HICKS HAS A "HUNCH"
"Ladies and gentlemen, Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores, human beings,
and--_Freshmen_! Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., the Olympic High-Jump
Champion, holder of the World's record, and winner at the Panama-Pacific
International Exposition National Championships, in his event, is about to
high jump! The bar is at five feet, ten inches. Mr. Hicks is the Herculean
athlete in the crazy-looking bathrobe."
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his splinter-structure enshrouded in that
flamboyant bathrobe of vast proportions and insane colors, that inevitably
attended his athletic efforts, shaming Joseph's coat-of-many-colors, gazed
despairingly at his good friend, Butch Brewster, and Track-Coach Brannigan,
with a Cheshire cat grin on his cherubic countenance.
"It's no use, Butch, it's no use!" quoth he, with ludicrous indignation,
as big Tug Cardiff, the behemoth shot-putter, through a huge megaphone
imitated a Ballyhoo Bill, and roared his absurd announcement to the
hilarious crowd of collegians in the stand. "Old Bannister will _never_
take my athletic endeavors seriously. Here I have won two second places,
and a third, in the high-jump this season, and have a splendid show to
annex _first_ place and my track B in the Intercollegiates, but--hear
them!"
It was a balmy, sunshiny afternoon in late May. The sunny-souled,
happy-go-lucky T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had trained indefatigably for
the high jump, with the result that he had won several points for his
team--however, he had not realized his great ambition of first place, and
his track letter.
As Hicks now exclaimed to his team-mate and Coach Brannigan, no matter,
to the howling Bannister youths, if he _had_ won three places in the high
jump, in regularly scheduled meets; his comrades had been jeering at
his athletic fiascos for nearly four years, and even had Hicks suddenly
blossomed out as a star athlete, they would not have abandoned their joyous
habit. Still, those football 'Varsity players to whom good Butch had read
Hicks, Sr.'s, letters, and explained the sunny youth's persistence, despite
his ridiculous failures, though they kept on hailing his appearance on
Bannister Field with exaggerated joy, understood the care-free collegian,
and loved him for his ambition to please his Dad. Since Hicks had
absolutely refused to accept his B, for any sport, unless he won it
according to Athletic Association eligibility rules, the eleven had kept
secret the contents of the letters Butch Brewster had read to them, for
Hicks requested it.
The Bannister College track squad, under Track Coach Brannigan and Captain
Spike Robertson, had been training most strenuously for that annual
cinder-path classic, the State Intercollegiate Track and Field
Championships. The sprinters had been tearing down the two-twenty
straightaway like suburban commuters catching the 7.20 A.M. for the city.
Hammer-throwers and shot-putters--the weight men--heaved the sixteen-pound
shot, or hurled the hammer, with reckless abandon, like the Strong Man of
the circus. Pole-vaulters seemed ambitious to break the altitude records,
and In so doing, threatened to break their necks; hurdlers skimmed over
the standard as lightly as swallows, though no one ever beheld swallows
hurdling. The distance runners plodded determinedly around the quarter-mile
track, broad-jumpers tried to jump the length of the landing-pit. And T.
Haviland Hicks, Jr., vainly essayed to clear five-ten In the high-jump!
It was the last-named event that "broke up the show," as the Phillyloo Bird
quaintly stated, somewhat wrongly, since the appearance of that blithesome
youth in the offing, his flamboyant bathrobe concealing his shadow-like
frame, had _started_ the show, causing the track squad, as well as a
hundred spectator-students, to rush for seats in the stand. The arrival
of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., to train for form and height in the high-jump,
though a daily occurrence, was always the signal for a Saturnalia of sport
at his expense, because--
"You can't live down your athletic past, Hicks!" smiled good-hearted Butch
Brewster. "Your making a touchdown for the other eleven, by running the
wrong way with the pigskin, your hilarious fiascos in every sport, your
home-run with the bases full, on a strike-out-are specters to haunt you.
Even now that you have a chance to win your B, just listen to the fellows."
The track squad's "heavy weight--white hope" section, composed of
hammer-heavers and shot-putters--Tug Cardiff, Beef McNaughton, Pudge
Langdon, Buster Brown, Biff Pemberton, Hefty Hollingsworth, and Bunch
Bingham, equipped with megaphones, and with the _basso profundo_ voices
nature gave them, lined up on both sides of the jumping-standards, and
chanted loudly:
"All hail to T. Haviland Hicks!
He runs like a carload of bricks;
When to high jump he tries
From the ground he can't rise--
For he's built on a pair of toothpicks!"
This saengerfest was greeted with vociferous cheers from the vastly amused
youths in the stands, who hailed the grinning Hicks with jeers, cat-calls,
whistles, and humorous (so they believed) remarks:
"Say, Hicks, you won't _never_ be able to jump anything but your
board-bill!"
"You're built like a grass-hopper, Hicks, but you've done lost the hop!"
"If you keep on improving as you've done lately, you'll make a high-jumper
in a hundred more years, old top!"
"You may rise in the world, Hicks, but never in the high jump!"
"Don't mind them, Hicks!" spoke Coach Brannigan, his hands on the
happy-go-lucky youth's shoulders. "Listen to me; the Intercollegiates will
be the last track meet of your college years, and unless you take first
place in your event, you won't win your track B. Second, McQuade, of
Hamilton, will do five-eight, and likely an inch higher, so to take first
place, you, must do five-ten. You have trained and practiced faithfully
this season, but no matter what I do, I _can't_ give you that needed two
inches, and--"
"I know it, Coach!" responded the chastened Hicks, throwing aside his
lurid bathrobe determinedly, and exposing to the jeering students his
splinter-frame. "Leave it to Hicks, I'll clear it this time, or--"
"Not!" fleered Butch, whom Hicks' easy self-confidence never failed to
arouse. "Hicks, listen to me, _I_ can tell you why you can't get two inches
higher. The whole trouble with you is this; for almost four years you have
led an indolent, butterfly, care-free existence, and now, when you must
call on yourself for a special effort, you are too lazy! You can dear
five-ten; you ought to do it, but you can't summon up the energy. I've
lectured you all this time, for your heedless, easy-going ways, and
now--you pay for your idle years!"
"You said an encyclopedia, Butch!" agreed the Coach, with vigor. "If only
something would just _make_ Hicks jump that high, if only he could do it
once, and know it is in his power, he could do it in the Intercollegiates,
aided by excitement and competition! Let something _scare_ him so that he
will sail over five-ten, and--he will win his B. He has the energy, the
build, the spring, and the form, but as you say, he is so easy-going and
lazy, that his natural grass-hopper frame avails him naught."
"Here I go!" announced Hicks, who, to an accompaniment of loud cheers from
the stand, had been jogging up and down in that warming-up process known to
athletes as the in place run, consisting of trying to dislocate one's
jaw by bringing the knees, alternately, up against the chin. "Up and
over--that's my slogan. Just watch Hicks."
Starting at a distance of twenty yards from the high-jump standards, on
which the cross-bar rested at five feet, ten inches, T. Haviland Hicks,
Jr., who vastly resembled a grass-hopper, crept toward the jumping-pit,
on his toe-spikes, as though hoping to catch the cross-bar off its guard.
Advancing ten yards, he learned apparently that his design was discovered,
so he started a loping gallop, turning to a quick, mad sprint, as though he
attempted to jump over the bar before it had time to rise higher. With a
beautiful take-off, a splendid spring--a quick, writhing twist in air, and
two spasmodic kicks, the whole being known as the scissors form of high
jump, the mosquito-like youth made a strenuous effort to clear the needed
height, but--one foot kicked the cross-bar, and as Hicks fell flat on his
back, in the soft landing-pit, the wooden rod, In derision, clattered down
upon his anatomy.
"Foiled again!" hissed Hicks, after the fashion of a "Ten-Twent'-Thirt'"
melodrama-villain, while from the exuberant youths in the grandstand,
who really wanted Hicks to clear the bar, but who jeered at his failure,
nevertheless, sounded:
"Hire a derrick, Hicks, and hoist yourself over the bar!"
"Your _head_ is light enough--your feet weigh you down!"
"'Crossing the Bar'--rendered by T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.!"
"Going up! Go play checkers, Hicks, you ain't no athlete!"
While the grinning, albeit chagrined T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., reposed
gracefully on his back, staring up at the cross-bar, which someone kindly
replaced on the pegs, big Butch Brewster, who seemed suddenly to have
gone crazy, tried to attract Coach Brannigan's attention. Succeeding,
Butch--usually a grave, serious Senior, winked, contorted his visage
hideously, pointed at Hicks, and sibilated, "_Now_, Coach--now is your
chance! Tell Hicks--"
Tug Cardiff, Biff Pemberton, Hefty Hollingsworth, Bunch Bingham, Buster
Brown, Beef McNaughton, and Pudge Langdon, who had been attacked in a
fashion similar to Butch's spasm, concealed grins of delight, and made
strenuous efforts to appear guileless, as Track-Coach Brannigan approached
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. To that cheery youth, who was brushing the dirt from
his immaculate track togs, and bowing to the cheering youths in the stand,
the Coach spoke:
"Hicks," he said sternly, "you need a cross-country jog, to get
more strength and power in your limbs! Now, I am going to send the
Heavy-Weight-White-Hope Brigade for a four-mile run, and you go with them.
Oh, don't protest; they are all shot-putters and hammer-throwers, but
Butch, and they can't run fast enough to give a tortoise a fast heat. Take
'em out two miles and back, Butch, and jog all the way; don't let 'em loaf!
Off with you."
The unsuspecting Hicks might have detected the nigger in the woodpile, had
he not been so anxious to make five-ten in the high-jump. However, willing
to jog with these behemoths, with whom even he could keep pace, so as to
develop more jumping power, the blithesome youth cast aside his garish
bathrobe, pranced about in what he fatuously believed was Ted Meredith's
style, and howled:
"Follow Hicks! All out for the Marathon--we're off! One--two--three--_go_!"
With the excited, track squad, non-athletes, and the baseball crowd, which
had ceased the game to watch the start, yelling, cheering, howling, and
whistling, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., drawing his knees up in exaggerated
style at every stride, started to lead the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade
on its cross-country run. Without wondering why Coach Brannigan had
suddenly elected to send _him_ along with the hammer-throwers and
shot-putters, on the jog, and not having seen the insane facial contortions
of the Brigade, before the Coach gave orders, the gladsome Senior
started forth in good spirits, resembling a tugboat convoying a fleet of
battleships.
"'Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho! And over the country we go!'" warbled Hicks, as the squad
left Bannister Field, and jogged across a green meadow. "'--O'er hill and
dale, through valley and vale, Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho!'"
"Save your wind, you insect!" growled Butch Brewster, with sinister
significance that escaped the heedless Hicks, as the behemoth Butch, a
two-miler, swung into the lead. "You'll _need_ it, you fish, before we get
back to the campus! Not _too_ fast, you flock of human tortoises. You'll be
crawling on hands and knees, if you keep that pace up long!"
A mile and a half passed. Butch, at an easy jog, had led his squad over
green pastures, up gentle slopes, and across a plowed field, by way of
variety. At length, he left the road on which the pachydermic aggregation
had lumbered for some distance, and turned up a long lane, leading to a
farm-house. Back of it they periscoped an orchard, with cherry-trees,
laden with red and white fruit, predominating. Also, floating toward the
collegians on the balmy May air came an ominous sound:
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Bow-wow-wow! Woof!"
"Come on, fellows!" urged Butch Brewster. "We'll jog across old Bildad's
orchard and seize some cherries--the old pirate can't catch us, for we are
attired for sprinting. Don't they look good?"
"Nothing stirring!" declared Hicks, slangily, but vehemently, as he stopped
short in his stride. "Old Bildad has got a bulldog what am as big as the
New York City Hall. He had it on the campus last month, you know! Not for
mine! I don't go near that house, or swipe no cherries from his trees. If
you wish to shuffle off this mortal coil, drive right ahead, but _I_ will
await your return here."
T, Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, dread of dogs, of all sizes, shapes, pedigrees,
and breeds, was well known to old Bannister; hence, the Heavy-weights now
jeered him unmercifully. Old "Bildad," as the taciturn recluse was called,
who lived like a hermit and owned a rich farm, did own a massive bulldog,
and a sight of his cruel jaws was a "No Trespass" sign. With great
forethought, when cherries began to ripen, the farmer had brought Caesar
Napoleon to the campus, exhibited him to the awed youths, and said, "My
cherries be for _sale_, not to be _stole_!" which object lesson, brief as
it was, to date, had seemed to have the desired effect. Yet--here was Butch
proposing that they literally thrust their heads, or other portions of
their anatomies, into the jaws of death!
"Well," said Bunch Bingham at last, "I tell you what; we'll jog up to the
house and ask old Bildad to _sell_ us some cherries; we can pay him when he
comes to the campus with eggs to sell, Come along. Hicks, I'll beard the
bulldog in his kennel."
So, dragged along by the bulky hammer-throwers and shot-putters, the
protesting T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., in mortal terror of Caesar Napoleon, and
the other canine guardians of old Bildad's property, progressed up the lane
toward the house.
"I got a hunch," said the reluctant Hicks, sadly, "that things ain't
a-comin' out right! In the words of the immortal Somebody-Or-Other, 'This
'ere ain't none o' _my_ doin'; it's a-bein' thrust on me!' All right, my
comrades, I'll be the innocent bystander, but heed me--look out for the
bulldog!"