John Henry Smith Part 9

"Try it again," I insisted, teeing up a new one. "Keep your eye on the ball when your club comes down, and don't press."

She made a brave effort, but hit the ball a trifle on top. It struck the water, ricochetted and eventually poised itself on a mud bank. I recall how white it looked against the black slime with lily pads in the background, but I saw at a glance that it would remain there, so far as we were concerned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "We rested on top of the hill"]

Against her protest I teed another ball, but she went under it and it met the fate of its predecessors. It took all my eloquence to induce her to make the five attempts which followed, and then I made the discovery that I had brought only eight new b.a.l.l.s with me. So I excused myself and went back to the club house and bought a box of a dozen, but nothing would change her determination not to try it again.

I am firmly convinced that with a little luck she could have done it, but it was the first time Miss Harding had played this course, and that makes lots of difference.

Of the various incidents in this most delightful game nothing gave me more keen enjoyment than when Miss Harding played Carter's ball. It was by mistake, of course. Nature has implanted in woman an instinct which leads her to play any ball rather than her own. The ball thus selected is generally without a blemish, and it has been ordained that a weak little creature can with one stroke cut that sphere in halves.

That is what happened to Carter's ball when Miss Harding played it by mistake, and I never laughed more heartily. Carter smiled and bowed and pretended to be amused, but I knew he was not.

We rested on top of the hill after this exploit and talked of the rare view and of other topics which had nothing whatever to do with golf.

Never before have I rested during a game, and I did not think it possible. I have been on that hill innumerable times, but it never occurred to me to take more than a pa.s.sing glance at the inspiring vista which spreads away to the north and west.

We talked of poetry and of art. Think of sitting with a golf club in your hand, resting a few rods from a tee where a clean shot will carry the railway tracks a hundred feet below and land your ball on a green two hundred and eighty yards from the tee--it is one of the finest holes in the country--think of idling an hour away on the most perfect golf afternoon you ever saw, and repeating line after line of verse descriptive of "meadows green and sylvan shades," and all that sort of thing!

We did that! I would not believe it, but I actually felt sorry for the chaps who went past us, their minds absorbed in the mere struggle to see which would take the fewer numbers of strokes in putting golf b.a.l.l.s in certain round holes. Honestly I pitied them.

And they envied me. I could see that. The arrival of Miss Harding has created a sensation, and it was no small honour to play the first game with her. Of course Marshall, Chilvers, Pepper and other married men hardly noticed me, but Thomas, Boyd, Roberts and such young gallants smiled, bowed and looked longingly in my direction.

It took us more than five hours to play twelve holes, and I have played twice around in less than that. I have not the slightest idea what my score is, and that is something which never before happened to me.

Carter wins a dozen b.a.l.l.s, and he can have them, or a dozen dozen for all I care.

Miss Harding has promised to play with me again.

ENTRY NO. VII

TWO BOYS FROM BUCKFIELD

When Harding was in the city he purchased a huge golf bag, the most wonderful a.s.sortment of clubs imaginable, also two golf suits and a bewildering array of shirts, caps, scarfs, shoes and other articles that some dealers a.s.sured him were necessary for the proper playing of the game.

"If I have got to play this fool game, and I suppose there is no way I can get out of it," he said to me, looking down disdainfully at his knickerbockered legs and taking an extra hitch on his new leather belt, "I may as well have the regulation uniform. How do I look?"

I told him the suit was very becoming. He was a sight! On his huge, bushy head was a Scotch cap, and it is certain that no clan stands sponsor for that bewildering plaid. The silk shirt was a beauty, but it did not harmonise with the burning red of his coat, with its cuffs and collar of vivid green.

His trousers were of another plaid, but I should say that his stockings were the dominating feature of his make-up. They were of green and gray, the stripes running around instead of up and down, the effect being, of course, to emphasise the appearance of stoutness. When you pull a thick stocking or legging over an eighteen-inch calf you have done something which compels even those who are near-sighted and blase to sit up and give attention.

Harding's feet are of generous proportions, and his tan shoes with their thick, broad soles armed with big spikes to keep him from slipping looked most impressive.

He was the personification of newness. The leather of his bag was flawless, and the grips of his clubs were new and glossy. The steel and nickel of his iron clubs shone without one flaw to dim their l.u.s.tre. In the pocket of his bag were a dozen new b.a.l.l.s, so white and gleaming that it seemed a shame to use them. I could see that the art collection of b.a.l.l.s being made by Miss Dangerfield would take on a boom from the advent of Harding.

"Tell you what I want to do, Smith," said Harding, as we stood on the veranda of the club house, early this forenoon. "I want to find some place where I can soak a ball as far as I can and not have it stopped by a hill or a brook, or something like that. I haven't been over this place yet, but isn't there some smooth, level place where a ball would naturally roll a quarter of a mile or so if you hit it good and hard?"

"The eighteenth hole is six hundred and thirty-two yards--one of the longest in the country," I said, "and it is smooth as a barn floor after you carry the railroad tracks. That is a long carry, and most players go short and take the tracks on their second shot."

"Six hundred odd yards," he mused. "Let's see; over a third of a mile, eh?"

I said that it was, and a par hole in six.

"Anybody ever drive it yet?" he asked.

"Drive it?" I repeated, laughing. "Well, I should say not! I have reached the green in three only twice in all the times I have played it, and am well satisfied to be there in four."

"That proves nothing to me," he said, looking me over, "but you're a pretty husky-appearing chap at that. You're nearly six feet, aren't you, Smith?"

"A quarter of an inch more than six feet in my stockings," I said.

"And how much do you weigh?"

"One hundred and eighty-five."

"You'd ought to be able to drive a ball farther than you do," he said, with the air of one who had mastered the game in all its details. There is not a man in the club who can consistently out-drive me, and I'll wager that Kirkaldy himself cannot average ten yards more than I do, but what was the use of arguing with Harding?

It was easy to see that this magnate actually believed that his first stroke at a golf ball was no accident, and was confident that with a little practice he could far surpa.s.s that terrific drive of two hundred and seventy yards. But though I well knew what was coming to him I held my peace.

I asked Kirkaldy if he had ever known of a happening similar to Harding's now famous drive. He said he could not recall when a duffer had reached so great a distance, but it was not unusual for a husky novice to drive a few good b.a.l.l.s before he began to attempt an improvement of a natural, but of course crude, stroke.

"But," I asked Kirkaldy, "how did Harding manage to drive it so far?"

"Strength and luck, mon," said our Scotch professional, "the more luck.

It war th' same as when ye won a match with me by makin' th' last three holes in less than bogy. Luck, mon, is yer truest friend."

I think Kirkaldy is right.

"I never like to take up a thing unless it is difficult," said Harding, as we started for the eighteenth tee. "I like to do the things other men say cannot be done, and without blowing my own horn I have done a few of them. I am fond of work, but when I play I play with all my might. The boy who is not a good player will never make a good worker. You take a boy who is playing baseball, for instance. I can watch a game among youngsters and pick out those who are likely to win out later on in life."

"How?" I interrupted.

"By the way they go at it. The one who covers the most ground on a ball field will cover the most ground later on in whatever he undertakes. The one who plays to win, who takes chances even at the risk of making errors is the coming man. The boy who sits down in the out-field, on the theory that a ball is not likely to come in his direction, will be poor all his life. The boy who plays an unimportant position as if his very existence depended upon it will get along all right, and don't you forget it. But this golf game is so simple that it does not call on a man to let himself out. Billiards is my game. Billiards is a game of endless possibilities, and no matter how well a man plays there is always room for improvement."

That made me mad, and I resented this a.s.sertion the more for the reason that I once held the same views as he then expressed. I went right at him.

"When you have played as many games of golf as you have of billiards," I said, and I play a fair billiard game myself, "you will not mention them in the same breath. Let me a.s.sure you, Mr. Harding, that golf is the most difficult game in the world, and you have only the slightest conception of what you must master before you can play more than an indifferent sort of a game."

He smiled indulgently.

"What is there hard about it?" he demanded. "In billiards, for instance, you--"

"You play billiards on a table which is not more than five feet by ten,"

I broke in, "and you play golf on a table which may cover two hundred acres of hills, woods, marshes, ponds, brooks, and meadows. You play billiards in a room which is always at about the same temperature, and where there is not a breath of air stirring. You play golf out-of-doors, where it may be one hundred in the shade or far below freezing; under conditions of perfect calm, or with winds ranging all the way from a zephyr to gales from every point of the compa.s.s."

"There is something in that," he admitted, "but you need not get mad about it, Smith."