THE HEAD COACH.
"Upper Middle Class: Members will meet at the gym at 2.15, to march to
depot and meet Mr. Remsen."
"Louis WHIPPLE, _Pres't_."
This was the notice pasted on the board in Academy Building the morning
of Joel's fifth day at school. Beside it were similar announcements to
members of the other classes. As he stood in front of the board Joel
felt a hand laid on his shoulder, and turned to find Outfield West
by his side.
"Are you going along?" asked that youth.
"I don't believe so," answered Joel. "I have a Latin recitation at two."
"Well, chuck it! Everybody is going--and the band, worse luck!"
"Is there a band?" West threw up his hands in mock despair.
"Is there a _band? Is_ there a band! Mr. March, your ignorance surprises
and pains me. It is quite evident that you have never heard the Hillton
Academy Band; no one who has ever heard it forgets. Yes, my boy, there
_is_ a band, and it plays Washington Post, and Hail Columbia, and
Hilltonians; and then it plays them all over again."
"But I thought Mr. Remsen was not coming until Saturday?"
"That," replied West, confidentially, "was his intention, but he heard
of a youngster up here who is such an astonishingly fine punter that he
decided to come at once and see for himself; and so he telegraphed to
Blair this morning. And you and I, my lad, will March--see?--with the
procession, and sing--"
"'Hilltonians, Hilltonians, your crimson banner fling
Unto the breeze, and 'neath its folds your anthem loudly sing!
Hilltonians! Hilltonians! we stand to do or die,
Beneath the flag, the crimson flag, that waves for victory!'"
And, seizing Joel by the arm, West dragged him out of the corridor and
down the steps into the warm sunlight of a September noon, chanting the
school song at the top of his voice. A group of boys on the Green
shouted lustily back, and the occupant of a neighboring window threw a
cushion with unerring precision at West's head. Stopping to deposit this
safely amid the branches halfway up an elm tree, the two youths sped
across the yard toward Warren Hall and the dinner table.
"You sit at our table, March," announced West. "Digbee's away, and you
can have his seat. Come on." Joel followed, and found himself in the
coveted precincts of the Hampton House table, and was introduced to five
youths, who received him very graciously, and invited him to partake of
such luxuries as pickled walnuts and peach marmalade. Joel was fast
making the discovery that to be vouched for by Outfield West invariably
secured the highest consideration.
"I've been telling March here that it is his bounden duty to go to the
station," announced West to the table at large.
"Of course it is," answered Cooke and Cartwright and Somers, and two
others whose names Joel did not catch. "The wealth, beauty, and fashion
will attend in a body," continued Cooke, a stout, good-natured-looking
boy of about nineteen, who, as Joel afterward learned, was universally
acknowledged to be the dullest scholar in school. "Patriotism
and--er--school spirit, you know, March, demand it." And Cooke helped
himself bountifully to West's cherished bottle of catsup.
"This is Remsen's last year as coach, you see," explained West, as he
rescued the catsup. "I believe every fellow feels that we ought to show
our appreciation of his work by turning out in force. It's the least we
can do, I think. Mind you, I don't fancy football a little bit, but
Remsen taught us to win from St. Eustace last year, and any one that
helps down Eustace is all right and deserves the gratitude of the school
and all honest folk."
"Hear! hear!" cried Somers.
"I'd like very well to go," said Joel, "but I've got a recitation at
two." Cooke looked across at him sorrowfully.
"Are you going in for study?" he asked.
"I'm afraid so," answered Joel laughingly.
"My boy, don't do it. There's nothing gained. I've tried it, and I speak
from sad experience."
"But how do you get through?" questioned Joel.
"I will tell you." The stout youth leaned over and lowered his voice to
a confidential whisper. "I belong to the same society as 'Wheels,' and
he doesn't dare expel me."
"I wish," said Joel in the laugh that followed, "that I could join that
society."
"Easy enough," answered Cooke earnestly. "I will put your name up at our
next meeting. All you have to do is to forget all the Greek and Latin
and higher mathematics you ever knew, give your oath never to study
again, and appear at chapel two consecutive mornings in thigh boots and
a plaid ulster."
Despite West's pleas Joel refused to "cut" his recitation, promising,
however, to follow to the station as soon as he might.
"It's only a long mile," West asserted. "If you cut across Turner's
meadow you'll make it in no time. And the train isn't due until three.
You'll see me standing on the truck." And so Joel had promised, and
later, from the seclusion of the schoolroom, which to-day was well-nigh
empty, had heard the procession take its way down the road, headed by
the school band, which woke the echoes with the brave strains of the
Washington Post March.
To-day the Aeneid lost much of its interest, and when the recitation was
over Joel clapped his new brown felt hat on his head--for West had
conducted him to the village outfitter the preceding day--and hurried up
to his room to leave his book and pad. "Dickey" Sproule was stretched
out upon the lounge--a piece of personal property of which he was very
proud--reading Kenilworth.
"Hello!" cried Joel, "why aren't you over at the lab? Isn't this your
day for exploding things?" Sproule looked up and yawned.
"Oh, I cut it. What's the good of knowing a lot of silly chemistry stuff
when you're going to be an author?"
"I should say it might be very useful to you; but I've never been an
author, and perhaps I'm mistaken. Want to go to the station?"
"What, to meet that stuck-up Remsen? I guess not. Catch me walking a
mile and a half to see him!"
"Well, I'm going," answered Joel. An inarticulate growl was the only
response, and Joel took the stairs at leaps and bounds, and nearly upset
Mrs. Cowles in the lower hall.
"Dear me, Mr. March!" she exclaimed, as together they gathered up a load
of towels, "is it only you, then? I thought surely it was a dozen boys
at least."
"I'm very sorry," laughed Joel. "I'm going to the station. Mr. Remsen
is coming, you know. Have I spoiled these?"
"No, indeed. So Mr. Remsen's coming. Well, run along. I'd go myself if I
wasn't an old woman. I knew Mr. Remsen ten years ago, and a more
bothersome lad we never had. He had Number 15, and we never knew what to
expect next. One week he'd set the building on fire with his
experiments, and the next he'd break all the panes in the window with
his football. But then he was such a nice boy!" And with this seemingly
contradictory statement the Matron trudged away with her armful of
towels, and Joel took up his flight again, across the yard to Academy
Road, and thence over the fence into Turner's meadows, where the hill
starts on its rise to the village. Skirting the hill, he trudged on
until presently the station could be seen in the distance. And as he
went he reviewed the five days of his school existence.
He remembered the strange feeling of loneliness that had oppressed him
on his arrival, when, just as the sun was setting over the river, he had
dropped down from the old stage coach in front of Academy Hall, a
queer-looking, shabbily dressed country boy with a dilapidated leather
valise and a brown paper parcel almost as big. He remembered the looks
of scorn and derision that had met him as he had taken his way to the
office, and, with a glow at his heart, the few simple, kindly words of
welcome and the firm grasp of the hand from the Principal. Then came the
first day at school, with the dread examinations, which after all
turned out to be fairly easy, thanks to Joel's faculty for remembering
what he had once learned. He remembered, too, the disparaging remarks of
"Dickey" Sproule, who had predicted Joel's failure at the "exams.". "Who
ever heard," Sproule had asked scornfully, "of a fellow making the upper
middle class straight out of a country grammar school, without any
coaching?" But when the lists were posted, Joel's name was down, and
Sproule had taken deep offense thereat. "The school's going to the
dogs," he had complained. "Examinations aren't nearly as hard as they
were when _I_ entered."
The third day, when he had kicked that football down the field, and,
later, had made the acquaintance of Outfield West, seemed now to have
been the turning point from gloom to sunshine. Since then Joel had
changed from the unknown, derided youth in the straw hat to some one of
importance; a some one to whom the captain of the school eleven spoke
whenever they met, a chum of the most envied boy in the Academy, and a
candidate for the football team for whom every fellow predicted success.
But, best of all, in those few days he had gained the liking of
well-nigh all of the teachers by the hearty way in which he pursued
knowledge; for he went at Caesar as though he were trying for a
touch-down, and tackled the Foundations of Rhetoric as though that study
was an opponent on the gridiron. Even Professor Durkee, known
familiarly among the disrespectful as "Turkey," lowered his tones and
spoke with something approaching to mildness when addressing Joel March.
Altogether, the world looked very bright to Joel to-day, and when, as
presently, he drew near to the little stone depot, the sounds of singing
and cheering that greeted his ears chimed in well with his mood.
Truly "all Hillton" had turned out! The station platform and the trim
graveled road surrounding it were dark with Hilltonian humanity and gay
with crimson bunting. Afar down the road a shrill long whistle announced
the approach of the train, and a comparative hush fell on the crowd.
Joel descried Outfield West at once, and pushed his way to him through
the throng just as the train came into sight down the track. West was
surrounded on the narrow baggage truck by some half dozen of the choice
spirits from Hampton House, and Joel's advent was made the occasion for
much sport.
"Ah, he comes! The Professor comes!" shouted West.
"He tears himself from his studies and joins us in our frivolity,"
declaimed Cooke.
"That's something you'll never have a chance of doing, Tom," answered
Cartwright, as Joel was hauled on to the truck. "You'll never get near
enough to a study to have to be torn away."
"Study, my respected young friend," answered Cooke gravely, "is the
bane of the present unenlightened age. In the good old days when
everybody was either a Greek or a Roman or a barbarian, and so didn't
have to study languages, and--"
"Shut up! here's the train," cried West. "Now every fellow cheer, or
he'll have me to fight."
"Hooray! hooray! hooray!" yelled Cooke.
"Somebody punch him, please," begged West, and Somers and another
obliging youth thrust the offender off the truck and sat on his head.
The train slowed down, stopped, and a porter appeared laden with a huge
valise. This was the signal for a rush, and the darkey was instantly
relieved of his burden and hustled back grinning to the platform.
Then Joel caught sight of a gentleman in a neat suit of gray tweed
descending the steps, and saw the pupils heave and push their ways
toward him; and for a sight the arrival was hidden from view. Then the
cheers for "Coach!" burst enthusiastically forth, the train was speeding
from sight up the track, the band was playing Hilltonians, and the
procession took up its march back to the Academy.
When he at last caught a fair sight of Stephen Remsen, Joel saw a man of
about twenty-eight years, gayly trudging at the head of the line, his
handsome face smiling brightly as he replied to the questions and
sallies of the more elderly youths who surrounded him. Joel's heart went
out to Stephen Remsen at once. And neither then nor at any future time
did he wonder at it.
"That," thought Joel, "is the kind of fellow I'd like for a big brother.
Although I never _could_ grow big enough to lick him."