A NEW YEAR BEGINS
The journey of the little red car came to an end in three days instead
of four, for Matilda developed distressing symptoms at a place called
Bradford, got vastly worse at Mystic and broke down utterly some two
miles short of New London. There for the present the three travelers
left her and completed the trip by rail, parting one afternoon in the
Grand Central Station with assurances of a speedy reunion.
Four days later, on the twenty-second, which was a Monday, Harley
McLeod and Jimmy Austen reached Alton shortly after two o’clock and at
half-past three were out on the football field with some sixteen other
candidates. To-morrow would bring more, but sixteen wasn’t so bad for
a first session, and Martin Proctor, this year’s captain, was plainly
elated.
“Twenty-two fellows had the call,” he said to Harley and Jimmy after
they had shaken hands, “and you fellows make sixteen who have shown up.
That’s mighty good, isn’t it?”
“When’s Johnny coming?” asked Harley.
“Not until Wednesday. He telephoned this morning. He expected to come
to-day, but something’s happened. We won’t need him, anyway. We can’t
do much more to-day and to-morrow than get the kinks out. Oh, say,
Jimmy, that reminds me. You’ll have to put in a lot of time on punting
this fall. Keep that in mind, will you? Practice whenever you get a
chance, like a good fellow. We’ve got to work up a kicking department
with not much to build on. And we play Lorimer in a little over three
weeks!”
“How does it seem to be captain, Mart?” asked Jimmy, grinning.
Mart Proctor smiled back, shook his head and then looked suddenly
grave. “Well, so far, Jimmy, being captain’s been a cinch. Spring
practice was short and easy, as you know. And during the summer all
I’ve had to do is write about a dozen letters a week, read half a
million clippings sent by Johnny Cade--he cuts out everything he sees
that relates in the slightest way to football and piles it all on
me!--and try to look stern and important; and you know that’s no easy
job for a merry wight like me! But since I got here yesterday afternoon
I’ve discovered that being captain of the Alton Football Team is about
the same as being President of the U. S. of A. That guy Johnson’s been
at me every ten minutes with a new problem, Jake’s sitting over there
on the wheelbarrow trying to think up a new worry-- Oh, gee, here comes
Johnson again now!”
Henry Johnson, the football manager, was a short, rotund and very
earnest-seeming youth. His forehead, above the big spectacles that
adorned his short nose, was creased into many deep furrows as he
greeted Harley and Jimmy warmly but hurriedly and turned to Mart.
“Peter says he can’t get the lines marked out to-morrow, Mart,” he
announced agitatedly. “Says he hasn’t enough lime. Says he ordered it
and it hasn’t come, and--”
“We can get on without lines,” replied Mart calmly but a trifle
wearily. “Can’t you find anything better than that to bother about,
Hen? You ought to leave that small stuff to your helper.”
The manager’s frown relaxed slightly. “Tod hasn’t come yet.” The
furrows came back. “He promised to get here to-day. He ought to be
here, too. Some one’s got to look after the weighing, and I don’t
see how I can do it, Mart. I’ve got that letter to get into the five
o’clock mail--”
“Let the weighing go until to-morrow,” said Mart. “We’re all old
stagers and don’t need watching yet. You attend to the letter. Tod may
come on the four-twenty, for that matter. Well, let’s go, fellows! Oh,
Brand! Brand Harmon! Take a bunch of the backs out and throw around,
will you? You’re in that, Jimmy. Mac, you’d better come with me and
we’ll try some starts. You’ve got six or eight pounds that you don’t
need, and so have I. Throw out some balls, Jake, will you?”
Jakin, the trainer, opened the mouth of the big canvas bag and
trickled three scarred and battered footballs across the turf. Ned
Richards, quarter-back candidate, pounced on one and slammed it hard
at Paul Nichols, last season’s center, and Nichols caught it against
his stomach, doubled his heavy body over it and gave a high-stepping
imitation of a back getting under way.
“Mawson off on a one-yard dash,” he laughed.
“Shut up, Paul! Show respect to your betters!” And Mawson quickly
knocked the ball from his grasp, caught it as it bounded and hurled it
smartly against the back of the center rush’s head.
“You’re likely to break the ball if you do that,” warned Ned Richards.
“Hit him in the tummy instead.”
There was an hour and a half of rather easy work, which, because the
September afternoon was warm and still, reduced most of the candidates,
veterans though most of them were, to perspiring, panting wrecks of
former jauntiness. Two laps about the track at a slow jog did nothing
to restore their freshness!
Harley McLeod and Jimmy Austen plodded back to the gymnasium together,
Harley wiping his streaked face with one gray-clad arm. “I didn’t
know I was so soft,” he sighed. “Bet you I dropped four pounds this
afternoon, Jimmy.”
“Soft living plays the dickens with a fellow,” granted Jimmy. “I feel
like a pulp myself. I guess if we weighed in this afternoon I’d be six
pounds over. Gee, but it’s good to be back again, Mac. The old field
felt mighty fine underfoot, what? What’s on for a week from Saturday?
High School, I suppose.”
“Yes. They scored on us last year, too. Remember?”
“Yes, Gil Tarver missed an easy tackle that day. I didn’t get into the
game. Did you?”
“No, Macon played right end. Banning scored on us, too, last fall.
Maybe it’s a good plan to get a couple of kicks in the shins in the
early season. Wakes you up, maybe. Anyway, we came back and beat Kenly
to the king’s taste!”
“Hope we do it again, but I guess it’s her turn this year.”
“That’s the wrong thought, Jimmy. Kenly ain’t got no turn. Hold that,
son. Say, maybe that shower isn’t going to feel swell! Oh, boy!”
“Some fine moment, I’ll remark! By the way, where are we eating?”
“Down town. Lawrence doesn’t open until Wednesday morning. We’ll get
Mart and Rowly and some of the others and go to the Plaza. You can get
a pretty good steak there.”
“Yes,” agreed Jimmy as they entered the building, “but I don’t like
those unclothed tables, Mac.”
“Well, you don’t have to eat ’em! Wonder what’s at the movie theater
to-night. Want to go? My treat.”
“Sure! Under such unusual circumstances--”
But Harley had hurried away to his locker.
Stanley Hassell, who roomed with Jimmy in Upton Hall, arrived early
on Wednesday, registered at the office, unpacked and bestowed his
belongings in their accustomed places to a running fire of comment
and information from Jimmy and then accompanied the latter to the
field and looked on while the now greatly augmented company of
football candidates went through a long practice under a hot autumn
sun and the darting eyes of Coach Cade. “Johnny,” as he was generally
called--though not to his face--was a short, compactly-built man of
some twenty-eight years with a countenance rather too large for the
rest of him on which various small features were set; such features as
a button-like nose, two extraordinarily sharp eyes, a somewhat large
mouth and a very square chin. Mr. Cade had rather a fierce appearance,
in spite of his lack of height, but this was largely owing to a great
deal of thick black hair that stood up bristle-like and defeated all
attempts to make it lie down. Add to these items an extremely mild and
pleasant voice and you have the Alton Academy football coach as he
appeared to the many new candidates that afternoon.
Recitations began on Thursday morning, and the four hundred and odd
youths of various ages from twelve to nineteen who composed this
year’s roster took up scholastic duties again. When the nine o’clock
bell pealed in Academy Hall the dormitories began to discharge their
quotas. Young gentlemen, armed for the first fray of the term with
text-books and note-books and pencils and pens, set their faces toward
the vine-clad and venerable Academy Hall, along the flagged walk on
which the morning sunlight, dripping through the trees, cast golden
pools amongst the cool shadows. From Haylow, on the left of the row,
from Lykes, beside it, from Borden at the extreme right and from
Upton that was next, the youths trickled into the two streams that
flowed briskly toward their confluence, the entrance to the big brick
recitation hall. There were all sorts and conditions of boys in that
larger stream that eddied through the wide doorway; short boys and tall
boys, stout boys and thin boys, boys who swaggered and boys who went
with the diffidence of the stranger, boys with sunburned faces and
boys with cheeks too pallid, boys in short trousers and boys in long
trousers, boys with straw hats, boys with soft caps and boys with bare
heads, high-spirited boys and home-sick boys, eager boys and boys whose
feet lagged on the steps; all kinds, all descriptions of boys; just
such a medley as is always found when the bell summons to the first
recitation on a late September morning.
In a month, even in so short a time as a week, maybe, the sorts will
be fewer, the difference between this boy and that less apparent.
Already the influences that in the end mold all toward a certain
pattern will have been felt, and Jack will have begun to model his
conduct and speech and attire after those of Tom, who, impressed with
the stamp of one or more years at the school, already tends toward the
ultimate pattern. That pattern varies with different schools, yet it is
much the same in essentials, and, on the whole, it is a good pattern,
being founded on a wise discipline and builded of cleanliness of mind
and healthfulness of body, of self-respect and self-control and,
always, the love of fair-play.
To-day there was the genial warmth of a still New England early autumn
morning over the scene. The elms and maples that bordered the streets
still held their verdant leaves and the grass that grew between the
graveled roads and paths that intersected the School Green was still
unchanged. The Green extended along the west side of Academy street for
two blocks and from that quiet thoroughfare arose at an easy grade for
the width of another block to the line of brick and limestone buildings
that spanned it. Yet, following the center path, one passed two
structures ere the wide steps of Academy Hall were met: on the right,
near River street, Memorial Hall, containing library and auditorium
and a few class rooms, and on the left, close to Meadow street, and
partly hidden by trees, the modest and attractive residence of the
Principal, Doctor Maitland McPherson, known to the School more simply,
yet quite respectfully as “Mac.” Behind the main row of buildings stood
two others, the Carey Gymnasium, a recently built, up-to-the-minute
structure, and, to its left and directly back of Academy Hall,
Lawrence, where Alton boys flocked thrice a day and performed certain
rites at many long, white-draped tables. Having passed Lawrence and
Carey, one passed a cluster of tennis courts and saw, spread out before
him, several acres of fine turf whereon, close at hand, were set many
steel-framed stands between whose tiered seats appeared the blue-gray
ribbon of the running track and the gleaming white lines of the first
team gridiron. To the left was the diamond, and ere the further
confines of the tract stayed the wandering gaze a second baseball field
and a second gridiron met the sight. Far away was a faint glint that
told of the river, though the stream was hidden for most of its way
by trees that, beyond its winding course, marshaled themselves into a
forest and marched westward over the low hills toward the sunset.
But we have wandered far afield. Let us retrace our steps as far as
Upton and climb the first flight of stairs. Half way along the corridor
to the right is a door numbered 27, and under the numerals two cards
are secured with thumb-tacks. These bear the following inscriptions,
in the first case written, in a rather round hand, with pen and ink,
in the second case imprinted by the engraver’s art: Russell Wilcox
Emerson--George Patterson.
Beyond the now closed door only one of the young gentlemen named is to
be found. Russell, seated in front of the study table in the center of
the small yet pleasant room, bends over a sheet of paper that looks
very much like a bill of goods. At the top in fat black letters appears
the legend: The Proctor-Farnham Sporting Goods Company. Follows a
Broadway, New York, address, and then come many typewritten lines, each
ending in figures that form a column down the right-hand margin of the
sheet. With pencil in hand, Russell reads, frowns and lightly checks
the items, and finally, having reached the bottom of the paper, he
leans back in his chair, taps the pencil against his teeth and stares
dubiously across to the open window. During the last few days it has
become more and more apparent that the merchant who starts in business
with insufficient capital must expect anxious moments. Removing his
gaze from the window, Russell opens the small drawer at the right and
takes out a very new bank book. Reference to the first--and so far
only--item set down therein fails, however, to lift the frown from his
brow, and, sighing, he looks once more at the appalling total beneath
the column of figures on the bill, shakes his head, returns the small
bank book to the drawer and glances at his watch. Although the nine
o’clock bell had held no summons to him, it will be different when ten
o’clock comes, and it is already very close to that hour. So he places
the troubling bill in the drawer, drops several other documents upon it
and hides them all from sight with a slightly vindicative _bang_. But,
had you been there to look over his shoulder, your gaze would doubtless
have fallen on the topmost document and you would have perhaps wondered
at the presence of what was at first glance a florist’s bill. Then,
however, looking further, you would have beheld beneath the printed
inscription--“J. Warren Pulsifer, Florist, 112 West Street”--the
scrawled legend:
“Received of Russell W. Emerson Twenty-two Dollars and Fifty
Cents ($22.50) for one month’s rent of premises.
“J. WARREN PULSIFER.”