The play that won

by Ralph Henry Barbour

The next afternoon Terry went across to the field the moment he had finished his last recitation. Mr. Cramer—Sam to the older boys, but “Coach” to the others—was busy with a bunch of hurdlers, amongst whom was Hal, when Terry arrived, and he had to wait several minutes before he was able to claim the trainer’s attention. Down at the farther end of the oval Joe and a half-dozen others were moving about the pits, while various white-clad forms jogged or sprinted around the track. The Dual Meet with Lacon Academy, Maple Park’s dearest foe, was only a little more than a fortnight distant and a late Spring had held back the team’s development discouragingly. This Monday afternoon Coach Cramer was in a hustling mood, and there was a hint of impatience in his voice when he called the hurdlers back for the third start.

“Stop trying to beat the pistol!” he barked. “The next fellow who does it will stay out. Now then, on your mark! Set!”

Bang went the pistol and six slim, lithe figures hurled themselves forward and went darting down the lanes. Hal began to gain at the fourth hurdle—they were doing the 220-yards sticks—and at the finish was running strong. Terry noticed that he held back between the last barrier and the string and let Porter breeze past him into first place. While the next squad were taking their places Terry addressed the trainer.

“Mr. Cramer, don’t you think I might try the half, sir?” he asked. “I’ve sort of got a hunch I can do better at a longer distance than the four-forty.”

“Hello, Wendell. What’s that? The half? We don’t need you in the half, my boy. You stick to the quarter. I guess that’s your distance, if you have any. How are you feeling to-day?”

“Fine, sir.”

“All right. Jog a couple of laps and then try some starts. I’m going to give you quarter-milers a trial at four.”

“Yes, sir: and about that half, Mr. Cramer. There wouldn’t be any harm in my just trying it, would there? I mean later on, after the trial.”

“I don’t know.” The coach and trainer turned and looked Terry over speculatively. “No, I guess not, if it’s going to please you. But take it easy. Three minutes is fast enough. I’ll tell you now, though, that it don’t do you any good, for we’ve got so many half-milers that we can’t use them all.”

Terry managed to scrape past in fourth place in the four-forty trial, beating out Connover and Dale, and felt rather proud until Mr. Cramer dryly announced the winner’s time to have been 54⅗ seconds, which was more than a second slower than it should have been. He wrapped himself in his gaudy green-and-red dressing gown and went over to watch the jumpers for awhile, and finally, when the field was nearly empty and Pete, the grounds-keeper, was removing the standards, he walked over to the start of the distances, wriggled out of his gown, limbered his legs a minute and then went off, hugging the inside rim. He had to guess at his speed. He knew from watching others that the eight-eighty was a different race from the quarter and all the way round the first lap he held himself back so that he might have some reserve for the finish. But when he had put the turn behind him and entered the backstretch on the second lap his lungs were protesting and his legs had lost their spring. It was a pretty wobbly runner who at last crossed the finish, and who was glad to sit down for a moment, his gown flung around his shoulders. He was thankful that none of the few fellows remaining had apparently noticed his journey along the homestretch. He went back to the gymnasium rather discouraged, but a shower-bath perked him up considerably, and after he had talked with Joe he felt still better. For Joe pointed out that after having run in a quarter-mile trial he had scarcely been in ideal condition to do himself justice in the eight-eighty. Joe wasn’t especially sympathetic toward Terry’s ambition to add the half-mile to his repertoire, but he was too good-natured to throw cold water on it.