'As Gold in the Furnace' Part 4

"I don't know----" hesitated Henning, for several reasons.

"Oh, yes, you do, Roy," urged Jack. "You are a capital beggar, you know, and with your own big donation at the head of the list you will be irresistible."

"Call him a good solicitor," laughed Shealey, "it's more euphonious."

"I think I can act as treasurer and secretary for you, if the boys are willing. It is the least I can do if I don't play."

"Of course it is. Thanks. That's good of you," said Beecham, and Shealey nodded approvingly.

"Now, Roy, how much shall I put you down for before I hand over to you the subscription list? Twenty is too much, I suppose," said Shealey.

Roy looked out of the window in a perplexed sort of way. He had always been a liberal contributor. What would his friends think of him now?

The paternal test was certainly a hard one in more ways than one.

"I am afraid I shall disappoint you," he said.

"In what?" asked Beecham. "In book-agent a.s.surance? Never fear. I am willing to certify that beneath all your laughing good humor, you are possessed of an unlimited amount of--of--well--to put it without circ.u.mlocution--an unlimited amount of cheek. No one can withstand your winning smile and drawing manner. But what is your own gift? Let us head the list with that. I must tell you that your cousin Garrett has promised to equal your subscription, so make it large, if you please. He has already given----"

"How much?" asked Henning uneasily.

"Five dollars."

"Oh!" said Henning, with something very like a sob in his throat.

"Better make it twenty-five, Roy; you can spare it, and it's practically giving an extra twenty which comes out of the pocket of that beg--Oh! I beg your pardon. I am constantly forgetting that he is your cousin. I wish he wasn't."

Beecham spoke the last sentence in blunt, boyish fashion. Roy understood him, but just now he was not inclined either to defend his cousin, or discuss his friend's desires.

"I am afraid I shall disappoint you this time, boys," said Roy.

"You never have yet," remarked Shealey.

"But I shall this time, I am sure."

"Well, let's see the amount of the disappointment," said Beecham laughingly.

Jack Beecham, of late, could not, as he himself expressed it, "make out"

his friend Roy. Several times since the beginning of September he had surprises from Henning. He was beginning to regard him as an uncertain or even an unknown quant.i.ty. Was his friend becoming miserly? This idea made Jack Beecham laugh. Roy misanthropical! The clever, bright, jolly Roy doing aught but loving all mankind was absurd to think of, but yet--There certainly had come over his bright, genial friend a change which was puzzling. What could----

But his thoughts, as he stood expectantly, with his pencil and notebook in hand, were interrupted by what Roy said next:

"You may put me down for two dollars and fifty cents." Shealey only partly suppressed a giggle, supposing that Roy, as usual, was hoaxing.

Roy saw the laugh and was deeply hurt.

"Phew!" began Jack Beecham, and he was about to make a very straightforward remark when he caught a side view of poor Roy's face, which was suffused with the blushes of mortification. There was a look of positive pain there.

Good, sensible Jack at once saw there was something wrong somewhere.

Hastily changing his pencil from right-hand to left, he took Roy's hand and pressed it warmly, sympathetically. The action told more than words could do. Beecham gave a quick glance toward the door for Shealey, which that individual understood and immediately departed.

When they were alone Jack said:

"You are in trouble, Roy. Is there--is there any financial difficulty at home?"

"None whatever, Jack; but I can't explain."

There was another silent pressure of the hand.

"Nor will I ask you to do so. But there is something wrong somewhere.

Oh, Roy! If I could do--if I could share--look here, Roy," he at last blurted out, boy-fashion, "look here. I intend to give twenty dollars--let me put ten of it under your name--do let me."

"No, no, Jack," said Roy, after a few moments of silence which his emotion compelled him to observe; "no, you must not do that. I can't explain, but come what may I want you not to misunderstand me.

Whatever you may hear or see I want you not to lose faith in me," and Roy Henning held out his hands to his friend, while there was a hungry, eagerly hungry, look in his eyes.

There was, of course, no absolute reason why Roy Henning could not have given his entire confidence to his friend. His father had made no such restriction in the test he had imposed. It was Roy's own peculiar temperament which prevented him from confiding in any one; in consequence his trials were in reality much more severe than even his father could have foreseen.

"Have faith in you! Believe in you! Well, I should guess. I don't understand it all--your refusing to play, and this--this small donation, and everything; but, believe in you! Roy, I would as soon cease to believe in myself."

Roy's eyes were hot, and his lips were dry.

"Thanks, old man. I knew you would. I can't explain--yet. But as long as you have confidence in me I'll go through it all right. G.o.d bless you, Jack."

Young Beecham was more mystified than ever at this exhibition of emotion, but he felt at the moment something like the knight of old who sought quarrels to vindicate the fair name of the lady of his heart. To make the simile more in accordance with our own more prosaic times, Jack Beecham became Henning's champion, and went around for several days with a metaphorical chip on his shoulder, daring any one to come and knock it off. Of course, the chip represented Roy Henning's actions and intentions.

After this interview, Roy looked a long time out of the study-hall window.

CHAPTER VI

ADVICE

Whether Roy Henning's small donation to the boys' collection for the purchase of the pitching cage for the winter practice was the cause, or whether there was some other occult reason, the subscriptions came in very slowly. Many boys, seeing that Roy, usually the largest contributor to all such schemes, had given so small an amount, measured their own donations by his. The project, consequently, dragged along very slowly. The treasurer-secretary more than once called those interested together, and proposed that they should give up the plan.

To this neither Shealey, nor Beecham, nor Bracebridge would listen.

They were boys who, having once taken a project in hand, were determined to carry it through to success. Bracebridge encouraged Henning to continue his work of soliciting, but the latter found that he was working against some impalpable obstacle to success, the nature of which he could not divine.

The boys were as free and as genial with him as ever. Every one appeared to like him as usual, yet withal there was an intangible something in the atmosphere, as it were, which appeared to militate against his success. Roy often tried to discover the cause. Was this silent but unmistakable change toward him, which had lately come over most of the boys, of his own causing? After much introspection he could discover no reason for blaming himself.

His retirement from the field of college sports had been more than a nine-days' wonder. All his friends, not understanding or guessing his motive, expostulated with him, and time and again urged him to reconsider his decision. He had remained firm.

His more immediate friends had long ago ceased to make the matter a subject of conversation in his presence, giving him credit for acting from right intentions, although what these were, now near Christmas, was as much a mystery to them as they were on the September day on which he had announced his withdrawal.

Others were not so considerate. With a savagery often found among thoughtless but not necessarily ill-intentioned boys, they frequently discussed his "going back on his team," as they expressed it, in Roy's presence, with an almost brutal unreserve.

"If I could play ball as you do, Henning," said a coa.r.s.e-grained youth named Stockley, one day, "I would call myself a dog in the manger."

"And why, please?" asked Henning, who was by this time getting used to such talk from those whose opinion he did not value.