LETTERS AND RHYMES
Dick’s home letters became shorter about this time. Life was very
busy for him. He wrote the news, but he no longer indulged his pen in
descriptions. Sumner White had written twice from Leonardville, rather
long letters about the High School Team, with messages from Dick’s
former schoolmates and questions about Parkinson football methods.
Sumner’s faith in Dick remained unimpaired, although the latter had
still to announce his acceptance on the Parkinson First Team. “We are
all expecting big things from you, Dick old scout,” wrote Sumner in his
latest epistle. “Cal Lensen is going to get the Parkinson weekly to
exchange with the _Argus_ so he can keep tabs on you. So just remember
that we’re watching you, kid! Every time you make a touchdown for
Parkinson the old _Argus_ will have a full and graphic account of it
in the next number. But you’d better write now and then, besides. Good
luck to you, Dick, and that goes for all the ‘gang.’”
It wasn’t very easy to answer Sumner’s letters because answering
involved explaining why he hadn’t made the team. But Dick did answer
them. The following Sunday he wrote: “Got your letter Tuesday, but
saved it for today because Sunday’s about the only day a fellow has
time here for writing letters. Glad to get the news about everyone,
but very sorry to hear of the Chester game. But you fellows must
remember that Chester has the edge on you, anyway. Look at their coach
and all the money they spend and all that! Besides, 19-6 isn’t as bad
as we licked them two years ago. I guess you’ll have to find someone
for Mercer’s place. Ed tries hard, but he isn’t scrappy enough for
full-back. You need a fellow who isn’t afraid of a stone wall and
doesn’t get hurt the way Ed did all last year. What about Cleary? He’s
slow, I know, but you might speed him up this year, and he has lots
of fight.... Things here are humming along finely. We played Musket
Hill yesterday and just walked away with them. I told you I didn’t
fancy Driscoll, the coach, but I like him better, and I guess he does
know how to get the stuff out of a team. Talking about full-backs, I
wish you could see our man here in action. His name’s Kirkendall and
he comes from Kentucky. The fellows call him ‘K of K.’, or just ‘K’
sometimes. Well, he got started yesterday in the third period on our
forty and Stone (quarter) fed him the ball eight times and he landed
it on N. H.’s seven yards, and he’d have taken it over, too, if Stone
hadn’t acted the silly goat and switched to Warden. It took Warden and
Gaines both to get it over then, but they did it. Only it seemed too
bad not to let K. get the credit for the touchdown after smashing all
the way for fifty yards. Stone doesn’t use his head, it seems to me.
But he does play a good individual game. For all-round work, though,
our captain, Bob Peters, is the star of the team. He plays right end,
and he’s a wonder at it. Talk about getting down under punts! Gee, Sum,
he’s under the ball from the minute it’s kicked, and he seems to always
know just where it’s going, too. But he’s just as good on defence, and
the way he handled the opposing tackle yesterday was a marvel. He’s
a dandy captain, too, for all the fellows swear by him and would do
anything he asked them to, I guess.
“I’m still pegging along on the outside, and maybe I won’t make the
team this year. There are nearly five hundred students here and a
lot of them are corking football players and a fellow has got to be
mighty good to even get looked at by the coach. So you mustn’t be
surprised if you don’t see my name in the _Leader_ this year. Of course
it’s early yet, and I might have luck, but I’m not counting on it
much. I’m having a good time, though. Some of the football chaps are
corkers, _big_ fellows, you know. I mean big every way, not only in
size. They’re big enough in size, though, believe me, Sum. Gee, I was
certainly surprised when I saw how the team stacked up. Why, Newhall,
the right guard, must weigh two hundred pounds, and Cupp isn’t any
light-weight either. Another thing I was surprised at was the way
they go at football here. Everything’s all arranged and cut out six
months ahead and it’s the most business-like proposition I ever saw.
There’s an Athletic Committee first, composed of three faculty and two
students, the football and baseball managers usually. Then there’s the
Head Coach, and under him the trainer and his assistant. The committee
meets every week and then there’s a meeting in the coach’s room every
night but Sunday and everything is threshed out and plans made for
the next day. There doesn’t seem to be a moment wasted here. Just at
first I thought it was too professional or something, but I guess it’s
just being efficient. It works all right, anyway. Well, I must stop
and go over to see a fellow in the village with Stan. I’ll tell you
about that fellow some time. He’s a wonder! Remember me to everyone and
think over what I wrote about Leary. I forgot to tell you the score
yesterday. It was 27-3. Some game, eh?”
Dick might have written a little more truthfully that he wasn’t
counting at all on making the First Team, for at the end of the first
fortnight at Parkinson it was pretty evident to him that he had still
some distance to go before he would reach the proficiency of fellows
like Peters and Kirkendall and Warden and several more. The fact that
he had loomed up as an uncommonly good quarter-back at Leonardville
High School, and that the town papers had hailed him as a star of the
first magnitude, didn’t mean much to him here. He saw that Parkinson
and Leonardville standards were widely apart. Why, there were fellows
on the Second Team here who were better than anything Leonardville had
ever seen! But Dick took his disappointment philosophically. He meant
to try very hard for a place on the big eleven, no matter how humble
it might be, and so get in line for next year. He wondered sometimes
if he wouldn’t have shown himself wiser had he gone out for the Second
Team instead. There was still time for that, for very often candidates
released from the First Team squad went to the Second and made good,
but somehow he didn’t like the idea of trying for the moon and being
satisfied with a jack-o’-lantern! No, he decided, if he failed at the
First he would quit for that year and try all the harder next. Rumors
of a first cut were about on the Monday following the Musket Hill game,
and Dick prepared for retirement to private life. The cut didn’t come,
however, until Thursday, and when it did come it passed Dick by. Why,
he couldn’t make out. Fellows like Macomber and Swift and Teasdale
disappeared and Dick remained. And Macomber and the others were, in
Dick’s estimation, much better players than he. But he accepted his
good fortune and went on trying very hard to make good, telling himself
all the time that the next cut would take him, certainly.
But if Dick’s success at football was in a measure disappointing, his
faculty for making friends had not deserted him. He had acquired many
by the end of the first fortnight at school. Of course, they were not
all close friends, but they were more than mere acquaintances. Among
the close friends he counted Stanley first. Then came Blash and Sid
and Rusty. His liking for Blash--and Blash’s for him--seemed to have
started after the episode of the telephone call. Because Dick had
fooled Blash and Blash had taken it smilingly seemed no good reason for
an increase of friendship, but there it was! Blash still threatened
to get even some day, and Dick was certain that he would, but that
only made the mutual liking stronger. As between Sid Crocker and Rusty
Crozier, Dick would have had trouble saying which he liked the better.
Rusty was far more amusing, but Sid was a dependable sort of chap. In
trouble, Dick would have thought first of Sid. Oddly enough, Dick’s
popularity was greater amongst fellows older than he. Each of those
whom he counted real friends was at least a year his senior, and Harry
Warden, with whom acquaintanceship was fast warming into friendship,
was nearly two years older. But the disparity in age was not greatly
apparent, for Dick had the growth and manners of eighteen rather than
seventeen, and one who didn’t know the truth might well have thought
him as old as either Stanley or Rusty.
Of enemies, so far as he knew, Dick had made but one. Sanford Halden
allowed no opportunity to remind Dick of his enmity to get past him. He
had been among those dropped from the First Team squad in that first
cut and it appeared that he somehow managed to hold Dick to blame
for that. When they passed in hall or on campus Sandy always had a
malevolent scowl for him, and once or twice Dick thought he even heard
mutters! All this Dick found mildly amusing. Sandy reminded him of a
villain in a cheap melodrama. A few days after the cut Dick heard that
Sandy had attached himself to the Second Nine for fall practice.
Football took up a great deal of Dick’s time and much of his thought,
but he managed to maintain an excellent standing in each of his courses
and thus won the liking of most of the instructors with whom he came
in contact. With Mr. Matthews, who was Dick’s advisor, he was soon on
close terms of intimacy. The instructor was one of the younger faculty
members, a man with a sympathetic understanding of boys, and tastes
that included most of the things that boys liked. He had a passion
for athletics and was one of the Nine’s most unflagging rooters. But
for all this he was not generally liked. The younger boys, who formed
most of his classes, were suspicious of his fashion of regarding
them individually instead of as a whole. They declared, some of them
at least, that he “crowded” them. By which, in school parlance, was
meant that he tried to be too friendly. They resented his attempts to
interest himself in their doings outside classes. Among the older
boys, however, he was a prime favourite, and his study in Williams was
the scene of Friday evening “parties” that were always well attended.
Anyone was welcome. There was much talk, the subjects ranging from the
value of the “spitball” in pitching to the influence of Bible study
on literary style. At nine o’clock ginger ale and cookies--the latter
especially made by a woman in the town and transferred each Friday from
her house to the school in a laundry box by Mr. Matthews--were served.
Perhaps some of the guests were present more on account of the ginger
ale and molasses cookies than for any other reason, for the cookies had
long since gained a wide fame, but none questioned their motives.
Stanley and Dick attended one of the parties the Friday following the
Musket Hill game. There were more than a dozen fellows already in
the room when they arrived, most of whom Stanley knew and a few of
whom were known to Dick. All the usual seating accommodation being
exhausted, the instructor had dragged his bed to the door of the
adjoining room, and on the edge of that the newcomers found places,
they and a spectacled youth named Timmins completely filling the
doorway. Conversation was still general. Mr. Matthews, dropping a
word now and then into the noisy confusion, was at his study table
cutting sheets of paper into quarters with a pair of shears. He
wasn’t a bit impressive, being under rather than over medium height
and slight of build. He had light hair that was already thin over
the forehead, bluish eyes and light lashes, all of which gave him a
somewhat colourless appearance. But there was an inquiring tilt to the
short nose, a humorous droop at the corners of the mouth and a very
determined protrusion of the chin that lent interest to the countenance.
The study was a comfortable sort of place. The woodwork was painted
mahogany brown and there was a lightish buff paper on the walls and
many books in the low cases and a few really good engravings above.
The furniture was old, rather dilapidated and most friendly. Even
the chairs whose backs were straightest and whose seats looked most
uncompromising had acquired unsuspected and hospitable curves. There
was a deep red rug, rather a good rug it was if you knew anything about
Mousuls, and a “saddle-bag” was stretched along the window-seat. Just
now the latter was hidden by four of the guests.
Mr. Matthews dropped the shears and rapped for attention. “Before we
settle the affairs of nations, fellows, as is our weekly custom,” he
announced in his pleasant and somewhat precise voice, “I propose
that we spend a half-hour in mere recreation. This particular form of
recreation is not original with me. I ran across it in the summer.
Half a dozen of us were trying to live through the third day of a
northeast storm down on the Maine coast. We’d exhausted every known
means of staving off imbecility when one of the party, he happened
to be a clergyman, by the way, introduced--should I say ‘sprung,’
Harris?--sprung this on us. ‘There are three things,’ he said, ‘that
every man firmly believes he can do. One is run a hotel, another is
conduct a newspaper and the third is write poetry.’ He proposed that we
should write poetry. We tried, and the results, if not calculated to
win us undying fame, were at least amusing. Suppose, then, we try the
same stunt this evening. Here are some pencils and two fountain pens.
You are respectfully requested to leave the pens behind when you go
out. The pencils I leave to your consciences. And here are some sheets
of paper. Ford, would you mind distributing to those behind you? And
you, McEwen? Thank you. Now the idea is to choose the surname of one
of the party and write a two-line verse, the first line ending with
the--er--victim’s name. Want to try it?”
“Yes, sir!” “We’ll try anything once!” “My middle name is Tennyson, Mr.
Matthews!”
“All right. And for the one who writes what is voted to be the best
effusion, there is a prize concealed in this drawer here.”
Loud applause from the assemblage, and an inquiry from the window-seat:
“Please may we see it first, sir?”, followed by more applause and
laughter.
“Sorry, Neal, but the prize is not to be seen until won. I want you
to really try! To illustrate the style of composition to be followed,
I give you this, gentlemen, craving your indulgence. It is one of my
attempts on the occasion mentioned. I ran across it the other day and
it gave me the idea of trying the game this evening. In explanation I
may say that the gentleman mentioned was a super-excellent golf player
and very, very thin as to body.
‘Fore! Fore! Here comes the devastating Felton,
To all opponents “The Inhuman Skel’ton”!’
The rhyme is obviously of the licensed sort! But you get the idea,
don’t you? Now, let’s select a name. Which shall we start with?”
“Ford, sir. That’s easy,” someone suggested.
“Very well. Three minutes is allowed. When the time is up I’ll call
‘Time’ and you will at once stop. Ready? Everyone supplied with pencil
and paper?”
“All set!” “Let ’er go, sir!”
“Now!” said Mr. Matthews, his eyes on his watch. The laughter was
stilled and fifteen pens or pencils were poised over as many sheets of
paper. Then mutters arose and feet shuffled. “Say, what rhymes with
‘Ford’?” asked Timmins of Stanley in an audible whisper. Chuckles arose
and De Vitt answered, “‘Flivver,’ Tim!” Dick was still struggling when
the time was up and his second line was lacking a rhyme.
“Now we will read the results in turn,” said Mr. Matthews. “Suppose you
begin, Harris.”
“Not prepared, sir,” answered “Tip” Harris.
Three others answered to the same effect and it was Cashin who
bashfully produced the first composition, as follows:
“Apollo had nothing on Goody Ford.
He’s cross-eyed and lantern-jawed.”
“Ingenious,” commented Mr. Matthews, when the laughter had stopped,
“but rather a libel on Ford. You’re next, Elders.”
“I didn’t get mine done, sir. I think your watch was fast!”
“How about you, Gard?”
“Guess you might as well open that drawer, sir!” And Stanley read:
“He seeks no prize, does Goody Ford,
For virtue is its own reward.”
That won much applause, for Ford, whose appellation of “Goody,” derived
from his given name of Goodman, was no indication of his behaviour, had
scorned to take part in the competition. Two other verses were read
and then a second name was chosen. This time it was Cashin, and nearly
everyone turned in something. The best of them, if applause was any
indication, was Neal’s:
“I sing the praise of our Beau Cashin,
The latest cry in mode and fashion.”
“That rhyme requires a license, too, Neal,” laughed Mr. Matthews. “I
might say, fellows, that it isn’t absolutely necessary to ‘knock’!”
“No, sir,” agreed De Vitt, “but it’s easier!”
Which rejoinder brought De Vitt into the limelight, and his name was
tried next. Gerald De Vitt was editor-in-chief of the school weekly,
_The Leader_, a likable fellow who took himself a bit seriously, who
wrote long, sensible and very dull editorials, and who mistakenly
conducted a column of allegedly humorous matter that was the despair of
his friends. Consequently when Stanley read his production the howl of
laughter that arose held as much applause as amusement.
“Here in our circle frowns the grave De Vitt,
Revered as Mentor and deplored as Wit!”
Later someone suggested trying “Matthews” and there were many dismal
failures and just one quasi-success. The latter was Dick’s.
“Though anger may assail our Matthews
His cheek ne’er shows the sanguine wrath hues.”
In the end it was Stanley’s couplet on De Vitt that was voted the
prize and Mr. Matthews gravely opened the desk drawer and as gravely
presented the fortunate contestant with a large red apple! It was
quite the largest apple any of them had ever seen, and, while it was
passed around, the instructor explained that it was one of a plate of
prize-winners at the County Fair. At Stanley’s request a knife was
produced and the apple was divided into sixteen pieces and distributed.
Mr. Matthews brought out the “spread” and for an hour longer the
gathering munched delectable cookies and drank ginger ale and
talked. On the whole, the occasion was a very enjoyable one, and Dick
determined that hereafter his Friday evenings should be spent in Number
2 Williams. And, although he missed a “party” now and then, he kept
that promise to himself fairly well.