WATTLES
Clif was glad that the next day was Sunday.
He could lie abed a half-hour later, which was something to rejoice
over, and, save for church at eleven o’clock, no duties claimed him
until study hour at eight. He awoke before the rising bell and had a
full ten minutes in which to stretch his lame muscles and accustom
himself to the thought of getting up. The muscles were not as sore
as he had expected they would be, and by the time he was ready for
breakfast he felt quite fit. As though having atoned overnight for his
talkativeness, Walter spoke but twice during dressing, and then only
when spoken to.
In the afternoon Clif and Tom went to walk. They set out to find the
golf links since, although the students were not allowed to play the
game on Sunday, there were certain club members whose views were less
strict than Doctor Wyndham’s, and Tom had a mind to select a promising
twosome and follow it around, his idea of spending a Sunday afternoon
pleasantly being to derive entertainment from others at as slight a
cost of physical or mental exertion to himself as possible. But his
plan went agley since a full half-hour’s search failed to discover the
links. Billy Desmond had said it was a good mile from the school, and
so far he had proved truthful, but the rest of his information had
been purposely misleading. Perhaps Billy’s idea of spending a pleasant
Sunday afternoon was to sit comfortably in Number 34, surrounded by
pages of the morning paper, and mentally picture Tom and Clif seeking a
golf course where there never had been one!
They located it finally, however. Having abandoned search for it, they
climbed Baldhead Mountain, which deserved only the first half of its
title and presented few difficulties, and from the bare granite ledge
on the summit saw figures moving about over a green expanse some two
miles distant. The figures were recognizable as men playing golf. Tom
said “Huh!” disgustedly and resolutely turned his gaze away.
Well, there were more things than golf courses to be seen. On a clear
day, such as this was, one could look into three states from the
summit of Baldhead. Since, however, there was no way of telling where
Connecticut merged into Massachusetts or where Massachusetts became New
York one’s satisfaction in the feat was somewhat dimmed. Tom declared
that the different states should have signs on them.
It was warm up there on the sloping, weather-worn ledge, but the breeze
prevented discomfort. Tom hugged his knees, sending a puzzled look
toward the distant links. Finally he seemed to see a light, for he said
“_By heck!_” in a most explosive fashion, following it, after a moment
of grim silence, with: “But I’ll get even with Billy!”
Later Clif recalled Walter’s revelations about the boy in the wheel
chair, and he proceeded to spring the news on Tom. “Say, who do you
suppose he is?” he asked, having introduced the subject.
“King Tut,” said Tom, hurling a pebble into the distance.
“No, seriously. Well, he’s Sanford Deane’s son!”
“The man who owns all the money in the world? How come he’s here?” Tom
was disappointingly unimpressed, Clif considered.
“Why shouldn’t he be here? What’s the matter with this place?”
“Nothing, but there are lots of schools where it costs you a heap more.
You’d think he would send the fellow to one of those.”
“Well, I don’t see that,” Clif objected. “Anyway, being a cripple――”
“Did Treat tell you what the trouble with the chap is?”
“No, I didn’t ask him.”
“I heard some one say that he hasn’t any legs, but I don’t believe
that. Yesterday that nurse or valet of his was carrying him upstairs in
Middle, and I’m pretty sure I could see his legs under that rug thing.
Of course they might be artificial.”
“I don’t believe it either,” said Clif. “He was only about twenty feet
from us in History class yesterday, and I just know he had plenty of
legs!”
“How many?” chuckled Tom. “He isn’t a centipede, is he?”
“You know what I mean,” Clif laughed. “I’d sort of like to know him,
but he doesn’t give you much encouragement. Being so blamed rich, maybe
he doesn’t want to have anything to do with us. Still, he doesn’t
_look_ snobbish.”
“I came near speaking to him yesterday,” said Tom, “but the valet chap
looked so sort of snippy I didn’t. Glad of it now. Guess he’d have
frozen me up.”
“I don’t believe so, Tom.”
“Well, I’m sorry for him, but I don’t want to know him. Fellows whose
folks have a lot of money put on too many airs for me, old son. Get a
move on. I’ve got to get back and tell Billy where he gets off!”
After a week at school Clif felt as if he had been there a long while.
He had become accustomed to the routine, and a willing slave to the
clanging gong. At first getting up promptly at seven, slipping inside
assembly hall for prayers before the doors closed at seven-fifteen
and reaching Table 12 for breakfast before eight had been irksome.
And for a day or two he was forced to consult his schedule frequently
in order to appear at the right recitation room at the proper time.
Accustomed to studying alone, the first study hour in assembly hall had
profited him but little. You had to go there at eight and sit until
nine, surrounded by something like a hundred and ninety others, and
prepare your next day’s lessons. You could study as much as you pleased
at other times, and in other places, but between eight and nine in the
evening, every day save Saturday, you had to be present in assembly
hall. One of the faculty sat on the platform and, lifting his eyes
periodically from his own work, sent his gaze roving over the big room.
Then, perhaps, you’d hear exchanges like these:
“Asleep, Jones, or thinking?”
There would be a sudden start on the part of Jones, an agitated
clutching of book or paper, and “Thinking, sir!” Jones would answer.
“Hm. Try doing it without closing the eyes, Jones.”
Or: “I’m sorry, Robinson, that I am too far from you to listen to that
conversation with Brown. It must be quite interesting.”
“I was just borrowing an eraser, sir.”
“You have it now?”
The eraser would be exhibited as evidence.
“Very well. Hereafter try to provide yourself with such――er――items
before coming here. If it takes you so long to negotiate the loan of an
eraser, Robinson, I shudder to think what would happen if you found you
had forgotten, say, your fountain pen. The hour would be all too short,
I fear!”
The bright overhead lights, the fluttering of leaves, the scratching
of pens, the shuffling of feet, the presence of so many others around
him all combined to deprive Clif of whatever power of concentration
he possessed. That first study hour was a total loss so far as he was
concerned.
But he got used to it after a time or two, just as he got used to other
features of life at Wyndham School, and his letters to his father
were increasingly cheerful. For days at a time he never went off the
school property, but that was principally because football practice
occupied his afternoons. The mornings were pretty well taken up with
recitations, and with preparing for them. In the afternoon the last
recitation for Clif was sometimes at half-past two, sometimes at three.
In the latter case he showed up for practice about ten minutes late.
Practice generally ran until half-past five nowadays, and there was
only enough time for a shower, and a few minutes of rest before supper
time. Between supper and study hour there was an interim of perhaps an
hour and a half, and after study hour came “prowl.” “Prowl” was the
hour between nine and ten when visiting between halls was permitted. At
ten, unless you were a First Class fellow, you were required to be back
in your own room; except you were the fortunate possessor of a permit
from a “fac.” At ten-thirty you put your light out.
Life was busy and interesting. Clif soon discovered that he was going
to have to study rather harder than last year, but he encountered no
real difficulty in any course. The same was true of Tom save that the
latter was already bogged down, as he phrased it, in English. That
was one study which Tom dreaded and disliked――and at which he toiled
hardest. “That ‘Alick’ guy thinks I can’t do the fool stuff,” he
declared once to Clif, “but he’s got another think. I’ll do it if it
kills me!” “Alick” was, of course, Mr. Alexander Wyatt.
Football claimed a good share of attention, and was the subject of much
conversation between Clif and Tom, and, frequently, Billy Desmond.
Billy was generous with advice, but although the boys followed the
advice to the best of their abilities, it didn’t, as Clif put it, seem
to get them anything. They worked hard and conscientiously, just as did
three score others, but without any noticeable improvement in their
status. The candidates had been sorted into four squads by Wednesday,
and Clif and Tom were in Squad D. Squad D was composed of some sixteen
or eighteen youths of various ages, sizes and football experiences
in charge of “Pinky” Hilliard. “Pinky” also looked after Squad C, or
did so until Friday, when Mr. Babcock joined the coaching staff. On
that afternoon Squad A, and many of Squad B, were dismissed early,
since the first game was scheduled for the morrow, and Coach Otis gave
his attention to the remaining candidates. It was the seventh day of
practice, and, after a preliminary hour of passing and falling on the
ball, of starting and tackling the dummy, line and backfield candidates
were separated, and the former hustled to the north end of the field by
the head coach and given a half hour’s instruction in their duties.
Afterwards, punters and forwards were sent to one side of the field,
and backs to the other, and the balls were soon arching across to be
pulled down by the backfield candidates, and run back while tackles and
ends came across to meet them. Hard tackling was barred, however, the
man with the ball either being run off to one side or merely blocked
with the body. Clif, encountering Tom several times in midfield,
regretted the prohibition. It would have added greatly to his enjoyment
of the occasion to have been allowed to topple the dodging, feinting
Tom to earth. He did secure some satisfaction on one encounter,
however, by knocking the ball from Tom’s grasp and jeering as the
latter vented outraged feelings and trotted off in pursuit. The air was
full of flying balls, players raced this way and that and shouts of
“Mine!” or “I’ve got it!” vied with the calls of the coaches. Lacking a
scrimmage to watch, the audience in the stand was grateful for so much
action, and, lolling comfortably in the shade, lazily voiced approval
of a good punt or a clever catch or chortled merrily over some amusing
incident.
At the farther edge of the running track, toward the school buildings,
two onlookers sat quite by themselves. One, covered to his waist by a
light rug, leaned back at ease in a wheel chair. The second occupied
a folding canvas stool set at the left and slightly to the rear of
his companion. He was rather tall and rather bony, and, seated bolt
upright, the inner edges of his shining black shoes touching, a hand on
either knee of his carefully creased black serge trousers, he looked
painfully respectable and extremely uncomfortable. The idea must have
occurred to the occupant of the chair for he asked, glancing around:
“Comfortable, Wattles?”
“Oh, quite, sir. Absolutely.”
Loring Deane smiled. No one, he was aware, not even the capable
Wattles, could be really comfortable for any length of time on one
of those silly, backless canvas stools; especially while sitting
bolt upright. He had tried to induce Wattles to bring a chair along,
offering to carry it in front of him, but Wattles had been frightfully
outraged at the bare suggestion. Loring returned to watching the
scene, and Wattles, producing an immaculate handkerchief from the
breast pocket of his black coat, removed the black derby from his head
and gently mopped a perspiring forehead. Then, handkerchief and hat
properly returned to their respective places, hands again on the seams
of his trousers, he, too, gave his attention once more to the somewhat
astonishing proceedings.
Football of this particular style was new to Wattles. Wattles had been
born in England some thirty years ago, and, although he had been in
this country ever since the age of nineteen and once a year strode,
almost impressively, to the polling booth and cast his vote, he was
still English. His speech scarcely betrayed him since he had gone
to much pains to acquire the phraseology and accent of his adopted
country, but one had only to view his countenance to surprise his
secret. Loring’s father had once declared that Wattles had the features
of a faithful horse. That was perhaps a picturesque exaggeration,
but it couldn’t be denied that there was something oddly equine in
Wattles’s face. He had pale brown eyes, a remarkably long and very
sizable nose and a chin――well, the best description of Wattles’s lower
features is that, below the straight, slightly loose mouth, they just
sort of faded right out of the picture!
“You might at least have worn your straw hat,” said the boy severely a
few minutes later. “That derby must be beastly hot.”
“I don’t find it so, Mister Loring,” replied Wattles earnestly. “A
straw always seems much warmer on the head than a bowl――I should say
derby, sir.”
“Just your silly British obstinacy,” chuckled Loring. “They only
discovered straw hats over there a few years ago; after you left, I
guess; and I suppose your folks for thousands of years back wore bowler
hats on every occasion, summer and winter, and you’d rather be shot
than be seen in anything else. To my knowledge you’ve worn that straw I
made you buy just once, and then you looked so miserable I was really
sorry for you.”
Wattles smiled respectfully. “Without doubt, sir, there’s a great deal
in heredity.”
“And there’s a great deal in red-headity, too, Wattles,” laughed
Loring. “Red-headity means stubbornness.”
“Really, sir? I never heard the word. That is, begging your pardon,
Mister Loring, I never happened――”
“You wouldn’t,” agreed the boy. “I just invented it. I guess those
fellows are frightfully hot, Wattles. There are some compensations for
my enforced inactivity after all. Chasing around on a day like this
would be a mite uncomfortable, eh?”
“Quite, sir. Perfectly grilling, sir. But are the young gentlemen
obliged to exercise so violently?”
“Depends on one’s understanding of the word, Wattles. Of course they
don’t actually _have_ to play, but they want to, and when you try for
the team you’ve got to do what you are told to. The man over there in
the white shirt is the coach, and his business is to teach those chaps
how to play good football, and he has less than two months to do it.
I dare say he has a bunch of last year fellows to build around, but
there’s next year to think of, too, and so he has not only to develop
enough players to fill up this season’s team, but must supply himself
with material to draw on next fall. That means that he has to hustle
from the very start, Wattles, and explains why he has those chaps there
puffing so hard.”
“Yes, sir. I’d no idea the game was quite so――so intensive.”
The boy chuckled. “Wattles, your vocabulary is getting richer every
day, isn’t it?”
“Was it the wrong word, sir?” asked the man anxiously. “I understand――”
“Not at all. Quite proper, in fact. I dare say the English game’s a bit
less vehement, isn’t it?”
“I couldn’t say that, Mister Loring. It’s played very hard, but I fancy
the preparation is not quite so――so severe. I’ve seen only a few games
since I left the other side, sir, and I may be wrong. I gather that
the sort of football played here is quite different from the English
game.”
“You’ve never seen our style of football, have you? Why, yes, I
think you’ll notice a difference. I dare say they’ll be putting on a
scrimmage in a day or two, and you’ll have a chance to compare the two
games.”
“I’m sure it will be most interesting, sir.”
An escaped football trickled across the running track and came to
a stop a few feet from the chair. Wattles, an adventurous gleam in
his eyes, started to rise, but a boy in togs was in pursuit, and,
crunching across the cinders, scooped up the ball. Wattles relapsed,
disappointedly, to his former composure. With the ball in one hand, the
player glanced smilingly at the boy in the wheel chair.
“Hello!” he said. “Pretty warm, isn’t it?”
“Very,” answered Loring. There wasn’t time for more, for the rather
tall youth with the nice eyes, and the pleasant, friendly smile, turned
quickly, dropped the ball, met it with the instep of his right foot
and jogged back toward the middle of the playing field. Loring watched
the scuffed, brown leather ball arch away on a forty-yard flight, and
settle into the arms of a waiting player.
“That’s a fellow who spoke to me one night in the corridor, Wattles.
Gave me a hand getting into that meeting room. Rather a nice, clean
looking chap, isn’t he?”
“Very, sir. Quite the gentleman.”
“Yes.” Loring was silent a moment. Then, following a long sigh, he
said: “Wattles, I’d give anything in the world if I could do that!”
“Do――I beg your pardon, Mister Loring?”
“What he did, I mean. Just kick a football!”