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"Young man, you've two years' work to enter."
"Just when," George asked, "does college open?"
"If the world continues undisturbed, in about two months."
"Very well. Then I'll do two years' work in two months."
"You've only one pair of eyes, my boy; only one brain."
George couldn't afford to surrender. He had arrived in Princeton the evening before, a few hours after leaving Oakmont. It had been like a crossing between two planets. Breathlessly he had sought and found a cheap room in a students' lodging house, and afterward, guided by the moonlight, he had wandered, spellbound, about the campus.
Certainly this could not be George Morton, yesterday definitely divided from what Old Planter had described as human beings. His exaltation grew. For a long time he walked in an amicable companionship of broader spaces and more arresting architecture than even Oakmont could boast; and it occurred to him, if he should enter college, he would have as much share in all this as the richest student; at Princeton he would live in the Great House.
His mood altered as he returned to his small, scantily furnished room whose very unloveliness outlined the difficulties that lay ahead.
He unpacked his suitcase and came upon Sylvia's photograph and her broken riding crop. In the centre of the table, where he would work, he placed the photograph with a piece of the crop on either side. Whenever he was alone in the room those objects would be there, perpetual lashes to ambition; whenever he went out he would lock them away.
How lovely and desirable she was! How hateful! How remote! Had ever a man such a goal to strain for? He wanted only to start.
Immediately after breakfast the next morning he set forth. He had never seen a town so curiously empty. There were no students, since it was the long vacation, except a few backward men and doubtful candidates for admission. He stared by daylight at the numerous buildings which were more imposing now, more suggestive of learning, wealth, and breeding. They seemed to say they had something for him if only he would fight hard enough to receive it.
First of all, he had to find someone who knew the ropes. There must be professors here, many men connected with this gigantic plant. On Nassau Street he encountered a youth, a little younger than himself, who, with a bored air, carried three books under his arm. George stopped him.
"I beg your pardon. Are you going here?"
The other looked him over as if suspecting a joke.
"Going where?" he asked, faintly.
George appraised the fine quality of the young man's clothing. He was almost sorry he had spoken. The first thing he had to do was to overcome a reluctance to speak to people who obviously already had much that he was after.
"I mean," he explained, "are you going to this college?"
"The Lord," the young man answered, "and Squibs Bailly alone know. I'm told I'm not very bright in the head."
George smiled.
"Then I guess you can help me out. I'm not either. I want to enter in the fall, and I need a professor or something like that to teach me. I'll pay."
The other nodded.
"You need a coach. Bailly's a good one. I'm going there now to be told for two hours I'm an utter ass. Maybe I am, but what's the use rubbing it in? I don't know that he's got any open time, but you might come along and see."
George, his excitement increasing, walked beside his new acquaintance.
"What's your name?" the bored youth asked all at once.
"Morton. George Morton."
"I'm Godfrey Rogers. Lawrenceville. What prep are you?"
"What what?"
"I mean, what school you come from?"
George experienced a sharp discomfort, facing the first of his unforeseen embarrassments. Evidently his simple will to crush the past wouldn't be sufficient.
"I went to a public school off and on," he muttered.
Rogers' eyes widened. George had a feeling that the boy had receded. It wasn't until later, when he had learned the customs of the place, that he could give that alteration its logical value. It made no difference. He had a guide. Straightway he would find a man who could help him get in; but he noticed that Rogers abandoned personalities, chatting only of the difficulties of entrance papers, and the apparent mad desire of certain professors to keep good men from matriculating.
They came to a small frame house on Dickinson Street. Rogers left George in the hall while he entered the study. The door did not quite close, and phrases slipped out in Rogers' glib voice, and, more frequently, in a shrill, querulous one.
"Don't know a thing about him. Just met him on the street looking for a coach. No prep."
"Haven't the time. I've enough blockheads as it is. He'd better go to Corse's school."
"You won't see him?"
"Oh, send him in," George heard Bailly say irritably. "You, Rogers, would sacrifice me or the entire universe to spare your brain five minutes' useful work. I'll find out what he knows, and pack him off to Corse. Wait in the hall."
Rogers came out, shaking his head.
"Guess there's nothing doing, but he'll pump you."
George entered and closed the door. Behind a table desk lounged a long, painfully thin figure. The head was nearly bald, but the face carried a luxuriant, carelessly trimmed Van Dyke beard. Above it cheeks and forehead were intricately wrinkled, and the tweed suit, apparently, strove to put itself in harmony. It was difficult to guess how old Squibs Bailly was; probably very ancient, yet in his eyes George caught a flashing spirit of youth.
The room was forcefully out of key with its occupant. The desk, extremely neat with papers, blotters, and pens, was arranged according to a careful pattern. On books and shelves no speck of dust showed, and so far the place was scholarly. Then George was a trifle surprised to notice, next to a sepia print of the Parthenon, a photograph of a football team. That, moreover, was the arrangement around the four walls—classic ruins flanked by modern athletes. On a table in the window, occupying what one might call the position of honour, stood a large framed likeness of a young man in football togs.
Before George had really closed the door the high voice had opened its attack.
"I haven't any more time for dunces."
"I'm not a dunce," George said, trying to hold his temper.
Bailly didn't go on right away. The youthful glance absorbed each detail of George's face and build.
"Anyhow," he said after a moment, less querulously, "let's see what you lack of the infantile requirements needful for entrance in an American university."
He probed George's rapid acquaintance with mathematics, history, English, and the classics. With modern languages there was none. Then the verdict came. Two years' work.
"I've got to make my eyes and brain do," George said. "I've got to enter college this fall or never. I tell you, Mr. Bailly, I am going to do it. I know you can help me, if you will. I'll pay."
Bailly shook his head.
"Even if I had the time my charges are high."
George showed his whole hand.
"I have about five hundred dollars."
"For this condensed acquisition of a kindergarten knowledge, or—or——"
"For everything. But only let me get in and I'll work my way through."
Again Bailly shook his head.
"You can't get in this fall, and it's not so simple to work your way through."
"Then," George said, "you refuse to do anything for me?"
The youthful eyes squinted. George had an odd impression that they sought beyond his body to learn just what manner of man he was. The querulous voice possessed more life.
"How tall are you?"
"A little over six feet."
"What's your weight?"
George hesitated, unable to see how such questions could affect his entering college. He decided it was better to answer.
"A hundred and eighty-five."
"Good build!" Bailly mused. "Wish I'd had a build like that. If your mind is as well proportioned——Take your coat off. Roll up your sleeves."
"What for?" George asked.
Bailly arose and circled the desk. George saw that the skeleton man limped.
"Because I'd like to see if the atrophying of your brain has furnished any compensations."
George grinned. The portrait in the window seemed friendly. He obeyed.
Bailly ran his hand over George's muscles. His young eyes widened.
"Ever play football?"
George shook his head doubtfully.
"Not what you would call really playing. Why? Would football help?"
"Provided one's the right stuff otherwise, would being a god help one climb Olympus?" Bailly wanted to know.
He indicated the framed likeness in the window.
"That's Bill Gregory."
"Seems to me I've seen his name in the papers," George said.
Bailly stared.
"Without doubt, if you read the public prints at all. He exerted much useful cunning and strength in the Harvard and Yale games last fall. He was on everybody's All-American eleven. I got him into college and man-handled him through. Hence this scanty hair, these premature furrows; for although he had plenty of good common-sense, and was one of the finest boys I've ever known, he didn't possess, speaking relatively, when it came to iron-bound text-books, the brains of a dinosaur; but he had the brute force of one."
"Why did you do it?" George asked. "Because he was rich?"
"Young man," Bailly answered, "I am a product of this seat of learning. With all its faults—and you may learn their number for yourself some day—its success is pleasing to me, particularly at football. I am very fond of football, perhaps because it approximates in our puling, modern fashion, the classic public games of ruddier days. In other words, I was actuated by a formless emotion called Princeton spirit. Don't ask me what that is. I don't know. One receives it according to one's concept. But when I saw in Bill something finer and more determined than most men possess, I made up my mind Princeton was going to be proud of him, on the campus, on the football field, and afterward out in the world."
The hollow, wrinkled face flushed.
"When Bill made a run I could think of it as my run. When he made a touchdown I could say, 'there's one score that wouldn't have been made if I hadn't booted Bill into college, and kept him from flunking out by sheer brute mentality!' Pardon me, Mr. Morton. I love the silly game."
George smiled, sensing his way, if only he could make this fellow feel he would be the right kind of Princeton man!
"I was going to say," he offered, "that while I had never had a chance to play on a regular team I used to mix it up at school, but I was stronger than most of the boys. There were one or two accidents. They thought I'd better quit."
Bailly laughed.
"That's the kind of material we want. You do look as if you could bruise a blue or a crimson jersey. Know where the field house is? Ask anybody. Do no harm for the trainer to look you over. Be there at three o'clock."
"But my work? Will you help me?"
"Give me," Bailly pled, "until afternoon to decide if I'll take another ten years from my life. That's all. Send that fellow Rogers in. Be at the field house at three o'clock."
And as George passed out he heard him reviling the candidate.
"Don't see why you come to college. No chance to make the team or a Phi Beta Kappa. One ought to be a requisite."
The shrill voice went lower. George barely caught the words certainly not intended for him.
"You know I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that fellow you brought me, if he had a chance, might do both."
In his room George opened his book and read happily. Never in his life had he been so relaxed and content. Entangled in the adventures of colourful characters he didn't hear at first the sliding of stealthy feet in the hall, whispered consultations, sly knockings at various doors. Then there came a rap at his own door, and he glanced up, surprised, sweeping the photograph and the broken crop into the table drawer.
"Come in," he called, not heartily.
A dozen young men crowded slowly into the room. They wore orange and black jerseys and caps brilliant with absurd devices. They had the appearance of judges of some particularly atrocious criminal. George had no doubt that he was the man, for those were the days just before hazing was frowned out of existence by an effete conservatism.
"Get up, you Freshman," one hissed. "Put on your hat and coat, and follow us."
George was on the point of refusing, had his hands half up in fact, to give them a fight; but a thrill entered his soul that he should be qualified as a victim of such high-handed nonsense which acknowledged him as an entity in the undergraduate world. He arose gladly, ready to obey. Then someone grunted with disgust.
"Come on. Duck out of here."
"What for? This guy looks fresh as salt mackerel."
"It's Morton. We can't monkey with him."
The others expressed disappointment and thronged through the door in search of victims more available. George became belligerent for an opposite reason.
"Why not?" he demanded.
The leader smiled in friendly fashion.
"You'll get all the hazing you need down at the field."
As the last filed out and closed the door George smiled appreciation. Even among the Sophomores he was spotted, a privileged and an important character.
The next morning, packed with the nervous Freshmen in a lecture room, he heard his name read out with the sections. He fought his way into the university offices to scan the list of conditioned men. He didn't appear on a single slip. He had even managed the easy French paper. He attended to the formalities of matriculating. He was free to play football, to take up the by-no-means considerable duties of the laundry agency, to make friends. He had completed the first lap.
When he reported at the field that afternoon he found that the Freshmen had a coach of their own, a young man who possessed the unreal violence of a Sophomore, but he knew the game, and the extra invective with which he drove George indicated that Stringham and Green had confided to him their hopes.
The squad was large. Later it would dwindle and its members be thrown into a more intimate contact. Goodhue was there, a promising quarterback. Rogers toiled with a hopeless enthusiasm. George smiled, appreciating the other's logic. It was a good thing to try for the team, even though one had no chance of making it. As a matter of fact, Rogers disappeared at the first weeding-out.
The opening fortnight was wholly pleasant—a stressing of fundamentals that demanded little severe physical effort. Nor did the curriculum place any grave demands on George. During the evenings he frequently supplemented his work at the field with a brisk cross-country run, more often than not in the vicinity of the Alston place. He could see the lights in the huge house, and he tried to visualize that interior where, perhaps, men of the Goodhue stamp sat with Betty. He studied those fortunates, meantime, and the other types that surrounded him. There were many men of a sort, of the Rogers sort particularly, who continually suggested their receptivity; and he was invariably courteous—from a distance, as he had seen Goodhue respond to Rogers. For George had his eyes focused now. He had seen the best.
The election of Freshmen class officers outlined several facts. The various men put up for office were unknown to the class in general, were backed by little crowds from their own schools. Men from less important schools, and men, like George, with no preparatory past, voted wild. These school groups, he saw, clung together; would determine, it was clear, the social progress through college of their members. That inevitably pointed to the upper-class club houses on Prospect Street. George had seen them from his first days at University Field, but until now they had, naturally enough, failed to impress him with any immediate interest. He desired the proper contacts for the molding of his own deportment and, to an extent even greater, for the bearing they would have on his battle for money and position after he should leave college. But it became clear to him now that the contest for Prospect Street had begun on the first day, even earlier, back in the preparatory schools.
Were such contacts possible in a serviceable measure without success in that selfish, headlong race? Was it practicable to draw the attention of the eager, half-blind runners to one outside the sacred little groups? Football would open certain doors, but if there was one best club he would have that or nothing. It might be wiser to stand brazenly aloof, posing as above such infantile jealousies. The future would decide, but as he left the place of the elections he had an empty feeling, a sharpened appreciation of the hazards that lay ahead.
Goodhue would be pointed for the highest. Goodhue would lead in many ways. He was elected the first president of the class.
The poor or earnest men, ignorant of everything outside their books, come from scattered homes, quite friendless, gravitated together in what men like Rogers considered a social quarantine. Rogers, indeed, ventured to warn George of the risk of contagion. As chance dictated George chatted with such creatures; once or twice even walked across the campus with them.
"You're making a mistake," Rogers advised, "being seen with polers like Allen."
"I've been seen with him twice that I can think of," George answered. "Why?"
"That lot'll queer you."
George put his hand on Rogers' shoulder.
"See here. If I'm so small that that will queer me, you can put me down as damned."
He walked on with that infrequently experienced sensation of having made an advance. Yet he couldn't quite see why. He had responded to an instinct that must have been his even in the days at Oakmont, when he had been less than human. If he didn't see more of men like Allen it was because they had nothing to offer him; nothing whatever. Goodhue had——
When their paths crossed on the campus now Goodhue nodded, for each day they met at the field, both certainties, if they escaped injury, for the Freshmen eleven.
Football had ceased to be unalloyed pleasure. Stringham that fall used the Freshmen rather more than the scrub as a punching bag for the varsity. The devoted youngsters would take punishment from three or four successive teams from the big squad. They became, consequently, as hard as iron. Frequently they played a team of varsity substitutes off its feet. George had settled into the backfield. He was fast with the ball, but he found it difficult to follow his interference, losing patience sometimes, and desiring to cut off by himself. Even so he made consistent gains through the opposing line. On secondary defence he was rather too efficient. Stringham was continually cautioning him not to tackle the varsity pets too viciously. After one such rebuke Goodhue unbent to sympathy.
"If they worked the varsity as hard as they do us Stringham wouldn't have to be so precious careful of his brittle backs. Just the same, Morton, I would rather play with you than against you."
George smiled, but he didn't bother to answer. Let Goodhue come around again.
George's kicking from the start outdistanced the best varsity punts. The stands, sprinkled with undergraduates and people from the town, would become noisy with handclapping as his spirals arched down the field.
Squibs Bailly, George knew, was always there, probably saying, "I kicked that ball. I made that run," and he had. The more you thought of it, the more it became comprehensible that he had.
The afternoon George slipped outside a first varsity tackle, and dodged two varsity backs, running forty yards for a touchdown, Squibs limped on the field, followed by Betty Alston. The scrimmaging was over. The Freshmen, triumphant because of George's feat, streaked toward the field house. Goodhue ran close to George. Bailly caught George's arm. Goodhue paused, calling out:
"Hello, Betty!"
At first Betty seemed scarcely to see Goodhue. She held out her hand to George.
"That was splendid. Don't forget that you're going to make me congratulate you this way next fall after the big games."
"I'll do my best. I want you to," George said.
Again he responded to the frank warmth of her fingers that seemed unconsciously endeavouring to make more pliable the hard surface of his mind.
"The strength of a lion," Bailly was saying, "united to the cruel cunning of the serpent. Heaven be praised you didn't seek the higher education at Yale or Harvard."
Betty called a belated greeting to Goodhue.
"Hello, Dicky! Wasn't it a real run? I feel something of a sponsor. I told him before college opened he would be a great player."
Goodhue's surprise was momentarily apparent.
"It was rather nice to see those big fellows dumped," he said.
Betty went closer to him.
"Aren't you coming out to dinner soon? I'll promise Green you won't break training."
The warm, slender fingers were no longer at George's mind. He felt abruptly repulsed. He wanted only to get away. Her eyes caught his, and she smiled.
"And bring Mr. Morton. I'm convinced he'll never come unless somebody takes him by the hand."
George glanced at her hand. He had a whimsical impulse to reach out for it, to close his eyes, to be led.
Heavy feet hurried behind the little group. A voice filled with rancour and disgust cried out:
"You standing here without blankets just to enjoy the autumn breezes? You ought to have better sense, Mr. Bailly."
"It's my fault, Green," Betty laughed.
"That's different," the trainer admitted, gallantly. "You can't expect a woman to have much sense. Get to the showers now, and on the run."
Goodhue and George trotted off.
"I didn't know you were a friend of Betty Alston's," Goodhue said.
George didn't answer. Goodhue didn't say anything else.
He thrust Squibs' uncomfortable prods from his brain. He applied himself to his books—useful books. Education and culture were more important to him than the physical reactions of overworked labour or the mental processes of men who advocated violence. Such distracting questions, however, were uncomfortably in the air. Allen, one of the poor men against whom the careful Rogers had warned him long ago, called on him one cold night. The manner of his address made George wonder if Squibs had been talking to him, too.
"Would like a few minutes' chat, Morton. No one worth while's in Princeton. It won't queer you to have me in your room."
No, George decided. That was an opening one might expect from Allen. The man projected an appreciable power from his big, bony figure; his angular face. George had heard vaguely that he had worked in a factory, preparing himself for college. He knew from his own observation that Allen wasn't above waiting at commons, and he had seen the lesser men turn to him as a leader.
"Sit down," George said, "and don't talk like an ass. You can't queer me. What do you want me to do—offer to walk to classes with my arm over your shoulder? There's too much of that sensitive talk going around."
"You're a plain speaker," Allen said. "So am I. You'll admit you've seen a lot more of the pretty crowd than you have of me and my friends. I thought it might be useful to ask you why."
"Because," George answered, "I'm in college to get everything I can. You and your crowd don't happen to have the stuff I want."
Allen fingered a book nervously.
"I came," he said, "to see if I couldn't persuade you that we have."
"I'm listening," George said, indifferently.
"Right on the table!" Allen answered, quickly. "You're the biggest poor man in the class. You're logically the poor men's Moses. They admire you. You've always been talked of in terms of the varsity. Everybody knows you're Princeton's best football player. The poor men would do anything for you. What will you do for them?"
"I won't have you split the class that way," George cried.
"Every class," Allen said, "is split along that line, only this class is going to let the split be seen. You work your way through college, but you run with a rich crowd, led by the hand of Driggs Wandel."
So even Allen had noticed that and had become curious.
"Wandel," Allen went on, "will use you to hurt us—the poor men; and when he's had what he wants of you he'll send you back to the muck heap."
George shook his head, smiling.
"No, because you've said yourself that whatever power I have comes from football and not from an empty pocket-book."
"Use all the power you have," Allen urged. "Come in with us. Help the poor men, and we'll know how to reward you."
"You're already thinking of Sophomore elections?" George asked. "I don't care particularly for office."
Allen's face reddened with anger.
"I'm thinking of the clubs first. What I said when I came in is true. The selfish men intriguing for Prospect Street don't dare be friendly with the poor men; afraid it might hurt their chances to be seen with a poler. By God, that's vicious! It denies us the companionship we've come to college to find. We want all the help we can get here. The clubs are a hideous hindrance. Promise me you'll keep away from the clubs."
George laughed.
"I haven't made up my mind about the clubs," he said. "They have bad features, but there's good in them. The club Goodhue joins will be the best club of our time in college. Suppose you knew you could get an election to that; would you turn it down?"
The angular face became momentarily distorted.
"I won't consider an impossible situation. Anyway, I couldn't afford it. That's another bad feature. If you want, I'll say no, a thousand times no."
"I wouldn't trust you," George laughed, "but you know you haven't a chance. So you want to smash the thing you can't get in. I call that vicious. And let me tell you, Allen. You may reform things out of existence, but you can't destroy them with a bomb. Squibs Bailly will tell you that."
"You think you'll make a good club," Allen said.
"I'll tell you what I think," George answered, quite unruffled, "when I make up my mind to stand for or against the clubs. Squibs says half the evils in the world come from precipitancy. You're precipitate. Thrash it out carefully, as I'm doing."
He wondered if he had convinced Allen, knowing very well that his own attitude would be determined by the outcome of the chance he had to enter Goodhue's club.
"We've got to make up our minds now," Allen said. "Promise me that you'll keep out of the clubs and I'll make you the leader of the class. You're in a position to bring the poor men to the top for once."
George didn't want to break with Allen. The man did control a large section of the class, so he sent him away amicably enough, merely repeating that he hadn't made up his mind; and ending with:
"But I won't be controlled by any faction."
Allen left, threatening to talk with him again.
George didn't sleep well that night. Squibs and Allen had made him uncomfortable. Finally he cleared his mind with the reflection that his private attitude was determined. No matter whom it hurt he was going to be one of the fortunates with a whip in his hand; but he, above most people, could understand the impulses of men like Allen, and the restless ones in the world, who didn't hold a whip, and so desired feverishly to spring.
He alone, as the squad dressed in the gymnasium, displayed no signs of misgiving. Here was the climax of the season. All the better. The larger the need the greater one's performance must be. But the others didn't share that simple faith.
He enjoyed the ride to the field in the cold, clear air, through hurrying, noisy, and colourful crowds. He liked the impromptu cheers they gave the team, sometimes himself particularly.
In the field dressing-room, like men condemned, the players received their final instructions. Already they were half beaten because they were going to face Yale—all but George, who knew he was going to play better than ever, because he was going to face one Yale man, Lambert Planter, with Sylvia in the stands. He kept repeating to himself:
"I will! I will!"
He laughed at the others.
"There aren't any wild beasts out there—just eleven men like ourselves. If there's going to be any wild-beasting let's do it to them."
They trotted through an opening into a vast place walled by men and women. At their appearance the walls seemed to disintegrate, and a chaotic noise went up as if from that ponderous convulsion.
George dug his toes into the moist turf and looked about. Sylvia was there, a tiny unit in the disturbed enclosure, but if she had sat alone it would have made no difference. His incentive would have been unaltered.
Again the convulsion, and the Yale team was on the field. George singled Planter out—the other man that Sylvia would watch to-day. He did look fit, and bigger than last year. George shrugged his shoulders.
"I will!"
Nevertheless, he was grateful for his week of absolute rest. He smiled as the crowd applauded his long kicks to the backs. He wasn't exerting himself now.
The two captains went to the centre of the field while the teams trotted off. Lambert came up to George.
"The return match," he said, "and you won't want another."
George grinned.
"I've heard it's the Yale system to try to frighten the young opponent."
"You'll know more about the Yale system after the first half," Lambert said, and walked on.
George realized that Lambert hadn't smiled once. In his face not a trace of the old banter had shown. Yale system or Yale spirit, it possessed visible qualities of determination and peril, but he told himself he could lick Lambert and smile while doing it.
At the whistle he was off like a race horse, never losing sight of Lambert until he was reasonably sure the ball wouldn't get to him. They clashed personally almost at the start. Yale had the ball, and Lambert took it, and tore through the line, and lunged ahead with growing speed and power. George met him head on. They smashed to the ground. As he hugged Lambert there for a moment George whispered:
"Nothing fantastic about that, is there? Now get past me, Mr. Planter."
The tackle had been vicious. Lambert rose rather slowly to his feet.
George's kicks outdistanced Lambert's. Once he was forced by a Princeton fumble, and a march of thirty yards by Yale, to kick from behind his own goal line. He did exert himself then, and he outguessed the two men lying back. As a result Yale put the ball in play on her own thirty-yard line, while the stands marvelled, the Princeton side demonstratively, yet George, long before the half was over, became conscious of something not quite right. Since beyond question he was the star of his team he received a painstaking attention from the Yale men. There is plenty of legitimate roughness in football, and it can be concentrated. In every play he was reminded of the respect Yale had for him. Perpetually he tried to spare his head, but it commenced to ache abominably, and after a tackle by Lambert, to repay him for some of his own deadly and painful ones, he got up momentarily dazed.
"Let's do something now," he pled with Goodhue, when, thanks to his kicks, they had got the ball at midfield. He wanted a score before this silly weakness could put him out. With a superb skill he went after a score. His forward passes to Goodhue and the ends were well-conceived, beautifully executed, and frequently successful. Many times he took the ball himself, fighting through the line or outside of tackle to run against Lambert or another back. Once he got loose for a run of fifteen yards, dodging or shaking off half the Yale team while the stands with primeval ferocity approved and prayed.
That made it first down on Yale's five-yard line. He was absolutely confident that the Yale team could not prevent his taking the ball over in the next few plays.
"I will! I will! I will!" he said to himself.
Alone, he felt, he could overcome that five yards against the eleven of them.
"Let's have it, Dicky," he whispered. "I'm going over this play or the next. Shoot me outside of tackle."
On the first play Goodhue fumbled, and a Yale guard fell on the ball. George stared, stifling an instinct to destroy his friend. The chance had been thrown away, and his head made him suffer more and more. Then he saw that Goodhue wanted to die, and as they went back to place themselves for the Yale kick, George said:
"You've proved we can get through them. Next time!"
Would there be a next time? And Goodhue didn't seem to hear. With all his enviable inheritance and training he failed to conceal a passionate remorse; his conviction of a peculiar and unforgivable criminality.
In the dressing-room a few minutes later some of the players bitterly recalled that ghastly error, and a coach or two turned furiously on the culprit. It was too bad Squibs and Allen weren't there to watch George's white temper, an emotion he didn't understand himself, born, he tried to explain it later, of his hurt head.
"Cut that out!" he snarled.
The temper of one of the coaches—an assistant—flamed back.
"It was handing the game on a——"
George reached out and caught the shoulders of that man who during the season had ordered him around. The ringing in his head, the increasing pain, had destroyed all memory of discipline.
"Say another word and I'll throw you out of here."
The room fell silent. Some men gasped. The coach shrank from the furious face, tried to elude the powerful grasp. Stringham hurried up. George let the other go.
"Mr. Stringham," he said, quietly, "if there's any more of this I'll quit right now, and so will the rest of the team if they've any pluck."
Stringham motioned the coach away, soothed George, led him to a chair, where Green and a doctor got off his battered headgear. George wanted to scream, but he conquered the brimming impulse, and managed to speak rationally.
"You've done all you can for us. We've got to play the game ourselves, and we're not giving anything away. We're not making any mistakes we can help."
Goodhue came up and gripped his shoulder. The touch quieted him.
"This man oughtn't to go back, Green," the doctor announced.
George stiffened. He hadn't made that score. He hadn't smashed Lambert Planter half enough. Better to leave the field on a stretcher, and in darkness again, than to quit like this: to walk out between the halves; not to walk back. He began to lie, overcoming a physical agony of which he had never imagined his powerful body capable.
"No, that doesn't hurt, nor that," he replied, calmly, to the doctor's questions. "Don't think I'm nutty because I lost my temper. My head's all right. That gear's fine."
So they let him go back, and he counted the plays, willing himself to receive and overcome the pounding each down brought him, continuing by pure force of will to outplay Lambert; to save his team from dangerous gains, from possible scores; nearly breaking away himself half-a-dozen times, although the Princeton eleven was tiring and much of the play was in its territory.
The sun had gone behind heavy clouds. A few snowflakes fluttered down. It was nearly dark. In spite of his exertions he felt cold, and knew it for an evil sign. Once or twice he shivered. His throbbing head gave him an illusion of having grown enormously so that it got in everybody's way. Instinctively he caught a Yale forward pass on his own thirty-yard line and tore off, slinging tacklers aside with the successful fury of a young bull all of whose dangerous actions are automatic. He had come a long way. He didn't know just how far, but the Yale goal posts were near. Then, quite consciously, he saw Lambert Planter cutting across to intercept him. The meeting of the two was unavoidable. He thought he heard Lambert's voice.
"Not past me!"
Lambert plunged for the tackle. George's right hand shot out and smashed open against Lambert's face. He raced on, leaving Lambert sprawled and clawing at the ground.
The quarterback managed to bring him down on the eight-yard line, then lost him; yet, before George could get to his feet others had pounced, and his heavy, awkward head had crashed against the earth again.
They dragged him to his feet. For a few moments he lurched about, shaking off friendly hands.
"Only five minutes more, George," somebody prayed.
Only five minutes! Good God! For him each moment was a century of unspeakable martyrdom. Flecks of rain or snow touched his face, lifted in revolt. The contact, wet and cold, cleared his brain a trifle—let in the screaming of the multitude, hoarse and incoherent, raised at first in thanksgiving for his run, then, after its close, altering to menacing disappointment and command. What business had they to tell him what to do? Up there, warm and comfortable, undergoing no exercise more violent than occasional excited rising and sitting down, they had the selfish impudence to order him to make a touchdown. Why should he obey, or even try? He had done his job, more than any one could reasonably have asked of him. He had outplayed Lambert, gained more ground than any man on the field, made more valuable tackles. Could he really impress Sylvia any further? Why shouldn't he walk off now in the face of those unjust commands to the rest he had earned and craved with all his body and mind?
"Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown! Morton! Morton! Morton!"
Damn them! Why not, indeed, walk off, where he wouldn't have to listen to that thoughtless and autocratic impertinence?
He glanced down at his blackened hands, at his filthy breeches, at his jersey striped about the sleeves with orange; and with a wave of self-loathing he knew why he couldn't go. He had sworn never to wear anything like livery again, yet here he was—in livery, a servant to men and women who asked dreadful things without troubling even to approximate the agony of obedience.
"I'll not be a servant," he had told Bailly.
Bailly had made him one after all, and an old phrase of the tutor's slipped back:
"Some day, young man, you'll learn that the world lives by service."
George had not believed. Now for a moment his half-conscious brain knew Bailly had been right. He had to serve.
He knocked aside the sponge Green held to his face. He indicated the bucket of cold water the trainer had carried out.
"Throw it over my head," he said, "the whole thing. Throw it hard."
Green obeyed. He, too, who ought to have understood, was selfish and imperious.
"You make a touchdown!" he commanded hoarsely.
The water stung George's eyes, rushed down his neck in thrilling streams, braced him for the time. The teams lined up while the Princeton stands roared approval that their best servant should remain on the job.
Goodhue called the signal for a play around the left tackle. Every Yale player was confident that George would take the ball, sensed the direction of the play, and, over-anxious, massed there, all but the quarter, who lay back between the goal posts. George saw, and turned sharply, darting to the right. Suddenly he knew, because of that over-anxiety of Yale, that he had a touchdown. Only the Yale quarterback had a chance for the tackle, and he couldn't stop George in that distance.
Out of the corner of his eye George noticed Goodhue standing to the right and a little behind. He, too, must have seen the victorious outcome of the play, and George caught in his attitude again that air of a unique criminal. They'd hold that fumble against Dicky forever unless—if Goodhue had the ball the Yale quarter couldn't even get his hands on him until he had crossed the line.
"Dicky!"
The dejected figure sprang into action. Without weighing his sacrifice, without letting himself think of the crime of disobeying a signal, of the risks of a hurried throw or of another fumble, George shot the ball across, then forged ahead and put the Yale quarterback out of the play, while Goodhue strolled across the line and set the ball down behind the goal posts.
As he went back to kick the goal George heard through the crashing cacophony from the stands Goodhue's uncertain voice:
"Why didn't you make that touchdown yourself? It was yours. You had it. You had earned it."
"It was the team's," George answered, shortly. "I might have been spilled. Sure thing for you."
"You precious idiot!" Goodhue whispered.
As George kicked the goal there came to him again, across his pain, that sensation of being on a road he had not consciously set out to explore. He wondered why he was so well content.
Eternity ended. With the whistle and the crunching of the horn George staggered to his feet. Goodhue and another player supported him while the team clustered for a cheer for Yale. The Princeton stands were a terrific avalanche descending upon that little group. Green tried to rescue him, shouting out his condition; but the avalanche wouldn't have it. It dashed upon him, tossed him shoulder high, while it emitted crashing noises out of which his name emerged.
Goodhue was up also, and the others. Goodhue was gesturing and talking, pointing in his direction. Soon Goodhue and the others were down. The happy holocaust centred its efforts on George. Why? Had Goodhue given things away about that touchdown? Anyhow, they knew how to reward their servants, these people.
They carried George on strong shoulders at the head of their careening procession. His dazed brain understood that they desired to honour the man who had done the giant's share, the one who had made victory possible, and he sensed a wrong, a sublime ignorance or indifference that they should carry only him. The victory went back of George Morton. He bent down, screaming into the ears of his bearers.
"Squibs Bailly! He found me. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have played to-day. Bailly, or let me down! Bailly made that run! I tell you, Bailly played that game!"
In his earnestness he grew hysterical.
Maybe it was because they wanted to humour the hero, or perhaps they caught his own hysteria, realizing what Bailly had done for him. They stopped in front of the stands to which Bailly's bad foot had condemned him during this triumphant march. They commenced a high-pitched, frantic chant.
"We want Squibs Bailly! We want Squibs Bailly! We want Squibs Bailly!"
George waved his hands, holding the column until the slender figure, urged by the spectators remaining in the stands, came down with difficulty and embarrassment to be caught and lifted tenderly up beside George.
Then, with these two aloft in the very front, the wild march was resumed through the Yale goal posts while Squibs' wrinkled face twitched, while in his young eyes burned the unsurpassable light of a hopeless wish miraculously come true.
About his return there was a compelling thrill. He drove from the station in one of the cheap automobiles that had made his father practically a pensioner of the Planters. With an incredulous appreciation that he had once accepted its horizon as the boundary of his life, he examined the familiar landscape and the scar made upon it by the village. Curtly he refused to satisfy the driver's curiosity. He had some business at the little house on the Planter estate.
There, through the nearly stripped trees, it showed, almost audibly confessing its debt to the Planter carpenters, painters, and gardeners. In a clouded light late fall flowers waved from masses of dead leaves. Their gay colours gave them an appearance melancholy and apprehensive.
Here he was back at last, and he wasn't going in at the great gate.
He walked around the shuttered house and crossed the porch where his father had liked to sit on warm evenings. He rapped at the door. Feet shuffled inside. The door swayed open, and his mother stood on the threshold. Most of the changes had come to him, but in her red eyes sparkled a momentary and mournful importance. At first she didn't recognize her son.
"What is it?"
George stooped and kissed her cheek.
"I'm sorry, Mother."
Instead of holding out her arms she drew away, staring with fascination, a species of terror, at his straight figure, at his clothing, at his face that wouldn't coarsen now. When she spoke her voice suggested a placating of this stranger who was her son.
"I didn't think you'd come. I can't believe you're George—my Georgie."
Over her shoulders in the shadowed house he saw the inquisitive faces of women. It was clear that for them such an arrival was more divertive than the sharing of a sorrow that scarcely touched their hearts.
George went in. He remembered most of the faces that disclosed excitement while fawning upon his prosperity. He received an unpleasant impression that these poor and ignorant people concealed a dangerous envy, that they would be glad to grasp in one moment, even of violence, all that it had taken him years of difficult struggle to acquire. Whether that was so or not they ought not to stand before him as if his success were a crown. He tried to keep contempt from his voice.
"Please sit down. I want to talk to my mother. Where——"
With slow steps she crossed the kitchen and opened the door of the parlour, beckoning. He followed, knowing what he would find in that uncomfortable, gala room of the poor.
He closed the door. In the half light he saw standing on trestles an oblong box altogether too large for the walls that seemed to crowd it. He had no feeling that anything of his father was there. He realized with a sense of helpless regret that all that remained to him of that unhappy man were the ghosts of such emotions as avarice, fear, and the instinct to sacrifice one's own flesh and blood for a competence.
"Why don't you look at him, George?"
"I don't think he'd care to have me looking at him now."
She wiped her eyes.
"You are too bitter against your father. After all, he was a good man."
"Why should death," he asked her, musingly, "make people seem better than they were in life? It isn't so."
"That's wicked. If your father could rise——"
His attention was caught by an air of pointing the oblong box had, as if to something infinitely farther than ambition and success, yet so close it angered him he couldn't see or touch it. His father had gone there, beyond the farthest horizon of all. Old Planter couldn't make trouble for him now. He was quite safe.
Over in Europe, he reflected, they didn't have enough coffins.
The oblong box for the first time made him think of that war, that was making him rich, in terms of life instead of dollars and cents. He felt dissatisfied.
"There should be more light here," he said, defensively.
But his mother shook her head.
He arranged a chair for her and sat near by while they discussed the details of her departure. She let him see that she shrank from leaving the house, against which, nevertheless, she had bitterly complained ever since Old Planter had got it. Evidently she wanted to linger in her familiar rut, awaiting with the attitude of a martyr whatever fate might offer. That was the reason people had to be helped, because they preferred vicious inertia to the efforts and risks of change. Then why did they want the prizes of those who had had the courage to go forth and fight? Why couldn't Squibs see that?
Patiently George told her she needn't worry about money again. She had a sister who years ago had married and moved West to a farm that was not particularly flourishing. Undoubtedly her sister would be glad to have her and her generous allowance. So his will overcame his mother's reluctance to help herself. She glanced up.
"Who is that?"