I have decided to come North by sea, and will sail on the _Mohican_
to-morrow. The fare is considerably less than by rail, and as you
have insisted upon paying the expenses of my wonderful trip, I want
to save you all I can. The ship is due at New York late in the
afternoon of the twenty-seventh, the day before the race, and I
plan to take the earliest train to New London, to reach there that
night, if possible. I have the address of the boarding house in
which you have reserved the nice room for me, and you will not have
to worry at all about having me met, as, of course, you will not be
able to come down from the Quarters. It will be hard to bear, this
being so near you on that last night, unable even to kiss you good
night and God bless you. After the race you can come to my room,
and we will go to New Haven on the special train with the crew.
Of course you are going to win again, when your mother is coming
all the way from the South to see her boy fight for old Yale. Oh,
I want so much to see my big, handsome boy, and it will be music
for me to hear the thousands cheering him. I received the ticket
for the observation train in Car Fifteen, and I can find it at the
station, as you directed me, so don't have me on your mind for a
moment. I pray for you each night, and may God bring me safe to you.
Your loving and adoring
LITTLE MOTHER.
"I don't see how I can let her know," observed Hastings with a long
sigh.
"Which?" asked the Stroke, as he searched his comrade's face with
shrewd kindliness.
"I mean Mother, of course," was the reply, followed by a sharp prick of
conscience. "She is coming up by sea, she is on the way now. The other
letter was from a--from a friend. She is to be here, too."
"You ought to meet her in New York--your mother, of course. She
is first in your thoughts, I am sure," advised the Stroke, with a
perceptible shade of disbelief. "Just let her see that you are sound
and lusty, that's what she will care most about. She will be sorry for
your sake, not for her own."
Throwing himself across his cot, Hastings looked out of the nearest
window, down the river to where the flag above the Harvard Quarters
slashed the sky like a ribbon of flame. There were the enemy whom he
had helped to defeat, and now it seemed an honorable thing, greatly to
be desired, even to row on a beaten crew. The tousled head went to the
pillow, and he could no longer help pouring out his heart to his friend:
"Nothing can make it any worse than it is. I have worked every summer
so far, and I was going to have a real vacation this year, the first
since I have been in college. Now I can't bear to think of any good
times, with disgrace hanging over me. I am going to apply for my summer
job again, but I've been working in the office of a Yale man, and I
am afraid he won't want to have a slob around him who was kicked off
the crew four days before the race, will he? Of course he won't. The
last month has been simply hell. Mother has been living in the thought
of this trip just to see me row against Harvard, and--and there is a
girl--well, I am a big, whining, useless baby, that's all."
The Stroke was an older man by five years, who had known a man's stress
and sorrows before his college days began. Had he been a man of readier
speech, he would have tried somehow to make the sorrowing boy realize
that there were other worlds to conquer, wider and more inspiring
fields in the years beyond. Yet there was something quite fine in this
absorption in the crew; it was what one ought to feel at twenty-one,
and it might be better for him to fight it out alone. The Stroke was
glad when the youngster marched out of the room without more words. "I
hope he stands the gaff," thought the elder man.
Hastings' first impulse had been to flee the place, and he was still
busy with the longing to be anywhere away from the sights and sounds
that racked him because they were so infinitely much to him. While he
struggled with the decision, the eight began to make ready for the long
afternoon practice. As the shell swung out of sight around the curve
of the shore, Hastings had not believed it possible that any one could
feel as lonely and neglected as he at that moment. Just then he saw
a University substitute standing idly in the boathouse door, and he
remembered that with one transferred to the eight, and another laid off
with a cold, this youngster, Bates, was the sole survivor of the trio
which had its own thankless duties and burdens. The intending fugitive
made a choice then and there, as he slid down the bank, shouting:
"Aren't you going out to-day to keep tabs on the Red-Heads?"
The solitary substitute ruefully shook his head:
"No, I haven't any one to man the pair-oar with me, and I'm no good in
a single shell. And I ought to be over at the start right now, for the
tip is out that Harvard is going to try the four miles on time, their
last attempt. How am I going to catch their time, I want to know, with
nobody to help me?"
Hastings laid hold of the bow of the pair-oared boat as he said:
"Get hold of the other end of the tub, and we'll put her in the water.
I might as well be a substitute, too, if there is work for me to do.
We'll hold the watch on the Johnny Harvards in great shape."
The substitute glimpsed something of the sacrifice and struggle in
Hastings' offer to help him, but he could not know it all, because he
was only a "sub." The two were bending over their stretchers lacing
the shoes, when the launch slipped past the float so quietly that the
substitutes did not hear it. The Head Coach, however, standing on the
forward deck, heard Hastings say to his mate with an evident effort:
"I came pretty near playing the baby act and running away, but if I can
help the Yale shell to go faster by being out of it, I am glad of it.
That's what I am rowing for, anyhow. And if I can be of any use as a
substitute, why, that's what I am here for, too. It is all for Yale,
isn't it?"
The two in the pair-oar rowed across the river, landed a half mile
above the start of the four-mile course, and walked down the railroad
track.
"We can't do anything more than catch their time over the first mile,"
observed the experienced Bates; "but that will give us a good line on
the gait they are going." Hastings meekly followed instructions to
hurry to the hill opposite the first-mile flag, and be ready to wave
his handkerchief when the Harvard crew should pass him. Bates, at the
start with a stop watch, would snap the time at this signal. In dust
and quivering heat, Hastings trudged along the ties, crept up the
hill and lay on his stomach under a tree, waiting the appearance of
the Harvard crew. The tears could not be held back at thought of this
humiliation, of the abysmal gap between this petty spying in ambush,
and all the days in which he had swung by this first-mile flag in the
University eight.
There was much time for meditation, and while the first shock had
wrecked his every hope, he began to patch the fabric of his dearest
dream, until he was ready to believe that, even more clearly than his
mother, Cynthia Wells would understand. She would see that he had
tried to do his best, that the failure was blackened by nothing left
undone, and that his great disappointment was of a piece with those
troubles which knit closer the bonds of friendship. She would know
that it was "all for Yale," that winning the race was more important
than anything else in the world, and he ached for the words of comfort
and inspiration she would be so eager to offer. If friendship meant
anything it meant help in such times as this.