The Whirligig of Time Part 16

"Oh, yes; who doesn't? Is there any satisfaction like that of knowing that every one else is wrong and you alone are right?"

"I suppose not! That's the main danger of heresy, don't you think?

Subjective, not objective. Being burned at the stake doesn't matter, much; it's good for one rather than otherwise. But thinking differently from other people merely for the pleasure of being different, and above them--there's danger in that, isn't there?"

"Then there is no such thing as honest heresy?"

"That was not what I said." This remark, spoken gently and with a quizzical little smile, had none of the sharpness that cold type seems to give it. Adopting something of her manner, Harry pursued:

"But I am not an honest heretic?"

"I didn't say that, either." Again the smile, which seemed to be directed as much toward herself as toward him, softened the words. "And aren't you rather trespa.s.sing on female methods of argument?"

"I don't understand."

"Applying abstract remarks to one's own case; that's what women are conventionally supposed to do. But don't let's get metaphysical. What I want to say is that, though I think 'Forty Years On' is incomparably finer, as a song, than 'Bright College Years,' I wouldn't have it changed if I could. The 'For G.o.d, for country, and for Yale' part, I mean; and 'the earth is green or white with snow,'--a woefully under-appreciated line.... There is something priceless, to me, in the thought of a great crowd of men, young and old, getting up and bellowing things like that together, never doubting but that it's the greatest poetry ever written. That's worth a great deal more, to me, than good poetry.... They're all such dears, too; the absurdity never hurts them a bit!"

"By George," said Harry slowly, "you're right. I never thought of that before. It is rather a priceless thought."

"Yes, isn't it? It's the full seriousness of it that makes it so good.

'For G.o.d, for country, and for Yale'--it's no anti-climax to them; it's the way they really feel. It's absurd, it's ridiculous. But I love it, for some reason."

"That's it. You make me see it all differently.... You mean, I suppose, that if we could start from the beginning with a clean slate, we would choose 'Forty Years On,' or something like it, every time. But now that we've got the other, and they sing it like that, it seems just as good, in its way ... so that we wouldn't like to change it...."

He wanted to add something like "What an extraordinary young person you must be, to talk of such things to me, a stranger, under such conventional circ.u.mstances," but a simultaneous recurrence of Mr.

Carruthers and the game prevented him. It is doubtful if he would have dared, anyway.

He spoke no more to her that day, except to say good-by and ask if he might call. Nor did he think much more of her. We would not give a false impression on this point; he was really much more interested in the game than in Miss Elliston, and after the second half was fairly started scarcely gave her another thought. But in the moment that intervened between the end of their conversation and the absorbing scurry of the kick-off it did occur to him that Madge Elliston had grown up into an unusual girl, a girl whom he would like to know better. Their short conversation had been as different from the ordinary run of football game civilities between young men and maidens as champagne from water.

Harry liked girls well enough, and got on well with them, but in general they bored him. He had never met one, except Beatrice Carson, with whom he was able to conduct anything approaching an intellectual give-and-take, and even Beatrice was no more than an able follower in his lead. Madge Elliston was a bird of a very different feather; she had undeniably led him during every moment of their conversation. It was a new sensation; he wondered if it would always be like that, in future conversations.

But football was uppermost in his mind for the remainder of that day, at least. He was proud and pleased beyond all expression about James, and longed to grasp his hand in congratulation. But he had to go all the way home with Aunt Selina after the game was over, and when at last he reached Berkeley Oval he met James hurrying away somewhere and could give him only the briefest and vaguest expressions of pleasure. On returning to York Street he learned that the team was to have a banquet that evening, in the course of which they would elect their captain for the next year. It occurred to him that it would be nice if James were elected, and it gave him pleasure to hear Trotwood and others say that his chance was as good as any one's.

He stayed up to hear the result of the election, which when it came was disappointing. James had missed the honor, less, apparently, because he was not good enough, than because some one else was considered even better. Harry was sorry, though he lost no sleep over it. When he saw James next morning, he spoke first of what was uppermost in his heart.

"James," he said impulsively, seizing his brother's hand and hanging on to it as he spoke; "I want to say a whole lot more about yesterday. I don't mind saying you're the greatest thing that ever came down the pike, and I'm proud to own you!" and more in the same vein, which James received with smiling protests and remarks of a self-depreciatory nature. But when Harry ended up "And I'm sorry as heck about the captaincy," his manner changed.

"Oh, that's all right," he said. His face became grave, his whole att.i.tude seemed to add: "And we won't talk any more about that, please; it's a sore subject."

Harry's easy flow of talk stopped short, and a new feeling filled his mind. "Good Heavens, James cares, actually cares about the confounded thing," he thought, and dropped his brother's hand.

CHAPTER X

RUMBLINGS

"Please, sir, could you give me any dope for the _News_ about your coming back to coach the football team?" asked a timid voice from the doorway.

"No, heeler, no; I've already said I wouldn't give anything about that till I made up my mind, and I haven't yet." Thus James, more petulantly than was his wont, from his chair below the green-shaded lamp. The heeler, obviously a freshman, blinked disappointedly through the half-gloom for a few seconds and then moved to go.

"Wait a bit," said James, his good-humor restored; "I'm sorry, heeler.

But when I tell you that you're the thirteenth person that has come in at that door since seven o'clock, and that I've got a hundred pages of economics to read for to-morrow, perhaps you'll understand why I'm a little snappy about being interrupted."

"That's all right," murmured the heeler vaguely. He was used to being snapped at by prominent seniors, but he was not used to being apologized to by them, and was not sure how he liked it.

"I tell you what I'll do, though," went on James. "I'll give you a locker notice that ought to have been put in long ago. Here." He reached for the heeler's notebook and wrote in it: "All senior members of the football squad are requested to remove their clothes from their lockers as the s.p.a.ce will be wanted for spring practice." "There, that'll put you fifty words to the good, anyway," he said brightly, and the heeler went his way in peace.

James had conducted himself most creditably during his college course, and in the course of a few months would graduate if not exactly in a blaze of glory, at least in a very comfortable radiance. His standard of values had been a simple but satisfactory one; first, Football; second, Curriculum; third, Other Things. Any number of the steadier and worthier portion of the college world make this their creed, and find it works out extremely well. In the case of James, at least, such a standard gave a sane and well-balanced view of life. He took football with the most deathly seriousness, it is true, but only in its season, and its season, owing to the rigors of the New England climate, lasts hardly more than two months out of the twelve. During that time James practically hibernated when not actually on the football field, lived mainly on boiled rice and barley water, indulged in no amus.e.m.e.nts or vices, went about thoughtful and preoccupied, scarcely spoke even to his most intimate friends, studied only just enough to keep his stand above the danger mark and slept, as Harry rather vividly put it, "anywhere from thirty to forty hours out of the twenty-four." Out of the football season he was cheerful, cordial, loved the society of his fellows, smoked, drank in moderation, went to the theater, played cards, ate every kind of food he could lay his hands on and studied with a very faithful and intelligent interest. His cla.s.smates admired him during the football season, and loved him the rest of the year. Generally speaking, he conformed closely to his type; but his type was one of the best the college evolved.

After the _News_ heeler left him on the evening in question he read economics uninterruptedly for about half an hour; then he took a cigarette from his case and lit it. The case was the gold one that Harry had brought him from Europe. He thought of Harry as he lay back in his chair after lighting the cigarette, and it is not too much to say that the thought of him impaired the pleasure of the first few puffs. Harry was, indeed, the chief, the only cloud on the horizon. It was too bad; he had begun so well. No one could have desired a more brilliant freshman year for him, what with his track work and his literary success and the excellent stand he maintained in his studies. And yet now, at about the middle of his soph.o.m.ore year, he seemed to be going in any direction but that of fulfilling the promise of his first year. James could see for himself, and he had heard things.... Perhaps, after all, though, it was merely that he had begun too well; that his promise was fulfilled before it was fairly given. Many men graduated from college high in the esteem of their cla.s.smates without having distinguished themselves as much as Harry had in one year. Perhaps he was really going on exactly as well as before, only people were just beginning to find out that he was only an American boy of nineteen, not Apollo and Hermes rolled into one. That was what James hoped; but it occurred to him that if such had been the case the idea would have come to him as a certainty, not as a hope.

Harry himself sauntered into the room before the cigarette was smoked out. Well, his outward appearance had not suffered, at any rate, was James' first thought. The slimness of his figure was unimpaired; his features retained their clear-cut lines of youth and innocence; his complexion shone with the glow of health, nothing else.

"Give me a cigarette, and hurry up about it, too," were his first words.

"I've just been under a severe mental strain.... It will probably be the last one for many moons, too, if I start in training to-morrow, like a good little boy."

"Oh, of course; you've been to the call for track candidates," replied his brother, handing over the desired commodities. "Well, was it a good meeting?"

"Inspiring. Don't you see what a glow of enthusiasm I'm in? First Dimmock got up and opened his mouth. 'Fellows,' he said, 'I'm darned glad to see you all here to-night, but I wish there were more of you. I see fewer men out than usual, and we need more than ever this year, and I'll tell you why. We want to do better in the intercollegiates. We think we are strong enough for the dual meets, but we want to make a better show in the intercollegiates. But we've got plenty of good material here, and with that we ought to get together and work hard and show lots of the old Yale spirit, for we'll need it all in the intercollegiates.'

"Well, Dimmock is a good soul, if he has got a face like a boiled cod, and we cheered and clapped and patted him on the back. Then Macgrath took the floor. He said he thought we were going to have a good year, for there was plenty of material in sight, though he was sorry to see so few there to-night. He hoped we weren't forgetting what the Yale spirit was, because we particularly wanted to do well in the intercollegiates.

He spoke of the new cinder track and the lengthening of the two-twenty yard straight-away, and ended with a hope that we would all get together and do Yale credit in the intercollegiates.

"Then McCullen, who as perhaps you know, is manager, got up. As he is a particular friend of yours I won't try to give an exact account of what he said. His main points, however, were the fewness of the candidates present, the probable wealth of good material in hand, the new cinder track and the desirability of doing well in the intercollegiates.

Lastly, a man called Hodgman, or Hodgson, or something, who was captain back in the eighties somewhere, was introduced. He spoke first of the new cinder track and straight-away, from which he lightly and gracefully went on to congratulating the team on having so much good material this year--though he saw fewer there to-night than he had expected. He closed with a touching peroration in which he intimated that the track team had in general come off well in regard to Harvard and Princeton, and what was wanted now was a little better showing against the other universities in the intercollegiates.... Oh, it was a glorious meeting!"

James fully appreciated the humor of this narrative, as the sympathetic twinkle in his eye betrayed, but he merely observed after Harry had finished:

"Well, that's true; they ought to do better in the intercollegiates.

There's a good deal of feeling about it among the graduates, too, I believe."

"Oh, it's _true_ enough." Harry, who felt the heat of the room, opened the window and lay down at full length on the window-seat, directly in the draught. "I'd take the word of those four n.o.ble, strapping, true-hearted men for it any day in the year. Only--only--oh, heck! Why should I have to sit up and listen to those b.o.o.bs spend an hour in telling me that one thing? And what the devil do I care about it anyway, if it's the truest thing that ever happened?"

"Well, I care about it, though I'm no good at track and not a member of the team," commented James.

"Perhaps if you were on it you wouldn't care quite so much.--Well, I'll train and I'll practise regularly, not because I want Yale to win the intercollegiates, but because I think it's good for me. It is good for the figure, and I'd rather have my muscles hard than soft."

"Well, it comes to the same thing, if you keep to it, and don't go ga.s.sing to the track people about your reasons."

"I shall go ga.s.sing to every human being I've a mind to.--And I'll tell you one thing there's going to be trouble about, if they try to use coercion, or the Yale spirit gag. That's about the Easter vacation; there's some talk of making the track people stay here and train. I have other plans for Easter."

"What are they?--For Heaven's sake, shut that window! What a fool you are, lying in a draught like that, with the track season beginning."

"James, you are every bit as bad as any of them, at heart," said Harry, shutting the window. "You wouldn't give a continental if I caught pneumonia and died in frightful agony, except for its cutting the university of a possible place in the intercollegiates.--Why, I'm going down to the Trotwoods' place in North Carolina. Trotty's going to have a large and brilliant house-party. Beatrice is going; he met her in New York not long ago and took a great shine to her." For Beatrice, in the company of Aunt Miriam, was paying a visit to the country of her dreams.

"What?" said James, p.r.i.c.king up his ears. "Beatrice going? Why hasn't Trotty asked me?"

"Didn't dare, I suppose," said Harry indifferently. "I'll make him, though, if you like. That's the way the King's visits are arranged; he says he'd like to visit some distinguished subject, and a third party tells the distinguished subject, who asks the King, who accepts. It's complicated, but it gets there in the end."