On Friday Arnold went back to Greenhaven with Toby and shared the latter’s none too generous bed, since a guest chamber was something the little house didn’t boast, until Sunday. A sharp breeze Friday night provided fair skating on the marsh and it was on Saturday that Toby received his first instruction in the duties of a hockey player. They had no hockey sticks and so they used two lengths of wood that Long Tim cut for them in the boat shed and a block of mahogany. Toby found that while he could out-skate his chum in a straight-away race, the latter could out-maneuver him with ease. Arnold could stop and turn and dodge with the quickness of a cat! Toby’s efforts to emulate him resulted in many laughable and sometimes jarring upsets. Perhaps that lesson didn’t increase his knowledge beyond showing him what a lot he had to learn, but it provided a heap of fun. Sunday morning they tramped over to the Head, through a biting easterly gale, and Arnold, who had provided himself with the key of his father’s summer house there, rummaged through the dark rooms for an elusive baseman’s glove. Eventually it came to light, but not before the two boys were pretty well chilled through. They tried to light a fire in the kitchen range to warm themselves by before setting out on the return journey, but the range absolutely refused to draw and they had finally to flee, choking and coughing from the smoke that billowed through the cracks. Half-way back Arnold suddenly began to laugh and in answer to Toby’s concerned inquiries explained that the reason the stove hadn’t drawn was because the chimney-tops were carefully covered, a fact which he had forgotten until the moment!
Arnold went home in the afternoon, Toby and Phebe accompanying him as far as the station at Riverport. After that the remainder of the Christmas vacation simply melted away, much as the snow did on Monday when the easterly gale swept around to the south and a radiant sun smiled down on the dripping world. It didn’t seem to Toby that he had been away from Yardley Hall more than a half-dozen days, but here it was Tuesday and he was on his way back again! But going back wasn’t unpleasant. On the contrary, if anything had happened to prevent his going back he would have been a most unhappy youth. There was lots to look forward to, hockey, amongst other things, for Toby had by now decided that it was his bounden duty to go to the aid of the School in its commendable endeavor to turn out a winning seven. As there was a whole hour and a quarter to spend before he was to meet Arnold at the station, he set out, not without trepidation, to purchase one of those invaluable little blue-covered books which tell you how to perform every sort of athletic stunt from swinging Indian clubs to throwing a fifty-six-pound weight. Of course Toby wasn’t interested in clubs or weights just now. What he was after was a handbook on hockey, and after some searching up and down and across the town, with one eye on the clock, so to speak, he found it. You may be sure that Toby’s scant funds lay at the bottom of his most inaccessible pocket. Had he so much as sighted a brown overcoat he would have run! When Arnold found him he was sitting in a seat in the waiting-room, his feet on his old yellow valise and his eyes glued to page 19 of “How to Play Hockey.”
They boarded the ten-forty train and were soon gliding through the long tunnel on their way back to school and duties. But they didn’t sit in a parlor car this time. Toby would have none of such luxury, and rather than be parted from him Arnold shared his seat in a day coach. There were some twenty or thirty other Yardley fellows on board and the time went swiftly, and almost before they knew it they were crossing the little bridge and the school buildings were smiling down welcomingly from the hill and the trainman was calling “Wissining! Wissining!” at the top of his voice.
Well, it was good to be back again, Toby thought as, spurning carriages and valiantly lugging their bags, they set off along the road to school. Oxford Hall, imposing and a bit grim by reason of its gray granite walls, met their sight first as they left the tiny village and started up the hill. At the top of the tall pole in front the flag was snapping in the brisk breeze. Merle Hall, the home of the Preparatory Class boys, peered around the corner of Oxford, almost frivolous by comparison with its red brick and limestone trimming. A moment later, following the road to the right at the beginning of its wide swing around the base of the Prospect, as the plateau was called, other buildings came into sight: Whitson, like Oxford, of granite; Clarke, a replica of Merle; and, just showing between the other buildings, Dudley Hall, the exclusive residence of the graduating class. The buildings at Yardley follow the curve of the Prospect, forming a somewhat stunted letter J, with the Kingdon Gymnasium, out of sight from the road, doing duty as the tip of the curve and Dudley set in back like a misplaced dot. From the gymnasium the ground slopes gently back to the river, and there is the playing field and the boat house and landing and, further beyond, a fair nine-hole golf course. Across the river from the field lies a wide expanse of salt meadow known as Meeker’s Marsh. A little way upstream is Flat Island and a little further downstream is Loon Island. And not far from Loon Island is the footbridge that connects Wissining with Greenburg and the railway bridge across which trains dash or trundle at almost every hour of the day or night. From the bridges the little river runs fairly straight to the Sound, a mile or so away.
But we have got far from the two boys who, bags swinging—and beginning to feel extremely heavy by now—are breasting the last slope of the well-kept roadway. The old gray granite front of Whitson greets them and Arnold, followed by Toby, seeks the portal and climbs the worn stairs to the second floor. There, while Arnold unpacks his bag, Toby lodges himself on the window-seat and, hugging his knees, talks and gazes off over the tops of the trees to the sparkling waters of the Sound and feels for the moment very glad to be back there and very determined to study hard all through this new term. And presently Homer Wilkins bangs the door open and comes in dragging a big kit-bag and conversation becomes ejaculatory and somewhat noisy, and questions and answers tumble over each other. Wilkins, who shares Number 12 with Arnold, is a big, jolly looking chap of seventeen, a third class boy who should be in the second but who never has time enough to do the necessary amount of studying. Another train reaches the station and another influx of returning students comes up the hill, and Arnold and Toby and Homer squeeze their bodies half out the window and hail them. And soon after Toby takes up his bag again and climbs the last flight and finds himself once more in his little room under the slates, with the frayed armchair and the wardrobe whose doors won’t stay shut unless wedged and the old worn-out rug and—yes, a distinct odor of benzine!
CHAPTER VI
FRIENDS FALL OUT
That afternoon at three o’clock Toby accompanied Arnold to the gymnasium where the hockey candidates were assembled in the baseball cage. The arrival of cold weather had added to the enthusiasm and many new recruits were on hand. Arnold haled Toby to Captain Crowell, saluted gravely and announced: “Sir, I have the honor to announce that in pursuance of your orders I have taken into custody and hereby deliver to you the body of one T. Tucker. Please sign the receipt!”
“Hello, Arn, you crazy chump,” responded Crowell. “Much obliged, just the same. Glad to have seen you, Tucker. Hope you’ll like us and our merry pastime. Just wait around a few minutes and we’ll get things started. Say, Arn, you’re getting a good many fellows out, it seems. There’s Jim Rose. I want to see him a minute.”