Barbour Ralph Henry
For the Honor of the School: A Story of School Life and Interscholastic Sport

CHAPTER XIX
THE HOME RUN

Events were crowded thickly into the next week. Gardiner returned to the Academy on Monday and shook up football affairs in a way that surprised even Paddy. On Tuesday two more graduates put in an appearance on the campus and with most terrifying scowls proceeded to work miracles, one with the sprinters and the other with the baseball candidates. The latter coach reached the scene none too soon, for the next day Shrewsburg sent down an aggregation of hard-hitting young gentlemen who had already earned a reputation that reached up and down the valley. Most of the fellows turned out for the game and cheered lustily for the crimson-stockinged youngsters, but despite the support of the grand stand Hillton put up a ragged kind of ball, and at the end of the sixth inning the wearers of the green S were five runs to the good and their earning capacity seemed still unlimited.

Wayne and Don and Dave saw most of the contest from where the former was putting Perkins over the high hurdles in a fraction over record time. Later they adjourned to the stand and Don took a hand in the cheering with encouraging results. Hillton went to bat in the first of the seventh amid a loud chorus of cheers only to retire in one-two-three order. Then the coach asserted authority and a new pitcher went into the box, a lower-middle-class boy, Forest by name, who had gained some success with his class nine the preceding spring. He had a fresh, smiling, and ingenuous countenance, and he delivered nice straight balls that went so fast that the first two Shrewsburg batters went out on strikes and the third one reached first base through the medium of a short grounder that seemed to belong to nobody in particular, and for which nobody tried. But the side was out in the next moment, for the fourth batsman struck up a nice clean fly that settled cosily into the right-fielder’s hands, and the crimson stockings trotted in under a salvo of applause.

“Say, where’s Paddy?” asked Wayne, while the first man at bat was recovering his equilibrium after striking unsuccessfully at a deceptive drop. Dave grinned.

“Paddy’s busy. Gardiner’s got every candidate, new and old, back of the gym teaching them to pass. And Gardiner’s so full of new ideas that Paddy’s head is in a whir all the time. I fear he’ll have brain fever soon.”

“There’ll be two of us,” said Don feelingly, “unless Middleton goes out of training. He knocked over every hurdle to-day except the last three. I don’t understand how he came to miss those.”

“Side’s out,” interrupted Wayne. “This is the last of the eighth, isn’t it?”

“Yes, let’s get the fellows to cheering.” Don got up and encouraged the stand to renewed efforts, and the Shrewsburg captain went to bat.

“Twelve to seven,” muttered Dave. “I guess we don’t want this game.”

“Nine’s awful rocky this year,” said Don. “But I’ll bet Kirk will teach ’em something before the first St. Eustace game.”

“Good work, Gray!” yelled Wayne, as the Hillton first baseman captured a liner hot off the end of the Shrewsburg captain’s stick.

“Is that Carl Gray?” asked Dave.

“Yes; I guess he’ll get on to the team. He’s made two of the seven runs so far.”

Once more the Shrewsburg batters failed to make a safe hit, and Forest got a good hearty cheer all to himself as he threw down the ball and went to the bench. It was the first of the ninth now and the home team’s last chance to tie the score or win, either a difficult task. But the cheering became continuous, and the first man at bat, obeying instructions, waited patiently for his base and got it on four balls. Then a batting streak came to the Hillton players, and the next fellow at the plate struck the first ball delivered safely just inside of the third baseman. The next batter also found the ball and knocked it hotly to shortstop, who fumbled it; and the bases were full. But the Shrewsburg pitcher settled down to work and the following Hillton man went out on strikes. And then happened a most unfortunate incident for Shrewsburg. The coachers were busy back of first and third bases, and the Shrewsburg pitcher allowed the noise to worry him a little, just enough to turn an inshoot into a catastrophe. The ball struck the batsman on the hip, and he limped to first, the men on bases moved up, and Hillton scored her eighth run, amid quickly suppressed applause from the seats. The pitcher lost his nerve then and delivered a straight ball, shoulder high, which lit on the center of the bat and went sailing just over his head, bringing another runner in and reaching first too late to put the batsman out. The bases were still full, with but one out, and the grand stand was wild with excitement. The next fellow at the plate, perhaps determining to profit by the pitcher’s collapse, allowed the first two balls to go by unnoticed. Both were strikes. He looked worried for an instant as he tapped the plate with his stick and again faced the pitcher. The third delivery was a ball, and the batsman smiled.

“Hit it, Jim!” shrieked a friend in the audience, but Jim merely broadened his smile into a grin, and the umpire called “Two balls!” Again he remained motionless. “Three balls!” Fellows on the seats began to breathe hard and lean restively forward. The Shrewsburg pitcher glanced around the bases, wiped the stained leather sphere pensively on his gray trousers, shot his hands upward, and sent a straight ball waist-high over the plate. The batsman tossed aside his stick and took a step toward first base.

“Striker’s out!” called the umpire.

A howl of derision went up from the watchers as the youth turned back and walked toward the seat with a pained expression on his face. “Idiot!” commented Dave.

But there was yet a chance. A three-bagger would tie the score. A slightly built boy selected a bat and took his place at the plate. Simultaneously the pitcher turned, waved his hand, and the fielders scattered farther away. Some one started a cheer.

“’Rah-rah-rah, ’Rah-rah-rah, ’Rah-rah-rah, Gray!”

“There’s your friend, Wayne,” said Dave. “Hope he’ll swipe out a home run.”

“So do I. But no such luck, I’m afraid.”

The pitcher was evidently afraid of Gray’s prowess with the bat and went to work skillfully to deceive him by all his arts. But Gray was cool and used the best of judgment. The first ball sped slowly by and resolved itself into a wide outcurve. “One ball!” droned the umpire. The catcher protested loudly, indignantly. Then he marched forward and held a whispered conversation with the pitcher, while the audience laughed derisively.

“No secrets!” bawled a small junior.

The catcher returned, and, leaning far to the right, smote his glove disconcertingly. But Gray refused to glance around or lose his head. The pitcher’s wonted skill and coolness had returned to him. The men on bases were playing far off, ready to take advantage of anything in the shape of a hit. Up went the pitcher’s hands, forward shot his arm, and Gray leaped desperately backward.

“Strike!” called the umpire.

Gray looked disconcerted for an instant. Then he tapped the plate resolutely and again faced the pitcher. The next ball was far out and the boy at bat made no offer at it.

“Two balls!”

Again the chap with the great green S decorating his jersey went through his contortions, and the sphere sped forward. Gray struck at it with all his force and spun around on his heel. The catcher dropped to his knee and picked the ball from the dust. It was a most deceptive drop and the waiting batsmen on the bench nodded their heads in approval.

“Two strikes!”

A little spot of deeper red shone on Gray’s cheek now and he moved his stick a bit nervously behind his shoulder. The pitcher stepped back into his box, nodded to a sign from the catcher, and let drive. Then there was a sharp report as Gray’s bat struck the speeding sphere, the grand stand was on its feet, the three men on bases raced home almost in a bunch, and Gray was rounding first base at a desperate pace!

High and far sped the ball. The left-fielder was racing back down the field. Would he catch it? Pandemonium reigned in the grand stand. Wayne and the others were on their feet, shouting wildly and waving their caps. Gray reached second base, cast a glance toward left field, and came on. The fielder turned almost under the ball and reached upward, leaped back a step, clutched wildly, and fell. The ball, tipping his fingers just beyond his reach, dropped to earth. And Gray, panting and happy, crossed the home plate into the arms of his exultant friends.

The score was now in Hillton’s favor by one run: thirteen to twelve. The half was soon over. The next man struck a short grounder and was out at first. And Shrewsburg went to bat, desperate resolve written large on every face.

“Say, that friend Gray of yours is a great little boy!” exclaimed Dave, as he pulled his cap on again and pounded his feet in time to the refrain of Hilltonians, which the audience had started to chant.

“That’s the finest home run that’s ever been seen on this field since I’ve been in school,” said Don. “And it was needed, too. A home run in time saves the nine.”

“I hope it’ll save this nine,” laughed Wayne. “But those chaps look as though they meant business. One run will tie us; two will beat us.”

But fortune proved a friend to Hillton, and Gray’s wonderful hit saved the day, for Forest worked like a veteran pitcher and struck out the first two Shrewsburg men in short order. The next batter wrote finis to the game by sending a high foul into the first baseman’s gloves, and the grand stand was emptied of its throng. Shrewsburg accepted defeat manfully, answered the Hillton cheer with one equally hearty, bundled itself into the waiting coach, and took its departure with much good-natured defiant flaunting of green banners. Gray, by one brilliant stroke, had achieved a much-coveted position on the nine and was a school hero for many weeks.

The following day Wayne again sped over the mile while Professor Beck held the watch on him. But something was wrong. The professor gave him the result with ill-concealed displeasure.

“Five minutes twenty-three seconds. That’ll never do. You must cut off fifteen seconds, Gordon, if you expect to make the team. What’s the trouble?”

But Wayne couldn’t tell. He had done his best, he thought, and asserted positively that he could run the distance again without feeling it, which feat was naturally not allowed.

“Take a rest to-morrow,” counseled the professor, “so that you’ll be in good condition for Saturday. For I’ll tell you frankly that if you don’t mend that time in the handicaps you’ll find yourself out of it.”

And Wayne jogged back to the gymnasium feeling very forlorn and discouraged. But after his bath and rubbing his spirits returned and he vowed to open the professor’s eyes next time. He had entered for both the half and the mile, the former on Professor Beck’s advice. “For,” said the latter, “the races are far apart, and you’ll get over the effects of the half before the mile is called. And the half may limber you up for the longer distance.”

Wayne spent the next day in rest. Don, too, was idle, as were most of the boys who were to participate in the handicaps, and he and Wayne took a short walk along the river in the afternoon and returned at dusk in time for an hour’s study before supper. The handicaps were announced that evening, and, as is usual in like cases, there was some dissatisfaction expressed by contestants. Wayne found that he was to be allowed twenty yards in the half mile and was to run from scratch in the mile, and was quite satisfied. One thing that told its own story was the announcement that Merton would receive an allowance of eight feet in the hammer throw.

“Poor old Dave!” said Don. “That’ll cut him up like anything. I suppose it means that Hardy has turned out to be a better man, for you see he’s down for scratch. Hello! they’ve given Middleton four seconds in the one-hundred-and-twenty-yard hurdles; well, he ought to come somewhere near winning with that allowance.”

Wayne went to bed that night filled with determination to win on the morrow. He was not the sort of lad that allows the thought of coming events to keep him awake, and he was soon fast asleep; nerves were practically unknown to Wayne. But his brain proved more troublesome and continued its labors after the body had gone to rest, with the result that his slumbers were disturbed by dreams in which he seemed to be trying to win the mile race with Professor Beck perched like an old man of the sea on his shoulders, and Don continually thrusting hurdles in his path.

CHAPTER XX
BADLY BEATEN

Saturday dawned fresh and clear. A little breeze, redolent of forest depths and growing things, blew over the meadows from Mount Adam. The river sparkled beneath its touch and the broad carpet of yellowish green marshland beyond felt its breath and stirred in response. The school turned out to a man – or should I say to a boy? – and long before the hour set for the meeting the stand and much of the turf without the ropes that guarded the track in the vicinity of the finish lines were well thronged. The village came too, in the persons of the postmaster and the livery-stable keeper and the two rival grocers and many others of local prominence; and their wives and daughters came with them and lent an added dash of color to the scene.

The meeting was much like every other event of the kind. Contestants ran, hurdled, or jumped; the judges looked inscrutable; and the audience cheered indiscriminately. It was little to them whether this boy was disappointed or that one made glad; they applauded a brilliant finish or an extra inch surmounted with the pole, and cared but little what the figures might be. There were no records broken that day, but Professor Beck and Don and the coaches – of which there was a small army on hand, many having arrived on the morning train – were on the whole well satisfied with the results shown. Don took both hurdle events, and Perkins came in a close second. Middleton failed to use his allowance to good effect, and made a poor third in each race. Dave threw the hammer one hundred and thirty-eight feet four inches, which, with his handicap of eight feet, gave him second place in the event. Hardy threw one hundred and forty-seven feet two inches, and Kendall was third with one hundred and forty feet nine inches. Hardy’s performance assured him a place on the team and indicated a possibility of victory at the forthcoming meeting. The pole vault, the sprints, the jumps, and the quarter mile were all well contested, and some of them showed even brilliant work. Whitehead ran away from the field in the last twenty yards of the half mile, and Wayne finished a poor sixth, partly owing to the fact that he had made a bad start and partly because the pace was too hot for him; Whitehead’s time was 2.07⅕.

After such a sorry showing as that it seemed that Fortune owed Wayne some reparation in the mile event; if so, Fortune didn’t pay the debt. Profiting by the experience gained in the half mile, Wayne got off well with the pistol and took a place in the van of the group of eight runners. At the quarter mile he was third and felt as fresh as a colt; at the half he had pulled himself up to a place on the inside of the track and but a yard behind the leader. At the three quarters he was still running strong, but Whitehead had passed him and was disputing the lead with Battles. At the beginning of the last lap, Wayne found himself fourth. On the back stretch he passed Seers and drew up behind Whitehead and Battles. His legs were strong, his breath good, and he could have run another mile without minding it. But after the turn, when he dashed ahead to win, he found to his dismay that there was no dash in him. Battles and Whitehead tore away from him and Seers crawled up, hung for an instant on his flank, and passed him. Battles won first by a fraction of a second, Whitehead was next, Seers third, and Wayne fourth. The winner’s time was 5.03⅘; Wayne’s, 5.19.

He crawled dejectedly to the dressing room and refused to be comforted by Whitehead’s predictions of better success next time. He was out of it, and he knew it. There was nothing to do save put as good a face as possible upon defeat. He trotted away to the gymnasium before the meeting was quite over and took his bath and rub down almost alone. To-day these things failed to summon back his spirits, and he went to his room, perched himself on his own particular window seat, gazed out across the sunlit river and marshes, and thought it all over.

It seemed hard luck. A few months before he would have cared but little whether he made the track team or not. But now it was different. The virus of athletic ambition was in his veins, and the afternoon’s defeat, entailing as it did loss of position on the track team, seemed magnified into an overwhelming catastrophe. He tried to summon back the old indifference; he remembered scoffing at Don because the latter made so much of athletic triumphs; somehow it was different to-day, and he wished that he had resisted Don’s appeals and stayed out of it all. Then a sense of injury overwhelmed him. What right had Don and Professor Beck to encourage him as they had into thinking that the long hard training would win him a place on the team and then to drop him like a – like a hot penny because he had failed once or twice to come up to their standard? He was so certain all the time that he could have won if – if – what? What had been the trouble? He knit his brows and stared hard across the river. He had had no trouble as to wind; his legs had remained strong and tireless to the end; he had simply been unable to run as fast at the finish as the others. Very well, then, it only remained to learn how to save his strength so that he could spurt hard in the last fifty yards. Why couldn’t they give him another chance? In the midst of his musings Don came in. He tossed a pair of grips on to the table and joined Wayne at the window. There was an atmosphere of constraint in the study, and for a moment neither boy spoke. Then Don broke the silence.

“I’m awfully sorry, Wayne.”

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

There was another interval of silence. Then Don broke out with:

“But it does matter! I feel all broke up over it! It’s too bad, old chap; that’s what it is. But perhaps it isn’t all up yet. I’m going to try and get Beck to give you another try, Wayne. Don’t you think you can do better?”

“Yes, I know I can. I could have won easily to-day if – if – The trouble was I didn’t have any speed left at the finish; even Seers passed me! Can’t I learn to save up for a spurt? I wasn’t tired; I could have run another mile, I’m sure, Don.”

“Of course you can learn, if – if there is only time. You see, old chap, there is only three weeks left. But I am going to see Beck, and I’ll do all I can. I feel certain that you can beat that time to-day, and better it, too. There has been a mistake somewhere; you haven’t been worked right. And it’s Beck’s fault, I guess; at any rate, it isn’t yours.”

“Oh, it’s nobody’s fault, I reckon; it’s just rotten luck!”

“No, luck doesn’t enter into it, Wayne. There’s been a mistake somewhere; and I hope Beck will see it.” He paused and looked in a troubled way at his chum. “Perhaps you think it is my fault, Wayne?” he said wistfully. Wayne shook his head.

“No. I was rather blaming you and Beck a while ago, but I had no right to. It isn’t your fault at all, Don, and don’t you worry about me; you’ve got enough to attend to. I’ll be all right. Only if you don’t mind speaking to Beck about it, you know – ”

“Of course I will. Right away, too. All the fellows are asked to report in Society House this evening at eight. Beck is going to announce the names of the fellows who are to go to training table Monday, and some of the grads are going to talk a bit. Remsen came to-day.”

“Who’s Remsen; the football man?”

“Yes, he used to coach the eleven. He’s a jolly nice fellow, and awfully popular here. He’ll probably talk some, too. I hope he does; he’s worth hearing. You’ll go, won’t you?”

“If I’m wanted; though, if I’m not going to be on the team, I don’t see what use – ”

“Of course you’re going on! So shut up and keep chipper. I promised Beck to go to his room at five, and it’s nearly that time. Don’t get blue, old chap; we’ll fix it all right!”

When the door had slammed to after Don the boy at the window sat a long while looking out on to the darkening landscape. The river grew to a deep violet with steel-gray ripples. The marsh became filled with shadows, and the sun dropped behind the purple hills and left the twilight cold and colorless. With a sigh and a shake of his broad shoulders Wayne jumped up, pulled down the shades, and lighted the gas. He seized the first book that came to hand, a Greek Testament, and settled himself resolutely in the armchair.

“If Beck won’t give me another show,” he muttered as he found his place, “I’ll go ahead and train on my own hook. And I’ll cut that old mile down to five minutes even if I have to work all day. And then they’ll have to take me on!”