Right End Emerson

He put his coat on again and took his hat and sallied forth, stopping at the office long enough to leave his key and to inform the clerk that he would be back at five o’clock, in case any one should inquire for him. Then for the better part of an hour he roamed the streets in that portion of Alton which lay between the Hartford House and the Academy, specializing on the side streets but not neglecting such important arteries of traffic and avenues of trade as Meadow and West and State streets. He was back at a minute or two before five and had made himself comfortable in one of the six wooden armchairs that stood empty in a row before the windows when feet echoed on the stairway, the office door was pushed open and a very tall, very thin youth appeared. He carried a suit-case, an overcoat and an umbrella, all of which, perceiving Russell across the room, he dumped on the desk before stepping to meet him.

“Hello, Rus,” he greeted. “How long have you been here? Have you got a room? Do I bunk in with you, or – ”

“You’ll have to get one of your own,” replied Russell as they shook hands. “Mine’s just a single one. Guess they all are. How are you, Stick? Haven’t fattened up much this summer.”

“I’m very well, thanks. Wait till I register and we’ll go up and have a talk. Got your letter about ten minutes before I left. Thought you were dead or something.”

In a room very similar to that assigned to Russell, the two seated themselves, George Patterson on the bed and Russell on the single chair. Stick, as he was called, was a boy of Russell’s own age, which was seventeen, but looked fully a year older. He came from St. Albans, Vermont, according to the school catalogue, and the catalogue was quite infallible on such subjects, but before that Stick had lived – in fact had been born – in Toronto, and there was much more of the Canadian than the Yankee in him. He was extremely tall and extremely thin, with high cheek bones, a good deal of color, very dark brown hair that curled, gray eyes, a generous nose and a rather large mouth. You couldn’t call him handsome, but he looked particularly healthy and clean and wholesome. One of the things that Russell liked most about him was his appearance of having just stepped out of a bath, and even now, after a long train journey, that appearance persisted. The two were room-mates in Upton Hall. They had been thrown together quite by accident the preceding fall and had not yet regretted the fact; which, I think, speaks well for each of them.

Stick wasn’t an awfully brilliant chap. In fact, there were some who declared that he was rather a bore. But Russell was used to him, and he had long since decided that an even temper and similar attributes were preferable in a room-mate to mere conversational scintillations. Stick had rather a peculiar sense of humor, or, perhaps, lack of humor. He adored a practical joke when it was on some one else, but saw no fun in such a joke played on himself. As a fair sample of his ideal in the way of a funny story it may be stated that his favorite was a rather long and ponderous tale about a London window-washer who fell from the sixth story of a building and landed on a “bobby.” To Stick there was something irresistibly appealing to his sense of humor in the fact that the policeman was killed and the window-washer wasn’t! But Stick was a fellow who wore remarkably well, and, after all, that’s a fine quality in a room-mate.

“Well, I brought the money,” he announced after a few exchanges of remarks anent the past vacation.

“How much?” asked Russell anxiously.

“A hundred and twenty-five.”

“A hundred and twent – But, Stick, you said it would be a hundred and fifty at least!”

“I didn’t say it positively,” disclaimed the other. “I did think I could put in that much, Rus, but – well, I just can’t do it.” Then, after a short pause, he added in a desire to be strictly truthful: “I mean, I don’t think I ought to, Rus. Of course, it’s my money, and all that, but father doesn’t think very well of the idea, and if he needed money some time he’d expect me to let him have a little, and if I put it all into this I won’t have any left. You see, we don’t know for certain that this thing’s going to be a go. I hope it will be, for I’d hate to lose that money, but there’s nothing sure about it, is there?”

Russell shook his head. “No, nothing’s sure until it’s happened, Stick, but this thing is bound to go all right. Gee, it’s just got to!”

“Yes, I know,” Stick agreed without much enthusiasm, “but things don’t always succeed because some one says they’ve got to.”

Russell sighed. “I wish your grandmother hadn’t married a Scotsman, Stick!”

“What’s that got to do with – ”

“You’ll die a poor man, Stick, just on that account,” returned his chum gloomily. “Left to itself, the Irish in you would risk a dollar now and then, but that Scotch blood sets up a howl every time.”

“It’s all right to take a chance,” said Stick seriously, “but there’s no sense in being risky. I say, with what you have, won’t a hundred and twenty-five do?”

“It will have to,” answered Russell grimly, “if that’s all you’ll come in with. I’ve gone too far now to back down. I spent a whole day in New York, and every one was mighty decent, and I arranged for a whole raft of stuff to come down the twenty-second. The Proctor-Farnham people even offered me ninety days’ credit. You see, their goods are new in the East, Stick, and they’re making a big try to get them going. They make mighty good stuff, too, and I’m pretty certain we can sell a lot of it once we’re started. Of course we’ll have to carry the other makes, too. Some fellows won’t look at a thing unless they grew up with it! Well, anyway, they were quite enthusiastic about the scheme and would have pretty near stocked us up for nothing if I’d agreed to sell only their stuff. But that wouldn’t do. Not yet, anyhow. They offered to send a man down to arrange a window display, but I had to decline that, for I didn’t want them to know that we hadn’t even found a store yet. They might have thought I was crazy. As it was I did a good deal of bluffing, I guess, and talked as if I had about a million dollars. The other folks were a heap more haughty, although they were willing enough to let us have a fair line of samples. They don’t have to offer inducements to sell their goods, you see. Well, now about the money, Stick. I’ve got a little more than two hundred. That’s three hundred and twenty-five, about three hundred and forty, really. I’d hoped for four hundred at least. It means that we’ll have to be satisfied with a more modest store, for it’s store rent that’s going to be the principal expense for a while. I’ve been pretty well over the town, Stick. There are two places I’d love to have, but they’re both on West street and the rent would be something awful. Then there are a couple of places out on the way to the station. They’d be cheap enough, but I guess we might just as well throw our money away as locate out there. Fellows never get that far from school.”

“No, we’ve got to be somewhere around Bagdad,” replied Stick. Bagdad was the Academy name for the two blocks on West street lying nearest to the school. Here was established a small shopping district quite distinct from that further in the town, one depending largely, though by no means wholly, on the students for trade. The stores that lined both sides of the street were usually small, but, in the parlance of trade, “select.” One found neckties of a rather more “zippy” coloring here, hats with a more rakish air, shoes with more character, clothing that bordered yet did not infringe on the sporty. And, of course, the stationery store carried the sort of books and blanks and binders and pens that Alton Academy affected, while The Mirror specialized in such highly colored and ultra sweet concoctions of ice cream and syrups, fruits and nuts as are beloved of all preparatory school youths everywhere. Bagdad, in short, provided for so many of the wants of Alton students that only once in a blue moon was it necessary for them to seek further afield.

“Yes,” Russell agreed, “but I don’t believe we can find anything very close that we can afford to take. There’s one place – ”

He broke off to look thoughtfully across at Stick.

“Well?” prompted the latter.

“It’s upstairs, over The Parisian Tailors, on West street. But I don’t like the idea, Stick. You know yourself that a chap won’t climb a flight of stairs if he can find the same thing by walking a block or two further. And there’s Crocker’s store only five doors beyond. I guess that wouldn’t do.”

“Let’s go and have another look,” suggested Stick. “There must be some place we can have. We’ve got an hour before we need to eat, Rus. What do you say?”

“All right, but there’s no use going to Bagdad. We might try River street below West.”

“Huh, no fellow ever sets foot over there! I say, I’ve got it!”

“Shoot, then, Stick.”

“We’ll hire half a store from some one who doesn’t need it!”

“Why, yes, that might do,” replied Russell slowly, “but where are we going to find it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we can’t, but it’s an idea, isn’t it? Something to work on, eh? Let’s go and have a look.”

CHAPTER III

A NEW YEAR BEGINS

The journey of the little red car came to an end in three days instead of four, for Matilda developed distressing symptoms at a place called Bradford, got vastly worse at Mystic and broke down utterly some two miles short of New London. There for the present the three travelers left her and completed the trip by rail, parting one afternoon in the Grand Central Station with assurances of a speedy reunion.

Four days later, on the twenty-second, which was a Monday, Harley McLeod and Jimmy Austen reached Alton shortly after two o’clock and at half-past three were out on the football field with some sixteen other candidates. To-morrow would bring more, but sixteen wasn’t so bad for a first session, and Martin Proctor, this year’s captain, was plainly elated.

“Twenty-two fellows had the call,” he said to Harley and Jimmy after they had shaken hands, “and you fellows make sixteen who have shown up. That’s mighty good, isn’t it?”

“When’s Johnny coming?” asked Harley.

“Not until Wednesday. He telephoned this morning. He expected to come to-day, but something’s happened. We won’t need him, anyway. We can’t do much more to-day and to-morrow than get the kinks out. Oh, say, Jimmy, that reminds me. You’ll have to put in a lot of time on punting this fall. Keep that in mind, will you? Practice whenever you get a chance, like a good fellow. We’ve got to work up a kicking department with not much to build on. And we play Lorimer in a little over three weeks!”

“How does it seem to be captain, Mart?” asked Jimmy, grinning.

Mart Proctor smiled back, shook his head and then looked suddenly grave. “Well, so far, Jimmy, being captain’s been a cinch. Spring practice was short and easy, as you know. And during the summer all I’ve had to do is write about a dozen letters a week, read half a million clippings sent by Johnny Cade – he cuts out everything he sees that relates in the slightest way to football and piles it all on me! – and try to look stern and important; and you know that’s no easy job for a merry wight like me! But since I got here yesterday afternoon I’ve discovered that being captain of the Alton Football Team is about the same as being President of the U. S. of A. That guy Johnson’s been at me every ten minutes with a new problem, Jake’s sitting over there on the wheelbarrow trying to think up a new worry – Oh, gee, here comes Johnson again now!”

Henry Johnson, the football manager, was a short, rotund and very earnest-seeming youth. His forehead, above the big spectacles that adorned his short nose, was creased into many deep furrows as he greeted Harley and Jimmy warmly but hurriedly and turned to Mart.

“Peter says he can’t get the lines marked out to-morrow, Mart,” he announced agitatedly. “Says he hasn’t enough lime. Says he ordered it and it hasn’t come, and – ”

“We can get on without lines,” replied Mart calmly but a trifle wearily. “Can’t you find anything better than that to bother about, Hen? You ought to leave that small stuff to your helper.”

The manager’s frown relaxed slightly. “Tod hasn’t come yet.” The furrows came back. “He promised to get here to-day. He ought to be here, too. Some one’s got to look after the weighing, and I don’t see how I can do it, Mart. I’ve got that letter to get into the five o’clock mail – ”

“Let the weighing go until to-morrow,” said Mart. “We’re all old stagers and don’t need watching yet. You attend to the letter. Tod may come on the four-twenty, for that matter. Well, let’s go, fellows! Oh, Brand! Brand Harmon! Take a bunch of the backs out and throw around, will you? You’re in that, Jimmy. Mac, you’d better come with me and we’ll try some starts. You’ve got six or eight pounds that you don’t need, and so have I. Throw out some balls, Jake, will you?”

Jakin, the trainer, opened the mouth of the big canvas bag and trickled three scarred and battered footballs across the turf. Ned Richards, quarter-back candidate, pounced on one and slammed it hard at Paul Nichols, last season’s center, and Nichols caught it against his stomach, doubled his heavy body over it and gave a high-stepping imitation of a back getting under way.

“Mawson off on a one-yard dash,” he laughed.

“Shut up, Paul! Show respect to your betters!” And Mawson quickly knocked the ball from his grasp, caught it as it bounded and hurled it smartly against the back of the center rush’s head.

“You’re likely to break the ball if you do that,” warned Ned Richards. “Hit him in the tummy instead.”

There was an hour and a half of rather easy work, which, because the September afternoon was warm and still, reduced most of the candidates, veterans though most of them were, to perspiring, panting wrecks of former jauntiness. Two laps about the track at a slow jog did nothing to restore their freshness!

Harley McLeod and Jimmy Austen plodded back to the gymnasium together, Harley wiping his streaked face with one gray-clad arm. “I didn’t know I was so soft,” he sighed. “Bet you I dropped four pounds this afternoon, Jimmy.”