After that he might change the rest of the contents from week to week, but Mrs. Baker, who read the letters aloud to a more or less attentive audience, could get through the first two sentences while she was still fixing her reading glasses on her nose. Today Dud’s letter was far more cheerful than usual. In fact, it started right out being cheerful, and the weather, generally dwelt on at length, was utterly neglected.
A good deal has happened since I wrote last and things are getting pretty busy here. Something doing every minute in the big tent, like Jimmy says. Yesterday I pitched four whole innings in the first practice game we have had and did pretty well take everything in consideration. Dad will say I’m boasting but I’m not because if I hadn’t done pretty well Mr. Sargent would have canned me quick, I guess. They only got nine hits off me and Guy Murtha who is captain and a peach of a whanger only got one real hit off me and one that was mighty scratchy. I guess I did as well as Brunswick and I know I did better than Joe Kelly because Joe had an ascension and handed out passes to beat the band. Well, we’re getting down to business here now all right, everybody’s doing something, the Track Team has been out about a fortnight and so have we, nearly, and the tennis cracks are out on the courts and some of the fellows who play golf go over to the Mt. Grafton links. They let the school fellows play there for nothing, but I guess Charley pays them something for the privilege by the year. I’d like to try my hand at golf, but I guess it wouldn’t be good for my pitching. I’m still sticking to straight balls, like I told you last week, but if I can get my control back pretty soon I’m going to try hooking them again. I guess you’ll begin to think I don’t do anything here at School but play baseball, but that isn’t so because ever since mid-year exams most of us have been digging like anything. I’m all square again with Mr. Gring, but I told you that last week. He says if I could write English as well as I talk it I’d be all right but just the same I got Good on my last comp and would have got Excellent only for punctuation. Jimmy says I’m a punk punctuater. I guess I am, all right, too.
We play our first game the 25th with the second team and then we play Portsmouth Grammar the 28th. I’ll send a card with the schedule on it so you will know when we play and whom. We have sixteen dates this spring but some of them aren’t filled yet. It’s very hard to get teams around here to play us because we usually beat them badly and they don’t like it. I had a row with Starling Meyer in the Field House the other day and he slapped me and Davy, he’s the trainer, butted in. I was going to make Star fight but faculty got wise and J. P. came up and said if I did I’d get in trouble, so I didn’t. But I’ll fix him some other way. Jimmy is well and as crazy as ever. He is out for the first too and I guess he will make it, anyway he has more chance than I have, but I feel very much more encouraged since Pete let me pitch all through the last of the game yesterday like I told you. I didn’t get your letter until Friday last week so I guess dad forgot to post it again. You ask him if he didn’t. He will say Pooh, Pooh, but I’ll bet anything he did. I’m getting on fine. I’ve met some more fellows who are on the nine and everything’s fine and dandy. Please tell dad that I’d like it if I could have my allowance a little before the first this month because I have to dig down for the track team assessment. They voted to tax all of us fifty cents apiece, which is O.K. only I haven’t got it to spare. Love to you all,
Your aff. Son,
Dudley.
Dud was highly pleased with that letter, for he discovered that he had bettered his usual four pages by two more. There was besides, he decided, a literary flavor to it that most of his epistles lacked; and he was certain that his father would chuckle about forgetting to post that letter; and maybe he would send the allowance right away!
After it was finished he and Jimmy went down to the Beach and, since they had no canoe of their own and the punts belonging to the school were hard to row and likely to prove leaky, borrowed one of the many that reposed under the trees along the Cove. They were in doubt for a while as to which particular craft to requisition, since it was distinctly advisable to select one whose owner was not likely to want it that day. The difficulty was finally solved by Dud, who recalled the fact that young Twining was in the infirmary with German measles. Twining was only a junior, anyway, and juniors had few rights even when perfectly well, and still fewer when they weren’t! So Dud blithely led the way to a gorgeous light blue Old Town, and together they bore it to the muddy water of the Cove and clambered in.
“It’s the best canoe here, too,” observed Jimmy contentedly, as he dipped his paddle at the bow. (Jimmy took the bow paddle because, or so he declared, there was more responsibility connected with that position. Dud, while not deceived in the least, never objected, for he had a notion that stern paddling would develop his arm muscles.) “They say that little bounder has heaps of money, millions and millions; that is, his dad has. Did I ever tell you about the old darkey woman who used to work for us? She was telling mother about some man who was terribly rich, you know, and mother said, ‘I suspect he’s a millionaire, Dorah.’ ‘A millionaire, Mis’ Logan!’ says she. ‘Bless yo’ heart, honey, that man’s got sev’ral millions of airs!’ Guess that’s the way with Twining’s dad, eh?”
“That’s a peach of a canoe that Ordway’s got,” said Dud, after he had laughed at Jimmy’s story.
“Too fancy,” replied the other as they left the Cove and headed down the river. “He has about everything in it except a grand piano!”