Full-Back Foster

“Is that so? Well – ”

“Cut out that talking!” barked Cummins. “Speed it up, fellows!”

There was ten minutes more of the dreary work, during which Myron mechanically received the pigskin and sent it on to the next in the circle without a hitch. If he expected to win commendation from Cummins, however, he was disappointed. Cummins was eloquent with criticism, but never once did he utter a word of approval. At last:

“That’ll do for that, fellows,” he called. “You may rest a minute. Maybe some of you’ll get your strength back.” He approached Myron with an accusing scowl. “What are you doing in this bunch?” he demanded. “You don’t belong here.”

“I was sent here,” replied Myron warmly.

“Didn’t you have sense enough to tell Farnsworth you weren’t a greenie? Think I’ve got nothing to do but waste my time?”

“Well, you’re not the only one who’s doing it, are you? What about my time?”

“That’s your affair. I didn’t want you, believe me! You ought to have told him you knew something about a football. He’s no mind-reader, you know.”

“I told him I’d played two years on a high school team – ”

“Oh! That explains it. You high school ginks usually don’t know enough football to make the first year team. Guess Farnsworth thought you were like the run of ’em.”

“Maybe,” replied Myron indifferently, “but it’s not my business to teach you fellows how to run your affairs.”

“Hard luck for us, isn’t it? Well, say, Mr. ’Igh and ’Aughty, you trek across there and tell Farnsworth I say you’re graduated from my bunch. Get it? Tell him to put you somewhere else, and tell him I don’t care where it is!”

“Thanks,” returned Myron with deep sarcasm. “I’m horribly sorry to leave you, though. It’s a real pleasure working under such a gentlemanly instructor, Mr. Cummins.”

Cummins watched him for a long moment with his mouth open. “Well, what do you know about that?” he murmured at last. “The cheeky beggar!” Then he grinned again and, surprising amused and delighted expressions on the countenances of those of his squad who had been near enough to overhear the conversation, quickly changed the grin for a scowl. “All right now!” he barked. “Line up along there. Who’s got the ball? Let’s see what you pin-heads know about starting.”

Myron’s message to Farnsworth resulted in his finishing the practice with a group of fellows whose education had progressed beyond the rudimentary stage. Toward the last of the period he was put to catching punts with a half-dozen other backfield candidates and performed to his own satisfaction at least. There was no scrimmage today, nor was there any for several days following, and at five o’clock Coach Driscoll sent them off to the showers. Later Myron went upstairs and found the physical director and underwent his examination, obtaining a chart filled with perplexing lines and puzzling figures and official permission to engage in “any form of athletics approved by the Committee.” After which he returned rather wearily to Number 17 Sohmer and Joe Dobbins.

CHAPTER VI

“A. T. MERRIMAN”

The next forenoon Myron set off in a spare hour to find the tutor whose address Mr. Morgan had given him. If he had cherished the notion of possibly getting along without coaching in Latin his experiences that morning had banished it. Mr. Addicks, or Old Addie, as he was called, was a likable sort and popular with the students, but he was capable of a gentle sarcasm that was horribly effective with any one whose skin was less thick than that of a rhinoceros, and an hour or so ago he had caused Myron to heartily wish himself small enough to creep into a floor crack and pull some dust over him! No use talking, Myron told himself as he set forth for Mill Street, he’d have to find this chap and get right to work. He wouldn’t face that horrible Addicks again until he had put in a solid week of being tutored. It would get him in bad at the Office, maybe, if the instructor called on him very often in that week, for he would just say “Not prepared,” but anything was to be preferred to standing up there like a jay and letting Addicks make fun of him!

When he reached the head of School Street he pulled the slip of paper again from his pocket and made sure of the address. “A. T. Merriman, 109 Mill Street,” was what was written there. He asked his way at the next corner and was directed across the railroad. “Mill Street runs at right angles to the track,” said the citizen who was directing him. “You’ll see a granite building after you pass the crossing. That’s Whitwell’s Mill. The street you want runs along the farther side of it.” Myron thanked him and went on down School Street. The obliging citizen gazed after him in mingled surprise and admiration.

“Well, he’s certainly a dressy boy,” he murmured. “Must be Old John W. Croesus’s son!”

Mill Street wasn’t far and 109 was soon found, but the character of the district wasn’t at all to Myron’s liking. Ragged and dirty children overflowed the sidewalks and played in the cobbled roadway, slatternly women gossiped from open windows, dejected-looking men lounged at the corners, stray cats rummaged the gutters. The houses, frame structures whose dingy clapboards were flush with the street, had apparently seen far better days. Now dust and grime lay thick on them and many a window was wanting a pane of glass. The prospect of penetrating to such a place every day was revolting, and, having found the numerals “109” above a sagging porch, Myron was strongly inclined to turn back. But he didn’t, and a tinkle that followed his pull at the rusty knob beside the door brought a stout and frowsy woman who wiped her hands on her apron as she pulled the portal open.

“Mr. Merriman?” inquired Myron.

“I don’t know is he in, sir. One flight up and you’ll see his name on the door. If you come again, sir, just you step right in. The door ain’t never locked in the daytime.”

Myron mounted a creaky stairway guiltless of carpet and found himself in a narrow hall from which four doors opened. In spite of dinginess and want of repairs, the interior of 109 was, he had to acknowledge, astonishingly clean. One of the doors did present a card to the inquiring gaze, but in the gloom its inscription was not decipherable and so Myron chanced it and knocked. A voice answered from beyond the portal and nearly simultaneously a dog barked sharply. Myron entered.

The room was large and well lighted from two sides. It was also particularly devoid of furniture, or so it looked to the visitor. A large deal table strewn with papers and piled with books stood near the centre of the apartment where the cross light from the two pairs of windows fell on it. The floor was carpetless, but two scraps of straw matting saved it from utter bareness. There was a bench under the windows on one side and a flattened cushion and two faded pillows adorned it. What seemed to Myron the narrowest bed in the whole wide world, an unlovely thing of black iron rails, was pushed into a corner, and beside it was a box from which overflowed a grey blanket. Three chairs, one a decrepit armchair from whose leather covering the horsehair stuffing protruded in many places, stood about. There was also a bureau and a washstand. On the end of the former stood a small gas-stove and various pans and cooking utensils. Books, mostly sober-sided, dry-looking volumes, lay everywhere, on table, bureau, window-seat, chair and even on the floor. Between the several articles of furniture lay broad and arid expanses of unpainted flooring.

At first glance the room appeared to be inhabited only by a tall, thin but prepossessing youth of perhaps twenty years and a Scottish terrier whose age was a matter for conjecture since her countenance was fairly well hidden by sandy hair. The youth was seated at the deal table and the terrier was halfway between box and door, growling inquiringly at the intruder. At Myron’s entry Merriman tilted back in his chair, thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and said “Good morning” in a deep, pleasant voice. Then he added mildly: “Shut up, Tess, or I’ll murder you.” The terrier gave a last growl and retired to the box. As she settled down in it a series of astonishing squeaks emerged. Myron looked across startledly and Merriman laughed.

“Puppies,” he explained. “Six of them. That’s why she’s so ferocious. Seems to think every one who comes upstairs is a kidnapper. I tell her the silly things are too ugly to tempt any one, but she doesn’t believe me.”

“Will she let me see them?” asked Myron eagerly.

“Oh, yes.” Merriman drew his long length from the chair and led the way to the box. “Now then, old lady, pile out of here and let the gentleman have a look at your ugly ducklings.”

The terrier made no objection to being removed, but the puppies cried dismally at the parting. Myron chuckled. “Funny things!” he exclaimed. “Why, they haven’t got their eyes open yet!”

“No, they’re only six days old. How’s this one for a butter-ball? Isn’t he a fat rascal? All right, Tess, we won’t hurt them. I vouch for the gentleman. He never stole a puppy in all his innocent young life.”

“I never did,” Myron corroborated, “but I’d like to start right now!”

“Like dogs, eh?” asked the host.

“Yes, indeed. Funny thing is, though, that I’ve never owned one.”

“No? How does that happen?”

“I don’t know. My mother thinks they’re rather a nuisance around the house. Still, I dare say she’d have let me kept one if I’d insisted. I don’t suppose you – you’d care to sell one of those?”

“Oh, yes, I would. I’ll have to either sell them or give them: unless I send them off to the happy hunting ground.”

“Really? How much would they be?”

“The lot?” asked Merriman, a twinkle in his eye.

“Gee, no! One!”

“Five dollars. Tess is good stock, and the father is a thoroughbred belonging to Terrill, the stableman on Centre Street. Got a place to keep him?”

“I’d forgot about that,” owned Myron. “I’m afraid not. They wouldn’t let me have him in Sohmer, would they?”

“Scarcely!” laughed the other. “All right, old lady, back you go. Sit down – ah – What’s the name, please?”

“Foster. Mr. Morgan gave me your address. I want some tutoring in Latin, and he said he thought you could take me on.”

“Possibly. Just dump those books on the seat there. What hours do you have free, Foster?”

“This hour in the morning and any time in the evening.”

“What about afternoon?”

“I’m trying for the football team and that doesn’t leave me much time afternoons. Still, I guess we’re usually through by five.”

Merriman shook his head. “I’d rather not waste my time and yours, Foster. Football practice doesn’t leave a fellow in very good trim for tutoring. Better say the evening, I guess. How would seven to nine do?”

“Two hours?” asked Myron startledly.