Dick Randall, the Young Athlete

by Ellery H. Clark

The day was dark and gloomy. The sky was overcast, and the afternoon sun shone halfheartedly from behind the clouds. A fresh breeze bent the trees in the quadrangle, scattering a shower of leaves about the yard. In spite of himself, Dick felt his spirits flag. 'A' thousand miles lay between him and home; and except for a few brief visits, made close at hand, this was his first real venture into the world. Unaccustomed to the change, unacquainted with his classmates, with the steady routine of work and play not yet begun, he was wretchedly homesick; and strive as he would, he could not keep his thoughts, for five minutes together, from his father and mother, and the white-walled farm-house on the slope of the mountain, looking down over the valley and the meadowland below. He felt ashamed and disgusted with himself, for he was no longer a "kid"; he was almost seventeen, and big and strong for his age; and yet, fight it as he might, the longing for home would not down.

Thus he stood dreaming, gazing unseeingly across the yard, until presently, with a start, he came to himself. A friendly hand smote him between the shoulder-blades, a friendly arm was drawn through his, and he turned to meet the somewhat quizzical glance of his classmate and next-door neighbor in the dormitory--Harry Allen.

Instinctively Dick smiled. He had sat next to Allen at supper the night before and had taken a liking to him from the start. Allen had chattered away steadily, all through the meal, yet his talk had been unaffected, entertaining, and wholly free from any effort at "trying to be funny" or "showing off." He was Randall's opposite in every way--as slight and frail as Dick was big and broad-shouldered, as light as Dick was dark, and apparently, at the present moment, as cheerful as Dick was depressed. "Well, Randall," he asked, "what you got on your mind? Composing a speech?"

Dick flushed a little. "No, nothing like that," he answered; "I don't know just what I was doing. Just thinking, I guess. You see--"

Allen interrupted him. "Oh, I know," he said; "I've been through it, all right. You can bet on that. Don't I remember the first day I came? Golly, I should say I did. Talk about a cat in a strange garret. Well, that was little me. Don't worry, though. Just about three days, and you'll think you've lived here all your life. It's a dandy school. You'll find that out for yourself. And Mr. Fenton! Well, if there's a better master in the state, I'd like to see him. Teach! I guess he can. Languages, you know--that's his branch. He's got Latin and Greek down fine. And English! Why, they say his English course is the best thing outside of college. He starts away back with Chaucer--'well of English undefyled,'--Spenser, you know, Faerie Queene--and he brings us right down to Robert Louis Stevenson. Oh, it's great! No fellow from this school has flunked English for ten years. How's that? Going some?"

He paused, a little out of breath. Dick smiled, finding something humorous in the contrast between his classmate's breezy speech, and the "English undefyled," for which his liking was so evidently sincere. Yet he found Allen's talk acting on him like magic, and by the time they had reached the end of the yard, his gloomy thoughts were forgotten, and he was himself once more.

To the left, they could see the boat-house, and the faint blue of the river, just showing through the trees; to the right lay the athletic field, and it was toward the track that Allen turned.

"Come on," he said; "let's walk down and watch Dave Ellis. He's going to try the Pentathlon. He's been training for it all summer. You met him last night, didn't you?"

Dick nodded. "Yes, I met him," he answered. He had sat opposite Ellis at table, and had admired his rangy and powerful build. Yet something, too, in his manner, had repelled him as well; Ellis had seemed a little patronizing, with a trifle too much of the "Conquering Hero" about him. So that now Dick hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "Say, Allen, if it's a proper question, what sort of fellow is Ellis? Doesn't he seem pretty--well, I don't know just what word I want--pretty--cocksure of himself, somehow?"

Allen did not answer at once, and when at length he did so, it was in rather a guarded tone. "Well, you see, Randall," he replied, "I don't believe I'd better say anything. Dave's a candidate for class president next spring, and he's pretty sure to get it, too. Only--some of the fellows have been sounding me to see if I cared to run, and if I should, why, I wouldn't want you to think, from anything I said--"