THE FIRST DEFEAT
When October was a week old Willard had become as much a part and
parcel of Alton Academy as if he had spent a year there instead of a
scant three weeks. For a time he had wondered whether he had made a
mistake in substituting it for Kenly Hall, but as he became more and
more at home that speculation ceased to trouble him. Even if he had
made a mistake, and had known it, the bewildered letter he had received
from his mother would have reconciled him to the fact. That letter had
amused him for days. For the joke of it, he had carefully abstained
from explanations and had merely written: “Here I am at Alton Academy,
everything unpacked and quite settled. I think I am going to like it
immensely.” Of course there had been much more, but he had described
the school in such a matter-of-fact way that his mother and father, on
reading the letter, had almost doubted their memories.
“Your father,” wrote Mrs. Harmon, “says that we may have misunderstood,
but I am very, _very_ certain you meant to go to Kenly School. You
talked about it so frequently that I’m sure I couldn’t be mistaken.
Kenly School is at Lakeville, for I’ve looked it up in a magazine, and
your letter was posted at Alton, and your father says the two places
are fully ten miles apart. I do hope everything is all right, but I
simply can’t understand why you didn’t explain more fully in your
letter. Do let me hear from you right away, dear, and tell me just what
happened.”
Of course Willard had answered the appeal promptly and explained fully,
emphasizing the real or imaginary advantages of Alton over Kenly,
and had received a second letter from home that was not nearly so
sympathetic as it might have been. It was his father who wrote this
time, and Mr. Harmon dwelt, at what Willard thought was undue length,
on the latter’s Lamentable Lack of Serious Purpose, pointing out that
attaining an education was not a pursuit to be governed by levity. That
epistle had the effect of making Willard rather more devoted to his
studies for awhile at least and so was not written in vain.
His studies, though, promised to cause him scant worry, for he had come
well prepared for the Alton junior year. Greek, which he had elected to
make up the required number of hours, was new to him and so presented
some difficulties, but he was consoled with the knowledge that by
taking the course this year he could, if he wished, drop it the last
half of his senior year. Martin, who had left Greek severely alone, his
motto being “Don’t Look for Trouble,” told Willard that he was a chump
and dwelt at length on the merits of Science 4 as a “snap course.” To
which Willard virtuously replied that he was attending the Academy
to acquire an education and not to spend his time in slothfulness.
Whereupon Martin upset him onto the bed, placed a pillow over his head
and sat on it.
About this time Martin was making Bob Newhall’s life a burden to him
by solicitous inquiries regarding his health. Martin had a way of
observing Bob anxiously and attempting to feel his pulse that the
latter found very trying. Of course Bob could refuse to have his heart
action investigated, and could--and did--decline to put out his tongue
for Martin to inspect, but he couldn’t prevent Martin from eyeing him
narrowly on all occasions and shaking his head sorrowfully over what he
pretended to believe were the ravages of disease. “I don’t like those
deep circles under your eyes, Bob,” Martin would say gravely. “Sleep
pretty well, do you?”
“About nine hours, thanks,” Bob would reply shortly.
“I was afraid of that! That’s one of the unmistakable symptoms. Feel
tired in the morning? Sort of worried and oppressed without knowing
why?”
“Not until I run across you! And then I know why blamed well!”
“Irritable, too! Dear, dear! Bob, why don’t you drop in at the doctor’s
some day and just let him look you over? Of course there may be nothing
serious, nothing that can’t be remedied if taken in time, but I’d feel
a lot easier about you if you saw someone, honest I would!”
“You’ll feel easier if I hand you a wallop,” growled Bob. “Say, if you
played guard half as hard as you work that silly tongue of yours you
might amount to something!”
Martin spent a whole hour in the library one morning and emerged with
a fine fund of information regarding the sleeping sickness and the
ravages of the tse-tse fly, and after that he became doubly obnoxious
to Bob. Martin may or may not have been correct in connecting the bite
of the tse-tse with the sleeping sickness, but the way in which he
drove the flies away from Bob’s vicinity proved that he meant to take
no chances. Strangely, the object of his solicitous care resented this
manifestation of it more than any other, and Martin had only to fix a
piercing gaze on the tip of Bob’s nose and begin a cautious approach
with uplifted hand to throw Bob into a paroxysm of lamentable anger.
Martin, repulsed, would explain in hurt tones that never having seen
the tse-tse fly he couldn’t be supposed to know it from the common or
house-fly, and that he consequently was using only excusable caution.
Naturally enough, Willard and Joe enjoyed the nonsense and egged Martin
on, but when the latter began flooding Bob’s mail with patent medicine
circulars and stories of miraculous cures clipped from the newspapers,
Bob’s patience became exhausted and he vowed revenge.
“I’m going to get good and even with you, Mart,” he declared one
afternoon when Martin had drawn his attention to an advertisement
extolling the merits of a net to be worn over the head to the utter
confusion of mosquitoes and flies. “When I get through with you, my
humorous young friend, you won’t know there’s such a word as ‘fly’ in
the English language. And you’ll be good and sick yourself, believe me!”
Martin, however, professed to believe the threat only the empty ravings
of a mind affected by disease, and was quite interested by what he
declared was an unusual manifestation of the malady. But Bob looked
unusually grim and exhibited such unaccustomed patience that Martin
confided to Willard later that he “guessed he had got old Bob’s goat at
last.”
“You’d better watch out that he doesn’t get yours,” laughed Willard. “I
believe he means to try it.”
“It’s the last stage before the final breakdown,” replied Martin
gravely. “He won’t last much longer, I’m afraid!”
That pessimistic prophecy was made on Friday night, and the next
afternoon Alton traveled to Warren and played Mt. Millard School. Some
eighty or ninety fellows accompanied the team and were present at the
Waterloo. Willard watched the game from the bench, dressed for play,
and saw his chance of getting into it dwindle into nothingness as Mt.
Millard piled up her score. It is the historian’s privilege to avoid
such events as he may consider unworthy of inclusion in his narrative,
and the present historian gladly avails himself of that privilege.
Suffice it to say that Mt. Millard out-rushed, out-punted and
out-generaled Alton and won a lopsided contest by a score of 19--0. Joe
Myers summed it all up on the way home when he said briefly: “Funeral
from the late residence. No flowers.”
Later that game was looked on as extremely good medicine, for it proved
one or two things most conclusively; as, for instance, that a backfield
wanting the services of a good plunging full-back was a far from
complete institution, and that the forward line of a football team,
like a chain, was as strong as its weakest unit, and no stronger. At
full-back in that Mt. Millard game, Steve Browne had proved himself a
failure. Nor had Linthicum, who had taken his place at the beginning of
the third period, done any better. The following week saw the search
for a likely successor to Browne take on new ardor. The substitute
bench was combed carefully without satisfactory results and Greenwood
was brought over from the second team and given a try-out. Greenwood
did his level best to please, but that he failed was apparent from the
fact that he was back on the second three days later. Of course Coach
Cade tried the old game of switching, but Bob Newhall, Leroy, who
played left tackle none too well, Lake and Mawson all fell down. Even
Martin was considered and passed over, and on Thursday the full-back
problem was no nearer a solution than at any time that fall.
The left end of the line was causing trouble, too. Leroy, at tackle,
appeared to be miscast badly, and Sanford, at end, was no match for
his opponents at any time. Putney and Rhame, the most promising tackle
and end substitutes, were far from satisfactory. That week was a week
of experiments and confusion, and Coach Cade had a worried look quite
foreign to his countenance. Three days of wretched weather added to the
difficulties, for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were each cold and
rainy, and by the last day the gridiron was not much better than a bog.
Under these circumstances the team would scarcely be expected to make
much progress, nor did it. Joe Myers was extremely peevish most of the
week and Don Harris, visiting Number 16 Haylow one evening, remarked
feelingly that he would be mighty glad when football was over for the
season.
It was the miserable weather on Thursday that sent Willard over to
Upton Hall. There had been an hour of indoor practice in the gymnasium,
but the slippery ground and relentless downpour of rain had prohibited
any use of the field, and at half-past four Willard found himself at a
loose end. Martin had gone up to one of the society rooms in Academy
Hall to play pool, and, although he had asked Willard to go with him,
the latter, not being a member, had thought it best to decline. On the
porch of the gymnasium he watched the swishing rain and the inundated
paths and wondered what to do with himself. The answer came when his
disconsolate gaze, roaming the cheerless world, lighted on Upton Hall.
Recollection of Felix McNatt and his invitation came to him and,
turning up his collar, he plunged into the deluge. He didn’t remember
the number of McNatt’s room, but he could find it, he supposed. On the
second floor, he knocked on a nearby door and obtained the information
from a surprised occupant. Number 49 proved to be on the third floor,
and Willard’s knock elicited a muffled “Come in!” As the door was
locked, however, Willard did not immediately accept the invitation.
“Wait a moment, please,” came McNatt’s voice from within. Then a chair
was overturned, footsteps approached and the door was thrown open.
“Oh, hello!” greeted McNatt cordially. “Come in. Sorry to keep you
waiting, but this thing’s out of order somewhere.” He leaned down to
examine a bolt on the door frame, and then followed with his eyes
a wire that proceeded from the bolt to the ceiling and across the
latter, through a number of screw-eyes, to a point above the study
table in the middle of the room. From there it descended to within
convenient reach of a person seated at the table, terminating in a
wooden knob. Willard viewed it with amused interest.
“Quite a scheme,” he said. “Your invention, McNatt?”
“Yes, it saves time, you see. Trouble is, though, it will get out of
order. Ought to have small wheels for it to run on instead of those
eyes. Let’s see now.” He pulled the knob down and the bolt slipped
obediently from its socket with a business-like _click_. McNatt
shrugged expressively. “All right now, you see. It binds somewhere, I
guess. Sit down, Harmon.” He indicated a Morris chair in need of repair
and Willard seated himself and looked around. The rooms in Upton were
slightly larger, it seemed, than those in the newer dormitories, and
Willard considered it a most fortunate circumstance, since a smaller
room would never have accommodated all the articles that met his gaze.
Besides the ordinary furnishings, there were two bookcases, a set of
book shelves that hung on a wall and several boxes up-ended to serve as
auxiliary tables. McNatt was telling Willard of his failure to find
information regarding the use of the diving-rod in the location of
metals and saying some bitter things about the reference department of
the Academy library, but Willard was too much interested in the room to
pay much heed.
The place looked like a compromise between a museum and a laboratory.
Stuffed birds and small animals peered down with glassy eyes from
all sides, a badly mounted pickerel on a board presented a hungry
mouth, a snake skin depended from the corner of a framed picture that
showed, in colors, what was probably a quiet Sunday afternoon in the
Garden of Eden. It was an engaging picture, and Willard studied it
curiously before his gaze went past. All the animals of which he had
ever heard were depicted in it, and all were grouped about in peace and
friendliness, even the lions in the foreground smiling on the beholder
with truly benevolent countenances.
Methods of saving time or labor were apparent on every hand in the
shape of mechanical appliances. A complicated arrangement of cords
allowed of the lowering or raising of the window shades without
approaching the windows; although Willard could not see that it was any
farther from the table to the windows than it was to the side of the
room where the cords hung! On the chair in which he sat a home-made
bookholder was attached to one arm, while, by reaching underneath,
one could pull forth an extension that accommodated one’s legs and
feet, though probably not very comfortably. Later he discovered that
a switch attached to the wall beside the head of McNatt’s bed in the
alcove allowed that ingenious youth to put on or off the electric light
without arising.
The bookcases held all sorts of things except books, although there
were plenty of the latter distributed about in such unusual places as
the window-seat and the tops of the two chiffoniers. Indeed, a set of
encyclopedias of ancient vintage found lodgment along the baseboard on
the floor. The bookcases had been consecrated to Science, it appeared,
for in the nearer one dozens and dozens of birds’ eggs peered forth
from cotton-batting nests and in the other McNatt’s collection of
minerals was installed. The study table overflowed with a motley
débris of books, papers, a microscope, pieces of wire, bits of wood, a
blowpipe, a specimen-jar half filled with a dark-brown liquid that from
its appearance and odor was plainly “working,” a mouse-trap--empty,
as Willard was relieved to discover--and so many other things that it
would be useless to attempt an enumeration of them. Willard was still
looking about when McNatt interrupted his inspection.
“Would you like to see my minerals?” he asked.
Willard politely replied that he would and McNatt opened the doors
of the case and thereupon held forth for some ten minutes, during
which time Willard pretended interest in various specimens and said
“Really?”, “Is that so?” and “Indeed!” dozens of times. When it came
to the birds’ eggs he had the courage to say that he wasn’t very much
interested, and McNatt passed them by. “I’m thinking of getting rid of
them,” he announced. “I need the space for other things. If you hear of
anyone who’d like a nice collection I wish you’d let me know.” Willard
agreed and was shown some choice things in cocoons, an extensive
collection of butterflies and moths which occupied the two lower
drawers of McNatt’s chiffonier, several specimens of tree-fungus, a
cigar-box full of shells gathered along the river, a pair of chameleons
in a shoe-box, a number of small phials filled with liquids of various
hues which McNatt assured him were vegetable dyes, another phial of
whitish powder that its exhibitor called kaolin, and numerous other
wonders. McNatt was quite impressive about the kaolin.
“I guess I’m the only one who knows about it,” he said, lowering his
voice and looking guardedly toward the door. “It’s immensely valuable,
you know.”
“Is it?” asked Willard.
“Oh, yes. It’s what they make porcelain from. China clay they call it
sometimes. There’s a big deposit of it where I found this, and maybe
some day I’ll buy the land and develop it. Meanwhile, of course, I’m
keeping very quiet about it.”
“Of course,” murmured Willard.
“And here’s another thing,” continued McNatt. “Take these vegetable
dyes. There isn’t one of those you couldn’t make just as well as I did,
Harmon!”
“You don’t say?”
“Yes, sir! And every one is made of something that grows right beside
your door, as you might say. Now take this.” He shook a phial until
the sediment at the bottom turned the liquid to a muddy purple as
seen against the light. “Nothing but poke-berry! I don’t mind letting
you in on that because lots of people know about getting color from
poke-berry. But here’s one, by ginger, you won’t often see!” He held up
a second bottle and Willard gazed on a quite gorgeous crimson. “How’s
that for color?” asked McNatt. “You don’t find anything finer than
that, I’ll bet!”
“Mighty pretty,” responded Willard. “What’s that made from?”
McNatt chuckled, winked portentously and shook his head. “That’s a
secret. I’d tell you only I might want to go into the business some
day, Harmon. Not as a life-work, you understand, but-- Know anything
about mycology?”
“No, what is it?”
“The study of mushrooms and fungi. Awfully interesting. I’m just taking
it up. Some of them make wonderful dyes, and that’s what started me.
I’ve found thirteen varieties of mushrooms already, and I’ve been out
only four times.” He looked approvingly out at the rain. “There’ll be
lots of them tomorrow, I guess. I found a giant puff-ball over near
where I met you that day, only it was rotten. They’re delicious eating.
Some day when I find one that’s in good condition I’ll let you know
and we’ll have a feast. I’ve got a little alcohol stove in there that
you can cook almost anything on. I had a few the other night and they
were mighty good. Winfred--Winfred Fuller, you know; he rooms here with
me--Winfred said they made him feel sort of sick, but I guess it was
more likely something he had for dinner.”
“Still, some mushrooms are poisonous, aren’t they?” inquired Willard
doubtfully.
“Lots of them, but it isn’t difficult to tell them from the others, you
know. I’ve got a book that tells all about it. Where is it?” McNatt
looked rather hopelessly about him. “I don’t see it just now. Winfred’s
mixed my things up again, I dare say. He’s a very decent fellow, but he
hasn’t any idea of orderliness. Next time you come it will probably be
around.”
Their travels had brought them back to the corridor end of the room and
Willard’s attention was attracted by a small bottle hanging by a string
from a thumb-tack beneath the electric light switch. “What’s that for?”
he asked.
“Eh? Oh, that?” McNatt removed it as he spoke. “That’s no good any
more. I had a glow-worm and a firefly in there, but the firefly ate
the glow-worm, or maybe it was the other way around: I forget now; and
then the one who’d eaten the other one died, too.” He took the stopper
from the bottle and inverted it, allowing the dried remains of some
small occupant to fall out. “Besides,” he added, “you can buy little
dinkuses made of radium that’ll do the same thing now.”
“Well, but--but what was it they did?” asked Willard.
“Oh, they glowed, you know, in the dark, and showed where the switch
was.” McNatt tossed the empty bottle to the table. “Trouble was they
didn’t always glow when you wanted them to and sometimes you had to
stand around and wait quite a while.”
Seated again, McNatt tilted back in his chair and observed Willard
thoughtfully for a moment. Then: “Returning to the subject we were
discussing the other day, Harmon,” he announced, “I’ve been sort of
outlining a system along the lines we spoke of. I haven’t gone into it
thoroughly, of course, but I’ve estimated that the number of possible
situations in a football game approximate one hundred and sixty. I
may be slightly in error, of course, for I haven’t played recently
and there have been several alterations in the rules, but I’m not
far out of the way. That number includes situations occurring both
in attack and defense. I’ve got a rough summary here somewhere.” He
began to rummage over the table. “It’s a piece of yellow paper. Is
it on your side anywhere? Now I wonder what I did with it. Well,
never mind, it’ll show up again some day. Anyway, my idea would be
to--ah--catalogue them, as one might say, according to their locations
on the field of play. I’d divide the gridiron into, say, ten zones
longitudinally and three zones laterally, giving thirty areas in all.
Numbering--perhaps lettering would be better, though: lettering such
area-- Have you got to go?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” replied Willard. “I--it’s getting along toward
six o’clock. I’d like to hear about it some other time, though, McNatt.
I say, why don’t you come over to my room some evening and let Mart
Proctor hear it? He’d be awfully interested, I’m sure. Mart’s on the
team, too, you know; plays guard. I wish you would.”
“Why, I don’t visit around much,” answered the other hesitantly, as he
reached for the knob that unbolted the door. “I don’t have time, you
see, and just now I’m most interested in mycology, Harmon. By the way,
don’t forget about that mushroom supper we’re going to have!”