Ralph Henry Barbour

“ And yet the fellows who knew Colton jumped just as quickly at his voice as at Payson’s. When Dan found him he had two lines of forwards under instruction in breaking through and blocking, and Dan had to stand by for a moment until the big chap was at leisure.
“That’s better, Hadlock,” said Colton as the lines disentangled themselves. “But you must keep your back down, you know. Don’t double yourself up like a pair of scissors. Maybe you think you can play a slashing game that way, but you can’t.” ”

“ Oxford was the older institution by twelve years, but beyond that had no advantages over Cambridge. Twice a year, in December and June, the rivals met in debate, each society selecting its debaters by a series of trials. These debates, especially the mid-winter one, wrought the school into quite a frenzy of excitement and for weeks ahead the fellows wore knots of dark blue or light blue in their coat lapels, according as they owned allegiance to Oxford or Cambridge. In June a ball followed the joint debate and the rivalry waxed warm once more, each society striving to outdo the other socially. ”

“ What’s your first name?”
“Dan, sir.”
“Dan, Dan Vinton. That’s a good-sounding name,” mused Mr. Pennimore. “I’ve often thought that there was a good deal in names. I mean that a person’s name maybe expresses his character if we were only able to read it aright. Now your name to me expresses courage and grit [157] and fearlessness. Do you see what I mean?”
“Yes, sir, I think so. But, you see, I was afraid, sir.”
“Yes, afraid to be afraid, my boy. That’s the right kind of fear. To take a risk when you’re not afraid is one thing and to take that risk when your heart’s in your boots is another. ”

“ Vinton and Dan looked at pictures, read descriptions and weighed the merits of the different institutions under consideration. [17] Of course Dan started out with a pronounced leaning toward the military schools; most every boy will own to the fascination exerted by stirring pictures of long lines of youths in trim uniforms drawn up in battalions on an immaculate parade ground, or dashing recklessly over four-rail gates on splendid white horses, or grouped with stern authority about a field-gun from whose muzzle a puff of white smoke hints stirringly of the aspect of war. ”

“ Dan’s private and unexpressed opinion of Russellville Academy wasn’t flattering. He believed that his father must have had a pretty forlorn, unpleasant experience there. But Mr. Vinton had come to look back upon his few years of school life through rose-tinted glasses.
“There were only about thirty of us fellows,” he would say when in reminiscent mood, “but maybe we had better times for that reason; every fellow knew every other fellow. Why, the first month I was there I fought more than half the school!” ”

“ Again Brewer hurled her tandem of backs at the blue line and again the line wavered and was forced back.
“First down!” cried the referee, and waved the linesmen on.
There was twelve yards to go for a score. A fake plunge at the right of the line and a quick start by left half with the ball tucked into his arm fooled the defenders and before the runner was thrown to the ground he had stolen six of those precious twelve yards! Dan, who had been tossed aside like a chip, picked himself up, self-condemning and angry. The gain had been around his end. ”

“ Andy Ryan, quick to note discord, hovered around like an anxious, clucking mother-hen. At supper appetites were erratic and dispositions more so. Plainly a slump was threatening, a slump the more dangerous for being so long delayed. With only two days of practice before the Nordham game the outlook didn’t please Payson at all. He had planned to rest the fellows the first part of the week and to drive them hard Thursday and Friday. ”

“ Yardley had fought her way down to Broadwood’s twenty-four yards and Loring was despairingly hurling the backs at the slowly yielding green line. First down again on the twenty-yard-line! A plunge through left guard for a scant yard; a run outside of tackle for three; third down and six yards to go, the goal-posts standing there mockingly almost above them. Loring wouldn’t risk a forward pass again. A try for a field goal was the only thing, and yet even if it succeeded it would still leave them two points behind. ”

“ Then between the rustic palings of the fence he saw a strange scene. Back from the fence a yard or two stood a small play-house, fifteen feet long by ten wide, with slab sides and shingled roof. It stood quite by itself amidst the shrubbery, its back to the fence. There was a window on the side nearest to Dan and another on the back, and from both of them, closed though they were, grayish-brown smoke crept out. At the corner of the little building stood a slim boy of apparently fourteen years. He had on a red flannel shirt and a red helmet such as firemen wear, and in his hands he held an axe. ”

“ He was an enthusiastic lover of athletics; played a fair game of tennis, was an excellent baseman and had captained last year’s football team at the grammar school. And so, naturally enough, he was looking for a school where athletics flourished. But nevertheless one school, which advertised that “Blank Academy has turned out five victorious football teams in the last six years” earned only his contempt. For he shrewdly argued that a school which sought to attract students on the strength of its athletic success must be sadly deficient in other and more important departments. ”

“ Dan asked.
“Yes, they used to call me ‘Kicker.’ You know we didn’t have any special rules to fight by; every fellow just went at it the handiest way. I was a good kicker; used to jab out with my fist and kick at the same time. I won lots of fights that way, for some fellows can stand any amount of punching on the head or body and quit right away when you get a good one on their shins.”
“We wouldn’t call that fair fighting nowadays,” said Dan uneasily.
“No? Well, fashions change. It was good scientific fighting when I went to school,” answered Mr. Vinton smilingly. ”

“ For awhile Nordham stuck to plain football without frills, making gains now and then through the left of the line from guard to end and now and then getting a back away around one corner or the other. It is only fair to say that Dan’s corner was less easy than Dickenson’s, for the latter was plainly off his game and allowed himself to be put out of the way frequently. But the gains were all short, and on Yardley’s twenty-eight yards the ball was lost on downs. Kapenhysen kicked and the struggle began all over again. ”

“ You wait and see! No fellow can hit me and not get what’s coming to him! You wait and see what happens to Mr. Bully Loring! You—”
“Oh, cut it out, Tubby,” said Dan wearily. “You know you wouldn’t dare make a face at him!”
“Wouldn’t I? You’ll see what I dare! Come on, Jake, and let’s get out of here. Vinton wants to write an apology to Loring for my impoliteness in not getting up and letting him kick me!”
They went out, Tubby banging the door behind him. Dan sighed, and then, recalling the picture presented by Tubby with his feet in the air, laughed.
It is well to laugh while one may. ”

“ PAYSON, COACH
Those first six days were busy ones, yet Dan found plenty of time in which to be homesick. I don’t mean that he wept or went around with a long face; he was pretty nearly sixteen years of age, and, of course, a chap when he gets to be that old has altogether too much pride to act like a baby no matter how much he may feel like one. But on his first and second days at Yardley he went for long walks along the shore or struck inland along the river bank and thought a good deal about Graystone and the folks there and wished heartily that he could see them. ”

“ Between you and the collection of buildings, which, as the station master will tell you, is Yardley Hall School, there lies nothing but a field and a country road which starts off straight and level and very business-like only to waver uncertainly a little distance away and then make a long curve up a hill until it has reached the top of the plateau and is skirting the fronts of the big buildings. ”

“ As he hurried up the steps and down the corridor to the recitation room he strove to recall a line that he had read or heard somewhere. “He also serves who only sits around and waits;” wasn’t that it? Well, something like that, any way. It wasn’t quite applicable to the present case, but it expressed the right idea.
But when it came time for football practice Dan discovered that even the re-establishment of his self-esteem didn’t give him the courage to go to the field and stand around on the side-line in his everyday clothes to be pointed out as one of the fellows who hadn’t “made good”! ”

“ There was his side of it, too.
“I can’t bother,” he said once, “to spend valuable time teaching the rudiments of football to fellows who may never make good. I have only eight weeks at the most to build my team, and I need every moment of those eight weeks for perfecting. Let the novices learn how to handle the ball on their class teams. Next year I’ll try them out. But a coach can’t conduct a kindergarten and turn out a decent team in eight weeks. Anyhow, I can’t.”
That was John Payson’s side of it, and doubtless there was a good deal of sense in his contention. ”

“ But he had a suspicion that Tubby’s estimates were not always just, and what little he had seen of Loring he liked. Unfortunately, Loring hadn’t shown any reciprocal sentiments. Dan smiled ruefully as he recalled his father’s advice on the subject of forming friendships. “Don’t make your friendship too cheap,” he had counselled. “If a fellow wants it make him pay your price.” Dan wondered now whether anyone was going to want his friendship at any price whatever! Perhaps, after all, he would have done better to have gone to a western school. ”

“ The biggest hero of all is the man that does a thing when he’s scared to death, merely because he knows that it’s right. Isn’t that so?”
“I suppose so, sir. I never thought much about it.”
“Well,” said Mr. Pennimore with a sudden laugh, “don’t think about it now; this is too fine a morning for problems. You’ll find when you get to know me better, Dan, that I have a weakness for problems. I call you Dan because you and I are going to be pretty good friends, I hope. Now tell me something about yourself. Where do you live when you’re at home?”
“In Graystone, Ohio, sir.” ”

“ At dinner time Dan had to tell his story over again to the fellows at his table.
“Pshaw, that isn’t the way I heard it,” said Paul Rand. “I heard that it was the kennels that was on fire and that you and the Pennimore kid went in to rescue the dogs and that he was overcome by the smoke and you carried him out in your arms. I’ll bet you’re lying, Vinton.” Dan assured him earnestly that his version was the correct one and Rand finally believed him. But everyone was especially attentive to Dan that day and for a day or two afterwards, and the school proclaimed him a hero. ”

“ And Dan liked what the catalogue said about the school’s purpose: “The object of the Academy is to furnish the elements of a solid education. The discipline is not adapted to boys who require severe restrictions, and the method of instruction assumes that the pupils have some power of application and a will to work. The purpose of the instructors is to lead pupils to cultivate self-control, truthfulness, a right sense of honor, and an interest in the purity of the moral atmosphere of the school.” ”

“ But in spite of this assertion Russellville Academy remained to Mr. Vinton a typical boarding-school, and remembering how little he had learned there and, when the rose-tinted glasses were laid aside, how many unhappy moments he had spent there, he was resolved in his own mind that his wife’s decision was a wise one. ”

“ Gerald had found everything very interesting and fascinating, but when he told Dan and Tubby so the latter at once began to compare Yardley and Broadwood, the result being decidedly unflattering to Yardley. That, thought Dan would never do, and so he suddenly recollected that it was time for him to get dressed for the game, and he hurried Gerald off before Tubby could do any more damage.
“You mustn’t mind Tubby Jones,” said Dan as they cut across the yard. “He’s a chronic kicker. If he was at Broadwood he’d want to be here. Nothing ever quite suits Tubby.” ”

“ On one occasion Dan entertained a member of each of the rival societies at one time and a really delicious comedy was enacted. The Cambridge member was Paul Rand, while Oxford was represented by Joe Chambers. They were killingly polite to each other and for half an hour the conversation wandered from golf to football and from mid-winter examinations to the conduct of the Scholiast of which Chambers was an editor. Each tried to outstay the other, but in the end they retired together, for there were other fellows awaiting their attention. And not once had Societies been mentioned. ”

“ There were two low, broad-topped desks, one at each side of the room, and between them, opposite the door from the corridor, was a second door marked “Private.” [33] There were three boys ahead of him and so Dan dropped into one of the four high-backed, uncomfortable chairs near the door and waited. Two deeply-recessed windows at his left admitted a flood of white light, and through them he could see an expanse of turf, traversed by red brick walks which converged in the center of the space where an ancient-looking marble sun-dial stood. ”

“ But John T. Pennimore was not a man of whims, and from June to late in the Autumn the Princess made almost daily trips to and fro between the summer home and the city, reeling off the miles like an express train. When the Princess lay at anchor off Sound View it was known that the Steamship King was at home. Dan wondered idly whether he would see the big yacht when he [135] reached the end of the path. ”