“Is he? He looks from here dreadfully thin,” answered Mrs. Earle.
“That’s partly what makes him a good runner,” explained Stewart. “He’s all muscle, scarcely any weight to carry.”
“Well, dear, I do hope you won’t get to looking like that.”
“Humph, I should hope not.” This from Stewart’s father. The bunch of ten runners had left the mark, and had begun their long series of tours about the track, cheered from the gallery by their fellows. “Go it, Keeler!” shouted Stewart as a youth with ludicrously long legs ambled past, almost the last of the group. A quick glance and a fleeting grin from a queer, good-humored, and very freckled face answered Stewart’s cry, and the runners swept by, their feet pounding loudly as they took the inclines at the turns. The shot putting was over and the victor, a dumpy-looking boy with the lower middle class colors across his shirt, had been clamorously hailed as he walked off with superb dignity, and the vaulting standards were being put in place while a group of half a dozen youths trod gingerly about looking very serious and important. Finally the bar was up, with a white handkerchief across it, and one after another of the contestants, with the long pole in their hands, ran lightly forward, rose till their white-clad bodies swung out from the staff like pennants, and dropped across the bar.
“Why, how easily they do it!” cried Mrs. Earle admiringly, and Stewart’s father clapped his hands vigorously.
“Huh,” said Stewart, “that’s nothing; they haven’t begun yet; just wait until they get that bar up to about nine feet.”
“Nine feet! Why, how high is it now, dear?”
“’Bout seven foot eight, I should think; eh, Carl?”
“There it goes to the even eight,” answered Carl, as the judges raised the bar.
“Is—is there any danger of their falling, Carl,” asked Mrs. Earle.