I dropped Mr. Calvin D. Cottle entirely out of my thoughts; but when I
entered the locker room shortly after noon the next day something
reminded me of him. Possibly it was the sound of his voice.
"Boy! Can't we have 'nother toddy here? What's the matter with some
service? How 'bout you, Wes? Oh, I forgot--you never take anything till
after five o 'clock. Think of all the fun you're missing. When I get to
be an old fossil like you maybe I'll do the same. Good rule.... You
gentlemen having anything? No? Kind of careful, ain't you? Safety first,
hey?... Just one toddy, boy, and if that mint ain't fresh, I'll ....
Yep, you're cagey birds, you are, but I give you credit just the same.
And some cash. Don't forget that. Rather have cash than credit any time,
hey? I bet you would! But I don't mind a little thing like that. I'm a
good sport. You ask Wes here if I ain't. If I ain't a good sport I ain't
anything.... Still, I'll be darned if I see how you fellows do it!
You're both old enough to have sons in the Soldiers' Home over yonder,
but you take me out and lick me again--lick me and make me like it! A
couple of dried-up mummies with one foot in the grave, and I'm right in
the prime of life! Only a kid yet! It's humiliating, that's what it is,
humiliating! Forty dollars apiece you're into me--and a flock of golf
balls on the side! Boy! Where's that mint toddy? Let's have a little
service here!"
I peeped through the door leading to the lounging room. The
Dubuque-California foursome was grouped at a table in a corner. The
Ooley-cow looked calm and placid as usual, but his guest was sweating
profusely, and as he talked he mopped his brow with the sleeve of his
shirt. Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott were listening politely, but the
speculative light in their eyes told me that they were wondering how far
they dared go with this outlander from the Middle West.
"Why," boomed Cottle, "I can hit a ball twice as far as either one of
you! 'Course I don't always know where it's going, but the main thing is
I got the _strength_. I can throw a golf ball farther than you old
fossils can hit one with a wooden club, yet you lick me easy as breaking
sticks. Can't understand it at all.... Twice as strong as you are....
Why, say, I bet I can take one hand and outdrive you! _One hand!_"
"Easy, Calvin," said the Ooley-cow reprovingly. "Don't make wild
statements."
"Well, I'll bet I can do it," repeated Cottle stubbornly. "If a man's
willing to bet his money to back up a wild statement, that shows he's
got the right kind of a heart anyway.
"I ought to be able to stick my left hand in my pocket and go out there
and trim two men of your age. I ought to, and I'll be damned if I don't
think I can!"
"Tut, tut!" warned the Ooley-cow. "That's foolishness."
"Think so?" Cottle dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out a
thick roll of bills. "Well, this stuff here says I can do it--at least I
can _try_--and I ain't afraid to back my judgment."
"Put your money away," said Perkins. "Don't be a fool!"
Cottle laughed uproariously and slapped the Ooley-cow on the back.
"Good old Wes!" he cried. "Ain't changed a bit. Conservative! Always
conservative! Got rich at it, but me I got rich taking chances. What's a
little wad of bills to me, hey? Nothing but chicken-feed! I'll bet any
part of this roll--I'll bet _all_ of it--and I'll play these sun-dried
old sports with one hand. Now's the time to show whether they've got any
sporting blood or not. What do you say, gentlemen?"
Uncle Billy looked at the money and moistened his lips with the tip of
his tongue.
"Couldn't think of it," he croaked at length.
"Pshaw!" sneered Cottle. "I showed you too much--I scared you!"
"He ain't scared," put in Old Man Sprott. "It would be too much like
stealing it."
"I'm the one to worry about that," announced Cottle. "It's my money,
ain't it? I made it, didn't I? And I can do what I damn please with
it--spend it, bet it, burn it up, throw it away. When you've worried
about everything else in the world it'll be time for you to begin
worrying about young Mr. Cottle's money! This slim little roll--bah!
Chicken-feed! Come get it if you want it!" He tossed the money on the
table with a gesture which was an insult in itself. "There it is--cover
it! Put up or shut up!"
"Oh, forget it!" said the Ooley-cow wearily. "Come in and have a bite to
eat and forget it!"
"Don't want anything to eat!" was the stubborn response. "Seldom eat in
the middle of the day. But I'll have 'nother mint toddy.... Wait a
second, Wes. Don't be in such a rush. Lemme understand this thing.
These--these gentlemen here, these two friends of yours, these dead-game
old Native Sons have got eighty dollars of my money--not that it makes
any difference to me, understand, but they've got it--eighty dollars
that they won from me playing golf. Now I may have a drink or two in me
and I may not, understand, but anyhow I know what I'm about. I make
these--gentlemen a sporting proposition. I give 'em a chance to pick up
a couple of hundred apiece, and they want to run out on me because it'll
be like stealing it. What kind of a deal is that, hey? Is it
sportsmanship? Is it what they call giving a man a chance? Is it----"
"But they know you wouldn't have a chance," interrupted the Ooley-cow
soothingly. "They don't want a sure thing."
"They've had one so far, haven't they?" howled Cottle. "What are they
scared of now? 'Fraid I'll squeal if I lose? Tell 'em about me, Wes.
Tell 'em I never squealed in my life! I win if I can, but if I
can't--'s all right. No kick coming. There never was a piker in the
Cottle family, was there, Wes? No, you bet not! We're sports, every one
of us. Takes more than one slim little roll to send us up a tree! If
there's anything that makes me sick, it's a cold-footed, penny-pinching,
nickel-nursing, sure-thing player!"
"Your money does not frighten me," said Uncle Billy, who was slightly
nettled by this time. "It is against my principles to play for a cash
bet----"
"But you and your pussy-footed old side-partner got into me for eighty
dollars just the same!" scoffed Cottle. "You and your principles be
damned!"
Uncle Billy swallowed this without blinking, but he did not look at
Cottle. He was looking at the roll of bills on the table.
"If you are really in earnest----" began Poindexter, and glanced at Old
Man Sprott.
"Go ahead, Billy," croaked that aged reprobate. "Teach him a lesson. He
needs it."
"Never mind the lesson," snapped Cottle. "I got out of school a long
time ago. The bet is that I can leave my left arm in the clubhouse
safe--stick it in my pocket--and trim you birds with one hand."
"We wouldn't insist on that," said Old Man Sprott. "Play with both hands
if you want to."
"Think I'm a welsher?" demanded Cottle. "The original proposition goes.
'Course I wouldn't really cut the arm off and leave it in the safe, but
what I mean is, if I use two arms in making a shot, right there is where
I lose. Satisfactory?"
"Perkins," said Uncle Billy, solemnly wagging his head, "you are a
witness that this thing has been forced on me. I have been bullied and
browbeaten and insulted into making this bet----"
"And so have I," chimed in Old Man Sprott. "I'm almost ashamed----"
The Ooley-cow shrugged his shoulders.
"I am a witness," said he quietly. "Calvin, these gentlemen have stated
the case correctly. You have forced them to accept your proposition----"
"And he can't blame anybody if he loses," finished Uncle Billy as he
reached for the roll of bills.
"You bet!" ejaculated Old Man Sprott. "He was looking for trouble, and
now he's found it. Count it, Billy, and we'll each take half."
"That goes, does it?" asked Cottle.
"Sir?" cried Uncle Billy.
"Oh, I just wanted to put you on record," said Cottle, with a grin.
"Wesley, you're my witness too. I mislaid a five-hundred-dollar note the
other day, and it may have got into my change pocket. Might as well see
if a big bet will put these safety-first players off their game! Anyhow,
I'm betting whatever's there. I ain't sure how much it is."
"I am," said Uncle Billy in a changed voice. He had come to the
five-hundred-dollar bill, sandwiched in between two twenties. He looked
at Old Man Sprott, and for the first time I saw doubt in his eyes.
"Oh, it's there, is it!" asked Cottle carelessly. "Well, let it all
ride. I never backed up on a gambling proposition in my life--never
pinched a bet after the ball started to roll. Shoot the entire works--'s
all right with me!"
Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott exchanged significant glances, but after
a short argument and some more abuse from Cottle they toddled over to
the desk and filled out two blank checks--for five hundred and eighty
dollars apiece.
"Make 'em payable to cash," suggested Cottle. "You'll probably tear 'em
up after the game. Now the next thing is a stakeholder----"
"Is that--necessary?" asked Old Man Sprott.
"Sure!" said Cottle. "I might run out on you. Let's have everything
according to Hoyle--stakeholder and all the other trimmings. Anybody'll
be satisfactory to me; that young fellow getting an earful at the door;
he'll do."
So I became the stakeholder--the custodian of eleven hundred and sixty
dollars in coin and two checks representing a like amount. I thought I
detected a slight nervousness in the signatures, and no wonder. It was
the biggest bet those old petty larcenists had ever made in their lives.
They went in to luncheon--at the invitation of the Ooley-cow, of
course--but I noticed that they did not eat much. Cottle wandered out
to the practise green, putter in hand, forgetting all about the mint
toddy which, by the way, had never been ordered.
V
"You drive first, sir," said Uncle Billy to Cottle, pursuing his usual
system. "We'll follow you."
"Think you'll feel easier if I should hit one over into the eucalyptus
trees yonder?" asked the man from Dubuque. "Little nervous, eh? Does a
big bet scare you? I was counting on that.... Oh, very well, I'll take
the honour."
"Just a second," said Old Man Sprott, who had been prowling about in the
background and fidgeting with his driver. "Does the stakeholder
understand the terms of the bet? Mr. Cottle is playing a match with each
of us individually----"
"Separately and side by each," added Cottle.
"Using only one arm," said Old Man Sprott.
"If he uses both arms in making a shot," put in Uncle Billy, "he
forfeits both matches. Is that correct, Mr. Cottle?"
"Correct as hell! Watch me closely, young man. I have no moustache to
deceive you--nothing up my sleeve but my good right arm. Watch me
closely!"
He teed his ball, dropped his left arm at his side, grasped the driver
firmly in his right hand and swung the club a couple of times in
tentative fashion. The head of the driver described a perfect arc,
barely grazing the top of the tee. His two-armed swing had been a thing
of violence--a baseball wallop, constricted, bound up, without
follow-through or timing, a combination of brute strength and
awkwardness. Uncle Billy's chin sagged as he watched the easy, natural
sweep of that wooden club--the wrist-snap applied at the proper time,
and the long graceful follow-through which gives distance as well as
direction. Old Man Sprott also seemed to be struggling with an entirely
new and not altogether pleasant idea.
"Watch me closely, stakeholder," repeated Cottle, addressing the ball.
"Nothing up my sleeve but my good right arm. Would you gentlemen like to
have me roll up my sleeve before I start?"
"Drive!" grunted Uncle Billy.
"I'll do that little thing," said Cottle, and this time he put the power
into the swing. The ball, caught squarely in the middle of the
club-face, went whistling toward the distant green, a perfect screamer
of a drive without a suspicion of hook or slice. It cleared the
cross-bunker by ten feet, carried at least a hundred and eighty yards
before it touched grass, and then bounded ahead like a scared rabbit,
coming to rest at least two hundred and twenty-five yards away. "You
like that?" asked Cottle, moving off the tee. "I didn't step into it
very hard or I might have had more distance. Satisfactory,
stakeholder?" And he winked at me openly and deliberately.
"Wha--what sort of a game is this?" gulped Old Man Sprott, finding his
voice with an effort.
"Why," said Cottle, smiling cheerfully, "I wouldn't like to say off-hand
and so early in the game, but you might call it golf. Yes, call it golf,
and let it go at that."
At this point I wish to go on record as denying the rumour that our two
old reprobates showed the white feather. That first tee shot, and the
manner in which it was made, was enough to inform them that they were up
against a sickening surprise party; but, though startled and shaken,
they did not weaken. They pulled themselves together and drove the best
they knew how, and I realised that for once I was to see their true
golfing form uncovered.
Cottle tucked his wooden club under his arm and started down the course,
and from that time on he had very little to say. Uncle Billy and Old Man
Sprott followed him, their heads together at a confidential angle, and I
brought up the rear with the Ooley-cow, who had elected himself a
gallery of one.
The first hole is a long par four. Poindexter and Sprott usually make it
in five, seldom getting home with their seconds unless they have a wind
behind them. Both used brassies and both were short of the green. Then
they watched Cottle as he went forward to his ball.
"That drive might have been a freak shot," quavered Uncle Billy.
"Lucky fluke, that's all," said Old Man Sprott, but I knew and they knew
that they only hoped they were telling the truth.
Cottle paused over his ball for an instant, examined the lie and drew a
wooden spoon from his bag. Then he set himself, and the next instant the
ball was on its way, a long, high shot, dead on the pin.
"And maybe that was a fluke!" muttered the Ooley-cow under his breath.
"Look! He's got the green with it!"
From the same distance I would have played a full mid-iron and trusted
in Providence, but Cottle had used his wood, and I may say that never
have I seen a ball better placed. It carried to the little rise of turf
in front of the putting green, hopped once, and trickled onto the sand.
I was not the only one who appreciated that spoon shot.
"Say," yapped Old Man Sprott, turning to Perkins, "what are we up
against here? Miracles?"
"Yes, what have you framed up on us?" demanded Uncle Billy vindictively.
"Something easy, gentlemen," chuckled the Ooley-cow. "A soft thing from
my home town. Probably he's only lucky."
The two members of the Sure-Thing Society went after their customary
fives and got them, but Cottle laid his approach putt stone dead at the
cup and holed out in four. He missed a three by the matter of half an
inch. I could stand the suspense no longer. I took Perkins aside while
the contestants were walking to the second tee.
"You might tell a friend," I suggested. "In strict confidence, what are
they up against?"
"Something easy," repeated the Ooley-cow, regarding me with his soft,
innocent eyes. "They wanted it and now they've got it."
"But yesterday, when he played with both arms----" I began.
"That was yesterday," said Perkins. "You'll notice that they didn't have
the decency to offer him a handicap, even when they felt morally certain
that he had made a fool bet. Not that he would have accepted it--but
they didn't offer it. They're wolves, clear to the bone, but once in a
while a wolf bites off more than he can chew." And he walked away from
me. Right there I began reconstructing my opinion of the Ooley-cow.
In my official capacity as stakeholder I saw every shot that was played
that afternoon. I still preserve the original score card of that amazing
round of golf. There are times when I think I will have it framed and
present it to the club, with red-ink crosses against the thirteenth and
fourteenth holes. I might even set a red-ink star against the difficult
sixth hole, where Cottle sent another tremendous spoon shot down the
wind, and took a four where most of our Class-A men are content with a
five. I might make a notation against the tricky ninth, where he played
a marvellous shot out of a sand trap to halve a hole which I would have
given up as lost. I might make a footnote calling attention to his
deadly work with his short irons. I say I think of all these things, but
perhaps I shall never frame that card. The two men most interested will
never forget the figures. It is enough to say that Old Man Sprott,
playing such golf as I had never seen him play before, succumbed at the
thirteenth hole, six down and five to go. Uncle Billy gave up the ghost
on the fourteenth green, five and four, and I handed the money and the
checks to Mr. Calvin D. Cottle, of Dubuque. He pocketed the loot with a
grin.
"Shall we play the bye-holes for something?" he asked. "A drink--or a
ball, maybe?" And then the storm broke. I do not pretend to quote the
exact language of the losers. I merely state that I was surprised, yes,
shocked at Uncle Billy Poindexter. I had no idea that a member of the
Episcopal church--but let that pass. He was not himself. He was the
biter bitten, the milker milked. It makes a difference. Old Man Sprott
also erupted in an astounding manner. It was the Ooley-cow who took the
centre of the stage.
"Just a minute, gentlemen," said he. "Do not say anything which you
might afterward regret. Remember the stakeholder is still with us. My
friend here is not, as you intimate, a crook. Neither is he a
sure-thing player. We have some sure-thing players with us, but he is
not one of them. He is merely the one-armed golf champion of
Dubuque--and the Middle West."
Imagine an interlude here for fireworks, followed by pertinent
questions.
"Yes, yes, I know," said Perkins soothingly. "He can't play a lick with
two arms. He never could. Matter of fact, he never learned. He fell off
a haystack in Iowa--how many years ago was it, Cal?"
"Twelve," said Mr. Cottle. "Twelve next July."
"And he broke his left arm rather badly," explained the Ooley-cow.
"Didn't have the use of it for--how many years, Cal?"
"Oh, about six, I should say."
"Six years. A determined man can accomplish much in that length of time.
Cottle learned to play golf with his right arm--fairly well, as you must
admit. Finally he got the left arm fixed up--they took a piece of bone
out of his shin and grafted it in--newfangled idea. Decided there was no
sense in spoiling a one-armed star to make a dub two-armed golfer.
Country full of 'em already. That's the whole story. You picked him for
an easy mark, a good thing. You thought he had a bad bet and you had a
good one. Don't take the trouble to deny it. Gentlemen, allow me to
present the champion one-armed golfer of Iowa and the Middle West!"
"Yes," said Cottle modestly, "when a man does anything, give him credit
for it. Personally I'd rather have the cash!"
"How do you feel about it now?" asked the Ooley-cow.
Judging by their comments, they felt warm--very warm. Hot, in fact. The
Ooley-cow made just one more statement, but to me that statement
contained the gist of the whole matter.
"This," said he, "squares us on the wallet proposition. I didn't say
anything about it at the time, but that struck me as a scaly trick. So I
invited Cal to come out and pay me a visit.... Shall we go back to the
clubhouse?"
* * * * *
I made Little Doc Ellis see the point; perhaps I can make you see it
now.
Returning to the original simile, the Ooley-cow was willing to be milked
for golf balls and luncheons and caddie hire. That was legitimate
milking, and he did not resent it. He would have continued to give down
in great abundance, but when they took fifty dollars from him, in the
form of a bogus reward, he kicked over the bucket, injured the milkers
and jumped the fence.
Why? I'm almost ashamed to tell you, but did you ever hear of a country
cow--an Iowa cow--that would stand for being milked from the wrong side?
I think this will be all, except that I anticipate a hard winter for the
golfing beginners at our club.