CHAPTER XIV

A QUESTION OF COLOR

I have already remarked that things look very different in the morning from what they do at night. Toby rolled out of bed some eight hours later with his mind made up to say nothing about the theft to any one, not even to Frank Lamson! Just when this resolve had come to him and by what process of reasoning he didn’t know, for he had certainly gone to sleep almost fidgety with the desire for morning and the opportunity to confront Frank with the charge of theft. There is a saying that the night brings counsel. It would be nearer the facts to say that sleep clears the brain. Violent emotions such as anger generate a poison, the scientists tell us, and sleep is one of the antidotes. Toby went to bed with a good deal of poison in his system and woke up quite free from it. He was just a little bit surprised at his change of heart, but he was more glad than surprised. After all, nothing was to be gained by making trouble for Frank. Evil-doers suffer eventually, anyway, and there was no reason why Toby should assume the rôle of Retribution. Besides, and I think this had a good deal of weight with him, Arnold liked Frank and believed in him, and Toby, now that he was no longer peeved with Arnold, didn’t want to cause him any pain. Six dollars and a quarter was still six dollars and a quarter, just as it had been last night, but it wasn’t worth acting the cad for! Business was looking up again, thanks, possibly, to the cut-rates advertised in _The Scholiast_, and it wouldn’t be more than a week or so before he would have another six dollars. Meanwhile the purchase of hockey gloves and leg-guards could wait. Oddly enough, he found that his sentiment toward Frank Lamson this morning was far more charitable than it had been a week ago. Dislike was tinctured with pity. As a rival, either in hockey or in the affections of Arnold, Frank seemed much less formidable. So far as he was concerned, Toby decided as he shuffled down the corridor to the bath, the incident was closed.

At breakfast Arnold’s manner showed that he had forgotten Toby’s aloofness of the evening before and when the meal was over they went up to Number 12 and talked until it was time to go to chapel. Of course Arnold wanted to know if Toby had found his money, and was surprised when told that he hadn’t. He was so genuinely sorry that Toby secretly called himself a beast for ever doubting Arnold’s affection.

“Tell you what I’ll do, Toby,” said Arnold finally. “I’ll strike for an extra ten dollars and loan you six or seven, or whatever you want. I haven’t asked for any extra funds for months and months; anyway, not since November. Dad’s pretty firm about keeping inside my allowance, but I have a hunch he likes to slip me a little extra now and then if I can give him a decent excuse. Let’s see, now, what’ll I tell him?”

“Tell him you need a hair-cut,” suggested Homer, who had come up a minute before. “That’s what I always say.”

“Ten dollars for a hair-cut,” mused Arnold, “sounds a bit thick, doesn’t it? Guess I’ll just say that I want to make a loan to a chap. That’s a new one and dad may fall for it.”

“Thanks, Arn,” said Toby, finally defeating the temptation to accept the loan, “but I’d rather you didn’t. I’ll make that money up in a week or so and never know I lost it. The trouble about borrowing,” he added wisely, “is that you have to pay up.”

“There wouldn’t be any hurry about it. You could pay a dollar now and then, whenever you happened to have it. Better let me do it, Toby.”

But Toby was firm and Arnold finally gave up the scheme. “Too bad, too,” he mourned, “because that was a brand-new and original touch, and I’d like to have seen whether it would work!”

Hockey practice the next afternoon was more than ordinarily strenuous. Mr. Loring, the volunteer coach, was back again after an absence of a few days, and made things hum. A new combination of forwards was tried out against the second, Crowell going from left center to left wing and Jim Rose taking the captain’s place. But, although that change lasted until Wednesday, it produced no great improvement, and on Wednesday Crowell and Rose returned to their former positions. Toby had his first real dose of goal-tending that Monday afternoon, taking Frank Lamson’s place in the second period. To say that he did better than Frank would be an exaggeration, but it’s fair to say that he did as well, and, since Frank had made several good stops that afternoon and held the second team to two tallies, saying that speaks well for Toby’s progress as a goal-tend. In the last half the second put the puck into the net three times. Simpson, Casement and Fanning had been sent in and the second team found them easier to contend with than the first-choice forwards. During the last five minutes of play Stillwell took Halliday’s place at cover point, and it was during Stillwell’s incumbency that the second scored that third goal. Stillwell took the wrong man, and Fraser, at point, allowed himself to be drawn too far out. A quick and clever pass in front of goal gave a second team forward a pretty chance for a score and, although Toby partly stopped the lifted puck with his hand, it dropped to the ice just inside the cage. Toby felt badly about that tally, but no one else seemed to. The first had a four point lead and another tally for the opponent mattered little. But after practice was over Coach Loring stopped Toby at the bench as he was pulling his coat on.

“Let me see those gloves you’re wearing, Tucker,” said Mr. Loring.

Toby exhibited them and the coach sniffed his contempt. “No wonder that shot got by you,” he said. “Doesn’t it hurt to stop the puck with those things?”

“Er――yes, sir, sometimes it does.”

“So I’d think. Why, those aren’t padded at all, Tucker! Where’d you get them? Haven’t you any others?”

“No, sir, I haven’t any others. These are some I had. I――I’ve been thinking of getting some heavier ones――”

“You’d better do it, my boy. Get a good pair of goal-tender’s gloves and throw those away. Those aren’t thick enough to keep your hands warm, and you might very easily get a shot that would break a bone. Can you buy gloves in Greenburg now? You couldn’t when I was here.”

“Yes, sir, they have them at Fessenden’s.”

“Better attend to getting them before you play again. If you’d had a heavy pair on to-day you could have stopped that last shot and saved your team a goal, couldn’t you?”

“I think so. It――it was pretty hard.”

Toby had donned his coat and they were following in the wake of the others up the board-walk to the gymnasium. Toby didn’t know whether to try to fall behind or hurry ahead. It was scarcely conceivable that the coach wanted his company all the way up the hill! But Mr. Loring settled the matter himself just then.

“How long have you been playing goal, Tucker?” he asked.

“About three weeks, sir.”

“Where’d you play before that? Point, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir, a few days.”

“Were you with the second last year? I don’t seem to remember you.”

“No, sir, I wasn’t here last year.”

“Oh, that’s it? But you played somewhere else, I suppose.”

“No, I never played until last month, Mr. Loring.”

The coach looked surprised. “Never played hockey at all? Well, but――you don’t want me to believe that you’ve learned all you know about playing goal in a month, Tucker?”

“Yes, sir, but I’m afraid I don’t know very much,” responded Toby apologetically.

“Hm, I don’t know. I’ve seen worse playing. When you learn to move a little bit quicker you ought to do pretty well.” The coach turned and surveyed Toby speculatively. “Pull that cap off a minute.”

Toby obeyed, wonderingly.

“Thought so! It’s red, isn’t it?”

Toby flushed and swallowed hard. Then: “Brown, sir,” he answered firmly. The coach laughed.

“Brown, is it? All right, Tucker, my mistake. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” murmured Toby, forgivingly.

“Oh, I wasn’t apologizing,” retorted the coach, dryly. “I meant that I was sorry it wasn’t red. You see, Tucker, I have a theory that a goal-tend ought to have red hair.”

Toby looked his surprise. “Why, sir?” he asked.

“Because, Tucker, it has been my experience that fellows with red hair are fighters. When I played football I always looked the other team over for red-heads and if I saw one I kept close tabs on him. I don’t think I ever saw one yet that didn’t bear a lot of watching. Now you know why I’m a little disappointed in your case. Just at first, when you took your cap off, I thought there was a reddish tinge to your hair. Probably it was due to the sunset or the reflection from the snow or something.”

There wasn’t any sunset, or, if there was, it wasn’t visible, and it was so nearly twilight that to talk of reflection from the snow was nonsense. Toby glanced at the coach suspiciously, but Mr. Loring’s face looked quite guileless.

“It’s always been a sorrow in my young life,” went on the coach meaningly, “that I didn’t have red hair. I’d have done a heap better at everything, I guess.”

“You――you’re fooling, aren’t you, sir?” asked Toby.

“Fooling? Nary a fool, Tucker. Red hair is the hall mark of getthereness, Tucker. It means pep and fight and determination, red hair does. Sometimes it means temper, too, but temper is all right if you learn to control it. And sometimes――” he paused a moment――“sometimes it means stubbornness. But stubbornness is all right, too, if exercised in a good cause. Of course, when a fellow says that black is white, when he knows it isn’t, and sticks to it, or insists that red is――ah――brown――”

Toby burst out laughing and Mr. Loring turned and regarded him smilingly, his thoughtful solemnity gone.

“It――it’s a little red, sir,” gasped Toby.

“I thought it couldn’t be all due to the sunset,” responded the coach with a chuckle. “Well, here we are.” They stopped at the gymnasium steps. “Where do you room, Tucker?”

“In Whitson, sir. Number 22.”

“That’s on the third floor, isn’t it? Mind if I look in on you some time? I haven’t really finished my little lecture on red hair.”

“No, sir, only――”

“Only what? You mean you’re busy and have no time for callers?”

“No, sir,” floundered Toby. “I mean――I was afraid――you see, my room isn’t very――very comfortable――”

“Oh, that’s it? Well, you’ve got a chair, I dare say.”

“Two of them,” answered Toby.

“Fine! Going to be in this evening?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll be up for a few minutes, then, between nine and ten. Better get inside quickly, Tucker, or you’ll get stiff.”

Toby hurried up the steps and through the door, excited and elated. Maybe, he was thinking, Coach Loring would tell him how to better his goal work. Toby had heard that Mr. Loring had been a fine hockey player in his day and had captained his team here at Yardley. He wondered if, by any chance, he had played goal. He would ask some one. But in the locker room the idea was put out of his head for the time, for just inside the swinging doors he almost collided with Frank Lamson. It was the first time they had been near enough to exchange words since the night they had met in the upper corridor of Whitson. If Toby expected to detect signs of guilt in Frank’s countenance he was doomed to disappointment. Frank only smiled in his careless, somewhat patronizing manner and asked:

“Did you get that money from Arn, Tucker? Sorry to be slow about it.” He didn’t sound very sorry, or look especially penitent, and a few days ago Toby would have resented the fact. To-day, for some reason, he didn’t, however. Frank seemed much less important than before, much less capable of irritating the other. Toby nodded.

“Yes, thanks,” he said.

“All right. Well, you and I seem to be rivals, old scout, eh?”

“How is that?” asked Toby, although he knew what Frank meant.

“Why, for goal, you know. I’ll have to keep an eye on you, Toby. You didn’t do so rottenly to-day, what? Speed it up a bit, my boy, and you’ll get there yet. Heard anything more about Henry’s coming back?”

“No, I haven’t,” answered Toby carelessly.

“You don’t seem to care, either. Well, it mightn’t make much difference to you. By the way, are those cut-rate prices still on? I’ve got a suit that wouldn’t be any worse for cleaning. I’ll fetch it up some day soon.”

Toby was glad when Frank let him go, for the temptation to hold out his hand and say “I’d like my six dollars and a quarter, please!” was strong. And, besides, Toby felt oddly uncomfortable in Frank’s society, knowing what he did. Afterwards it occurred to him that Frank had seemed absolutely at ease, and that puzzled him. “Of course, he doesn’t suspect that I know,” argued Toby, “but, still, you’d think he’d be a bit ashamed of himself and want to keep out of my way. Why, he’s more――more friendly since he stole my money than he was before!”