Full-Back Foster

“Not for a minute! I told him you were a perfect gentleman. Incompatibility of temperament is what I called it. He said why didn’t I leave off the last two syllables. Well, that’s that, kiddo – I mean Foster. Better leave it lay until we see what happens, eh?”

“Not at all. I shall send this telegram, Dobbins. I don’t believe he has any idea of – of doing anything about it.”

“We-ell, you’re the doctor, but – Say, where’ll you go if you leave this place?”

“I don’t know yet. There are plenty of other schools around here, though. There’s one up the line a ways. I think it’s called Kenwood. Or there’s – ”

“Kenwood? Gee, boy, you don’t want to go there! Don’t you read the crime column in the papers? Why, Kenwood is filled with thugs and hoboes and the scum of the earth. A feller on the train told me so coming down here. Parkinson and Kenwood are rivals: get it? You don’t want to throw down this place and take up with the enemy, eh?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” Myron objected. “I’m not a Parkinson fellow. And I dare say that Kenwood is quite as good a school as Parkinson.”

But Joe Dobbins shook his head. “That feller on the train talked mighty straight. I wouldn’t like to think he was lying to me. He said that Kenwood was – was – now what was it he said? Oh, I got it! He said it was an ‘asylum for the mentally deficient.’ Sounds bad, eh?”

“Rot!” grunted Myron. “I’m going over to the telegraph office.”

“All right. If the Big Boss drops in I’ll tell him.”

When Myron had gone Joe promptly removed coat and vest once more, dropped his suspenders about his hips and kicked off his shoes. “Might as well be comfortable when His Majesty’s away,” he sighed. “Gee, but he’s the limit, now ain’t he? I suppose I ought to have spanked him when he called me a stable – or whatever it was. But I dunno, he’s sort of a classy guy. Guess he isn’t so worse if you hack into him. Bark’s a little punk, but the wood’s all right underneath, likely. Don’t know if I could stand living with him regular, though. Not much fun in life if you can’t slip your shoes off when your feet hurt. Well, I guess I’ll get these satchels emptied. What was it he called those bureaus, now? Chiff – chiff – I’ll have to get him to tell me that again. One thing, Joey: living with Mr. Foster’ll teach you manners. Only I’d hate to think I’d ever get to wearing a lemon-yellow necktie!”

Still feeling deeply wronged and out-of-sorts, Myron made his way back to Maple Street and set out toward the business part of Warne. The breeze that had made the late September afternoon fairly comfortable had died away and the maples that lined the broad, pleasant thoroughfare drooped their leaves listlessly and the asphalt radiated heat. Myron wished that he had shed his waistcoat in the room. Students were still arriving, for he passed a number on their way to the school, bags in hands, and several taxis and tumble-down carriages went by with hilarious occupants oozing forth from doors and windows. One of the taxi drivers honked brazenly as his clattering vehicle passed Myron and the latter glanced up in time to receive a flatteringly friendly wave and shout from Eddie Moses. Myron frowned. “Folks here are a lot of savages,” he muttered.

The telegram despatched, he made his way to a nearby drug store, seated himself on a stool and asked for a “peach-and-cream.” The freckle-faced, lanky youth behind the counter shook his head sadly. “Ain’t got no peach today. I can give you vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, rasp – ”

“I didn’t mean syrup. Haven’t you any fruit? I want a peach-and-cream.”

“Don’t know what that is. Anyway, we ain’t got it. How about a chocolate sundae with puffed rice? Lots of the fellers call for them.”

“No, thanks.” Myron descended from the stool and went out, more than ever assured of the undesirability of Parkinson School as a place of sojourn. Think of a town where you couldn’t get a peach-and-cream! Why, even the smallest shops in Port Foster knew what a peach-and-cream was! He cast contemptuous looks upon the modest stores and places of business along Adams Street, and even the new Burton Block over on the corner of School Street, six stories high and glittering with broad glass windows, only drew a word of derision. “Suppose they call that thing a skyscraper,” he muttered. “Huh! Puffed rice!”

Returning, he went through School Street to Washington Avenue. The south side of that shady thoroughfare, called Faculty Row, presented a pleasing vista, in each direction, of neat lawns and venerable elms and glowing beds of flowers. Here and there a sprinkler tossed its spray into the sunlight. Myron had to acknowledge, albeit grudgingly, that Port Foster had nothing prettier to offer. Facing him, across the Avenue, since School Street ended there, was the main gate to the campus, and straight ahead a shady tunnel roofed with closely-set linden trees led the eyes to the gleaming façade of Parkinson Hall, which, unlike the other school buildings, was of light-hued sandstone and was surmounted by an imposing dome. From the gate in front of him two other similar paths led diagonally away, and choosing the right-hand one Myron found grateful relief from the sun. He removed his hat and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with an immaculate handkerchief, and when he had finished returned the handkerchief to his breast pocket very carefully, allowing a corner – it happened to be the corner bearing the embroidered monogram – to protrude carelessly.

As he neared Sohmer he passed a group of four boys lying on the grass beneath the trees. Their conversation dwindled as he approached, ceased entirely as he came abreast and then went on again subduedly after he had gone by. His former irritation returned. What was there about him to make fellows stare or giggle or smile? Even down town he had noticed it, and now, although he could not hear what was being said behind him, he felt that he was being discussed. He was conscious of being better dressed than any of the boys he had seen yet, there was nothing unusual in his looks so far as he knew and he believed that he carried himself and walked in an ordinary manner. He decided again that they were all a lot of savages or “small town” gykes. He was glad he was leaving them tomorrow.

Back in Number 17, he found that Dobbins had gone out. In the bedroom that remarkable youth’s suit of rough red-brown material – it was much too heavy for summer wear and reminded Myron somewhat of a horse-blanket – that he had worn on his arrival lay carelessly tossed across a bed. It was the bed that Myron had chosen for himself, and he distastefully removed the clothes to the other one. As he did so he looked for the maker’s tag inside the collar and smiled ironically when he read “Bon Ton Brand.”

“Ready-made,” he murmured.

Dobbins had decorated the top of his chiffonier with two photographs and Myron examined them. One was a group picture of four persons; a woman rather thin and angular but with a kind and sweet face, a girl of some fourteen years, awkward and staring, and two younger girls, the littlest perhaps six. All were dressed in their finest and all, at least to Myron’s sophisticated sight, were dowdy. He concluded that the persons were Dobbins’ mother and sisters. The second photograph was a more ambitious affair and showed a man of about forty years. He had a square, much seamed face from which two keen eyes looked straight at the beholder. A funny little patch of beard adorned the chin and above it a wide mouth was drawn severely down at the corners. In the photograph the man looked stern and hard and even cross, Myron thought, but there was something nice about the countenance in spite of that, something suggesting that behind the weathered face were clean thoughts and kindliness.

“That’s the Spruce Gum King,” he reflected. “I guess if he hadn’t been scared at the camera he’d have looked rather a fine old chap, in spite of the little bunch of whiskers. He looks something like Dobbins, too: same sort of eyes and – and same expression about the chin. Only Dobbins is more lazy and good-natured, I guess.”

Later, his trunks came – there were two of them – and he had the expressman set them behind the door, one atop the other. There was no sense in opening them, for his kit-bag provided all he needed for the night. By that time it was nearing the supper hour and there was a rustling in the leaves of the lindens and the air was cooler. He told himself that whether Dobbins ever returned was nothing to him, and yet he found himself listening for the other’s heavy tread in the corridor. He wondered where Dobbins had gone, and rather resented his absence. The magazine which he had been reading beside the open window ceased to hold his attention and he glanced at his watch. A quarter to six. The supper hour was six o’clock. He had looked that up in his copy of the school catalogue. And you ate in Alumni Hall, which, as the plan of the school showed, was the building on the extreme left of the line. Finally Myron stripped to his waist and had a good splurge with soap and water. Some kindly soul had supplied a towel and it wasn’t until he was through using it that he saw the inscription “Dobbins” on one end.

“Well, how was I to know?” he grumbled. “Maybe I’d better dig into the trunk and get out a few of my own.”

But after supper would do, and just now he was feeling decidedly hungry, and washing up had refreshed him and made life look more pleasant. He hoped there would be something fit to eat, but he didn’t expect it. He was getting back into his clothes when the approach of his temporary room-mate was announced from some distance down the hall by the clump-clump of heavy shoes. Dobbins was peculiarly ungentle with doors. He flung them open and didn’t care what happened to them afterwards. In the present case the door crashed back against the trunks behind it with a most annoying bang, but Dobbins didn’t appear to have heard it. He was strangely attired, was Dobbins, and Myron, one arm in his shirt, gazed in astonishment and for a moment forgot to go on with his dressing.

A faded yellowish-brown jersey with half of the left sleeve missing and the other torn and mended – and torn and not mended – was surmounted by a canvas football jacket held together down the front with a black shoe-lace and a piece of twine. The jacket was so old and stained that Myron could easily believe it an heirloom, something handed down through generations of football-playing Dobbinses! A pair of rather new khaki pants, woollen stockings of brown twice ringed with light blue that well matched the jersey in condition, and scuffed and scarred football shoes completed the costume. Dobbins’ hair was every which way and there was more or less dirt on his broad countenance through which the perspiration had flowed in little rivulets with interesting results.

“Hello, kiddo!” Dobbins greeted jovially. “How’s the grouch coming on? Say, they’ve got a swell gridiron here; two or three of ’em, in fact. Wonderful turf. It’s a pleasure to fall on it, honest! Hear from your old man yet?”

“Hardly,” replied Myron drily. “What have you been doing?”

“Me? Sweating, son, mostly. Practising football some, too.”

“Oh! I didn’t know you played.”

“Me? That guy Camp and I wrote the rules! Looks like we had enough fellers to build forty teams. Must have been ’most a thousand of ’em over there. Every time I turned around I trod on some one. You didn’t go over, eh?”

“No, I – I was busy. Besides, I didn’t know they were holding practice today. I supposed they’d start tomorrow.”

“Been at it three days already, I hear. Got a coach here that looks like he knew his business, Foster. Ever try football?”

“I’ve played some,” answered Myron, with a smile that seemed to combine patience and pity. “I expect to go out for it when I get settled somewhere.”

“Still thinking of leaving, are you? You’re going to lose a mighty good school, son. I sure do like this place. Well, I’ve got a hunger like a river-boss. Guess I’ll get back to store clothes and find the trough. You going now?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Well, tell ’em to save a little of everything for me.” Dobbins’ voice came muffled from above the basin in the bedroom, and Myron, remembering the towel, hurried out.

CHAPTER IV

MYRON DECIDES TO STAY

At dining hall it appeared that places had not yet been assigned and Myron was conducted to a seat between a large, stout youth who seemed afflicted with asthma and a shy, red-cheeked boy who promptly upset his glass of milk when Myron asked for the biscuits. Rather to his surprise, the food was excellent and plentiful. There were many tables, each seating ten boys, and most of them were filled when Myron reached the hall. There was a good deal of noise, as was natural when nearly four hundred normally healthy boys were being fed. At Myron’s table no one appeared to be acquainted with any one else and in consequence there was little conversation. The asthmatic youth wheezily ventured a remark, but Myron’s reply was not encouraging and the youth gave all his attention again to dropping bits of biscuit in his stewed pears and salvaging them noisily. Myron was glad when the stout chap, finding nothing else to devour, sighed heavily and left the table. His place was filled again, however, a moment later by a clean-cut fellow of about nineteen years, a good-looking, neatly-dressed boy of what Myron mentally called his own sort. Conversation with him seemed natural and desirable, and Myron broke the ice by offering the biscuits. The newcomer accepted one, said “Thanks” politely and cast a brief and appraising glance over his neighbour.

“They’re not bad,” said Myron.

“No, they never are,” answered the other. “I wonder if you can reach the butter.”

Myron could and did. “Not up to the biscuits,” he offered.

“No? What seems to be wrong with it?”

“Too salty for me.”

“I see. Well, you’d naturally like it fresh.”

Myron shot a covert and suspicious glance at the other. It seemed to him that there had been a faint emphasis on the word “fresh.” Perhaps he had only imagined it, though, for his neighbour’s expression was quite guileless. He was leisurely buttering a portion of the biscuit and appeared to have forgotten Myron’s existence. Myron felt faintly uncomfortable and applied himself silently to his food. Across the board another chair was pushed back and, almost before its occupant was out of it, again taken. Myron observed rather annoyedly that the new occupant of the place was Dobbins. He nodded across and dropped his eyes to his plate. He hoped that Dobbins wouldn’t try to converse. Somehow, he didn’t want the chap at his right to think him a friend of Dobbins’. But Dobbins, after an approving look about the table, did just what Myron had hoped he wouldn’t do.

“How you making out, Foster?” he inquired. “Grub meeting your approval?”

“Yes, thanks,” responded Myron coldly.

“That’s good. I see you – Hello!”

“Hello,” said the boy at Myron’s right affably. “How do you feel now?”