Harvard Stories Part 22

"Well, I have heard you rowing men growl about almost everything,"

laughed Holworthy, "but this is a new complaint. So Dan Cupid played the mischief with the Harvard crew, did he? I shouldn't think the little winged G.o.d would make such a heavy pa.s.senger in the boat. Think how much harder his victims must pull when their fair ladies' eyes are upon them.

Why, it is quite like wearing a silken scarf at a tournament."

"Wearing grandmother's ducks. That is just all they know about such things, the chaps who write novels. No amount of ladies' eyes or wearing apparel ever pulled Sir Launcelot through a mill, if he wasn't properly trained for it."

"You have no poetry in your soul, you old monk; your heart is as hard as your muscles," replied Hollis, smiling. "Wait until you get an arrow yourself, and see what a spirit it will put in you. Why, you will conquer anything."

"That is all nonsense," declared Bender. "Every man on that crew will pull his best, anyway, don't you be afraid about that; but his best won't amount to much if he spends all his time worrying about some pink and white girl. I think I know the symptoms of the disease now, and what is more I think Charlie Rivers has it. Thank goodness he sticks to his beef yet, and seems to pull as strong an oar as ever; but there is something wrong. He used to be the jolliest old c.o.c.k in college, and bright and quick as a steel trap. Now he hardly talks at all at the training table, and when he does make a joke it is usually stupid.

You're his room-mate and best friend, and you must know what is up. Of course I don't ask you to betray any confidence, and if he has been spilling over to you, you are quite right in telling me that it is none of my business. But if you have diagnosed his case for yourself, I wish you would tell me frankly what you think about it."

"If Charlie is in love he has never told me so," Holworthy answered rather evasively. "I do know, however, that he has had a great many things to depress him. His father died last winter, you remember, and of course that was enough to make him blue. Then he has very little money, and is uncertain about getting any sort of a good job when he graduates, and he is worrying over that. He will probably brace up after a while. I hope you won't fire him off the crew, for it would break his heart."

"Well, you know, Holly, it would break mine too," said Bender. "Charlie has always played in awfully hard luck, and he certainly deserves another chance to win his oar, and a red one at that; but, of course, I can't keep him in the boat out of personal friendship and admiration, if he is not fit to row. I don't think there is any danger of that yet, however. He is still the prettiest oar I have ever seen, and surely no one could work more conscientiously."

"He is a great deal too conscientious. It would do him good to break training once in a while," a.s.serted Hollis. "You ought to let a man in his condition smoke, anyway."

"I don't know about that," objected the Tory oarsman. "I hope you will do your best to cheer him up, though; and, especially, if you find out that any girl has got him on a string, talk him out of it and clear his mind."

"Oh, thou untamed Hercules," replied Holworthy, laughing at this last simple request. "I suppose you think you could snap such a string as you can an oar. When Omphale ties you up in her yarn, you won't find it so easy to break."

"Well, I hope old Rivers is not snarled up in any such tackle," said Bender, as he rose to go. "After all, though, I believe I would rather have him in the middle of the boat than any other man in the University,--even if he were in love with twenty girls." And with this acknowledgment in spite of such Mohammedan possibilities, Billy Bender went off to the river.

As Bender had said, Charles Rivers had been "playing in hard luck."

Though a splendid oarsman he had never won a race. In his Freshman year he had been taken out of his cla.s.s crew to be a subst.i.tute for the University eight. The next year he rowed No. 4 on the 'Varsity; but Yale won. He filled the same place all through his Junior year, until a week before the race, when he sprained his heel and had to sit in the referee's launch and watch his comrades get their revenge on the Blue.

This year was his last, and he had begun training, even with the new men, before Christmas.

Few people realize through what a man must go who tries for a university crew. Even those who have been to the rowing colleges cannot fully appreciate it unless they have themselves trained with the big crew, or been closely a.s.sociated with some man who has done so. True, it is only to lead a very regular abstemious life, and to do a good deal of healthful, though hard work. It may seem easy to do this for seven months--perhaps it is so for those superior to the little vices that make life pleasant for us weaker ones. But you, my friend, who like a good dinner and a cigar, and the merry company of your fellow-men, you try it,--particularly if you are living in the midst of men who are enjoying their youth to its utmost. Leave them before ten o'clock and go to bed just as Tom is preparing to make a Welsh rarebit, and d.i.c.k is brewing a punch, and Harry has got out his banjo. Gaze day after day on your favorite pipes that look beseechingly at you from the mantel-piece.

Run five miles every day, and row ten or fifteen while the coach and c.o.xswain take turns at telling you how utterly useless you are; then try to study all the evening for an examination. Watch your friends starting off without you on moonlight sleigh rides, and theatre sprees, and yachting and coaching parties. Go to a dinner and refuse everything indigestibly tempting that is put under your nose, look on the wine when it is red and don't drink it, and smell the other men's cigars. For six or seven months out of the nine of a college year he must do all this who would be one of the 'Varsity Eight; and at the end of the seven months he may be appointed subst.i.tute, or thrown off altogether for a better man. No doubt it is quite wrong to consider such a proper mode of life as a sacrifice; nevertheless it is a great one to most of the young men who go through it, and particularly to such a one as Rivers. Yet this sacrifice he had made all through his college course.

But hard as the training is to a man in the full flush of health and spirits, it is ten times harder to one who is troubled and depressed.

When in such a condition the incessant and monotonous exercise is apt to wear on his nerves, and make him more despondent. If used to tobacco he wofully misses the great comforter. So poor Charlie found it, for in this, his Senior year, one thing happened after another to grieve and worry him. In the winter his father died, and Rivers keenly felt the loss, for his father had been his best friend. Added to his natural grief was a new feeling of responsibility, as though left to fight a battle unsupported, his reserves having been destroyed. On his own account he would not have been troubled by this, but a young sister had been left to him--and very little else. He would have left college at once, but it had been his father's earnest wish that he should take his degree, and there was little chance of finding anything to do before Commencement. So the little sister was quartered with an aunt, and Rivers came back to Cambridge, and went to work again with the crew. The training wore on him more than ever before. He did not miss the fun that was going on around him, but, oh! how he did long for his pipe. He kept grimly on, however, more with the determination of the man (trivial though the object may seem) than with the former enthusiasm of the boy.

Holworthy used to do his best in the evenings to lighten his chum's mood, and never smoked himself when the latter was with him.

Besides these troubles, Hollis strongly suspected that there was another; he had not been altogether frank with Bender on the subject.

One day some one and her mother came on to Boston for a fortnight, and Rivers at the same time became bluer and more restless than ever. He put all his pipes out of sight, and would tramp up and down the room, or sit and look into the fire for an hour at a time. Nevertheless he would go into Boston nearly every day, and get back only just in time for crew practice.

When some one and her mother came out to see Cambridge, a luncheon had to be given in the room. There was the usual borrowing of furniture, ruthless clearing up, and upsetting of all established disorder in the room, all of which Holworthy suffered in silence. He watched his patient narrowly all through lunch; but when they went out to see the lions, he no longer had any doubt about the case. For Rivers took Mamma, leaving Hollis to convoy the younger craft.

Before the two weeks were up, Rivers did a very foolish thing. He came to the conclusion that, in any event, h.e.l.l would be better than purgatory. That was of course illogical, but a man in purgatory is not logical. Furthermore when he makes up his mind to jump out of that middle place, he shuts his eyes and always hopes, with or without reason, that he will not go the wrong way. If he were in a comfortable state and could reason at his ease, he might not delude himself with unfounded hope. Charlie Rivers thought he had argued coolly with himself. To the prospect of his responsibilities and narrow means, he answered that he had strength, energy, and education, and that his little sister needed more than money. To the cold reflection that he had never been shown the slightest glimpse of anything more than the dictates of natural gentleness and good manners, he replied that perhaps it was not right for a girl to show more until a man told her that he loved her. At any rate he would not trust his untutored perceptions to tell whether she cared anything for him or not; the only way was to ask her and find out. If he was afraid to do so he was a coward and did not deserve her. Then he argued himself into the idea that it was his duty to tell her squarely how he stood, and give her the opportunity to send him away if she so pleased and put a stop to attentions that might be irksome to her. This was all very silly and boyish. If he had known all about such things, as of course do you and I who read and write about them, he would have spent that Sunday, on which there was no rowing, in his room, reading Thackeray, or gone out with Rattleton and Holworthy in the former's dog-cart, as he was asked to do. Instead of either of these safe and normal Sabbath amus.e.m.e.nts, he hurried away from his untasted lunch at the training-table (making Bender's blood run cold by showing that he was "off his feed"), spent an hour in dressing, and then went in to Boston.

That afternoon as Holworthy and Jack Rattleton were driving through a suburb of Boston, they saw walking ahead of them a big, familiar form, towering beside another form of very different proportions. Rattleton laid the whip over his horse and went by the couple at a pace that precluded any sign of recognition. Holworthy was as much surprised as pleased at this thoughtful act on Rattleton's part; and concluded that he must in some way have guessed that things were serious with Rivers, and no subject for teasing. Nor did Jack say a word about the pair of pedestrians, or hint that he had recognized Rivers, which reticence confirmed Holworthy's conclusion. On this drive Rattleton did not talk a great deal about anything. He had been quite despondent lately and unlike himself, probably on account of the uncertainty of his Commencement, though the dreaded end of Senior year was still a good way off by Jack's ordinary computation. On two evenings within that past week had he been found in his room, "grinding" for that degree, when the examinations were still two months away.

It was dark when they got back to Cambridge, and went up to Holworthy's room to sit until dinner-time. There was a dark ma.s.s on the couch, and when they lit the gas they saw Rivers. The young giant was lying on his chest, his great arms over his head and his face in the cushions.

"The old boy is over-trained and tired," whispered Rattleton. "I had better clear out and not waken him," and he left the room.

Had Jack recognized Rivers that afternoon or not? wondered Holworthy. He hoped not. He turned the light out again, not knowing exactly why. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he went up and laid his hand gently on the shoulder of his prostrate room-mate. Let us not turn the gas up again on those two. We will go down-stairs instead with Jack Rattleton.

As he closed the door gently after him Jack gave a little low whistle.

Then he went slowly down-stairs and into the Yard, followed by the dog, Blathers. "Come along, pup," he said to his constant companion; "let's go take a walk." He walked a long way and came back to his club table rather late for dinner.

Holworthy was late, too. As they were smoking with their coffee, the other men having gone, Rattleton asked if Rivers was not getting "stale"

from his training.

"I think so, decidedly," answered Hollis. "I have spoken to Bender about it, but he is such a conservative old martinet that he won't break any of the canons of training until he is satisfied that a man is going into a rapid decline. I know a cigar once in a while would do Charlie more good than harm, but I can't make the conscientious beggar steal a smoke without permission from his tyrant. He is blue as indigo."

"Is he troubled about money matters?" asked Rattleton, hesitatingly coming now to what he wanted to find out. "Didn't his father leave him rather hard up? Excuse my asking, but I thought we might help him to find something to do, don't you know."

"That is a great deal of the matter with him," answered Holworthy, glad to see the tack on which Jack was steering. "You needn't apologize for asking about it. I wish to thunder we could find him a job. He is worrying all the time about what he is going to do after leaving college."

That night Rattleton wrote a letter to his father, who was president of a big corporation.

From this time on Rivers seemed to brace up in his mental, and consequently in his physical condition. This apparent improvement, however, did not deceive Holworthy, who saw that it was, in a way, unhealthy. Rivers had kept at his rowing and training patiently and doggedly before; but he now threw himself into it heart and soul as a distraction. He dreamed of the coming race night and day. He tried his best to seem cheerful and encourage the other men, and his plucky efforts succeeded very well. Bender was delighted, declared there was nothing like faithful training to keep a man in proper shape, body and mind, unless he was fool enough to fall in love, and concluded that he had suspected Rivers unjustly on that score.

The latter showed every now and then to his chum the intensity, almost fierceness, that lay under this apparently happy enthusiasm. One day he said that he must make a success of at least one thing before leaving college, and if that race were lost he should feel as though he were going to fail in everything he undertook all through life. Then Mentor Holworthy opened on him with all his batteries. He told him that he ought to be ashamed to make such a mere sport the test of his life; he descanted hotly on the subject of the athletic fever, and laughed scornfully at the fancied importance of such intercollegiate contests.

"I suppose," said he, "that Hanc.o.c.k and Adams and Emerson and Longfellow and all the rest of them will sleep more peacefully in their graves if we beat Yale, and if we get thrashed no doubt old Dr. Holmes will be sorry he ever came to Cambridge, and will at once go down to New Haven to take his entrance examination for the Freshman cla.s.s there. Haven't you grown up yet, that you look on these things as a school boy? These overwrought struggles can do good in just one way, and you seem ready now to throw away even that advantage. Every time a thoroughbred gets licked it does him good. You have seen the men on our different teams get up after a thrashing and go at it as hard as ever the next year; you have yourself gone through a splendid school of defeat and disappointment, yet now you talk about lying down for all your lifetime if you lose a boat-race. It is true you cannot row against Yale again, but there is a bigger victory than that to be won. Have you for the first time lost all your heart after a failure? You of all men should not need to be told that a prize is never lost until won. At any rate lay up in reserve for yourself the consolation of having done your best.

Charley, Charley, if you throw up the sponge after one knockdown, you are not the man I have always thought you."

Rivers listened to all this, with head bent. When Hollis stopped he raised his face again and said: "I know what you mean, old man, and you are right. I won't lie down like a cur. I'll pull it through to the finish, anyway. But in the meantime I must do like a man whatever I have taken up."

"Now you are talking like your old self," answered Hollis, "but don't forget that doing your duty like a gentleman is not confined to rowing a boat-race."

After this broadside Rivers went on with his rowing in a better spirit than he had shown during that year. Before long he was immensely cheered up also by the promise of a position with a good salary and chance of advancement, that was to be ready for him right after the boat-race.

Jack Rattleton, through his father, had succeeded in getting this for him. His absorbing devotion to his rowing fortunately did not prevent him from getting his degree but he lost a _c.u.m laude_ and had to "take his A.B. straight," as Burleigh said, "without any green leaves or nutmeg in it."

There was another piece of parchment made out for Commencement Day, that was a surprise to every one. It was marked Johannes Rattleton.

II.

Cla.s.s Day and Commencement were over, and every one was now bound for New London to attend the post-Commencement carnival that, for the undergraduate at least, really winds up the college year. The crew had gone down to their quarters at Gale's Ferry two weeks before; there had been no Cla.s.s Day for them. The faithful flocked to the Thames' mouth in squads and divisions, and by all sorts of methods, some in big yachts, some in cat-boats, others on coaches, but most by train at special rates, for the undergraduate is usually not rolling in wealth, particularly at the end of June. The fresh graduate who has just paid his Commencement bills is still less apt to do any coaching or yachting except by invitation.

d.i.c.k Stoughton however had a small sloop, and he and his friends had decided that the cruise would not "break" them, and at any rate that they would make it whether it broke them or not. It would be cheaper to live aboard, they argued very plausibly, than to get swindled by New London hotel-keepers. They would refrain from betting on the race; then if Yale won they would be no worse off financially, and if the Crimson went to the front they would not spend twice their winnings on the spot, as they would be sure to do if they bet. This was a highly praiseworthy resolution, and of course the most sensible way of looking at the folly of betting. Burleigh said it was easy enough to look at anything sensibly. They would go, then, on d.i.c.k's sloop, and they would not bet a cent. They went on the sloop. The party was made up of Stoughton, Hudson, Randolph, Burleigh, and Gray. Holworthy did not go; he had taken a room in New London at the Pequot House, and went there immediately after Cla.s.s Day, as he wanted to see all he could of Rivers at the quarters. Strange to say, Jack Rattleton also refused all persuasion to join his friends on the cruise. In vain did Ned Burleigh, with tears in his eyes, a.s.sure him that it would be the last and most beautiful "toot"

of his college course. Jack advanced several good but utterly insufficient and unnatural reasons for "shaking the gang." Ned exhorted him more in sorrow than in anger.

"What has got into you lately?" he asked anxiously. "That sheepskin seems to have ruined you. I actually believe you have reformed, or have caught a premature aim in life, or some such fatal disease. You were a great deal better fellow when you were Lazy Jack and didn't amount to a row of pins; John Rattleton, Esq., A.B., is a bore. You strained yourself badly for those letters, and are run down in consequence. Hang it all, Jack, come along, it will do you good."

But Rattleton did not go along. He hung around Cambridge until the day before the race, and then joined Hollis at the Pequot House. Capt.

Stoughton's craft had arrived safely, notwithstanding her crew, and was anch.o.r.ed in the river with the rest of the fleet in front of the hotel, when Rattleton got there.

The night before the boat-race at New London is one that bears recollection better than description. The Pequot House is usually the centre of ceremonies. Crowds of men are down from Cambridge, and there are a few of the advance-guard from New Haven, although most of the Yale men come next morning. Lectures and examinations are behind them, the long vacation is ahead; it is the last spree of the year, the last gathering of the four years for the Seniors,--and full justice is usually done the occasion. Many a grad., too, runs away from his office to the Connecticut town, or comes ash.o.r.e there from his yacht, to renew his youth on the eve of battle and to shout at the struggle on the morrow.

Of course on that evening the party from Stoughton's boat were ash.o.r.e, and in the thick of it. Ned Burleigh was master of ceremonies, and organized a band of "cheerful workers." Holworthy, however, kept out of it. He was thinking of eight men up the river, five or six miles away from all this roystering, and of one big man in particular, whose whole soul, like his muscles, was strung up for the next day. He wondered whether Rivers was getting any sleep, and the anxiety about his best friend left him little heart to rollick with the others. He was surprised to find Rattleton in much the same mood, for notwithstanding the recent change in that young gentleman, it seemed hardly possible that Jack could sulk in his tent at such a time as this. The two, with the dog Blathers, walked out together on the piazza.

As they turned a corner of the veranda they saw sitting in the light of a window two feminine figures, one of which Holworthy at once recognized.

"By Jove!" he thought to himself; "has she come down to see that man kill himself, or does she really want to see him win?" Then he growled to Rattleton, "This is a nice place for a girl on this evening, isn't it?"