Kitabı oku: «Frank Merriwell's Return to Yale», sayfa 16

"Oh, I hope she does," was his thought. "If she doesn't – " And he could think no further.

CHAPTER XXXVII
INZA BEGINS TO UNDERSTAND

"How did the game come out?" asked Miss Abigail Gale, Inza's aunt, as the two girls returned to Paula's home, which was a handsome house in an aristocratic portion of the Back Bay.

Miss Gale was knitting. For all of her luxurious surroundings, she was plainly dressed, and she was practicing economy by knitting herself some winter stockings. Reputed to be comfortably rich, Miss Gale was "close-handed" and thrifty.

"Yale won, of course!" cried Inza, who had not recovered from her enthusiasm. "Oh, Aunt Abby, you should have seen it!"

"No, no!" exclaimed the spinster, shaking her head.

"You would have gone crazy over it!"

"It's brutal. I have no sympathy with such brutal games. I didn't want to see it, and I stayed away."

"But it was such a splendid spectacle. Twenty-two young gladiators, clad in the armor of the football field, flinging themselves upon each other, struggling like Trojans, swaying, straining, striving, going down all together, getting up, and —

"Land!" cried Miss Abigail, holding up both hands. "It must have been awful! It makes my blood run cold! Don't tell me any more!"

"At first Harvard rushed Yale down the field. Yale could not hold them back. It was easy for Harvard. Jack got the ball – Jack Benjamin. He went through Yale's line. The coast was cleared. He made a touchdown. He ran like a deer. How his legs did fly!"

"Good!" cried Miss Abigail, getting excited and dropping her knitting – "good for Jack!"

"But a Yale man was after him, and the Yale man could run. The crowd was wild with excitement. Jack tore up the earth. The Yale man tore up the earth – "

"He couldn't catch Jack!" exclaimed the spinster. "It wasn't any use for him to try."

"He did catch him – jumped at him – caught his ankles – pulled him down!"

"You don't say! He'd ought to be walloped!"

"Then the others came up, and they all piled on Jack and Frank."

"Frank? Frank who?"

"Why, Frank Merriwell, of course."

"Was he the one that caught Jack?"

"Yes."

"I might have known it. No use for Jack to try to run away from Frank. He couldn't do that. But I thought Frank wasn't going to play?"

"He broke his promise to me – he did play."

"Do tell! I'm surprised!"

"So was I. He stopped Jack, but Harvard scored in the first half, and Yale didn't get a thing. Then came the other half. Yale went at Harvard with new life. Frank seemed to give it to them. He rushed the ball down the field. Harvard couldn't hold him."

"Of course not."

"He got the ball close down to Harvard's line. Then he kicked a goal."

"Hurrah!" cried Miss Abigail, with an astonishing burst of enthusiasm. "Go on, Inza."

"The ball was put into play again. Again Yale got it and rushed it down through Harvard's line. Harvard made a furious struggle to hold it back. Frank got it at last – he broke through – they couldn't stop him. Then – then, with three Harvard men on his back, he carried the ball over the line for a touchdown, kicked a goal, and won the game."

Miss Abigail was palpitating with excitement.

"Goodness me!" she gurgled. "And Frank did all that? I didn't see him do it, either! Goodness me! It must have been grand – it must have been! What a fool I was to stay at home!"

Inza laughed, and then became sober, suddenly.

"Yale won," she said, "but I'll never speak to him again."

"Him? Who?"

"Frank."

"Won't speak to Frank Merriwell?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"He broke his promise to me. Harvard would have won if he hadn't. Look at Paula! She is heartbroken! It was mean of Frank – just as mean as it could be!"

"It was mean," said Paula, "and Frank Merriwell ought to be ashamed. I think he must be an awfully cheap fellow to do anything like that."

Miss Abigail's face grew hard as iron.

"Now, you hold right on, Paula Benjamin!" she said, severely. "Don't you talk about him! Your mother and me was schoolmates, but I won't stay in this house to hear Frank Merriwell traduced! I know him, and he's a fine young man."

"He may be," reluctantly admitted Paula, seeing Miss Gale was thoroughly aroused; "but it seems to me that a fine young man should keep a pledge."

"You don't know his circumstances. There must have been a good reason why he broke his pledge."

"I presume he was called on to play when Mr. Marline injured his ankle."

Inza looked at Paula quickly.

"Mr. Marline?" she said. "I think Frank spoke of him. Who is he?"

"He was to play full-back for Yale, but he sprained his ankle, and so he could not play."

"Do you know him?"

"I have been introduced to him. Jack knows him very well. We met him when we were South two years ago."

"How do you know he sprained his ankle?"

"Jack heard of it last night."

"Then word must have been sent from New Haven. Did it come through a traitor or a spy?"

Paula flushed, and then said:

"Through neither. Mr. Marline expected to see us after the game, and he sent word that he could not very well, as he had sprained his ankle and might not be able to come on. I saw him with the Yale boys, though. He was on crutches."

"I begin to understand Frank's position," thought Inza. "He was forced into the game. Well, I have said I'd never speak to him again, and I shall keep my word. I don't care if it breaks my heart! I know he thinks more of his old college than he does of me."

Jack Benjamin came home bruised in body and crushed in spirit. Paula met him at the door, and drew him into the sitting-room, where Inza and Miss Gale were.

"It's too bad, Jack!" cried his sister, her sympathetic heart wrung by the look of pain on his face. "I think it is just awfully mean that Harvard didn't win!"

"Harvard would have won if it hadn't been for that fellow, Frank Merriwell!" growled Benjamin. "I said he'd hoodoo us, and I was right. We can't down Yale at any game he is in. It's no use to try. Why, we out-classed Yale all around to-day, and still he won the game for them. That's what I call infernal luck!"

Inza repressed her elation, but something like a grim smile came to Miss Abigail's hard face.

"If Marline hadn't hurt his ankle, we'd been all right," declared Jack, as he sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, looking down at the floor. "Rob is a good man, they say, but he could not have done the things Merriwell did. Why, hang it!" he suddenly cried, getting on his feet, sinking his hands deep in his pockets, and stamping around the room, "that fellow actually carried Woodbury, Stanton and Glim on his back for more than fifteen yards! They couldn't pull or crush him down. I wouldn't believe it possible if I hadn't seen it. He's a terror!"

Inza's eyes sparkled.

Paula followed Jack and took his arm.

"I hate him!" she cried. "I saw him pull you down, the big, strong ruffian!"

"Yes," nodded Jack, "and a pretty tackle it was. He didn't pile upon me like a wooden man, but his hands went down to my ankles and flipped me in a second. If he'd bungled the least bit, I'd made a touchdown. Oh, he is a terror!"

"But I hate him!" persisted Paula. "I was so sure you would make a touchdown. What right had he to grasp you that way and throw you so hard?"

"That's the game, sister mine. Any Yale man would have done it – if they could."

"I don't care! Why was he playing?"

"That's right!" cried Jack, turning to Inza. "I thought he wasn't in the game this season? I thought he gave you his promise not to play?"

Inza flushed with shame and embarrassment.

"He did," she confessed.

Jack whistled.

"And broke his promise – I see! It can't be that he thinks much of his word."

It seemed for an instant that Inza would defend him, but she did not. For the first time Frank had broken a promise to her, and she felt it keenly. She turned away.

Miss Gale looked grim, but remained silent. She knew herself, and realized she might say too much, if she spoke at all.

It was an hour or so before Jack could cool down, so stirred up was he by the result of the game. Finally, he went upstairs to take a bath.

Before dinner there was a ring at the bell, and a servant brought in a card, which she gave to Jack, who was enjoying his first smoke of weeks, now that the game was over.

"Hello!" he cried. "Rob Marline! I didn't expect him."

"Rob Marline!" exclaimed Paula, in no little confusion. "Gracious! I must be looking like a fright! Come up to my room with me, Inza, and see that I am presentable."

So the girls ran up to Paula's room, and Jack directed that Marline be brought directly to the smoking-room.

"I want to look my best when Mr. Marline comes," said Paula, when they were in her boudoir. "I am sure my hair looks bad, and I must be a perfect fright."

Inza laughed.

"It seems to me you are very particular about Mr. Marline."

"I am," confessed Paula, busying herself before the mirror. "You know, he is Jack's particular friend."

"Oh, he's Jack's particular friend!"

The manner in which Inza said that brought a warm flush to Paula's cheeks, and she endeavored to hide her confusion, but in vain.

"I've discovered your secret, dear!" cried Inza, with her arm about her friend's waist. "Now I know why you take such an interest in Robert Marline."

"Nonsense! I like him, because – because – "

"Just because you do."

"No; because he is Jack's friend."

"Now, don't try to deceive me, Paula!" cried Inza, holding up one finger. "You can't do it. You would like Rob Marline just as much if your brother was not in it."

"Oh, it's no use to talk to you," fluttered Paula. "You are one of the girls who will have your own way."

"No, not always. I did not have my way to-day. Frank Merriwell played football. But, Paula, I think I am beginning to understand more fully just why you were so anxious Mr. Merriwell should not play on the Yale eleven. He was Mr. Marline's natural rival for the position of full-back. If Frank Merriwell played, Rob Marline could not. I'm sure I am right. You did not tell me the entire truth, but I have found it out."

Paula was more than ever confused, but she could not deny Inza's charge.

"If I told you that," she confessed, with sudden frankness, "I feared you would not try to induce Mr. Merriwell not to play. Now, don't be angry with me, Inza! I know it was Rob's – I mean Mr. Marline's ambition to play full-back on the Yale team, and I wanted him to do so. That's all. Perhaps I ought to have told you in the first place. Do forgive me, dear!"

It was not in Inza's heart to be unforgiving, and so the girls hugged each other, kissed and assisted each other in getting ready to go down and meet the visitor.

They found Jack and Marline in the library. The Yale lad arose with difficulty. His crutches were lying on the floor beside the chair on which he sat.

Paula blushed prettily as she shook hands with Marline, and then she presented Inza.

Thirty minutes later, while they were chatting, there was another ring at the bell, and the servant brought a card to Inza.

"Gentleman wishes to see you, miss."

Inza looked at the card, turned pale, and then, her voice quivering a bit, said:

"Tell Mr. Merriwell I will not see him!"

CHAPTER XXXVIII
A BLOW FOR FRANK

"Eh? What's that?" exclaimed Miss Abigail, who entered the library just in time to catch Inza's words.

"Frank Merriwell has had the impudence to call here to see me – as soon as this!" flared Inza, her face flaming.

"Eh?" exclaimed Miss Abigail, once more. "Impudence?"

"Yes – insolence! After he did not keep his promise to me!"

Rob Marline was greatly interested, although he pretended not to notice what was going on.

"Oh, well, dear," said the spinster, "you must not blame him."

"But I do!"

"You do not know the circumstances."

"I know he broke his promise, and I know I'll never speak to him again as long as I live – never!"

"You think so now, but – "

"I shall think so always."

"Don't be foolish, child! Mr. Merriwell is a splendid young man, and you – "

"I will not see him! That is all."

Then Inza again instructed the servant to tell Mr. Merriwell that she would not see him.

"If you won't see him, I will," said Miss Abigail. "Is he in the parlor? I'll go to him."

"Now, aunt!" cried Inza, catching her arm, "you need not try to fix anything up. He broke his promise to me, and I said I'd never speak to him again. I meant it! He may just stay away, for I don't want to see him. Tell him so for me."

"All right, I will, but I'm going to tell him you're all fluttered, and don't know what you're talking about."

So Miss Gale went to see Frank in the parlor, while Inza remained in the library.

Paula was not hard-hearted, for all that she had declared she hated Frank Merriwell, and, when she saw Inza was in earnest about not seeing Frank, she drew her aside, and said:

"Perhaps you had better see him. I don't want to be the cause of a misunderstanding between you."

"Don't let that worry you," said Inza, with affected lightness. "I don't want anything to do with a fellow who cares so little for me that he will break a pledge the way Mr. Merriwell did."

"But – but he was loyal to his colors and his college."

"Which shows he thinks more of his old college than he does of me. I have said I'd never speak to him again, and you shall see that I can keep my word."

Paula was distressed, for she began to think herself responsible for the misunderstanding between Frank and Inza. She knew Inza well enough, however, to realize it was useless to attempt to reason with her when her mind was set on anything. The more one tried to reason, the more set she became.

Rob Marline had taken in all that passed, although he pretended to be interested in Jack Benjamin's talk about the football game.

Marline felt elated, for he saw Merriwell had done something to turn against him this pretty girl, who was Paula's friend. At first glance, this Yale student from South Carolina had been strongly impressed by Inza's appearance, and there was something about her spirit and her manners that impressed him more and more.

"If I could cut Merriwell out with her!" he thought. "Ah! that would be a rich revenge! But Paula might object! Never mind; I've given Paula no particular reason to think I am stuck on her. If she is stuck on me, it's not my fault. There is no reason why I should not try to catch on with Miss Burrage."

He compared Inza and Paula, and he saw that the former was far the handsomer girl. She had a strikingly attractive face with large dark eyes, red lips and perfect teeth, while the color that came and went in her cheeks told the tale of perfect health. He could see that she was destined to become the kind of a young lady who always creates a sensation when she enters a drawing-room and causes men to turn and look after her on the street.

The more Marline thought it over, the firmer became his determination to do his best to win Inza from Frank Merriwell. He laughed to himself when he thought what a revenge that would be upon the fellow he hated.

"What are you laughing at?" cried Benjamin, somewhat offended. "I tell you Harvard would have won in a walk if it hadn't been for that fellow Merriwell."

"Beg pardon," said Marline, quickly. "Did I laugh? Excuse me. Still, I think you overestimate Merriwell."

"Not a bit of it. He's the best man on the Yale eleven. Besides that, he is one of the best baseball pitchers who ever twirled a ball. He has done more for Yale sports and athletics than any one man ever did before in the same length of time."

"He had the opportunities to-day," said Marline. "That's how he happened to do so much."

"He made the opportunities," declared Benjamin. "What kind of an opportunity was it when three of our men piled upon him and he carried them more than fifteen yards? That was something wonderful!"

"Don't speak so loud, Jack," cautioned Paula. "He is in the parlor, and he might hear you."

"Well, I'm sure I'm not saying anything that could offend him."

"It might give him the swelled head," put in Marline.

Inza turned on him like a flash.

"It is evident you do not know him very well, Mr. Marline," she said, severely. "Frank Merriwell never gets the swelled head."

Marline was somewhat embarrassed, but, with the utmost suavity, he bowed to her, smoothly saying:

"It is possible I do not know him very well, as you say; but I am sure almost any fellow might be in danger of getting a touch of swelled head had he done the things Mr. Merriwell did to-day."

He said this so gracefully that Inza's threatened anger was averted, and she fell to chatting with him, much to his satisfaction.

They were standing close together, talking earnestly, Marline supporting himself by leaning on the back of a chair, when Frank left the parlor, saying to Miss Gale that he must hasten to catch a train back to New Haven.

The library door opened into the hall, and Frank saw Inza chatting with Rob Marline in a manner that seemed very friendly and familiar. The sight gave him a start, and the hot blood rushed to his cheeks.

Inza knew Frank had seen them, but she did not turn to look at him. She began to laugh in her most bewitching manner, as if amused very much at something Marline had said, and leaned a little nearer her companion.

Frank seemed dazed. The sight of Rob Marline in that house chatting thus with Inza seemed a revelation to him. All at once, he fancied he understood the situation – fancied he knew why Inza had not wished him to play on the Yale football team.

"We shall be in New Haven the last of the week, Mr. Merriwell," said Miss Abigail. "She'll get over it by that time, and we'll call. It's nothing but a foolish whim."

She spoke the words just loud enough for Frank to hear, but he did not seem to understand. Like one in a dream, he took his cap from the rack and turned toward the door.

"Good-day, Mr. Merriwell," called the old maid.

"Eh? Oh! Good-day!"

Frank paused at the door and looked back; then he spoke, loudly enough to be heard in the library:

"I shall be pleased to see you at any time, Miss Gale, but, if you call on me, perhaps it would be well not to bring a certain person with you. It might be embarrassing and unpleasant. Good-day."

Bounding down the steps, Frank walked swiftly away. There was a hard, set look on his face, which had grown singularly pale.

"Yes," he muttered, "I understand it all now. She would not tell me why she did not wish me to play on the eleven, but I know now. Somewhere she has met Rob Marline, and she is stuck on him. He wanted to play full-back for Yale, and she aided him all she could by inducing me to promise that I would not play. I see through the whole game! She was playing me for a fool! I did not think that of her, but it is as clear as crystal."

And Marline had cut him out with Inza! He felt sure of that.

"Well," he grated, "I have been easy with that fellow. Now we are enemies to the bitter end! Let him look out for me!"

CHAPTER XXXIX
THE HOMEWARD JOURNEY

"What's the matter with Merriwell?" asked Lewis Little, speaking to a group of jolly lads who were on the train that bore the Yale football team out of Boston on its way to New Haven. "He's grouchy."

"Is he?" cried Paul Pierson. "Well, he ought to be ashamed of himself! Why, he's the hero of the day! All the papers will have his picture to-morrow. I saw at least five persons snapping him with cameras on the field. Grouchy, is he? Well, confound him! He has no right to get a grouch on."

"Not a bit of it!" cried Charlie Creighton. "What's the matter with him? Where is he?"

"He's sitting back in the end of the car, looking fierce enough to eat anybody."

Creighton, Pierson and several others sprang to their feet and looked for Frank. They saw him.

He was staring out of the window in a blank manner, although he did not seem to notice anything the train passed. He was paying no attention to the gang of shouting, singing, laughing students, who filled the smoker and were perched on the backs of the seats and crowded into the aisles.

"Hey, Merry!" shouted Creighton. "Shake it, old man – shake it! Come up here! Get into the game!"

Frank looked around, shook his head, and then looked out of the window again.

"Well, hang him!" growled Charlie. "Any one would think he had played with Harvard, instead of winning the game for Yale! What can be the matter with him?"

No one seemed to know. Creighton went down and talked to Frank, but could get no satisfaction out of him.

As soon as he was let alone again, Merriwell fell to gazing out of the window, seeming quite unaware of the shouts and songs of the jolly lads in the car.

When strangers crowded into the car to get a look at the man who had won the game for Yale, having heard he was on the train, he still continued to gaze out of the window, and it was not apparent that he heard any of their remarks.

"Tell you what," said Creighton, as he returned to Pierson and the others of the little group, "Merriwell is sore."

"Sore?" cried Tom Thornton, "he can't be any sorer than I am! Why, I was jumped on, kicked, rammed into the earth, and annihilated more than twenty times during that game. A little more of it would have made a regular jellyfish out of me. I'll be sore for a month, but I believe in being jolly at the same time."

Then he broke forth into a song of victory, in which every one in that car seemed to join, judging by the manner in which the chorus was roared forth.

 
"Boom-to-de-ay, boom-ta-de-ay,
Boom-to, de-boom-ta, de-boom-ta-de-ay;
We won to-day, we won to-day,
We won, oh, we won, oh, we won to-day."
 

Any one who has not heard a great crowd of college lads singing this chorus cannot conceive the volume of sound it seems to produce. When they all "bear down together" on the "boom-ta," the explosive sound is like a staggering blow from the shoulder.

But even this song of victory did not seem to arouse Frank in the least. He remained silent and grim, being so much unlike his usual self that all who knew him were filled with astonishment.

"I did not mean that he was sore of body," said Creighton. "I think he is chewing an old rag."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you know, we all gave him the marble heart when we thought he had decided not to play football because he was afraid for certain reasons. I think he is sore over that, and I don't know that I blame him. I swear, fellows, we did use him shabby!"

"That's it," nodded Pierson; "that's just it. And he is proud and sensitive. He would not show he cared a continental before the game, but, now he was the means of saving the day for Yale, I fancy he is chewing over it a little."

"Never thought of that," said Bink Stubbs. "Bet you're right, fellows. We'll have to get down on our hulks to him to make it all right. I'm ready to say I'm ashamed of myself, and ask him to forget it."

The others expressed themselves as equally willing, and so it came about that Frank was much surprised to have them come to him, one after another, and confess they had used him shabbily. He was ready enough to shake hands with them all, while he assured them he did not hold the least hardness.

They saw he was in earnest, they were satisfied he was willing and ready to forget they had ever treated him with contempt, and yet he did not cheer up, which was something they could not understand.

"Better let him alone," advised Creighton, after a little. "It may be something we don't know anything about, that he is chewing. Anyway, he's not himself."

Bruce Browning, big and lazy ever, was one of the group. He had been keeping still, but now he observed:

"That's right, let him alone. I've traveled with him, and I never saw him this way before. I tell you he is dangerous, and somebody may get hurt."

 
"Keep away from the window, my love and my dove —
Keep away from the window, don't you hear!
Come round some other night,
For there's gwine to be a fight,
And there'll be razzers a-flyn' through the air."
 

Thus sang Bink Stubbs.

"Look at Harris!" laughed Thornton, nudging the fellow nearest him. "Don't he look sour? They say he got hit to-day."

"Got hit?"

"Yes."

"What with?"

"A roll."

"A roll of what?"

"Bank notes."

"You mean he has been betting?"

"Sure."

"But you don't mean he bet on Harvard?"

"I understand he put his last cent on Harvard, and went broke. He was fortunate enough to have a return ticket to New Haven, so he didn't have to borrow money to get back on."

Harris was sitting in a seat, looking sulky and disgusted, fiercely trying to chew the end of his short black mustache. His hat was pulled over his eyes, and he did not seem to take much interest in what was going on in the car.

Stubbs and Creighton got a crowd together to jolly Harris, and they descended on him in a body.

"Hello, old man!" cried Charlie, gayly. "Is it straight that you won three hundred on Yale to-day?"

"I heard it was five hundred," chirped Bink Stubbs, "What a pull to make! Congratulations, old man!"

"You'll have to ball the crowd when we get to New Haven, Sport," said Lewis Little. "You can afford to open fizz."

Harris smiled in a sickly way, and tried to say something, but Paul Pierson got him by the hand and gave him a shaking up that literally took away his breath.

"Good boy!" cried Paul. "I'm glad you stuck by old Eli! But did you have the nerve to bet every cent you had that Yale would take that game? My, my! You are a nervy fellow, Sport, old chap. You were the only man who had all that confidence."

"Sport never goes back on old Yale," laughed Little. "He knew the chance of Yale's winning looked slim, but still he backed her up. That's what makes him look so cheerful now."

"You would have felt bad if you had bet your money on Harvard, now wouldn't you?" cried Thornton.

"Oh, yes, I certainly should," gasped Harris, who was suffering tortures.

"What a jolly time we'll have drinking fizz on you, old man!" exclaimed Bink Stubbs. "I feel as if I might get away with about four quarts."

"Oh, we'll make a hole in your winnings!" laughed Pierson. "I am so dry this minute that my neck squeaks."

"So are we all!" shouted the others.

Harris could not repress a groan. He wondered if they were fooling with him, but they seemed so much in earnest that he could not tell. Perhaps they really thought he had won a big roll on Yale. He couldn't tell them he had bet on Harvard. What could he do?

He was forced to pretend that he was delighted, but over and over he promised himself that he would give them the slip, even if he had to leap from the train while it was running at full speed. Pay for fizz! Why, he didn't have enough left to pay for a glass of plain beer!