Read Ebook: For Yardley: A Story of Track and Field by Barbour Ralph Henry Relyea C M Charles M Illustrator

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Ebook has 1438 lines and 60020 words, and 29 pages

"Yes, I saw him this morning, and he told me he was going to get them together Monday," answered Tom, patiently.

"Going to try the mile, Gerald?" inquired Alf, innocently.

"I want to. Do you think I'd stand any show of getting on the team, Alf?"

"I guess so. What's your best time for the mile, Gerald?"

"I don't quite know. Andy said he thought I did it once in about five minutes in the cross country, but that was on a dirt road, of course. I guess I could do a lot better than that on the cinders."

"Rather! Besides, any chap can do better in warm weather. Even if you shouldn't make the team this spring, Gerald, you'd get a lot of fun out of it, and it would do you good besides. It's a bit unfortunate, though, that Maury runs the mile himself. It's awfully hard to crowd the captain off the team."

"How about that, Tom?"

"Yes, I think so. Usually she's better on the distances than anything else. But we beat her in the cross country, and maybe our men are as good as hers this year. I suppose Goodyear and Norcross will both enter for the mile."

"Are you going to be on the team this year, Alf?" Gerald asked.

"No, I guess not; not unless I'm pretty badly needed. What's the use? Both Rand and Bufford can beat me in the sprints."

"You might crowd a Broadwood man out in the trials, though," said Tom. "And you wouldn't have to train much; your baseball work would keep you in trim."

"We won't," said Alf. "We never have in the school's history. We're bound to drop either track or baseball. Personally, I hope it will be track. Even then, though, we'd be doing ourselves proud, what?"

"Why? I thought we were pretty certain of the Duals," said Alf. Tom shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't see why. Just because we ran away with Broadwood last spring doesn't mean that we've got an easy thing this year. She will work a whole lot harder, I guess. And we haven't the men we had then. We've lost Wass in the hurdles, Bird in the quarter, Johnson and Fyles in the high jump, and two or three second-string fellows who might have made good this year. I guess we've got the sprints cinched without a doubt, but I'm not very easy in my mind regarding the field events."

"Well, we know who will get first in the hammer," laughed Alf.

"Meaning me? Perhaps; but if Broadwood gets enough seconds and thirds she may fool us."

Gerald turned, listened, and then retired hurriedly from the grate.

"There's Dan," he said. There was a knock and the door swung open, admitting a disreputable figure in a dripping raincoat and a felt hat, from the down-turned brim of which drops of water trickled.

"Hello, you chaps! Fine day, isn't it?"

The final remark was emphatic and spontaneous, for Dan's wet hat sailed across the room with beautiful precision, and landed fairly against Alf's face with a damp and dismal splash.

The others grinned enjoyably as Alf wiped the rain from his eyes and looked about for a weapon. Finding nothing save the hat, and doubting his ability to use that effectually, he had recourse to verbal weapons.

"Go it!" laughed Dan, shedding his raincoat. "It was a bully shot, though, wasn't it? What have you fellows been doing?"

"Leading a quiet, studious, respectable existence until you broke in with your low, rough-house manners," responded Alf, severely. "Dan, you're a mucker."

"Alf, you're a gentleman."

"That's a lie," answered Alf, with dignity, subsiding on the window-seat again and hugging his knees. "Where have you been, you old brute?"

"You'd never guess," replied Dan, with a laugh, as he backed to the fireplace and held his hands to the warmth.

"Taking tea with Old Toby," hazarded Alf.

"Not as bad as that, Alf. I've been sliding around the river in two inches of slush on what Roeder calls his ice yacht. Seen it? It looks like somebody's front gate with a leg-of-mutton sail stuck up on it."

"Must have been fun in this weather," laughed Alf.

"It wasn't so bad until we went into a hole up near Flat Island and had to work for half an hour pulling the silly thing out. I wanted to let it stay there; told him it would float down when the ice thawed; but he insisted on rescuing it."

"You're a crazy chump," said Alf, viewing him, however, with evident affection. Dan Vinton was tall and lithe and long-limbed, with a wide-awake, alert appearance and an almost disconcerting ability to think quickly and act in the same way. In age he was just over sixteen, and he was a trifle large for his years. He had steady brown eyes, brown hair, a short, straight nose, and a pleasant, good-tempered mouth. Dan was a Second-Class fellow and had been chosen football captain in the fall.

"I'd give a dollar for a nice cup of hot chocolate," he announced. "I'm hungry as a bear. Got anything to eat, you fellows?"

"Not a thing," replied Alf. "I can't keep grub here; Tom eats it all up. Anyhow, eating between meals," he added, virtuously, "is very bad for the health."

"It's good for the tummy, though," said Dan, crossing over and seating himself at the other end of the window-seat. "Well, what's new?"

"New! Nothing's new. Nothing has happened in this dead-and-alive hole since--since the hockey game. I detest this time of year, don't you?"

"It is a bit dull, but I guess we'll be outdoors in a few days. Gee, but I'll be glad to feel a baseball again!"

"Me too. We've been discussing the Track Team's chances. Now that Gerald has decided to come out for the mile it looks like a pretty sure thing for Yardley."

"Oh, you can make all the fun you want," said Gerald, cheerfully. "I'll bet, though, that I'll win just as many points as you will, Alf."

"That's a good safe wager," observed Tom, lazily. "Of course, I'm not saying Alf might not win a third some time if he could keep his feet. But he always takes a header just before the tape, and tears up the track. Gets an idea, I suppose, that the quickest way to get there is to slide. Shows his baseball training."

"Oh, run away! I never fell but once, you old chump!"

"Go ahead," said Alf, "what's the joke?"

"I asked him why he called it that and he said it was made of planks, and the mast was the stake. Not bad, what?"

Alf groaned. "It sounds like one of Tom's jokes. His sense of humor is decidedly heavy."

"My sense of hunger is decidedly strong," said Tom. "And it's five minutes of six. Let's go over. Want to wash up here, you two?"

"Yes," Dan answered, "though I feel as though I was pretty well washed already. I'll bet there isn't a really dry spot about me. Where'd you get this villainous soap, Tom?"

"Don't ask me; that's some of Alf's. Doesn't it smell fierce?"

"Awful! Where'd you find it, Alf?"

"That soap," responded Alf, haughtily, "is the best made, and extremely expensive. The delicious perfume which you mention and can't appreciate is lilac. That soap costs me two and a half cents a cake, at Wallace's."

"Well, then, Wallace has at last got even for the glasses you broke there once," laughed Dan. "I've noticed an unpleasant atmosphere about you for some time. Now it's explained. All ready? Come on, then; let's eat!"

THE S. P. M.

While our four friends are satisfying four very healthy appetites, let's look about us a little. The place is Wissining, Connecticut, and Wissining, in case you happen not to be acquainted with it, is on the Sound, about equidistant from New Haven and Newport. Perhaps you can locate Greenburg better, for Greenburg is quite a city in a small way, and something of a manufacturing town. Wissining lies just across the river from Greenburg, and Yardley Hall School is about a half-mile from the Wissining station. It may be that you have never noticed it, even if you have traveled that way, for the railroad passes through the Yardley property by way of a cut, and the school buildings are not long in sight. But if you look sharp as your train crosses the bridge over the little Wissining River, you will see them describing a rough semicircle on the edge of a not distant hill; Clarke, Whitson, Oxford, Merle, and the Kingdon Gymnasium. Dudley you won't see for the reason that it is situated back of the other buildings and across the Yard. Oxford is a recitation hall; but, besides class-rooms, it holds Dr. Hewitt's apartments, the office, the laboratories, the library, the assembly hall, and the rooms of the two school societies, Oxford and Cambridge. The dining-room, or commons, is in Whitson.

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