Kitabı oku: «Left Half Harmon», sayfa 6

CHAPTER XI
THE FIRST DEFEAT

When October was a week old Willard had become as much a part and parcel of Alton Academy as if he had spent a year there instead of a scant three weeks. For a time he had wondered whether he had made a mistake in substituting it for Kenly Hall, but as he became more and more at home that speculation ceased to trouble him. Even if he had made a mistake, and had known it, the bewildered letter he had received from his mother would have reconciled him to the fact. That letter had amused him for days. For the joke of it, he had carefully abstained from explanations and had merely written: “Here I am at Alton Academy, everything unpacked and quite settled. I think I am going to like it immensely.” Of course there had been much more, but he had described the school in such a matter-of-fact way that his mother and father, on reading the letter, had almost doubted their memories.

“Your father,” wrote Mrs. Harmon, “says that we may have misunderstood, but I am very, very certain you meant to go to Kenly School. You talked about it so frequently that I’m sure I couldn’t be mistaken. Kenly School is at Lakeville, for I’ve looked it up in a magazine, and your letter was posted at Alton, and your father says the two places are fully ten miles apart. I do hope everything is all right, but I simply can’t understand why you didn’t explain more fully in your letter. Do let me hear from you right away, dear, and tell me just what happened.”

Of course Willard had answered the appeal promptly and explained fully, emphasizing the real or imaginary advantages of Alton over Kenly, and had received a second letter from home that was not nearly so sympathetic as it might have been. It was his father who wrote this time, and Mr. Harmon dwelt, at what Willard thought was undue length, on the latter’s Lamentable Lack of Serious Purpose, pointing out that attaining an education was not a pursuit to be governed by levity. That epistle had the effect of making Willard rather more devoted to his studies for awhile at least and so was not written in vain.

His studies, though, promised to cause him scant worry, for he had come well prepared for the Alton junior year. Greek, which he had elected to make up the required number of hours, was new to him and so presented some difficulties, but he was consoled with the knowledge that by taking the course this year he could, if he wished, drop it the last half of his senior year. Martin, who had left Greek severely alone, his motto being “Don’t Look for Trouble,” told Willard that he was a chump and dwelt at length on the merits of Science 4 as a “snap course.” To which Willard virtuously replied that he was attending the Academy to acquire an education and not to spend his time in slothfulness. Whereupon Martin upset him onto the bed, placed a pillow over his head and sat on it.

About this time Martin was making Bob Newhall’s life a burden to him by solicitous inquiries regarding his health. Martin had a way of observing Bob anxiously and attempting to feel his pulse that the latter found very trying. Of course Bob could refuse to have his heart action investigated, and could – and did – decline to put out his tongue for Martin to inspect, but he couldn’t prevent Martin from eyeing him narrowly on all occasions and shaking his head sorrowfully over what he pretended to believe were the ravages of disease. “I don’t like those deep circles under your eyes, Bob,” Martin would say gravely. “Sleep pretty well, do you?”

“About nine hours, thanks,” Bob would reply shortly.

“I was afraid of that! That’s one of the unmistakable symptoms. Feel tired in the morning? Sort of worried and oppressed without knowing why?”

“Not until I run across you! And then I know why blamed well!”

“Irritable, too! Dear, dear! Bob, why don’t you drop in at the doctor’s some day and just let him look you over? Of course there may be nothing serious, nothing that can’t be remedied if taken in time, but I’d feel a lot easier about you if you saw someone, honest I would!”

“You’ll feel easier if I hand you a wallop,” growled Bob. “Say, if you played guard half as hard as you work that silly tongue of yours you might amount to something!”

Martin spent a whole hour in the library one morning and emerged with a fine fund of information regarding the sleeping sickness and the ravages of the tse-tse fly, and after that he became doubly obnoxious to Bob. Martin may or may not have been correct in connecting the bite of the tse-tse with the sleeping sickness, but the way in which he drove the flies away from Bob’s vicinity proved that he meant to take no chances. Strangely, the object of his solicitous care resented this manifestation of it more than any other, and Martin had only to fix a piercing gaze on the tip of Bob’s nose and begin a cautious approach with uplifted hand to throw Bob into a paroxysm of lamentable anger. Martin, repulsed, would explain in hurt tones that never having seen the tse-tse fly he couldn’t be supposed to know it from the common or house-fly, and that he consequently was using only excusable caution. Naturally enough, Willard and Joe enjoyed the nonsense and egged Martin on, but when the latter began flooding Bob’s mail with patent medicine circulars and stories of miraculous cures clipped from the newspapers, Bob’s patience became exhausted and he vowed revenge.

“I’m going to get good and even with you, Mart,” he declared one afternoon when Martin had drawn his attention to an advertisement extolling the merits of a net to be worn over the head to the utter confusion of mosquitoes and flies. “When I get through with you, my humorous young friend, you won’t know there’s such a word as ‘fly’ in the English language. And you’ll be good and sick yourself, believe me!”

Martin, however, professed to believe the threat only the empty ravings of a mind affected by disease, and was quite interested by what he declared was an unusual manifestation of the malady. But Bob looked unusually grim and exhibited such unaccustomed patience that Martin confided to Willard later that he “guessed he had got old Bob’s goat at last.”

“You’d better watch out that he doesn’t get yours,” laughed Willard. “I believe he means to try it.”

“It’s the last stage before the final breakdown,” replied Martin gravely. “He won’t last much longer, I’m afraid!”

That pessimistic prophecy was made on Friday night, and the next afternoon Alton traveled to Warren and played Mt. Millard School. Some eighty or ninety fellows accompanied the team and were present at the Waterloo. Willard watched the game from the bench, dressed for play, and saw his chance of getting into it dwindle into nothingness as Mt. Millard piled up her score. It is the historian’s privilege to avoid such events as he may consider unworthy of inclusion in his narrative, and the present historian gladly avails himself of that privilege. Suffice it to say that Mt. Millard out-rushed, out-punted and out-generaled Alton and won a lopsided contest by a score of 19 – 0. Joe Myers summed it all up on the way home when he said briefly: “Funeral from the late residence. No flowers.”

Later that game was looked on as extremely good medicine, for it proved one or two things most conclusively; as, for instance, that a backfield wanting the services of a good plunging full-back was a far from complete institution, and that the forward line of a football team, like a chain, was as strong as its weakest unit, and no stronger. At full-back in that Mt. Millard game, Steve Browne had proved himself a failure. Nor had Linthicum, who had taken his place at the beginning of the third period, done any better. The following week saw the search for a likely successor to Browne take on new ardor. The substitute bench was combed carefully without satisfactory results and Greenwood was brought over from the second team and given a try-out. Greenwood did his level best to please, but that he failed was apparent from the fact that he was back on the second three days later. Of course Coach Cade tried the old game of switching, but Bob Newhall, Leroy, who played left tackle none too well, Lake and Mawson all fell down. Even Martin was considered and passed over, and on Thursday the full-back problem was no nearer a solution than at any time that fall.

The left end of the line was causing trouble, too. Leroy, at tackle, appeared to be miscast badly, and Sanford, at end, was no match for his opponents at any time. Putney and Rhame, the most promising tackle and end substitutes, were far from satisfactory. That week was a week of experiments and confusion, and Coach Cade had a worried look quite foreign to his countenance. Three days of wretched weather added to the difficulties, for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were each cold and rainy, and by the last day the gridiron was not much better than a bog. Under these circumstances the team would scarcely be expected to make much progress, nor did it. Joe Myers was extremely peevish most of the week and Don Harris, visiting Number 16 Haylow one evening, remarked feelingly that he would be mighty glad when football was over for the season.

It was the miserable weather on Thursday that sent Willard over to Upton Hall. There had been an hour of indoor practice in the gymnasium, but the slippery ground and relentless downpour of rain had prohibited any use of the field, and at half-past four Willard found himself at a loose end. Martin had gone up to one of the society rooms in Academy Hall to play pool, and, although he had asked Willard to go with him, the latter, not being a member, had thought it best to decline. On the porch of the gymnasium he watched the swishing rain and the inundated paths and wondered what to do with himself. The answer came when his disconsolate gaze, roaming the cheerless world, lighted on Upton Hall. Recollection of Felix McNatt and his invitation came to him and, turning up his collar, he plunged into the deluge. He didn’t remember the number of McNatt’s room, but he could find it, he supposed. On the second floor, he knocked on a nearby door and obtained the information from a surprised occupant. Number 49 proved to be on the third floor, and Willard’s knock elicited a muffled “Come in!” As the door was locked, however, Willard did not immediately accept the invitation. “Wait a moment, please,” came McNatt’s voice from within. Then a chair was overturned, footsteps approached and the door was thrown open.

“Oh, hello!” greeted McNatt cordially. “Come in. Sorry to keep you waiting, but this thing’s out of order somewhere.” He leaned down to examine a bolt on the door frame, and then followed with his eyes a wire that proceeded from the bolt to the ceiling and across the latter, through a number of screw-eyes, to a point above the study table in the middle of the room. From there it descended to within convenient reach of a person seated at the table, terminating in a wooden knob. Willard viewed it with amused interest.

“Quite a scheme,” he said. “Your invention, McNatt?”

“Yes, it saves time, you see. Trouble is, though, it will get out of order. Ought to have small wheels for it to run on instead of those eyes. Let’s see now.” He pulled the knob down and the bolt slipped obediently from its socket with a business-like click. McNatt shrugged expressively. “All right now, you see. It binds somewhere, I guess. Sit down, Harmon.” He indicated a Morris chair in need of repair and Willard seated himself and looked around. The rooms in Upton were slightly larger, it seemed, than those in the newer dormitories, and Willard considered it a most fortunate circumstance, since a smaller room would never have accommodated all the articles that met his gaze. Besides the ordinary furnishings, there were two bookcases, a set of book shelves that hung on a wall and several boxes up-ended to serve as auxiliary tables. McNatt was telling Willard of his failure to find information regarding the use of the diving-rod in the location of metals and saying some bitter things about the reference department of the Academy library, but Willard was too much interested in the room to pay much heed.

The place looked like a compromise between a museum and a laboratory. Stuffed birds and small animals peered down with glassy eyes from all sides, a badly mounted pickerel on a board presented a hungry mouth, a snake skin depended from the corner of a framed picture that showed, in colors, what was probably a quiet Sunday afternoon in the Garden of Eden. It was an engaging picture, and Willard studied it curiously before his gaze went past. All the animals of which he had ever heard were depicted in it, and all were grouped about in peace and friendliness, even the lions in the foreground smiling on the beholder with truly benevolent countenances.

Methods of saving time or labor were apparent on every hand in the shape of mechanical appliances. A complicated arrangement of cords allowed of the lowering or raising of the window shades without approaching the windows; although Willard could not see that it was any farther from the table to the windows than it was to the side of the room where the cords hung! On the chair in which he sat a home-made bookholder was attached to one arm, while, by reaching underneath, one could pull forth an extension that accommodated one’s legs and feet, though probably not very comfortably. Later he discovered that a switch attached to the wall beside the head of McNatt’s bed in the alcove allowed that ingenious youth to put on or off the electric light without arising.

The bookcases held all sorts of things except books, although there were plenty of the latter distributed about in such unusual places as the window-seat and the tops of the two chiffoniers. Indeed, a set of encyclopedias of ancient vintage found lodgment along the baseboard on the floor. The bookcases had been consecrated to Science, it appeared, for in the nearer one dozens and dozens of birds’ eggs peered forth from cotton-batting nests and in the other McNatt’s collection of minerals was installed. The study table overflowed with a motley débris of books, papers, a microscope, pieces of wire, bits of wood, a blowpipe, a specimen-jar half filled with a dark-brown liquid that from its appearance and odor was plainly “working,” a mouse-trap – empty, as Willard was relieved to discover – and so many other things that it would be useless to attempt an enumeration of them. Willard was still looking about when McNatt interrupted his inspection.

“Would you like to see my minerals?” he asked.

Willard politely replied that he would and McNatt opened the doors of the case and thereupon held forth for some ten minutes, during which time Willard pretended interest in various specimens and said “Really?”, “Is that so?” and “Indeed!” dozens of times. When it came to the birds’ eggs he had the courage to say that he wasn’t very much interested, and McNatt passed them by. “I’m thinking of getting rid of them,” he announced. “I need the space for other things. If you hear of anyone who’d like a nice collection I wish you’d let me know.” Willard agreed and was shown some choice things in cocoons, an extensive collection of butterflies and moths which occupied the two lower drawers of McNatt’s chiffonier, several specimens of tree-fungus, a cigar-box full of shells gathered along the river, a pair of chameleons in a shoe-box, a number of small phials filled with liquids of various hues which McNatt assured him were vegetable dyes, another phial of whitish powder that its exhibitor called kaolin, and numerous other wonders. McNatt was quite impressive about the kaolin.

“I guess I’m the only one who knows about it,” he said, lowering his voice and looking guardedly toward the door. “It’s immensely valuable, you know.”

“Is it?” asked Willard.

“Oh, yes. It’s what they make porcelain from. China clay they call it sometimes. There’s a big deposit of it where I found this, and maybe some day I’ll buy the land and develop it. Meanwhile, of course, I’m keeping very quiet about it.”

“Of course,” murmured Willard.

“And here’s another thing,” continued McNatt. “Take these vegetable dyes. There isn’t one of those you couldn’t make just as well as I did, Harmon!”

“You don’t say?”

“Yes, sir! And every one is made of something that grows right beside your door, as you might say. Now take this.” He shook a phial until the sediment at the bottom turned the liquid to a muddy purple as seen against the light. “Nothing but poke-berry! I don’t mind letting you in on that because lots of people know about getting color from poke-berry. But here’s one, by ginger, you won’t often see!” He held up a second bottle and Willard gazed on a quite gorgeous crimson. “How’s that for color?” asked McNatt. “You don’t find anything finer than that, I’ll bet!”

“Mighty pretty,” responded Willard. “What’s that made from?”

McNatt chuckled, winked portentously and shook his head. “That’s a secret. I’d tell you only I might want to go into the business some day, Harmon. Not as a life-work, you understand, but – Know anything about mycology?”

“No, what is it?”

“The study of mushrooms and fungi. Awfully interesting. I’m just taking it up. Some of them make wonderful dyes, and that’s what started me. I’ve found thirteen varieties of mushrooms already, and I’ve been out only four times.” He looked approvingly out at the rain. “There’ll be lots of them tomorrow, I guess. I found a giant puff-ball over near where I met you that day, only it was rotten. They’re delicious eating. Some day when I find one that’s in good condition I’ll let you know and we’ll have a feast. I’ve got a little alcohol stove in there that you can cook almost anything on. I had a few the other night and they were mighty good. Winfred – Winfred Fuller, you know; he rooms here with me – Winfred said they made him feel sort of sick, but I guess it was more likely something he had for dinner.”

“Still, some mushrooms are poisonous, aren’t they?” inquired Willard doubtfully.

“Lots of them, but it isn’t difficult to tell them from the others, you know. I’ve got a book that tells all about it. Where is it?” McNatt looked rather hopelessly about him. “I don’t see it just now. Winfred’s mixed my things up again, I dare say. He’s a very decent fellow, but he hasn’t any idea of orderliness. Next time you come it will probably be around.”

Their travels had brought them back to the corridor end of the room and Willard’s attention was attracted by a small bottle hanging by a string from a thumb-tack beneath the electric light switch. “What’s that for?” he asked.

“Eh? Oh, that?” McNatt removed it as he spoke. “That’s no good any more. I had a glow-worm and a firefly in there, but the firefly ate the glow-worm, or maybe it was the other way around: I forget now; and then the one who’d eaten the other one died, too.” He took the stopper from the bottle and inverted it, allowing the dried remains of some small occupant to fall out. “Besides,” he added, “you can buy little dinkuses made of radium that’ll do the same thing now.”

“Well, but – but what was it they did?” asked Willard.

“Oh, they glowed, you know, in the dark, and showed where the switch was.” McNatt tossed the empty bottle to the table. “Trouble was they didn’t always glow when you wanted them to and sometimes you had to stand around and wait quite a while.”

Seated again, McNatt tilted back in his chair and observed Willard thoughtfully for a moment. Then: “Returning to the subject we were discussing the other day, Harmon,” he announced, “I’ve been sort of outlining a system along the lines we spoke of. I haven’t gone into it thoroughly, of course, but I’ve estimated that the number of possible situations in a football game approximate one hundred and sixty. I may be slightly in error, of course, for I haven’t played recently and there have been several alterations in the rules, but I’m not far out of the way. That number includes situations occurring both in attack and defense. I’ve got a rough summary here somewhere.” He began to rummage over the table. “It’s a piece of yellow paper. Is it on your side anywhere? Now I wonder what I did with it. Well, never mind, it’ll show up again some day. Anyway, my idea would be to – ah – catalogue them, as one might say, according to their locations on the field of play. I’d divide the gridiron into, say, ten zones longitudinally and three zones laterally, giving thirty areas in all. Numbering – perhaps lettering would be better, though: lettering such area – Have you got to go?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” replied Willard. “I – it’s getting along toward six o’clock. I’d like to hear about it some other time, though, McNatt. I say, why don’t you come over to my room some evening and let Mart Proctor hear it? He’d be awfully interested, I’m sure. Mart’s on the team, too, you know; plays guard. I wish you would.”

“Why, I don’t visit around much,” answered the other hesitantly, as he reached for the knob that unbolted the door. “I don’t have time, you see, and just now I’m most interested in mycology, Harmon. By the way, don’t forget about that mushroom supper we’re going to have!”