Kitabı oku: «Captain of the Crew»

INTRODUCTION

In this, as in the two preceding volumes of the series – The Half-Back and For the Honor of the School – an attempt is made to show that athletics rightly indulged in is beneficial to the average boy and is an aid rather than a detriment to study. In it, too, as in the previous books, a plea is made for honesty and simplicity in sports. There is a tendency in this country to-day to give too great an importance to athletics – to take it much too seriously – and it is this tendency that should be guarded against, especially among school and college youths. When athletics ceases to be a pleasure and becomes a pursuit it should no longer have a place in school or college life.

Many inquiries have been received as to whether Hillton Academy really exists. It doesn’t. It is, instead, a composite of several schools that the author knows of, and is not unlike any one of a half dozen institutions which are yearly turning out hundreds of honest, manly American boys, stronger, sturdier, and more self-reliant for just such trials and struggles as in the present volume fall to the lot of Dick Hope.

To those readers who have followed the varying fortunes of Joel March, Outfield West, Wayne Gordon, and their companions, this book is gratefully dedicated by

The Author.

Philadelphia, June 19, 1901.

CHAPTER I
THE BOY ON THE BOX

“Hillton! Hillton!”

The brakeman winked solemnly at the group of boys in the end seats, withdrew his head, slammed the door and crossed the swaying platforms to make a similar announcement to the occupants of the car ahead. From the left side of the train passengers caught a glimpse of a broad expanse of meadow upon which tiny flecks of red flared dully in the winter sunshine; of a distant grand stand, bleak and desolate, against whose northern shoulder a drift of snow snuggled as though seeking protection from its enemy the sun; of two pairs of goal-posts gravely watching each other from opposite ends of a long field; of a bit of country road, a slowly rising hill, a little army of leafless elms, and, last of all, crowning a promontory below which the frozen Hudson sparkled, a group of old red brick buildings, elbowing each other with friendly rivalry in an endeavor to gain the post of honor and to be first seen of the outside world that traveled by train. That was Hillton Academy.

There was a long warning shriek from the engine, echoed back by the wooded slope of Mount Adam; a momentary reverberating roar as the train crossed the little viaduct; the whistle of air brakes; and then, as the train came to a stop, a babel of boys’ voices. Some twenty youths of assorted ages and sizes, laden with every description of luggage, from golf bags and valises down to boxes of figs and caramels purchased from the train-boy and still uneaten, pushed and scrambled their way to the station platform. The last trunk was slid from the baggage car, and the conductor, portly and jovial, sang “All aboard!” and waved a smiling good-by to the boys.

“Good-by, Pop! See you later!” “Don’t forget that anti-fat, Pop!” And then, when the train had gained speed, a slim junior danced along the platform waving a bit of pasteboard exultingly under the conductor’s nose and just out of his reach: “Hey, Pop! You didn’t get my ticket! Stop the train! Stop the train!” An old joke this, that never failed of applause. The conductor shook his fist in simulated wrath, and the next instant, with a farewell shriek of the whistle, the train was lost to sight.

Beside the platform waited the coach, from the box of which “Old Joe,” the driver, smiled a toothless welcome. Each year held three red-letter days for “Old Joe,” namely, the days preceding the commencement of the three school terms, when the students, refreshed by recess or vacation, returned in merry troops to Hillton – noisy, mischievous, vexing, but ever admirable to the old stage-driver – and taxed the capacity of the coach to the utmost, and “Old Joe’s” patience to the limit. This was the first of the red-letter days of the present year, which was as yet but forty-eight hours old, and all day long the boys who had been so fortunate as to return to their homes for the Christmas recess had been piling from the trains to the stage and from the stage to the steps of Academy Building. And “Old Joe,” who loved the excitement of it all, and worshiped everything, animate or inanimate, that belonged to Hillton, was in his glory.

“Now, then, you young terrors, get aboard here. Can’t wait all afternoon for you. This ain’t no ’commodating train, and – ”

“Hello, Joe, old chap; how’s your appetite?” “Still able to sit up and take your meals, Joe?” “Say, fellows, Old Joe’s looking younger every day.” “Give me a hand up, Joe, and I’ll show you how to drive those old plugs of yours.” “Please, Joe, you said I could sit on the box with you this trip, don’t you remember?”

“Have to be next time, youngster; seat’s full a’ready. How do, Mister Hope? Scramble out o’ here, sir, an’ give Mister Hope your seat. Oh, is that you, Mister Nesbitt? Well – ”

“No, I’ll sit back here,” answered the boy addressed as Hope. “I can jump off quicker when we upset.”

“Hark to that,” growled the driver in pretended anger; “an’ me forty-two years on this road an’ never no accident yet. All aboard there! No, ye don’t, sir; no more room atop. Trunks’ll go up next trip, sir. All right now. Tlk! Get ap!”

The two stout grays, known popularly as “Spring Halt” and “Spavin,” settled into their collars, and the big stage, swaying comfortably on its leather springs, lumbered around the corner into Station Road. From the interior of the coach, where twelve youths had managed to pack themselves into a space designed to hold but nine, floated out a wild medley of shouts and laughter. On top, two boys had secured the much-coveted places beside the driver, while on the seat behind three others were perched. When the little stone station had been left the boy who occupied the other end of the driver’s seat, and whom “Old Joe” had called “Mister Nesbitt,” leaned across the intervening youth and addressed the driver:

“Now, Joe, let’s have the lines, old chap, and I’ll show you a bit of fancy driving that’ll open your eyes. Come now, like a nice old Joe.”

“Now, don’t be askin’ for the reins, Mister Nesbitt, sir. You know it’s agin the rules for the boys to drive.”

“What! Oh, rot, Joe! I never heard of such a rule. Did you, Williams?”

“Never,” replied the third occupant of the box. “Joe dreamed it.”

“Of course you did, Joe. Come on, now; just let me have them to the corner there. Don’t be a duffer, man. Why, I can drive a pair bang up.” “Old Joe” cast a deeply suspicious glance at the youth – and was lost. Trevor Nesbitt assumed a look of angelic innocence and sweetness and pleaded so eloquently with his blue eyes that the driver grudgingly relinquished the lines.

“Mind ye now, Mister Nesbitt, just to the corner you said.”

“Meaning around it, Joe, of course,” replied Nesbitt as he adjusted the lines knowingly between his gloved fingers. “Come, Spavin, cheer up, old laddie!” Williams, who had been holding the long-lashed whip, now handed it to Nesbitt, who sent the lash swirling over his head, and with a quick movement snapped it loudly a few inches from Spavin’s head. The result was instantaneous. The off horse snorted loudly and leaped forward, and the other followed suit. “Old Joe” snatched at the reins, but Nesbitt held them out of reach.

“Don’t whip ’em, sir,” cried the old man, “please don’t whip ’em; they ain’t used to it, sir.” Nesbitt laughed gaily.

“Don’t you worry, Joe, I’ll not hurt them. But we can’t put on side, old chap, unless we just touch them up a bit.”

Crack went the long lash again.

For several years the grays had traveled the road from station to school and thence to the Eagle Tavern without other persuasion than a cheery chirp or a sharp whistle from “Old Joe,” or, upon rare occasions, a half-hearted snap of the whip in no startling proximity to their ears. To-day there was plainly something wrong, and so, after a moment of bewildered consideration, they broke into a long ungainly gallop, to the joy of the boy with the reins and to the terror of “Old Joe.”

“By Jove, Williams, this is something like, eh?” Nesbitt sat up straight on the seat, tightened the lines and grinned delightedly at his companion. “Old Joe” was pleading excitedly for the whip.

“Please, sir, give me the whip now. I’m afeared for you to have it. You might hit ’em, sir, accidental, an’ there’s no telling what they’d do. Mister Williams, sir, just you hand it to me. Stop him!” But he had spoken too late. Nesbitt brought the lash down smartly on the broad back of the off horse, and the gallop changed to a plunging run, the coach swaying awkwardly from side to side. “Old Joe” reached forward desperately to wrest the lines from the boy, but Williams interfered.

“Hands off, Joe,” cried Nesbitt, “or you’ll have us over. Keep him quiet, Williams.”

From inside the stage came a babel of shouts, the exclamations of alarm half drowned by the noise of the beating hoofs and the protesting creaks of the leather springs. The horses with heads down, frightened at length by the unwonted use of the whip, galloped madly. Nesbitt, smiling and cool, sat straight and handled the lines with skill, which at any other time would have won loud commendation from “Old Joe.” But just at present that worthy was too terrorized to appreciate aught but the fact that the grays were apparently running away. He had a frightful vision of an overturned coach, of mangled bodies, and of everlasting disgrace. Yet he recognized the fact that to take the lines away from Nesbitt by force, even had such a thing been possible, would be the surest way to bring about the very catastrophe he dreaded. And then he glanced ahead down the frozen road and saw the sharp turn but a short distance away.

The three youths on the seat behind had been watching affairs at first with amusement and now with apprehension. The boy in the center frowned and turned to one of his companions.

“Who is that chap?” he asked in a low voice.

“What! don’t you know ‘’Is ’Ighness’?”

“‘His Highness’? No, I don’t. Who is he; one of our class?”

“No; he’s an upper middle chap; Trevor Nesbitt’s his real name. The fellows call him ‘’Is ’Ighness’ because he’s English. He’s a good sort, all right, but I wish he’d let driving alone.”

“So do I,” responded the boy at the other end of the seat, “but” – a note of admiration creeping into his dubious tones – “he knows how, all right!”

“But, I say, Hope,” cried the previous speaker, “look there; we’ve got to go around that corner! Let’s say our prayers.” Hope’s brows contracted as he glanced ahead; then he slid from the seat, rested himself on his knee, clinging tightly the while, and leaned over the back of the seat ahead.

“Look here, can you get them around that turn?”

“Who’s that, Williams?” asked Nesbitt without looking around.

“Dick Hope; he wants to know – ”

“Tell him to shut up and sit down, Williams,” interrupted Nesbitt calmly. Hope flushed angrily, but said no more, crouching in his place between the seats with an idea of lending a hand in case of disaster, although in just what way he could be of use was far from clear. Nesbitt raised to his feet, propping himself firmly, the reins tight wrapped about his hands.

“Hold tight all,” he warned, “and bear to the right!”

With the turn but a few yards away he brought his weight to bear on the lines, swaying from side to side with the lurching coach, settling farther and farther back as the horses lowered their heads to the command of the tugging bits. Hope thought of “Old Joe” at that moment, and glanced across at him. The stage-driver was silent now, his cheeks white, his face drawn. Williams, too, was pale, and his rigid attitude told more plainly than words that the fun had ceased for him. Nesbitt alone of the three occupants of the box appeared at ease. Hope could see the warm color playing on his cheek, and —

“Easy, boys, easy!” Nesbitt called slowly, soothingly to the horses, and then – Well, Hope was clutching desperately at the boards in the grating; he saw the backs of the straining animals turn at an angle to the stage, heard the great wheels slur-r-r across the frozen ground, felt the body of the coach sway far to the left, as though it were on its way across the fence at that side, and opened his eyes again to find a straight road ahead of them, and to see Nesbitt settle himself into his seat once more. “Old Joe” muttered an exclamation of relief. Hope again leaned across Nesbitt’s shoulder.

“I think you’ve shown off enough for to-day,” he said. “Now pull those horses down – if you can.”

Nesbitt glanced back into the other’s face, an angry light in his blue eyes.

“Will you kindly attend to your own affairs?” he asked with suspicious sweetness. Hope smiled in spite of his anger.

“If you don’t think it’s my affair,” he replied, “maybe you’ll acknowledge that the gentlemen ahead have something to say about it.” Nesbitt looked up the road and whistled.

“Just my bally luck!” he murmured. “Professors!” With straining arms he bore back on the lines. Little by little the horses slackened speed, and at last dropped into a trot, but not before the coach had swept by two very serious-faced Hillton professors out for a walk, whose sharp glances presaged trouble. Nesbitt handed over the lines and whip to “Old Joe.”

“My luck again,” he sighed.

“An’ serves you right,” grunted the driver.

Hope crawled into his seat again. His companions were busy explaining the course of events to the inhabitants of the interior of the coach, or as many of them as could get their heads out the doors, and ere the latter had run out of questions the stage turned into the academy grounds and crawled sedately up to the steps of Academy Building.

Hope leaped from the coach and hurried off to his room, while the other boys, laughing and joking, clustered about Nesbitt. “Wheels won’t do a thing to you,” one lad assured him with a grin.

“Well, don’t let it trouble you, Tommy,” he answered gaily. “But, I say, Williams, who was that meddlesome chap on the back seat?”

It was Williams’s turn to grin.

“The fellow you told to shut up, you mean?” Nesbitt nodded.

“Oh, no one much; just Dick Hope, captain of the crew.”

CHAPTER II
INTRODUCING DICK HOPE

The sun was almost out of sight as Dick Hope crossed the yard toward Masters Hall, and the shadows of the buildings, stretching far over the ground, seemed to harbor many little gusts of icy wind, and looked dark and dismal in contrast with the broad expanse of golden, sun-bathed marsh across the river. Dick pulled his coat closer about him, ran up the old, worn granite steps of the dormitory, and gained the hallway with a sense of comfort and homecoming.

Securing his key from the matron’s room, he leaped up the first flight of narrow stairs and, half-way down the corridor, unlocked a dingy door which bore a big black figure 16, and, below it, a card with the inscription “Richard Fowler Hope.” The room was filled with the mellow light of the setting sun, and here and there the rays were caught – by the glass doors of the bookcase, by the metal top of the inkstand, or, less sharply, by the silver and pewter mugs ranged along the mantel – and were thrown back in golden blurs that dazzled the eyes.

Dick laid aside his coat and cap, took off his gloves, and thrusting his hands into his pocket, surveyed the apartment smilingly. It was awfully jolly to get back, he thought happily, as his gaze took in the shabby, comfortable furnishings and the hundred and one objects about the room so intimately connected with three and a half years of pleasant school life. An array of worn and soberly bound books lined an end of the leather-covered study table, and he took one up and fluttered its pages between his fingers; it was a good deal like shaking hands with an old friend. With the volume still in his clasp he moved to the mantel and examined the knickknacks thereon, the cups and photographs and little china things, all cheap enough viewed from a money standpoint, yet to Dick priceless from long possession. He felt a momentary heart-flutter as his eyes fell on one pewter mug ornately engraved with his name.

As he looked the mantel and wall faded from sight, and he saw a stretch of cinder track, pecked by the spikes of runners’ shoes; at a little distance a thin white tape. He saw himself, head back, eyes staring, struggling desperately for that white thread across the track. Again he heard the thud and crunch of the St. Eustace runner’s feet almost beside him; heard, far more dimly, the shouts of excited onlookers, and again felt his effortful gasps as he gained inch by inch. The captain of the track team had been the first to reach him as the tape fluttered to the ground and he turned, half reeling, onto the turf. And he had thrown an arm about him and lowered him gently to the welcome sod and had whispered three short words into his ear, words that meant more than volumes of praise:

“Good work, Dick!”

The vision faded and the boy, with a sigh that expressed more happiness than a laugh could have done, turned away from the mantel. The crimson silk sash-curtains, drawn to the sides of the two windows, glowed like fire, but the shafts of sunlight had traveled up the walls to the ceiling, and the study was growing dim. In the fireplace a pile of wood and shavings was ready to light, and Dick, scratching a match along the mantel edge, set it ablaze and drew an easy chair to the hearth. With the shabby school-book in his hands, he settled comfortably against the cushions, and, his gaze on the leaping flames, let his thoughts wander as they willed.

There was plenty to think of. Before him lay five of the busiest, most important months of his school life, months that would be filled with plenty of hard work, much pleasure, and probably not a little worriment, and which might be crowned with a double triumph for him, for his hopes were set upon graduating at the head of his class and upon turning out a crew which in the annual boat-race with Hillton’s well-loved rival, St. Eustace, would flaunt the crimson above the blue in a decisive victory. To attain the first result many long hours of the hardest sort of study would be necessary, while the last would require never-flagging patience, tact, courage, and skill, and would demand well-nigh every moment of his time not given to lessons. The outlook did not, however, frighten him. He had returned to school feeling strong and confident and eager to begin his tasks.

When, the preceding June, after a sorrowful defeat by St. Eustace, the members of the Hillton crew had met to elect a new captain, Richard Hope had been chosen because he above all other candidates possessed the directness of purpose, the gift of leadership, and the untiring ability for hard work requisite to form a winning eight from unpromising material; even the defeated candidates for the post, which at Hillton was the highest and most honorable in the gift of the school, applauded the choice, and, with a possible exception, honestly felt the pleasure they expressed. The possible exception was Roy Taylor, one of the best oarsmen at Hillton. Taylor had striven hard for the captaincy and had accepted defeat with far less graciousness than had the other three candidates, though he had tried to hide his disappointment under a mask of smiling indifference. The recollection of Roy Taylor was this evening almost the only source of uneasiness to Dick as he watched the mellow flames leap and glow.

Presently he pushed back his chair, lighted the drop-light on the table and drew the blinds. It was almost supper time. Throwing aside his coat, he unpacked his satchel, distributing several presents about the study. Then, with his toilet articles in hand, he opened the door into the bedroom and started back in surprise. Between the two narrow iron bedsteads stood a pile of luggage. A dilapidated tin trunk, painted in ludicrous imitation of yellow oak, flanked a handsome leather portmanteau, while upon these was piled a motley array of bundles and bags; a tennis racquet and two cricket bats were tied together with three brightly colored neckties; a battered golf bag fairly bristled with sticks; a pair of once white flannel trousers were tied about at the ankles with strings, and were doing duty as a repository for discarded shoes, golf, tennis, and cricket balls, and sundry other treasures. The improvised bag had fallen open at the larger end and had disgorged a portion of its contents in the manner of a huge, strangely formed horn of plenty. Crowning all was a soiled clothes bag, vivid with purple lilies on a yellow ground, whose contour told plainly that it held books.

Quickly following his first moment of surprise came to Dick a knowledge of what the presence of the luggage meant, and his grin of amusement was succeeded by a frown. The boy who had shared his quarters with him at the beginning of the year had left the academy in October, and Dick had held sole possession of the rooms until now. He had been told that with the commencement of the winter term he would have a roommate, but until that moment he had forgotten the fact. He wondered as he spluttered at the wash-stand what sort of a chap his future chum was, and drew ill augury from the queer collection of luggage. With towel in hand he walked around the pile and studied the labels and the initials that adorned trunks and bags. The former were numerous; plainly the owner of the yellow tin trunk had traveled, for a Cunard steamship label flanked a red-lettered legend “Wanted,” and the two were elbowed by the paper disk of a Geneva hotel. The initials “T. N.” told him nothing, save that the owner’s name was probably Tom. Well, Tom was a good enough name, he thought, as he applied the brush vigorously to his brown hair, and as for the rest he would soon learn.

Drawing on his coat and lowering the light, he hurried across to Warren Hall and supper. The dining-room was well filled, and as he made his way to his seat at a far table he was obliged to return a dozen greetings, and had he paused in response to every detaining hand that was stretched out he would scarcely have reached his seat in the next half hour. It was pleasant to be back again among all those good fellows, he thought as he laughingly pulled himself free from the clutches of his friends, and pleasanter still to know that they were glad to have him back. His heart beat a little faster than usual, and his cheeks were a little more flushed as he clapped his nearest neighbor on the shoulder and sank into his chair, only to leave it the next moment and detour the table to shake hands with Professor Longworth, who had bowed to him smilingly across the board.

“Vacation seems to have agreed with you, Hope; you look as hearty as you please. You must let Mr. Beck see you before the bloom wears off; he’d rather see one of you boys looking fit than come into a legacy.”

“I’m feeling fine, sir,” laughed Dick, “and I’m so glad to get back that even trigonometry doesn’t scare me.”

“Hum,” replied the professor grimly. “Just wait until you see what I’ve got ready for you.”

Dick was soon busy satisfying a huge appetite and listening to the veritable avalanche of information and inquiry that was launched at him.

“St. Eustace has chosen the negative side in the debate, Hope, and old Tinker’s tickled to death; says he’s certain we’ll win, because – ” “Dick, come up to my cave Saturday afternoon, will you? Burns isn’t coming back, and he’s written me to sell his stuff, and we’re going to have an auction; Smith junior’s going to be auctioneer, and we’re going to hang a red flag out the window, and – ” “Did you hear about that upper middle chap they call ‘’Is ’Ighness’? He nearly upset the coach this afternoon, they say, and Professor Wheeler’s going to put him on probation. Chalmers says he told Wheeler that – ” “We’ve got some dandy hockey games fixed, Hope; Shrewsburg’s coming down Monday next if the ice holds and St. Eustace about the first of Feb.” “You ought to’ve been with us, Hope, last Saturday. We went fishing through the ice, and Jimmy Townsend caught four regular whales; and we cooked them at the hut on the island and had a fine feast, only the silly things wouldn’t get quite done through, and tasted rather nasty if you didn’t hold your nose and swallow quick.” “Say, have you seen Carl Gray? He told me to tell you that he’d be up to your room after supper; wants to see you most particular, he says. Don’t forget I told you, ’cause I promised I would.” “I’m going to try for the boat, Hope. When shall I report?” “When you make the crew, youngster, I’ll win a scholarship; and that won’t happen in a thousand years!” “Speaking of the crew, Dick, Roy Taylor says we’re goners this year.”

Dick helped himself generously to the blackberry jam.

“How’s that?” he asked calmly.

“Says we haven’t got good material.”

“If we had seven other fellows as good as Taylor we’d be all right,” responded Dick. “And as it is, we’ve turned out cracking fine crews before this from even less promising stuff. Well, I’m off. Never mind what Todd says, Jimmy; show up with the others and have a try. I only wish there were other chaps as plucky!”

And amid mingled groans of reproach and derision Dick pushed back his chair and left the hall. When he reached the second floor of Masters he saw that the door of Number 16 was ajar, and that some one had turned up the light.

“Gray’s waiting, I guess,” he told himself. “Wonder what he wants?” He pushed the door open, and then paused in surprise on the threshold.

In Dick’s big green leather armchair, his slippered feet to the blaze, a book in his hands, reclined very much at his ease the youth who had driven the stage-coach.