BERT CONFIDES
Bert wasn’t very good company that week. In the evenings he made a
great pretence of studying, but Hugh’s stolen glances showed that his
friend’s thoughts were far from his books. At times Bert was as gay
as you please, but the gayety didn’t last long and while it did last
struck Hugh as being decidedly forced. For the most part Bert was
silent and morose. There were no more bickerings, but it was more to
Hugh’s credit than Bert’s, for the latter on more than one occasion
showed himself ready to quarrel on any provocation. As a result Hugh
was less at home than usual. He spent much time with Pop Driver and
Roy Dresser, over in Trow, and often dropped down the corridor to
hobnob with Cathcart before bedtime. There was one good thing about
the proctor and that was that you could always depend on finding him
in his room except when he had a recitation. Now and then Hugh visited
Nick, but Nick, unlike Cathcart, was almost never in. A couple of
evenings Hugh went over to Lit for awhile, but he had a feeling that
it was better taste to remain away from the society’s room until he
was a full-fledged member. He very much wished that Bert would confide
in him, so that whatever the trouble was they might talk it over like
sensible beings. Somehow, he didn’t believe that gridiron difficulties
quite explained his friend’s condition of mind. Instead, he shrewdly
suspected that Bert’s poor performances in practice of late were the
result of some secret worry and not the cause of it. All that Hugh
could be certain of was that studies had nothing to do with it, for,
while Bert was not a particularly studious fellow, he nevertheless
managed to maintain an average standing and was seldom in trouble with
the office.
Bert went back to left half on Wednesday and stayed there until the
Rotan game. But even Hugh could see that he was having a hard time of
it to keep Siedhof out, and there were times when no one could have
criticized Coach Bonner had he pulled Bert back to the bench. Nick
confided to Hugh one day that Bert was frightfully off his game, adding
regretfully, “It’s got so I think twice before I give him the ball.
And Bonner’s getting on to me, too. Bert’s got to brace up Saturday or
Billy Siedhof will have his place. I’d like to know what the dickens
is wrong with him! The best thing for him would be to get Davy to lay
him off for three or four days. I suggested it to him yesterday and he
nearly bit my head off. Ted’s got his eye on him, too, and Ted’s so set
on winning this year that he’d fire his grandmother if she didn’t play
well! Look here, ’Ighness, why don’t you sort of drop a hint to Bert,
eh? I’ve tried it and only escaped death by instant flight.”
“So you want me to die, eh? I’d do it, only――well, Bert gets mad so
easily now that it wouldn’t be much good.”
“I guess it wouldn’t. Well, it’s his funeral and he will have to make
his own arrangements. Still, I hate to see him making such a mess of
things without any reason that anyone can see. What the dickens _is_
the matter, Duke? Has he hinted anything to you?”
“No, he hasn’t. All I know is――――” Hugh hesitated a moment. “I don’t
_know_ anything, but this morning when I got the mail and took it up
there was a letter for Bert from his father――I know the postmark and
the writing, you see――and one from Needham, and he didn’t like either
of them.”
“That isn’t much of a clue. He doesn’t like anything just at present.
He doesn’t even like his fodder; doesn’t eat enough to keep alive.
Oh, well, it will blow over, I guess. And I’ve got enough to worry
about as it is, with a left side of the line that’s letting everything
pile through it. Saturday’s game is going to be a slaughter of the
innocents, Duke, you take it from me.”
Hugh, like Nick, had his own troubles during the next few days, for
Coach Crowley tried him out at right end on the second, and as an end
Hugh had much to learn. Just why, after the first ten-minute fiasco,
Mr. Crowley sent him back again Hugh couldn’t understand. Hugh was
boxed time after time, while the first team backs romped past, allowed
himself to be drawn out of the play by the cunning Dresser until that
youth laughed when he caught Hugh’s anxious regard, and twice overran
the ball on kicks and felt like forty kinds of a fool. But Crowley
yanked him hither and thither, bellowed things that he couldn’t more
than half understand, threatened him with the bench regularly every
second play――and kept him at it. Hugh told himself Thursday afternoon,
as he made his way tiredly out of the field house and back to Lothrop,
that he had forever settled his chances with the second and that he was
not half sorry. But later, when he had eaten ravenously and rested, he
decided that he was sorry, awfully sorry, and he neglected his next
day’s Greek and mathematics while he frowningly studied a chapter
entitled “How to Play the End Positions” in a book on football. After a
half-hour of it he sighed and closed the volume.
“The chap who wrote that may know all about it, but he doesn’t play
Dinny’s kind of football,” he reflected. “What I want is a book that
will tell me how to keep Roy and Franklin from making me look like a
guy! Still, I fancy Crowley won’t try me there again unless both Forbes
and Bellows and that other chap get killed.”
But Hugh was wrong. The next day he was again back at the right end of
the line and again Ayer yelped at him and Coach Crowley bellowed and
Captain Myatt barked. But he did a little better today, just enough,
probably, to keep Mr. Crowley from having him instantly drawn and
quartered or immersed in boiling oil. Roy Dresser, who played left end
on the first, found it harder to entice his opponent away from the
play, and Franklin, at left tackle, discovered that he couldn’t always
fool him. Still, Hugh missed an easy tackle on one occasion and let
Nick slip past for a long gain while he ruefully picked himself from
the ground and scraped the mud from his face. Mr. Crowley almost ate
him for that and Neil Ayer evinced every desire to officiate with the
vinegar and salt. That was a bad day for the second, on the whole, for
the first ran up five scores in the twenty minutes of scrimmaging.
What troubled Hugh quite as much as his own defects was the sorry
performance put up by Bert on the enemy team. Bert fumbled miserably
twice, and, while he usually gained when he had the ball, played in
such a half-hearted manner that Coach Bonner was “on his neck” half the
time. In the last of the second period, when substitutions on each team
were numerous, Bert went out in favor of Siedhof. Hugh, too, severed
his connection with the game then, and Forbes got back to his own.
On the bench, dragging the sleeves of his sweater across his chest,
Hugh ventured a remark to Bert, but the result was not encouraging.
Bert only growled. After that Hugh watched Forbes and earnestly tried
not to indulge in uncharitable thoughts. But he couldn’t help feeling
exultant when Vail and Bert swept around their left end, Vail carrying
the pigskin, and spurned the recumbent form of Forbes underfoot. That
was encouraging to Hugh. Even Forbes, it seemed, was by no means beyond
the cunning wiles of the enemy. Then Davy Richards, the trainer, who
had been up the field administering to a dislocated finger, hurried
indignantly back to the bench and sent them scurrying to the showers.
That evening Hugh went back to the football book and discovered a
trifle more of sense in what he read. After all, he concluded, perhaps
the writer might last five minutes at end under Crowley. There was
no work for the first team regulars on Friday, but the second-string
players were lined up against the second for one twelve-minute
period and barely saved their bacon by slipping Derry across the
field unnoticed for a forward pass that brought a touchdown. Hugh
congratulated himself that that play took place on the other side and
that it was Bellows and not he who had to face the irate Mr. Crowley.
Three minutes later, on the second’s thirty-five, first team tried the
same trick on the other side and Hugh was fortunate enough to knock
the ball down before the opposing left end could get it. For that he
got a slap on the back from Myatt, a grin from Quarterback Ayer, and
a grunt from Coach Crowley. Not much in the way of reward, perhaps,
after all the scoldings he had suffered, but quite sufficient in Hugh’s
estimation. Even though he was informed a minute later that he was
the worst end that had ever donned canvas he refused to be dejected.
“That,” he told himself hearteningly as he watched the opposing
tackle and waited for the signal, “isn’t so. If I were as bad as that
I wouldn’t be here.” Then he was trying to block off a big tackle,
while Ayer’s voice shrilled “_In! In!_” and everything was excitedly
confused and glorious. After another moment Hauser yanked him to his
feet at the risk of dislocating his arm and Myatt shoved him into
position again, and Quinn was crying: “Third down! Four to go!” and
Ayer was barking his signals: “Manson back! 47――35――16!”
The game ended when Manson’s punt had dropped into the arms of a
first-team back, and, muddy and warm and panting, they trotted up to
the field house. It was worth all the hard knocks and harder words
to feel the tingling rain of the hissing shower on naked body, and
afterwards, Hugh, deliciously weary, slowly pulled his clothes on and
went half asleep in the task of tying a shoelace and heard the babel of
voices as in a dream until Ben Myatt, scantily wrapped in a monstrous
bath towel, sank to the bench beside him with a deep sigh and murmured:
“They didn’t do much with our wing today, Ordway, did they?”
And Hugh, emerging from his luxurious drowse, shook his head proudly
and answered: “Rather not!” After which, with a supreme effort of the
will, he finished tying that lace and got to his feet. Encountering
the eyes of Forbes he smiled kindly but pityingly. It was too bad that
Forbes was out of it. He was sorry for Forbes. But as events proved he
need not have been.
He found Bert lying on the window-seat scribbling on a scratch-pad when
he got back to Lothrop. Perhaps the afternoon’s rest had benefited the
first-team player, for he was undeniably in better humor.
“What did they do to you, Hugh?” he asked as he tore a sheet from the
pad and crumpled it in his hand. “Were they brutal?”
“Hardly! They scored once, but they wouldn’t have pulled that if we
hadn’t been asleep. Derry took a pass about a foot from the side line
and ran thirty yards.”
Bert laughed. “What were you fellows doing to let him get off like
that? You must have been asleep!”
“I fancy we were,” acknowledged Hugh ruefully as he seated himself
in the Morris chair and stretched tired legs across the rug. “I was
awfully glad it wasn’t on my side.”
“I’ll bet you were! Who played halves for them?”
“Kinds was one. The other fellow I don’t know. Small and dark and
awfully quick and squirmy.”
“Fearing. He’s going to make a bully half some day. He’s only a lower
middler.” There was a pause and then: “Say, Hugh,” Bert went on
carelessly, “you don’t happen to have any money you don’t want to use
for a while, I suppose?”
“Money? How much?”
“Oh, a beast of a lot; thirty dollars. Twenty would do, I guess. It
would do for a while, anyway.” Bert was much too casual to deceive the
other and Hugh looked regretful.
“No, I haven’t more than six or seven, Bert. How soon would you have to
have it?”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I only thought that if you did happen to have
it――――”
“I know, but I fancy I could get it in a few days. Only thing is the
mater’s away just now.” He frowned thoughtfully. “What are you going to
do, Bert? Buy something?”
“Sort of. It doesn’t matter a bit.” He yawned elaborately, tossed aside
the block of paper and sat up. “I’d have to have it by Monday, anyway.
Thanks just the same.”
“Monday! But this is Friday, and――――”
“I know. Don’t bother. I tell you it doesn’t matter, Hugh.”
“Yes, but――if you want it――I say, now, I might telegraph, eh? But I
dare say you could get it from home as soon as I could.”
“Well, the fact is――――” Bert hesitated. “My dad’s shut down on me and
won’t send me a cent beyond my allowance; and that’s only ten a month.
Of course, he will come around in time; maybe in a month; but I’ve got
to have――that is, I――I need twenty or thirty right now. I’ve sort of
promised a man to let him have it Monday. It――it’s a debt. An old one.
Things I bought last winter. Now he’s acting nasty and threatens to go
to faculty if I don’t settle up.”
“But I thought we weren’t allowed to have any debts!”
Bert shrugged. “We aren’t supposed to, except by special arrangement.
But most every fellow has things charged here in the village or over in
Needham. Of course you’re supposed to settle at the end of term, and I
meant to, but I was hard up and couldn’t. This Shylock bothered me all
summer with bills and letters and things and I told him I’d pay when I
got back. Well, I tried to, but dad got angry and said I was spending
too much money and I’d have to get along on my allowance. And he told
mother not to let me have it. So it’s a rotten outlook. Of course, if I
can’t pay him right now, I can’t, and that’s all there is to it. Only
if he _should_ go to Charlie I’d get fired as quick as a wink.”
“That’s too bad,” said Hugh sympathetically. “We’ll simply have to
dig up the money somewhere. Toss me that block, will you? And your
pencil? Thanks. Now, let’s see. ‘Please send six pounds’――no, ‘thirty
dollars――――’” Hugh nibbled the pencil reflectively. “I’ve got about six
dollars, though, so I’ll just ask for twenty-five. Thirty’s enough, old
chap? You’re certain?”
“Yes, but I don’t believe you’d better, Hugh. I don’t know, after all,
when I can pay it back. Maybe not until Christmas. I always get some
extra money then. I guess Fallow and Turner will wait.”
“But there’d be no hurry about paying it back, Bert,” the other
protested. “And my mother won’t mind sending it the least bit. I
haven’t asked for any extra tin for a long time. You just sit tight,
old dear, and leave it to me. ‘Please send twenty-five dollars at once.
Important. Well. Love.’ That ought to do it. I say, though, maybe I’d
better ask mother to telegraph it, eh? Then she’d surely get it here
by Monday. Unless, that is, this doesn’t get to her in time. You see,
she went away to make some visits the other day. She ought to be in
Philadelphia tomorrow, but if she stayed over in New York――I fancy I’ll
send a couple of these just to be on the safe side. Bound to fetch her
that way, what?”
“It’s awfully decent of you,” said Bert gratefully. “Hope I’ll be able
to do as much for you some day.”
“I hope you won’t need to,” laughed Hugh. “How do I get these off? I
can telephone, can’t I?”
“Yes, and they’ll charge it to the school and you can settle with the
office. I ought to offer to pay them myself, Hugh, but I’m just about
strapped. You could add it to the rest, though.”
“Oh, rot! I’ll nip down and get them off now. If mother gets one of
these tomorrow morning we might hear by afternoon, eh?”
When Hugh got back Bert was whistling merrily in his room.
“They said they’d get them off right away,” Hugh announced from the
doorway. “So that’s all right, eh?”
“Yes,” replied Bert. “And I hope―――― Well, anyway, I’m awfully much
obliged, Hugh. To tell the truth I’ve been scared to death for a week
for fear Fallow would turn up here at school.”
“Well, it won’t matter if he does now,” responded Hugh cheerfully.
“Is――is that what’s been bothering you lately, old chap?”
Bert nodded. “Did you notice it?” he asked, mildly surprised.
“Did I notice it? Well, rather! You’ve been as――as grouchy as a bear.”
“Have I?” asked the other penitently. “I guess I have. I’m sorry, Hugh.
I guess I was particularly nasty the other night, wasn’t I?”
“Well, you weren’t exactly sweet-tempered,” chuckled Hugh.
“I guess I was a regular beast. I wish you’d――er――forget it.”
“All right. I fancy I lost my temper a bit too.”
“I didn’t mean”――Bert spoke from behind a towel――“what I said about
rooming with you, Hugh. I――I’m sorry I was such a cad.”
“Oh, don’t talk so sick,” muttered Hugh, backing away from the door. “I
didn’t pay any attention to it. Now shut up. I’ve got to wash.”