CHAPTER X
WATERLOO
It was not until three years had passed and Sandy had reached hisjunior year that his real achievement was put to the test.
After that harrowing experience in the Hollis driveway, he had seenRuth Nelson but twice. She had spent the winters at boarding-school,and in the summers she traveled with her aunt. She was still thedivinity for whom he shaped his end, the compass that always broughthim back to the straight course. He looked upon her possiblerecognition and friendship as a man looks upon his reward in heaven.In the meantime he suffered himself to be consoled by less distantjoys.
The greatest spur he had to study was Martha Meech. She thought hewas a genius; and while he found it a bit irksome to live up to hisreputation, he made an honest effort to deserve it.
One spring afternoon the two were under the apple-trees, with theirbooks before them. The years that had lifted Sandy forward towardvigor and strength and manhood had swept over Martha relentlessly,beating out her frail strength, and leaving her weaker to combat eachincoming tide. Her straight, straw-colored hair lay smooth about herdelicate face, and in her eyes was the strained look of one who seeksbut is destined never to attain.
"Let's go over the Latin once more," she was saying patiently, "justto make sure you understand."
"Devil a bit more!" cried Sandy, jumping up from where he lay in thegrass and tossing the book lightly from her hand; "it's the sin andthe shame to keep you poking in books, now the spring is here.Martha, do you mind the sound of the wind in the tree-tops?"
She nodded, and he went on:
"Does it put strange words in your heart that you can't even think outin your head? If I could be translating the wind and the river, I'dnever be minding the Latin again."
Martha looked at him half timidly.
"Sometimes, do you know, I almost think you are a poet, Sandy; you arealways thinking the things the poets write about."
"Do you, now, true?" he asked seriously, dropping down on the grassbeside her. Then he laughed. "You'll be having me writing rhymes, now,in a minute."
"Why not?" she urged.
"I must stick to my course," he said. "I'd never be a real one. Theywork for the work's sake, and I work for the praise. If I win thescholarship, it'll be because you want me to, Martha; if I come to bea lawyer, it's because it's the wish of the judge's heart; and if Iwin out in the end, it will be for the love of some one--some one whocares more for that than for anything else in the world."
She dropped her eyes, while he watched the flight of a song-bird as itwheeled about overhead. Presently she opened an old portfolio and tookfrom it a little sketch.
"I have been trying to get up courage to show it to you all week," shesaid, with a deprecatory laugh.
"It's the river," cried Sandy, "just at sundown, when the shadows areslipping away from the bank! Martha, why didn't ye tell me? Are theremore?"
He ransacked the portfolio, drawing out sketch after sketch andexclaiming over each. They were crude little efforts, faulty indrawing and in color; but the spirit was there, and Sandy had a vagueinstinct for the essence of things.
"I believe you're the real kind, Martha. They're crooked a bit, butthey've got the feel of the woods in 'em, all right. I can just hearthe water going over those stones."
Martha's eyes glowed at the praise. For a year she had reachedforward blindly toward some outlet for her cramped, limited existence,and suddenly a way seemed open toward the light.
"I wanted to learn how before I showed you," she said. "I am nevergoing to show them to any one but you and mother and father."
"But you must go somewhere to study," cried Sandy. "It's a greatartist you'll be some day."
She shook her head. "It's not for me, Sandy. I'll always be like alittle beggar girl that peeps through the fence into a beautifulgarden. I know all the wonderful things are there, but I'll never getto them."
"But ye will," cried Sandy, hot with sympathy. "I'll be making moneysome day, and I'll send ye to the finest master in the country; andyou will be getting well and strong, and we'll go--"
Mr. Meech, shuffling up the walk toward them, interrupted. "Studyingfor the examination, eh? That's right, my boy. The judge tells methat you have a good chance to win the scholarship."
"Did he, now?" said Sandy, with shameless pleasure; "and you, Mr.Meech, do ye think the same?"
"I certainly do," said Mr. Meech. "Anybody that can accomplish thework you do at home, and hold your record at the academy, stands anexcellent chance."
Sandy thought so, too, but he tried to be modest. "If it'll be in me,it will come out," he said with suppressed triumph as he swung hisbooks across his shoulder and started home.
Martha's eyes followed him wistfully, and she hoped for a backwardlook before he turned in at the door. But he was absorbed in sailing abroomstick across Aunt Melvy's pathway, causing her to drop herbasket and start after him in hot pursuit.
That evening the judge glanced across the table with greatsatisfaction at Sandy, who was apparently buried in his Vergil. Theboy, after all, was a student; he was justifying the money and timethat had been spent upon him; he was proving a credit to hisbenefactor's judgment and to his knowledge of human nature.
"Would ye mind telling me a word that rhymes with lance?" broke inSandy after an hour of absorbed concentration.
"Pants," suggested the judge. But he woke up in the night to wonderagain what part of Vergil Sandy had been studying.
"How about the scholarship?" he asked the next day of Mr. Moseley, theprincipal of the academy.
Mr. Moseley pursed his lips and considered the matter ponderously. Heregarded it as ill befitting an instructor of youth to dispose of anysubject in words of less than three syllables.
"Your protege, Judge Hollis, is an ambiguous proposition. He possessesinvention and originality, but he is sadly lacking in sustainedconcentration."
"But if he studies," persisted the judge, "you think he may win it?"
Mr. Moseley wrinkled his brows and looked as if he were solving aproblem in Euclid. "Probably," he admitted; "but there is a mostinsidious enemy with which he has to contend."
"An enemy?" repeated the judge, anxiously.
"My dear sir," said Mr. Moseley, sinking his voice to husky solemnity,"the boy is stung by the tarantula of athletics!"
It was all too true. The Ambiguous Proposition had found, soon afterreaching Clayton, that base-ball was what he had been waiting for allhis life. It was what he had been born for, what he had crossed theocean for, and what he would gladly have died for.
There could have been no surer proof of his growing power ofconcentration than that he kept a firm grasp on his academy workduring these trying days. It was a hand-to-hand fight with the greatmass of knowledge that had been accumulating at such a cruel rateduring the years he had spent out of school. He was making gallantprogress when a catastrophe occurred.
The great ball game of the season, which was to be played in Lexingtonbetween the Clayton team and the Lexington nine, was set for June 2.And June 2 was the day which cruel fate--masked as the board oftrustees--had set for the academy examinations. Sandy was the onlymember of the team who attended the academy, and upon him alone restedthe full agony of renunciation. His disappointment was so utterlycrushing that it affected the whole family.
"Couldn't they postpone the game?" asked the judge.
"It was the second that was the only day the Lexingtons could play,"said Sandy, in black despair. "And to think of me sitting in thebloomin' old school-room while Sid Gray loses the game in me place!"
For a week before the great event he lived in retirement. The onetopic of conversation in town was the ball game, and he found thestrain too great to be borne. The team was to go to Lexington on thenoon train with a mighty company of loyal followers. Every boy andgirl who could meet the modest expenses was going, save theunfortunate victims of the junior class at the academy. Annette Fentonhad even had a dress made in the Clayton colors.
/> As Sandy went into town on the important day, his heart was like arock in his breast. There was glorious sunshine everywhere, and a coollittle undercurrent of breezes stirred every leaf into a tiny bannerof victory. Up in the square, Johnson's colored band was having afinal rehearsal, while on the court-house steps the team, glorious innew uniforms, were excitedly discussing the plan of campaign. Littleboys shouted, and old boys left their stores to come out and give abit of advice or encouragement to the waiting warriors. Maidens incrisp lawn dresses and flying ribbons fluttered about in a tremor ofanticipation.
Sandy Kilday, with his cap pulled over his eyes, went up Back street.If he could not make the devil get behind him, he at least could getbehind the devil. Without a moment's hesitation he would have giventen years of sober middle-age life for that one glorious day of youthon the Lexington diamond, with the victory to be fought for, and thegrand stand to be won.
He tried not to keep step with the music--he even tried to think ofquadratic equations--as he marched heroically on to the academy. Hiswas the face of a Christian martyr relinquishing life for a good buthopeless cause.
Late that afternoon Judge Hollis left his office and walked around tothe academy. He had sympathized fully with Sandy, and wanted, ifpossible, to find out the result of the examination before going home.The report of the scholarship won would reconcile him to hisdisappointment.
At the academy gate he met Mr. Moseley, who greeted him with a queersmile. They both asked the same question:
"Where's Sandy?"
As if in answer, there came a mighty shout from the street leadingdown to the depot. Turning, they saw a cheering, hilarious crowd;bright-flowered hats flashed among college caps, while shrill girlishvoices rang out with the manly ones. Carried high in the air on theshoulders of a dozen boys, radiant with praise and success, sat thedelinquent Sandy, and the tumult below resolved itself into one mightycheer:
"Kilday, Kilday! Won the day. Hooray!"