TELLS HOW THE FOUR LAID PLANS AND HOW BOB PREPARED FOR A VICTORY
Nelson awoke the next day to find himself a hero. Being a hero has
its discomforts, and Nelson encountered them. The smaller boys dogged
his footsteps and were proud and haughty for the rest of the day if
they succeeded in getting a word from him. The older boys had less
transparent ways of showing their admiration, but show it they did, and
Nelson, naturally somewhat shy, suffered much annoyance. This state of
things, however, lasted but a few days, for the end of the vacation
was almost at hand and the inhabitants of Camp Chicora had many things
to occupy their minds. The water sports were almost due and on the
next Saturday but one came the final game with Wickasaw, to decide the
summer’s supremacy in baseball. On the following Monday the long trip
began for all save Bob, Nelson, and Dan, who were to return home on
that day.
During his three days’ absence from camp the nine, minus their captain,
had met defeat at the hands of a team from a near-by resort, and
Bob regretted the fact and resolved that nothing should deter them
from winding up the baseball season with a decisive victory over
their particular rival, Camp Wickasaw. With this in view he began
morning practise, by which there was a good three hours a day of
batting, fielding, and base-running instead of two as heretofore. The
preparations for the water carnival interfered somewhat with the work,
for Dan and Joe Carter, as well as a couple of the lesser baseball
lights, were to take part in the sports. But Bob put in substitutes
from the scrub when necessary and kept at it, having set his heart on
final success.
The carnival came on Saturday afternoon and was held in Joy’s Cove, on
the shore of which Camp Trescott was situated. Chicora, Trescott, and
Wickasaw were the contestants, and the audience numbered fully three
hundred persons, friends of the boys of the three camps, visitors from
neighboring hotels, and residents from near-by towns and villages.
Chicora went over in the steam-launch, the motor-dory, the skiffs,
and the canoes, after an early dinner, with flags flying. Wickasaw
followed them across, and the rival cheers echoed over the lake. Camp
Trescott was in holiday attire, the camp colors, green and white, being
everywhere displayed. The pier and adjacent shore were thronged with
spectators, and many boats floated on the waters of the cove.
The events started off with the four-oared barge race. Only Chicora and
Trescott entered. The course was a little under two miles in length
and led to a buoy near Evergreen Island and return. Chicora’s four got
the better of the start, and when the turn was reached they were two
lengths to the good. But poor steering around the buoy lost them almost
all of that advantage, and the Trescott four were quick to profit. On
the return course they overtook Chicora’s boat, passed it a few hundred
yards from the finish, and crossed the line a good three lengths in the
lead. So first honors went to the green and white, and cheers for Camp
Trescott awoke the echoes.
Chicora did better in the race for steel boats, her entry, manned by
Joe Carter, finishing a hundred feet ahead of the Wickasaw boat, which
in turn led the Trescott skiff by many yards.
The fifty-yard swimming race for boys under sixteen brought out a
large number of entries, Chicora offering seven of the number. Her
hopes rested on “Kid” Rooke. With such a large field there was lots
of crowding and splashing at the line, and many a good swimmer was
put out of it at the start. Rooke luckily had the forethought to swim
under water for the first eight or ten strokes and so avoided some of
the youths who, with little hope of winning themselves, were anxious
to get in the way of dangerous rivals. It was a pretty contest from
start to finish, Rooke fighting it out to the very end with Peterson of
Wickasaw and White of Trescott and only winning by an arm’s length in
fifty seconds. The race over the same course for the elder boys proved
a walkover for an eighteen-year-old Wickasaw youth, who never had to
hurry, and finished in forty-seven seconds.
In the half-mile event Tom entered for Chicora and found himself
opposed to two Wickasaw and three Trescott fellows. The course was laid
straight out from the landing to a boat moored off Bass Island. The
swimmers were to round the boat and return on the same course. The six
contestants lined up on the edge of the landing and at the word from
Mr. Powers of the Wickasaw Camp dove head foremost and struck out for
the stake-boat.
Tom wasn’t much at sprinting, and so when half the distance out had
been covered he was several yards behind the leaders. But the pace had
been a fast one, and Tom knew that sooner or later it must slow down.
And it did. As the six approached the boat, the leaders, two Trescott
fellows, were swimming at ordinary speed and were making hard work of
it. They turned homeward first, but after that dropped rapidly behind.
A quarter of the way back Tom, still swimming the same stroke he had
started with, passed them and pulled himself into third place. Twenty
yards farther on he came abreast of the Wickasaw crack; while, still
maintaining a good lead, sped the third Trescott entry.
On the landing and along the curving shore of the cove and out on the
point scantily attired youths were jumping and shouting encouragement
to the swimmers. Cheers for Chicora, for Wickasaw, and for Trescott
mingled. A hundred yards from the finish it seemed that Trescott had
the race beyond a doubt. But Tom, twenty yards in the rear and well
past the Wickasaw rival, still swam steadily, hand over hand, burying
his face in the water at every stroke, and putting every ounce of
strength into his work. Not quite every ounce, either, for when some
eighty yards from the finish his arms began to move just a little
faster but not less regularly, and the distance between first and
second men slowly lessened. Chicora saw this and her cheers took on a
more hopeful note.
If Tom couldn’t sprint, at least he had wisely saved something for
just such an emergency as this. It wasn’t so much that he increased
his stroke as that he put more power into it. With fifty yards yet to
cover he had cut the twenty yards in half, and he was still gaining.
Trescott’s cries grew frantic, but her representative failed to
respond. He had made a long, hard race, had set the pace all the way
from the turn, and had used himself up in striving to beat the Wickasaw
swimmer, whom he had believed to be the only dangerous opponent. And
now he had nothing in reserve. The nearer he fought to the finish
line the weaker grew his strokes, and Tom, swimming like a piece of
machinery, moving arms and legs slowly but powerfully, came abreast of
him sixty feet from the line, and without raising his dripping head
from the surface or altering his stroke a mite drew steadily away from
him and won by ten or twelve feet in the creditable time of seventeen
minutes and nineteen and two-fifths seconds. And Chicora laughed and
cheered as Dan walked into the water up to his knees and, lifting Tom
bodily in his arms, brought him ashore in triumph.
Meanwhile Trescott had won the fifty-yard underwater race and Wickasaw
had come in first at the same distance, swimming on the back. Chicora
again triumphed in the canoe race for doubles when Carter and Dan drove
the former’s crimson craft across the finish fifty or sixty feet ahead
of the opponents. And again, in the diving contest, Dan excelled.
But after that the blue and gray was forced to take second and third
places. Trescott won the relay race, the tilting and the fancy
swimming contests. Wickasaw won the canoe race for singles and the tub
race. As only first places counted, the sports came to an end with the
question of supremacy still in doubt, Chicora and Trescott each having
won five events and Wickasaw four.
It was dusk by this time, and audience and competitors hurried away
for supper, to reassemble at eight o’clock for the fireworks and boat
parade. The latter, at least, was well worth seeing. There were over
forty boats in line, the Chicora leading, and each was gay with Chinese
lanterns and colored fire. In and out across the lake they went,
rounding the islands, skirting the shores, and tracing strange patterns
on the dark surface of the water. On the point sky-rockets and bombs
sizzed and boomed their way upward in trails of fire, and from the
Chicora and the Wickasaw Roman candles spilled their colored stars into
the lake.
In Joe Carter’s canoe he and Bob paddled along near the end of the
parade, while Tom, attired in a hastily improvised costume of Turkey
red, impersonated a rather stout Devil and flourished a pitchfork,
while at his feet red fire burned in a tin plate and made his round
face almost as lurid as his costume. They had lots of fun out of it,
but the crowning glory of their enjoyment came when they accidentally
ran into a Wickasaw canoe and spilled two boys and a councilor into
the lake. They worked heroically at the task of rescue--when their
laughter would allow them to--and none of the three unfortunate “Wicks”
sustained further damage than a good wetting. After that the fun was
tame until, shortly before ten, they reached their landing and the
“Devil” slipped on the edge of the wharf and went down to his waist in
water and sputtered and stammered as no Devil ever has before or since.
Joe said he was sure he heard the water sizzle when Tom struck it.
They took their lanterns up the hill with them, such as were still
burning, and hung them about the trees in the clearing so that the
place looked like a garden set for an outdoor party. Long after Nelson
was in bed and he and Bob had ceased their whispering he could see
the mellow lights among the branches. Perhaps that is why, when he
did finally fall asleep, he dreamed that Dan was the proprietor of a
Chinese laundry next door to the post-office at Crescent and that he
(Nelson) had lost his check for a pair of “sneakers” which he had left
there to be waterproofed and could not get them back. To add to his
annoyance he was quite certain that the “sneakers” on the counter,
in which Dan was growing Chinese lilies, were his. Unfortunately he
couldn’t prove it, and Dan refused to give them up, offering, however,
to share the lilies with him. This offer Nelson indignantly refused,
and Dan said:
“Wake up, you lazy dub! Second bugle’s blown!”
And Nelson, opening his eyes dazedly, found the sunlight streaming
through the window and painting golden silhouettes on the gray blanket,
while Dan, attired principally in a bath towel and having got rid of
his queue, was impatiently tugging at his arm.
Followed a wild race down the hill, a scramble to the diving platform,
and a long plunge into cool green depths. Three dives and it was time
to be out, for they had overslept. A brisk rubbing in the tent until
the body glowed, a race up-hill that brought them panting and laughing
to the dormitory, a hurried dressing and a brief toilet with brushes
and comb, and--breakfast! Blueberries and cream, cereal, chops and
potatoes, hot muffins, and milk administered to hearty appetites. And
so began the last week of camp-life, a week that, like all that had
gone before, passed wonderfully quickly and brought the fellows with
disconcerting suddenness to Saturday afternoon and the final contest
with Wickasaw.
During that last week at Chicora Bob and Nelson and Dan and Tom stuck
together like brothers. The realization that in a few days’ time they
must part with small likelihood of getting together again before next
summer, if then, made them anxious to see as much of each other as
possible in the time remaining. Two months is a long time in the life
of a boy and in it he can make undying friendships. Whether such had
happened in the present case remained to be seen, but certain it is
that the Four had grown extremely fond of each other. Tom was quite
forlorn over the parting.
“It’s all well enough for the rest of you,” he said. “You’re going home
together, and Bob and Nel will have a dandy time at St. Louis. But I’ve
got to go on this beastly trip all alone!”
“You’ll have a fine time, Tommy,” said Bob consolingly. “And then
you’ll be going back to Hillton. And you’ll have Nel with you there. If
any one has a kick seems to me it’s me. You three chaps will see each
other pretty frequently, but I’ll have to dig along all by my lonesome.”
“Don’t forget your promise to come down for the football game,” said
Dan.
“I’ll come, but I sha’n’t know who to cheer for.”
“Hillton,” said Nelson and Tom in a breath.
“St. Eustace,” said Dan.
“I wish we didn’t all live so far away from each other,” said Tom.
“You’re away up in Portland, Nel’s in Boston, Dan’s in New York, and
I’m out in Chicago.”
“You ought to live in a decent part of the world,” answered Dan.
“Cut it out, you two,” said Bob. “Don’t get started on one of your
arguments about New York and Chicago. They’re beastly holes, both of
’em. Come to Portland.”
This suggestion brought forth three howls of derision.
“Anyway,” said Dan, “I wish we might go to college together.”
“Why can’t we?” asked Nelson. “You fellows all come to Harvard!”
“I couldn’t,” Dan replied. “My dad went to Yale and he’d scalp me if I
told him I wanted to enter Harvard.”
“And I’m booked for Chicago,” said Tom mournfully.
“Poor chap,” said Dan commiseratingly. Whereupon Tom flared up.
“It’s a gu-gu-gu-good college, and you know it. Only I-I-I-I’d like to
be with you fu-fu-fu-fellows!”
“That’s easy,” said Bob. “You all come with me to Erskine.”
“It’s such a little place,” objected Dan.
“It’s got as much land as Yale, and more too, I guess.”
“I mean there are so few fellows there.”
“Well,” answered Bob thoughtfully, “maybe there aren’t very many people
in heaven, but that’s no sign it isn’t a good place to go to!”
“Do you mean,” laughed Dan, “that Yale is--er--the other place?”
“Or Harvard?” asked Nelson in mock anger.
“Or Chicago?” added Tom.
“Well, now, as to Chicago, Tommy,” answered Bob, “you said yourself you
were going there, and you know what you were Saturday night!”
After the laughter had subsided they discussed the subject seriously
and at length. In the end it was decided that if their parents would
consent Nelson, Dan, and Tom were to join Bob at Erskine College three
years from the approaching month--examination boards permitting.
Incidentally it may be announced that their parents did consent, that
examiners did permit, and that their plans succeeded. But that is a
story all to itself and has nothing to do with the present narrative.
Mr. Clinton had been called in to aid in the matter of the silver
loving-cup for the Careys and had attended to the selection of it on
one of his trips to Boston. On Friday it arrived. Lack of funds had
prohibited the purchase of anything very elaborate, but the gift was
quite worthy of acceptance. It was a plain cup, in shape like a Greek
vase, seven inches high. The handles were of ebony, and there was a
little ebony stand for it to rest upon. The inscription had caused the
Four not a little worry. As finally decided on it read:
TO MR. AND MRS. CHARLES A. CAREY
A TOKEN OF ESTEEM
AND GRATITUDE
FROM
THE FOUR
AUGUST 18, 1904
ROBERT W. HETHINGTON
NELSON E. TILFORD
DANIEL H. F. SPEEDE
THOMAS C. FERRIS
They were hugely pleased with it and kept it a whole day to admire and
exhibit. Then it went off by express, and in due time there came a
reply which, as the Four had scattered, went from Chicago to Portland,
to Boston, to New York, to Chicago, and from there came east again in
Tom’s trunk to Hillton.
But, lest you make the mistake of thinking that final week a period of
laziness, it should be said that the baseball diamond was worn almost
bare of grass. Every morning and every afternoon the nine practised
in preparation for the Wickasaw game. As for eight of the nine, they
didn’t feel that life would be ruined even if Wickasaw did beat them.
But Bob was of another sort; he had set his heart on winning and would
go home feeling that the summer had ended in disgrace if Wickasaw again
triumphed; and so the others caught some of the infection from him and
labored zealously in the hottest kind of a sun morning and afternoon
until Friday. On Friday there was only a half hour’s easy work, for
Bob had his ideas on the subject of training. That night, about the
camp-fire, the prospect was talked over and it was generally agreed
that if Wells, who was again to pitch, didn’t go up in the air Chicora
was pretty certain of victory. That, as events turned out, was a big
“if.”