CHAPTER XV

BACK IN TRAINING

Three days later the book came.

Truth compels the statement that for a period of several days subsequent to its arrival, Gerald sadly neglected studies, although without unfortunate results to his standing. For two afternoons and two evenings he devoured all that the writer of the work had to say regarding training for the track and running the mile distance. At the end of that time he had practically memorized some four chapters of the book, laid down for himself strict rules of diet and régime, and arranged a weekly schedule of track work.

Distance running, said his authority, was something in which endurance was the prime requirement. It was necessary to lay the foundation for success by strengthening the heart and lungs. Gerald was pretty certain that he had the endurance already, and he wasn’t afraid that heart or lungs would fail him. Gymnasium work for developing the back and abdominal muscles was recommended, but it was a bit late for that now; besides, he had had a little of it already. The book harped on cheerful willingness and perseverance. Gerald made up his mind to let neither fail him. The most encouraging thing he found in the book was the assertion that distance running was a thing one did not have to be born to; that with health and patience and perseverance any youth might hope to develop into a creditable performer at the mile or two-mile distances. This was a theory that Gerald had entertained himself, but he was glad to receive corroboration.

The matter of stride was dealt with at length, and Gerald concluded that his own would stand improvement. “The runner,” Gerald read, “should try to develop a long, easy stride. He should not, however, exhaust himself seeking to attain a length of stride which his build naturally prohibits. An unnatural stride results in exhaustion. By careful practice he may add to the length of stride by just that little within his power, and which may mean a great deal in a contest. Remember that in distance running every inch added to the stride means seconds gained at the finish.”

He learned that he should go his full distance not more than three times a week, and that, contrary to his impression, sprinting should receive a fair share of attention. In the end, Gerald worked out a table for his guidance as follows:

Monday, three-quarters of a mile at a fair speed.

Tuesday, a fairly fast half, followed by a few sprints of from fifty to a hundred yards.

Wednesday, a steady mile and a quarter.

Thursday, a fast half, a rest, and an easy three-quarters.

Friday, sprinting, ranging from a hundred to four hundred and forty yards.

Saturday, a mile and a half at a jog, finishing the last hundred at a sprint.

As, said the book, endurance was the thing to work for, by running over his distance, the miler would strengthen heart, lungs, and muscles, and also learn to regulate his breathing, and so accumulate sufficient reserve energy to enable him to increase his speed in the last one or two hundred yards of his race.

The subject of diet puzzled Gerald a good deal, for his authority recommended things which Gerald could not obtain at commons away from a training table. But in the end he established a diet list for himself; and, for fear he might forget what was on it, carried a copy with him at all times. For breakfast he allowed himself one chop, four ounces of steak or two soft-boiled eggs, one baked potato, toast or bread, milk, apple sauce, or prunes. No cream or sugar.

For dinner, soup, roast beef, lamb, mutton, or fowl, potatoes if not fried, vegetables, boiled rice, plain pudding or ice-cream, milk, toast or bread, fruit.

For supper, cold beef, lamb, mutton, or fowl, one baked potato, toast or fresh graham bread, prunes, apple sauce or a baked apple, milk.

This was not a rigorous diet, and it was mainly just about what he had been having. He cut himself off from cereals, coffee and tea, sugar and cream, pastry and candy. The book was emphatic regarding the danger of overeating, and there were times during the following six weeks when Gerald got up from the table feeling almost as hungry as when he sat down, but serene in the knowledge that he had not, in the words of his authority, “clogged his system with a mass of indigestible and unnutritive food.” He weighed himself twice a week in the gymnasium, and found that the first week he lost four pounds, in the second two, held his own the next week, and after that gained an average of a pound and a half every seven days. A hard afternoon’s work would take off a pound or so sometimes after the weather grew warm, but that pound always found its way back again. He felt better every day――save once, when, overdoing the running resulted in an attack of indigestion, that promptly disappeared when he wisely took a two-days’ rest――and went to every meal with the ability――and desire――to eat like a woodchopper. That he never transgressed the diet-list reposing in his pocket speaks well for his perseverance.

That time-trial didn’t come off on the following Monday, because his book warned him against running trials on time oftener than once a fortnight. And when it did come off, ten days or so after the commencement of his self-training, it brought dismay and disappointment. It was a warm, foggy day, with occasional drizzles of rain, and Gerald was anxious and a trifle nervous. Arthur held the watch on him, and Gerald started off at an easy pace, determined to hold himself well in hand for three-quarters of the distance, and then try to run the last four-forty at a fast clip. He had always possessed remarkably good form in running, and had profited by the book’s advice to the extent of noticeably lengthening his stride. Arthur, watching him going down the backstretch, nodded approvingly; for although he knew little about running, it was evident, even to him, that such an easy, comfortable style was something to admire. At the end of the first lap――the track was a quarter-mile one――Arthur gave Gerald his time. It seemed to the latter lamentably slow, and he began to figure on what the time for the whole distance would be. He decided that he ought to do the next quarter a little faster. The result was that he knocked off a matter of seventeen seconds, and so finished the first half in commendable time. But when the third quarter was over and he tried to increase his pace, it came very hard; and by the time the third corner was reached, he was pretty well all-in, and came trailing down the homestretch with his head back and his breath all gone.

“What was it?” he panted, as he walked back to the finish.

“Five minutes, twenty-one and two-fifths,” answered Arthur.

“What!” Gerald exclaimed. “Rubbish! That watch must be crazy!”

But crazy or not the watch stuck to its story, and Gerald looked at Arthur in positive dismay.

“Why――why, that’s perfectly punk!” he gasped.

“Maybe you ran the first half too fast,” ventured Arthur.

Gerald considered. At last, with a sigh:

“Gee, I guess I must have,” he said, sadly. “Why, I’ve done better than that across country!”

That trial put Gerald in the dumps for a day or two, and it was all he could do to resist the temptation to run another at once. But he didn’t. Instead he buckled down earnestly to work, and followed his schedule. Sometimes he doubted the wisdom of that schedule; but, having adopted it, he determined to stick to it. There was one day, less than a week after that disappointing time-trial, when he finished the mile in what――though he had no evidence to support him――he was very certain was at least a quarter of a minute under that five-twenty-one and two. If it was, he reflected, there was hope for him, for Maury’s best was a fraction under five-four, while Goodyear was credited with no better than ten seconds over the minutes. That brought encouragement.

For awhile the school in general displayed not a little interest in Gerald’s undertaking, and his appearance on the cinders of an afternoon resulted in quite an audience to watch him at work. But the novelty soon wore off, and after a fortnight he ceased to excite comment. Captain Maury’s attitude remained the same. Maury had no faith in the results to be attained by self-training, and secretly thought Gerald rather “fresh” and decidedly silly. Andy Ryan looked on inscrutably, but on more than one occasion Gerald had reason to believe that the trainer was holding the watch on him. Only once did Andy offer criticism or encouragement. Then, as Gerald passed him after a three-quarters of a mile run, he observed:

“Let your arms swing free, Pennimore; don’t get them in front of you.”

Perhaps Tom was of more assistance than any one else to Gerald at that time. Arthur took a deal of interest, and offered all the encouragement he knew how, and Dan and Alf were always sympathetic, but Arthur knew little of track work, and Dan and Alf were much too busy with baseball to have much time for any other interest. But Tom, although he had never done any track work, had seen a lot of it, and had very sensible ideas on the subject; and he and Gerald had long chats in Number 7 after practice was over in the afternoon.

“It’s only about the first of the month,” he said one day, “and the Duals don’t come until the twenty-third, Gerald. That gives you a good three weeks yet, so don’t be discouraged. You’ll come faster the last ten days or so than you have at any time, I guess. At least, that’s the way it is with me. Why, I haven’t tossed that hammer a hundred and thirty yet, and my record’s a hundred and thirty-six and two inches. But I’m not worrying about it, because I’ve learned by experience that it takes just about so long to get back into condition again. A fellow’s muscles get set in the winter, and they’ve got to be coaxed back into shape before they’ll do what you want them to. I don’t expect to equal my record at hammer or shot either more than once before the Duals, and that will probably be only a day or two before. You’ll find that it will be much the same with you, I think, Gerald. If you keep on you’re bound to get a little better every day until, by the twenty-third, you’ll be in top shape. If you can do the mile under five-six in a trial a week before that, you can count on bettering your time by several seconds in the race. By the way, I suppose you haven’t heard Collins say anything about letting you off?”

“No.” Gerald shook his head sadly. “And I don’t like to ask him, Tom. But wouldn’t you think that a month of probation would be enough?”

“Um, yes; but you can’t tell. Maybe, after all, they’d have been easier with you if the rest of us had fessed up. Still, it _would_ have played hob with the Track Team, I guess.”

“I should say so! With you and Arthur and Roeder off it might mean a loss of fifteen or twenty points!”

Tom nodded.

“Easily, I guess. But I’m sorry you’re tied up, Gerald.”

Then Alf came in and the conversation turned to baseball until Gerald left for his room.

With the advent of May, warm weather came to Wissining. The track dried out and regained its springiness, and the turf grew greener every day. Save for a few unfortunates who, being doubtful of passing their finals next month, lolled at the open windows of an afternoon, and with books in hands looked longingly out into the spring world, all Yardley was on field or river. Canoes dotted the blue water; from the diamond came the cries of the players and the sound of ball against bat; the tennis courts were all occupied; on the links figures tramped sturdily to and fro; around the cinder track white-clad youths jogged or raced; at the end of the big green oval lithe bodies tore along the paths, and hurled themselves across yards of newly spaded brown loam, or leaped in sudden flight over the bars. Mingled with all the other sounds was the strident chatter of the mower cropping the new grass.

The Baseball Team had played three contests so far and won each, but in spite of that Durfee was worried. Yardley’s weakness lay in the pitching department, for she had no one who could begin to fill the place left vacant with the graduation in June last of Colton. Reid, last season’s substitute, was doing the best he knew how, but so far had been hit pretty freely by even the least dangerous of Yardley’s opponents. Servis, who was running Reid a fairly close race, lacked experience. Alf was playing his old position in left field, and Dan was holding down second base. Besides the Varsity team there were four class nines practicing, and to a stranger it would have seemed that instead of a preparatory school to fit boys for college, Yardley was in reality a baseball kindergarten.

Yardley’s fourth game, that with Porter Institute, came on Saturday. Porter wasn’t usually a very formidable antagonist, but this year reports had been reaching Yardley to the effect that Porter’s new pitcher, one Holmes, was a marvel, and that so far none of the teams that had met Porter had been able to do anything with his delivery. Holmes had appeared at Porter last autumn, and had entered the Third Class. Where he had come from no one at Yardley knew, but rumor had it that he was about eighteen years of age, and had been pitching on baseball teams for several years.

“I never heard of him in my life,” said Durfee the day of the game, “and I guess he will prove to be just about like all the other wonders you hear of――all right on paper but nothing much on the diamond. It doesn’t make much difference, of course, whether we win from Porter or lose to her, only――well, when I hear about these marvelous pitchers I always want to take a fall out of them! I guess we can manage to find him for a few safe ones before the game is over.”

“If he really is a wonder,” said Alf, “I vote we kidnap him. What we need most is a good slab artist, and we oughtn’t to let a chance get by us. If he’s any good, we’ll steal him after the game.”

“Good scheme,” Dan laughed, “but how are you going to do it?”

“Oh, that’s easy. We’ll take him up to the top of Oxford to show him the view, and then shut him up in Cambridge. We can take his meals up to him, you know; he needn’t starve. All we want to do is to keep him for the Broadwood game.”

“Porter might miss him,” said Dan, gravely.

“Let her! Who cares as long as we have the victim safe?”

“I’m willing to wager,” scoffed Durfee, “that Holmes won’t show up a bit better than Reid.”

“Is Reid going in?” asked Alf. “I thought you’d decided on Servis for to-day.”

“Oh, Payson thinks we ought to be sure about the game,” replied Durfee. “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t much care whether we win or lose. I’d put Servis in if I had my way. Hammel is going to start the game at catch. Payson thinks he ought to have a good try-out. And Black is going in at first.”

“That’s a poor scheme,” said Alf. “Black can catch anything in reach, but he can’t throw across the diamond to save his life. But it’s none of my business.”

“I suppose Payson hasn’t thought of putting a good man in left field?” asked Dan, innocently. Durfee grinned.

“He hasn’t said anything about it. I guess we’ll have to get along the best way we can with Alf.”

Alf grunted. “Left field, my fresh young friends, is the only position that is being properly covered,” he said. “If we had a decent shortstop and a fair second baseman, we might get along pretty comfortably.”

After which brilliant persiflage the trio sought commons, where an early dinner was to be served.