The Purple Pennant

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“No, I don’t. He sort of looks like a man who’d work on his own hook. It’s lots safer, you see, and he has a pretty wise face.”

There, for the time being, the subject had to be abandoned, for they had reached the field and confidential conversation was no longer possible.

Not only the baseball candidates were out to-day but some forty-odd aspirants for positions on the Track Team. These were clustered at the further side of the inclosure where the coach and trainer, “Skeet” Presser, were, rather dubiously it seemed, looking them over. Guy Felker, eighteen years of age and a senior, was captain this year, and Arthur Beaton was manager. Beaton was checking off the candidates from a list he held and Captain Felker was inquiring of no one in particular “where the rest of them were.” Sixty-four names had gone down on the notice-board in the school corridor and only forty-four had shown up. “Skeet” explained the absence of a number of the delinquents by reminding Guy that fellows couldn’t practice baseball and report for track work both. Guy consented to become slightly mollified, and, Manager Beaton having completed his checking, the coach and trainer took charge.

“Skeet” was a slight, wiry man of some thirty years, with a homely, good-natured countenance and a pair of very sharp and shrewd black eyes. He had been in his time a professional one- and two-miler of prominence, but of late years had made a business of training. He was regularly employed by the Clearfield Young Men’s Christian Association, but his duties there did not occupy all his time and for three seasons he had coached and trained the High School athletes, and with a fair measure of success, since during his régime Clearfield had once won overwhelmingly from her rival, Springdale, had once been beaten decisively and had once lost the meeting by a bare three points. This year, if Guy Felker could have his way, the purple of Clearfield was to wave in gorgeous triumph over the blue of Springdale.

The trouble was, however, that after the last defeat by her rival Clearfield High School had rather lost enthusiasm for track and field sports. The pendulum swung far over toward baseball, and this spring it had been more than usually difficult to persuade fellows to come out for the Track Team. Felker had posted notice after notice calling for volunteers before his insistence had stirred up any response. Of course there was a nucleus in the hold-overs from last season, but they were not many and new material was badly needed if the Purple was to make a real showing against the Blue. Within the last week the list on the notice-board had grown encouragingly in length, though, and with a half-hundred candidates to choose from it would seem that coach and captain should have been encouraged. Unfortunately, though, a good half of the aspirants were youngsters whose chances of making good were decidedly slim, and “Skeet” and Guy Felker both realized that if, after the final weeding out, they had twenty-five fellows to build the team with they might consider themselves extremely fortunate.

At least half of the candidates who reported this afternoon were in street togs. Those who were not were taken by Guy for a slow run out into the country and the others were dismissed with instructions to report to-morrow dressed for work. Of the former were Fudge and Perry, and it was their fortune to amble over the better part of two miles at the tail-end of a strung-out procession of runners. Perry was in the rear because Fudge was. Fudge was there because running was not a strong point with him. If it hadn’t been for the occasional rests allowed by the captain, Fudge would have dropped out, discouraged and winded, long before they got back to the field. As it was, however, he managed to remain within sight of the leaders. Once when, having trotted up a hill, he subsided on a convenient ledge to regain his breath, he voiced a protest.

“Gee,” panted Fudge, “I don’t see any good in running all over the landscape like this when you’re going to be a shot-putter! If I’d known they were going to spring this on me I wouldn’t have signed for the team!”

“I guess maybe it’s good for you,” replied Perry, “whether you’re going to throw weights or run or jump. Hadn’t we better start along again? The others are nearly a quarter of a mile away now.”

Fudge lifted a dejected head and viewed the situation. His face brightened. “They’re going around the hill, Perry,” he said. “That’s all right. We’ll just trot down this side and pick ’em up again at the road.”

Perry wanted to demur at that, but Fudge’s discomfort was so real that he had to sympathize, and so they cut off to the right and reached the bottom of the hill shortly after the first runners had passed. There were many knowing grins as the two boys trotted out from the fringe of trees.