Quarter-Back Bates

“Blashington took mighty good care not to say anything about that twelve cents he owes me!”

CHAPTER V

“RUSTY”

Two busy days followed for Dick. Stanley was a great help, however, and getting settled into his stride was accomplished fairly easily. There was his adviser to see and his courses to arrange: he was required to take seven courses, one of them elective. For the latter he chose General History, not so much because he felt a hankering for such knowledge as the course afforded as because it entailed but two recitations a week. You see, he had to arrange so as not to have studies interfere too much with football! However, there seemed no danger of his not having enough school work, for, with History, his grand total was twenty-nine hours.

He passed his physical examination with flying colours and on Wednesday set to work with the football candidates. Of these there was a startling number, he thought. The field that afternoon was so thickly sprinkled with fellows of all sizes, shapes and degrees of experience that there was scarcely room to move about. Dick found himself simply one of many, doomed to go through with the usual routine of the beginner. At first he felt somewhat impatient and even peeved, but presently he decided to view the thing as a joke. They would very soon see that he belonged in an advanced squad, he thought, and meanwhile it wouldn’t do him any harm to practice the kindergarten stuff with the rookies.

The coach didn’t appear until Thursday, and when he came, Dick didn’t altogether approve of him. In the first place, Dick considered him too old: he looked to be every day of thirty-four or five. In the second place, Coach Driscoll lacked the good-natured, free-and-easy manner that Dick’s experience had associated with football instructors. He wasn’t bad looking, and he had very evidently kept himself in good physical trim, but, being so old, he would, Dick decided, be horribly behind the times and out-of-date. “Tod” Driscoll was a Parkinson graduate and a Yale man. At Yale, he had established an enviable reputation as a football player. He had been coaching at Parkinson for five years, Dick learned, and with success, for in that time the Brown-and-White had thrice triumphed over the Blue of Kenwood. And he was popular in spite of the fact that he was a very strict disciplinarian.

Dick found Captain Bob Peters more to his liking. Peters was a homely, tow-haired, snub-nosed chap built like a Greek athlete, with a smiling countenance and a clear, creamy-brown skin against which his grey-blue eyes looked startlingly bright. He was cheerful and light-hearted and yet could be very intense and very earnest on occasions. He played at right end on the team. Dick didn’t have any dealings with Captain Peters at this period, however, for a youth named Warden appeared to have control of his fortunes. Warden was a dark-complexioned, earnest fellow who never said an unnecessary word to the squad of beginners over whom he had been placed, and who worked very hard and conscientiously every minute. Dick thought he took himself and his duty a bit too seriously, but couldn’t help liking and respecting him.

Dick was rather surprised at the extremely earnest and business-like way in which football practice was conducted. There was so much system and everyone was so serious! Even the manager and his hard-working assistant appeared to have no thought in life beyond that of turning out a successful football team. Billy Goode, the trainer, alone seemed to be unaffected by the contagion of effort. Billy even found time for a laugh and a joke.

Naturally, Dick was especially interested in the quarter-back candidates. He got one of the fellows to point out Gus Stone to him, and was relieved to find that Stone didn’t look very wonderful. He was rather short and perhaps a bit heavier than the position demanded, although doubtless a week of work would remove some of the weight. There was also Cardin, a slighter and younger boy who had played the position on the Second Team last year. And there were a dozen others, Dick amongst them, who had declared their preference for the quarter-back job.

He saw Wallace Blashington now and then on the field or in the gymnasium, and Blash always spoke, but there was no further meeting until the following Saturday. By that time Dick had settled down into the routine of school life, and had decided that he was going to like Parkinson immensely and Stanley Gard even more. Dick had grown rather used to having other fellows wait on him, run his errands and make life easy for him in general. He had never consciously asked such service, but had received it as a tribute to popularity. But he was not getting it now. If he had expected Stanley to wait on him – and he didn’t know whether he had or not, but probably had! – he was doomed to disappointment. Stanley was the best-hearted chap in the world, but if one of Dick’s shoes had got away from him and taken up a temporary abode under Stanley’s bed, it was Dick who fished it out. Only once had Dick asked a service. Then, seated at his study desk, he had lightly suggested that Stanley should hand him a book that was lying on the radiator top near the window. Stanley was seated in a chair somewhat nearer the radiator than Dick, but there was no sound of movement and after a second Dick looked around inquiringly. Stanley was still seated and there was a quizzical grin on his countenance. After a somewhat blank stare, Dick arose and got the book. As he sat down again he said sarcastically: “Much obliged, Stan.”

Stanley chuckled. “Dick, you’ve been sort of spoiled, haven’t you?” he said.

“Spoiled? What do you mean? Just because I asked you – ”

“You’re one of those fellows who expect others to do things for ’em, and get away with it. Wish I knew the secret. But it isn’t good for you, Dick. You must learn to run your own errands, and whitewash your own fences. Any time you break a leg, I’ll fetch and carry for you, but while you’re able to get about – nothing doing! In fact, seeing that I’m an older resident of this place, I’m not certain you shouldn’t be fagging for me!”

“Oh, go to the dickens,” muttered Dick. “You make me tired.” Then, after a moment, he added: “Maybe that was cheeky, Stan. I’m sorry. Guess I’ve had it too easy.”

“That’s all right, son. It’s just as well to know where we stand, though. Any other little thing I can do for you?”

“Yes, you can close your silly mouth,” was the answer.

By Saturday Dick felt almost like an old boy. His courses promised to be only mildly difficult, and the instructors seemed a very decent lot, notably “Old Addicks” who knew so much of ancient languages that he looked like an elderly, benignant Greek philosopher, and Mr. McCreedy, who taught mathematics. Through Stanley he met a great many of the fellows, and he picked up a few acquaintances himself. Of these latter, one was “Rusty” Crozier. He was a Fourth Class fellow who preferred to live in the town, and occupied two comfortable rooms in a house on Maple Street, just below the school. He was a jolly, light-hearted chap with a perpetual smile and hair of that peculiar shade of red that we associate with rusted iron: hence his nick-name. Dick met him in classroom. “Rusty” borrowed Dick’s fountain pen for a minute. After class they came together in the corridor and walked a little way along The Front. That began it. When Dick asked Stanley if he knew Crozier, Stanley nodded.

“Everyone knows Rusty,” he said. “But if you want to tread the straight and narrow, Dick, keep away from him.”

“What do you mean? Isn’t he – all right?”

“Oh, yes, Rusty’s all right. That is, there’s nothing vicious about him. In fact, he’s a very decent, very clean fellow. But he’s gifted with a talent for discovering trouble. And a talent for squirming out of it! If he wasn’t he’d have left Parkinson long ago. I’d say that Rusty’s trouble was an over-developed sense of humor.”

“I rather liked him,” mused Dick.

“You would. So do I. Everyone likes Rusty. But wise guys say him nay when he suggests one of his innocent amusements. It was Rusty who closed traffic on Main Street in the middle of a busy Saturday one day last year, only faculty doesn’t know it.”

“Did what?” asked Dick.

“He borrowed two carpenter’s horses and a sign and placed ’em across the middle of Main Street, near School, about one o’clock one day last spring. He found the sign somewhere, I don’t know where. It said ‘Street Closed by Order of Selectmen.’ Then he went over and stood in Wiley’s drug store and watched the fun. It was almost an hour before they discovered that it was a hoax. The paper was full of it, and the selectmen made an awful rumpus, but everyone else thought it was a pretty good joke.”

“And he wasn’t found out!”

“No. At least a score of people must have seen him set the barrier up, but no two of them agreed as to what he looked like. Some said he was a labourer in blue overalls, and others said he was a tall man with whiskers, and so on. That’s just one of Rusty’s innocent ways of amusing himself.”

“But doesn’t he ever get caught?” asked Dick incredulously.

“Oh, yes, heaps of times, but he always manages somehow to show that he was actuated by good intentions or that circumstances worked against him. Like the time he dropped the parlour match heads all over the floor in Room G and every time anyone put his foot down, one of the things went pop! He showed Jud the hole in his pocket where the things had fallen out. If it hadn’t been for the hole, he claimed, it wouldn’t have happened. He got off with a month’s probation, I think.”

Dick laughed. “He must be a cut-up! Well, I’ll keep away from him when he feels frolicsome.”

“Trouble is,” said Stanley, “you never can tell when Rusty is going to spring something.” He smiled and then chuckled. “Three or four of us walked over to Princeville two years ago to the circus. It was one of those little one-ring affairs, you know, with a mangey camel, and a moth-eaten lion and a troop of trained dogs. It was rather fun. Rusty was one of us, and he was as quiet as a mouse until near the end. Then he began flicking peanuts at the ring master. We tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t quit. Every time the ring master turned his back, Rusty would land a peanut on him, and the crowd got to laughing and gave it away. So they hustled us all out, and we didn’t see the performing dogs. Has he asked you over to his room at Spooner’s?”

“Yes,” said Dick, suspiciously. “Is there any trick in that?”

“Oh, no,” answered Stanley, smilingly. “He has very jolly quarters. If you like we’ll go over together some evening.”

“All right. Only I don’t like that catfish grin of yours. I suppose he has a trick staircase that folds up and lets you down in a heap or something?”

“No. Rusty’s fun is pretty harmless. We’ll wander over there tonight if you like.”

“Well, but I’m going to keep my eyes open just the same,” Dick laughed “You’re too anxious to go along, Stan!”

That afternoon Dick found a letter in the rack downstairs. It bore the Warne postmark, and was addressed to him in a very dashing hand: “Richard C. Bates, Esq., Sohmer Hall, Parkinson School, Town.” Wondering, Dick opened the envelope. Within was an oblong of pasteboard punched with three holes of varying sizes. In one of the holes was an ancient looking cent so badly corroded that it was hard to read the lettering. Dick’s thoughts naturally fell on Rusty Crozier, although what the joke meant, he couldn’t make out. But he smiled and dropped the coin in a waistcoat pocket, and presently forgot about it. Returning from football practice at five, however, he found another missive awaiting him. The envelope was different and the writing different, but there was just such another coin-card within and in the card was a second penny. This one was bright enough, but it had been badly bent. Dick, puzzled, added the second coin to the first, resolved to find out the meaning of the prank that evening.

He and Stanley went across the campus and down Maple Street about eight. Spooner’s was a large, square house standing almost flush with the sidewalk. Like many of the residences thereabouts, its upper floors were tenanted by students unable or disinclined to secure rooms on the campus. Stanley pulled open a squeaky screen door and entered. At the foot of the staircase, he paused and lifted his voice.

“Oh, Rusty!” he shouted. “Rusty-y-y!”

Somewhere above a door opened and a voice answered.

“A-a-ay! Come up!”

Stanley led the way again up two flights, and then to a door at the front of the house. Oddly enough, it was closed tightly, which fact, since it had been opened a moment before, struck Dick as peculiar. Stanley knocked and a voice called “Come in!” Somehow Stanley managed to get behind Dick, and it was Dick who turned the knob and pressed the door inward. The next instant he was precipitated into a glare of light. The knob had jerked itself out of his hand, and something – he supposed at the moment the something to have been Stanley – had banged against his heels and pushed him violently into the room. He stopped to find himself asprawl over an armchair with a placard bearing the word WELCOME a few inches from his nose.

“Good evening,” said Rusty amiably from across the room.

“Hello,” gasped Dick. Then he looked back at the door for Stanley. Stanley was not there. But at the instant the door opened again and Stanley appeared. He was grinning broadly, but Dick was too much interested in the door to see it. The door was not opening like any door Dick had ever seen. In the first place it was turning on pivots at top and bottom, half of it coming in, and half of it going out, so that the aperture for entrance was scarcely wider than Stanley. In the second place, Stanley was holding hard to that knob and being fairly dragged through, for above the sill and below the lintel was a coiled spring that, so soon as the knob was turned, swung the door swiftly on its axis from left to right. Dick stared in surprise.

“Just a little idea of my own, Bates,” said Rusty, coming forward and removing the placard from the back of the chair to a place on the wall. “Have a chair.”

Dick looked from the proffered chair to Rusty and then to Stanley and shook his head. “No, thanks,” he muttered. “I’ll stand!”

However, Stanley assured him on oath that the chair was quite safe and wouldn’t double up under him and he consented to try it, although not without anxiety. But he was up again a moment later, demanding to be shown the working of the amazing door.

“Quite simple,” laughed Rusty. “First I unlock it, thus. Then I stand clear of it. Then the unsuspecting visitor outside turns the knob.” He turned it from the inside, stepping quickly out of the way, and the door leaped open, swung once around and stopped as the latch snapped again into its socket. “That’s all there is to it. I place the cushioned chair here to receive the caller and place the ‘Welcome’ sign where he will be sure to see it. Most all the fellows know about it now, though, and I have to rely on newcomers like you, Bates, for a bit of fun.” He locked the portal again.

“Well, but – but suppose you want to go out?” asked Dick.

“I go out the other door.” Rusty indicated the adjoining bedroom. “In fact,” he added with a twinkle, “I seldom use this entrance myself. I keep it locked until I am expecting a distinguished visitor.”

“Still, I don’t see how you knew I was with Stan,” Dick objected.