T. Haviland Hicks Senior Part 10

I am sorry, John, but there seems nothing to do but for you to leave college and work. For your mother's sake, I wish we could avoid it; but we must wait and work and tackle it again. Your first term expenses are paid, so stay until the term is out. Perhaps Mr. Hicks can give you a job in one of his steel mills again, but we must work our own way, son. Don't lose courage, we'll fight this out together with the memory of your promise to your dying mother to spur you on. The road may be long and rocky but we'll make it. Just work and save, and in a year or two you can start at college again. You can study at night, too, and keep on learning.

I'll write later. Stay at college till the term is up, and in the meantime try to land a job. However, you won't have any trouble to do that. Keep your nerve, boy, for your mother's sake. It's a hard blow, but we'll weather it, never fear, and reach port.

Your father,

JOHN THORWALD, SR.

P.S. I am sailing on the Valkyrie today, will write you on my return to New York, in a few weeks.

Theophilus looked at the ma.s.sive young Norwegian, who had taken this solar-plexus blow with that same stolid apathy that characterized his every action. He wanted to offer sympathy, but he knew not how to reach Thor. He fully understood how terrific the blow was, how it must stagger the big, earnest Freshman, just as he, after ten years of grinding toil, of sacrifice, of grim, unrelenting determination, had conquered obstacles and fought to where he had a clear track ahead. Just as it seemed that fate had given him a fair chance, with his father rescued and five thousand dollars to give him a college course, this terrible misfortune had befallen him.

Theophilus realized what it must mean to this huge, silent Hercules, just making good his promise to his dying mother, to give up his studies, and go back to work, toil, labor, to begin all over again, to put off his college years.

"Leave me, please," said Thor dully, apparently as unmoved by the blow as he had been by Theophilus' appeal. "I--I would like to be alone, for awhile."

Left alone, John Thorwald stood by the window, apparently not thinking of anything in particular, as he gazed across the brightly lighted Quad. The huge Freshman seemed in a daze--utterly unable to comprehend the disaster that had befallen him; he was as stolid and impa.s.sive as ever, and Theophilus might have thought that he did not care, even at having to give up his college course, had not the Senior known better.

Across the Quadrangle, from the room of the Caruso-like Juniors, accompanied by a melodious banjo-tw.a.n.ging, drifted:

"Though thy halls we leave forever Sadly from the campus turn; Yet our love shall fail thee never For old Bannister we'll yearn!

"'Bannister, Bannister, hail, all hail!'

Echoes softly from each heart; We'll be ever loyal to thee Till we from life shall part."

Strangely enough, the behemoth Thorwald was not thinking so much of having to give up his studies, of having to lay aside his books and take up again the implements of toil. He was not pondering on the cruelty of fate in making him abandon, at least temporarily, his goal; instead, his thoughts turned, somehow, to his experiences at old Bannister, to the football scrimmages, the noisy sessions in "Delmonico's Annex," the college dining-hall, to the skylarking he had often watched in the dormitories. He thought, too, of the happy, care-free youths, remembering Hicks, good Butch Brewster, loyal little Theophilus; and as he reflected, he heard those Juniors, over the way, singing. Just now they were chanting that exquisitely beautiful Hawaiian melody, "Aloha Oe," or "Farewell to Thee,"

making the words tell of parting from their Alma Mater. There was something in the refrain that seemed to break down Thor's wall of reserve, to melt away his aloofness, and he caught himself listening eagerly as they sang.

Somehow he felt no desire to condemn those care-free youths, to call their singing silly foolishness, to say they were wasting their time and their fathers' money. Queer, but he actually liked to hear them sing, he realized he had come to listen for their saengerfests. Now that he had to leave college, for the first time he began to ponder on what he must leave. Not alone books and study, but--

As he stood there, an ache in his throat, and an awful sorrow overwhelming him, with the richly blended voices of the happy Juniors drifting across to him, chanting a song of old Ballard, big Thor murmured softly:

"What did little Theophilus say? What was it Shakespeare wrote? Oh, I have it:

"'This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong-- To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.'"

CHAPTER X

THOR'S AWAKENING

"There's a hole in the bottom of the sea, And we'll put Bannister in that hole!

In that hole--in--that--hole-- Oh, we'll put Bannister in that hole!"

"In the famous words of the late Mike Murphy," said T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., "the celebrated Yale and Penn track trainer, 'you can beat a team that can't be beat, but--you can't beat a team that won't be beat!' Latham must be in the latter cla.s.s."

It was the Bannister-Latham game, and the first half had just ended.

Captain Butch Brewster's followers had trailed dejectedly from Bannister Field to the Gym, where Head Coach Corridan was flaying them with a tongue as keen as the two-edged sword that drove Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. A cold, bleak November afternoon, a leaden sky lowered overhead, and a chill wind swept athwart the field; in the concrete stands, the loyal "rooters" of the Gold and Green, or of the Gold and Blue, shivered, stamped, and swung their arms, waiting for the excitement of the scrimmage again to warm them. Yet, the Bannister cohorts seemed silent and discouraged, while the Latham supporters went wild, singing, cheering, howling. A look at the score-board explained this:

END OF FIRST HALF: SCORE: Bannister ........ 0 Latham ........... 3

The statement of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., swathed in a gold and green blanket and humped on the Bannister bench, to shivering little Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e, the Phillyloo Bird, Shad Weatherby, and several more collegians who had joined him when the half ended, was singularly appropriate. In Latham's light, fast eleven, trained to the minute, coached to a shifty, tricky style of play with numberless deceptive fakes from which they worked the forward pa.s.s successfully, Bannister seemed to have encountered, as Mike Murphy phrased it, "A team that won't be beat!" According to the advance dope of the sporting writers, who, in football, are usually as good prophets as the Weather Bureau, Bannister was booked to come out the winner by at least five touchdowns to none. But here a half was gone, and Latham led by three points, scored on a rather lucky field-goal!

The psychology of football is inexplicable. Yale, beaten by Virginia, Brown, and Wash-Jeff, with the Blue's best gridiron star ineligible to play, a team that seemed at odds with itself and the 'Varsity, mismanaged, poorly coached, journeys to Princeton to battle with old Na.s.sau; the Tiger, Its tail as yet untwisted, presents its best eleven for several seasons, a great favorite in the odds, and yet the final score is Yale, 14; Princeton, 7! A strange fear of the Bulldog, bred of many bitter defeats, of similar occasions when a feeble Yale team aroused itself and trampled an invincible Orange and Black eleven, when the Blue fought old Na.s.sau with a team that "wouldn't" be beat, gave victory to the poorer aggregation. So many things unforeseen often enter into a football contest, shifting the balance of power from the stronger to the weaker team. One eleven gets the jump on the other, the favorite weirdly goes to pieces--team dissension may exist, a dozen other causes--but, boiled down, Mike Murphy's statement was most appropriate now.

Latham simply would not be beat! The sporting pages had said: "Latham simply can't beat Bannister!" Here the team, that could not be beaten was being defeated, and the team that would not be defeated was, so far, the victor. Perhaps the threatened dropping of Thor from the Gold and Green squad shook somewhat Captain Butch's players; more likely, the Latham aggregation got the jump on Bannister, opening up a bewildering attack of criss-crosses, line plunges, cross-bucks, and tandems, from all of which the forward pa.s.s frequently developed; they literally overwhelmed a supposedly unbeatable team. And once they got the edge, it was hard for Bannister to regain poise and to smother the fast plays that swept through or around the bewildered eleven.

"We have got to beat 'em!" growled Shad, "Mike Murphy or not. Why, if little old Latham cleans us up, smash go our chances of the State Championship! Oh, look at Thor--the big mountain of muscle. Why doesn't he wake up, and go push that team off the field?"

Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy, his vast hulk unprotected from the cold wind by a football blanket, squatted on the ground, on the side-line, apparently in a trance. Ever since the night before, when his father's letter had dealt such a knock-out blow to his hopes of fulfilling the promise to his dying mother, had rudely side-tracked him from the climb to his goal, the blond giant had maintained that dumb apathy. If anything, it seemed that the cruel blow of fate had only served to make Thor more stolid and impa.s.sive than ever, and Theophilus wondered if the Colossus had really grasped the import of the tragic letter as yet. The news had spread over the college and campus, and the students were sincerely sorry for Thor. But to offer him sympathy was about as difficult as consoling a Polar bear with the toothache.

Coach Corridan, carrying out his plot, had decided not to start Thor in the first half of the game. So the Norwegian Hercules, having received no orders to the contrary, however, donned togs and appeared on the side-line, where he had sat, paying not the slightest heed to the scrimmage and seemingly unaware that the Gold and Green was facing defeat and the loss of the Championship, for a game lost would put the team out of the running.

All big John Thorwald knew was, in a few weeks he must leave old Bannister, must give up, for a time, his college course. Just when the grim battle was won, he must leave, to work. Not that the Viking cared about toil. It was the delay that chafed even his stolid self. He was stunned at having to wait, maybe two years, before starting again.

And yet, as he squatted on the side-line, oblivious to everything but his bitter reflections, the Theophilus-quoted words of Shakespeare persisted in intruding on his thoughts:

"This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong-- To love that well, which thou must leave ere long."

Try as he would, he could not fight away the keen realization that books and study were not all he would regret to leave. He was forced to acknowledge that his mind kept wandering to other things. He found himself pondering on the parting with Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e, with that crazy Hicks; he wondered if he, out in the world again, toiling his lonely way, would miss the glad fellowship of these care-free youths that he had watched, but never shared, if he would ever think of the weeks at old Bannister.

Somehow, he felt that he would often vision the Quad at night, brightly lighted, dormitories' lights agleam, students crossing and recrossing, shouting at studious comrades. He would hear again the melodious banjo-tw.a.n.ging, the gleeful saengerfests, the happy skylarking of the boys.

He had never entered into all this, and yet he knew he would miss it all; why, he would even miss the daily scrimmage on Bannister Field; the noisy shower-room, with its clouds of steam, and white forms flitting ghostlike.

He would miss the cla.s.srooms; in brief, everything!

John Thorwald was awakening! Even had this blow not befallen him, the huge, slow-minded Norwegian, in time, with Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e's missionary work, would have gradually come to understand things better--at least, to know he was wrong in his ideas, which is the beginning of wisdom. Already, he had ceased to condemn all this as foolishness, to rail at the youths for wasting time and money. Already something stirred within him, and yet, stolid as he was, bashful among the collegians, he was apparently the same.

But the sudden shock Head Coach Corridan spoke of had come. His father's letter telling of his loss and that Thor must leave Bannister had awakened him to the startling knowledge that he did care for something more than study, that all the things that had puzzled him, that he had sneered at, meant something to his existence, that he dreaded leaving other things than his books.

"I--I don't understand things," thought Thorwald. "But--if I could only stay, I'd want to learn. I'd try to get this 'college' spirit! Oh, I've been all wrong, but if I could only stay--"

As if in answer to his unspoken thought, the big Freshman beheld marching toward him Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e, his spectacles off, and his face aglow, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., evidently in the throes of emotional insanity; a Senior whom he knew as Parson Palmetter; Registrar Worthington, and Doctor Alford, the kindly, beloved Prexy of old Bannister. The last named placed his hand on the puzzled behemoth's ponderous shoulder.

"Thorwald," he said kindly, "Hicks, Opperd.y.k.e and Brewster, last night, came to my study and acquainted me with your misfortune. They told me of your life-history, of your splendid purpose to gain knowledge, to make something of yourself, for your dying mother's sake. Old Bannister needs men like you, Thorwald. Perhaps you do not understand campus ways and tradition yet, perhaps you are not in sympathy with everything here; but once a love for your Alma Mater is awakened, you will be a power for good for your college.

"Now I at once took up the matter with Mr. Palmetter, President of The Students' Aid Bureau. This year, for the first time in our history, we have dispensed with janitors and sweeps in the dormitories, and with dining-hall waiters, so that needy and deserving students may work their way through Bannister. Owing to the fact that Mr. Deane, a Senior, has given up his dormitory, Creighton Hall, as he has funds for the year and needs the time to study, we can offer you board and tuition, in exchange for your work in the dormitory, and waiting on tables in the dining-hall. Since your first term bills, until January first, are paid, if you will start to work at once, we will credit any work done this term on books and incidentals for next term. By this means--"

"Why, you don't--you can't mean--" rumbled Thor, who had just dimly grasped the greatest point in Prexy's speech. "Why, then I won't have to leave Bannister--I won't have to quit my studies! Oh, thank you, sir; thank you! I will work so hard. I am not afraid of work; I love it--a chance to toil and earn my education, that's what I want! Thank you!"

"And in addition," said the Registrar, "Mr. Palmetter reports that he can secure you, downtown, a number of furnaces to tend this winter, which you can do early in the morning and at night; this will bring you an income for living expenses, and in the spring something else will offer itself. It means every moment of your time will be crowded, but Bannister needs workers--"

Something stirred in John Thorwald. His heart had been touched at last. He thought of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., Butch, and little Theophilus worried at his having to leave college, going to Doctor Alford; of Prexy, the Registrar, and Parson Palmetter, working to keep Thor at old Bannister.

He recalled how sympathetic all the youths had been, how they admired his purpose and determination; and he had rewarded their friendliness with cold aloofness. He felt a thrill as he visioned himself working for his education, rising in the cold dawn, tending furnaces, working in the dorm., waiting on tables--studying. With what fierce joy he would a.s.sail his tasks, glad that he could stay! He knew the students would rejoice, that they would not look down on him; instead, they would respect and admire him, toiling to grow and develop, to attain his goal!

"Go to it, Thor!" urged T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. "We all want you to stay, old man; we'll give you a lift with your studies. Old Bannister wants you, needs you, so stick!"

"Stay, please!" quavered little Theophilus. "You don't want to leave your Alma Mater; stay, Thorwald, and--you'll understand things soon,"