Chapter 16

TELEGRAMS

When Will Phelps returned to the college, the entire place to him seemed to be deserted, and a stillness rested over all that was almost oppressive. Even the few college boys who were to be seen about the grounds all shared in the prevailing gloom and increased the sense of loneliness in the heart of the young freshman. When he entered his room, the sight of his room-mate's belongings was almost like that of the possessions of the dead and Will Phelps was utterly miserable and dejected.

Work he decided was his only cure and at once he busied himself at his task from which he was aroused in the course of an hour or two by the coming of the senior who was tutoring him.

"I'm mighty glad to see you," said Will impulsively. "I feel as if I was about the only one of my kind in the world."

"You're downhearted over deciding to stay in town, to-day?" replied his tutor pleasantly. "Oh, well, never mind. It will be a good tonic for you and when you've passed your mid-year's in Greek, you'll never once think of this trip with the team to-day."

"I'm afraid that's cold comfort just at the present moment. I've just been hanging on and that's all there is to it."

"Sometimes it's the only thing a fellow can do. It may bring a lot of other good things with it, though."

"Maybe," replied Will dubiously. "There's one thing I've learned though, and if I ever come to know my Greek as well as I know that, I'll pass all right."

"What's that?"

"Never to get behind. I'll keep up and not catch up. When I see what a fool I made of myself in my 'prep' days, I wonder sometimes that I ever got into college anyway. I never really worked any except in a part of the last year."

"You're working now," suggested the senior.

"Yes, I have to. I don't like it though. The descent to Avernus is the easy trip, if I remember my Virgil correctly. It's the getting back that's hard."

"Do you know, I never just believed that."

"You didn't? Why not? Why, you can see it every day! It's just as easy as sliding down hill. It's dragging the sled back up the hill that makes the trouble."

"That isn't quite a fair illustration. If I'm not mistaken, it seems to me that somewhere, sometime, some one said that 'The way of the transgressor is hard.' He didn't seem to agree with Virgil's statement somehow, did he?"

"But that means it's hard afterward."

"That isn't what it says. I think it means just what it says too."

"I don't see."

"Well, to me it's like this. In every fellow there's a good side and a bad side. Sort of a Doctor Jekyl and Mr. Hyde in every one of us. I heard the other day in our laboratory of a man who had taken and grafted one part of the body of an insect on the body of another. He tried it both on the chrysalis and on an insect too. I understood that he took the pupa of a spider and by very careful work grafted upon it the pupa of a fly. Think of what that monstrosity must have been when it passed out from the chrysalis and became a full-fledged living being. One part of it trying to get away from the other. One wanting to fly and the other to hide. One part wanting to feed on flies and the other part in mortal terror of all spiders."

"Was that really so?" inquired Will deeply interested.

"I didn't see it myself, but it was told over in the biological laboratory and I don't think there was any question about it. It struck me that it was just the way some of us seem to be built, a sort of a spider and fly combination and not the ordinary combination either, when the fly is usually inside of the spider and very soon a part of his majesty. And yet when you've told all that you know, it's a sort of monstrosity after all, and that the truth is that a fellow really _is_ his best self if he'll only give that part half a chance. That's why I say the way of the transgressor is hard and not easy. A fellow is going against the grain of his best side. He throws away his best chances under protest all the while, and _he_ doesn't want to do it either. No, Phelps, I believe if a fellow goes down hill it's like a man dragging a balky horse. It looks easy but it isn't, and he himself is pulling against it all the time."

"I never thought of it in that way before."

"Then on the other hand this very kind of work you're doing now is the sort that stirs your blood. I expect that those fellows who live down in the tropics and about all the work they have to do to feed themselves is to pick a banana off a tree and go through the exertion of peeling it, don't really get half the fun out of life that some of us boys had up on the hillside farms in Vermont. Why, when we'd have to get up winter mornings, with the weather so cold that we'd have to be all the while on the lookout that we didn't freeze our ears or noses, and when we'd have to shovel out the paths through three feet of snow and cut the wood and carry water to the stock, it did seem at times to be a trifle strenuous; but really I think the boys in Vermont get more fun out of life than the poor chaps in the tropics do who plow their fields by just jabbing a hole in the ground with their heel, and when they plant, all they have to do is to just stick a slip in the ground. It's the same way here, Phelps. This sort of thing you're doing is hard, no doubt about that; but it's the sort of thing that really stirs up a live man, after all."

"I'm afraid I'll be all stirred up if we don't get at this work pretty soon," laughed Will, who was nevertheless deeply impressed by the words he had heard from the prospective valedictorian of the senior class. "Why can't we do it all up this morning?" he inquired eagerly.

"All?"

"Oh, I mean all we were planning to do to-day. I'd like to go down to the gym this afternoon and watch the bulletins of the game. I decided not to go, but if I can get my work off that'll be the next best thing; and besides it'll help to pass the time. It's going to be a long day for me."

"All right, I'm agreeable," replied the senior cordially.

Until the hour of noon was rung out by the clock in the tower, Will labored hard. The words of his tutor had been inspiring, but he could not disguise from himself the fact, however, that he had little love for the task. It was simply a determination not to be "downed," as Will expressed it, that led him on and he was holding on doggedly, resolutely, almost blindly, but still he was holding on. About three o'clock in the afternoon the few students who were in town assembled at the telegraph office where messages were to be received from the team at intervals of ten minutes describing the progress of the game. One of the seniors had been selected to read the dispatches and only a few minutes had elapsed after the assembly had gathered before the senior appeared, coming out of the telegraph office and waving aloft the yellow slip. A cheer greeted his appearance but this was followed by a tense silence as he read aloud:

"They're off. Great crowd. Winthrop line outweighed ten pounds to a man. Holding like a stone wall."

"That's the way to talk it!" shouted the reader as he handed the dispatch to the operator, and then began to sing one of the college songs, in which he was speedily joined by the noisy group.

The song was hushed when again the operator appeared and handed another slip to the leader. Glancing quickly at it the senior read aloud:

"Ball on Alden's twenty-five yard line. Great run by Thomas. Hawley playing star game."

Hawley, Thomas, and the captain of the team, and then the team itself, were cheered, and once more the group of students gave vent to their feelings in a noisy song. It was all stimulating and interesting, and Will Phelps was so keenly alive to all that was occurring, that for the time even his disappointment in not being able to accompany the team was forgotten.

A groan followed the reading of the next dispatch. "Alden's ball on a fumble. Steadily forcing Winthrop line back by superior weight. Ball on Winthrop's forty-yard line."

"That looks bad," said Will's tutor, who had now joined the assembly and was standing beside Will Phelps. "We've a quick team, but I'm afraid of Alden's weight. They've two or three men who ought not to be permitted to play, anyway."

"Professionals?" inquired Will.

"Yes, or worse."

"Have we any on our team?"

"Hardly," laughed the senior. But Will was thinking of the conversation he had had with Hawley when they had first entered college, and was silent. Besides, another dispatch was about to be read and he was eager to hear.

"Ball on Winthrop's five-yard line. Hawley injured and out of the game."

"Too much beef," muttered the reader disconsolately, and the silence in the assembly was eloquent of feelings that could not be expressed.

Less than the regular interval had elapsed when another yellow slip was handed to the reader, and the suspense in the crowd was almost painful. The very silence and the glances that were given were all indicative of the fear that now possessed every heart.

"Alden makes touchdown. No goal," read the leader.

"Six nothing! Team's no good this year, anyway!" declared one of the students angrily. "Had no business to play Alden, anyway! Ought to have games with teams in our class."

"Alden seemed to be in our class last year, or rather she didn't," said the reader quietly. "Remember what the score was?"

"No. What was it?"

"Twenty-four to nothing in our favor. If they win this year it will be only following out the regulation see-saw that's been going on for seven years. Neither college has won its game for two successive years."

"Alden will win this time all right enough."

"Perhaps. The game isn't ended yet. You haven't learned the Winthrop spirit yet, which is never to give up till the game is played clear through to the end. You've got something to learn yet." The rebuked student did not reply, but the expression upon his face betrayed the fact that he was still unconvinced, and that he did indeed have the first of all lessons taught at Winthrop yet to learn.

The score was unchanged at the end of the first half, and the students scattered during the period of intermission, assured that no further information would be received until after the second half of the game was begun. The confidence in victory was, however, not so great when they assembled once more, though the interest apparently was as keen as at the beginning. For some unaccountable reason the dispatches were delayed and a much longer interval than usual intervened before the welcome yellow slip was handed to the announcer. Murmurs of disappointment were heard on every side, and it became more evident with every passing moment that hope had mostly been lost. At last, however, the welcome word was received, and even Will Phelps was so eager to hear that he crowded forward into the front ranks of the assembly.

"Alden scores touchdown and goal. Winthrop fighting desperately, but outweighed and outplayed since Hawley taken out."

"It's all over but the shouting," said the sophomore whose gloomy views had been so sharply rebuked by the senior. "There isn't any use in hanging around here. Come on, fellows! Let's go where there's something a little more cheerful."

He made as if to depart from the crowd, but as no one followed him, he apparently abandoned his purpose and remained with his fellows. Only two more dispatches were read, the second of which announced the end of the game with the score still standing in favor of Alden thirteen to nothing.

"Rotten!" exclaimed the sophomore angrily. "Just what we might--" He stopped abruptly as the senior advanced to a place where he could be seen by all and began to harangue the assembly.

"Now, fellows," he began, "the best test of our spirit is that we can stand up and take this in the right way. Of course, we wanted the game, and some of us hoped and expected we would have it too. But the other team, and doubtless the better one, has won. Next year we'll be ready for them again, or rather you will, for I sha'n't be here, and the time to begin to win then is right here and now. But I want to put in a good word for our team. I haven't a doubt that they did their level best, and if we could see them now, we'd be almost as proud of them as if they had won. I know every man put in his best work. And what I propose is that we go down to the station to-night and meet them with as hearty a cheer as if they had won the game, for we know they did their best to uphold the honor of old Winthrop to a man!"

A cheer greeted the senior's words, and at ten o'clock that evening all the students who were in town assembled at the little station to greet the returning members of the team. But Will Phelps, when the train came to a standstill and the boys leaped out upon the platform, speedily forgot all about the game in the sight which greeted his eyes.