HICKS STARTS ANOTHER MYSTERY.
"Fifteen men sat on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the Devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!"
T HAVILAND HICKS, JR., his chair tilted at a perilous angle, and his feet
thrust gracefully atop of the study-table, in his cozy room, one Friday
afternoon two weeks after John Thorwald's return to the football squad, was
fathoms deep in Stevenson's "Treasure Island." As he perused the thrilling
pages, the irrepressible youth twanged a banjo accompaniment, and roared
with gusto the piratical chantey of Long John Silver's buccaneer crew;
Hicks, however, despite his saengerfest, was completely lost in the
enthralling narrative, so that he seemed to hear the parrot shrieking,
"Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" and the wild refrain:
"Fifteen men sat on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!"
He was reading that breathlessly exciting part where the cabin-boy of the
_Hispaniola_, and Israel Hands have their terrible fight to the death, with
the dodging over the dead man rolling in the scuppers, the climbing up the
mast, and the dirk pinning the boy's shoulder, before Hands is shot and
goes to join his mate on the bottom; just at the most absorbing page, as he
twanged his beloved banjo louder, and roared the chantey, there sounded,
"Tramp--tramp--tramp!" in the corridor, the heavy tread of many feet
sounded, coming nearer. Instinctively realizing that the pachydermic parade
was headed for _his_ room, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., rushed to the closet,
murmuring, "Safety first!" as usual, and stowed away his banjo. He was just
in the nick of time, for a second later there crowded into his room Captain
Butch, Pudge, Beef, Hefty, Biff, Monty, Roddy, Bunch, Tug, Buster, Coach
Corridas, and Thor, the latter duo bringing up the rear.
"Hicks, you unjailed public nuisance!" said Butch Brewster, affectionately.
"We, whom you behold, are going for to enter into that room across the
corridor from your boudoir, and hold a football signal quiz and confab. We
should request that you permit a thunderous silence to originate in your
cozy retreat, for the period of at least a hour! A word to the _wise_ is
sufficient, so I have spoken several, that even you may comprehend my
meaning."
"I gather you, fluently!" grinned T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., taking up
"Treasure Island" and his graceful pose once more. "Leave me to peruse the
thrilling pages of this classic blood-and-thunder book, and I'll cause a
beautiful serenity to obtain hither."
"See that you do, you pestiferous insect!" threatened Beef McNaughton,
ominously. "Come on, fellows, Hicks can't escape our vengeance, if
he bursts into what he fatuously believes is song. Just let him act
hippicanarious, and--"
When the Gold and Green eleven, half of which, to judge by size, was
Thor, had gone with Coach Corridan into the room across from that of the
blithesome Hicks, the sunny-souled Senior tried to resume his perusal of
"Treasure Island," but somehow the spell had been broken by the invasion of
his cozy quarters. So, after vainly essaying to take up the thread of the
story again, Hicks arose and stood by the window, gazing across the campus
to Bannister Field, deserted, since the football team rested for the game
of the morrow. As he stood there, the gladsome Hicks reflected seriously.
He thought of "Thor," and decided sorrowfully that the problem of awakening
that stolid Colossus to a full understanding of campus life was as unsolved
as ever.
"But I _won't_ give it up!" declared Hicks, determinedly. "I have always
been good at math, and I won't let this problem baffle me."
Since the night, two weeks back, when T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had made his
memorable speech, explaining to his fellow-students the "Billon-Dollar
Mystery," and arousing in them a vast admiration for the slow-minded,
plodding John Thorwald, every collegian had done his best to befriend the
big Freshman. Upperclassmen helped him with his studies. Despite his almost
rude refusal to meet any advances, the collegians always had a cheery
greeting for him, and his class-mates, in fear and trembling, invaded
his den at times, to show him they were his friends. Yet, despite these
whole-hearted efforts, only two of old Bannister did the silent Thor
seem to desire as comrades: the festive Hicks, for reasons known,
and--remarkable to chronicle--little Theophilus Opperdyke, the timorous,
studious "Human Encyclopedia."
"Colossus and Lilliputian!" the Phillyloo Bird quaintly observed once when
this strangely assorted duo appeared on the campus. "Say, fellows--some
time Thor will accidentally sit on Theophilus, and we'll have another
mystery, the disappearance of our boner!"
The generous Hicks, longing for Thor's awakening to come, was not in the
least jealous of his loyal little friend, Theophilus. In fact, he was
sincerely delighted that the unemotional Hercules desired the comradeship
of the grind, and he urged the Human Encyclopedia to strive constantly to
arouse in Thor a realization of college existence, and a true knowledge of
its meaning. At least one thing, Theophilus reported, had been achieved by
Hicks' defense of Thorwald, and the subsequent attitude of the collegians--
the colossal Freshman was puzzled, quite naturally. When over three hundred
youths criticized, condemned, and berated him one night, and the next, even
before he reconsidered his decision about football, came under his window
and cheered him, no wonder the young Norwegian was bewildered.
On the football field, with his dogged determination, his bulldog way of
hanging on to things until he mastered them, big Thor progressed slowly,
and surely; the past Saturday, against the heavy Alton eleven, the blond
Freshman had been sent in for the second half, and, to quote an overjoyed
student, he had "busted things all up!" It seemed simply impossible to stop
that terrible rush of his huge body. Time after time he plowed through the
line for yards, and old Bannister, visioning Thor distributing Hamilton and
Ballard over the field, in the big games, literally hugged itself.
And yet, despite Thorwald's invincible prowess, despite the vast joy of
old Bannister at the chances of the Championship, some intangible
shadow hovered over the campus. It brooded over the training-table, the
shower-rooms after scrimmage, on Bannister Field during practice; as yet,
no one had dared to give it form, by voicing his thought, but though no
youth dared admit it, something was wrong, there was a defective cog in the
machinery of that marvelous machine, the Gold and Green eleven.
"'Oh, just leave it to Hicks," quoth that sunny youth, at length, turning
from the window; "I'll solve the problem, or what is more probable,
Theophilus may stir that sodden hulk of humanity, after awhile. I won't
worry about it, for that gets me nothing, and it will all come out O.K.,
I'm positive!"
At this moment, just as T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., picked up "Treasure Island"
again, he heard drifting across the corridor from the room opposite, in
Butch Brewster's familiar voice:
"--Yes, I'll win three more Bs'--one each in football, baseball and track;
next spring, I'll annex my last B at old Bannister, fellows--"
His _last_ B--The words struck the blithesome Hicks with sledge-hammer
force. Big Butch Brewster was talking of his last B, when he, T. Haviland
Hicks, Jr., had never won his first; with a feeling almost of alarm, the
sunny youth realized that this was his final year at old Bannister, his
last chance to win his athletic letter, and to make happy his beloved Dad,
by helping him to realize part of his life's ambition--to behold his son
shattering Hicks, Sr.'s, wonderful record. His final chance, and outside of
his hopes of winning the track award in the high-jump, Hicks saw no way to
win his B.
Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., as has been chronicled, the beloved Dad of the
cheery Senior, a Pittsburgh millionaire Steel King, was a graduate of old
Bannister, Class of '92. While wearing the Gold and Green, he had made
an all-round athletic record never before, or afterward, rivaled on
the campus. At football, basketball, track, and baseball, he was a
scintillating star, annexing enough letters to start an alphabet, had they
been different ones. Quite naturally, when the Doctor, speaking anent
the then infantile Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., said, "Mr. Hicks, it's a
boy!"--the one-time Bannister athlete straightway began to dream of the day
when his only son and heir should follow in his Dad's footsteps, shattering
the records made at Bannister, and at Yale, by Hicks, _père_.
However, to quote a sporting phrase, the son of the Steel King "upset the
dope!" At the start of his Senior year, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. had not
annexed a single athletic honor, nor did the signs point to any records
being in peril of getting shattered by his prowess; as Hicks himself
phrased it, "Dame Nature was _some stingy_ when she handed out the Hercules
stuff to me!" The happy-go-lucky youth, when he matriculated as a Freshman
at Bannister College, was builded on the general lines of a toothpick, and
had he elected to follow a pugilistic career, a division somewhat lighter
than the tissue paperweight class would have had to be devised to
accommodate the splinter-student. A generous, sunny-souled, intensely
democratic collegian, despite his father's wealth, the festive Hicks, with
his room always open-house to all; his firm friendship for star athlete
or humble boner, his never-failing sunny nature, together with his famous
Hicks Personally Conducted Expeditions downtown to the Beef-Steak Busts he
had originated, in his three years at old Bannister, had made himself the
most popular and beloved youth on the campus, but, he had not won his B!
And he had tried. With a full realization, of his Dad's ambition, his
life-dream to behold his son a great athlete, the blithesome Hicks had
tried, but with hilariously futile results. Nature had endowed him, as he
told his loyal comrade, Butch Brewster, with "the Herculean build of a
Jersey mosquito," and his athletic powers neared zero infinity. In his
Freshman year, he inaugurated his athletic career by running the wrong way
in the Sophomore-Freshman football game, scoring a touchdown that won for
the enemy, and naturally, after that performance, every athletic effort was
greeted with jeers by the students.
"I _have_ tried!" said Hicks, producing two letters from the study-table,
"But not like I should have tried. I could never have played on the eleven,
or on the nine, but I have a chance in the high-jump. I know I've been
indolent and care-free, and I ought to have trained harder. Well, I just
must win my track B this spring, but as to keeping the rash promise I made
to Butch as a Freshman--not a chance!"
It had been at the close of his Freshman year, after Hicks, in the
Interclass Track Meet, had smashed hurdles, broken high-jumping cross-bars,
finished last in several events, and jeopardized his life with the shot and
hammer, that he made the rash vow to which he now had reference. Butch,
believing his sunny friend had entered all the events just to entertain the
crowd, in his fun-loving way, was teasing him about his ridiculous fiascos,
when Hicks had told him the story--how his Dad wanted him to try and be a
famous athlete; he showed Butch a letter, received before the meet, asking
his son to try every event, and to keep on training, so as to win his B
before he graduated. Butch, great-hearted, was surprised and moved by the
revelation that the gladsome youth, even as he was jeered by his friendly
comrades, who thought he performed for sport, was striving to have his
Dad's dream come true; he had sympathized with his classmate, and then his
scatter-brained colleague had aroused his indignation by vowing, with a
swaggering confidence:
"'Oh, just leave it to Hicks!' Remember this, Butch, before I graduate from
old Bannister, I shall have won my B in three branches of sport!"
Butch had snorted incredulously. To win the football or the baseball B,
the gold letter for the former, and the green one for the latter sport,
an athlete had to play in three-fourths of the season's games, on the
"'Varsity"; to gain the white track letter, one had to win a first place in
some event, in a regularly scheduled track meet with another team. And now,
Butch's skepticism seemed confirmed, for at the start of his last year at
college, Hicks had not annexed a single B, though he bade fair to corral
one in the spring in the high-jump.
"Heigh-ho!" chuckled Hicks, at length. "Here I am threatening to get gloomy
again! Well I'll sure train hard to win my track letter, and that seems
all I can do! I'd like to win my three B's, and jeer at Butch, next June,
but--_it can't be did_! I shall now twang my trusty banjo, and drive dull
care away."
Quite forgetful of the football conclave across the corridor, and of Butch
Brewster's request for quiet, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. dragged out his
beloved banjo, caressed its strings lovingly, and roared:
"Fifteen men sat on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the--"
"_Hicks_!" Big Butch Brewster crashed across the corridor, both doors being
open. "Is this how you maintain a quiet? I'm going to call Thor over and
make him sit down on you! Why, you--"
"Have mercy!" plead the grinning Hicks. "Honest, Butch, I didn't go to bust
up the league--I--I heard you talk about your B's, and I got to thinking
that _I_ have but little time to make my Dad happy; see, here's proof--read
these letters I was perusing--"
Puzzled, Butch scanned the first one, dated back in the May of their
Freshman year; Hicks had received it before the class track meet, and, as
chronicled, he had heard from his sunny comrade later, how it impelled the
splinter youth to try every event, while Bannister believed him to enter
them for fun. The letter was post-marked "Pittsburgh, Pa.," and it read:
DEAR SON THOMAS:
Your last term's report gratified me immensely, and I am proud of your
class record, and scholastic achievements. Pitch in, and lead your class,
and make your Dad happy.
But there is something else of which I want to write, Thomas. As you must
know, it has always been a cause of keen regret to me that you have never
seemed to care for athletics of any sort; you appear to be too indolent and
ease-loving to sacrifice, or to endure the hardships of training. I suppose
it is because of my athletic record both at Bannister and at old Yale that
I am so eager to see you become a star; in fact, it is my life's most
cherished ambition to have you become as famous as your Dad.
However, I realize that my fond dream can never come true. Nature has not
made you naturally strong and athletic, and what athletic success you may
gain, must come from long and hard training and practice. If you can only
win your college letter, your B, Thomas, while at Bannister, I shall be
fully content.
I said nothing when you failed even to try for the teams at your
Preparatory School, but I did hope that at Bannister, under good coaches
and trainers, you would at least endeavor to win your letter. I must admit
that I am disappointed, for you have not even made an earnest effort to
find your event. Often, by trying everything, especially in a track meet, a
fellow finds his event, and later stars in it.
I really believe that if you would start in now to develop yourself by
regular, systematic gymnasium work, and if you would only try, in a year
or so you could make a Bannister team. Theodore Roosevelt, you know, was a
puny, weakly boy, but he built himself up, and became an athlete. If you
want to please me, start now and find your event. Attempt all the sports,
all the various track and field events, and always build yourself up by
exercise in the Gym.
And you owe it to your Alma Mater, my son! Even if, after conscientious
effort, you fail to win your B, to know that you have given your college
and teams what help you could, will please your Dad. Remember, the fellow
who toils on the scrubs is the true hero. If you become good enough to give
the first eleven, the first nine, the first five, or the first track squad
a hard rub and a fast practice, you are serving Bannister.
I don't ask you to do this, Thomas, I only say that it will make me happy
just to know you are striving. If you never get beyond the scrubs, just to
hear you are serving the Gold and Green, giving your best, in that humble
unhonored way, will please me. And if, before you graduate, you _can_ win
your B, I shall be so glad! Don't get discouraged, it may take until your
Senior year, but once you start, _stick_.
Your loving
DAD.
"Read this one, too, Butch," requested Hicks, hurriedly, as a hail of, "Oh,
you Hicks, come here!" sounded down the corridor, from Skeet Wigglesworth's
abode. "I'll be back as soon as Skeet finishes his foolishness. Don't wait
for me, though, if I am delayed, for you want to be talking football."
Left alone, big Butch Brewster, who of all the collegians that had known
and loved the sunny Hicks, some now graduated, understood that his athletic
efforts, jeered good-naturedly by the students, were made because of a
great desire to win his B and make happy his Dad, read the second letter,
dated a few days before:
DEAR SON THOMAS:
You are starting the last lap, son, your Senior year, and your final chance
to win your B! Don't forget how happy it will make your Dad if you win your
letter just once! Of course, you cannot gain it in football, for nature
gave you no chance, nor in baseball; but in track work it is up to you.
Train hard, Thomas, and try to win a first place; just win your track B,
and I'll rest content!
Your college record gives me great pleasure. You stand at the top in your
studies, and you are vastly popular, while the Faculty speak highly of you.
Let your B come as a climax to your career, and I'll be so proud of you.
Don't forget, you are the "Class Kid" of Yale, '96, and those sons of old
Eli want you to win the letter. As to football, you cannot win your gold B
by playing three-fourths of a season's games, but you might get in a big
game, even win it, if you'll get confidence enough to tell Coach Corridan
about yourself. Don't mind the jeers of your comrades--they just don't
know how you've tried to please your Dad; you owe it to your Alma Mater
to tell, and, take my word as a football star, you have the goods! Your
peculiar prowess has won many a contest, and old Bannister needs it this
season, I hear--
There was more, but big Butch scarcely saw it, bewildered as the behemoth
Senior was; what new mystery had Hicks set afoot? What did Hicks, Sr.,
mean by writing, "You might get in a big game, even win it, if you'll get
confidence enough to tell Coach Corridan about yourself? You owe it to your
Alma Mater to tell, and take my word, as a football star, you have the
goods--" Why, everyone knew that T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., possessed no more
football ability than a Jersey mosquito, and yet--
"Another Hicks mystery," groaned Butch, holding the two letters
thoughtfully. "And father and son are in it, But if Hicks don't get his B,
it will be a shame. _Say, I know--_"
A few moments later, good-hearted Butch Brewster, in the behalf of his
sunny comrade, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., was making to the Gold and Green
eleven and Coach Corridan, as eloquent a speech as that blithesome youth,
two weeks before, had made in defense of the condemned and ostracized Thor!
He read them the two letters of Hicks' beloved Dad, and told how the cheery
collegian wanted to win his B for his father's sake; graphically, he
related Hicks, Sr.'s, great ambition, and how Hicks, Jr., for three years
had vainly tried to make good at some athletic sport, and to win his
letter. Big Butch, warming to his theme, spoke of how T. Haviland Hicks,
Jr., letting the students believe that he entered every event in the track
meet of his Freshman year just for fun, had been trying to find his event,
and train for it; he explained that the festive youth, ever sunny-natured,
under the good-humored jeers of his comrades, who did not know his real
purpose, really yearned to win his B.
"You fellows, and you, Coach," he thundered, "all know how Hicks, unable
to make the 'Varsity, has always done humble service for old Bannister,
cheerfully, gladly; how he keeps the athletes in good spirits at the
training-table, and is always on hand after scrimmage to rub them out. He
is chock-full of college spirit, and is intensely loyal to his Alma Mater.
Why, look how he rounded up Thor--he ought to have his B for that!"
Thanks to Butch's speech, the Gold and Green football stars, most of whom
were Hicks' closest friends, saw the scatter-brained, happy-go-lucky
youth in a new light; his eloquent defense of John Thorwald had shown old
Bannister that he could be serious, but the knowledge that T. Haviland
Hicks, Jr., even as he made a ridiculous farce in athletics, was ambitious
to win his B, just to make his Dad happy, stunned them. For three years,
the sunny Hicks' appearance on old Bannister Field, to try for a team, had
meant a small-sized riot of jeers and good-natured ridicule at his expense;
but Hicks had always grinned _à la_ Cheshire cat,--and no one but good
Butch Brewster, all the time, had known how in earnest the lovable
collegian was.
"Now," concluded Butch, "Hicks _may_ win a B in track work, if he gets a
first place in the high-jump, and if so, O.K., but if he does not--"
"You mean--" Monty Merriweather--understood, "if he fails, then the
Athletic Association ought to--"
"Present him with a B!" said Butch, earnestly, "as a deserved reward for
his faithful loyalty and service to old Bannister's athletic teams. Don't
let him graduate without gaining his letter, and making his Dad realize a
part of his ambition--a two-thirds vote of the Athletic Association can
award him his letter, and when all the students know the truth about his
ridiculous fiasco on Bannister Field, and realize the serious purpose
beneath them all, they--"
"_We'll give him his B_!" shouted Beef, loudly, "If he fails in track work
next spring, we'll vote him his letter, anyway!"
Out in the corridor, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., returning from Skeet
Wigglesworth's room and entering his own cozy quarters, could not help
hearing the conversation, as the doors of both his den and the room across
the corridor were open. A great love for his comrades came to his impulsive
heart, and a mist before his eyes, as he heard how they wanted to vote him
his B in case he failed to win it in track work; he thrilled at Butch's
speech, but--
[Illustration B: 'Fellows,...I--I thank you from the bottom of my heart']
"Fellows," he startled them by appearing in the doorway, "I--I thank you
from the bottom of my heart. I couldn't help hearing, you know--I _do_
appreciate your generous thoughts, but--I can't and won't accept my B
unless I win it according to the rule of the Athletic Association."
A silence, and then Butch Brewster, gripping his comrade's hand
understandingly, held out to him the two letters.
"Forgive me, old man," he breathed, "for reading them aloud, but I wanted
the fellows to know, to appreciate you! And say, Hicks, what does your Dad
mean by saying that you are the _'Class Kid'_ of Yale, '96, and that those
sons of old Eli want you to win your letter? And what does he mean by
saying that you may get in a _big game_--may _win_ it--that you have
the goods in football, but lack the confidence to announce it to Coach
Corridan? Also that old Bannister needs just the peculiar brand you
possess?"
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his sunny, Cheshire cat grin illuminating his
cherubic countenance, beamed on the eleven and Coach Corridan a moment.
"Oh, that's a _mystery_," he said, cheerfully. "If I _do_ gain the courage
and confidence, I'll explain, but unless I do--it remains a--_mystery_!"