Arthur Stanwood Pier

“ Then Francis Stoddard stepped out from the crowd and went up to Joe Herrick, who was standing close in front of Harry.
"Do you know what you are?" said Stoddard. There was an intensity of feeling in his suppressed voice that caused Harry, overhearing him, to look up.
"No. What?" asked Herrick, with a scornful laugh.
"You're a dirty, cowardly, tricky player!" said Stoddard, still in a low, deliberate voice. "You tripped Rupert. You broke his leg. You know it." ”

“ I wish, Ormsby, that you'd be on hand when they come out, and then pitch into 'em—for breaking training and all that, you know; give them a good dressing down and make them ashamed of themselves. I don't intend to push the matter any farther. You'll handle it for me?"
"Yes, indeed. It will be great sport. I love to scold," said Rupert, and the boy and the doctor laughed at each other in a way that Francis Stoddard did not quite understand.
"You'll have to keep a straight face or you won't do any good," said Doctor Vincent. ”

“ CHAPTER X IN silent fear Harry Harding and Joe Herrick looked at each other; then they turned and went silently down the infirmary steps. Typhoid fever! That would mean that Rupert would be out of everything for the rest of the year—out of athletics, out of the school life!
That it might perhaps mean even worse than this was a possibility which neither of the boys entertained. Rupert was so strong, so healthy, that indeed the most morbid imagination could hardly contemplate a fatal termination to his illness. But that he should be ill—and with such a tedious disease—was bad enough. ”

“ But when the boys came near and he recognized them, he laughed and flung up one hand and cried, "It's all right now, fellows; he's pulled through. But I tell you, it was the closest call!"
He passed on up the road.
"He's feeling about as good as any one, for all he looks so done up," said Joe Herrick.
"It must be fine," sighed Harry, "to be a doctor and know you've pulled a fellow through."
"Finest thing in the world," declared Frank Windsor, who looked forward to doing just that some day. ”

“ Bruce Watson linked his arm in Harry's and walked with him carelessly up the steps, past his former companion, who stood to one side rather bashfully. Rupert nodded to this thin, shy fellow, and wondered why Watson should have abandoned him so abruptly. Watson had nothing special to say, and when he accompanied Harry and Rupert inside and sat with them in the "common room," it seemed merely because of a preference for their society. And Rupert knew that Francis Stoddard, the boy who remained outside on the steps, had been Bruce Watson's closest friend. ”

“ Rupert Ormsby, in the back of the room, was being disorderly in a juvenile way. With his foot up against the wall, he was jamming a line of chairs together, while everybody down the line resisted, and the two or three fellows nearest him heaved with shoulders and arms against his mighty back—all of them hilarious with laughter.
"Harry pretends he does n't care," said Nat Belmont to Francis Stoddard, "and Rupert Ormsby really doesn't care. That's what I like about him; he does n't give a hoot." ”

“ That afternoon, at the regular meeting of the Crown, which was held in Herrick's room instead of at the sacred rock, owing to a heavy fall of snow, Harry put forth his ultimatum. It was not conceived on the spur of the moment. It was the outgrowth of his reflections of the past few days.
"Fellows," he said, "some of you won't agree with me, but I hope, anyway, you'll listen. You all remember how Rupert Ormsby once refused to join our society—and how some of us accused him of all sorts of motives. ”

“ One morning after prayers, as the boys were passing out of the chapel, Harry saw a woman in black sitting beside the rector's wife. A certain familiar expression in her quite unfamiliar face caused him to glance at her a second time, and when he came down the chapel steps he said to Joe Herrick, who happened to be at his side:—
"Rupert's mother has come."
"How do you know?" asked Herrick.
"I saw her just now in the chapel. It must be his mother. She has the same way of looking at you from her eyes." ”

“ Nat Belmont remarked to Francis Stoddard that Harding was out "swiping" for votes; but this was hardly true. Harry's pleasant face and kind and friendly manner were not assumed for a purpose; they were natural to him when he was as happy as he was now. Everything seemed to be turning out just as he would have it. Rupert's denial of any interest in the election and failure to make any active canvass soothed Harry's conscience and raised his sanguine hopes. ”

“ It did not soften Herrick's resentment and mortification when Harry told him the next day that the new society had been all a joke; it was rather more humiliating, if anything, to know he had been deluded as well as rebuked.
But Bruce Watson was more sensitive to Harry's lecture.
"The whole thing about the Crown, Bruce," Harry said to him, "is that if it's to have any influence at all,—and a good influence,—the fellows in it must take an interest in the fellows outside it. For a fellow to join it and then cut the friends he's had before is no way to do." ”

“ We find that some fellow like Clark Harding, who has n't lifted a hand to gain what we've prized, has got that and more, too. And we begin to feel like the pacemaker in a running race, who starts out as if he were going to leave the whole field behind—and then, after the first lap, is passed by every one. That's what comes to the boy who, either here or at college, acquires no more solid ambition than just to shine. ”

“ Harry tried to slip by unnoticed; but Rupert, who had been laughing over something that he had been telling the doctor, turned and nodded with a casual good-humor, and said, "Hello, Harry!"
That evening, after the prayers in the common room, when the boys were getting ready to go down to the study for the hour of reading and letter-writing, Rupert, standing by the door, grabbed Harry's arm.
"Look here," he said, "you first eleven men are all candidates for the school team. You want to make it if you can, Harry. ”

“ Most of you fellows who are here to-night are prominent in the life of St. Timothy's School. The fact that you are here is an indication of prominence. And prominence is not a crime; it need not be a misfortune. It means that you are having a larger opportunity to live than other boys—a larger opportunity to work and to play, a larger opportunity to befriend those who are more obscure, more weak, more unsatisfied and unhappy than yourselves. You have the opportunity for leadership; and leadership means a good deal more than walking at the head of the procession. ”

“ Every St. Timothy's boy joined in that cheer. Rupert turned red and laughed, and then said something to Ward. And when the cheer was finished, Ward rose to his feet.
"Fellows," he said, "I say we cheer every man who played on the team to-day. First, left end"—He glanced down inquiringly at Rupert, who said, "Herrick."
"Three times three for Herrick!" cried Ward; and so he went down the list of players, and the St. Timothy's crowd stayed and helped him cheer them all, and last of all Harry Harding. ”

“ But he could not say another word in his defense, and Rupert passed him over with an ironical glance. Herrick still kept his grip on Stoddard, but he looked at Rupert with sullen eyes, in which there was as much indecision as wrath.
"You'd better mind your own business!" he said. "You're too fond of butting in."
"That comes well from a fellow who holds up another and takes his pin from him and tries to wring his secret out of him by force," Rupert said scornfully. ”

“ It was his chance to put into execution the scheme for getting even with Rupert that his cunning mind had devised.
"Andrews is always playing offside," he whispered. "I can see—all down the line. Insist on Mr. Eldredge's watching him—on the next play."
Then he ran back to his position.
Harry, exhausted and excited, was in a state of mind open to any such suggestion. He cried out breathlessly:—
"Wait, Mr. Eldredge! Mr. Eldredge, sir!"
"What is it?" said the referee.
"I wish you'd watch Andrews, please. I wish you'd come to this end of the line and watch him a while. He's always offside." ”

“ Harry felt hurt that Frank Windsor should speak to him in that way.
The ball had been carried two feet beyond the line. Harris, the Pythian centre, took it out, and Rupert kicked the goal. Rejoicing over this achievement was expressed in the reiterated, carefully separated shout: "Pythi-an! Pyth-i-an! Pyth-i-an!" reiterated with indefinite monotony. It grated on Harry's nerves.
Frank Windsor, with the ball under his arm, walked angrily out to the middle of the field. Then he called his team round him.
"You fellows have got to play ball!" he said. ”

“ What more do you want?"
"Oh, it is n't that sort of thing that counts," replied Harry. "It's athletics. I'd give anything to be the sort of all-round fellow my brother Clark was—the sort you are."
"Ho! brains beat muscle any day."
"There's one thing," Harry continued, "that I am glad of, and that is that it's you who are the big all-round athlete. You'll be president of the athletic association and captain of the crew, and everything else. And I'm mighty glad of it!"
"Thanks!" Rupert laughed. ”

“ Later in the evening Harry talked to Frank Windsor and Bruce Watson in his room.
"You fellows are in the wrong," he said to them earnestly. "Albree is n't as good a man for the place as Stoddard, and you can't persuade that crowd that he is. You can keep on blackballing Stoddard, but you'll never get Albree in. Now do you want to keep on,—and split the society,—and maybe do worse than that?" ”

“ He's the sort of fellow who takes things as they are and makes the best of them; and I know his going into the Crown and using his influence must have done a lot of good. But I don't believe my going in would do me or the Crown any good. So I think I'll stay outside." He laughed and patted Harry's shoulder. "We'd better be going in to supper."
Harry was too disappointed to speak. Of all the boys at St. Timothy's, Rupert Ormsby was the one whom Harry had come to like best. He had been attracted to Rupert the year before, when the big fellow had entered St. Timothy's as a "new kid." ”

“ I had to tell you and that kid, Stoddard—because I'd lied to you and him."
Harry could say nothing, but he felt sorrier for Joe Herrick than ever—and liked him better.
In the athletic house, while Herrick was dressing, the other players on the team congratulated him and joked with him on having saved the day. Frank Windsor, as captain, was quite bubbling over with happiness. He slapped Herrick on the back.
"There's no doubt at all, Joe!" he exclaimed gayly. "You're the hero of the occasion. You're the one that did it." ”

“ They marched up the steps and sauntered about in front of the study, with their hands in their pockets and their coats wide open, exhibiting their pins. Francis Stoddard felt quite self-conscious, and had hard work to repress the nervous little smile that was twitching at his lips. A good many fellows seemed to be staring, and that both excited and embarrassed him. But the three other conspirators strolled about with faces that were quite unconcerned.
In a moment the boys were called in to study. Francis went to his desk, which was next to Bruce Watson's. ”

“ Harry asked the rector, who had given him this information.
"I'm afraid he won't," the rector replied. "You see, he's missed nearly a whole term now, and he will find it impossible to regain his standing with the form. He won't be well and strong for a good while yet."
To Harry the news was a sad disappointment. The intimacy which had grown so dear to him seemed now forever brought to an end. He and Rupert were going to different colleges, their homes were in cities far apart; it was unlikely that their paths would ever cross in after life. ”

“ Out in the hall Watson gathered a group of members of the Crown,—Tom Albree, Harry Harding, Joe Herrick, and Frank Windsor.
"Have you noticed the new society?" he asked them excitedly.
"Belmont and Ormsby and that crowd?" said Herrick. "I saw they're flashing a pin on us. You think they've got a society?"
"I know it," said Watson. "I've just been called down by Ormsby for inquiring. I know what it is! He's got it up to buck against the Crown."
"It can't be!" exclaimed Harry. "Rupert told me himself he would n't join the Crown simply because he did n't believe in secret societies. ”

“ And with his indignation hot upon him, he went straight to Rupert.
"There's something I think you ought to know," he said. "I've just found out that the Crown fellows are all going round trying to get Harry Harding elected president of the athletic association."
"Yes," said Rupert, rather amused by the boy's indignation, "I've known that. Harry's not much of an athlete, but he's a good fellow, and he'll be all right for president."
"It is n't fair!" cried Stoddard. "You're the only fellow in the school that anybody ever thought of. ”