They would talk these things over among themselves often. Hal knew that if he was to be at Lowell the next year he would have to rely on his folks again or else win one of those scholarships.
“Better work for the Scholarship,” said Hans. “It don’t pay to owe anybody, even if it is your own folks. From what I have learned it is pretty hard for them to send you this money every month, anyhow. I don’t think I would have worked nearly so hard at school if I had been spending some one else’s money. It hasn’t been easy work for me to sell books every summer, but I’ve done it. I don’t like the work very well, and now that this chance of a scholarship is in sight, I am going to work my toes off if necessary, to land one of them; I think I’ll get it, too, if I don’t break my leg or something.”
“That’s a fine thing for you, of course,” responded Hal, “because you have a regular position on the team right now, and there’s no one to take it away from you, while I am only a substitute pitcher and general utility man, who probably won’t get a chance to play in any of the big games at all.”
It was plain that Hal became discouraged from the talk. But he felt absolutely certain that he could jump in and take the laurels away from any pitcher they had, if he could only get in enough games to get accustomed to the big crowds and the surroundings. But the season was coming along and Black and Radams were doing the twirling and doing it well, too.
Then, unexpectedly, one morning there came a letter from home that Hal’s father had been taken sick and they had to use a little of the money from Hal’s college fund to tide them over and Hal would have to get along with about half his allowance for a month, anyhow.
This was a shock to Hal. Not so much the money part, but his father’s sickness. He hated to think of his father being sick and he not at home. Then he thought of the money, and his first idea was to get on a train for California. Yes! That’s what he would have to do. He couldn’t think of staying at Lowell any longer, spending his father’s hard-earned money. What he ought to be doing was what Hans had done. He should learn how to earn money and when he had done that, get his education.
He felt this was a decision that should be acted on at once. He decided to pack up right away. He didn’t stop to think he didn’t have anything like the amount necessary to pay his fare home. Hans wasn’t in his room and wasn’t to be back until three o’clock, so he thought in his excitement that he would pack hurriedly and get out without seeing anybody. He did so.
He wasn’t going to be dependent on his folks or anyone else for another day. He left a note for Hans. This was at noon. He hunted up a time table and found that the train for Boston to catch the through train for the West left at three o’clock. He would buy his ticket and go. He had no thought of changing his mind. He went to the depot to get his ticket. All at once, he realized that he hadn’t any money. What was he to do now? It was one o’clock already. Hal’s mind worked quickly. How could he get two hundred dollars? Quickly he ran over in his mind the things he had that he might raise some money on. There was only one thing that was worth anything like that sum. At first he couldn’t think of parting with that. It was his watch.
He had never told the story of the watch in Lowell to anyone but Hans. The previous winter while swimming in the lake at home in California, a rowboat in which there had been a man and two little girls, was suddenly capsized. Hal was a regular “fish” in the water, just as natural there as in anything that he understood at all, and he swam to the rescue. He caught one of the little girls and held her up with one hand while he righted the boat, and he then put her in.