ENTRY NO. VII
TWO BOYS FROM BUCKFIELD
When Harding was in the city he purchased a huge golf bag, the most wonderful assortment of clubs imaginable, also two golf suits and a bewildering array of shirts, caps, scarfs, shoes and other articles that some dealers assured him were necessary for the proper playing of the game.
"If I have got to play this fool game, and I suppose there is no way I can get out of it," he said to me, looking down disdainfully at his knickerbockered legs and taking an extra hitch on his new leather belt, "I may as well have the regulation uniform. How do I look?"
I told him the suit was very becoming. He was a sight! On his huge, bushy head was a Scotch cap, and it is certain that no clan stands sponsor for that bewildering plaid. The silk shirt was a beauty, but it did not harmonise with the burning red of his coat, with its cuffs and collar of vivid green.
His trousers were of another plaid, but I should say that his stockings were the dominating feature of his make-up. They were of green and gray, the stripes running around instead of up and down, the effect being, of course, to emphasise the appearance of stoutness. When you pull a thick stocking or legging over an eighteen-inch calf you have done something which compels even those who are near-sighted and blasé to sit up and give attention.
Harding's feet are of generous proportions, and his tan shoes with their thick, broad soles armed with big spikes to keep him from slipping looked most impressive.
He was the personification of newness. The leather of his bag was flawless, and the grips of his clubs were new and glossy. The steel and nickel of his iron clubs shone without one flaw to dim their lustre. In the pocket of his bag were a dozen new balls, so white and gleaming that it seemed a shame to use them. I could see that the art collection of balls being made by Miss Dangerfield would take on a boom from the advent of Harding.
"Tell you what I want to do, Smith," said Harding, as we stood on the veranda of the club house, early this forenoon. "I want to find some place where I can soak a ball as far as I can and not have it stopped by a hill or a brook, or something like that. I haven't been over this place yet, but isn't there some smooth, level place where a ball would naturally roll a quarter of a mile or so if you hit it good and hard?"
"The eighteenth hole is six hundred and thirty-two yards—one of the longest in the country," I said, "and it is smooth as a barn floor after you carry the railroad tracks. That is a long carry, and most players go short and take the tracks on their second shot."
"Six hundred odd yards," he mused. "Let's see; over a third of a mile, eh?"
I said that it was, and a par hole in six.
"Anybody ever drive it yet?" he asked.
"Drive it?" I repeated, laughing. "Well, I should say not! I have reached the green in three only twice in all the times I have played it, and am well satisfied to be there in four."
"That proves nothing to me," he said, looking me over, "but you're a pretty husky-appearing chap at that. You're nearly six feet, aren't you, Smith?"
"A quarter of an inch more than six feet in my stockings," I said.
"And how much do you weigh?"
"One hundred and eighty-five."
"You'd ought to be able to drive a ball farther than you do," he said, with the air of one who had mastered the game in all its details. There is not a man in the club who can consistently out-drive me, and I'll wager that Kirkaldy himself cannot average ten yards more than I do, but what was the use of arguing with Harding?
It was easy to see that this magnate actually believed that his first stroke at a golf ball was no accident, and was confident that with a little practice he could far surpass that terrific drive of two hundred and seventy yards. But though I well knew what was coming to him I held my peace.
I asked Kirkaldy if he had ever known of a happening similar to Harding's now famous drive. He said he could not recall when a duffer had reached so great a distance, but it was not unusual for a husky novice to drive a few good balls before he began to attempt an improvement of a natural, but of course crude, stroke.
"But," I asked Kirkaldy, "how did Harding manage to drive it so far?"
"Strength and luck, mon," said our Scotch professional, "the more luck. It war th' same as when ye won a match with me by makin' th' last three holes in less than bogy. Luck, mon, is yer truest friend."
I think Kirkaldy is right.
"I never like to take up a thing unless it is difficult," said Harding, as we started for the eighteenth tee. "I like to do the things other men say cannot be done, and without blowing my own horn I have done a few of them. I am fond of work, but when I play I play with all my might. The boy who is not a good player will never make a good worker. You take a boy who is playing baseball, for instance. I can watch a game among youngsters and pick out those who are likely to win out later on in life."
"How?" I interrupted.
"By the way they go at it. The one who covers the most ground on a ball field will cover the most ground later on in whatever he undertakes. The one who plays to win, who takes chances even at the risk of making errors is the coming man. The boy who sits down in the out-field, on the theory that a ball is not likely to come in his direction, will be poor all his life. The boy who plays an unimportant position as if his very existence depended upon it will get along all right, and don't you forget it. But this golf game is so simple that it does not call on a man to let himself out. Billiards is my game. Billiards is a game of endless possibilities, and no matter how well a man plays there is always room for improvement."
That made me mad, and I resented this assertion the more for the reason that I once held the same views as he then expressed. I went right at him.
"When you have played as many games of golf as you have of billiards," I said, and I play a fair billiard game myself, "you will not mention them in the same breath. Let me assure you, Mr. Harding, that golf is the most difficult game in the world, and you have only the slightest conception of what you must master before you can play more than an indifferent sort of a game."
He smiled indulgently.
"What is there hard about it?" he demanded. "In billiards, for instance, you—"
"You play billiards on a table which is not more than five feet by ten," I broke in, "and you play golf on a table which may cover two hundred acres of hills, woods, marshes, ponds, brooks, and meadows. You play billiards in a room which is always at about the same temperature, and where there is not a breath of air stirring. You play golf out-of-doors, where it may be one hundred in the shade or far below freezing; under conditions of perfect calm, or with winds ranging all the way from a zephyr to gales from every point of the compass."
"There is something in that," he admitted, "but you need not get mad about it, Smith."
"Your billiard table is always the same," I continued. "It consists of the cloth and four cushions, and they are smooth as art can make them. Your golf course is never the same on any two days, and would not be if you played through all eternity. Sometimes the grass in a certain place is long, and sometimes it is short; sometimes it is thick, and again it is thin; sometimes the ground is hard from lack of rain, and again it is soft and spongy from an excess of rain. There are millions of variations in these conditions, and every one of them must be considered in making a perfect shot."
"Yes, I suppose that is so," he admitted, and I could see I had started him thinking.
"There are days when the air is light," I went on, "and when a certain stroke will send the ball where you wish it to go. There are other days when the air is heavy, and when a hit ball seems to have no life in it. You must allow for the force and direction of every slant of wind. There are conditions of atmosphere when objects seem near, and others when they seem far away, and you must take this into account."
He was silent, and I went on.
"On a billiard table your ball is always within easy reach. You stand on a level floor and play on a level table. In golf your ball never lands in the same place twice. It may be above you, or below you. It may lie in any one of ten million separate conformations of ground, and for each you must exercise judgment. Your clubs change in weight as you clean them; no two golf balls have the same degree of elasticity when new, and as you use them it decreases. But more than all else, you are not the same man physically or mentally on any two days. A slight increase in weight, the wearing of an extra garment, the congestion of a muscle or the stiffening of a chord may be sufficient to throw you off your stroke and seriously impair your game."
"Nonsense; I don't believe it," he declared. "When I once find out how to make a certain shot I will keep right on improving until I have it perfect."
"If that were possible golf would lose its charm," I said. "A man will go on making a certain shot with almost perfect accuracy for months, and all at once lose the knack of it, and not be able to recover it for months, and perhaps never. In order to hit a golf ball accurately there are scores of muscles which must act in perfect accord, and the several parts of the body must maintain certain positions during the various parts of the stroke. If the shoulder drops the quarter of an inch, if the heel rises too soon by the minutest fraction of a second, if either hand grasping the club turns in any degree the stroke is ruined. You will hit the ball, but it will not go the distance or the direction required."
"Must be a mighty hard game, from all that you say," he laughed, grimly. "Guess I'd better go back and not try it, but I notice that there was nothing the matter with the position of my muscles, cords, hands and the rest of my anatomy the other day when I whacked that ball out of sight. And I can do it again, Smith, and don't you forget it."
I preferred to await the arbitrament of events so far as that boast was concerned.
We had arrived at the eighteenth tee, and he looked over the field with much satisfaction. The railroad embankment is about one hundred and fifty yards from the tee, and few try to carry it. The old post road runs parallel to the line of this hole, and forms the western boundary of the Woodvale links. There is no bunker save the railroad bank for the entire distance, and it is an ideal hole for the golf "slugger."
"Where is the green?" asked Harding, standing on the elevated tee. I pointed in the line of the old church belfry, and after a long look he declared that he could see the white flag floating from the standard.
"Nobody ever drove it, you say?" he observed, throwing his shoulders back.
"Of course not," I laughed, and added, "and never will."
"Don't be too sure about that," he said, piling a mound of sand. "It's nothing more than a 'putt,' as you call it, to bat a ball over that railroad."
"You talk about driving six hundred yards to that green," I said, annoyed at his ignorant nerve, "I will bet you a box of cigars that you do not carry that railroad track in a month."
"Don't be foolish, Smith."
"Do you wish to bet?"
"Of course I do," he replied, teeing a ball, "and we'll get action on it in about ten seconds. Just keep your eye on this ball!"
Disdaining to take a practice stroke, he swung viciously at it. He must have caught it on the toe of his club, for it sliced to the right in a low and sweeping curve.
As I followed its flight I saw a farm wagon in the road. The driver had stopped his team, and was standing up watching Harding. I recognised Farmer Bishop, and noted that his sallow face was distorted in a disdainful grin, which froze on his lips when he saw the ball curving toward him.
It is difficult for an experienced golfer to dodge a sliced drive, even when he has a chance to run to one side or the other, but all that Bishop could do was to duck, which he did, with the result that the ball hit his left temple. He half fell and half jumped to the ground, and was not so badly hurt as to prevent his being the maddest agriculturist I have seen in many years.
He danced up and down at the edge of the road, his hand to his head, warm, loud words flowing in a torrent from his mouth.
Harding dropped his club and we both ran toward the injured man. Harding was the first to reach the fence, but he did not climb over.
"Did it hit you?" he asked Bishop.
The farmer took one more hop and then turned and faced the railroad magnate. There was a lump over his eye bigger than a hen's egg, and on it I could see the bramble marks of the ball. It was a moment before his rage permitted utterance. He spit out a mouthful of tobacco so as not to be handicapped.
"Did you hit me; you dod-gasted old poppinjay of a fat dude!" he exclaimed, shaking a brawny, freckled fist at Harding. "Did you hit me; you flabby old chromo! Do you suppose I fall out of my wagon and dance up and down this road for exercise; you old boiled lobster?"
"I am very sorry, sir," said Harding, amusement and growing anger struggling for mastery. "I wasn't shooting in this direction. Something happened to my ball; what do you call it, Smith?"
[Illustration: "Did it hit you?">[
"You sliced it," I said.
"That's it; I sliced it," declared Harding, as if that were more or less of a valid excuse.
"You come over that fence an' I'll slice you!" roared Bishop, taking a step forward. "Things have come to a fine pass in this country if an honest farmer can't take his milk to town without riskin' bein' murdered by plutocrats with 'sliced balls' and all that blankety-blank tommyrot. Climb over on this side of the fence an' I'll lick seven kinds of stuffin' out of you in erbout a minute."
"Keep your shirt on!" retorted Harding, "you won't lick nobody."
He looked curiously at the maddened farmer.
"Your name is Bishop, isn't it?" he asked, and I wondered how he happened to know.
"Yes, my name's Bishop," was the sullen and defiant answer.
"Jim Bishop?"
"Yes; Jim Bishop."
Harding grinned good-naturedly.
"Don't you know who I am?" he asked.
"No, I don't, and I don't give a damn!" replied Bishop, looking at him more closely, I thought.
"Did you know a young fellow named Harding when you were a boy?" asked
Harding.
"Bob Harding?"
"Yes, Bob Harding!"
"Do you mean to tell me that you're the Bob Harding who uster live on a farm near Buckfield, Maine?" asked Bishop, the anger dying from his voice.
"That's what I am!" declared the millionaire, as Bishop came toward him, a curious smile on his tanned face. "How are you, Jim?"
"Well; I'll be jiggered! How are you, Bob?" and they shook hands across the fence. For a moment neither spoke.
"It's thirty years or more since I've seen you," said Harding. "When did you move to this country?"
"Over twenty-five years ago," said Bishop. "And what have you been doing with yourself all these years? I surely hope you've found something better to do than play this here fool game an' knock people's heads off."
He tenderly rubbed the lump on his forehead.
"I just took this game up," said Harding rather sheepishly. "I've been building railroads."
"Are you Robert L. Harding, the railroad king that the papers talks so much erbout?" demanded Bishop.
"I guess I'm the fellow," admitted Harding.
"Well; I never would er believed it!" gasped Bishop, and then they shook hands again.
They sat on a rock and talked about Buckfield and their boyhood days for an hour. It seems that they were born and raised on adjoining farms, and were chums until Harding's father died, at which time Harding went West and found his fortune.
Not until the horses became restless and started to go home did Bishop note the passing of time. He cordially invited Harding and his daughter to come and call on him, and Harding did not hesitate in accepting the invitation.
Now that I think of it, none of us gave a thought to that ball, and I suppose it is out in the road yet. Harding said that was all the golf he wished that day, and so we went back to the club house.
"Talk about driving a ball six hundred yards, Smith," he said, as we came to the eighteenth tee. "I knocked that ball so far that I hit a boy in Maine, and that's hundreds of miles from here."