Part 10

In University Hall that Saturday night a man with steel-blue eyes, a white imperial and a single set of gestures, lectured on "The Reconstruction of the South." Having been an active and successful carpet-bagger twenty-five years before, he had played a part of some importance in the rehabilitation of the Southland and was qualified to speak with authority on the subject.

The immense hall was but partially filled. The lecture was very dry and very uninteresting, save when, now and again a rolling period crowded with platitudes and false metaphors, was delivered by the pompous person on the rostrum. Wilma found herself finally attempting to repeat backward the clause from the Ordinance of '37 which stared down at her from the arch of the stage.

"Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged----"

She tapped her knee with her fan and moved her lips.

"Encouraged be forever shall education of means the and----"

She floundered.

She tried again as so many others have tried and with no more success. She tapped her knee angrily, and nudged the sleepy Bunny at her side.

"Let's get out," she whispered.

He nodded.

They were sitting on the aisle at the back. It was but a step to the door. He followed her, noiselessly.

In the broad, silent corridor she looked up at him with a smile.

"I simply couldn't stand it another minute," she said.

As they issued into the moonlight she drew in a full, long breath and asked: "Why should any one want to sit indoors on such a night? It's--it's a _crime_!"

She was very tiny beside him; he was very awkward beside her. "The long and the short of it," they were called by those who knew them best. She was wont to defend their friendship by saying she detested little men, whilst he complained that great, tall, awkward women he abhorred.

"Well, if you're both satisfied," Nibs, her brother, said one day after half an hour of teasing; "I guess the public ought to be."

Their friendship had grown from the chance meeting on the day of the State Street race when Nibsey defeated Billy Shaw and then was so ignominiously defeated by the lank creature who now was his, as well as his sister's, closest friend and constant companion. That day their eyes had met--Bunny's and the girl's--across a carriage seat. Only for an instant though it was, each remembered the instant; Wilma with a certain indefinite anger, Bunny with a very definite desire that one day he might meet the owner of the eyes.

They did not meet formally until a month after and then it was Nibsey who named them to each other with many flourishes and mock heroics. In a very short time that glance across the carriage seat had developed into a close, fine companionship; a companionship so close indeed that it was deemed sufficient by divers of their friends to warrant whispers that Bunny and Wilma were engaged. For in Ann Arbor He has but to play two games of tennis with Her, and take Her on the river once, to have it become known that They are "engaged"--whatever that sadly misused term may signify to the non-elect.

Perhaps, however, in this case there was some reason for the smiles of patronizing acceptance and whispered suggestions on the part of their friends, of an unestablished but imagined relationship. Bunny never was seen with any other girl and Wilma, being out of college and therefore having a wider acquaintance among undergraduates than if she were a college girl, was only now and again beheld in the company of another man.

One winter they had attended the Choral Union concerts together, had driven together, and in the spring they had walked together, rowed together. It was doubly hard for their friends to believe they were not engaged, for did they not, as well, attend all the lectures on the course of the S. L. A.? Would a girl demean herself so far, suffer torture so exquisite, it was asked, as to attend sad lectures with one certain man if she were not very much in love with him? And if a man were not willing to make sacrifice of his happiness to be beside her would he take her to a lecture on a night in June, or even so much as suggest such a proceeding?

In commenting and in speculating upon the "affair" their friends asked these questions, and other equally pertinent; and, as there were no replies forthcoming, they were compelled by the very absence of contradictory evidence to nod and smile in that patronizing and agonizing way that the unengaged have ever smiled upon those whose hearts they believe Dan Cupid has been using for a target.

As for Nibsey, her brother, he said nothing. Perhaps he did not care. Or if he did care his certain knowledge that Bunny was what he was wont to call "a ripper" and his sister "a good fellow," may have carried with it a satisfaction that made the relation between them just and proper.

However, that there may be no misunderstanding at the outset, it is quite safe to affirm so far at least as Bunny was concerned, that he was hard hit. It was realization of this, a realization keen, active, that dismayed him. Of course he believed, as was his right, that Wilma liked him. But he more than liked her. He hardly felt it his privilege yet to tell her just how much he liked her, and doubtless could not even though he deemed the time had arrived to-day. Thus he fretted, and procrastinated. Even now as he walked beside her under the stars of a night in June that was full of fragrance, he felt himself floundering in a sea of uncertainty where edged the shores of which he knew not. So he sighed, then pulled himself together before she could seek to know the reason, and said:

"You ought to have seen me this morning--ought to have seen me with a new acquaintance I made on the fair grounds."

And he told her of Willie Trigger and his exploit. She heard him through in silence.

"Do you know Willie?" he asked.

"No," she said. After a moment she added, "Don't you rather hate to be followed about by the small boys as though you were--as though you were a circus parade?"

He laughed.

It was not the first time she had made fun, as he deemed her attitude to be, of his athletic attainments, and the admiration engendered by them among Ann Arbor youth.

"It's great!" he exclaimed. "Simply great! You have no idea how it seems to know the small boys are gaping at you in wonder as you pass. I've watched them lots of times from the tail of my eye and seen them nudge their companions. Oh, I tell you it's satisfying!"

Conscious as she was of the assumed vanity she affected a seriousness when she said:--

"But I should think you would rather grown-ups gaped at you."

"But what can I do to make 'em?" he asked wonderingly. "Just point the way and I'll take it----"

"Oh, there are lots of ways," she went on. "You're in the medical department, why don't you become a great doctor?"

"I shall," he exclaimed, "but that takes time. Meanwhile I am steeling myself, practicing with the little boys, you know, so I shan't be overwhelmed when big people gape at me in wonder a little later----"

"Oh, you can't be serious!" she cried petulantly.

"What's the use?" he asked and laughed. "What's the use on such a night, with the stars overhead, the tree toads scraping, and--and--you here?"

"But I want you to be," she said; and then ran on: "It has always seemed so silly to me when you great men come out in ridiculous clothes and run around and jump and play ball--just like overgrown babies."

"That's what we are," he replied. "Ann Arbor is only a nursery. It's only different from other nurseries in that the nurses don't wear little caps and aprons." He chuckled.

"Well, anyway, I wish you wouldn't," she said plaintively. She lifted her face and looked up at him.

"Really?" He was in earnest now.

"Yes."

"Then I won't--that is not after Saturday."

"Oh, I suppose you'll have to then," she said disconsolately. "You're entered."

"But suppose I break the Western Intercollegiate?" he suggested. "Wouldn't you like that--now, frankly, wouldn't you?"

She did not reply, so he went on.

"I'll tell you what. That race will settle it. If I'm beaten I'll never run again--never. I'll--I'll--give you my running shoes as a souvenir of my Mercurial days!"

She laughed and said:

"But if you _win_--if you _break_ the record?"

"It shall be just the same--I'll never run again. Under those circumstances I should be afraid to--afraid I couldn't do it a second time. I'll keep my record all to myself that way, don't you see?"

"Oh Bunny!" she cried suddenly as she gave his arm a little squeeze; "I've been more than half teasing you. Run if you want to. Run all the time. _But if you don't break the record I'll never speak to you again as long as I live!_"

He stopped and looked down at her, into her eyes, and saw the laughter lurking there. That instant he thought nothing in the world would be so much to the purpose--nothing at least that he could do--as to take her in his two big hands and shake her until her bronze hair fell about her shoulders. But he did no such thing.

She said, "Well?"

"You'll see," he answered and they walked on.

They sat on her porch for an hour and talked of other things. They did not hear the bells in the library tower as they rang out quarters, halves, three-quarters of the hour.

In her room, after he had gone, her eyes chanced to fall upon his picture fixed with many others on a tennis-net ingeniously draped between two windows, and she said to the picture:

"You're a great, tall, awkward, foolish old dear! There...."

But Bunny, in the solitude of his own alcove, lay awake half the night floundering in that tossing sea of doubt.

With the morning however, came resolve.

"What's the use," he muttered as he lathered his chin before the little square mirror tilted against the window at the height of his eyes.

He would run once more--only once. And then----

Could she have meant it, he wondered, when she told him she would cut him from her list of friends if he failed to break the record. He smiled at the soaped reflection of his long, thin face in the little mirror.

Ten seconds was a tiny lapse of time but it was the record. A hundred yards in ten seconds. That was ten yards a second. That was.... Well, approximately, ten feet at a stride--no, eight. A rather wide stride, to be sure, but _his_ legs.... Now if he could stride nine feet what would that bring it? Two and two----

Bunny found himself of a sudden involved in so deep a morass of mathematics that he gave up in disgust--and cut himself.

He would make an effort--a mighty effort. Of this he was determined. It was to be his last, he mused, so it must needs be mighty. In any event if he should fail it would not mean so much; that is, so very much. Other men had failed, trying to accomplish that which heaven was determined they should not. And yet----

"If you don't break the record I'll never speak to you again as long as I live!"

The words were insistent. It was as though Wilma were there beside him, as he stood before the little dusty mirror, and sounding them over and over in his ears.

"By George!" he exclaimed aloud, "I've _got_ to smash it; that's all, I've _got_ to!"

As he stepped out upon the broad porch of the low roofed house, the light of determination was in his eyes and the firmness of a set resolve had squared his chin.

III

Thursday evening, after he had had his supper, Willie Trigger's mother dispatched him to the post-office, with a strict injunction to be home by eight o'clock. Primarily as a result of this injunction and secondarily as the result of an inherent love of night, Willie Trigger dawdled on the way. A down-town lad of his acquaintance prevailed upon him to assist in an attack upon a certain cherry-tree, the location of which, on Spring Street, he very well knew. He was not loth to join forces with the down-town youth and forth they fared together, to the end that it was after eight even before Willie turned into Huron Street on his long way home. Full of ox-heart cherries and contentment, he did not hasten. A whipping perhaps, in any event a scolding and a summary dismissal to his bed might await him, but what availed it?

"I d' care," he grumbled, bravely, and scuffed his feet.

As he approached the Cook House loud talk attracted his attention away from a confectioner's window where were displayed all the goodies dearest to the hearts of little boys. He quickened his pace.

Two men were quarreling with a hackman at the hotel door. The hackman proclaimed his right to a dollar fare; his patrons contested.

Willie Trigger, looking up from the walk, noted the appearance of the men. The one was short and squat and gross of features, with a great black mustache like a duster that he pulled persistently as he haggled with the angry hackman. His companion was taller, square of shoulder, with a long, thin face, and a straight, hard mouth above his square, clean-shaven chin. In expectation of a fight, Willie Trigger held his breath.

"There's a half-dollar," he heard the fat man say, "now take it or leave it." He flung the coin to the pavement, turned and entered the hotel behind his friend, while the hackman, grumbling still, stooped, recovered the coin and, clambering upon his ancient vehicle, drove away. Willie Trigger was disappointed; disappointed that there had been no open fight and disappointed that the hackman had found the half-dollar. His nimble eyes had followed it as it rolled half way beneath a trunk that stood on end beside the curb. When the hackman discovered the coin, Willie's heart sunk and he set out upon his way. Presently he commenced to whistle shrilly and it was apparent that the incident had made no more impression upon his plastic mind than it had upon the minds of the men with whom the hackman had exchanged compliments.

As it was, they were shown to a room by a boy in buttons and the loafers in the office saw them together not again that night.

The short, squat creature with the huge mustache locked the door and flung off his coat.

"Well, we're here!" he exclaimed.

His friend made no reply.

"Jack," he went on, "if I don't make a killin' Saturday, my name's Mud--Mud with a big M! This town is jammed full of marks--soft, easy, mushy marks. A guy could come in here with three shells and a pea and clean it up in a day----"

"If the police would let him," his friend put in with a grin.

"Rats!" was the contemptuous retort. "I've been figgerin' it all out," he went on, sinking upon a chair and spreading his short legs to accommodate his capacious portliness. He savagely bit the tip from a black, fat cigar. "I've been figgerin' it all out and it's goin' to be easy. They're muckers; farm-hands; easiest sort o' pickin'!"

"Well, how you going to do it?"

Before the wavy mirror on the imitation mahogany dresser, his companion smoothed his hair with a pair of military brushes taken from his satchel.

The fat man chewed his cigar.

"I'm goin' to get next to-night," he said. "There's always more or less geezers hangin' round the hotel in a college town, and I'll do a little pumpin'. I'll find out just what this phenom's been doin' since he went into trainin'."

"He's the only one I'm fearin'," his friend put in. "If he can do the sprint under ten seconds flat he's got Morrison beat!"

"And _you_ the trainer!" exclaimed the fat man with a deep laugh. "Say, if your man don't lay all over him--say, I won't do a thing----"

"Well, be careful, that's all," the other warned. "Don't try to do anything to-night. Plenty of time to-morrow. You can go out to the track and have a look at him; he'll be tryin' out."

"Won't you go?" the pudgy creature asked.

His friend turned from the stand where he was washing his hands.

"Say Punky!" he exclaimed, "do you take me for a blamed fool? Big business me goin' out there; wouldn't it? Do you suppose some of those wise guys wouldn't know me? I guess not! I'll stay right here under cover till Morrison shows up to-morrow afternoon. You can go out; and when you get back you can tell me how this Bunny strikes you--but if I were you I wouldn't distribute any coin until Saturday. Talk 'Morrison' and wag your head a bit and get 'em going; then cover their cash all you want to----"

"Aw----" the other began.

"That's right!" his friend warned; "I've been up against this game a little oftener 'n what you have and I know 'em; I haven't been doin' the strong arm act for two years at Western College for nothin'--if it wasn't that I'm goin' t' quit I wouldn't go into the game with you; as it is, ain't I got as big an interest in th' killin' as you have, I'd like to know? Don't we break even? It's a fair chance and if they's any show of coppin' out any of the loose change of these mamma's boys, I'm the child to do it--with your valuable and sporty assistance, Punky. D' you see?"

Apparently Punky did, for he muttered, "Aw right," and flecked the ash from his cigar. He puffed quickly twice and then said:

"Giddings, do you s'pose Morrison's next?"

"Naw," Giddings replied contemptuously. "I sent out a feeler--sorter touched him up on a 'sell-out' to see how he'd take it and he got red-headed. Said if it wasn't to be a fair race and the best man win, he'd pull out. I gave him the 'ha-ha' and passed him a con. about just seein' how he felt because _I_ wanted it square and then worked the 'honor-talk' strong. He calmed right down and got interested. _He's_ all right; you needn't worry about _him_. It's this _Bunny_; you've got to have a peek at him before Saturday, then let your judgment do the rest."

"Aw yes!" Punky exploded--"Aw yes---- Judgment be blowed! If this Bunny's square, O. K.; if he's square and slow, O. K.; if he's square and too fast for your 'wonder,' why----" He hesitated.

"What?" his friend inquired calmly.

"Oh well; you leave it to me," was the significant reply.

Giddings laughed.

"You can work the game," he said, "only don't let 'em think we're playin' together; some wise guy might have an idea and put the whole push next. You know what would happen then, don't you?" he inquired wisely.

His companion did not reply. He went over to the one window of the room and gazed down into the lighted street. Suddenly he turned back and said: "You go to bed; I'm goin' down to the office and get next." And he vanished.

The public room of the old hotel was filled with students. The events of Saturday formed the one topic of conversation. In the process of "getting next" Punky Williams, sporting man, (with a record not altogether immaculate) by maintaining an open ear and a closed mouth, learned that one name was on the common lips almost as frequently as that of "Bunny." It was "Morrison." Punky Williams was satisfied. He asked simple but significant questions now and again of various youths who lounged near him. He affected a passive, a rather paternal interest in the "meet," the sprinting event in which was conceded by all to be the most important. He learned enough to satisfy him that, so far as he was concerned, but two men would run--Bunny of the U. of M. and Morrison of Western College, trainer Giddings' _protégé_; the other entries were unworthy of consideration. He sought his companion in the little room up-stairs with a heart as light as thistle down and a face that glowed with pleasure.

The next morning he walked out to the fair grounds, seeking direction from time to time from the people whom he passed.

There were perhaps a hundred students in the paddock watching the exercises. Punky Williams wriggled his way among them; his little ears receptive, his mouth close shut. Presently the crowd yelled and he craned over the enclosure rail. At the top of the course Bunny paused. With an air of passive interest, Punky Williams took out a stop watch, then fixed his eyes upon the figure up the course. He saw an arm thrust above his head and the sunlight glinted on the metal of the starter's pistol. He caught the time as the report rang out. And as Bunny high-stepped across the tape he shut his watch with a click and wriggled back to the rim of the crowd, observed in the moment's clamor by no one save a single small boy in a very grimy shirt-waist.

As the bells in the tower of the court-house opposite the hotel rang out the hour of noon, he burst in upon the loafing Giddings, who, at his friend's most obvious excitement exclaimed:

"What th' devil's th' matter; you look as though you'd seen a ghost?"

"Well! I have!" the breathless Punky puffed. "Giddings," he cried, "I've seen _him_! I held the watch on him. It wasn't his real speed,--and he came over the tape grinning; but--_he did it in 10 1-5_!"

Giddings with an expression of complete disgust upon his smooth, thin face, sat down again.

"Punky, you give me a pain!" he exclaimed. "A pain! Great Scott, man; don't you think there's any difference between 10 1-5 seconds and 9 4-5? Well, you'd better wake up. _There's an hour, man; an hour!_"

He opened his newspaper, deliberately; found the sporting page and commenced to read.

As for Punky Williams, he lighted another cigar and flinging himself upon the bed, blew copious clouds of light blue smoke to the cracked and grimy ceiling at which, the while, he stared fixedly, thoughtfully.

IV

On Saturday Willie Trigger swallowed his dinner in an incredibly short space of time, and slipped from the house unobserved, while his mother was in the kitchen haggling with a huckster over the Sunday vegetables. When the good woman re-entered the dining-room she cast one glance at Willie's half depleted plate, then rushed through the dark, cool hall and out upon the porch.

"Will-_ee_! Will-_ee_!" she called, stridently.

A rustling of the leaves as the breath of June wafted among them, was her answer. She went to the gate and gazed up and down the street. Then with a sigh she returned to the house and closed the door.

Perhaps Willie had not heard the maternal call. At the instant of its issue he was balanced on the top of the back fence across the street, hidden from the maternal eye by the intervening house. At the second call he plumped down upon a soft ash heap on the other side. If he did hear he gave no sign, but, after dusting his pantaloons with little flips and pats of his small brown hands, he ran with all the speed that he could muster, across the wide, uneven lot. Presently he became lost to sight among the gnarled and broken trees of a once prolific apple orchard, beyond. Issuing from the orchard on the farther side, he crossed another lot--first wriggling wormlike beneath a low wire fence--and came out into the dusty road that led to the old fair ground enclosure. To-day that road, as a wide, smooth street disfigured only by the tracks over which the flat-wheeled trolleys bump, marks the northern boundary of Ann Arbor's ultra exclusiveness. Behind hedges or half hidden amid the trees, nestle snug little houses that seem to cry out against all vulgar intrusion and hug themselves in the very joy of their most obvious respectability.

Along this road, thick with dust; now obscured in a cloud of his own raising, now distinct against the background of the high board fence, Willie Trigger trudged. Arriving at the long ticket window he was dismayed to find that the hatch was shut. Bunny had told him there would be a ticket for him at the window--a ticket for him expressly, in an envelope bearing his name, else he would not have deserted his dinner to be the first on hand. Save for a solitary woman whom he saw among the trees in the wood across the way, the region about appeared deserted. It was not yet one o'clock, but Willie Trigger did not realize this. Stoically he sat down at the edge of the long low platform below the ticket-office window and resigned himself to waiting.