Stuart managed the smile, but it wasn’t very hearty. “Sorry I made such an ass of myself, Jud,” he mumbled. “Thanks for—for what you did.”
“You’re welcome, son. Sorry we couldn’t do more. If I’d had any idea you were going to come back with that resignation like that I’d have been around to see you. It wouldn’t have done any harm, you know, if you’d met us halfway instead of flying off the handle like that. What was the big idea?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Stuart shook his head dejectedly. “I thought it was Haynes’s doing and I was sore.”
“Well, of course, Haynes did put the matter before the Committee, but he only asked to have things cleared up so the team would get along better. I don’t believe for a moment that he wanted you out, old man. Look here, why don’t you call it an even break and start over again? Why not go out and help them along, Stuart?”
“Oh, I guess they don’t need me,” muttered the other. “Besides, I’d be off my game.”
“Well, think it over and see if you can’t forget your hurt feelings. So long!”
Perhaps it was unfortunate that, fifty yards further on, passing Sawyer, Stuart almost collided with Steve Le Gette, and that to Stuart it seemed that Le Gette’s startled look changed, as he sheered aside, into an expression of malicious triumph. In any event, the chance meeting drove out of Stuart’s mind any effect caused by McColl’s advice. He certainly wouldn’t go back to the team as long as Le Gette was there to sneer, he told himself!
Until three or half-past in the afternoons Stuart got along fairly well, for there was plenty to occupy his mind, but when the hour of football practice arrived he felt horribly lost. When you’ve been doing a certain thing at a certain time each day for a long period you can’t help missing that thing when it’s no longer there for you to do. Stuart tried studying, but the silence of the well-nigh empty hall oppressed him. Besides, the hours between three and six of a fine October day were never meant to be wasted in poring over the pages of a text book! Even Neil realized that and, though he would offer to remain in Number 12 and keep Stuart company, the latter always refused to allow him to do so. Neil’s favorite retreat in good weather was a bench beside the tennis courts, or, when there happened to be a match in progress, the summit of the short ladder, from where he gravely made some such announcement as; “The games are three—one. Mr. Spudkins leads.” Several times he induced Stuart to accompany him to the courts, but the football player didn’t entertain Neil’s enthusiasm for tennis and after looking on through half a dozen games he got bored and restless. He had really tried very hard to find interest in golf, but as he had never played enough to more than learn the modus operandi he failed. He might have found a place in one of the four-oared shells without much trying, for he was a fair hand with a sweep and there were always from three to ten dormitory and class crews in training during the fall, but the plain truth is that he wanted to play football and didn’t want to do anything else. Even to have gone to the field and looked on would have been better than nothing, but pride forbade that. He was surely at a loose end those days, and the fact that every afternoon for a week provided ideal football weather made it seem that even Nature was taking a hand in his chastening. But on the day of his enlightening talk with Judson McColl chance offered him a solution of one difficulty.
He stopped at the bulletin board in the corridor of Manning and, for want of a better way in which to pass a couple of minutes, read some of the notices. The fact that Sawyer, 22 Meigs, had lost a gray sweater, or that Lumkin, 8 Byers, wanted to buy a second-hand typewriter didn’t engross him. Neither did a plaintive call for candidates for the soccer football team. He was in a mood to bear with splendid equanimity the failure of Sawyer to recover his sweater, the inability of Lumkin to acquire a typewriter and the utter collapse of the soccer team. But a moment later he came across an announcement that did excite his interest. It was already a week or more old and it announced the date of the Fall Handicap Meeting and stated that entries would be received up to and including November 4. The notice was signed “Charles E. Dodge, 2 Sawyer Hall.” Mr. Dodge was the Physical Director, and, with The Laird, attended to the training of the track and field candidates.
Stuart reread the announcement and then frowned thoughtfully. In his junior year he had won third place in the Spring Track Meet in the mile and had just failed of capturing fourth in the half. Last year he had won his place on the eleven and lost interest in the cinder path. But somewhere there was a pair of spiked canvas shoes with his name lettered on the lining in faded ink, and there was time enough for all the practice he wanted. He didn’t believe for a moment that he could finish the mile or get placed in the half mile, but it wouldn’t be bad fun trying, and, which was really his reason for considering the idea, the running track surrounded the second team gridiron, and from the second team gridiron one could see very nicely what was going on in first team circles! In other words, while he wouldn’t have gone to the first team field and watched practice for anything, he could see no reason why it shouldn’t be perfectly permissible to take up track work and sometimes, in the pauses of practicing starts or after a jog around the cinders, cast an occasional uninterested glance over toward the big team. The more he considered the plan the better it looked to him, and so, without more ado, he walked over to Sawyer Hall, discovered Mr. Dodge in his study and put his name down for the mile run and the 880 yards. Mr. Dodge was in a chatty mood and Stuart had to stay and talk much longer than he wanted to. The Physical Director did not, however, refer to Stuart’s resignation from the football captaincy, and so Stuart forgave him for his loquaciousness and tried hard to become interested in track matters and the chances of capturing the Dual Meet with Pearsall next May. Mr. Dodge observed, evidently quite sincerely, that he hoped the team would have Stuart’s services when that time arrived.