr.
Ames!”
“Well, I was rather glad to be there myself,” answered the instructor
with a reminiscent smile.
After dinner Hansel met Bert and Harry in front of Weeks, and the
latter called to him to join them in a walk. Bert didn’t look as
though he was especially pleased with Harry’s procedure; since their
discussion of ethics the evening before, he had treated Hansel
rather coldly. But Hansel went along, and presently Bert forgot his
resentment and the three spent a very pleasant two hours along the
bank of the lake. Naturally, the talk soon got around to the subject
of football, and the team’s chances of success in the final contest
of the year--that with Fairview--were discussed exhaustively. As
though by tacit consent, both Bert and Hansel avoided a reopening of
the controversy regarding Billy Cameron. On the way back to school,
Harry Folsom let fall an allusion to the “raid,” and Hansel asked for
information.
“Oh, you’ll know all about it in a day or two,” laughed the football
manager. “It’s due to happen either to-morrow or Tuesday night. You
want to get into your old clothes and be prepared for trouble in
bunches.”
“But what is it?” insisted Hansel.
“It’s when the Towners come up here after supper and try to get on to
the steps of Academy Building and cheer. I don’t know when the thing
started, but it’s been the custom for years. They try to take us
Schoolers by surprise and rush the steps before we can stop them. Our
play is to keep them away, or, if they get there, to put them off. But
if they once make the steps they’re pretty sure to stay there. It’s a
lovely rough-house, isn’t it, Bert? Last year they did about as they
liked with us, and all we could do was to bother them. They stood there
on the steps and cheered for themselves for about half an hour. When
they started home, though, we got at them in fine style and chased them
all the way back to the town.”
“I got a peach of a crack on the side of the head last year,” said
Bert, with a trace of pride in his voice.
“Well, some of the Towners got a heap worse,” laughed Harry. “Simpson
had most of his clothes torn off him before he got home. Simpson was
their leader,” he explained for Hansel’s enlightenment.
“And Poor! Do you remember?” cried Bert. “He lived at Mrs. Hyde’s,
and two of us fellows chased him inside the yard and he tried to dive
through an open window and the window came down on him when he was half
way through and pinned him there. We didn’t do a thing to him!”
“But how do you know when the raid’s going to occur?” asked Hansel.
“We don’t,” Harry replied. “We only know that it usually comes the
first of this week. We have to be on guard. But we’ve got a dandy
scheme fixed up for this time. I’d tell you, Dana, but it’s a sort of a
secret; we don’t want it to get out, you know.”
“That’s all right,” said Hansel. “I suppose I’ll learn about it in
time.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Bert, “if you learned about it
to-morrow evening. I have an idea that they mean to raid then, for
Royle told me yesterday that young Gates, one of the Towners, told him
that it was going to come off Tuesday. That looks to me as though they
wanted to put us off the track.”
“Sure! That’s just what it means,” Harry answered with conviction.
“Anyhow, we’ll be ready for them whenever they come. They won’t find us
asleep the way they did last year, you can bet on that!”
And, as it proved, they didn’t.