AT SOUND VIEW
Mr. Pennimore’s return to Sound View was delayed a week, and so it was
after Dan’s success at the election when Gerald was summoned to the
telephone in the school office one morning and found his father at the
other end of the line. And it was three nights later that Dan and Tom
and Alf took dinner with Gerald and Mr. Pennimore.
The Steamship King was a rather small man of fifty-four, with the face
of a scholar rather than of a successful financier and business man.
His black eyes were thoughtful and kindly, and his dark hair was as yet
only slightly grizzled at the temples. The guests of the evening were
very fond of him, and their liking was returned. Gerald’s mother had
died when he was a few months old, and he was the only child. Until
entering Yardley at the beginning of the second term last year he had
been all his life in the care of governesses and tutors, with his
father keeping an anxious eye on him. The result was only what might
have been expected. He had been coddled far too much and a trifle
spoiled. But Yardley had done him good. Mr. Pennimore acknowledged that
readily and had more than once thanked Dan for having been the cause of
Gerald’s choice of that school. Even before his son’s entrance there
Mr. Pennimore had done a good deal for the school, and now that Gerald
swore allegiance to the dark blue, he was ready and anxious to do much
more, and it was only half a secret that when Gerald graduated there
was to be a new and very wonderful dormitory erected to the left of
Dudley Hall, and that with the building was to go a generous donation
to be used for the general enlargement of the school.
The Pennimore family consisted only of Mr. Pennimore and Gerald,
although the big house was filled with servants. To-night the small
round table in the center of the big dining room held a very merry
quintet. The boys wore their dinner jackets, and wore them with quite
an air――all save Tom; Tom looked and doubtless felt very uncomfortable
behind his starched shirt-bosom and straining waistcoat. There was
little formality at that dinner, for the boys had adopted Mr.
Pennimore as one of themselves, a sort of honorary member of Yardley.
Mr. Pennimore had to be told all the news, and they each took a hand
in bringing history down to date for his benefit. Alf’s account of the
election amused him vastly, and he looked across at Tom with a twinkle
in his black eyes.
“Tom,” he said, “you have the making of a politician; I can see that.
And I don’t know of a better field for politics of the kind you
displayed the other day than your own home State of New Jersey――with
the possible exception of Delaware and Pennsylvania.”
“I’ve always thought,” remarked Alf, allowing the butler to help him to
a third slice of chicken, “that Tom would make a dandy alderman. I saw
an alderman once and he looked just like Tom――sort of big and lazy.”
“You wait till I get you outside,” growled Tom.
“Now tell me about football,” said their host. “I feel quite honored
at having three gridiron heroes at my table at once. Going to whip
Broadwood again this year?”
“You bet we are!” declared Gerald emphatically.
“We’d stand a better chance, sir,” said Tom, “if we had a good quarter
back and a good captain.”
“Eh? But I thought that――I thought Alf was――was――” Mr. Pennimore looked
about the table bewilderedly, and Gerald broke into laughter.
“That’s just Tom’s joke, sir. Alf _is_ captain and quarter. And he’s a
dandy, too!”
“Oh, I see.” Mr. Pennimore joined the laughter. “I thought I wasn’t
mistaken about it. And you play end, don’t you, Dan? And Tom, here,
is――――”
“Water carrier,” interrupted Alf pleasantly. “Quite correct, sir. And
one of the best we’ve ever had――when he doesn’t go to sleep and fall
into the pail.”
“Tom’s right half back, sir,” said Gerald, “and you mustn’t mind what
they say about the team. It’s a mighty good team, and it’s going to
lick spots out of Broadwood in just about two weeks.”
“I’m glad to hear it, son. Has the team had a good season so far, Alf?”
“Only fair, sir. We won from Greenburg, Forrest Hill and St. John’s,
tied Carrel’s and lost to Porter and Brewer. The Brewer game ought to
have been ours, though. The referee gave them a touchdown they didn’t
make. The ball was dead about twenty yards from our goal and a Brewer
half picked it up and ran over with it.”
“But didn’t you――ah――protest?”
“Until I was black in the face,” replied Alf disgustedly. “But it
didn’t do any good. The referee was a man they’d picked up somewhere
and he was punk. They say he’s a baseball umpire. Maybe he is; he
certainly isn’t a football referee.”
“And who do you play Saturday?” asked Mr. Pennimore.
“Nordham, sir. It’s our last game before we tackle Broadwood.”
“And have they a good team this year?”
“One of the best ever, sir. They’ve got a fellow named Warren――he was
center for Princeton last year――helping coach over there. They say he’s
a wonder.”
“Well,” said Dan, “we’ve got a Yale man coming down to-morrow to help
us. And Alf’s brother is coming, too, for a couple of days.”
“If he can get away,” grumbled Alf. “He makes me tired. He made all
sorts of promises last year and now he just squeals.”
“For my part,” remarked Tom, “I think Broadwood’s going to give us fits
this year. She’s got a dandy team, good coaches and we have to play
her on her own grounds.”
“There’s a good deal in that,” agreed Dan. “I mean in playing away from
home.”
“Well, we will do the best we can,” said Alf cheerfully. “I wonder if I
might have some more of the egg plant, sir?”
“There’s one thing we have to cheer us up,” said Tom, “and that is that
our captain is still able to peck at a little food.”
“I’m very glad he is,” replied Mr. Pennimore with a smile. “And I’d
like to see you and Dan doing a little better. Have some more of the
chicken, won’t you, Tom?”
“No, sir, thanks. I eat very little.”
Alf made a choking sound that indicated suppressed laughter.
“Don’t take any more chicken,” advised Gerald. “There’s a salad yet and
then some dandy ice cream. And I know you like ice cream, Tom.”
“It’s one of the few things I can relish,” answered Tom with a grin. “I
have a very delicate stomach.”
“So has an ostrich,” jeered Alf.
“Another chap and I fed an ostrich on celluloid campaign buttons once,”
said Tom reminiscently. “It was at the Zoo. We had our pockets full of
Bryan buttons and the ostrich seemed to like them tremendously. I guess
he ate about forty of ’em.”
“What happened to him?” asked Dan, laughingly.
“I never heard. I guess he became a Bryanite, though.”
After dinner there was a comfortable hour in the big library in front
of the fire, for the evenings were getting chilly those days, and then
the four boys said good night and piled themselves into the automobile
and were taken humming back to school.
Yardley had little difficulty with the Nordham Academy team on the
following Saturday, sending it down in defeat to the tune of 17 to 0
and thereby earning consolation for what had happened last year when
Nordham, with a spry and tricky team, had played her to a tie. Football
was in the air now. In fact, Yardley was obsessed with athletics, for
not only was the gridiron contest with her hated rival imminent but
there was also the question of cross-country supremacy to settle.
On Wednesday morning Andy Ryan sent his charges over the full course
for the first time and, although he never gave out the time, he was
well pleased. In that run Gerald, who had been doing better at every
trial, finished seventh among the twelve who ran. (Garson was out of
the team for good with a torn leg muscle sustained in a class football
game.) Word filtered into Yardley that Broadwood expected to make a
clean sweep next Saturday by winning both in the morning and afternoon.
But Yardley laughed scornfully and held three football mass meetings
and whooped things up until the enthusiasm was deafening. Cheers and
songs were practiced and Dan’s contribution made a great success.
(Alf’s verse, by the way, was not added.) Studies suffered a good deal
that last week and the faculty almost called a mass meeting of its own
to protest against the students’ neglect of lessons. “Kilts,” whose
real name was Mr. McIntyre and who taught mathematics, shook his head a
lot those days and predicted dire things when examination time arrived.
But sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof, and just now the one
thing in life was to witness the double humiliation of the Green.
The Cross-Country Team had its last work on Thursday when it was sent
over half the course at a little more than an amble, and the Eleven
held its last practice that afternoon. The Second Team disbanded to
the cheers of the students and went capering off the field, glad that
their period of hard work and hard knocks was at an end. The First went
through signal drill while the spectators cheered them collectively and
individually and finally trotted away, leaving the field for the last
time that year. The next afternoon the football team and the runners
went for a sail on Mr. Pennimore’s big steam yacht. It wasn’t an ideal
day for cruising about the sound, for there was a cold east wind and
a lowering sky, but the fellows took along plenty of sweaters and
blankets and enjoyed it immensely. The deck of the _Princess_ looked
like an Indian encampment with all those blue-and-gray blankets dotted
about. Mr. Pennimore didn’t accompany them, although pressed to do so.
“You’ll have a better time by yourselves,” he declared. “You won’t want
any old chaps like me on hand.”
There was one last, final, ecstatic meeting in the assembly hall on
Friday night at which speeches, if you could call them such, were
made by Coach Payson and his assistant, by Captain Loring, by Trainer
Ryan, by Captain Maury, of the Cross-Country Team, and by Mr. Bendix
on behalf of the faculty. Every speaker predicted success, which was
just as well, since one might as well talk hopefully even if they don’t
feel so, and was cheered to the echo. The Glee Club and the Banjo
and Mandolin Club were on hand to supply music and enthusiasm reigned
supreme until long after the usual bedtime. And then at ten thirty
the next morning the whole student body set out for the start of the
cross-country race.