Frank Armstrong at Queens

by Matthew M. Colton

"Legs pained me when I woke up this morning. Dreamed that I fell out of an aeroplane."

"It's the jumping," said Patsy. "I've known fellows when they began to jump to be so sore they'd have to walk with a cane. But you'll soon be over that."

"I sincerely trust so; it's no fun."

Patsy was like the manager of a three-ring circus, as any track trainer, who knows what he is there for and who is worth his salt, ought to be. He had a word of caution to the long-distance runner to run flat-footed and save himself for the sprint, if sprint he must at the end of his race; to the pole-vaulter he reiterated the oft-repeated injunction that to get over the bar when it was 10 feet up meant to pull up with the arms and not altogether a spring from the legs; to the hurdler he gave a minute of his valuable attention, indicating where his take-off for the barrier was too near or too far away, and if he lost too much time in the flight.

"If you're going to hurdle on this track you've got to get down to the track and run on it and not try to sail through the air." And even when he wasn't giving direct coaching, Patsy was making mental notes for use later on when they would be of more value to the coached.

Frank had jogged around several times when Patsy hailed him on one of his trips, and said: "Now I want you and Collins and Herring"—that was the other sprinter in the school, a second string man to Collins—"to come up to the start of the hundred. We will do a little work."

The little work consisted in getting down at the starting line, balancing delicately on the balls of the feet—the one just on the starting line and the other about fourteen inches behind—with the tips of the fingers resting lightly on the ground, and at the sound of the pistol, shooting forward from that position without the delay of a thousandth part of an eye-wink.

On the first trial Frank made a sorry mess of it. The crouching sprinter's start was new to him. He had started the day before from a straight standing position, but when he got to the crouching attitude—pictures of which he had seen many times, and as many times wondered how runners could possibly start from such an awkward position—he found it necessary to come to an upright position before he could get under way. Both Collins and Herring gained a stride on him at the very start, and a stride is a lot in a hundred yard race.

"See here, Armstrong," said Patsy. "The sprinter, that is the fellow who runs the short distance, hasn't time to start off easy. From the shot he must be moving forward. Now you come straight up. Watch me," and Patsy dropped down to the racing position, and shot away from it with an astonishing swiftness that made Frank open his eyes. Patsy in his time had been one of the best runners, and knew to a nicety just how to do the trick.

"Come on, now again, and remember that you shoot out and not up," and Patsy held the pistol over his head. "Get ready, set——" but Frank in his eagerness felt that the pistol shot was coming, and dashed off only to recover in a moment, and return shame-facedly to the mark.