TOBY ENTERTAINS
Toby had the little room under the roof of Whitson well tidied up by
eight o’clock. It still looked far from luxurious, but at least it was
clean. There was a faint odor of benzine to be detected, but there was
always that, and no amount of airing seemed to entirely banish it. Toby
sat down to study at a little after eight, but for the first half-hour
he was continually peering around in dubious appraisal of his efforts
or pushing back his chair and arising to turn the arm-chair a little
more to the left, at which angle its dilapidated seat was more in
shadow, or wedge the sagging door of the wardrobe more firmly shut or
work some similar improvement. After he finally did become absorbed in
study it seemed only a few minutes before nine o’clock struck.
Mr. Loring was very prompt, for Toby had only time to rearrange the few
articles on the top of the bureau for the fifth or sixth time when his
knock came at the door. Alfred Loring was twenty-five or -six years of
age and of medium height. His brown eyes had a disconcerting fashion
of twinkling merrily even when the other features of a good-looking
face proclaimed gravity, as though life was much more of a joke than he
wanted you to know. When Toby had somewhat embarrassedly conducted him
to the seat of honor and subsided into the straight chair by the table,
the visitor opened the conversation in a most unexpected way.
“This where you do your tailoring, Tucker?” he asked.
“Y-yes, sir,” Toby stammered. He had tried so hard to hide every trace
of that occupation, too! The gas-stove, its six feet of tubing wound
around it, reposed under the bed and the irons and other things were
in the bottom of the wardrobe. He wondered how Mr. Loring knew about
it, not surmising that the coach had naturally enough sought to learn
all he could of Toby before his visit. “I don’t do any tailoring,”
corrected Toby. “I just clean clothes and press them.”
“Get much to do?”
“Lots sometimes, sir. In winter I don’t get so much. Fellows don’t seem
to mess their things up in winter. They wear sweaters and old trousers
a good deal.”
“So you try to liven trade by offering special inducements? I see.
Well, that shows you have a business head, Tucker.”
Evidently Mr. Loring had seen _The Scholiast_. Toby hadn’t thought of
that likelihood. Of course, he wasn’t ashamed of cleaning clothes, but
Mr. Loring was such a correct, immaculately-attired gentleman――what
Toby a year ago would have called a “dude”――that he might lose interest
in a fellow who had to perform such labor to eke out his expenses. Toby
viewed Mr. Loring doubtfully and was silent.
“When I was here there was a fellow named Middlebury who used to make
rather a good thing of darning socks. He was a wonder at it. I’ve never
seen a woman do it better, by Jove! Charged two cents a pair, I think
it was, and was as busy as a hen. Nice chap, Middlebury was. Honor Man
two years and rowed on the crew. There isn’t much a fellow can do here,
though, to earn money, and you were clever to think of the cleaning
and pressing business. At college it’s rather different. All sorts
of things there for a chap; waiting on table, looking after furnaces
and shoveling snow and cutting grass, taking subscriptions, selling
things――no end to them.” Coach Loring looked around the little room,
but not at all critically. “I don’t believe I was ever in this room,
all the time I was at school here.”
“Where did you room, sir?” asked Toby.
“Clarke first, and then Dudley. I remember young Thompson roomed on the
floor below. Number 20, I think it was. I wonder what became of Arthur.
Funny how you lose track of fellows after you get away. They don’t
provide you with many luxuries up here, Tucker.”
“No, sir, but the rent isn’t very much, you see.”
“This is your first year, you said, didn’t you? Second class?”
“Third, sir. Maybe I ought to be in the second. I’m nearly sixteen――”
“You look fully that. I wouldn’t worry. I didn’t get out of here until
I was eighteen, and I’ve never regretted it. What do you do besides
hockey, Tucker? Go in for football any?”
“I tried for the second last Fall, but I didn’t make it. They said I
was too light, but I guess it was because I didn’t play well enough.”
Mr. Loring laughed. “You seem honest with yourself, my boy! Now, about
hockey. Like it, do you?”
“Very much, sir.”
“Did you want to play goal or did some one just put you there?”
“I was put,” answered Toby, smiling. “I didn’t know much about it when
I started to play. I tried being a forward, but I couldn’t seem to get
the hang of it. I don’t――don’t skate very fancy.”
“Well, I don’t remember that I did,” was the reply. “But I managed
to get around pretty well and they made me captain finally. So that
needn’t bother you, Tucker.”
“Did you play goal, sir?”
“Point. Vinton was goal then. And――let me see――Felder was cover point.
And then there was Roeder and Durfee and Pennimore――It was Gerald
Pennimore who gave the cup we play Broadwood for every year. Or,
rather, it was Gerald’s father.”
“The Pennimore Cup? I’ve seen some of them in the Trophy Room in the
gym. Did you beat Broadwood when you were captain, Mr. Loring?”
“I think so. By Jove, I don’t remember now! Hold on, though! Yes, we
did win. It was Gerald’s shot in the last minute or so that gave us the
game. We lost the year before that, though, I believe.” He shook his
head, smiling whimsically. “It used to be all terribly important then,
Tucker, but it doesn’t seem now to have mattered much who won! Only
three years ago I wanted to drown myself because the football team I
captained was beaten in its big game. I don’t believe any fellow was
ever much more unhappy. I thought the world had dropped into space or
the sky fallen in or something. It’s a wonderful thing to be young,
Tucker, and have enthusiasm. Take my advice, my boy, and get all the
honest fun out of life you can. First thing you know you’re twenty-five
years old and you’ve reached that awful stage when you’d rather sit
in front of a fire than put on spikes and run three miles through a
snow-storm for the honor of Yardley! Well, this isn’t hockey, is it? Do
you care enough about the game, Tucker, to take a lot of trouble and
work hard and be a real, genuine, rattling good goal-keeper?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Toby earnestly and eagerly.
“Well, I think you could be if you tried real hard. I like your style.
You remind me of old Dan Vinton. He used to stand up there in the same
cool, quiet way. Looked as if nothing mattered a bit to him, but I’ve
seen him stop two pucks at the same time in practice. Coolness is what
counts, Tucker, that and keeping your two eyes glued right to the puck
every moment.”
“Yes, sir, and after that?”
“Nothing after that but just practice. Get in front of your net and let
some one hammer away at you, some one who can serve them all styles,
high, low and every other way, and see how many you can stop. Take a
half an hour of that every day, Tucker. Have you a spare hour in the
morning?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Toby dubiously, “but I’m afraid I don’t know any
one who’d be willing to do that.”
“I’ll find you some one, then. A half-hour of shooting wouldn’t do
any one of those forwards a bit of harm,” added Coach Loring dryly.
“Another thing is this, Tucker. Study the man who’s making the shot.
See how he’s going to do it. Watch his stick. See whether he’s going
to scoop the puck at you or lift it. Learn to guess beforehand where
the puck is coming and how it’s coming. And don’t depend on your hands
to stop it. Sometimes a hand’s all right, but your body’s the surest
thing. Learn to be quick in getting from one side of the cage to the
other. Don’t have your skates too sharp, because you want to use them
quickly. You ought to follow that puck every second, even if it’s down
at the other goal. Get in the habit of watching it. And never rely on
some one else to make the stop. You may think that your cover point or
your point is going to do it, but don’t take it for granted. Always
be ready in case he fails. If the opponent with the puck gets by your
outer defense don’t get rattled. Just remember and tell yourself that
the opponent is every bit as anxious as you are. If you’re nervous,
he’s more so. Keep steady, get ready and watch! Half the time he will
shoot badly just because so much depends on his shooting well. It seems
in hockey that the better your chance the poorer your shot. Don’t let
any one draw you out from goal, Tucker, ever. It’s a good plan to go
out once in a blue moon, maybe, but do it when the other fellow isn’t
expecting you to. Don’t let him plan it. If the man with the puck is
past your point and there’s no one near to engage him, it’s sometimes
a mighty good play to rush out on him. But do it before he can get the
puck away and keep your body between the puck and the net. Vinton had
a way of sliding out sort of crouched down and with his arms out. He
looked like an angry hen, but he used to spoil many a shot that way.
There, that’s all I know about playing goal, Tucker, and maybe some of
it isn’t right!” Mr. Loring ended with a laugh.
“I’m awfully much obliged to you,” said Toby earnestly. “And I’d like
mighty well to have some one shoot for me every day, sir. Only I don’t
know many fellows very well. Deering has a recitation when I’m free and
so he couldn’t do it, you see.”
“I’ll find some one. What time in the morning could you be at the rink?”
“Between eleven and twelve, sir.”
“All right. You be ready for the day after to-morrow,” was the reply.
“If I can’t find any one else I’ll have a go at it myself. Good-night,
Tucker.” Mr. Loring held out his hand. “I hope I haven’t bored you with
my chatter.”
“Oh, no, sir! Why, I――I’ve had a――a fine time, sir!”
“Have you? Good stuff! Now don’t forget my boy, that you’re to work
hard. I’m going to help you. We all will. I want to see you in front of
that net three weeks from next Saturday.”
“That――that’s the Broadwood game, sir, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Does that scare you?”
“No, sir, it doesn’t scare me, but I’m afraid I won’t be good enough.”
“In three weeks, my boy, if you buckle down to it you’ll be quite good
enough. At least, you’ll be as good or better than any other goal
that’s in sight now. If Henry comes back in time――”
“Yes, sir, I know,” murmured Toby.
“Know what?”
“That he will play goal if he gets off probation.”
“Hm; well, if he does it will be your fault, Tucker.”
“My fault, sir? You mean that――that――”
“I mean that if you get along the way I expect you to it won’t matter a
mite to us whether Henry gets back or not! You tell yourself every day,
Tucker, that you are going to make a better goal-tend than Henry or
Lamson. Then prove you’re right. Good-night!”
After the door had closed behind his visitor Toby did a most
undignified thing. He took a run across the worn old carpet and
plunged headfirst onto the bed. It was certainly taking chances,
but the bed, although it rattled and groaned and creaked in all its
joints, withstood the assault. After that Toby wriggled his feet to
the floor, sat up on the side of the cot and, with hands plunged deep
into his pockets and gaze fixed on the opposite wall, muttered “_Gee!_”
ecstatically. And after a moment he said it again: “_Gee!_” Just like
that.