Dick Randall Part 1

d.i.c.k Randall.

by Ellery H. Clark.

CHAPTER I

THE NEW BOY

Fall term at Fenton Academy had begun. d.i.c.k Randall came slowly down the dormitory steps, then stopped and stood hesitating, as if doubtful which way to turn. Uncertainty, indeed, was uppermost in his mind. He felt confused and out of place in his new surroundings, like a stranger in a strange land.

The day was dark and gloomy. The sky was overcast, and the afternoon sun shone halfheartedly from behind the clouds. A fresh breeze bent the trees in the quadrangle, scattering a shower of leaves about the yard. In spite of himself, d.i.c.k felt his spirits flag. 'A' thousand miles lay between him and home; and except for a few brief visits, made close at hand, this was his first real venture into the world.

Unaccustomed to the change, unacquainted with his cla.s.smates, with the steady routine of work and play not yet begun, he was wretchedly homesick; and strive as he would, he could not keep his thoughts, for five minutes together, from his father and mother, and the white-walled farm-house on the slope of the mountain, looking down over the valley and the meadowland below. He felt ashamed and disgusted with himself, for he was no longer a "kid"; he was almost seventeen, and big and strong for his age; and yet, fight it as he might, the longing for home would not down.

Thus he stood dreaming, gazing unseeingly across the yard, until presently, with a start, he came to himself. A friendly hand smote him between the shoulder-blades, a friendly arm was drawn through his, and he turned to meet the somewhat quizzical glance of his cla.s.smate and next-door neighbor in the dormitory--Harry Allen.

Instinctively d.i.c.k smiled. He had sat next to Allen at supper the night before and had taken a liking to him from the start. Allen had chattered away steadily, all through the meal, yet his talk had been unaffected, entertaining, and wholly free from any effort at "trying to be funny" or "showing off." He was Randall's opposite in every way--as slight and frail as d.i.c.k was big and broad-shouldered, as light as d.i.c.k was dark, and apparently, at the present moment, as cheerful as d.i.c.k was depressed. "Well, Randall," he asked, "what you got on your mind? Composing a speech?"

d.i.c.k flushed a little. "No, nothing like that," he answered; "I don't know just what I was doing. Just thinking, I guess. You see--"

Allen interrupted him. "Oh, _I_ know," he said; "I've been through it, all right. You can bet on that. Don't I remember the first day I came?

Golly, I should say I did. Talk about a cat in a strange garret. Well, that was little me. Don't worry, though. Just about three days, and you'll think you've lived here all your life. It's a dandy school.

You'll find that out for yourself. And Mr. Fenton! Well, if there's a better master in the state, I'd like to see him. Teach! I guess he can. Languages, you know--that's his branch. He's got Latin and Greek down fine. And English! Why, they say his English course is the best thing outside of college. He starts away back with Chaucer--'well of English undefyled,'--Spenser, you know, _Faerie Queene_--and he brings us right down to Robert Louis Stevenson. Oh, it's great! No fellow from this school has flunked English for ten years. How's that? Going some?"

He paused, a little out of breath. d.i.c.k smiled, finding something humorous in the contrast between his cla.s.smate's breezy speech, and the "English undefyled," for which his liking was so evidently sincere. Yet he found Allen's talk acting on him like magic, and by the time they had reached the end of the yard, his gloomy thoughts were forgotten, and he was himself once more.

To the left, they could see the boat-house, and the faint blue of the river, just showing through the trees; to the right lay the athletic field, and it was toward the track that Allen turned.

"Come on," he said; "let's walk down and watch Dave Ellis. He's going to try the Pentathlon. He's been training for it all summer. You met him last night, didn't you?"

d.i.c.k nodded. "Yes, I met him," he answered. He had sat opposite Ellis at table, and had admired his rangy and powerful build. Yet something, too, in his manner, had repelled him as well; Ellis had seemed a little patronizing, with a trifle too much of the "Conquering Hero"

about him. So that now d.i.c.k hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "Say, Allen, if it's a proper question, what sort of fellow is Ellis? Doesn't he seem pretty--well, I don't know just what word I want--pretty--c.o.c.ksure of himself, somehow?"

Allen did not answer at once, and when at length he did so, it was in rather a guarded tone. "Well, you see, Randall," he replied, "I don't believe I'd better say anything. Dave's a candidate for cla.s.s president next spring, and he's pretty sure to get it, too. Only--some of the fellows have been sounding me to see if I cared to run, and if I should, why, I wouldn't want you to think, from anything I said--"

Randall's face was scarlet with embarra.s.sment. "Excuse me, Allen," he cried, "I didn't know. I didn't mean--"

Allen hastened to rea.s.sure him. "Of course you didn't," He said; "that's all right, Randall. I only thought I'd let you know. And as far as that goes, there's really no reason why I shouldn't say what I think about Dave, if you'll give me credit for being fair about it, and won't think I'm trying to work any electioneering games. Here's just what I think about him. I think Dave's a good fellow. And he's certainly a remarkable athlete--one of the best, I guess, that we've ever had in the school. All I don't like about him is, that he hasn't much school spirit; I think he's for Dave Ellis first, and the school afterward. But still he's all right, you know. He's a good enough sort of fellow in most ways. One thing, though, he's got to look out for.

And that's his studies. He had a close shave getting by last year, and I don't believe he's opened a book since school closed. Oh, Dave's all right, but you'll find he's a good deal bigger man outside the lecture room than he is in."

d.i.c.k nodded. "I see," he answered; "and I'm much obliged, Allen, for telling me about the election. I won't go putting my foot in it again, in a hurry. I'll know enough after this to keep my mouth shut, till I begin to get the hang of things. Ellis must be a dandy athlete, though. I never saw a better built fellow in my life."

Allen was quick to a.s.sent. "Oh, he is," he answered. "He's a corker.

He's six feet one, and weighs a hundred and eighty pounds. He's awfully good on the track, and he pulls a fair oar, and I guess he's the best full-back we ever had in the school. _Was_ the best fullback, I mean. You knew we'd cut out football, didn't you?"

"Yes," d.i.c.k answered, "I heard about it. Was a fellow really killed, Allen?"

His companion nodded. "Yes, Faulkner, of Hopevale," he said. "It happened in the Clinton game. It was an awfully sad thing, too. His whole family had come on to see the match. It happened in a scrimmage.

He was picked up unconscious. But no one thought it was really anything serious. They took him to the infirmary; pretty soon he was in a fever; went out of his head; and two days later he died. Injured internally, the doctors said. So of course we cut out foot-ball, and I'm glad of it, too."

d.i.c.k drew a long breath. "That was tough!" he exclaimed. "Think how his father and mother must have felt! And the master at Hopevale, too.

I suppose he considered himself somehow to blame, though of course he wasn't, really."

Allen shook his head. "No, of course it wasn't his fault," he answered. "It was just one of those things no one could foresee. But I'm glad they've stopped it, anyway. So now Dave's going to put all his time into the track, because, you see, with foot-ball off the list, it makes the Pentathlon more important than ever. This spring is going to decide who wins the cup, and the way things look now, the Pentathlon may settle the whole business. They've got a dandy Pentathlon man over at Clinton--a fellow named Johnson--he won it last year, and broke the record--made two hundred and eighty points--so if Dave could beat him, it would be great for us, all right. I guess we can tell something from what he does to-day."

They walked on for a few moments in silence; then d.i.c.k, with sudden resolve, turned squarely to his friend. "Look here, Allen," he said, "I know you'll think I'm greener than gra.s.s, but I read somewhere, once on a time, that if a fellow didn't understand a thing, he might as well own up to it, or else he'd never learn at all. And that's what I'm going to do now. I'm not up to date on school affairs. I don't even know what cup you're talking about. And I don't know what you mean by the Pentathlon. I suppose it's got something to do with athletics, but if you hadn't said anything about it, it might be something to eat, for all I'd know. So if you don't mind, I wish you'd explain things to me, and then, perhaps, I won't feel quite so much like a fool as I do now."

Allen laughed. "Heavens," he said, "it isn't your fault, Randall; it's mine. Here I go rattling on about everything, as if you'd been in the school as many years as I have. No wonder I've got you mixed. Well, now, let's see; I'll begin with the cup. No, I won't either; I'll begin at the beginning; and that's with Mr. Fenton. Do you know anything about what he did in college?"

d.i.c.k shook his head. "No, I don't," he answered humbly. "I told you I was green. We don't know much about athletics out our way. Unless plowing, and getting in hay, and chopping wood count for anything. If they do, we might have a show."

Allen laughed again. "Well, they ought to, all right," he answered.

"What a bully idea for a Pentathlon! I'm going to speak to Mr. Fenton about it. People couldn't say athletics were a waste of time then.

Well, to come back to _him_. He was a hummer when he was in college.

He was awfully popular, and he stood away up in his cla.s.s, and they say, in athletics, there wasn't anything he couldn't do. They wanted him for the crew, and they wanted him on the nine, but he wouldn't do either. I guess he didn't have any too much money then, and he told them, straight out, that he'd come to college to work, and not for athletics. He wasn't a crank, though; he took his exercise every day, only he didn't waste any time over it. And finally the trainer of the track team spotted him and got him to come out for the jumps. Golly, but he surprised them. He never seemed to take such a lot of pains about it, but I guess he was what they call a natural jumper. Anyway, before he got through, he did six feet in the high, and twenty-three two and a half in the broad. Perhaps that didn't hold them for a while. So you can see he's a good man to be master of a school. He's been through the thing himself, and he's got this whole athletic business down fine.

"I remember the talk he had with me when I first came to the school; it made me take a shine to him right away. He doesn't lecture you, you know, as if you were a kid; he talks to you just as if you were grown up, and knew as much as he did; maybe more. Well, first of all, he told me he didn't think any school could succeed where the master and the boys weren't in harmony; and then he went ahead and gave me his ideas on athletics. He said he liked them, and approved of them, and meant to do all he could to encourage them--but that he was going to keep them in their place. He said athletics were to help out lessons, and not to hinder them; and that there wasn't any need of any conflict between the two. But if there was a conflict, he said--if a fellow got so crazy over athletics that he couldn't study--then the athletics would have to go. And if that made the fellow feel so bad that even then he couldn't study--or _wouldn't_ study--why, then it would be the fellow himself that would have to go. But he meant that more for a joke, I guess; nothing like that's ever happened since he started the school. It's a pretty pig-headed fellow that can't get along with Mr.

Fenton. He's got a great way with him, somehow or other; I don't know just how he does it, but he gets lots of fellows interested in studying that you'd think were too lazy even to want to learn the alphabet straight. Oh, I tell you, Randall, he's all right."

d.i.c.k nodded. "I'll bet he is," he answered with enthusiasm. He was beginning to feel the genuine _esprit de corps_; was realizing, for the first time, that a school might be something more than a place where one came merely to "do" one's lessons, and to learn enough to enter college in safety. "Yes," he went on, "that sounds mighty sensible to me. And as you say, Allen, where a man's been an athlete himself, and a scholar, too, why, you can't help feeling a respect for what he thinks about things. I can understand, though, about fellows getting too much interested in athletics. I can see right now where I've got to look out for that, myself. You've seen such a lot of it here that you don't realize how it takes hold of a fellow that's never had any show to go into them. I feel as if I'd like to try everything in sight, if I didn't remember that my father's had to work good and hard to send me here. And he wouldn't care much for cups and medals, I guess. 'Book-learning,' that's what he wants to see me get. Still, I suppose there's time for studying and athletics, too, if a fellow goes at it right."

Allen nodded. "Oh, sure there is," he answered. "And don't get the idea, from what I said, that Mr. Fenton's a crank about it, or that he's the preachy kind, because he isn't. He's keen on physical culture, you know. A fellow's got to take his exercise every day, whether he's a star athlete like Dave, or the worst grind that ever wanted to swallow a Greek dictionary, roots and all. Oh, Mr.

Fenton likes exercise, only, as he says, there's a happy medium everywhere--in athletics, just as in everything else. He doesn't want the fellows to underdo; and he doesn't want them to overdo; and he keeps an eye on every boy in the school. He takes just as much pride in having the fellows in good shape physically as he does in having them go into college with honors; and I tell you we don't have much sickness around here. So you needn't worry about exercise; there's no reason why you can't try anything you want. And I should think, to look at you, Randall, you'd make a crack-a-jack at something. How much do you weigh? A hundred and sixty?"

His companion's build, indeed, fully justified his admiration. Randall was strong and st.u.r.dy, from much hard work in the open, absolutely healthy, and as rugged and active as a young colt. It was small wonder that Allen, himself a member of the track team, looked him over with an appreciative eye.

d.i.c.k flushed with pleasure. "I weigh a little more than that," he answered. "About a hundred and sixty-eight, I guess. That's nothing, though. Think of Ellis."

"Oh, well," returned Allen, "weight isn't everything." Then added, with a smile, "You wouldn't think, to look at me, Randall, that I had any pretensions to being an athlete, now would you? As the song says, 'I'm as thin as the paper on the wall.' I hardly disturb the scales when I weigh myself."

d.i.c.k looked at him. "Why, I don't know," he answered frankly, and half-doubtfully, "but I should think, somehow, you look as though you could run pretty well."

Allen laughed. "Good guesser," he rejoined. "You've hit it, first crack. I don't mean, of course, that I'm any good, but running's the only thing I can do anywhere near well. It took a lot of hard work, too. I was certainly a lemon when I started in. But last year I won the quarter in the school games, and I got third in the big meet. So I won my 'F', and that makes a fellow feel good, you know. Shows he's done something for the school."

d.i.c.k looked puzzled. "Won your 'F'?" he questioned. "What does that mean, Allen?"

"Why," answered his friend, "if you make the crew, or the nine, or the track team, you get an athletic suit and a sweater. And on the shirt and the sweater there's a big 'F', and a little 'A' on each side of it. A. F. A.--Fenton Athletic a.s.sociation. The crew fellows get a white sweater, with the letters in red; the nine have gray sweaters, with red letters; and the track team have red sweaters, with the letters in white. And if you're on a winning crew, or a winning nine, you can rip off the 'A. A.' from your sweater, and that leaves just the big 'F', and shows you're a point winner for the school. With the track team, it's a little different, because there it's more a case of every fellow for himself. You can't have the same kind of team work that you can with the nine and the crew. So when the big meet comes for the cup, no matter whether the school wins or not, if you get first, second or third in your event, then you're a point winner, and you've got a right to your 'F'. Now, do you see?"

d.i.c.k nodded. "Sure," he answered, "I've got that all straight; but now there's another thing I don't understand. What's the big meet? And what's the cup? You were going to tell me about the cup when we started, and then we got switched off on to something else."

Allen smiled. "I guess 'something else' was Mr. Fenton," he said. "I'm pretty apt to talk people to death about him. I think he's a corker, and I don't mind saying so. I'd rather have him think I was all right than win my 'F,' ten times over, and that's putting it pretty strong, too. Well, about the cup. That's a cinch to explain. It's just like this. There are three schools, you see, right around here, in a kind of ten-mile triangle. There's Clinton Academy and Hopevale and ourselves. We've always had some sort of league with one another, in all kinds of athletics, ever since the schools started, but six or seven years ago the masters and some of the graduates got together, and put things right on a systematic basis. Some rich old chap in New York, who was a graduate of Hopevale, and had a couple of boys in the school, donated a cup--a perfect peach--to be competed for every year until one school won it three times and then it was to be theirs for good. They put five sports on the schedule: foot-ball, base-ball, track and crew, which counted three points each; and the Pentathlon, which counted one. The school that won the most out of those thirteen points held the cup for that year.

"Well, Hopevale made a great start. They had some dandy athletes in the school then--some folks were mean enough to say that was why the old fellow in New York gave the cup--but anyway, however that was, they won, hands down, for two years running. The next year they thought there was nothing to it--they thought they couldn't lose--and I guess they eased up a little, and didn't train quite so hard as they did the other years. Well, they got a surprise all right, for Clinton beat them out. They made six points that year, to four for Hopevale, and three for us. And then, the year after that, Dave Ellis entered school, and we had our turn. We got so, with Dave at full-back, we never thought about the three points in foot-ball at all--we figured them just like money in the bank--all we used to wonder about, was how big the score was going to be. And then, in the spring sports, we had Mansfield pitching on the nine, and Harrison stroking the crew, and of course Dave came in strong again on the track. Oh, we had things easy for the next two years. The second year we won all thirteen points--made a clean sweep of everything. So _we_ began to get c.o.c.ky--same as Hopevale--but we never let up, you can bet; we worked as though we thought we hadn't a show, unless we kept on doing our darndest.

"And then of course everything had to go wrong. Mansfield graduated that year, and Harrison's father died, and he had to leave school; and then this fellow Johnson came to Clinton, and he was certainly a find.

He and Dave had it out, hammer and tongs, in the track meet, and again in the Pentathlon, and Johnson had the best of it both times. And Clinton beat us by four points, and evened things up again. So you can see what a sc.r.a.p it's been, right from the start--it couldn't very well have been closer--and you can imagine what it's going to be next spring. Each school has won the cup twice, so of course this time's got to settle it. Clinton has it all figured out that they're going to win. They give us the crew, and Hopevale the base-ball, but they say that with Johnson right they're sure to take the track meet, and the Pentathlon, too. But of course no one can tell as far ahead as that--it's foolish to try. Still, that's a pretty good prediction, I think myself, unless Dave can show an improvement over last year on the track. He says he can--he says he's been training all summer, and that he's in the shape of his life.

"I know what he's figuring on. If the three schools should be tied, and it should all hang on the Pentathlon, why, the fellow who won that would be a regular tin G.o.d, you know; he'd go down in the history of the school like George Washington in the history of the country. And Dave wouldn't mind being that fellow a little bit. Not that I'm trying to knock him, you understand. That's a good, legitimate ambition. I'd like to be the fellow myself; only I need a hundred pounds of weight, more or less, and about a foot more height, before I'd fit in the Pentathlon. And there's another reason for Dave's practising, too; he wants to get back at Johnson. Dave can't take a licking, you know; he isn't used to it, and it hurts. He claims he's going to square up this spring, but I'm not so sure. Johnson's an awfully good man, and the Pentathlon's no cinch for any one, no matter who he is."