Quarter-Back Bates

CHAPTER I

THE DEPARTURE OF A HERO

It cannot be truthfully said that Dick Bates was overwhelmingly surprised when he reached the railroad station that September morning and found fully a score of his schoolmates assembled there. Wally Nourse had let the cat out of the bag the day before. Wally was one of those well-meaning but too talkative youths such as we have all met. But Dick played the game perfectly this morning, descending from the carriage – Mr. Bates was one of the very few persons left in Leonardville who could afford an automobile and still drove horses – with an expression of questioning surprise. He realized that too much surprise would suggest that he knew the assemblage was there to do him honour; and if, as some said, Dick was conceited, at least he was always careful not to seem so.

Mr. Bates handed the lines to Hogan, the coachman, who had ridden in the back seat surrounded by Dick’s luggage, and followed his son to the platform with a satisfied smile on his seamed, good-humoured countenance. It pleased him that this younger son of his should be popular and sought after. To a certain extent he accepted it as a compliment to himself. Dick was already surrounded by the little throng of high school boys and girls – for the gentle sex was well represented, too – and his father heard him telling them in that pleasant, rather deep voice of his how unsuspected and undeserved it all was. Mr. Bates wasn’t deceived, however. Dick had confided to him on the way from the house that there might be a few of the fellows there to see him off. Instead, he chuckled to himself. “You can’t beat him at the diplomatic stuff,” he thought proudly. Then his smile faded. “Wonder if he isn’t a little too good at it!” Then Doris Ferguson had spied him and was clinging to his arm and telling him how mean and horrible he was to let Dick go away and leave them, and the other girls, seven in all, were chiming in, and everyone was talking at once. And that pleased Mr. Bates, too, for he liked Doris and, having no daughters of his own, wished he had a girl just like her. He patted her hand and beamed down at her from his six-foot height.

“Now don’t you take on so, young lady. Just you remember you’ve still got me. Course, I can’t play one of those half-portion banjos like Dick can, but I’m just as nice as he is other ways!”

Sumner White had drawn Dick apart. Sumner was this year’s football captain, and the other boys, watching and trying to appear not to be, felt that words of weight and wisdom were being exchanged over there by the baggage-room door, and wouldn’t have interrupted for worlds. What Sumner was saying just then may have contained wisdom, but certainly wasn’t very weighty.

“If you run across any real good plays or wrinkles, Dick, I wish you’d put me on, eh? I guess they play pretty near college football at Parkinson, and you know how it is here. If Murphy ever had a new idea he’d drop dead! Of course I wouldn’t give anything away. You can trust me to keep mum, old chap.”

“Why, yes, I will, Sum, if I can. But I may not get near the team, you know. I guess they have a raft of corking good players at Parkinson, and – ”

“Oh, pickles!” jeered Sumner. “I guess they won’t have so many good quarters that you’ll be passed up! Bet you anything you’ll be playing on the Parkinson team before you’ve been there a week! Gee, I sort of wish you weren’t going, Dick. It’s leaving us in a beast of a hole. Say, honest, do you think Rogers could ever learn?”

“I think Sam’s the best we – the best you’ve got, Sum. All he needs is a whole lot of work. Of course you can try Littleton if you like, but you know my opinion of him.”

“Ye-es, I know. But Sam’s so blamed dumb! Gee, you have to use a sledge to knock anything into – There’s your train, I think. She whistled down by the crossing. Well, say, Dick old scout, I sure wish you the best of luck and everything. You’re going to make us all mighty proud of you, or I miss my guess! We’ll all be rooting for you, you know that. Well, guess the others’ll want to say good-bye. Wish you’d drop me a line some time, eh? I’ll write, too, when I get a chance. But you know how it’s going to be this fall, with a lot of new fellows to break in and Murphy away more’n half the time, and – ”

“Sure, Sum, I know, but you’ll get by all right. I wish I could be here when you play Norristown, but I suppose I’ll be busy myself. So long!”

After that there was much confusion. Wade Jennings shoved a package tied with blue and white ribbon, the high school colours, into Dick’s hands and tried to make the presentation speech he had been practising for two days. But everyone talked at once, the train came thundering in, and his stammers were drowned in the tumult. Dick had to shake hands all around, darting across the platform at the last moment to say good-bye to Hogan, and then listening to his father’s final instructions as to tickets and changing at Philadelphia. A grinning porter took charge of his luggage and Dick followed him up the car steps and from the platform smilingly surveyed the laughing crowd below. Afterwards it came to him that Wally Nourse had been the only one who had looked really sorry, that the others were merely merry and excited! Of course he excepted his father. Poor old dad had really looked quite down at the mouth when, pursued by the high school cheer, the train had pulled out. Tommy Nutting, true to the last to his rôle of school jester, had blown kisses from the summit of a baggage truck, and Doris Ferguson had pretended to wipe tears from her eyes. The rest was a confused memory.

Dick found his seat in the parlour car and watched the frayed and tattered hem of Leonardville disappear: the brick-yards, the carpet factory, the blocks of monotonous, square, lead-hued houses of the operatives, the tumble-down quarter known as Povertyville, and then, at last, the open country still green and smiling. His last glimpse was of the slender steeple of the Baptist church, white above the old elms around it. He changed his straw hat for a light-weight cap and opened a magazine he had tossed into his bag at the last moment. Then, however, his eyes fell on the ribboned package and he picked it up eagerly. The next moment he remembered his neighbours up and down the aisle and so he pretended to suppress a yawn as he struggled with the entwined ribbons. When the covering was off he found a pair of silver-backed military brushes hidden amidst much rustling white tissue and a folded sheet of paper. The brushes weren’t half bad, and although he already had a pair, he made up his mind to use them. The message read: “To Richard Corliss Bates from his friends and fellow-members of the L. H. S. M. C.” Then followed some thirty names, the complete roster of the High School Musical Club, and, in a lower corner, in Wade Jennings’ uncertain writing, the further message: “There wasn’t time to have them marked, but they’ll do it the first time you come home.”

Dick was pleased in a complacent way. The brushes were nicer, in better taste than he had expected they would be. Of course he had known they were coming: trust Wally for that! But even if Wally hadn’t talked, Dick would have expected a gift of some sort. He was the sort who got gifts, not through any effort of his, but because folks liked him and seemed to want to do things for him. He never went out of his way to gain popularity. He didn’t have to. But he enjoyed it thoroughly, and, having known it for some time, had become to regard it as his right. Today, the silver brushes pleased him not because of their value, which, after all, wasn’t great, but because they stood as a further tribute to his popularity.

Dick was seventeen, the right height for his age, slender in a well-muscled, athletic way, and undeniably good-looking. His features were regular, with a rather high forehead and a well-cut straight nose. His eyes were brown, a warm brown that held a suggestion of red, and matched his hair. He had a fair complexion with plenty of healthy colour in the cheeks. It was one of the few sorrows of his life that he didn’t tan readily, that he had to go through a beastly period of sunburn and peeling skin before he could attain a decent shade of brown. He seemed unaware of his personal attractions, whether he was or not, and his smile, which was not the least of them, won where mere good looks failed. He always stood high in his class, for he learned easily. He had a gift for music and could play any instrument at least passably after a surprisingly short acquaintance. He had a pleasant speaking voice and sang an excellent tenor on the school Glee Club. But it was perhaps in the less polite pursuits that he excelled. He had a record of ten and two-fifths for the hundred yards and had done the two-twenty under twenty-four. He was a fair high-jumper, usually certain of third place in the Dual Meet. In the water he was brother to a fish. He had played baseball one season not at all badly and could fill in at basket ball if needed. But, when all is said, Dick’s line was football. He had played two years on the High School Team at quarter-back. Last year he had been offered the captaincy without a dissenting voice and had refused it, announcing, what he had kept a secret until then, that he was leaving at the end of the school year, and nominating Sumner White. That Sumner was promptly elected was a further proof of Dick’s popularity, for ordinarily Sumner would scarcely have been thought of. As a football player Dick was really brilliant. He had a collection of fourteen epistles, which he was not averse to showing to close friends, from as many preparatory schools and smaller colleges urging him to consider their advantages to a person of his scholastic attainments. Parkinson School, however, was not represented in that collection, perhaps because Parkinson was too far away for his fame to have reached it. Dick had chosen Parkinson for the completion of his preparation for college only because his brother Stuart had graduated from there some five years before. Stuart had talked of Parkinson so much that Dick felt that he knew the school and that he was certain to like it. He might have entered two years ago, but had chosen to remain at the high school until he could go to the preparatory school with a fair chance of making the football team. He believed now that the time had arrived. Although he had belittled his chances in conversation with Sumner White, secretly Dick entertained few doubts of his ability to make the Parkinson team.

He was entering the Third Class and had been assigned a room in Sohmer Hall. Brother Stuart had advised Sohmer, since it was the newest of the dormitory buildings, and Dick had made application the year before. To his regret, he had not been able to get a room to himself, but the fact didn’t trouble him greatly. In fact he recognised certain advantages accruing from a room-mate. Who that person was to be he had not yet learned.

His train reached Philadelphia at a few minutes before eleven and he had just time to buy a morning paper before the New York Express left. He didn’t waste much time on the front page of the journal, soon turning to the football and athletic news. A hair-breadth connection in New York put him on the last lap of his journey, and, after a deliberative meal in the diner and the perusal of one story in the magazine, it was time to gather his luggage together. The train slid into Warne at three-fifty, and Dick, not a little excited under his appearance of perfect calm, alighted.

CHAPTER II

“WASHINGTON P. QUIGGLE”

Stuart had instructed him so thoroughly that Dick knew just which way to turn in order to find a conveyance to carry him to the school, but Stuart had spoken of carriages and Dick found nothing but chugging “flivvers” manned by eager and noisy youths to whom he hesitated to entrust his life. Automobiles, he presumed, had arrived since Stuart’s time. Dick remained so long in doubt that, almost before he knew it, all but one of the throbbing taxies had found their loads and gone rattling off over the cobbles. He made his way to the remaining conveyance quickly then, but not so quickly as to reach it first. A boy a year or so older already had a hand on the door when Dick arrived.

“Goss, Eddie,” Dick heard the boy say. “And don’t spare the horses!”

But Eddie, who Dick had earlier decided was the least attractive of the half-dozen drivers, was not losing any chances.

“Yes, sir! Parkinson School? Step right in. The gentleman inside won’t mind. What building, sir?”

“Sohmer,” answered Dick. And then, to the occupant: “Mind if I go along?” he asked. “This seems to be the only taxi left.”

“Not a bit. The more the merrier! Besides,” he continued as the car shot away from the platform with a jerk, wheeled suddenly to the left and dashed headlong over the cobbles, “it makes for economy. They put the fare up last spring. It would have cost me a half if I’d gone alone. By the way, are you in a great hurry?”

“Why, no,” answered Dick.

“Well, I am.” He leaned toward the open window in front. “Take me to Goss first, Eddie,” he directed.

He was a tall, rather thin and very long-legged youth with a nose that matched the other specifications, and a pair of blue-grey eyes that, in spite of their owner’s grave and serious expression, seemed to hold a twinkle of amusement or perhaps of mischief. He had placed a very battered suit-case before him on the floor of the car and now put his feet on it, settled to the small of his back and turned a look of polite inquiry on Dick.

“My name’s Quiggle,” he said, “Washington P. Quiggle.” He made a feeble motion toward a pocket. “I haven’t a card with me, I fear. I have, believe me, no desire to thrust my acquaintance on you, but since Fate has thrown us together like this – ” He paused apologetically.

“That’s all right,” said Dick. “Very glad to meet you. My name is Bates.” He smiled. Rather to his surprise Washington Quiggle didn’t smile back. Instead, he put his head a bit on one side and seemed to regard Dick speculatingly.

“Showing the teeth slightly,” he murmured. At least, that’s what Dick thought he said, but as there was no sense in the remark, perhaps he was mistaken.

“I beg pardon?”

“Oh, did I speak?” asked Quiggle. “A lamentable habit of mine, Mr. Bates, unconsciously giving utterance to my thoughts. A habit inherited from my grandfather on my mother’s side. Most annoying at times and likely to lead to an erroneous impression of my mentality. And speaking of my grandfather, a most worthy and respected citizen in spite of the misfortune that overtook him in his later years: I refer, of course, to the loss of his mind, accompanied, or should I say superseded, by homicidal mania; speaking of him, then, suppose I relieve myself of my portion of the expenses of this placid journey, thus.” He dug a hand into a trousers pocket and produced a twenty-five cent piece which he handed to Dick. “It will save time and – I was about to say money – and trouble if you will settle with Edward for us both. I thank you.”

“Of course,” murmured Dick. By now he was rather hoping that Goss Hall would be reached before his companion’s perfectly evident insanity took a violent turn! For there was no doubt in Dick’s mind but that Mr. Washington P. Quiggle was what in the everyday language of Leonardville was known as a “nut.” Quiggle had closed his eyes and appeared to be on the verge of slumber, and after a moment’s concerned observation of him Dick turned his gaze to the town through which the car was speeding. The cobbles had given place to asphalt and while Quiggle’s choice of the word “placid” was not entirely justified, at least the car was running much more quietly and far more smoothly. There were some decent looking shops on each side of the street and a fairly imposing office building occupied one corner of the street into which the taxi suddenly and disconcertingly turned. The lurch may have brought momentary consciousness back to Quiggle, for his eyes opened and closed and he remarked quite distinctly:

“Hard a lee! Man the water-butt! Aye, aye, sir!”

A pleasant wide thoroughfare opened to view right and left at the end of a block, and Dick caught sight of attractive houses set back from the street and lawns and gardens between. Then, without diminishing it’s twenty-five-miles-an-hour speed, the taxi dashed between two stone gate posts and scurried up a gravelled road bisecting a wide expanse of level turf. Trees grew on each side, but between them Dick had occasional glimpses of the school buildings which, for the most part, were spaced along the further side of the campus. Parkinson Hall he recognised readily from the picture in the school catalogue, a white marble edifice surmounted by a glassed dome, but which was Sohmer he wasn’t certain. Having crossed the width of the campus, the taxi swerved perilously to the right in front of Parkinson and dashed on until, with a sudden and unexpected application of the brakes, the driver brought it to a tottering stand-still before the entrance of a brick building. The jar aroused Quiggle and he sat up.

“Ah! Home again as we perceive! Back to the classic shades of our dear old Alma Mater!” he exclaimed as he opened the door on his side by the pressure of one bony knee against the handle and seized his bag. “Mr. Bates, I sincerely trust that we shall meet again. Should you care to pursue the acquaintance so – so – dare I say – fortunately brought about, you have but to inquire of any resident of this palatial dwelling in order to learn of my place of abode. I’d tell you the number of my room were it not that, owing to an inherited weakness of memory, I cannot at the moment recall it. Eddie, the gentleman within will pay your outrageous charge.”

“Yeah, I know, but – ”

“Edward,” interrupted Quiggle sternly, “the gentleman has my fare and will deliver it to you with his own. Drive on!”

After a moment of indecision and muttering, Edward drove on. Looking back through the rear window of the car, Dick saw Quiggle wave grandly, beneficently ere, bag in hand, he disappeared into Goss.

There was another turn, again to the right, and once more the car stopped. “Here you are, sir,” announced the driver. “Sohmer Hall. You’ll excuse me if I don’t take your bag in for you, but we ain’t allowed to leave the car.”

“That’s all right,” said Dick, emerging. “Here you are.” He held forth a half-dollar. The driver observed it coldly and made no effort to take it. “Quit your kiddin’,” he said.

“Well, that’s all you’ll get,” replied Dick warmly. “That’s the legal fare.”

“It is, eh? Say, where do you get that stuff? Listen, kid. The fare’s fifty cents a person, seventy-five for two. Get me?”

“What! Why, that other fellow said it was – Anyway, he gave me a quarter for his share of it!”

The driver nodded wearily. “Sure he would! That’s him all over. You’re lucky he didn’t stick you for the whole racket. Come across with another quarter, young feller!”

Grudgingly, Dick did so. “If you knew Quiggle was that sort – ” he began aggrievedly.

“Who?” asked the driver, a grin growing about his mouth.

“Quiggle. The fellow you left at Goss Hall. I say, if you knew – ”

“His name ain’t Quiggle,” jeered the driver. “Gee, that’s a peach! Quiggle! What do you know about that?”

“What is his name then?” demanded Dick haughtily.

“His name’s – Well, it ought to be Slippery Simpson, but it ain’t!”

Whereupon there was a deafening grinding of gears, a snort, and the “flivver” swung about on two wheels and went charging off.

Dick looked after it disgustedly and then, taking up his suit-case, mounted the steps of Sohmer.

“I’ll Quiggle him when I catch him!” he muttered. “Fresh chump!”

In consequence of the episode, Dick reached his room on the second floor decidedly out of sorts. He didn’t mind being cheated out of twelve or thirteen cents, but it disgruntled him to be made a fool of. He wasn’t used to it. At home no one would have though of attempting such a silly trick on him. He experienced, for the first time since leaving Leonardville, a qualm of apprehension. If Quiggle, or whatever his silly name really was, was a fair sample of the fellows he was to meet at Parkinson, the outlook for being treated with the respect that he was accustomed to was not at all satisfactory. Unconsciously he had journeyed to Warne under the impression that his appearance at school would be hailed with, if not excited acclaim, at least with measurable satisfaction. And here the first fellow he had run across had played a perfectly rotten joke on him! Dick’s dignity was considerably ruffled.

Number 14 proved to be a corner study, but not on the front. It wasn’t a bad room, Dick decided a bit patronisingly, and the view from the windows was satisfactory. On one side he looked across a bit of the campus and over to the wide street that was lined with gardens and lawns: Faculty Row it was called, although Dick didn’t know it then. From the other window he saw a tree-shaded, asphalt-paved road and one or two old-fashioned white dwellings beyond, and a corner of a square brick building set at a little distance just inside the grounds. That, unless he was mistaken, was the Administration Building, and he must go there shortly and register.

Dick turned to the alcove bedroom divided from the study by curtains. There were two single beds there, two dressers and two chairs, and a single window gave light. Also, on one of the beds was an open suit-case, its contents tumbling over onto the white counterpane. One battered end showed the initials “S. G.” Dick wondered if the S stood for Sam. Approaching footsteps in the corridor turned his eyes toward the door, but the steps stopped at a room across the way. There followed the sound of a bag dropped to the floor and then the opposite door banged shut. Dick, back in the study, viewed it without enthusiasm. It was smaller than he liked and the furniture, while there was plenty of it – two small study tables, each under its own side-light, what he mentally dubbed a “near-leather” couch, two easy-chairs and two straight-backed chairs – was very evidently far from new. There was a faded blue carpet-rug on the floor and a short window-seat occupied the embrasure that held the end window. The original colour-scheme had been brown and blue, but the deep tan cartridge paper had faded, as had the alcove curtains and the rug. Here and there, on the walls, a square or oblong of a deeper shade showed where a picture had hung.

Dick had left the hall door ajar and now he was aware of much noise and bustle throughout the building. Doors in the various corridors opened and shut, voices called, someone further along the hall was singing, while, outside, a taxi chugged before the entrance. Dick put his hat on and went out, passing several new arrivals on the way and exchanging with them swiftly appraising glances. The Administration Building stood only a few rods away and Dick’s business was soon attended to, for only a half-dozen or so were before him. Having paid his term bill and inscribed his name on a card that was handed him, he was given a booklet containing the school regulations and general information, a receipt for his money and a ruled card on which to schedule his recitations. Beside the door was a bulletin board and he paused to read some of the notices posted there. There was a reception to new students that evening at the Principal’s residence, a half-year course in geometrical drawing would be conducted by Mr. McCreedy for First and Second Class students and those wishing to sign on should notify him by Saturday, Mr. Nolan would not be able to see students in his advisory capacity until Thursday, subscriptions to The Leader could be left at the office here or at the room of the publication, and so on. But the notice that interested Dick most ran as follows:

“Candidates for the First Football Team should report on the field, dressed to play, not later than Wednesday. Attention is called to the school regulation requiring the candidate to pass a satisfactory physical examination before joining the squad.

Outside, Dick pulled the booklet from his pocket and sought information regarding physical examinations. He found a whole page on the subject. It was necessary, it appeared, to go to the Physical Director’s office in the gymnasium and make application for an appointment. Students failing to keep appointments promptly were required to make new ones. There was much more, but that was sufficient for the present, and Dick made his way back along the road to the gymnasium. Inside, he had to take his place in a line of nearly a dozen boys, and progress toward the wicket, behind which a youth not much older than Dick supplied information or made out appointment cards, was slow. Eventually, though, Dick reached the window, made known his wants and was given a slip of pasteboard which informed him that the Physical Director would see him at five-fifteen on Wednesday. That was the day after tomorrow. It looked to Dick as if he could not report for football until he had been passed by the Physical Director and could not be passed by the director until it was too late to report for football! Perhaps, however, that notice in the Administration Building didn’t mean quite what it said. He would ask someone when he found the chance.