CHAPTER XVII

ON THE CINDER TRACK

One morning in late March the earth awoke to find that during the night a little south wind had melted the last vestige of ice and snow in the shaded corners, and that Spring was busy cleansing the land ere beginning her housekeeping. The gravel walks were soft underfoot and little blue ribbons of water trickled across them. The willows in the meadow at the base of the hill had suddenly put on their vernal costume of tender russet, and the campus, a veritable quagmire for the nonce, was doffing its faded livery, and, to the close observer, revealing in favored hollows and sheltered slopes a garb of soft green velvet. Along the station road the thrush proclaimed its pleasure at the new order of things in clear, sweet notes that trembled in the soft air like intangible sunflecks. The river rehearsed in gentle murmurs a new song as it rippled past island and point, and reflected on its bright surface the tender blue of the sky and the fleecy whiteness of the slowly sailing clouds. Spring had come in the valley of the Hudson.

And never was spring more welcome. The winter had been severe and protracted, and to youth and health the enforced captivity indoors had long since grown irksome. Suddenly the boathouse became the scene of much activity and the two crews took to the water with all the delight of young ducks, and the sound of oars and of the coxswains’ voices floated up from the river every afternoon. Baseballs and bats made their appearance and swept through the school like an epidemic. The campus became the center of Academy life, and the golf links was dotted with enthusiastic players. As soon as the cinder track had dried sufficiently Professor Beck and his charges took possession, and outdoor training began with spirit.

The winter term came to an end, and spring vacation depopulated the school for the better part of a week. Don and Paddy both went home for an “over Sunday” visit, the former’s duties as captain of the track team precluding a more extended absence, and the latter’s dislike to be away from Dave for any length of time causing him to cut his presence in the bosom of his family to the shortest possible length. Dave stayed at Hillton and Wayne kept him company. Both kept up their training about as they would have done had no vacation been in progress. Wayne had now attained to a development of lung power that satisfied even Professor Beck, and his triweekly performances on the gymnasium running track had given place to almost daily walks over the country roads or across fields; often there was a little cross-country run participated in by Wayne and others. No effort was made to cover the distance quickly, and the instructions were to avoid hard running; so the lads trotted easily over a two-mile course in a bunch and had plenty of fun at the hazards, and came puffing up to the gymnasium together with reddened cheeks and tingling bodies to undergo the delights of a shower bath and a subsequent rubbing down that sent them to supper with the appetites of young bears.

But with the commencement of the spring term the walks were superseded by almost daily work on the track. The cross-country trips became regular events for the first and latter part of the week, and were varied in distance from time to time. Often Wayne was the only one of the “milers” or “half milers” to take the run; sometimes he was accompanied by Whitehead, a promising junior class youth; and less often the entire group of candidates were out. But whether the others were sent across the fields or not, Wayne was never allowed to miss a run.

“You see, Gordon,” Professor Beck explained one day, “we have a way of classing fellows into three temperaments--the sanguine, the bilious, and the lymphatic; often the classification is difficult to make, but in your case it is extremely easy. You belong in the bilious class; constitution tough and capable of severe tasks and prolonged effort; circulation sluggish; disposition naturally persevering and ob--ahem!--inflexible; requires plenty of good food and lots of exercise. You and Whitehead are the only distance men that I can rightly class as bilious; Whitehead is less so than you; there is also something of the sanguine in his make-up. So, my boy, that is why I keep you tussling with cross-country work while the others are on the track. No two men or boys, dogs or horses, require the same training in every particular. Your friend Cunningham is rather of a sanguine disposition; he’s a brilliant performer at whatever he takes hold of; he can go over the one-hundred-and-twenty-yard hurdles in the finest form; but if he tried to take an oar in a two-mile boat race he would in all probability slump in his work before the race was won. The sanguine man is a man of dash and spirit, and is, as a rule, incapable of prolonged effort; he makes a good sprinter, but a poor long-distance runner.”

“But Don is a good cross-country runner,” objected Wayne.

“No, he’s not; that is, he’s a good cross-country runner for the reason that he is an excellent jumper and hurdler, and makes up by his speed over obstacles what he loses on the flat; but he’s only a fair cross-country man because he is worn out at the end of the second mile; after that, to the finish, he has to depend on nerve and ‘sand.’ Two years ago he managed to finish second, how I scarcely know. This last fall, of the four men who finished first, three were distinctly of a bilious temperament, and one, Northrop, fairly lymphatic. Of course, to this, as to all other rules, there are exceptions; but it’s a rule that holds generally true. To the sanguine temperament we look for speed, to the bilious for endurance, to the lymphatic for nerve.”

On the days when the cross-country run was not in order Wayne went with the other fellows to the track and practiced starting, and afterward ran varying distances on the cinders. The latter work Wayne liked, for, although he had not as yet been allowed to go over three fourths of a mile, and though Professor Beck had never yet told him what time he made, he felt that he was at last getting in touch with real work. Often he was one of a little bunch of half milers and milers, and there was a pleasurable intoxication in working past this runner or that, and, as sometimes happened, finishing well in the lead. Professor Beck’s sole comments at the end of a performance of this sort was a brief “Well done, Gordon,” or an almost equally laconic “Try to better that to-morrow.”

But of criticism before and during the practice there was plenty. “Arms down, Gordon!” “That stride’s too short; lengthen out! lengthen out!” “You’re running too fast, Gordon. Ease up on this lap.” “Put your head back so you can breathe, and, for goodness’ sake, _keep your arms down_!”

But the latter injunction seemed to be always wasted. Try as he would--and he did try--Wayne’s arms could not be made to hang; they always, sooner or later, got glued to his breast, making him look--so Don said--as though he had a pain. Professor Beck reprimanded and scowled and growled, but to no purpose. Wayne replied that he could run better with his arms against his body, and he didn’t see what difference it made. Professor Beck explained all over again that his lungs ought to have free play and that by keeping his arms and shoulders back they were unrestricted.

“But I’m more comfortable that way,” Wayne pleaded. And the professor would smile in exasperation and beg him to try the other way “if you _please_, Gordon!” And Wayne would promise and forthwith try, and in the middle of a two-third-mile run discover to his amazement that his clinched hands were as tightly glued to his chest as ever!

But aside from this defection Wayne’s performance was promising and Don was delighted. “You’ll make the team sure,” he declared. “And if you do you’re almost certain of a first or second place. Neither St. Eustace nor Warrenton has a first-class miler. You and young Whitehead, and possibly Banks, will make a good trio.”

But if running on the cinder track pleased Wayne the daily practice at starting equally displeased him. It was exasperating and tiresome work, but there was a good fifteen minutes of it every afternoon, and Wayne had a lot to learn. In squads of four or five the runners and jumpers were placed at the mark and sent off at the report of a pistol. The sprinters and hurdlers were instructed in the crouching, and the long-distance men and the jumpers in the standing start. Time and again Wayne, with his left foot on the mark, his body thrown forward, and his ears straining for the report of the pistol in Professor Beck’s hand, would for a single instant relax his vigilance, when--_bang!_ and off would go the rest of the squad a good yard or more ahead of him! And when they all came trotting back for another try Professor Beck would inquire politely:

“Asleep, Gordon?”

Perhaps on the next attempt, mindful of his previous error, Wayne would offend in the opposite direction and start with a wild plunge down the track only to realize that the pistol report which he had seemed to hear was only a thing of imagination born of strained nerves and muscles. Then he would crawl shamefacedly back to meet the grins of the other chaps and to hear Professor Beck remark pleasantly:

“I see you’ve woke up, Gordon.”

But there was one thing that acted as a solace: a good start was always applauded by the professor; perhaps in only two words, but worth to the boy whole sentences of praise or compliment. And, besides, his work was not so hard as that of the sprinters, who were forced to crouch like monkeys or cats--Wayne was never able to decide which they most resembled--for long seconds at a time, only to have the signal come when they had shifted their weight for a second from legs to arms, and to either leave them dazed on their mark or to send them sprawling on the cinders. That, at least, was spared him. He was not the only one of the many candidates for track honors that made a muddle of starting, but, as Don cheerfully told him after a specially disastrous afternoon, “there was no other fellow in the lot who could start wrong and do it with such infinite variety.”

But Don was often sorely tried and perplexed in those days of early training, and the unnecessary candor of the remark may be forgiven him. Don had his own training to go through with, and was besides compelled to take an active part in the training of others. The hurdlers and jumpers in especial were under his instruction, while, nominally at least, he was responsible for the proper work of all the candidates. Dave alone appeared undisturbed by events. At least four times a week he practiced with the hammer, Professor Beck viewing his performances with scarce concealed displeasure. For Dave’s hammer throwing did not improve as the season wore on. Of the two other aspirants for success at the sport, one, Hardy, had already equaled Dave’s best throw that spring; and the other, Kendall, gave promise of speedily attaining a like degree of proficiency. But Dave did not believe in worrying; he only tried his best, put every scrap of strength into his efforts, tossed the twelve-pound ball and wire away over the grass as though it were the veriest plaything, and then exhibited neither surprise nor disappointment when measurement revealed the fact that once again he had failed to equal his own not overgood record made in the interscholastic meet the year before. Instead of fretting Dave worked the harder, and if honest endeavor deserves reward Dave should have captured the championship.

Week after week of good, bright weather, sometimes brisk with north winds, but never disagreeable, came and went. Wayne ran one-hundred-yard dashes, trotted slow miles, sped over moderate three quarters--always with a jolly sprint for the last forty or fifty yards--went jogging across country over fences, hedges, and brooks, put in a bad quarter of an hour in front of the starter’s pistol, occasionally had a whole day of rest, and every night settled down to his studies with a cool, clear brain and a splendid absence of nerves. And one day the entries for the spring handicap meeting were posted and all the candidates for athletic honors went at their training harder than ever.