“Palms of victory, palms of glory.”
Finally they hoisted Billy Wendell, the captain, up on the wooden rostrum that was brought out on such occasions; and after more wild and intense cheering when the cheer leaders had sunk back almost exhausted by their efforts, they gave him a chance to speak. “Fellows,” said Billy, with not more than the usual oratorical grace but with an effect that many a trained orator might have envied, “Fellows, I guess we’re all glad we won. I can’t make a speech; and anyway there’s some one else here to whom our victory to-day really is due. And I move we have Tony Deering up here, and tell him what we think of him.”
Frantic howls as Billy leaped down, and a dozen boys hustled Tony with rough-and-ready good will up to the rostrum, paying absolutely no attention to his protests. Tony’s presence of mind quite deserted him as he faced the encircling crowd of eager, flame-brightened faces,—also the feeling that there was anything heroic in being a hero. As they cheered and cheered him to the echo, he had a moment in which to gather his wits. “Fellows,” he said at last, when the crowd had become quiet, “I’m mighty grateful for the way in which you’ve treated me. But I don’t deserve it. The ball popped into my arms in the scrimmage, and I just ran. Any other fellow would have done the same. What really won,” he added, “was that the team had made a good defense against a whirlwind attack at critical moments. And that’s the reason that when we got a chance to score, it meant a victory. Ned Clavering scored the winning point by kicking the goal.”
With that he jumped down, struggled through the crowd, and slipped unobserved to the outskirts of the circle. Other boys were being elevated to the rostrum, so that attention was diverted from him. For himself, his heart was full, and for the moment he wanted to be alone.
He could not hear the speeches from where he stood, but the scene was before him like the stage at a play. Suddenly he noticed, standing quite near him, apart from the jubilant crowd, the lonely, pathetic little figure of the despised Finch. The boy was gazing at Tony intently, with an expression of pathetic admiration, the self-forgetting admiration sometimes experienced when we behold a noble or a fine action in which we have had no part, of which we are incapable. There was longing in the boy’s pale watery little eyes, and his mouth was twisted out of shape, as though it were not fashioned to express the unwonted emotions that stirred his soul. As Tony glanced at him, with a flash of intuition, it seemed to him that he thoroughly understood the half-starved soul of Jacob Finch, his pathetic and terrible loneliness, his unreasoned terrors of life, his ardent unsatisfied longings for the boyish friendliness and companionship about him in which he had no part.... Involuntarily Tony moved toward him, and obeying an impulse quite devoid of that repulsion that Finch usually stirred in him, he threw his arm carelessly over the boy’s shoulder. “It’s a great sight, kid; ain’t it?” he said.
Finch was trembling as if he had a chill. His eyes glanced for a moment into Tony’s intensely, then shifted, and he answered in a queer hoarse tone, “I ‘spose so. I dunno.” And then he added, fiercely, “But I’m glad—I’m glad you made that run.” The next instant, as if his own speech had frightened him, he shook Tony’s arm from his shoulder, and slipped away into the shadows. Tony saw him no more that night.
“Poor kid!” he thought, and his eyes filled with tears. He had seen unhappiness before, in his own home, and the memory of it was bitter. Here at school he had forgotten it all; the world had seemed a bright and a happy place, and he was happy in it. Poor Finch brought back to him intensely the realization that life was not altogether as free from care, as full of affection and kindness and joy, as this gay scene and jubilant celebration would indicate. There was bitterness in the thought, and yet, in a way, he was not sorry it had come. It seemed to him now that for the last few days he had been absolutely absorbed in himself, in fact that he had been living self-absorbed for a long time; that despite his generous words from the rostrum, what he had really been glad of in the victory was, that it had been so largely due to him.
Suddenly he gave the tree against which he was standing a vigorous kick. What a fool he was! to be silly with delight at winning a football game when just across the hall from him there lived such livid boyish misery!
At length he resought his companions, and when at last the celebration was over, and the great blazing pile of the bonfire had collapsed, he walked back again with Kit’s party to the Inn. Both Betty and he were quieter now than before. She was shy again, and this time he could think of nothing to say. Their commonplaces about the celebration fell flat.
“You are going to-morrow?” he asked abruptly, as they turned into the grounds of the Inn.