For Yardley: A Story of Track and Field

by Ralph Henry Barbour

For supper, cold beef, lamb, mutton, or fowl, one baked potato, toast or fresh graham bread, prunes, apple sauce or a baked apple, milk.

This was not a rigorous diet, and it was mainly just about what he had been having. He cut himself off from cereals, coffee and tea, sugar and cream, pastry and candy. The book was emphatic regarding the danger of overeating, and there were times during the following six weeks when Gerald got up from the table feeling almost as hungry as when he sat down, but serene in the knowledge that he had not, in the words of his authority, “clogged his system with a mass of indigestible and unnutritive food.” He weighed himself twice a week in the gymnasium, and found that the first week he lost four pounds, in the second two, held his own the next week, and after that gained an average of a pound and a half every seven days. A hard afternoon’s work would take off a pound or so sometimes after the weather grew warm, but that pound always found its way back again. He felt better every day—save once, when, overdoing the running resulted in an attack of indigestion, that promptly disappeared when he wisely took a two-days’ rest—and went to every meal with the ability—and desire—to eat like a woodchopper. That he never transgressed the diet-list reposing in his pocket speaks well for his perseverance.

That time-trial didn’t come off on the following Monday, because his book warned him against running trials on time oftener than once a fortnight. And when it did come off, ten days or so after the commencement of his self-training, it brought dismay and disappointment. It was a warm, foggy day, with occasional drizzles of rain, and Gerald was anxious and a trifle nervous. Arthur held the watch on him, and Gerald started off at an easy pace, determined to hold himself well in hand for three-quarters of the distance, and then try to run the last four-forty at a fast clip. He had always possessed remarkably good form in running, and had profited by the book’s advice to the extent of noticeably lengthening his stride. Arthur, watching him going down the backstretch, nodded approvingly; for although he knew little about running, it was evident, even to him, that such an easy, comfortable style was something to admire. At the end of the first lap—the track was a quarter-mile one—Arthur gave Gerald his time. It seemed to the latter lamentably slow, and he began to figure on what the time for the whole distance would be. He decided that he ought to do the next quarter a little faster. The result was that he knocked off a matter of seventeen seconds, and so finished the first half in commendable time. But when the third quarter was over and he tried to increase his pace, it came very hard; and by the time the third corner was reached, he was pretty well all-in, and came trailing down the homestretch with his head back and his breath all gone.

“What was it?” he panted, as he walked back to the finish.

“Five minutes, twenty-one and two-fifths,” answered Arthur.

“What!” Gerald exclaimed. “Rubbish! That watch must be crazy!”

But crazy or not the watch stuck to its story, and Gerald looked at Arthur in positive dismay.

“Why—why, that’s perfectly punk!” he gasped.

“Maybe you ran the first half too fast,” ventured Arthur.