Running Free

by James B. Connolly

I hoped she would remember me, but took care not to pass the store for a week again, for fear she would see me and think I was courting her notice because I had bought the big cane.

I was going to high school then. One Saturday afternoon there came high-school boys from all that part of the country to compete for prizes in a great hall near by. I wasn't in them. I liked to run and jump and put the shot well enough, but to go in training, to have a man tell me what time to go to bed and what time to get up, and what to eat and what not to eat, and after a couple of months of that to have to display yourself before crowds of people—that was like being a gladiator in the Colosseum I used to read about, and performing for the pleasure of the mob—patricians and the proletariat alike!

I would spend hours in the alcove of the school library reading of belted knights in the days of tourneys and crusades—but that was different. I could see myself addressing the kings of the land and the queens of the court of beauty, the while the heralds all about were proclaiming my feats of valor. A knight on a great charger in armor and helmet, with my lance stuck out before me—never anything less glorious could I be than that.

But all loyal sons of our school took a ticket for the games. I went to them; and there I saw Mary Riley waving her banner and cheering a gangling-legged young fellow that lived in the same street as myself. No special looks did he have, and no more brains than another, but he was winning a hurdle race and she was cheering him. And there came another, the winner of the high jump, and she cheered him, too.

To see a girl you are night and day thinking of—to see and hear her cheering some one else—! I went in for winning prizes. And when the season came around I played football. And my picture used to be in the papers, those same papers saying what a wonder I would be when I went to college. And all the time I wondering was she seeing the pictures and reading the words of me.

My people had no money to send me to any college, but from this college and that came men to explain to me how the money part could be arranged. And so to college I went. I paid enough attention to my studies to get by—no great attention did it take—but I paid special attention to athletics, and before long my picture was sharing space in the papers with presidents and emperors and the last man to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. And is there any surer way to spoil a nineteen-year-old boy's perspective of life than to keep telling him that well-developed muscles—whether they be in his back or his legs or inside his head—will make a great man of him?

I came home from college for the summer. I'd seen Mary a few times since that Christmas eve, but made no attempt to get acquainted. Maybe I was too shy. Maybe I was too vain, or overproud—waiting for the day when I would be of some account, when the notice of neither men nor women would I have to seek—they would be coming to me.

But pride is a poor food for heart hunger. I went to have a look into her store on my first night home. I had a wild idea that I would go in and introduce myself and she would know of me, and maybe I would walk home with her.

There was a young fellow in a navy uniform—a chief petty officer's coat and cap—leaning on the counter talking to her, and he had a red rose in the buttonhole of his uniform coat. By and by, when her father came to close up the store, the young fellow walked home with her. Standing on the opposite corner, I watched them pass. It was something serious they were talking about—no smile to either of them.

I stood on the corner after they had passed for as long as I could stand it. Then I walked up to where I knew she lived. They were standing at the steps of her house. It was a quiet street, and the sound of my footsteps caused them both to turn. The young fellow stood up straight and strong on the lowest step, but she stepped into the shadow of the doorway. I saw her eyes looking out on me as I passed. Her hat was off and there was a red rose in her hair—and none in his coat.