ON THE TRACK
By the middle of the month the Track Team comprised twenty members,
several less than coach and captain had hoped for. By a good deal of
intricate scheming those twenty were apportioned over the seven track
and five field events so that in each Clearfield would be represented
by not less than three wearers of the purple. In many cases a second
was the best that Captain Felker dared hope for, in some cases a third
would be all he expected. A number of the fellows were being coached
in things they had never dreamed of undertaking. George Tupper,
for instance, who had run fourth last spring in the 440-yards, had
been prevailed on to drop that event and go in for the mile, since
the four-forty was represented by three more promising performers
and the mile run was left to Toll and Smith. In the same way, Thad
Brimmer, whose specialty was the weights, was induced to make a third
competitor in the high jump. Lanny White, who was entered for both
dashes and the high hurdles, entered for the low hurdles also. Soper, a
fair sprinter, developed remarkably as a broad-jumper.
Of course there were disappointments at first in what Arthur Beaton
humorously called “intensive track athletics.” That is, several fellows
selected for events that were new to them failed absolutely to show
any ability and had to be switched to something else. Neither Coach
Presser nor Captain Felker hoped to develop extraordinary talent in
this way. What they desired to do was to be represented in each event
by at least three contestants and so possibly gain here or there a
point or two that would otherwise go to Springdale. When the final
arrangement was completed there were four entries for the 100-yards
dash, the 220-yards dash, the hammer-throw and the shot-put, and three
for each of the other events on the program. Lanny White was to attempt
more than any other member of the team, being down for four events, and
several others were down for three. Naturally, Lanny did not expect
to be placed in each of his races, but there was always the chance of
crowding a Springdale fellow out in the trials. In the dashes Lanny was
fairly certain of getting a first and a second, if not two firsts, and
he hoped to get placed in the high hurdles. Perry Hull had attempted to
show form as a broad-jumper, but after a week of it had convinced Skeet
that that was not his forte. In the end he was slated for the sprints
only.
Perry had his second time-trial on the seventeenth of the month and
Skeet announced the time as 10 3/5 for the hundred and 24 3/5 for the
two-twenty. Neither performance was remarkable, but Perry had a strong
belief in his ability to better them both; and, in any case, he had
performed as well as any of his teammates except Lanny and Kirke in the
hundred and Lanny in the two-twenty. Lanny told him he had done finely
and assured him that in another fortnight he would be able to cut
another fifth of a second from his time. “And if you do,” said Lanny,
“you’ll stand as good a chance for second place as any of the fellows.
I don’t think that Springdale has a sprinter who can do better than
two-fifths this year. It will be a corking race for second place!”
Perry was encouraged and his enthusiasm arose to new heights. For the
next week he clamored for another time-trial, but Skeet denied him.
Instead, he insisted on Perry working well over his distance for days
after that trial, and neither he nor the other sprinters were once
allowed to show their real speed.
Meanwhile, Perry was observing such strict rules of diet that Mrs. Hull
was in despair. Perry’s natural liking for pie and cake was sternly
repressed and his mother became frequently quite impatient and said
that training was a piece of foolishness and that Perry would soon
be only skin and bones unless he ate more. There seemed to be some
justification for her fears, for the steady work on the cinders was
certainly carving Perry pretty fine. He had not been by any means fat
before, but now he was getting down to his muscles, and one morning
when his mother surprised him on his way to the bath and viewed the
slimness of his legs as revealed by a flapping dressing-robe, she sent
up a wail of alarm and forthwith sought the Doctor, declaring that
“this running just had to be stopped or Perry would starve to death
before their eyes! He looks right now,” she said, “like one of those
Indian famine victims!” But the Doctor declined to become concerned.
“He’s better off as he is, Mother,” he replied. “A fifteen-year-old boy
doesn’t need fat.”
“But he’s not eating anything!”
“You mean,” the Doctor chuckled, “he’s not eating pie and cake and a
mess of sweet truck. I’ve failed to notice, though, that he has ever
refused a third helping of meat and vegetables lately! Suppose, instead
of pie and chocolate layer-cake, you make some simple puddings, my
dear; tapioca, rice, corn-starch. I guess he will eat those all right;
and they’ll be a lot better for him.”
Mrs. Hull retired unconvinced, but afterwards forbore to predict
disaster when Perry refused pie. Experiments with the simple desserts
the Doctor had suggested were fairly successful. Perry referred to a
diet-list that was pinned beside his bureau and relaxed to the extent
of partaking sparingly of the puddings.
Fudge, too, was denying himself prescribed dishes, although with far
less philosophy than was displayed by his friend. Pie with Fudge was
a passion, and cakes containing oozing jelly or soft icing filled his
soul with beatitude. When all else failed, he fell back on doughnuts.
To be cut off from these things was a woeful experience to Fudge. Once
he had “trained” for the Football Team, but that training had been a
very sketchy performance; nothing at all like the awful self-denial he
practiced――or, at least, strove to practice――now.
“I don’t mind not eating starchy things,” he confided to Perry one
day, “but this breaking away from the table when the pie comes on is
fierce! I haven’t had a hunk of pie,” he added drearily, “for three
weeks, and there’s a place right here”――he laid a sympathetic hand over
the third button of his vest――“that won’t be happy until it gets it!”
However, to make up for the discomforts of dieting, he had the
satisfaction of accomplishing Herculean stunts with the twelve-pound
hammer. Partridge already viewed him as a probable point-winner, for he
had nearly equaled Falkland’s best performance and had out-distanced
Thad Brimmer by four feet. It was well that Partridge, and Guy Felker,
too, dealt out praise and encouragement to Fudge, for the temptation
to backslide in the matter of pie dogged him incessantly. There was
one tragic night when he lay in bed and fought for all of an hour
against the haunting vision of three raisin pies sitting side by side
in the pantry downstairs. What eventually vanquished temptation was
the knowledge that if he stole down and cut into one of those pies his
mother would know it. And after all the fine-sounding speeches he had
made to her on the subject of denying one’s appetite for the sake of
the School, he hadn’t the heart for it.
Now that the School had “taken up” athletics it was a lot more fun
practicing. Whereas heretofore scarcely a dozen fellows had watched
the performances of the Track Team, now the daily practice was almost
as popular as baseball and squads of critical but enthusiastic youths
stood about the track and applauded and urged on their friends. The
hammer-throw was sufficiently spectacular to attract a large gallery
every afternoon, and I’m not denying that Fudge strutted a little when,
having tossed the weight far away across the field, he allowed some
admiring acquaintance to help him on with the crimson dressing-robe he
affected.
Over at Springdale great things were said of the local Track Team, and
the Springdale paper even now predicted victory. Guy Felker and the
others studied that paper every day and compared what they learned
of the Blue team’s performances with what they knew of their own,
sometimes with satisfaction and more often with alarm. There was
no disguising the fact that Springdale would send a team more than
ordinarily strong in the quarter, half and mile events and in the
jumps. The Blue was likely to prove weak in the sprints and hurdles and
at present seemed about on a par with the Purple in the hammer-throw
and shot-put. Springdale’s best performer with the shot was credited
with thirty-nine feet and two inches, but Skeet declared himself
skeptical about that. Arthur Beaton spent hours at a time drawing
up predictions of the outcome of the dual meet which proved, to his
satisfaction at least, that the Purple would win by a good fifteen
points. But Beaton was notably an optimist.
The plan of holding a School meet was abandoned owing to the small
number of members, but, on the twenty-first of the month the entrants
in each event were allowed to compete against each other and the
results were posted. Skeet did not, however, publish times or
distances, although they were made known to the contestants. In the
dashes Lanny finished first with ease, Kirke getting second place
in the hundred-yards and third in the two-twenty. Perry tied with
Soper for third place in the short distance and finished fourth in
the two-twenty. Since, however, a blanket would have covered all the
sprinters but Lanny at the finish of that race, fourth place was not
vastly different from second. The time was disappointing, but the track
was soft after an all-night rain and Skeet didn’t seem troubled when he
snapped Lanny ten and two-fifths for the hundred and twenty-four and
three-fifths for the longer sprint. The high hurdles went to Lanny and
Beaton finished only three yards behind him. Peyton fell at the second
hurdle and was a poor third. In the low hurdles Lanny was swept off his
feet by Peyton and had to work hard to beat out Beaton for the next
honors. The jumps developed poor performances, but in the pole-vault
Guy Felker surprised himself and everyone else by doing ten feet and
one inch, bettering the school and the dual record by two and a half
inches. That and Partridge’s shot-put of thirty-seven feet and two
inches were the only notable performances that afternoon.
The mile run proved a good deal of a fizzle. Smith, considered the only
dependable entrant for that event, had cramps and dropped out on the
third lap, and Toll and Tupper fought it out together, Toll finishing
well in the lead in the slow time of six minutes and twenty seconds.
Evidently the result of the mile was a foregone conclusion since it was
well known that Springdale’s best miler had a record of five minutes
and five seconds. The half-mile was a good race――Todd, Lasker and
Train finishing in that order, the winner’s time being two minutes and
fourteen and one-fifth seconds. The quarter-mile saw Todd, Sears and
Cranston running bunched until the final fifty yards, when Sears forged
ahead and finished with his head up in the fair time of fifty-four
and four-fifths seconds. In the hammer event, which wasn’t finished
until after six o’clock, Partridge won handily with a best throw of one
hundred and twenty-six feet and seven inches. Falkland was second with
a hundred and twenty-one feet and three inches and Fudge was third at a
hundred and eighteen feet and six inches. Thad Brimmer was in poor form
and was several feet behind Fudge.
The contests brought out many faults not displayed previously, and to
that extent were useful. Possibly, too, they served to accustom new
members of the team to the conditions of competition. At any rate, the
fellows enjoyed them, and the audience did too. There was one member
of the audience who, seated in the grandstand, watched events with a
deal of interest. This was Mr. Addicks. As it was Saturday and work was
for the time slack, he had treated himself to an afternoon off. No one
paid any attention to him; few, indeed, observed him; certainly neither
Perry nor Fudge. He would have liked to have gone down on the field and
mingled with the throngs along the track and about the pits, but since
he was not a High School fellow he thought he might be trespassing.
There was no ball game to-day to divide attention, for the Nine had
gone off to play against, and, incidentally, get drubbed by Templeton
College. Mr. Addicks watched the sprints and hurdle events critically
and found no fault with Lanny White’s work. Lanny, he concluded, was a
born sprinter and hurdler and only needed better training to become a
master of those arts. With the rest, though, he was far less satisfied.
Indeed, he frowned a good deal over the running of the other three
competitors. He didn’t remain until the end, but left the field after
the quarter-mile run. He had wanted to see Fudge’s performance with the
hammer, for Fudge had talked rather importantly of it of late, but he
couldn’t see that event taking place anywhere and didn’t think to look
outside the field. On the way back to town he stopped in the telegraph
office and made use of a telegram blank to write a brief note. This he
dropped through the letter-slot in Dr. Hull’s front door, and Perry
found it awaiting him when he got home. It read:
ALKALI IKE: Come and see me this evening if you can. If not, in
the morning. Death to traitors!
DEADWOOD DICK.
Ever since he had learned of the boys’ suspicions regarding him, Mr.
Addicks had humorously insisted on applying such picturesque aliases to
them and himself. Fudge was “Four-Fingered Pete,” usually, although
sometimes he was addressed as “Willie Rufus, the Boy Detective.” Perry
was variously “Alkali Ike,” “Doctor Watson” or “The Apache Kid.” Perry
smiled as he read the missive, got Fudge on the telephone and announced
his purpose of calling on Mr. Addicks after supper and instructed Fudge
to join him there, and then descended hungrily on the contents of the
table. He was very full of the afternoon’s proceedings and, although he
didn’t suspect it, I fancy his father and mother were relieved when the
meal was over and he grabbed his cap and disappeared.
He found Mr. Addicks working at a drawing-table in the new room into
which he had moved a few days before, but his host laid aside pen and
ruler, square and compass, and took him into the old apartment, now a
trifle more comfortable by reason of the acquisition of a second-hand
easy-chair. Into this he forced Perry and took his own position as
usual on a corner of the table.
“I saw you run to-day,” he announced, “and I want to talk to you about
it.”
“Were you there?” asked Perry. “I didn’t see you. Why didn’t you let me
know?”
“I sat in the stand. I didn’t know whether they’d want me on the
field.”
“Shucks, everyone comes on. I wish I’d known you were there. What――what
did you think of it?”
“The field?” asked Mr. Addicks innocently.
“No, I mean the――the sprinting and all.”
“I thought that fellow White was a mighty clever runner, Perry. I don’t
know that I ever saw a chap handle himself much better. Of course he
wasn’t half trying to-day. He didn’t have to. I’d like to see him when
he was pushed.”
“He’s fine, Lanny is,” said Perry admiringly. “And Kirke is pretty
good, too, didn’t you think? He got second in the hundred, you know.”
“That his name? Well, he’s not the sprinter White is. Is that little
thin fellow your trainer? The fellow in the brown-and-white sweater?”
“Yes, that’s Skeet Presser. He used to be a champion miler; or maybe it
was half-miler; I forget.”
“Is he considered a good coach?”
“Oh, yes, sir! He trains at the Y. M. C. A., you know.”
Mr. Addicks smiled. “Well, that ought to be conclusive, Perry! But let
me ask you something now. Who taught you how to run?”
“Why, he did; he and Lanny. Lanny coaches the sprinters sometimes.”
“White, you mean? Well, did either of them ever tell you that you
ought to use your arms in running?”
“My arms? No, sir, I don’t think so. Skeet told me I wasn’t to let my
arms get behind me.”
“That was clever of him,” said Mr. Addicks dryly. “Have you ever
watched your friend White run?”
“Yes, lots of times.”
“Ever notice what he does with his arms?”
Perry hesitated. “I don’t think so, particularly.”
“Well, you should. Look here, Perry, you’re not really running, my boy.
You made a nice start to-day in the two-twenty and you used a nice
stride when you found it, which wasn’t until you were pretty nearly
to the tape, but you waved your arms all over the lot and never once
used them to help your running. Now if you’re ever going to do anything
in the sprints, or in the distances, either, you’ve got to learn how
to use your arms. A sprinter runs with three things, Perry; his legs,
his arms and his head. You use your legs fairly well, although you’re
trying to get too long a stride for a chap with legs the length yours
are; and I guess you’ll learn to use your head well enough when you’ve
been in a few races; but you aren’t getting anything out of your arms;
in fact, you’re slowing yourself up, the way you’re beating the air
with them.” Mr. Addicks slid off the table. “Suppose I wave my arms
like this when I’m running. Think that’s any help to me? Not a bit, old
scout. Get your arm action and leg action together. Rip them forward,
like this; left leg, right arm, right leg, left arm. That way you’re
pulling yourself along. But don’t just hold them out and paddle your
hands, or trail them behind your hips or hug your chest with them the
way one of you chaps did to-day. See what I mean at all?”
“Yes, I think so. I never knew about that, though.”
“Of course you didn’t if no one told you. Not one of you fellows except
White ran in decent form to-day; and if someone would tell him not to
throw his head back as far as he does he’d do better yet. What the
dickens does this Skeet fellow think? That you kids can find out all
these things without being told? Why, great, jumping Geewhillikins,
there are all sorts of things to be learned if you’re going to be a
real sprinter! It isn’t just getting off the mark quick and running as
hard as you know how to the tape. There’s science in it, old scout, a
heap of science!”
“I suppose there is,” replied Perry a trifle dejectedly. “And I don’t
suppose I’ll ever be real good at it.”
“Why not? Don’t expect to be a ten-flat hundred-yard man yet, though.
You’re too young and your legs are too short and your lungs aren’t
big enough. For two or three years the two-twenty will be your best
distance. You can’t hustle into your stride and move fast enough to
compete with older fellows in the hundred. But, if you’ll realize that
in the two-twenty you can’t push all the way, you may make a good
performer. You have a pretty fair style, Perry. I like the way you
throw your heels without ‘dragging,’ for one thing. But what I’ve just
said about trying all the way through the two-twenty is so. It can’t
be done; at least, it can’t be done by the average sprinter. Get your
stride as soon as you can after you’re off the mark, then let your
legs carry you a while; I mean by that don’t put all your strength
into the going; save something for the last thirty yards or so. Then
let yourself out! Remember that the hundred-yards is a hustle all the
way, but the two-twenty is just a hundred and twenty yards longer and
the fellow who tries to win in the first half of the race dies at the
finish. Of course, it all comes by trying and learning. Experience
brings judgment, and judgment is what a sprinter has to have. You’ll
soon find out just about how much power you can spend in getting away
and how much you can use in the first twenty seconds and how much
you’ll need for the final spurt. Only, until you have learned that,
play it safe and don’t try all the way. If you do you’ll finish tied up
in a hard knot! See what I mean?”
“Yes, sir, thanks.”
“Try it and see if I’m not right.” Mr. Addicks perched himself on the
table again and swung a foot thoughtfully. “I wish I had the coaching
of you for a couple of weeks,” he said. “I’d make a two-twenty man out
of you or I miss my guess!”
“I wish you had,” replied Perry wistfully. “No one told me all that,
Mr. Addicks. Couldn’t you――I mean, I don’t suppose you’d have time to
show me, would you?”
“I’m afraid not.” Mr. Addicks shook his head. “I’d like to, though. I
guess the trouble with this Skeet fellow is that he’s got so much on
his hands he can’t give thorough attention to any one thing. Still, I
should think he’d see that his sprinters are making a mess of it. White
ought to savvy it, anyway.” He was silent a minute. Then: “Look here,”
he said abruptly, “what time do you get up in the morning?”
“About seven, usually. Sometimes a little before.”
“Seven! Great Snakes, that’s halfway to sundown! That the best you can
do?”
“No, sir, I could get up a lot earlier if I wanted to.”
“Well, you get up a lot earlier some morning and we’ll go out to the
track and I’ll show you what I’m talking about. Swallow a cup of
coffee, or whatever it is you drink in the morning; that’s all you’ll
need; we won’t try anything stiff. What do you say to that?”
“Why,” replied Perry eagerly, “that would be dandy! Will you really do
it, sir? When?”
“To-morrow――no, to-morrow’s Sunday. How about Monday? Be outside your
house at six and――――”
Mr. Addicks was interrupted by a knock on the door, and, in response to
a lusty “Come in!” Fudge entered.
“Ah,” exclaimed Mr. Addicks, “we have with us to-night Arizona Bill,
the Boy Hercules!”