Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: For Yardley: A Story of Track and Field by Barbour Ralph Henry Relyea C M Charles M Illustrator
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 1438 lines and 60020 words, and 29 pages
FACING PAGE
"The boy on the stone never moved" 112
"'You'll wish you hadn't been so smart,' he sneered" 220
"Alf squirmed onto one of the barrels and held the craft" 264
FOR YARDLEY
A RAINY SATURDAY
"Wonder why it always rains on Saturdays?" muttered Alf Loring, laying his book face-down in his lap and staring discontentedly out of the window beside him.
It was a cheerless outlook. Through the blurred panes his gaze traversed the Yard, empty and bedraggled, to the back of Merle Hall and the gymnasium. Everywhere was rotting snow or pools of water, while from a low, leaden sky the rain fell straight and persistently. It had been raining just this way all day and half of last night, and to all appearances it intended to continue raining in the same manner for another twenty-four hours. Yesterday the Yard had been a foot deep in nice clean snow, the result of the blizzard that had swept over Wissining and New England in general two days before, and there had been more than one jolly battle royal out there. But now--Alf sighed; and, turning, looked aggrievedly at his roommate.
Tom Dyer was seated at the study table, face in hands, the droplight shedding its yellow glow on his tousled hair, paying little heed to aught but the lesson he was striving to master. Alf scowled.
"Who invented rain, anyhow?" he demanded. There was no reply.
"Eh? What?" Tom looked up from his book, blinking.
"I asked who invented rain, you deaf old haddock."
"Oh! I don't know," answered Tom, vaguely. His eyes went back to the book. Then he added, evidently as an afterthought and with a desire to escape responsibility, "I didn't."
"Well, I'd like to know what it's good for," grumbled Alf.
"Makes crops grow," Tom murmured.
"There aren't any crops the first of March, you idiot. For the love of Mike, Tom, shut that book up and talk to a fellow!"
"What do you want to talk about?" asked Tom, without, however, obeying his chum's command.
"Anything. I'm sick of studying. I'm sick of everything. I'm sick of this rotten rain."
"Pull the curtains and you won't know it's raining," advised Tom.
"There's chess."
"Chess!" exclaimed Alf, derisively. "That's not a game, that's--that's hard labor!"
"Well, I guess it will stop raining to-night," said Tom, comfortingly. "And in a day or two you'll be playing baseball--or trying to!"
"A day or two!" Alf's book slipped from his knees and fell to the floor with an insulted rustling of leaves. With some difficulty he dropped one foot from the window-seat and kicked it venomously. "A day or two! Gee, I'll be a doddering idiot before that."
"You are now. Shut up and let me study."
"What's the good of studying?" growled Alf.
"Well, I understand," replied the other, calmly, "that before they allow you to graduate from Yardley Hall, Mr. Loring, they hold what is known as a final examination. And the examination is due to begin in just three months. Having survived the recent one by a hair's breadth, I thought I'd like to make sure of getting through the next. I'm very fond of this place, Alf, but I'll be switched if I want to stay here another year."
"I think it would be rather good fun myself," said Alf, with a faint show of animation. "Think of the sport you could have. You wouldn't have to study much, you see, and life would be just one long loaf."
"To hear you, any one would think you were the original lazy-bones. Dry up for another ten minutes and just let me get this silly stuff, will you?"
"All right." Alf yawned and turned his attention again to the outer world. He was a good-looking youth of eighteen, with a jolly, care-free countenance, upon which his present expression of irritability looked much out of place. Even hunched as he was into a faint resemblance to a letter W, it was plain to be seen that he had all the height that his age warranted. He was well-built, slim, and powerful, with more muscle than flesh, and the Yardley Hall Football Team under his leadership had in November last completed a successful season by defeating Broadwood Academy, Yardley's hated rival. Alf was the best quarter-back that the school had known for many years.
His roommate, Tom Dyer, was big, rangy, and sufficiently homely of face to be attractive. He was ordinarily rather sleepy looking, and was seldom given to chatter. He had very nice gray eyes, a pleasant, whole-hearted smile, and was one of the best-liked fellows in school. In age Tom was nineteen, having recently celebrated a birthday. He had been basket-ball captain, but his principal athletic honors had been won with shot and hammer in the dual meets with Broadwood. Both boys were members of the First Class, and were due to leave Yardley at the end of the next term.
The room in which they sat, Number 7 Dudley Hall, was shabbily cozy and comfortable, combining study and bedroom. It was on the first floor, with two windows looking on to the Yard, as the space loosely enclosed by the school buildings was known, and so possessed the merit of being doubly accessible; that is to say, one might enter by the door or, if faculty was not looking, by the window. The latter mode was a very popular one, inasmuch as it was strictly prohibited, and the windows of Number 7 were in full view of some four studies inhabited by instructors.
Alf looked at his watch, holding it close in the waning light. It was a quarter past five. He slipped it back into his pocket with a sigh. There was a good three-quarters of an hour to be lived through before supper-time. At that moment his glance, wandering to the Yard, descried a slim figure approaching along the path from Merle, slopping carelessly through puddles and paying no heed to the rain. Alf looked a moment and then smiled.
"Guess you'll have to call it off now, Tom," he announced. "Here comes Gerald, and it's a safe bet he's headed for our humble domicile."
Tom groaned. "That kid will be the death of me if Maury doesn't call the track candidates pretty soon. Gerald asks me every time I see him when we're going to begin work, and whether I think he will make the squad."
Alf chuckled. "I thought when he got his Y at hockey last month he wouldn't be so keen about making the Track Team. He's a funny kid."
"He's a rather nice one, though," said Tom. "Here he comes. Bet you he will ask about track work before he's been here two minutes."
Footsteps sounded along the hall, and then there came a modest knock on the door.
"Come in, Gerald," called Tom.
The boy who entered was not large for his fifteen years, and seemed at first glance a bit too slender and delicate to hope to distinguish himself on the cinders. But his slenderness held a litheness that spoke well for his muscles, and the apparent delicacy was largely a matter of coloring, for Gerald Pennimore had the fairest of pink and white skins, the bluest of blue eyes, and hair that only barely escaped being yellow. He was a nice-looking youngster, though, with an eager, expressive face, and an easy grace of carriage that was good to see. He greeted his hosts, closed the door behind him, and went over to the grate, where a little coal fire glowed ruddily.
"Yes," said Alf, "I should think you'd want to dry your shoes, Gerald. You walked into every puddle in the Yard."
"They're not very wet," responded Gerald, amiably.
"They're soaking! It's a mighty good thing for you that Dan isn't here."
"I'm not afraid of him," laughed Gerald.
"You'd better be," said Tom. "He will tan your hide for you, son, if he catches you doing stunts like that. Where is he to-day?"
"I don't know. I expected to find him here."
"I haven't seen him since dinner," said Alf.
"Pull a chair up there, Gerald, and get those shoes dry. Beastly weather, isn't it?"
"Ye-es, but I'm rather glad to see the rain, aren't you? It will take the snow off. I guess the track will be clean by to-morrow, won't it, Tom?"
Tom shot an amused glance at Alf. "I guess so, but it will take some time to get it dried out and rolled down."
"Will it? Do you know when Captain Maury is going to call the candidates, Tom?"
"Yes, I saw him this morning, and he told me he was going to get them together Monday," answered Tom, patiently.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page