The Praying Skipper, and Other Stories

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Shortly after noon, there stepped from the first "special" into New London a fragile yet sprightly little woman in rustling black, alone, but confident and unafraid. Her sweet face was made beautiful, even youthful, by the flush of excitement that tinted her cheek so delicately beneath her silvered hair. Violets were pinned at her waist; in one hand she carried a flag of Yale blue, and in the other a decorative souvenir programme "containing the pictures of all the crews." Those near her in the car had watched with pleasure her vivacious interest in this booklet, but only the gentleman sitting next her had been taken into her confidence. Thirty years out of college, he was come from the far West to his class reunion, and he, too, had a boy in Yale. Fortunately or otherwise, he had not kept in touch with the most recent news of the heroic figures of aquatics, and he knew not even the names of the crew of the year at Yale, so that she could enlighten his lamentable ignorance and right willingly. The "souvenir" booklet had been printed a week before the race, too soon to record the change in the personnel of the Yale eight, and there was her boy's picture filling a page, a massive young giant, most scantily clothed. The man from the West saw in the picture the mother's brown eyes, and his heart was stirred, for he knew what it was to have an only son with his mother's eyes.

"Yes, John has been on the crew three years," she confided, "and he will be the captain next year. I fairly live with him in spirit through the whole six months of the training season. He has had a very hard time this season, and lately his letters have been a little despondent. But I was never so delighted as when I learned from the head-lines of this morning's newspapers that there has been a wonderful improvement in the last week. Oh, I am excited, there is no use trying to deny it. It is almost too big an event for an old woman to survive."

The gray-haired stranger was comforting, and in the recesses of his memory found certain eulogies pronounced by his son regarding "Jack Hastings, the biggest man in his class, by Jove!" He insisted upon presenting two of his own classmates, and they bowed low in formal tribute to the "mother of the next captain of the crew."

The porter must leave her bag in the station, for she could not wait to go to the boarding house when the air was full of tingling sights and sounds, all the excitement and flaunting color paying homage to the prowess of John Hastings. She found Car Fifteen, and sat in a beautiful dream, watching the holiday crowds fill the canopied lengths of open train. What a tale to tell when she should come again to the little colorless village in the South! It seemed impossible to drink it all in when the train began to move and in a few moments the amazing panorama of the Thames flashed into view. The eager eyes of the oarsman's mother passed quickly over the gorgeous marine pictures, by the twisting length of the riotous train, up, up the river toward the quiet reaches, hoping to discern the white house on the high bank and the big blue flag floating above the Quarters at Gales Ferry, a scene she knew from many descriptions.

Soon the train had passed the yachts and the crowds massed on shore, and was opposite the red-roofed home of the Harvard crew, whose crimson flag seemed to her to flaunt an insolent defiance. In near-by cars fluttered many Harvard flags, as the partisans from Cambridge chanted their slogan, inspired by the sight of their rowing camp across the river. She turned to look at the offenders with reproof in her manner. How could they be so misguided as to cheer for Harvard? How dreadful it was to think that if John should be beaten, every one of them would be shouting even louder for joy. So she turned to gaze at the Yale Quarters, which she could see quite plainly, and the ugly brown boathouse squatted at the water's edge.

Her color came and went, and stayed in a brilliant patch when she saw, with a quick intake of breath, a yellow streak appear in front of the boathouse and a number of Lilliputians walking beside it. There seemed an eternity of delay before the wisp of a shell settled on the water, and nine figures climbed into it, while her heart was tripping furiously.

The thing became in motion, it was crawling across the river like a mechanical toy, with frequent pauses. Could this be the Crew, this fragile thing that moved over the water so slowly? A roar from the Harvard cars, and Mrs. Hastings turned to see a similar set of manikins swaying in as absurd a boat, heading out from "Red Top." The mother looked at them only for an instant, because the Yale crew was crossing the river faster than she could realize, and soon it was half a mile above the start, paddling and drifting down with the tide to get into position at its stake-boat. She wanted to call imploringly to the referee to bring the crew nearer, nearer, so that she might see the men, and count from the bow, to two, three, four, five. Presently the shell swung round, parallel with the shore, and maneuvered into position scarcely twenty yards from the observation train hanging on the edge of the bank.

At last the mother could look for Number Five. She counted with an eager and quivering finger. No, she must have made a mistake—that was not John at Number Five. They must have shifted him to another seat at the last moment.

She flung away all method and searched the stern young faces from stroke to bow, from bow to stroke and back again, with yearning agony of intensity. She made bold to ask that the gentleman next her lend her his field-glasses for a moment, and focused them on the shell, seeking in vain. The color had fled from her cheeks, and she sat back, white and silent, beyond speech. Around her raved the cheers of thousands, but the rocketing "rahs" for Yale sounded in her ears like some barbaric funeral chant. She had become old and weak far beyond her years.

Her distress was unnoticed, and through a haze she saw the long shells leap from their leashes with incredible suddenness in tearing cascades of foam. To the mourning mother the race was no more than an exhibition of automatons, as Harvard took the lead, and then the long Yale swing cut it down remorselessly, foot by foot, until the gap was closed. She closed her eyes with a weary sigh, but rallied in a little while to try to make herself heard above the din. Yale was spurting gallantly, and those around her were oblivious to the quavering voice and its vital questions: