FOR eight innings Northfield had been pecking away, only to have rally after rally die just when it seemed that runs were about to be scored. The score-board, fastened to one wall of the shack that served as a dressing house, read: Monroe, 5; Northfield, 3. And so when Northfield came in to take her ninth inning turn at bat, a dozen or more students began to worm their way out through the crowd. One stopped for a moment to call back over his shoulder:
"Coming, Praska?"
"I think I'll wait," George Praska answered calmly, "and see Northfield win."
The student went off grumbling. "That's the worst of being president of the Northfield Student Congress," he complained. "Even if the team hasn't a chance you're expected to stick around to the finish."
But Praska was not staying there as a matter of duty. He expected the Northfield nine to win. He had a faith in the school as certain as it was sublime. Northfield was never beaten, he told himself, until the last man was out—and usually not then.
Out on the diamond the Northfield coachers were entreating the boy at the plate for a hit. The pitcher, superbly confident, floated a slow curve toward the plate.
"Strike one!" ruled the umpire.
"Take your time," barked the coacher at first base. "Only takes one to give it a ride. Use your eye, old man."
The batter's eye ordered him to offer at the next pitch. He met the ball, and it rose weakly in the air. The pitcher was under it when it came down.
"Out!" ruled the umpire.
Another Northfield boy was at the plate. The pitcher, studying him, decided to try an inshoot. The ball broke in too far, and plunked into the batter's ribs. A din of sudden hope broke from the Northfield rooters as he trotted down to first, rubbing his side.
"We're off," cried Praska. "Now there, Littlefield, show us an old-time hit. Come on. Lit. Right into it."
Littlefield hitting savagely, drove the first ball far into right field. The boy on first raced all the way to third, and when the outfielder threw home to cut him off should he try to score, Littlefield romped down to second.
Praska had grown hoarse. "Now we're got this game where we want it. Here's your chance, Chan. Crack into one and make Northfield happy."
Chanler, the little second baseman, was crouched at the plate, nervously fidgeting the toe of his left shoe along the ground. The pitcher, so confident a moment before, now looked worried. Twice he shook his head in answer to the catcher's signals, and when he did hurl the ball the pitch was wild.
"Look out!" shrilled the coachers.
Chanler dropped to the ground. But his bat, trailing back over his shoulder, got in the way of the ball. The unexpected shock of the meeting twisted the bat from his hand. The ball popped into the air and fell gently a few feet in front of the plate.
The coachers had become madmen. "Up Chan! Run it out. Fair ball. Come to life!"
Chanler scrambled to his feet and dashed for first. The Monroe infield, momentarily upset, shrilled orders, pleas and advice. The catcher, stumbling as he jumped forward, went off balance and was out of the play. The pitcher, racing in, snapped up the ball with one hand and had a vision, out of the corner of his eyes, of the Northfield runner on third trying to score. He wasted a precious moment deciding that the runner on third was only trying to rattle him and had already swung about and run back to the bag.
"First!" roared the catcher. "Great Scott, throw it. Throw it!"
The pitcher threw, and the throw was high over the first baseman's frantic hands.
A yell of triumph came from Praska. "O-o-o-o-h! Look at that!"
The boy on third had scored, Littlefield had romped to third, and Chanler, rising out of a cloud of dust, was brushing his uniform at second. The score was now 5-4, with the tying run and the winning run waiting to come over the plate.
"Tuttle's up," someone shouted. Slowly—slowly—the crowd became silent. Tuttle was the weakest hitter on the team. Yet, as he strode out swinging two bats, the cheering broke out again as though the students fully expected him to win the game. It was Northfield spirit!
Something, though, was happening on the bench. A boy sprang out and called aloud. Tuttle paused and came back. And now another boy stepped out, bent heavy football shoulders and found a bat, and then came limping to the plate. Even before the umpire could cry "Hammond now batting for Tuttle" the spectators were in an uproar. Boys were telling each other that Hammond hadn't played since he twisted his ankle in a practice game five days ago sliding home on a home run hit. "Home Run Hammond" they called him now, and called it in a swelling chorus that had the fervor of a prayer—just as in the fall they called him "Thunderbolt Hammond."
Hammond, at the plate, was easing himself into position.
"He's favoring that bad leg," Praska thought in a panic. "If the leg should pain him when he goes for the ball, if the pain should throw him off on his swing—"
"They only want Ham to send a fly to the outfielders," a voice said behind Praska, "so that the tying run can score. He'd never be able to run out an infield hit."
"If he does hit to the infield and if Lit is thrown out at the plate" another voice began.
"Sure, Ham will be doubled at first and the game will be over."
Praska's hands began to sweat. The pitcher threw the ball. Hammond hopped away on one leg.
"Strike!" ruled the umpire.
"Fooled on an out curve," muttered Praska.
The pitcher threw again. The catcher put up his mitt for the ball—but the ball never reached the glove.
Hammond swung. It seemed that bat and ball met on a line. There was a whistling sound, a streak of white, hopeless outfielders running with their backs to the diamond, and a pitcher standing with drooping shoulders, crushed. Littlefield and Chanler scored. Hammond, limping and hopping, went down the first-base path. One of the fielders had overtaken the ball; but even as he turned to throw it one of Hammond's feet touched the first-base bag and a shriek of jubilation broke from Northfield throats.
Ten minutes later victory still was in the air. It was in the bearing of the wave upon wave of students who poured up from the ball field. It was in the cheers that sounded from the diamond where part of the crowd waited for the team to emerge from the dressing house. It was in the set of Praska's shoulders as he fell into step beside a man and walked with him back toward the heart of the town.
"Quite a game, wasn't it?" Mr. Banning asked. "I was watching you. I thought, at one time, that you were going to throw away your hat."
"I felt like throwing something," Praska laughed. "That was a finish, wasn't it?"
"There's always a thrill to a good finish," said the man.
"It takes fighting spirit to make a good finish," the boy said gravely, and with a feeling of pride. After all, it was his school that had made it.
The man walked on in silence, as though some phrase the boy had used had plunged him into contemplation. And yet, when Praska looked up at him questioningly, his eyes seemed to reflect a gentle smile.
"The fighting spirit for a good finish," he repeated. "I'm glad you said that, George. Does it mean that you've changed your mind about the State University?"
Praska flushed. "No, sir. I—I don't think it's a question of fighting spirit. Other fellows have worked two-thirds of their way through; I could do that. But there's so much to be done in the world. I want to get out and begin to do my share. I don't have to go to the University to make a good finish."
He said it with conviction; and yet, somehow, it sounded like a question and not a statement of fact.
"It all depends," Mr. Banning said slowly, "upon what the good finish is to be a part of. You'll graduate from high school late this month. Your job, thus far, has been education. If you want to make a good job of that, your road leads straight to the University."
The boy's chin became stubborn. "That's one kind of good finish. I'm thinking of another kind. I mean a good finish to the job of doing something. I want to get out and tackle the things that are waiting to be done. Four years more of study seems like four years more on the sidelines."
"And yet," said Mr. Banning, "I knew a man who waited three years on the sidelines, and then went out and won the biggest game of the year. It really wasn't three years on the sidelines—it was three years of studying, and watching, and thinking, and learning how."
The boy shook his head. His mental processes were slow. He felt that he was being entangled in a labyrinth of words, worsted not by logic but by language. Mr. Banning understood his silence. "You can't quite see it, can you?"
"No," the boy said honestly.
"I didn't expect you to—right away. Go back to the campaign the school made for the athletic field. The school wanted advice. It needed somebody to show it the way to success. Out of all its graduates you went to Carlos Dix. Why?"
"Carlos Dix had done things."
"Right! Carlos Dix had done things. Carlos Dix had gone through the State University."
"He had done more than that, sir. His campaign speeches, his trials in the law courts"
"Yes; after the University had prepared him by putting him on the track of accomplishment."
They were in the heart of Northfield now, and before them was the bank building in which the lawyer had his office. Suddenly Mr. Banning put his hand on Praska's shoulder.
"George, whatever decision you come to finally, you want to make sure it's the right one. Isn't that so?"
"Yes, sir."
"You ought to talk this over with Carlos Dix. Won't you do that?"
The boy hesitated, and in his indecision there was something of confusion.
"There isn't any reason why you wouldn't want to talk this over with him, is there?" the teacher asked in surprise.
"I'll talk with him," said Praska. In view of the question, it's nearness to the truth, he felt that there was nothing for him to do but to promise.
But days passed, and he did not go to the bank building that housed the lawyer's office. He meant to make the visit, and yet he found slight and obscure reasons to put it off. In the end it was Carlos Dix who called the school and had him summoned to the telephone.
"I've been expecting you," the lawyer said. "Mr. Banning told me you were headed this way for a debate. When will you be along?"
Praska's reply was vague.
"Make it this afternoon. I'll be out of town all next week. I'll be waiting for you about four o'clock."
Four o'clock found Praska walking listlessly into the bank building. Yes, the school had called upon Carlos Dix and the lawyer had responded—but out of that response had come to the boy only anguish of soul. Once Praska had carried the lawyer enshrined in his heart. The things he did had seemed to be the promptings of a loyalty that was still, after many years, true to Northfield High. But the shrine of late, had become a tottering ruin.
In a dull, numbing sort of way Praska had grown used to the thought that Carlos Dix was not the fine, unselfish Carlos Dix he had thought him. But yet another thought ate and ate at all the ideals of faith and service his deep and sensitive nature had built up. The dull numbness was for Carlos Dix, the man; the ever-present ache was for Carlos Dix, the Northfield graduate. The boy had built a picture of Northfield alumni holding to their school as citizens held to their country. One line of the school hymn ran: "Thy stalwart sons forever true"—and to him the words stood for something real and vital. With a boy's ardor for passionate devotion he gave of his soul to Northfield High. He reasoned now, as he had reasoned before, that there was nothing wrong in Carlos Dix working for Mr. Ballinger and for Northfield; but Bristow had driven home the belief that to Carlos Dix, Mr. Ballinger's interests had come first. And, to Praska, that was akin to sacrilege.
The lawyer's hand gripped his with a pressure that was firm and sincere. "Where have you been keeping yourself? Fine thing, isn't it, for one veteran of Northfield's fight for a field to drop out of touch with another? What's bothering you? Final exams?"
Praska shook his head. "I want to go to work and Mr. Banning thinks I ought to go to the State University."
Twice the lawyer stole a glance at the boy. "If I get too personal, George, why just head me off. I want to dig into this thing. Is it finances?"
"No, sir. I'd have to work only part of my way; I could do that."
"Tired of study?"
"No. I" His face flushed. "I want to play a man's part, and a man's part is out in the world. A college man is just an older schoolboy. Big things are happening all around, and there he is in college out of it all, just like one of the audience at a play."
"And yet," Carlos Dix said gently, "about eighty per cent. of the leaders in America to-day are college men. College years can't be wasted years, George, if they turn out leaders."
All that lay behind that thought slowly worked its way through Praska's mind. For the first time his own assurance was shaken.
"You're like a sprinter," the lawyer went on, "who's trying to beat the starter's gun. It can't be done. It brings a penalty, and the penalized sprinter is handicapped."
Praska's face had sobered. The telephone on Carlos Dix's desk rang, and the lawyer took the receiver from the hook. The boy paid no attention to the conversation that followed. A sprinter trying to beat the gun! He could understand that. He sat staring at the desk, at its legal looking envelopes, a few scattered papers, a brownish slip of paper— His eyes grew round and wide. He had not meant to read anything there, but unconsciously his gaze had photographed that brownish slip. It was a check. He swung his head away, but the photographic vision persisted. It was a check made payable to Carlos Dix for $1500—and the name signed to it in a heavy, easy-read hand was that of Mr. B. B. Ballinger.
The interruption of the telephone had broken the thread of discussion. When the lawyer presently swung around to the boy, Praska's chin was again squared and set. The man seemed to feel a vague hostility. Somehow, to go on arguing now seemed futile. There was a period of constrained silence.
"Well," the lawyer said, "we don't have to settle this to-day. There's another point, though: when you go out from Northfield, you'll wear the Northfield stamp. Your success or your failure will be, in some respects, a Northfield success or failure. You owe it to yourself to equip yourself for success, and you owe it to Northfield. If you won't think of yourself, George, think of the school. Northfield demands your best. Northfield will be satisfied with nothing less."
And in Praska's mind, as he listened, was a satiric picture of that $1500 check. B. B. Ballinger's money—for what? Was that Carlos Dix's idea of giving Northfield one's best—or one's second best! To the boy, at that moment, all this talk of school loyalty seemed a string of empty, shallow words.
He brooded the matter all the way home. The evening newspaper lay on the front porch flung there by the carrier as he passed. Praska carefully strove to undo it without tearing, from the mysterious, tight-binding fold which carriers somehow achieve; then he smoothed out the front page, his hands moving absently. And there, for the second time that afternoon, his eyes were caught by words for which he had not looked. One quick survey of the headlines, and he started feverishly to read the story:
According to rumors, graduates of the Northfield High School are raising a fund that will be used in some way for student advancement. According to one report the graduates, in celebration of the athletic field victory, will donate the money to the school as a fund for the support of athletics.
B. B. Ballinger, the real estate man, is said to be the largest contributor. His profits on the land he owns which the town will buy as part of the athletic field site, will run about $1500. It is reported that Mr. Ballinger has already turned this sum over to Carlos Dix, who is acting as treasurer of the fund. Mr. Dix declined to-day to deny or affirm the rumors.
Praska lowered the newspaper and leaned weakly against the door; his little world had suddenly gone topsy-turvy with conflicting emotions.
Next morning he found Bristow waiting for him outside the school. The editor had lost his aggressive self-confidence and was frankly troubled and ill at ease.
"Did you read that story in last night's paper?" he demanded.
Praska nodded.
"I—I've made a mess of things, I guess. I've thought some rotten things about Carlos Dix and Mr. Ballinger. I was sure they were working together just to sell those lots to the city, and all the while they were Northfield graduates working for Northfield."
"We both thought it," Praska said quietly.
"No." Bristow, honest in denunciation of himself, would not have it so. "You believed in Carlos Dix. I kept hammering away at you until I got the idea of double dealing planted in your mind. Remember that night we heard him and Mr. Ballinger whisper something about 'putting it over?' Something tells me he wasn't talking about the lots; he was talking about the fund. That's what he and Carlos Dix were putting over. I feel as though I ought to go down to his office, tell him I've been a fool, and eat dirt."
"Not that," Praska cried in alarm.
"No," Bristow said after a silence. "He doesn't know what we've been thinking, and he'd only be hurt. Once I had though of taking a little dig at him in the Breeze. Gosh, doesn't it make you feel good to know that Northfield has graduates like that!"
"'Thy stalwart sons forever true,'" Praska's thoughts ran, and he smiled as he walked with the editor into the building. The shrine again stood clean and whole. Carlos Dix was the Carlos Dix he had thought him. Some day he, too, might be able to come back to Northfield and offer service. The vision thrilled him.
The corridors and stairways hummed with excited speculation. Praska, as he entered the main doorway, was besieged by eager questioners. Did the Northfield Congress know anything about this fund? He shook his head, and pushed his way past them, and went up to Room 13.
There fresh clamor greeted him. All attempts to wheedle information from Mr. Banning, Perry King said, had failed.
"There's something in the wind, though," Perry told him excitedly. "Mr. Banning won't deny that Northfield graduates have started a fund, but he won't say a word about what the fund is for. What do you make of that?"
Praska didn't know what to make of it.
"Quick! Mr. Banning's trying to attract your attention. Maybe he's going to tell you something."
But when Praska went forward to the teacher's desk, Mr. Banning asked: "Have you seen Carlos Dix?"
"Yes, sir."
The teacher's eyes asked a question. Slowly Praska shook his head; and the teacher sighed under his breath.
"I'm sorry," was all he said. "I suppose that's your final verdict?"
Praska nodded. The same tenacity, the same doggedness, the same deliberate finality that made him slow to form opinions, made him slow to change them. Carlos Dix was rehabilitated in his estimation . . . and instead of that fact's driving home harder what the lawyer had said, it served only to strengthen the course on which he had decided. Work itself had at first lured him; now it was work with Carlos Dix that beckoned him with glamour and promise. Carlos Dix might advise college; and yet, if he asked it, if if he waved college away, he thought that Carlos Dix would take him into his office. Twice he had heard the man say that he would soon have to get a clerk. The salary, of course, would be very small, but that struck the boy as of slight moment. He would read law with a zealousness that would win approval. In the glow of Carlos Dix's companionship he would drink in legal knowledge. Eventually he would pass his bar examinations. Other men had done it who had not passed years at college—Lincoln, for instance. In the rapture of the bright pictures his fancy created, the State University became something hazy and remote.
He welcomed the start of final examinations. They marked the last step that need be taken before he progressed to the great outside world. Hammond and Littlefield moaned over the "stiffness" of the papers, Perry King breezily set them down as "easy stuff," but Praska slowly plowed his way through them prepared to do the best he could. Thursday afternoon the ordeal was over. He left the school and debated on the sidewalk whether to go down at once and ask Carlos Dix about that job. In the end he decided to wait until the examination marks were announced. If he stood as high as he hoped it would be that much easier to induce the lawyer to take him in.
Next day, with examinations over, the school fell into a backwater of relaxation. Praska spent a good part of the morning reading "Moby Dick," Herman Melville's absorbing story of the sea and the search for the white whale. At noon, as he prepared to go to the cafeteria, he noticed a new leather traveling bag under Mr. Banning's desk.
"All ready for vacation, sir?" he asked.
The teacher smiled. "A different sort of vacation; no bass fishing this time. I'm going down to New York for a summer extension course at Columbia University—a series of lectures on world politics. You know, George, there was a time when a man could be born in the back woods, study law in a prairie law office, and rise to a place of power. Lincoln did it. But that day is past. For one thing, what affects Europe affects us. Steam and electricity, submarines and aeroplanes, have made the Atlantic Ocean little more than a mighty river. Some people will want us to try some of Europe's theories. If they're sound we want them. But we can't afford to make mistakes, because mistakes in government are too costly. I'm going down to New York to get a line on questions that every real American ought to know something about."
"I see, sir," said the boy, soberly.
In the cafeteria he ate with a preoccupied air. Mr. Banning, with all his knowledge, going down to New York to study problems that America might some day have to face! The wonder of it grew upon him—and then the wonder ceased. He knew the man . . . If one wanted to exercise wisely and carefully his duties as a citizen He forgot his food and stared with un seeing eyes across the room.
By and by he left the cafeteria. On the stairs an excited figure halted him.
"Something's happening upstairs about the fund," Perry King said hoarsely.
"Fund?" Praska's mind was on something else.
"You know—the fund that the graduates are raising. There's a meeting of some kind in the principal's office. Carlos Dix is there, and Mr. Ballinger, and a dozen others. Gosh! I'd like to know what's going on to-day."
Praska wasn't interested even in that. Two words ran through his mind—carefully and wisely. He went upstairs without taking thought of where his steps led him. Suddenly voices roused him from his abstraction. He was outside Mr. Rue's office. He saw Carlos Dix; and at that moment the lawyer saw him and came out to the hall.
"George," the man demanded abruptly, "how; about that talk we had? Have you changed your mind?"
"Yes, sir." The boy spoke slowly. "I'm going to the State University. If I don't go I can't be the kind of American citizen I want to be."
There was a moment of silence. Then;
"I'm glad you saw it in time," Carlos Dix said. The men in the principal's office were beginning to find seats around a long library table. Abruptly the lawyer walked into the meeting room and closed the door behind him.
The graduation exercises were held on one of those hot, hushed humid nights that sometimes find their way into the last week of June. The ushers, tip-toeing up and down the side aisles, had long ago opened the auditorium windows to their full. In front of the platform the school orchestra waited patiently for the signal that would sound the school hymn as an exit march. On the stage, near the center of the first row of graduates, Praska held his diploma in one hand and tried hard not to screw up his face as a maddening, tickling drop of perspiration rolled slowly down his nose.
"I feel," Perry King groaned, sotto voice, "as though my collar were melting and running down my back. Mr. Rue is going to speak. I guess this is the end."
But the principal merely introduced Carlos Dix who, he said, would speak for "the Northfield Alumni."
"The influence of a good school," began Carlos Dix, plunging directly into what he had to say, "does not end with graduation. Northfield has written something unforgettable into the lives of those of us who have gone forth from its doors—something that brings us back with a keen desire to serve and to inspire service."
He paused for a moment. Praska drew a quick, short breath and leaned forward.
Carlos Dix went on, speaking with a simple boyishness that somehow carried him close to his listeners: "I haven't felt so important," he said, with a sudden flashing grin, "since my brothers used to send me to call the other kids to come and help. The Northfield Alumni have sent me to-night to call to the students of Northfield to come and help-out in the world.
"To pave the way for your coming, we offer you the newly established Northfield Alumni Public Service Scholarship. Every graduate in town and all whom we could reach out of town have contributed to the fund that makes this scholarship possible—and they have contributed gladly. In some cases, the young fellow who gave five dollars was giving far more than the older man who gave five hundred, but they both wanted to give."
Again Praska drew a quick, short breath. This was Northfield spirit.
"There is $7,000 in this scholarship fund," Carlos Dix continued. "It will yield between four and five hundred dollars a year. And that income is to go annually toward paying the freshman college expenses of that Northfield graduate of the current year who has given the most outstanding service to his school community—who has proved himself Northfield's cleanest, hardest-fighting politician.
"The fellow, or girl, who has been such a politician in school is the one most likely to develop into that kind in later life. That is why each year we shall start such a graduate in training. America needs politicians of the right type."
A hush had fallen on the crowd. Perry's hand came over and clutched Praska's arm.
"Remember that the Public Service Scholarship is a permanent institution," Carlos Dix was saying. "The announcement of the winner is to become a regular part of the commencement program. This year, of course, only the faculty has known about it in advance," he interpolated apologetically. "We alumni are rather like kids; we wanted the fun of springing it on the students to-night."
A ripple of laughter ran over the audience, and there was a spatter of hand-clapping.
Carlos Dix stopped it with a quick gesture. "One minute!" he said. "I have been instructed to announce the name of the member of this graduating class who has won the scholarship for the coming college year."
Again the hush fell. Praska's brain was racing. It would be Perry, of course. Perry, by his work on the Safety Committee, had ended the laxness about open lockers. Perry, by his courage, had faced down Rig Jim Fry's rowdyism and had ended disorders in the corridors. Yes, it would be Perry.
Carlos Dix's voice rang out clear in the silence as he turned to the class on the platform: "The Alumni Committee on Scholarship, assisted consciously by the faculty and unconsciously by many different members of the student body, has made a careful study of the service that you have given to Northfield. We have come to the unanimous decision that the Northfield Alumni Public Service Scholarship should go this year to one whom all declare Northfield's cleanest, hardest-fighting politician—George Praska."
A storm of applause broke out. Praska shook himself. His mind had slipped. He was sure of that. He was imagining things. He And then Perry's elbow was in his ribs.
"It's you, you nut," Perry was saying hoarsely. "Wake up. Who else would get it but you?" He saw Carlos Dix coming across the stage toward him with outstretched hand, the first to offer him congratulations.
The next five minutes were the minutes of a dream. Never thereafter was he able to tell all that happened or what he did. One picture alone survived in his memory: his father's face back there in the audience flushed and working with emotion, and his mother smiling and wiping her eyes.
And then he was off the stage, with Perry pounding his back, and Bristow clinging to one arm, and Betty Lawton telling him breathlessly how glad she was. One by one, after a time, the class departed and the clamor died away. There was opportunity for a quiet moment with Mr. Rue.
"Many men have gone out from Northfield," the principal said, "but none has left here marked with greater promise. Live up to it, my boy; live up to it."
"I'll try to," Praska said humbly. He went to the cloakroom. Mr. Banning and Carlos Dix stood there talking.
"You had a majority of the committee with you from the start," the lawyer told him. "A few held off. They thought that your attitude toward college discounted much that you had done. When I informed them you had decided to work through the State University because you thought good citizenship demanded it, they all came over to you at once. Have you any plan—got any idea as to what you'd like to be?"
"I'm going to study law."
"Will you come into my office when you're ready?"
"Yes, sir. I intended to ask you to take me in." He reached for his coat. Mr. Banning's voice halted him.
"George, how did you come to change your mind about college?"
"You changed it for me."
"I? I thought I had failed in that."
"I guess everybody failed for a while. But when you told me why you were going to New York this summer, I began to see things straight. If all the education you had would not make you the kind of American you want to be, then a high school course would not make me the kind I want to be."
A spark, a flame, leaped to Mr. Banning's eyes. Some day, in the future, the boy would come to understand it. He would know it for the joy of the dreamer who had made another see the dream—the rapture of the apostle who had led a human soul to the light.
The end