JEALOUSY AND ITS RESULT.
Naturally, the Yale student body as a whole didn’t have the inside
information about the Harvard team that had been obtained by Bill Brady
and Dick Merriwell. Most of the undergraduates thought that Harvard
would be beaten easily, for the men who had seen Princeton, Cornell, and
Michigan humbled by the blue, had little idea that Harvard could be a
more formidable opponent than any of the other nines Yale had defeated.
Many of them had read of the feat of Briggs in shutting out Amherst
without a hit or a run, but had not taken it very seriously. Yale had
not used either of her first-string pitchers against a small college,
but had depended upon Winston, a substitute, and even so had won very
easily. So it was felt that Briggs, fine as his record against the
Amherst team had been, had still to prove that he was worthy to be
classed with Jim Phillips, who was already hailed by the newspapers as
the best college pitcher of the year, and one, who, should he choose to
do it, could make a great deal of money by turning professional and
playing with some big-league team.
Gurney, a sophomore, voiced the general sentiment as he sat on the
famous sophomore fence on the evening of the extra practice which Jim
had planned to foil Briggs.
“They can’t touch old Jim,” he said. “I’m going to bet every cent I can
raise on the game. This Briggs is all right, but he’ll have to go get a
real reputation before he can scare us. Eh, fellows?”
There was only one dissenting voice in the little group that heard the
little sophomore’s boast.
“Remember the story of the pitcher that went too often to the well,”
said Woeful Watson, known to all Yale as the class pessimist of the
sophomores. Watson, no matter how gay the company in which he found
himself, always seemed impelled to cast a blanket of gloom over the
occasion. “We’ve been depending too much on Jim Phillips. He has to do
all the work. It isn’t fair. He’s only human, and some day he’s going to
run up against some one he can’t pitch rings around. The rest of the
team ought to do more than it does to back him up.”
“Shucks, Woeful!” said Jack Tempest, the sprinter, one of Jim Phillips’
best friends. “Cheer up. The team’s good enough. It isn’t a very
hard-hitting team, I’ll admit, but it doesn’t need to get more than one
or two runs. If they do that, Jim can attend to the rest of it by
himself.”
“All right,” said Watson gloomily. “You fellows have been playing in
fool’s luck all spring. Wait until after this series with Harvard is
over before you do any crowing, though. You know the darky’s receipt for
cooking a rabbit—first catch your rabbit.”
Although Watson could never understand the reason, it was nevertheless
true that no matter how earnest his efforts were to make his classmates
take a more serious and sober view of life, the effect was usually
simply to make them laugh at him. They did so now, fairly exploding, and
half a dozen of them formed a ring and danced around him, singing a
mocking song, the words of which they seemed to make up as they went
along.
Jim Phillips was an idol, almost, with his classmates. It was seldom,
indeed, that any man reflected so much credit in his class as the famous
pitcher. He was sure, too, to be a star on the football team in the
following fall, and they were proud of him. But some of the class,
although these were very much of a minority, and seldom made their
opinions public, were far from proud. For one reason or another, but
mostly because, having failed to win any such measure of success and
popularity for themselves, they were jealous of Jim; not a few men in
Yale, unworthy of the college as they thus proved themselves to be,
would have secretly rejoiced had some disaster overtaken Phillips. Once
or twice they had thought that their secret desire was about to be
realized, but each time Jim, with the aid of the astute and resourceful
Dick Merriwell, had emerged more popular than before.
“Listen to those silly goats,” said one of these disgruntled ones,
Carpenter by name, as the dance about Watson continued. “I don’t see why
they raise such a fuss about this chap Phillips. He gets all the praise,
and fellows who are just as clever as he don’t get a fair chance. If you
want to get along here at Yale, you have to be an athlete. Otherwise you
can’t accomplish anything.”
Carpenter wore glasses, that made his staring eyes very prominent. He
was thin, and there was certainly nothing athletic about his appearance.
He usually had a book with him, and it was his boast that before he was
graduated he would earn the title of the best student in his class. And
he resented bitterly the fact that, so far, Jim Phillips was the
principal stumblingblock in his path toward the honor he coveted.
Jim was as good a student as he was an athlete; but Carpenter, who was
more concerned with bare facts and figures than with reasons why things
he learned were so, had convinced himself that the reason that Jim
consistently outshone him in the classroom and after examinations was
that the professors displayed favoritism as a reward for Jim’s successes
in athletics.
“I think you’re right, Carpenter,” said the man he had addressed, one of
his own type.
In college, such men are known as grinds. For them the college life has
no meaning. They devote themselves entirely to their books, doing
nothing to improve themselves by association with other students, and
taking no part in the athletics that would give them a healthy
body—quite as important a part of college training as that of the
classroom, did Carpenter and his kind only understand it.
“But I don’t see what you’re going to do about it,” added Carpenter’s
friend.
“I’d like to put something over on Phillips,” said Carpenter viciously.
“He needs something to take him down a bit. He thinks now he’s the
biggest man in Yale. If you ask me, I think he puts on an awful lot. I
know he’s a good pitcher, but he poses as a saint, too, that would never
do anything wrong. I’d like to try him on that—see if he’s really as
good as he’s made out to be.”
“You’re a fine pair,” said a new voice. “Loyal to a classmate—that’s
real Yale spirit.”
Startled at being overheard, Carpenter and his companion, Shesgren,
looked up. They were amazed and confused to see that the man who was
speaking to them was Parker, a junior, and known as a big man in his
class. He was an athlete, though not a baseball player, football being
his sport. Indeed, there was even a chance that he might be captain of
the football team the next fall. Danby, the man elected after the last
season, had been forced to leave Yale for family reasons, and the
election to pick his successor had not yet been held. Parker was one of
three candidates. For him to have heard what they said, Carpenter and
Shesgren were convinced, would mean a lot of trouble for them.
But, after looking at them contemptuously a minute, Parker smiled.
“I don’t know that I blame you much, at that,” he said. They plucked up
at that, surprised as they were to hear him say it. “I must confess that
I get rather tired myself sometimes when I hear them chanting the
praises of this fellow Phillips. He’s done pretty well, but he’s got an
awful lot to do yet before he’ll be entitled to all the honors every one
here seems determined to give him. For instance, there’s this baseball
captaincy. Every one says he’s sure to be elected—and that’s a bad
precedent, and a dangerous one.
“We’ve done well in athletics here for years, but we’ve had the practice
of electing seniors to captaincies, and, when it’s worked as well as it
has, I don’t see any reason for changing around now and putting a junior
in to run a team as important as the baseball nine. Steve Carter’s the
man for captain. If Phillips does as well next year as he has this,
there’ll be no one to oppose his election in his senior year—and he
ought to wait until then.”
“After all,” said Jack Tempest, who had overheard the last few words of
what Parker had said, “that’s a matter for the baseball team to decide,
isn’t it, Parker? They elect their own captain, and class feeling won’t
enter into it. There are only three sophomores on the team, and Jim
himself, I know, will vote for Carter, if he runs. Brady and Maxwell
will vote for Jim, I suppose, and so will Carter. Jackson is a junior—I
don’t know what he’ll do. Gray and Taylor are seniors—so’s Sherman, and
some of the others.”
Parker turned and looked at Tempest in a coldly, insolent way that
brought the Virginian’s hot blood to his cheeks in a flush of anger.
“I don’t remember saying anything to you, Tempest,” said Parker. “I was
talking to two friends of mine here. When we want the benefit of your
advice, we’ll be able to ask you for it, you know.”
Tempest was furious. He raised his hand as if he would strike the junior
who had insulted him, but his common sense prevailed. He was not afraid
of Parker, although the football man, a guard, weighed fifty pounds more
than did the slight young Southerner, and was one of the strongest men
in Yale as well. But he knew that a brawl there on the campus would do
no good, and might annoy Jim Phillips. So, without another word, he
turned on his heel and walked off, although Parker’s sneering laugh,
which he heard plainly as he walked away, made it almost impossible for
him to resist the temptation to return, and, at any cost, have it out
with the bully and coward, who had struck at him through his friend.
“These infernal sophomores are getting to think they own the college,”
said Parker angrily, utterly unmindful, it seemed, of the fact that it
was to two members of the class he insulted that he was speaking. But he
knew his men, and that they would not dare to resent anything he might
say. “Are you two fellows in earnest about Phillips? Would you like to
see him shown up? If you are, come along with me. I’ve got a plan that
may prove what sort of a chap he is at bottom.”
Scarcely believing in their good fortune in securing an ally as powerful
as Parker, the two treacherous sophomores gladly accepted his
invitation.
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