LEARNING TO RUN THE HUNDRED.
Frank was at the gymnasium at 2 o'clock the next afternoon, garbed in
a running rig that the Codfish had given him.
"How did you come to have running clothes with you?" asked Frank,
surprised when the Codfish produced from the recesses of his trunk a
neat blue jersey and a pair of spotless running trousers.
"My fond papa said he thought I ought to take some exercise when he
sent me up here. He told me he was a peach of a runner in his school
days, and talked so much about the way he walloped every one in sight
on the track that I got kind of ambitious, and let mother put these
things in."
"Why don't you go out for running yourself? You ought to make a
runner," and Frank gazed admiringly at the long legs which Gleason
had spread out on the window seat, the lower parts of them dressed in
gorgeous green socks.
"Oh, I don't like to fatigue myself. If I run I grow weary, and if
I'm weary I must rest, and I'd much rather rest without being weary
first. Don't feel backward about taking the duds, old chappie,
because your Uncle Dudley will never put them on. If they had
something like a 15-yard dash I might get out and make a record or
two myself, but since the shortest distance is a hundred yards and
the longest is a mile, I guess I'll put my spare time in some other
way."
"And how about your father's ambitions for you?"
"Oh, dad won't mind. I don't believe he was much of a runner anyway.
He just lets his imagination carry him away."
So Frank became the possessor of a fine outfit, and wore it that
afternoon with considerable pride. Patsy nodded pleasantly as he came
onto the track. "See you're on time," he said. "Now jog around the
track very easily two or three times just to get limbered up, and
then we will have a few starts with Collins and you. Felt sore this
morning, did you?"
"Legs pained me when I woke up this morning. Dreamed that I fell out
of an aeroplane."
"It's the jumping," said Patsy. "I've known fellows when they began
to jump to be so sore they'd have to walk with a cane. But you'll
soon be over that."
"I sincerely trust so; it's no fun."
Patsy was like the manager of a three-ring circus, as any track
trainer, who knows what he is there for and who is worth his salt,
ought to be. He had a word of caution to the long-distance runner
to run flat-footed and save himself for the sprint, if sprint he
must at the end of his race; to the pole-vaulter he reiterated the
oft-repeated injunction that to get over the bar when it was 10 feet
up meant to pull up with the arms and not altogether a spring from
the legs; to the hurdler he gave a minute of his valuable attention,
indicating where his take-off for the barrier was too near or too far
away, and if he lost too much time in the flight.
"If you're going to hurdle on this track you've got to get down to
the track and run on it and not try to sail through the air." And
even when he wasn't giving direct coaching, Patsy was making mental
notes for use later on when they would be of more value to the
coached.
Frank had jogged around several times when Patsy hailed him on one of
his trips, and said: "Now I want you and Collins and Herring"--that
was the other sprinter in the school, a second string man to
Collins--"to come up to the start of the hundred. We will do a little
work."
The little work consisted in getting down at the starting line,
balancing delicately on the balls of the feet--the one just on the
starting line and the other about fourteen inches behind--with the
tips of the fingers resting lightly on the ground, and at the sound
of the pistol, shooting forward from that position without the delay
of a thousandth part of an eye-wink.
On the first trial Frank made a sorry mess of it. The crouching
sprinter's start was new to him. He had started the day before from
a straight standing position, but when he got to the crouching
attitude--pictures of which he had seen many times, and as many
times wondered how runners could possibly start from such an awkward
position--he found it necessary to come to an upright position before
he could get under way. Both Collins and Herring gained a stride on
him at the very start, and a stride is a lot in a hundred yard race.
"See here, Armstrong," said Patsy. "The sprinter, that is the fellow
who runs the short distance, hasn't time to start off easy. From the
shot he must be moving forward. Now you come straight up. Watch me,"
and Patsy dropped down to the racing position, and shot away from it
with an astonishing swiftness that made Frank open his eyes. Patsy in
his time had been one of the best runners, and knew to a nicety just
how to do the trick.
"Come on, now again, and remember that you shoot out and not up," and
Patsy held the pistol over his head. "Get ready, set----" but Frank
in his eagerness felt that the pistol shot was coming, and dashed off
only to recover in a moment, and return shame-facedly to the mark.
"That would cost you a yard, Armstrong, if it had been an actual race
you were running. But we'll not penalize you this time. Now again."
Little by little Frank began to get the science of starting. Patsy
showed him the why and wherefore of hole-digging so that the starter
would get a better grip with his feet. In a dozen or more starts
Frank showed improvement steadily, and was overjoyed at the praise of
the trainer.
"You are doing well, Armstrong," said Patsy; "keep it up. Now take
a little rest while I see what these high jumpers are doing. They
look from here as if they were playing leap-frog. Those fellows never
will learn to turn right when they get in the air," and he hurried
off to correct some faults his keen eye had detected even from that
distance. While he was gone the boys pranced around and took a couple
of starts by themselves.
"Have you run much?" inquired Herring, who was a Junior and had
worked hard for what he got. He was not especially well built for
sprinting, being a little too stocky and short-legged, but what he
lacked in form he made up in determination. He had almost reached his
limit in development and never could be a first-rater.
"No," said Frank, "I've never run before; this is my first offence."
"Gee whiz, you'll soon have me lashed to the mast. If you can hold
the gait you strike at the start clear through to the finish, I'll
be third string right off the reel. Here's Patsy back to give us our
trial on the hundred."
"Now, boys," said Patsy, "this is the last for you to-day. I want you
to run this hundred through as fast as you can. Collins, you take
the pole; Herring, you next; and you, Armstrong, have the outside.
No crowding. And, Armstrong, don't forget what I told you; don't
lose time getting up--the finish isn't up in the air, it's down the
track a hundred yards. On your marks!----" The three stepped into
the little holes they had dug for their feet. "Get set!----" They
crouched and touched the tips of their fingers to the ground, leaning
well forward, necks craned and eyes straight ahead.
"Bang!" went the pistol, and six legs and six arms began to work
like pistons. Frank had somehow remembered his instructions and got
a better start even than Herring. He tore along ahead of that runner
who was making a desperate effort to reach him. Collins was running
freely on the pole, a half stride in advance. For half the distance
the order remained the same, but then Frank's lack of training and
lack of experience began to tell, and Herring reached him. At the
80 yards he was running breast to breast with Herring, but that
individual's bandy but powerful legs and better wind carried him
ahead from that point. Collins finished first, Herring second, and
Frank a good third.
"Well run," shouted a hearty voice from the side of the course as
the three runners pulled up just beyond the finish line; and Frank,
looking up, saw Colonel Powers and David at the side of the track. He
ran over and shook hands, overjoyed to see them. "Thought you weren't
coming till Thursday," said Frank, "and this is only Wednesday."
"Well, you see," returned the Colonel, "David couldn't stand it any
longer. We came up to Milton last night intending to go down to Eagle
Island to-day to look after the house, but David persuaded me to come
out here instead, and so here we are. But I didn't know you were a
runner as well as a swimmer."
"O, I'm a pretty poor apology for a runner. Maybe I'll be able to run
some day and win a point for the school."
"Well, judging by the way you were coming down the stretch with those
two fellows, you would be able to put the Powers family to shame, eh,
David?"
"Frank can do anything he undertakes as well as the next one," said
David, "and I think if he starts out to run he can do it and win.
Don't you remember the race down at St. Augustine, father?"
"Track work is over for the day," said Frank; "come along to the
gym while I get into my everyday clothes, and we'll go up to the
room; or, if you would like to, we'll go over and see the football
practice. David, you remember Jimmy, don't you? Well, he is a
candidate for halfback on the school eleven, and in spite of his
being a Freshman, I think he'll make it."
"Jimmy was the owner of the _Foam_ that sunk in the foam, was he
not?" inquired the Colonel. "I remember how plucky he was when we
picked him out of the water. You all were, for that matter."
"And Lewis Russell is here, too, in the same class with us; they
entered at the first of the term, and I came in three weeks late."
"Is Lewis on the eleven, too?" inquired David.
"No; Lewis' football sun set very early in his career, and now he
sits on the bleachers the same as I do, and watches the other fellows
get talked to by the coach.
"How does it come, David, that you changed your mind about school? I
thought you were going to study with a tutor the same as last year,"
said Frank.
"The trouble was," said Colonel Powers, "that David, who has been a
pretty quiet fellow all his life, got a taste of companionship this
summer on the yacht, and when he went back to his tutor, old Mr.
Melcher, he found the work drier than ever. So he wanted to know if
he couldn't come along to Queen's with you."
"Yes," said David for himself. "Before I met you I didn't think I'd
go to school at all, but last summer changed me somehow. I saw what a
good time Burton had, and when I thought of you over here making lots
of friends and taking part in things, I wanted to come along."
"Yes, and it happens," said the Colonel, "that Doctor Hobart is a
personal friend of mine, and it was easily arranged that David come
here, though it is nearly the end of October and half the first term
gone. The only difficulty about it seems to be, for I have just had
a talk with the Doctor, in getting the right kind of a room for him;
they are crowded to the limit here."
"Oh, I forgot to tell you that the room part of it is all arranged.
He's going to bunk in with me. The night I got your telegram I put it
up to Gleason, my room-mate, and he had no objections. The place is
not big, but plenty big enough for us two."
David beamed with joy, and the Colonel expressed his pleasure that
the boys were to be together again. "David needs companionship to
bring him out of himself," he said, "and it is possible that David
may be a help to you, Frank."
That night the Colonel and David sat down to table in the school
dining hall together with Frank and Jimmy and Lewis, and when dinner
was over they strolled under the great elms of the school yard and
listened to the Glee Club singing on the steps of Russell Hall. To
David it was like fairy-land.