THE NEW COACH
That early morning session at the track didn’t come off on Monday
because it was raining hard when the alarm clock which Perry had
borrowed for the occasion buzzed frantically at a quarter to six.
It had been agreed that should it be raining the event was to be
postponed. So it was Tuesday when Mr. Addicks gave his first lesson.
He was already in front of the house when Perry hurried out. He was
enveloped from neck to ankles in a thread-bare brown ulster beneath
which he wore an old pair of running-trunks and a faded green shirt.
“Thought it might do me good to take a little exercise while I’m out
there,” he explained. “I haven’t had these things on for years, and
wasn’t sure I’d kept them until I rummaged through my trunk. Couldn’t
find my shoes, though.” Perry saw that he was wearing a pair of
rubber-soled canvas “sneakers” which had probably been white a long
time ago. “How are you feeling? Ever up so early before?”
“A few times,” Perry laughed. “Usually on the Fourth.”
“Had anything to eat or drink?”
“No, sir, the fire wasn’t lighted. I’m not hungry, though.”
“Better have something inside you. We’ll stop at the drug store and get
some hot malted-milk.”
This they did, and then went on to the field. It was a fine, warm May
morning, and after yesterday’s showers the world looked and smelled
fresh and fragrant. They found the gates at the field locked, but it
was no trick at all to climb over the fence. Fudge had agreed to meet
them there with his stop-watch, although Mr. Addicks had assured him
that a time-trial was unthought of, but he was not on hand nor did
he appear at all that morning. Later he explained that the maid had
forgotten to call him.
Inside, Mr. Addicks threw off his ulster and, while Perry got into his
running togs, stretched his long legs and surprised his muscles by
various contortions to which they were long unused. Perry was soon back
and Mr. Addicks put him on his mark and sent him away at little more
than a jog. “Head up,” he instructed. “Shorten your stride. That’s
better. Don’t be afraid to use the flat of your foot. Running on your
toes is too hard on your legs. Now swing your arms, Perry. Drive ’em
out and pull ’em back, boy! No, no, don’t make an effort of it. Just
easy, just easy. That’s better.”
Mr. Addicks trotted alongside to the turn and then called a halt.
“That’s enough. Now get your breath and watch the way I do it. Watch my
arms particularly.”
He crouched for a start, unlike the usual sprinter holding but one
hand to the ground. Then he launched forward, caught his stride almost
at once and ran lightly back along the track, his long legs scarcely
seeming to make any effort and his arms reaching forward and back, his
body twisting slightly above the hips from side to side. It was pretty
work, and even Perry, who had never seen many runners, realized that
he was watching one who was, allowing for lack of recent practice, a
past-master. After that he was sent off again and again, for short
distances, at scarcely more than a trot until he at last solved the
philosophy of the arm movement. He had begun to despair of ever getting
the hang of it when, suddenly, he awoke to the realization that, for
the first time since he had been running, legs, arms and body were
working together in perfect unison! He had the novel sensation of being
a well-oiled machine of which every part was timing absolutely! He
slowed down at the corner and returned to his instructor with shining
eyes, triumphant and slightly astonished.
“I did it!” he exclaimed. “I did it then, Mr. Addicks! Did you see me?”
“Yes, you got it at last. Notice the difference?”
“Yes, indeed!”
“Of course you do! Before you were fighting with yourself. Now your
muscles all work together. Sit down a minute and rest. Then I want to
see you start from the mark down there and come fairly fast to the
corner. See how quickly you can get your stride and your form. Run
easily to about that white mark on the rim up there and finish hard.”
Because Perry feared that the others would think him silly, he had
sworn Fudge to secrecy regarding the early-morning lessons, and Fudge,
who was as communicative a youth as any in Clearfield but could be as
close-mouthed as a sulky clam on occasions, kept the secret, and no one
but Mr. Addicks, his pupil and Fudge knew until long after what went on
at Brent Field between six and seven on fair mornings. Perry learned
fast, partly because he was naturally an apt pupil and partly because
Mr. Addicks was a patient and capable instructor. When a point couldn’t
be made quite clear with words Mr. Addicks stepped onto the cinders
and illustrated it, and Perry couldn’t help but understand. I think
Mr. Addicks got as much pleasure, and possibly as much benefit, from
the lessons as Perry did. He confessed the second morning that what
little running he had done the day before had lamed him considerably,
and declared his intention of getting back into trim again and staying
there. At the end of a week he was doing two and three laps of the
track and never feeling it. Fudge, who joined them occasionally, became
ardently admiring of such running as that of Mr. Addicks’ and regretted
that he had not gone in for the middle distances. “That,” he confided
to Perry one morning, “is what I call the p-p-p-poetry of motion!” And
he managed to make it sound absolutely original!
Mr. Addicks insisted that Perry should specialize on the
two-hundred-and-twenty-yards dash, and coached him carefully over
almost every foot of that distance, from the moment he put his
spikes into the holes and awaited the signal, until he had crossed
the line, arms up and head back. Perry, who had been complimented on
his starting, discovered to his surprise that he was very much of a
duffer at it. Mr. Addicks made him arrange his holes further apart in
each direction and showed him how to crouch with less strain on his
muscles. And he showed him how to get away from the mark with a quicker
straightening of the body, so that, after a week of practice, he could
find his stride at the end of the first fifteen yards and be running
with body straight and in form. And then at last one morning there came
a time-trial over the two hundred and twenty yards and, with Fudge
sending him away and Mr. Addicks holding the watch at the finish, Perry
put every ounce of power into his running and trotted back to be shown
a dial on which the hand had been stopped at twenty-four and one-fifth!
“Why――why――――” stammered Perry breathlessly, “that’s a fifth under the
time Lanny made last year!”
“That doesn’t signify much,” replied Mr. Addicks. “This time may be
a fifth of a second wrong one way or another. And you must remember
that White probably made his record when he was tired from the hundred
yards. Anyway, it’s fair time, Perry, and if you can do as well as that
in the meet you’ll probably get second place at least.”
Fudge, hurrying up to learn the result, stuttered rapturously on
being told. “I t-t-t-told him he’d m-m-m-make a p-p-peach of a
s-s-s-sprinter! D-d-d-didn’t――――”
“You did,” laughed Perry. “Couldn’t I try the hundred now, Mr. Addicks?”
“Not to-day, son. Too much is enough. We’ll try that some other time.
Don’t work too hard this afternoon, by the way. It’s easy to get stale
at this stage of the game. And the meet is less than two weeks off.”
“Gee,” sighed Fudge, “I w-w-wish you’d sh-sh-show me something about
th-th-th-throwing the hammer!”
“I would if I knew anything about it, Fudge. But I thought you were
getting on swimmingly.”
“Pretty fair, sir. Only Falkland keeps on beating me by four or five
feet every time. I wish I were taller, that’s what I wish! He’s almost
six inches taller than I am and his arms are longer.”
“You might wear stilts,” Perry suggested.
“Or put French heels on your shoes,” laughed Mr. Addicks.
Fudge sighed dolefully and then brightened. “Anyway,” he said, “I can
beat Thad! And he’s older than I, and bigger, too.”
“Whatever happens,” said Mr. Addicks as they crossed the field, “I’ve
got to see that meet, fellows!”
“Of course,” agreed Fudge. “Mr. Brent will let you off, won’t he?”
“It isn’t Mr. Brent who has the say so,” replied the other with a
smile. “It’s my pocketbook, Fudge.”
“Oh! But I thought you were making a heap of money now, sir. You went
and took that other room and――and all.”
“That’s why I’m still poor, Four-Fingered Pete. Earning an honest
living is hard work. Sometimes I think I’ll go back to train-robbery.”
“Aren’t you ever going to forget that?” wailed Fudge.
Baseball was now well into mid-season. Seven games had been played,
of which two had been lost, one tied and the rest won. A Second Team,
captained by Sprague McCoy, was putting the regulars on their mettle
three afternoons a week and was playing an occasional contest of its
own with an outside nine. Dick Lovering was fairly well satisfied with
his charges, although it was too early to predict what was to happen in
the final game with Springdale, nearly a month distant. The pitching
staff was gradually coming around into shape now that warm weather
had arrived. Tom Haley, still first-choice box-artist, had pitched
a no-hit game against Locust Valley and of late had gone well-nigh
unpunished.
The Templeton game had been somewhat of a jolt, to use Captain Jones’
inelegant but expressive phrase, inasmuch as Templeton had been looked
on as an easy adversary, and Joe Browne, in process of being turned
into a third-choice pitcher, had started in the box against them. Joe
had been literally slaughtered in exactly two-thirds of one inning and
had thereupon gone back to right field, yielding the ball to Nostrand.
But Nostrand, while faring better, had been by no means invulnerable.
Even if he had held the enemy safe, however, Clearfield would still
have been defeated, for her hitting that day was so poor that she was
unable to overcome the four runs which Templeton had piled up in that
luckless first inning. The First Team had to stand a deal of ragging
from the Second Team fellows when they got back, for the Second had
gone down to Lesterville and won handily from a hard-hitting team of
mill operatives who had claimed the county championship for several
years. To be sure, the Second Team fellows had returned rather the
worse for wear, Terry Carson having a black eye, Howard Breen a badly
spiked instep and McCoy a bruised knee, but still they had conquered!
The first game with Springdale――they played a series for two games
out of three――was scheduled for the fourth of June at Clearfield. The
second contest was to be held at Springdale a week later, which was
the date of the dual meet, and the third, if necessary, was to take
place at Clearfield on the seventeenth. Just now it was on the first
of these contests that the eyes of Dick and Captain Warner Jones and
the players themselves were fixed. Dick was anxious to get that first
game, whatever happened afterwards. In the second contest Clearfield
was to do without the services of Lanny as catcher, for Lanny was due
on that day to stow away some thirteen or fourteen points for the Track
Team, and while Pete Robey could be depended on to catch a good game,
Lanny’s absence from the line-up was bound to be felt. So Dick was out
after that first encounter, realizing that with that put safely on ice
he would be able to accept a defeat the following Saturday with a fair
degree of philosophy. Perhaps, fortunately for the nine, two other
members who had tried for the Track Team had failed, and Lanny was the
only one who stood to make history in two branches of athletics this
spring.
Bert Cable, last year’s captain, labored indefatigably and was of much
assistance to Dick who, handicapped as he was by his infirmity, was
forced to do most of his coaching from the bench. That was an extremely
busy week for the Clearfield High School Baseball Team, and Gordon
Merrick confided to Lanny on Thursday that if Dick sent him to the
batting-net the next day he would probably go mad and bite someone.
“Why, last night,” he said, “I dreamed that Tom and Nostrand and Joe
Browne and two or three others were all pitching to me at once! My arms
are still lame from that nightmare!”
“Well, there won’t be anything very strenuous to-morrow,” Lanny
comforted. “In fact, you’ll get off easier than I shall, for I’ve got
to do track work.”
“You’re an idiot to try both,” said Gordon. “What’s going to happen to
us next week, I’d like to know, with Robey catching.”
“Oh, Pete will get along all right. In fact, he’s a mighty good
catcher, Gordon.”
“He’s all right at catching, but a child could steal on him. He can’t
get the ball down to second to save his life until the runner’s
brushing the dust from his trousers!”
“Well, with Tom Haley pitching the runner ought not to get a start off
first. Tom’s the one who can hold ’em.”
“Maybe, but I’ll bet you anything they steal a half-dozen times on us.”
“Don’t let them get to first,” advised Lanny. “That’s the safest plan.”
“Yes, safety first,” agreed the other. “How many races are you down for
next week, Lanny?”
“Four, sprints and hurdles. But I may not run them all. It depends
on who qualifies. If Arthur and Eg Peyton get placed for the low
hurdles I’ll probably drop out. By the way, that young Hull is quite a
find, Gordie. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get a second in the
two-twenty. He’s developing into a mighty spry youth. Runs nicely, too.
Lots of form. Funny thing is he never tried the sprints until this
spring.”
“I guess Skeet is a pretty good trainer, isn’t he?”
“Y-yes. Yes, Skeet’s all right. The only trouble with Skeet is that he
can’t seem to get it into his head that our chaps are just youngsters.
He expects them to stand a lot of hard work and then can’t understand
why they get tired and loaf. Still, he’s all right, and I wouldn’t be a
bit surprised if we won this year.”
“Well,” Gordon laughed, “with you taking part in most of the stunts,
I don’t see how you can help it. How many points are you supposed to
annex, anyway?”
“Thirteen or fourteen; fourteen if I’m in luck.”
“How many do we have to have to win? Fifty-something, isn’t it?”
“Fifty-four ties. Anything more than that wins. Arthur has it doped out
that we’re to get firsts in six events; both sprints, the high hurdles,
the quarter-mile, the pole-vault and the shot-put, and enough seconds
and thirds to give us sixty points.”
“First place counts five and second place three――――”
“And third place one. I don’t remember just how Arthur arrives at
his result, but he gets there somehow. It’s going to be a good meet,
anyhow, and I’m sorry you won’t be here to see it.”
“Maybe I shall be,” responded Gordon pessimistically, “if Dick doesn’t
stop batting practice. I’ve only got two arms, and they won’t swing
many more times without dropping off! I’d like to see you run away from
those Springdale chumps, too. I suppose you’ll win that purple pennant
the girls have put up.”
“Don’t know about that. I wouldn’t object to having it. It’s mighty
good-looking, and purple goes well with my complexion.”
“Complexion!” jibed Gordon. “You haven’t any more complexion than a
board fence. By the way, did you see that they were patching the fence
to-day?”
“Yes, and I hear they’re going to fix up the track for us a bit before
the meet. Wonder where they’re getting the money. Last time I heard
anything about it they had about sixty cents in the treasury.”
“We’ve had two or three pretty fair-sized crowds out there so far. I
dare say the Corwin game brought in fifty or sixty dollars.”
“And they got a third of it. Well, I don’t care where the money comes
from. I’m glad they’re going to mend the track. I’d hate to have
Springdale see it the way it is.”
“I think it’s silly to fix it. They ought to leave it the way it is and
pray for rain. Then maybe some of the Springdale chaps would fall in
the puddles and drown.”
“You’ve got a mean disposition,” laughed Lanny.
“I’ve got a very fine disposition,” returned Gordon with dignity,
“but it’s being ruined by Dick Lovering and batting practice. Bet you
anything I don’t get a single hit Saturday.”
“That’s right, don’t; make ’em all doubles! By the way, they’ll
probably work that left-hander of theirs against us in the first game.
I wish we had more left-hand batters.”
“That will give Breen a show, maybe. He and Cotner and Scott are our
only port-siders, I think.”
“Nostrand bats left-handed. If Springdale pitches Newton, Dick may use
Nostrand instead of Tom Haley. I hope he doesn’t, though. Nostrand’s a
pretty fair pitcher, but he can’t hold them on the bases the way Tom
can.”
“No, and he scares me to death every time he pegs across. I always
expect the ball to go over my head. He needs a lot of practice throwing
to first.”
“He’s a corking good fielder, though, Gordie. Don’t forget that. Well,
here’s where I leave you. What are you doing this evening?”
“Nothing special. I’ve got some chemistry work to make up, though. Why?
Anything doing?”
“Come on over to Morris’s. He’s fixed some electric lights over the
tennis court and is going to try and play at night.”
“Don’t remember being invited.”
“What of it? It isn’t a party.”
“All right, but don’t expect me to play. It’s too much like swinging a
bat! Stop by for me.”