CHAPTER XVI
JACK COURTS THE MUSE
April passed into May, and uncertain skies gave way to placid expansesof blue, whereon soft fluffs of white moved slowly, blown by warm andgentle winds. Down at the boat-house, bare-legged and bare-headed, menfiled across the floats, bearing the slender, glinting shells, or,with hands on oars, bent and unbent in unison to the sharp commands ofimportant and diminutive coxswains; on the newly rolled cinder-trackother men sped or jogged, heads well back and knees high, with whitetrunks fluttering in the breeze; in front of the stand the jumpers andpole-vaulters plumped themselves into the freshly spaded loam; on thediamond, brilliantly green in its carpet of carefully tended turf, theplayers darted hither and thither amid the crack of batted ball and thecries of coaches.
By the beginning of the second week in May, baseball affairs hadassumed a more encouraging look. The training-table had taken onsix more men--among them Showell and Clover--and the unsuccessfulcandidates had gone to the freshmen team or found other branchesof athletics to interest them. Erskine had played eight games, hadwon six, tied one, and lost one. What was practically a preliminaryseason was well-nigh over and with the middle of the month the seriouscontests would begin.
Meanwhile, Jack had found himself. After a vicarious existence asa general outfield substitute, he had settled down as substitutesecond-baseman, a position which he had never attempted hitherto, butone which he took to in a way that vindicated his right to it. Heshowed that he possessed the three essentials of a good second-baseman:coolness, quickness, and judgment. With the exception of third base,second is the most difficult of the infield positions; it has beencalled the "keystone of the infield," and that very aptly. So faras handling the ball is concerned--that is, catching, stopping,or throwing--second-baseman has no harder work than shortstop orthird-baseman; it is in studying the batsman that he encounters hisdifficulties.
Jack started in with a good knowledge of the fundamentals of baseballand took kindly to coaching. Gradually he acquired the intuitive sensewhich enabled him to tell where the ball was going before it had leftthe bat, and to govern himself accordingly. He learned that a nine'ssuccess depends upon team-work and not upon individual brilliancy, andto control his zeal; to anticipate the shortstop's movements and toknow, without looking, where that player and the third-baseman were;to keep always in mind that the best policy is to put out the runnernearest home; and much more besides.
With a definite position to try for, Jack found it much easier to putevery effort into playing. Even the fact that "Wally" Stiles, the firstchoice for second-baseman, would in all likelihood play out the biggames, those with Harvard, Artmouth, and Robinson, did not trouble him.There would be other games which, if less important, were well worthwinning, and in those he would probably take part.
So Jack put his whole mind into learning his position, studying itspossibilities, developing an eighth sense, which enabled him time andagain to judge almost with exactitude in what direction, and how far,the ball, scarcely away from the bat, was going, and learning, too,to "size up" a batsman's prowess from the way he stood and looked andswung his stick. I have said that he possessed a good knowledge ofthe fundamentals of the game when he started in; but there were stillthings to learn which his baseball education had not taught, suchlittle niceties as stopping grounders with his feet together so that,in case of a miss, the ball could not go between his legs, and, aftercatching or stopping a ball, to start at once toward the point whitherthe ball was to be thrown instead of standing still, so that by thetime he had gathered himself for the throw the distance for the ball totravel had been lessened; little things these, but of the sort that winor lose a game.
One thing that had a deal to do with Jack's ability to put his heartinto his work on the diamond was the attitude of the other playerstoward him. Had the old scarcely concealed contempt and dislike beenmanifested he could never have shown up as varsity material. But thatwas past. In the minds of most of the fellows time had dimmed thememory of the incident at the river, now nearly three months ago, andJack's attitude and behavior of late had aided.
For a while the neutrality observed by Gilberth made him suspiciousthat the pitcher was only husbanding his powers of annoyance in orderto indulge in some more than usually brutal expression of contempt.But, as time went by, Jack was forced to conclude that hostilities fromthat source were over. At length, the neutrality was succeeded by ashow of friendliness. It was impossible to practise together day afterday without an occasional word or two, and Jack and Tracy soon foundthemselves in the habit of greeting each other when they met, veryceremoniously, to be sure, and of sometimes exchanging observationson the bench much after the manner of slight acquaintances who findthemselves thrown together at a party. Jack was very glad. The oldthirst for vengeance on his enemies had wasted perceptibly under theinfluence of congenial companionship, and he was ready to cry quits.Just what Tracy's sentiments were at this time it is hard to say; it isdoubtful if he knew himself.
He had made up his mind to let Jack alone, and was doing it. Only onething troubled him, and that was the fear that Anthony Tidball mightthink that his course was the result of the other's threats. And it isonly fair to state on behalf of Tracy's physical courage that such wasnot the case. Joe Perkins's remonstrances had borne weight, and when,shortly after Anthony's visit, Professor White had added his request,Tracy had decided that, after all, he had possibly mistaken thesentiment of the college. Professor White had said to him very much thesame things that Joe had said, but he had put them more convincingly.He knew Tracy, and did not make the mistake of ruffling his temper; onthe contrary, when he had left, Tracy felt that there was one person atErskine who understood him. And for the sake of that person and of Joehe would do as they asked him.
Professor White's efforts in Jack's behalf were not limited to thetalk with Tracy. He saw Joe Perkins and Hanson and King and severalothers with whom Jack came in daily contact and asked for the boy fairtreatment. And he encouraged Jack to visit him and, when the latter didso, used every effort to hearten him. On the whole, it is safe to saythat to the professor belonged a greater part of the credit for thebetterment of the boy's condition. Such was the state of affairs when,on a certain Saturday evening, about the middle of the month, Jack andAnthony sat talking on the edge of Mrs. Dorlon's porch.
Anthony had washed up his supper dishes and Jack had just strolledback from dinner at the training-table. The moon, well into its firstquarter, was sailing in a clear sky over the tops of the elms in theyard. The evening was musical with the hum and whirr of early insectsand the varied sounds from open windows. Somewhere farther up the curveof Elm Street an uncertain hand was coaxing the strains of Mandalayfrom a guitar, and now and then the faint music of a piano floatedacross from Walton Hall. Anthony had lighted his pipe and, with itsbowl aglow in the dusk, was leaning against a pillar, one knee tuckedup under his chin. Jack sat a yard away, his hands in his pockets,staring up at the moon.
"Did you ever write poetry, Anthony?" he asked suddenly.
"No." Anthony sucked reflectively at the pipe and shook his headslowly. "No, I've had the measles and whooping-cough and scarlatina,but I've never had poetry yet. Of course, I've tried my hand at blankverse in Latin, but it wasn't poetry; even the instructor acknowledgedthat."
"Oh, I meant just plain every-day poetry, you know," Jack explained. "Ithought if you had you could tell me something about it."
"Well, I didn't say that I didn't know poetry when I saw it," answeredAnthony. "I've read a good deal of it, you see. What do you want toknow?"
"I want to know whether you have to have all your lines rhyme."
"Depends, I guess. What are you going to do, anyway, turn into a poet?"
"No, only I thought I'd try my hand at writing some verses for thefellows to sing at the games, you know. The Purple says we ought tohave some new songs for the Robinson game."
"Oh. Well, now, from what I've seen of such things it doesn't matterany whether lines
rhyme or don't rhyme, I should say. As long as thewords fit the music the rhymes just hump along as best they can. Haveyou written anything yet?"
"N--no, not exactly," answered Jack cautiously. "I've got an idea, butI didn't quite know about rhyming. Of course, all the poetry you readrhymes all through, like Tennyson, or else it doesn't rhyme at all,like Milton. What I was wondering was whether it was all right to justrhyme now and then, you know, when you could, and not bother about itwhen you--you can't. What do you think?"
"Oh, I'd just do the best I could and not worry," answered the othergravely. "The--hum--sentiment seems to be the most important thingabout college songs."
"Yes, I suppose so. It's funny how few rhymes there are when you cometo look for them," said Jack thoughtfully. "Now there's 'purple'; Ican't find anything to rhyme with that."
"Purple? Now that does sound difficult. Let's see; I guess 'turtle'wouldn't do, eh?"
"I'm afraid not. I've tried everything. I thought maybe it wouldn'tmatter if it didn't rhyme."
"Don't believe it will. Let's hear what you got."
"Oh, it isn't anything much," answered Jack modestly. "It--it goes tothe tune of 'Hail, Columbia!' you know."
"All right; sing it if you'd rather."
"I can't sing; I'll just say it. It--it begins like this:
Hail to Erskine, conq'ring band! Firm together we will stand! While the battle rages high We will fight until the last! Underneath the purple banner we Will live or die for victory!
What--what do you think of it?"
"Well, if you want my honest opinion," replied Anthony, "I think it'stoo classic, Jack. Seems to me what you want in those kind of songs isa lot of 'rah, rah, hullabaloo!' And I don't believe 'Hail, Columbia!'is a good tune; seems too jerky. Course, I'm not an authority, andmaybe I'm mistaken. But if I were you I'd try again; get more swinginto it. I've always thought 'John Brown's Body' was the best tune toset football songs and such things to. Of course, it's older than thehills and has been used by every college from Maine to Mexico, but thatdoesn't matter if you get some good words. I'd forget about the rhymesat first; just find some lines that'll swing along, you know; kind ofsing themselves; afterward, you can go back and tuck a rhyme in hereand there. Try it."
"I guess I will. I wasn't just satisfied with that 'Hail, Columbia!'one, but I didn't know what ailed it. I thought maybe it was because Icouldn't find a rhyme for 'high.' There was 'die,' but I'd used that inthe last line, you see."
"I see." Anthony knocked the ashes from his pipe and stretched himself."Guess I'll have to go up and do some studying," he said.
"Wait a minute," Jack pleaded. "There's another thing I wanted to askabout. Is it hard to learn to swim?"
"Never learned, Jack, and can't say from experience. But from what I'veseen I'd say it was blamed hard."
"Never learned! But I thought----"
"It was like this with me. When I was about knee high to a grasshopperI went in wading and saw my daddy out in a dory about fifty feet fromshore. So I went out to him. They say I didn't have much breath leftwhen they pulled me in; I don't remember. I guess I swam, though; if Ididn't I don't know how I got there. Anyhow, after that I knew how allright."
"Just imagine," mused Jack. "I know I couldn't do that, but I do wantto learn. Do you think I could?"
"Course you could, but I guess it would take time. If you want me tohelp, I'll do it."
"Will you, really?" exclaimed the other. "Glory! that will be fine! Iwanted to ask you, but didn't quite like to; I've been so much of abother to you already."
"Oh, get out. We'll go down to the river and find a place where it'snot too deep; I think I know of one. The water'll be plaguy cold,though, this early. Want to wait a while longer?"
"No, I want to begin right off--before my courage fails me; you know,I'm an awful fool about water, Anthony."
"Because you don't understand it. Water won't hurt you if you know whatto do."
"And you won't mind if--if I'm a bit scary at first?"
"No, I won't mind. If you say you want me to teach you to swim, I'll doit if I have to throw you in the water and hold you there. Do you?"
Jack took a long breath and looked hard at Anthony's face in themoonlight. What he saw evidently reassured him, for after a pause hesaid faintly:
"Y--yes!"