SCHOOL SPIRIT AND SCHOOL INFLUENCES.
Next morning Frank made the acquaintance of Dr. Hobart, principal
of Queen's School. The Doctor had the reputation of being severe,
a terror to wrong doers, but gentle enough withal when things went
right. He was a mere wisp of a man, about sixty years old, not over
five feet tall, and with a thin, narrow face and parchment-like
skin. His shoulders were bowed a little, perhaps with his weight
of learning, for Dr. Hobart was considered one of the best of
preparatory school leaders. Indeed, his reputation went far and wide,
and the excellence of his school brought him pupils from many parts
of the country.
The Doctor's distinguishing feature was his eyes, or rather eye, for
he only had one which nature gave him. His natural left eye had many
years before been injured and removed. It was now replaced by one
of glass, and the fixed and unwinking position of it when the Doctor
was aroused bored straight through the soul of the culprit before him
and came out the other side, or so it seemed to the unfortunate who
faced him, accused of misdeeds. It would be a brazen youth, indeed,
who could stand before that penetrating glance from under the shaggy
brows.
Frank had heard a good deal about the Doctor, and it was with some
trepidation that he approached the august presence in his quarters on
the first floor, third entry of Warren.
"Old Glass-eye is a ring-snorter," Gleason had told him. "They say
he dines off freshmen. I'm a brave man, but I was glad when he was
through with me. I was so flim-fazzled when he turned that glass
orb of his on me that I couldn't have told whether the amateur
hundred-yard record had set at ten seconds or half an hour."
But the Doctor was in one of his most amiable moods when Frank was
ushered into his presence.
"This is the late-comer, is it?" he inquired, gently.
Frank interpreted it as a criticism, and hurried to say:
"Yes, sir. But I couldn't very well help being late. I was away for
my health, and my parents didn't really intend to have me go to
school till after Christmas, but I made such good progress that they
thought it best to get me in as early as possible, after all."
"H'm; and I suppose you wanted to come?"
"Oh, yes, sir. I like school, and I hope to go to college if I can
keep up my work here and pass the examinations."
"So you're going to college. That's good. We can give you the
training here; the rest of it depends on yourself. Where do you
expect to go to college, my young friend?" and the Doctor brought his
baleful eye to bear on Frank.
"York, sir."
"Very good, very good. You are going in for athletics, Mr. Armstrong?"
"Just a little, sir. Do you advise it?"
"Yes, Mr. Armstrong, I advise athletics--just a little, as you say.
But one thing I insist upon, that whatever you go in for, it must be
wholeheartedly. The great curse of the present time is the spirit
of dabbling. Don't be a dabbler." And the glass eye transfixed his
hearer. "Whatever you do, do well. When you are in the class-room,
do what you have to do. Make your time count. When you study, study;
when you play, play. If you go out on the athletic field, make the
most of it, and if you go into any sport, carry it to the highest
point of development you can consistent with the time you have to
give it. Athletics are only another kind of education, and carried
on in the right way they very powerfully supplement the work of the
class-room. And, above all things, play fair. Play hard, but play
fair. Win if you can, but be a gentleman in your winning, and in your
defeat, if you meet defeat, as you will in school and out of it. You
have the appearance of quality in your face. You have a chance here
to show what you can do in the class-room and on the field. Whatever
you do, make yourself felt. Make yourself respected, but also make
yourself felt. Respect your schoolmates worthy of respect, and make
them respect you by your uprightness.
"I did not mean to make this a lecture, my boy," added the Doctor,
pleasantly, the bushy eyebrows drawing into a kindlier line. "I want
to help set you straight on this school road, which is not so easy as
it may appear to you. If you ever want advice, and you think I can
help you, come to me without hesitation. I am not so black, maybe,
as I'm painted," and the Doctor's right eye assumed a kindly twinkle.
"And now," he continued, "go over to Mr. Parks, whom you will find
in Russell, and he will give you an outline of your school work and
assign your classes. Good morning."
"By Jove! he's a brick," said Frank, as he hurried across the yard.
"I thought I was going to find a bear, and he was nothing more than a
kindly human being with a whole reservoir of good advice."
Mr. Parks, the assistant master, inducted Frank into the school
routine, and the boy's school life began that morning auspiciously.
He felt that he had made a good friend in the Doctor, and he was bent
on satisfying his demand as far as studies were concerned. As to how
he would make his way with his schoolmates, was another matter, and
he approached it with less of a feeling of certainty.
In the early afternoon of that day Frank made a call on his old
friend Jimmy, who was industriously working up his history; but when
Frank put his head in at the door, the history book was shut with a
snap.
"Hello, Web-foot, how did you get along last night? No hazers, I
hope."
"Got along finely," said Frank, "in spite of lots of excitement. Took
a forced swim in the Wampaug last night, preceded by a young scrap in
No. 18, and this morning I had a session with the Doctor, who gave
me enough good advice to keep me straight in line through the whole
school course."
"The dickens you say!" exclaimed Jimmy. "You don't mean to say that
they got you after all?"
"They certainly did, got me good and hard. Started out to stretch
my neck down on the meadows somewhere,--that was the sentence they
said,--and then changed their minds, not being willing to sacrifice a
budding young genius like myself, and gave me the water cure."
"The water cure?"
"Yes, the water cure, which consisted in making me swim the river,
after nine o'clock, and back in my bare pelt."
Jimmy was indignant. "By George, that was tough. Who did it?"
"Oh, I don't know; half a dozen fellows were waiting for me in my
room, dumped me on the floor, tied my hands, carried me off with
a muffler around my face, and then, when I was half way across the
Wampaug, skipped and left me."
"Was Chip Dixon in the gang that hazed you?"
"I couldn't tell. The fellows were all masked."
"It's a beastly shame," blurted out Jimmy. "It'll come out, see if
it don't, and I wouldn't give a licked postage stamp for the chances
of the fellows who did it, if it comes to the Doctor's ears. I've a
notion to go out and play detective. To think that I was studying
here quietly, and you were being ducked in the river not two hundred
yards away!" And Jimmy jumped up and began to walk around the floor,
threatening vengeance on the perpetrators of the outrage.
"Oh, don't you bother about it. It gave them lots of fun, and it
didn't hurt me," said Frank. "The water sure was chilly when I struck
it first, but the swim wasn't long. It made me sleep like a top. And
perhaps some good may come out of it."
Jimmy continued to growl, but Frank laughed the incident away, and
the talk turned on the afternoon's football practice which Horton had
threatened would be a stiff one.
"Speaking of football," said Jimmy, "why don't you go out and do a
little something for your newly adopted school?"
"Oh, I wouldn't be any good. I'd like to try it, all right. But I've
got my work cut out for me, staying in school without mixing up in
football this fall anyway. Maybe by the time hockey comes around I'll
do some work if I'm standing well enough to escape the terrible eye
of the Doctor. But for this fall at least I'll do most of my football
work on the bleachers, and giving the right halfback of the eleven
friendly advice."
"No luck like that for me. I guess I'm not much good and I don't
stand well enough with the ruling powers. But maybe, bye-and-bye,
I'll get a chance. In the meantime I'll keep pushing and learn all I
can. Horton knows the game, doesn't he?"
"Yes, the way he spotted the bad play on both teams was a caution. He
must have twenty pairs of eyes."
At this moment in the conversation Lewis strolled into the room.
"I've decided," he announced with heavy dignity, "to cut out
football. I've been getting on pretty well at it, and the coach
doesn't want me to drop out now when I'm pretty sure of a place"
(Jimmy and Frank exchanged winks), "but I feel my studies need my
time. I think I'll go out for the Whitney Fellowship. So you fellows
will have to get along without my society down on the gridiron."
"Bad, too bad," murmured Jimmy. "Such a chance, too, for the team,
just now when you'd be put in at center. It would be a great thing
for Milton, too, to have a representative on the great Queen's School
eleven. It would be headlines for the papers. Sorry you can't give it
the time."
"And speaking of time," said Frank, "isn't it about time you were
getting under way for the gym? I think I see the gathering of
the clans from here," he added, looking out of the window in the
direction of the field.
"Wonder what Mr. Dixon will feel like when Lewis announces his
intention of retiring from the squad," said Jimmy, with a wink, as he
prepared to leave.
"And I wonder what Mr. Dixon will do to one James Turner," retorted
Lewis.
"Oh, I guess he won't bother him very much," said Frank.
"Is that so? Well, you don't know that youngster as well as we do.
You'll hear things about him when you've been here a little longer."
"I've heard some things and seen some others, and perhaps I know Mr.
Dixon better than he thinks I do. And I'm not far wrong when I say
that that young fellow will not bother Jimmy too much."
"Yes, you'll jump in and hand our lively young quarter a few straight
digs in the ribs, I suppose."
"Maybe so, but he had better keep himself to himself."
"Oh, come on here, stop your scrapping. Come on and watch the
emaciated Second, now that Lewis has left us, being smeared by the
riotous First. Oh, I hate to think of it," cried Jimmy, dashing out
of the door.
When the squad reported for practice at four o'clock sharp, Horton
had on his business face and he lost no time in getting things
moving. "I'm going to see if these two teams know anything about
football at all. We've been dodging around here playing tag for a
month. Now we've got to begin to play football. Let's have a little
punting and see if you backs can hold the ball to-day."
The backs were divided into two squads, and two of the best punters
were sent up to the middle of the field, with a center to snap the
ball. Boston Wheeler--his Sunday name was Worthington, but Boston
was handier, and better described him, as he came from that famous
city known as "the Hub"--was punting the ball in long, lazy curves
which carried thirty yards, and then dropped head first, much to the
disgust of the racing backs.
"Mine," yelled Spud Dudley as with hands outstretched and neck craned
he drove for one of Wheeler's high ones.
But he misjudged, as the ball dropped too straight for him and
bounced around on the group. The wrath of the coach was drawn upon
him instantly.
"What do you think you are catching, Dudley, a featherbed? Get under
those high ones. They drop quick when they come spinning with the
long axis parallel to the ground. Don't let them catch you napping.
And haven't I told you to make a little pocket for the ball between
your hands, which must be held closer together, and your chest? Then
the ball can't get away from you. That's better, Freshman." This was
directed to Jimmy, who took a low end-over-end punt from Dobson, the
other punter, at top speed. "I don't know where that Freshman got it,
but he has the right idea about catching punts," Horton added.
Punting practice went on for five minutes or so, and then, after a
brief signal drill between the First and Second elevens, the coach
called both teams to the middle of the field.
"Now, this is the last practice game before the Barrows game, and I
want you to do your best. You can win easily if you will only forget
about yourselves, and play for the team. Let's see you do it. Come
on, every one into it," and the whistle spoke out shrilly for the
beginning of the practice game.