CHAPTER XXI
THE SECOND CREW
Never did small boy yearn for the swimming-hole as Roger Hardie for the next practice. He lay awake for an hour, going over the details of the stroke as he hoped to use it. He had got control of the oar now, he was sure; he didn’t swing out, he didn’t rush his slide, and he did pull straight through—all positive virtues. The problem now was to catch sharply, to pick up the movement with the legs as his trunk came up, shoot the whole body back in one continuous and even strain, throwing his entire weight against the stretcher—“jump right back from the stretcher,” as Caffrey had once said. After that he must make a smart recover, get the hands away promptly, and rest as his slide went cautiously back, so as to be able to put all his strength and weight into the next push against the water. It wasn’t the back that was to do the rowing, nor the arms, but the whole body, and especially the legs. All this as theory was splendidly clear, but how much could he put in practice? What right had a clumsy fellow like him to expect to attain a skill which other fellows had failed to gain with years of practice?
He fell asleep with this question echoing in his brain, alternately vowing that he would do it and convinced that he could not. The rising bell woke him. He was unspeakably glad to be waked, for he was dreaming that he had fallen back into his old bad ways, that the water sucked the oar blade down after every stroke, that Coolidge and Wilmot had rebelled and Pete had told him to try baseball, and put Redfield into his place. He was inclined to take the dream as a bad omen until at luncheon Talbot informed him that Weld was out with a sore finger, and that he would have to row bow on the second that afternoon. He bethought himself then that dreams are said to go by contraries, and took heart.
Caffrey seated himself in Mike’s place when the crews went out—Mike was cox of the second—and coached the first from the second boat, occasionally transferring his exhortation to the crew that pulled him. Hardie put his whole soul into his rowing and listened with all his ears. Caffrey’s principal point of attack in the first boat was Pitkin at bow, whom he accused of minor shortcomings and one very serious fault—not rowing hard enough. “You’re late all the time, Bow. Your oar must move as soon as it strikes the water, otherwise you back water. You’re shirking, Bow! Don’t let the boat finish out your stroke. Keep over the keel, Two; you’re rolling round too much. Don’t follow your arms around, that makes you swing out. Together there—you’re awfully sloppy!”
And then he gave his attention for a time to the second. “Pull straight through, Three. Keep your hands down and pull straight in. Quicker on the recover, Bow. Don’t feather under. Take your oar out square and feather as you drop your hands and shoot away. That’s better. Don’t bury your oar so deep!”
How different it was from knocking about with Wilmot in the pair-oar! There was a feeling in the boat as if boat and oars and men worked in unison, a swift, steady, exhilarating, forward glide that gave the oarsmen a sense of power and skill. Every one worked intently with Caffrey’s eye upon him. Every stroke was a contest against one’s own treacherous faults, with the feel of the boat, the facility of the oar, the criticism of the coach as test of success. By this test Roger was satisfied that he had acquitted himself well. When, at the Cottage Farm bridge, the coach called, “Let her run,” he rested on his oars, with such a feeling of delight as he had not experienced even when Westcott’s won the Newbury football game, back in November. To make clear what happened during the rest of the row that day, and to set forth certain events of the remainder of the week, we cannot do better than transcribe Roger’s own letter to his mother, written on the following Sunday. Nine-tenths of it was about rowing, in which Mrs. Hardie could only feel the reflection of her son’s interest; and half of what she read she did not understand. Perhaps my reader can do better.
“Dear Mother:
“This has been a great week for me, and I’m going to tell you all about it, though I can’t make you see it as I do. You know I got saved over for the pair-oar when the Westcott squad was narrowed down to two crews and a pair-oar, with coxes for each. This is the final narrowing down except that the day before the race the pair-oar bunch gets the hook. I had been slopping along in the pair-oar with Steve Wilmot, being more or less rotten all the season, never at all decent, and often for long stretches absolutely ROTTEN, making both cox and Steve awfully sore, and doing much worse than the worst school crew on the river, which is saying a good deal. A few days ago I went out as usual and began badly, but after a while I seemed to catch on all at once, and began to row decently. We went a long way up river, and I kept on getting the habit of pulling somewhat right. By the time I got home my rowing had improved several thousand per cent. Pete saw me just as we came in (Pete is the captain) and seemed awfully surprised that I was doing so well.
“The next day Eliot Weld was out with a sore finger, and they put me into his place in the second. Caffrey acted as cox, and I felt that if I ever was going to have a chance to show what I could do, I had it then. I did pretty well, I think, for Caffrey didn’t say much to me. The two crews went along together for a while, then the coach sent the first down and made us all stop and put on sweaters. Then he pulled out a clipping about the adoption of a new, unorthodox stroke in England by some of their colleges, and read it to us, making comments and illustrating and explaining. He had found some one who had the same idea he had and who believed in the same stroke that he tried to teach us.