On the whole his season was more profitable than that of the year before, when he had nursed the truck of Trimble Cushman through the traffic jams of River Street, and he was learning more about the world of men if less about gas engines. Especially did the new sport put him into closer contact with old Sharon Whipple. Having first denounced the golf project as a criminal waste of one hundred and seventy-five acres of prime arable land, Sharon had loitered about the scene of the crime to watch the offenders make a certain kind of fools of themselves. From the white bench back of the first tee this cynic would rejoice mirthfully at topped or sliced drives or the wild swing that spends all its vicious intent upon the imponderable air. His presence came to be a trial to beginning players, who took no real pleasure in the game until they reached the second tee, beyond the ken of the scoffer.
But this was perilous sport for Sharon Whipple. Day after day, looking into the whirlpool, he was—in a moment of madness—himself to leap over the brink. On an afternoon had come his brother Gideon and Rapp, Senior, elated pupils of John McTavish, to play sportingly for half a ball a hole. They ignored certain preliminary and all-too-pointed comments of the watcher. They strode gallantly to the tee in turn and exhibited the admirable form taught them by John. They took perfect practice swings. They addressed the ball ceremoniously, waggled the club at it, first soothingly, then with distinct menace, looked up to frown at a spot far down the fairway, looked back, exhaled the breath, and drove. Rapp, Senior, sliced into the rough. Gideon Whipple hooked into the rough.
Sharon Whipple mocked them injuriously. His ironic shouts attracted the notice of arriving players. Gideon Whipple stayed placid, smiling grimly, but Rapp, Senior, was nettled to retort.
"Mebbe you could do a whole lot better!" he called to Sharon in tones unnecessarily loud.
Sharon's reply, in a voice eminently soothing and by that calculated further to irritate the novice, was in effect that Rapp, Senior, might safely wager his available assets that Sharon Whipple could do better.
"Well, come on and do it then if you're so smart!" urged Rapp, Senior. "Come on, once—I dare you!"
Sharon scorned—but rather weakly—the invitation. Secretly, through his hostile study of the game, he had convinced himself that he by divine right could do perfectly what these people did so clumsily. Again and again his hands had itched for the club as he watched futile drives. He knew he could hit the ball. He couldn't help hitting it, stuck up the way it was on a pinch of sand—stuck up like a sore thumb. How did they miss it time after time? He had meant to test his conviction in solitude, but why not put it to trial now, and shame this doubting and inept Rapp, Senior?
"Oh, well, I don't mind," he said, and waddled negligently to the tee.
Rapp, Senior, voiced loud delight. Gideon Whipple merely stood safely back without comment, though there was a malicious waiting gleam in his eyes.