Forward Pass E-Book

Ralph Henry Barbour

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

There was a warning clang from the engine bell and a sudden return to darkness as the fireman slammed the furnace door and tossed the slicer-bar back onto the tender. The express messenger in the car behind pulled close the sliding door and hasped it, pausing afterwards to glance questioningly at the cloudy night sky. At the far end of the train, which curved serpent-wise along the track, the conductor’s lantern rose and fell, the porter seized his footstool and Dan Vinton, after a final hurried kiss, broke from his mother’s arms and ran nimbly up the steps of the already moving sleeper.
“Good-bye, mother,” he called down into the half-darkness. “Good-bye, father! Good-bye, Mae!”

Leseprobe

FORWARD PASS

A STORY OF THE “NEW FOOTBALL”

By

RALPH HENRY BARBOUR

AUTHOR OF “THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOL,” “THE

1908

© 2022 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782383836162

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.—

Off to School

II.—

Mr. Findlay Settles the Question

III.—

The First Acquaintance

IV.—

“28 Clarke”

V.—

Yardley Hall

VI.—

“Tubby” Jones Surrenders

VII.—

Payson, Coach

VIII.—

Dan Joins the Football Squad

IX.—

The First Game

X.—

Dropped!

XI.—

A Rescue

XII.—

At Sound View

XIII.—

A Rich Man’s Son

XIV.—

Dan Joins a Conspiracy

XV.—

Gerald Visits Yardley

XVI.—

An Afternoon Afloat

XVII.—

Light Blue or Dark?

XVIII.—

Loring Decides

XIX.—

Football with Brewer

XX.—

Mr. Austin Loses His Temper

XXI.—

Mr. Pennimore Consents

XXII.—

Nordham Springs Some Surprises

XXIII.—

What Happened “Blue Monday”

XXIV.—

Dan Wonders

XXV.—

On Probation

XXVI.—

“Tubby” Packs a Bag

XXVII.—

Vinton’s Victory

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“He staggered to his feet, stumbled blindly through the doorway”

“‘Go in for Minturn.... Use your brains,’ he added”

“Tubby went over backward in his chair”

FORWARD PASS

CHAPTER IOFF TO SCHOOL

“All aboa-a-ard!”

There was a warning clang from the engine bell and a sudden return to darkness as the fireman slammed the furnace door and tossed the slicer-bar back onto the tender. The express messenger in the car behind pulled close the sliding door and hasped it, pausing afterwards to glance questioningly at the cloudy night sky. At the far end of the train, which curved serpent-wise along the track, the conductor’s lantern rose and fell, the porter seized his footstool and Dan Vinton, after a final hurried kiss, broke from his mother’s arms and ran nimbly up the steps of the already moving sleeper.

“Good-bye, mother,” he called down into the half-darkness. “Good-bye, father! Good-bye, Mae!”

They all answered at once, his father in a hoarse growl, his mother softly and tearfully and his sister in a shrill, excited voice as she tripped along beside the car steps, waving frantically. The eastbound express carried ten cars to-night, and for a moment the big engine puffed and grunted complainingly, and the train moved slowly, the wheel flanges screaming against the curving rails. From across the platform Dan heard his father’s voice lifted irritably:

“Ma, if you’re coming I wish you’d come! Can’t expect me to keep these horses standing here all night!”

Dan smiled and choked as he heard. Dear old dad! All the way to the station he had been as cross as a wet hen, holding his face aside as they passed a light for fear that the others would see the tears in his eyes, and trying with his gruffness to disguise the quiver in his voice. Dan gave a gulp as he felt the tears coming into his own eyes. The dimly-lighted station hurried by, there was a flash of green and red and white lanterns as the trucks rattled over the switches and then they had left the town behind and were rushing eastward through the September night, gaining speed with every click of the wheels. There was a sudden long and dismal shriek from the engine, and with that the monster settled down into the stride which, ere morning came, was to eat up three hundred Ohio miles and bring them well into Pennsylvania. The porter, with a muttered apology, closed the vestibule door, and Dan, blinking the persistent tears from his eyes, left the platform and entered the sleeping-car.

“I put your suit-case under the berth, sir,” said the porter as he followed the passenger down the aisle. The lights were turned low, and Dan was glad of it, for he didn’t want even the colored porter to think him a baby. The green curtains were pulled close at every section and from behind some of them came sounds plainly indicating occupancy.

“Lower eight,” murmured the porter. “Here you are, sir. Hope you’ll sleep well, sir. Good night.”

“Thanks,” muttered Dan. “Good night.”

“We take the diner on at Pittsburg, sir, at seven. But you can get breakfast any time up to ten, sir.”

Dan thanked him again and the porter took himself softly away. When he was finally stretched out in his berth, with his pocketbook tightly wrapped up in his vest under his pillow, and the gold watch which his father had given him when he had graduated from the grammar school last June tucked into the toe of one of his stockings as seeming to him the last place in which a thief would look for it, Dan raised the curtain beside his head and rolled over so that he could look out. It was after eleven o’clock and he knew that he ought to be asleep, but he felt as wide awake as ever he had in his life. The moon had struggled out from behind the big bank of clouds which had hid it and the world was almost as light as day. For awhile, as he watched the landscape slide by, a panorama of field and forest and sleeping villages, his thoughts clung somewhat disconsolately to Graystone and his folks. But before long the excitement which had possessed him for days and which had only left him at the moment of parting crept back, and, although he still stared with wide eyes through the car window, he saw nothing of the flying landscape.

He was going to boarding-school! That was the wonderful, pre-eminent fact at present, and at the thought his heart thrilled again as it had been doing for two months past. And at last the momentous time had really arrived! He was absolutely on his way! The dream of four years was coming true! Do you wonder that his heart beat chokingly for a few minutes while he lay there with the jar and rattle of the train in his ears? When one is fifteen and the long-desired comes to pass life grows very wonderful, very magnificent for awhile.

Ever since Dan had been old enough to think seriously of the matter of his education he had entertained a deep longing for a course at boarding-school. In Graystone it wasn’t the fashion for boys to go away from home for their educations; Graystone had a first-class school system and was proud of it; a boy who wanted to go to college could prepare at the Graystone High School as well as anywhere else, declared the Graystone parents; and as for the Eastern schools—well, everybody knew that the most of them were hot-beds of extravagance and snobbishness. This is a belief that unfortunately prevails in plenty of towns beside Graystone. Dan’s father was quite as patriotic as any other citizen of the town and held just as good an opinion of its educational advantages. So when, during his second year at the grammar school, Dan had broached the subject of a term at a preparatory school in the East he was not surprised when Mr. Vinton refused to consider it.

“Pooh! Pooh!” scoffed Mr. Vinton, good-naturedly. “What’s the matter with our own High School, Dan? Isn’t it good enough for you, son?”

Dan tried to explain that it was the school life he wanted to try, and, unfortunately for his argument, mentioned “Tom Brown.”

“Tom Brown!” exclaimed his father. “Well, that’s a fine story, Dan, but it’s all romance. I went to boarding-school myself, and I can tell you I never ran up against any of the things you read about in ‘Tom Brown.’ No, son, if that’s all you want you might as well stay right here in Graystone. You’ll find just as much of the ‘Tom Brown’ romance in High School as you will back East.”

Dan wanted to tell his father that the kind of school he wanted to go to was little like the boarding-school which his father had attended. Mr. Vinton’s early education had been obtained at the Russellville Academy, an institution whose name was out of all proportion to its importance. Mr. Vinton had been born in one of the smaller towns along the Willimantic River in Connecticut, and Russellville Academy had possessed for him the advantages of proximity and inexpensiveness. The tuition and board was one hundred dollars a year, and on Friday afternoon he could reach home by merely walking twelve miles. Mr. Vinton’s schooling had terminated abruptly in the middle of his third year, when the death of his mother—his father had died years before—left him dependent on an uncle living in Ohio. So Russellville Academy was abandoned in favor of a position in the Graystone Flour Mills. To-day Mr. Vinton owned the mills and, for that matter, pretty much everything else in that part of the county. But the fact that he had succeeded in life on a very slim education hadn’t made him a scoffer at schools and colleges; on the contrary, he was a firm believer in those institutions and was determined that Dan, who was an only son, should have the best education that money and care could provide.

Dan’s private and unexpressed opinion of Russellville Academy wasn’t flattering. He believed that his father must have had a pretty forlorn, unpleasant experience there. But Mr. Vinton had come to look back upon his few years of school life through rose-tinted glasses.

“There were only about thirty of us fellows,” he would say when in reminiscent mood, “but maybe we had better times for that reason; every fellow knew every other fellow. Why, the first month I was there I fought more than half the school!”

“Did you ever get licked?” asked Dan eagerly.

“Licked!” laughed Mr. Vinton. “Lots of times, son. Why, seems to me as I look back at it, my nose was out of kilter more than half the time!”

“You must have been a set of young barbarians,” observed Dan’s mother with conviction on one occasion.

“Nothing of the sort, Mary; just a parcel of youngsters full of life. We didn’t think anything of a fight; used to make up half an hour afterwards and bandage each other’s heads.”

“Were the fellows nice?” asked Dan doubtfully.

“Nice? Of course they were, most of them. Still, I guess we had all sorts at the Academy. There was ‘Slugger’ Boyd and ‘Brick’ Garrison and ‘Fatty’ Thomas and—and others like them that maybe you wouldn’t just call ‘nice.’ ‘Brick’ got his nickname because of a way he had of grabbing up a brick or a stone when it came to a fight. No one cared to fight ‘Brick’ except in the barn where there weren’t any loose stones lying around handy.”

“Did you have a nickname, too?” Dan asked.

“Yes, they used to call me ‘Kicker.’ You know we didn’t have any special rules to fight by; every fellow just went at it the handiest way. I was a good kicker; used to jab out with my fist and kick at the same time. I won lots of fights that way, for some fellows can stand any amount of punching on the head or body and quit right away when you get a good one on their shins.”

“We wouldn’t call that fair fighting nowadays,” said Dan uneasily.

“No? Well, fashions change. It was good scientific fighting when I went to school,” answered Mr. Vinton smilingly.

“Well, I think your folks must have been crazy to let you go to such a place,” said Mrs. Vinton irascibly. “Fighting all the time and living on almost nothing and sleeping on corn-husks and walking twelve miles to get home and nearly freezing to death!”

“Oh, I only came near freezing once,” responded Mr. Vinton pleasantly. “But that was a close shave. I guess if Farmer Hutchins hadn’t come along just when he did that time—”

“I don’t want to hear about it again!” declared Dan’s mother. “If that’s your idea of having a good time it isn’t mine! And you can just believe that no son of mine ever goes to boarding-school!”

“Well, as for that, ma, I dare say boarding-schools have changed some since my day,” responded Mr. Vinton.

But in spite of this assertion Russellville Academy remained to Mr. Vinton a typical boarding-school, and remembering how little he had learned there and, when the rose-tinted glasses were laid aside, how many unhappy moments he had spent there, he was resolved in his own mind that his wife’s decision was a wise one.

In the end Dan had given up all hope of getting to boarding-school, without, however, ceasing to desire it. In June he had graduated high in his class at the grammar school with every prospect of entering the High School in September. But toward the last of July a conversation had occurred at the dinner table which later put a different complexion on things.

“Well, son, what you been doing to-day?” asked Mr. Vinton, absentmindedly tucking his napkin into his collar, yanking it quickly away again and glancing apologetically at his wife.

“Nothing much, sir. I played baseball for awhile and then ‘Chad’ Sleeper and Billy Nourse and Frank Whipple and I went over to Saunders’ Creek and went in bathing.”

Mr. Vinton frowned.

“‘Chad’ Sleeper, eh? Is that old Dillingway Sleeper’s boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And young Nourse and that Whipple boy, you said, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“See a good deal of those boys, do you? Go around with them a lot, eh?”

“Yes, sir, a good deal.”

“I thought Frank Whipple was going to work this summer in his father’s store.”

“He did start to,” answered Dan, “but—I don’t know. I guess he didn’t like it.”

“Didn’t like it, eh? Did he tell you so?”

“Well, he said it was pretty hard work; said the store was awfully hot and his mother was afraid he’d take sick.”

Mr. Vinton grunted.

“All those boys in your class next fall?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Which one is your especial chum?”

“‘Chad,’ I guess. I like him better than the others.”

“What is it you like about him, son?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He’s a good baseball player, and a dandy half-back; you know he played half on the team last fall, sir.”

“Did he? I’d forgotten. Well, any other good points you can think of, son?”

Dan hesitated. He didn’t like his father’s tone. It was a tone which Mr. Vinton was likely to use when, to use Dan’s expression, he was “looking for trouble.”

“He—he’s just a good fellow, sir, and we get on pretty well together.”

“I see. Ever hear of him doing anything worth while?”

“He won the game for us last Thanksgiving Day,” answered Dan doubtfully, pretty certain that the feat mentioned wouldn’t make much of a hit with the questioner.

“Ever hear of him doing anything helpful, anything kind, anything useful to himself or anyone else?” pursued Mr. Vinton remorselessly. Dan was silent for a moment.

“I guess he would if he got the chance,” he replied finally.

“Well, did you ever see him shading his eyes with his hand and looking for a chance?”

“John, don’t talk such nonsense,” expostulated Mrs. Vinton, glancing at Dan’s troubled countenance.

“No nonsense at all, my dear,” answered Mr. Vinton. “Dan’s got three of the most useless, shiftless, no-account boys in town for his special chums and I’d like to know just what he sees in them. That’s all. ‘Chad’ Sleeper’s father never did a real lick of work in his life, excepting the time he did the State out of forty thousand dollars on that bridge contract, and ‘Chad’s’ just like him. And young Whipple is no better; and I guess Nourse belongs with them. Look at here, son, aren’t there any smart, honest, decent fellows you can go with?”

“‘Chad’ and Billy and Frank never did anything mean that I know of,” answered Dan resentfully.

“Did you ever know any of them to do anything fine?” asked his father. “Outside of winning a football game, I mean?”

Dan was silent, looking a trifle sulkily at his plate. There was a moment’s pause. Then Mr. Vinton said more kindly:

“Well, I’m not finding fault with you, son. Maybe the boys here are pretty much alike; and as I come to think about it I guess they are. But it’s going to make a difference with you what sort of friends you have during the next five or six years. And if you can’t find the right sort here in Graystone, why—”

But Mr. Vinton paused there and relapsed into a thoughtful silence that neither Dan nor his mother nor even his sister Mae, who was the privileged member of the family, cared to disturb.

CHAPTER IIMR. FINDLAY SETTLES THE QUESTION

Nearly a week later the conversation bore fruit.

“Son,” asked Mr. Vinton, “do you still want to go to boarding-school?”

Dan’s heart leaped.

“Yes, sir,” he answered.

“Well, your mother and I have been talking it over and we’ve about concluded that a change of scene for the next three or four years won’t do you any harm. What do you say to the Brewer School?”

Dan hesitated. The Brewer School was in the southern part of the state and had quite a local reputation, but Dan was certain that it wasn’t the school he wanted. So he took his courage in hand.

“I’d rather go East, sir,” he said.

“Would, eh? Well, maybe you might as well. I tell your mother that as long as you have to go away it don’t make much difference how far it is. Takes all day to go to Brewer, anyway; put a night on top of that and you’re pretty well East. Any special school you’ve got in mind?”

“N-no, sir. I didn’t think you’d let me go, and so I haven’t thought about any special place.”

“Hm! Well, I dare say the old Academy is still running back in Russellville, but—I don’t know, son, that it would just suit you. What do you think?”

“If you don’t mind I’d like to go to one of the big schools, sir,” answered Dan.

“All right, all right, son,” said Mr. Vinton cordially. “You put your thinking cap on and study up on schools. When you find one you think you’d like you tell me and I’ll get particulars.”

For the next fortnight Dan perused the advertisements of eastern preparatory schools, sent for catalogues, read them, made up his mind and changed it at least once a day. It seemed that just as soon as he had settled upon one school as being the very place for him the postman tossed another catalogue in at the gate and Dan speedily discovered his mistake. He discovered several other things during that period, one of which was that you can’t always safely judge an article by its advertisement. There was one school in particular which won his admiration early. It was advertised in a magazine all across the top of a page. The picture gave a panoramic view of the grounds and buildings and Dan held his breath as he looked. At first glance there seemed to be at least a quarter of a mile of study halls and dormitories; by actual count the buildings in the picture numbered eleven; and, as Dan pointed out to his father, they were all of them “jim-dandies.” Mr. Vinton allowed that they were. He appeared rather aghast at the magnificence of the place; perhaps he was silently contrasting it with Russellville Academy as he remembered the latter institution. But when the forty-page catalogue came and Dan set out to identify the different buildings in the picture by means of the explanatory text he found to his dismay that only three of them were mentioned. This puzzled him until he came across a casual paragraph stating that “the grounds of the State Normal School adjoined the Academy on the east.” After that Dan viewed with suspicion all pictures until the text of the catalogues made good the pictorial claims.

In the evenings he showed his day’s “finds” to his father; Mrs. Vinton was practically exempt from the evening conferences, since she was called upon at all hours of the day for her opinions; and under the study lamp Mr. Vinton and Dan looked at pictures, read descriptions and weighed the merits of the different institutions under consideration. Of course Dan started out with a pronounced leaning toward the military schools; most every boy will own to the fascination exerted by stirring pictures of long lines of youths in trim uniforms drawn up in battalions on an immaculate parade ground, or dashing recklessly over four-rail gates on splendid white horses, or grouped with stern authority about a field-gun from whose muzzle a puff of white smoke hints stirringly of the aspect of war. But Dan’s father was very discouraging on the subject of military schools.

“If you want to be a real soldier, son,” he said, “I’ve no objection if you can get your mother’s permission. I guess I could get you appointed to West Point in the next year or two. But if you don’t want the real thing I wouldn’t monkey with the imitation. From what I can learn about most of these military academies they’re either play schools or else they’re reform schools in disguise. Of course there may be some very excellent ones, but I don’t believe you stand in need of a military training, son.”

After all Dan was going to school to prepare for college, probably Yale, and, recollecting that, he dropped the military schools and a good many others from consideration. What, he asked himself, was the good of learning to jump a horse over a four-rail fence or make pontoon bridges? He had never heard that equestrianism or bridge-building was required at Yale. And if it was merely a matter of physical exercise he guessed he could get all he needed of that from baseball, football and tennis. He was an enthusiastic lover of athletics; played a fair game of tennis, was an excellent baseman and had captained last year’s football team at the grammar school. And so, naturally enough, he was looking for a school where athletics flourished. But nevertheless one school, which advertised that “Blank Academy has turned out five victorious football teams in the last six years” earned only his contempt. For he shrewdly argued that a school which sought to attract students on the strength of its athletic success must be sadly deficient in other and more important departments. Football and baseball and things like that, thought Dan, were important adjuncts to education, but they weren’t what a fellow went to school for.

In the end, and that was along towards the third week in August, the choice, by an exhaustive process of elimination, was narrowed down to two schools, one in New Hampshire and one in Connecticut. I think all the other members of the family were heartily glad when the end was reached, but Dan had enjoyed it all hugely. He would have felt sorry for the boy whose school is selected by his parents. “Why, just think of all the fun he has missed!” Dan would have exclaimed. It was hard work making the final decision. The New Hampshire school, Phillips Exeter, appealed to him strongly. In Graystone a building thirty years old was considered venerable; one fifty years old—and there was only one such—was absolutely archaic. And Phillips Exeter Academy was a century and a quarter old; was turning out students years before the State of Ohio entered the Union! That appealed to Dan’s imagination. And Dan liked what the catalogue said about the school’s purpose: “The object of the Academy is to furnish the elements of a solid education. The discipline is not adapted to boys who require severe restrictions, and the method of instruction assumes that the pupils have some power of application and a will to work. The purpose of the instructors is to lead pupils to cultivate self-control, truthfulness, a right sense of honor, and an interest in the purity of the moral atmosphere of the school.” I think Dan’s final choice would have fallen on the New Hampshire school had not Congressman Findlay happened in one day to dinner while the decision was still in abeyance. The Congressman was very large and very deliberative, and when in the course of the conversation the subject of Dan’s choice of schools was brought up and his advice requested he demolished two of Mrs. Vinton’s excellent lemon tarts before he replied. Then:

“Both fine schools,” he said. “Not much to choose, Mr. Vinton. Don’t know as I ought to advise you, sir. I’m prejudiced.”

“Eh?” inquired Mr. Vinton. “How’s that?”

“Yardley man myself, sir,” replied Mr. Findlay.

Well, that settled it. Mr. Findlay was one of the State’s best citizens, a man admired by all, even his political enemies. Dan, who was always somewhat in awe of him, liked him thoroughly, and was convinced that a school which could turn out men like the Congressman was all right. After dinner some of Dan’s awe wore off, for Mr. Findlay told about Yardley Hall School and indulged in reminiscences of his own four years there and he and Dan became very chummy. When Dan went up to his room that night he had the Yardley Hall School catalogue in his hand and before he went to sleep he had read it through from front cover to back, word by word, three times.

The following month had been an exciting period in his life. There were so many jolly things to attend to. Of course the first of all was to apply for admission to Yardley Hall, and until the reply was received Dan was on tenter-hooks of suspense. For the catalogue plainly stated that the enlistment was restricted to two hundred and seventy students, and Dan feared that he was too late. But fortune was with him and he learned later that his application was the last but one to be accepted that year. Then came a brushing up on one or two studies in which he felt doubtful of satisfying the examiners. And after that there were clothes to buy, and to this task Mrs. Vinton lent herself with an ardor and enjoyment that for the while soothed her sorrow over her son’s prospective departure. And then, quite before anyone realized it, it was the Day Before, and Dan was listening to a few words of advice from his father.

“I don’t know that I’ve got much to say to you, son,” said Mr. Vinton. “We’ve let you choose your school and after you get there you’ll find that you’ve got to choose lots of other things for yourself. We’ve started out by letting you have your own say, pretty much, and I guess we’ll keep it up. So far you’ve shown pretty fair sense for a youngster. If you want advice about anything, why, you know where to come for it, but unless you ask for it neither your ma nor I will interfere with you. You’re getting along towards sixteen now, and at that age every boy ought to have a mind of his own. You’ll make mistakes; bound to; everyone makes mistakes except a fool. Just so long as you don’t make the same mistake twice you’ll do well enough. You’re going to a pretty expensive school, son. I don’t object to the cost of it, but I want you to see that you get your money’s worth. The extravagant man isn’t the man who pays a big price for a thing; he’s the man who doesn’t get what he pays for. So you’ll have to work. You’ll find all sorts and kinds of boys there, I guess, and I want you to use good sense in picking out your friends. A whole lot depends on that. A fellow can know other fellows that will be good for him if he goes about it right. Don’t make your friendship too cheap; if a fellow wants it let him pay your price; if he has the making of a real friend he will do it. Of course I expect you to behave yourself; but I’m not worried much about that. I’ve never seen anything vicious about you, son, and if you choose your friends right I don’t ever expect to. I might tell you not to do this and not to do that, but I guess if you’ll just make up your mind not to do anything you wouldn’t be afraid of telling your ma or me about you’ll keep a pretty clean slate.”

Next day had come the final frenzied excitement of packing, succeeded by an interminable wait for the moment of departure. Dinner that evening had been an uncomfortable meal, with only Mae looking cheerful or eating anything to speak of. And afterwards how the hours had crawled until it was time to get into the surrey and drive to the station! Dan had felt pretty miserable several times before the carriage came around and his mother spent much of the time out of the room, returning always with suspiciously moist eyes and smiling lips. Then had succeeded the drive to the train through the silent streets, past the darkened houses—for Graystone retires early to bed—with everyone by turns unnaturally animated or depressingly silent. And now here he was whizzing away through the moonlight, leaving Graystone farther and farther behind, the great adventure really and truly begun!

Of course he wasn’t really sleepy; there was too much to think about to waste time in slumber; but the silver and purple world rolled past his eyes with hypnotic effect, the clickety-click of the wheels sounded soothingly, and—and presently he was sound asleep with the moonlight smiling in upon him through the car window.

CHAPTER IIITHE FIRST ACQUAINTANCE

Dan’s train rolled into the station at Wissining, Connecticut, at a few minutes before five. All the way from New York, and more especially since the Sound had suddenly flashed into view, he had been vividly interested in the view from the window of the parlor car, so palpably eager, in fact, to see this new country through which he was traveling that a kind-hearted, middle-aged gentleman whose seat was on the shoreward side of the car and across the aisle from Dan had insisted on changing chairs with him. Dan had at first politely refused the offer, but the gentleman had insisted with a little tone of authority in his voice and in the end Dan had accepted the coveted seat.

“I’ve never seen the ocean before,” he explained with a deprecating smile as he moved his bag across.

The gentleman smiled and nodded as though to say “I surmised as much, my young friend.” Then he settled down in his new chair and half hid his face behind a magazine. But a few moments later, when Dan happened to glance across, he encountered the gaze of the other fixed upon him speculatively. At once the eyes dropped to the pages of the magazine once more. Dan read the name on the cover, “The Atlantic Monthly,” and wondered whether the magazine was devoted to news of the fascinating ocean upon which he had been eagerly gazing. Then the absurdity of the idea struck him and he turned back to his window smiling.

Not only had Dan never seen an ocean before, but he had never looked on a body of water broader than the Ohio River. This doesn’t necessarily imply that he had spent his entire life in Graystone, for as a matter of fact the family spent an occasional summer away from home, usually in the Cumberland Mountains, and, besides this, Dan had made short trips now and then with his father to Cincinnati, Columbus, Springfield, and once as far South as Memphis. But Lake Erie, which was the nearest approach to an ocean in Dan’s part of the world, was two hundred miles north by rail and it happened that he had never reached it. And not only the ocean interested Dan to-day. The country itself engaged his pleased attention, for, although he had been born in Graystone, yet Connecticut had been the home of his father’s people for many generations and it seemed to him that the smilingly rugged, bay-indented country was holding out a welcome to him.

He had armed himself with a railroad map and had located his father’s old home some eighty miles north. The map even showed Russellville, and the tiny word there seemed a veritable welcome in itself! And so the time went quickly enough for him and almost before he knew it the porter was brushing his clothes and the train had slowed down at Greenburg, which, as he knew, was just across the river from his destination. As he tipped the porter and sank into his chair again he saw that the platform outside was thronged with boys who had left the train from the day-coaches ahead. They must be Yardley Hall boys, he thought; perhaps the train didn’t stop at Wissining and he should get off here! He looked around for someone whom he could ask and his gaze encountered that of the gentleman across the aisle, who, the magazine stowed away in his bag, had donned his light overcoat and was also apparently ready to leave the train. He noticed Dan’s anxious countenance and leaned across.

“Are you for Broadwood?” he asked.

“No, sir; that is, I’m going to Yardley Hall. Should I get off here?”

“No, your station is Wissining, the next stop. This is Greenburg and those boys are going to Broadwood Academy.”

Dan thanked him as the train started again. Suddenly the buildings dropped away from beside the track and in a flash he was looking along the estuary of a little river which wound away between low meadows for a short distance and then opened into the Sound. The sun had gone behind the clouds and a gray evening was succeeding a sunshiny day. Miles away across the quiet water the eastern end of Long Island lay like a purplish smudge against the horizon. He had time to see this, and time to catch a glimpse of a hamlet of scattered houses as the train crossed the little bridge and slowed down beside the station.

“Wissining,” announced the porter as he took up Dan’s bag. “This is your station, sir.”