The Boy Grew Older Part 25

You see the old Frenchman, the fellow that taught at school, he was awful decent to me. He used to give me extra cla.s.ses outside of school.

You see we had a secret between us. It was like belonging to that kid fraternity we used to have in high school--Alpha Kappa Phi. That means something that n.o.body else knew. I can't remember what."

"Brothers and friends," prompted Peter.

"How did you know that?"

"You told me about it in one of the letters you wrote to me. But what was the secret you had with the old Frenchman?"

"Why, about Maria. He told me not to let any of the fellows know that Maria Algarez was my mother. He said that it was a beautiful romance but that here in America people wouldn't understand on account of American morality being so strict and that they might look down on me."

Peter was indignant. "Beautiful romance! Where did he get that idea?

Maria Algarez and I were married just like anybody. Didn't she tell you that?"

"No," said Pat in obvious disappointment, "she didn't."

"I guess she forgot about it," suggested Peter.

"It doesn't make any difference to me, but if I run into old Mons.

Fournier I won't dare tell him. It would spoil the whole thing for him.

He'll think I was just boasting. Gosh he got a lot of fun out of it."

"Fournier, there's a Jacques Fournier that plays first base for the White Sox."

"No, this man's named Antoine. He's the old French teacher I was telling you about. Maybe they're related. He never said anything about it."

"In these letters about the opera and singing and all that," asked Peter, "did Maria Algarez ever suggest that you ought to try and be a singer."

Pat broke into unrestrained merriment. "Good G.o.d! no," he said and added quickly, "I beg your pardon, Father, I didn't mean to curse but it would be so funny if Maria'd said anything like that about me."

Peter was nettled. "If you're going to call me 'father' why don't you call her 'mother'?"

"I'm sorry; I know you don't like to be called 'father'. I won't do it again."

"All right, but you haven't answered my question. Don't you ever think of calling her 'mother'?"

"Maria Algarez? No, it would sound so funny. I've never seen her. She doesn't seem like my mother or anybody's mother. She's around singing before people and all that. And look at her picture."

He took one out of his pocket and handed it across the table. For the first time since the conversation had turned upon Maria Peter smiled.

He recognized the picture. He too had had one just like it a good many years ago. It was taken two or three months before he married Maria Algarez. However, Peter let it pa.s.s without comment.

"What does Maria say about what you're going to do?" he wanted to know.

"She hasn't raised any objections to your going into the newspaper business?"

"No, she never mentioned that or anything definite. She's just kept hammering away at one thing. She keeps saying Pat don't do anything unless it's something you want to do very much. And she says if a man or a woman has something like that he wants to do he musn't let anything in the world stand in his way. He must go after it."

"Have you been living up to that? Have you been doing everything you wanted?"

"Well, no," said Pat, "not since Rufus Twice took me over."

Peter brightened. Maria had a fight on her hands. Rufus Twice was right behind him even as he had been behind President Wilson. But the next moment he was again sunk in gloom. They were done with dinner and Pat asked with unmistakable eagerness, "Couldn't we go some place and hear some music?"

Peter throttled down his chagrin but before he could answer Pat added, "Do you suppose there's any chance of our getting in to the Follies?"

CHAPTER VII

The plans of Rufus Twice did not work out quite according to specifications. Pat went to Harvard, but he failed to make the football team although he remained on the squad as a rather remotely removed subst.i.tute quarterback. He was not even taken to the Princeton game, but he wrote to Peter that he would be on the sidelines in uniform for the game with Yale at New Haven. It was arranged that he should meet Peter immediately afterwards at the Western Union office. Pat's letters from Harvard were spa.r.s.e and infrequent.

"Football is the toughest course I have," he wrote, "and the dullest.

Learning the signals here is worse than dates. You can't even guess at them. You have to know. Last week Bob Fisher gave us a blackboard talk in the locker-room and made a comparison between war and football. It sounded just like Mr. Twice. Maybe Mr. Twice put him up to it. It's beginning to seem to me as if that man ran everything in this world. The only thing I've enjoyed much is going round to Copeland's. He's an a.s.sistant professor in English. I take a course with him about Dr.

Johnson and his Circle. I don't care anything about Dr. Johnson. He seems to have been the Rufus Twice of his day. But I do like hearing Copeland. The fellows that know him well call him 'Copey,' but I haven't nerve enough to do that. He has receptions in his room at night. There's a regular thing he tells you, 'n.o.body comes much before ten or stays after eleven'. He talks about books and makes them exciting. I'm kind of steamed up about an English woman writer called May Sinclair. I've been reading 'Mary Olivier.' It isn't much like any writing I've ever seen before. She just sort of sails along over a story and whenever she sees anything that seems important to her she swoops down and collars it. All the stuff that doesn't matter is left out. There isn't much here that matters, but you can't leave it out because if you do the dean tells you about it. Do you remember that suggestion you made to me that night we took dinner at the Harvard Club. You remember you asked me if I ever thought any about singing myself. I got rather interested and thought some about going out for the Glee Club, but I knew Mr. Twice would raise the d.i.c.kens if I didn't play football. Sometimes we sing up here in the room. Just swipes you know. I'm getting so I can work out chords on the piano. I don't know anything about my voice because it's always a bunch of us that sings together. I do know though that I can sing a lot louder than the rest. I think if you're smart you'll put a bet on us against Yale. Those lickings we got earlier in the season don't mean anything. We're just beginning to come along now. I don't know why I say 'we.' I mean 'they.' I haven't got anything to do with it. Somehow though I do get swept along into the whole business. Mr. Copeland was telling us the other night that we all take football a lot too seriously. He says nothing will crumble and fall down even if we don't beat Yale next Sat.u.r.day. I know there's sense to that, but somehow I can't help caring about it. Keep your eyes on Charlie Bullitt when you come up to the game. When I watch him work I realize how far off I am from being a regular college quarterback. He's got a bean on him. I'll see you right after the game at the telegraph office. I suppose you're going to do the story for the Bulletin. See that Harvard doesn't get any the worst of it."

Peter did watch Bullitt, but more than that he watched the huddled crowd of Harvard players on the sidelines. He couldn't help feeling that in some way or other Pat would finally get into the game. His old habit of making pictures beforehand was with him. There was Pat throwing off his blanket and running out to report to the officials. Peter wondered if he would know him from his lofty seat at the top of the Stadium. He felt sure that he would. Still every time a Harvard subst.i.tute went in Peter shouted down the line to find out if at last this was Pat. The picture he had fashioned for himself couldn't be wrong. Pat would run down the field through the blue team yard after yard over the goal line. If it only could happen to Pat. Once let him hear the roar of the whole Harvard cheering section racketing behind him and there could never be any more talk about his being a singer or anything like that. It wouldn't be exciting enough.

Just to sit there and watch made Peter feel that he was a part of one of the most thrilling manifestations of life. When the British went over and captured Messines Ridge Peter had watched the show from the top of Kemmel Hill. He and the other correspondents knew the exact second when the mines were to explode. They all knew that this might be the decisive push of the war. And as he waited for the great crash which would show that the attack was on Peter trembled. But the excitement didn't begin to toss him about as it did now when Harvard was playing Yale. Yes, it was true as Pat had said that there wasn't any sense to it, but there it was. It was a symbol of something much greater. Peter didn't know quite what. Maybe there was some significance for him in the fact that the Yale line was so much bigger and heavier. Harvard would have to win with speed and skill.

Maria had always said that there was no song in him. He knew that she felt he didn't appreciate beauty. But what could she ever show Pat that would pound a pulse like this. How could anybody dream of making a singer out of Pat when he might be a quarterback and after his own playing was done go on living the thing over as he watched the games year after year. And perhaps when Pat came to write he could put in it this thing that was sport, and beauty, and life and fighting and everything else worth while in life. Perhaps he could do the things that he spoke of in the letter about that English novelist, the woman that sort of soared over things and then swooped down on them. All this that was happening belonged to him and Pat. Maria and the boy had nothing like this in common. She just couldn't have an ear for football.

By and by Peter forgot all about her. He didn't even remember very much that Pat was waiting in the sidelines. The affair grew too desperate to admit of any personal considerations. The one present and compelling tragedy of Peter's life dwarfing all others was that Yale was winning.

He had stationed beside him a young undergraduate from New Haven who was supposed to give him the subst.i.tutions in the Yale lineup and identify the Eli who carried the ball or made the tackle. This young man had gone a little more insane than Peter. He paid no attention to any questions, but pounded his fist on the great pile of copy paper which lay in front of Peter and shouted: "Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown!"

"Don't do that," said Peter. He didn't like the sentiment and he hated to have his notes knocked around. The Yale youngster didn't hear him.

"Touchdown!" he screamed again and almost jarred Peter's typewriter over the edge of the Stadium.

A fumble lost three yards and halted the Yale attack. There came a punt and the Harvard quarterback raced down the field. Pat had said, "Watch Charlie Bullitt." They threw him on the fourteen yard line.

"Who made that tackle?" asked Peter.

"Hold 'em, Yale! Hold 'em, Yale!" chanted the undergraduate reporter.

Suddenly Peter jumped up scattering his notes all over the press box.

His typewriter fell to the concrete with a clatter. "Harvard!" he said, and then much louder, "Harvard! Harvard!" And as he shouted the ball went over the line. It was only by chance that he happened to hit the Yale reporter on the back the first time, but he was so swept along by the wildness of the moment that he continued to slap him violently until the youngster moved away. A little later there was a field goal and presently the game was over and Harvard had won by a score of 10 to 3.

Peter didn't leave the press box immediately. He was much too shaky to attempt the journey down the long steps to the field. The Harvard stands had poured out on to the gridiron and the students were throwing their hats over the goal posts. The Yale undergraduates remained and across the field came booming, "For G.o.d! For Country! And for Yale!" Peter knew that he would have to cool off emotionally before he could write his story. That would have to tell who carried the ball and when and how far. He couldn't just write, "Harvard! Harvard! Harvard!" and let it go at that. He must make most of his story on that run of Bullitt's. The thing was almost perfect in its newspaper possibilities. It couldn't be better. The tackle which stopped the quarterback on the fourteen-yard line had knocked him out. Peter wished he knew what Dr. Nichols had said when he ran out to the player. Then he remembered somebody had told him once that the doctor had a formula which he invariably used when a player was knocked out. "What day of the week is it? Who are you playing? What's the score?" That was the test which must be pa.s.sed by an injured man before he could remain in the game.

Suddenly an idea came to Peter. That was just the touch he needed. His story was made. He almost jogged all the way to the telegraph office.

His first two starts were false ones. Then he achieved a sentence which suited him and pounded away steadily. No doubts a.s.sailed him. He was never forced to stop and hunt for any word. The thing just wrote itself.

"There's a little trouble," said the chief operator, "but I can let you have a wire in about half an hour."

"I've got half of it done already," replied Peter. "Make it snappy."

They were holding him up and he stopped to look over what he had written.

"Cambridge, Ma.s.s., November, 19--By Peter Neale--The Harvard worm turned into a snake dance. Tied by Penn State, beaten by Centre and by Princeton, the plucky Crimson eleven made complete atonement this afternoon when it won from Yale by a score of 10 to 3.

"Joy came in the evening. Harvard did all its scoring in the dusk of the final period. The Crimson backs showed that they were not afraid to go home in the dark.