Part 7 (1/2)
”I gather you, fluently!” grinned T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., taking up ”Treasure Island” and his graceful pose once more. ”Leave me to peruse the thrilling pages of this cla.s.sic blood-and-thunder book, and I'll cause a beautiful serenity to obtain hither.”
”See that you do, you pestiferous insect!” threatened Beef McNaughton, ominously. ”Come on, fellows, Hicks can't escape our vengeance, if he bursts into what he fatuously believes is song. Just let him act hippicanarious, and--”
When the Gold and Green eleven, half of which, to judge by size, was Thor, had gone with Coach Corridan into the room across from that of the blithesome Hicks, the sunny-souled Senior tried to resume his perusal of ”Treasure Island,” but somehow the spell had been broken by the invasion of his cozy quarters. So, after vainly essaying to take up the thread of the story again, Hicks arose and stood by the window, gazing across the campus to Bannister Field, deserted, since the football team rested for the game of the morrow. As he stood there, the gladsome Hicks reflected seriously.
He thought of ”Thor,” and decided sorrowfully that the problem of awakening that stolid Colossus to a full understanding of campus life was as unsolved as ever.
”But Igive it up!” declared Hicks, determinedly. ”I have always been good at math, and I won't let this problem baffle me.”
Since the night, two weeks back, when T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had made his memorable speech, explaining to his fellow-students the ”Billon-Dollar Mystery,” and arousing in them a vast admiration for the slow-minded, plodding John Thorwald, every collegian had done his best to befriend the big Freshman. Uppercla.s.smen helped him with his studies. Despite his almost rude refusal to meet any advances, the collegians always had a cheery greeting for him, and his cla.s.s-mates, in fear and trembling, invaded his den at times, to show him they were his friends. Yet, despite these whole-hearted efforts, only two of old Bannister did the silent Thor seem to desire as comrades: the festive Hicks, for reasons known, and--remarkable to chronicle--little Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e, the timorous, studious ”Human Encyclopedia.”
”Colossus and Lilliputian!” the Phillyloo Bird quaintly observed once when this strangely a.s.sorted duo appeared on the campus. ”Say, fellows--some time Thor will accidentally sit on Theophilus, and we'll have another mystery, the disappearance of our b.o.n.e.r!”
The generous Hicks, longing for Thor's awakening to come, was not in the least jealous of his loyal little friend, Theophilus. In fact, he was sincerely delighted that the unemotional Hercules desired the comrades.h.i.+p of the grind, and he urged the Human Encyclopedia to strive constantly to arouse in Thor a realization of college existence, and a true knowledge of its meaning. At least one thing, Theophilus reported, had been achieved by Hicks' defense of Thorwald, and the subsequent att.i.tude of the collegians-- the colossal Freshman was puzzled, quite naturally. When over three hundred youths criticized, condemned, and berated him one night, and the next, even before he reconsidered his decision about football, came under his window and cheered him, no wonder the young Norwegian was bewildered.
On the football field, with his dogged determination, his bulldog way of hanging on to things until he mastered them, big Thor progressed slowly, and surely; the past Sat.u.r.day, against the heavy Alton eleven, the blond Freshman had been sent in for the second half, and, to quote an overjoyed student, he had ”busted things all up!” It seemed simply impossible to stop that terrible rush of his huge body. Time after time he plowed through the line for yards, and old Bannister, visioning Thor distributing Hamilton and Ballard over the field, in the big games, literally hugged itself.
And yet, despite Thorwald's invincible prowess, despite the vast joy of old Bannister at the chances of the Champions.h.i.+p, some intangible shadow hovered over the campus. It brooded over the training-table, the shower-rooms after scrimmage, on Bannister Field during practice; as yet, no one had dared to give it form, by voicing his thought, but though no youth dared admit it, something was wrong, there was a defective cog in the machinery of that marvelous machine, the Gold and Green eleven.
”'Oh, just leave it to Hicks,” quoth that sunny youth, at length, turning from the window; ”I'll solve the problem, or what is more probable, Theophilus may stir that sodden hulk of humanity, after awhile. I won't worry about it, for that gets me nothing, and it will all come out O.K., I'm positive!”
At this moment, just as T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., picked up ”Treasure Island”
again, he heard drifting across the corridor from the room opposite, in Butch Brewster's familiar voice:
”--Yes, I'll win three more Bs'--one each in football, baseball and track; next spring, I'll annex my last B at old Bannister, fellows--”
HisB--The words struck the blithesome Hicks with sledge-hammer force. Big Butch Brewster was talking of his last B, when he, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had never won his first; with a feeling almost of alarm, the sunny youth realized that this was his final year at old Bannister, his last chance to win his athletic letter, and to make happy his beloved Dad, by helping him to realize part of his life's ambition--to behold his son shattering Hicks, Sr.'s, wonderful record. His final chance, and outside of his hopes of winning the track award in the high-jump, Hicks saw no way to win his B.
Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., as has been chronicled, the beloved Dad of the cheery Senior, a Pittsburgh millionaire Steel King, was a graduate of old Bannister, Cla.s.s of '92. While wearing the Gold and Green, he had made an all-round athletic record never before, or afterward, rivaled on the campus. At football, basketball, track, and baseball, he was a scintillating star, annexing enough letters to start an alphabet, had they been different ones. Quite naturally, when the Doctor, speaking anent the then infantile Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., said, ”Mr. Hicks, it's a boy!”--the one-time Bannister athlete straightway began to dream of the day when his only son and heir should follow in his Dad's footsteps, shattering the records made at Bannister, and at Yale, by Hicks, .
However, to quote a sporting phrase, the son of the Steel King ”upset the dope!” At the start of his Senior year, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. had not annexed a single athletic honor, nor did the signs point to any records being in peril of getting shattered by his prowess; as Hicks himself phrased it, ”Dame Nature waswhen she handed out the Hercules stuff to me!” The happy-go-lucky youth, when he matriculated as a Freshman at Bannister College, was builded on the general lines of a toothpick, and had he elected to follow a pugilistic career, a division somewhat lighter than the tissue paperweight cla.s.s would have had to be devised to accommodate the splinter-student. A generous, sunny-souled, intensely democratic collegian, despite his father's wealth, the festive Hicks, with his room always open-house to all; his firm friends.h.i.+p for star athlete or humble b.o.n.e.r, his never-failing sunny nature, together with his famous Hicks Personally Conducted Expeditions downtown to the Beef-Steak Busts he had originated, in his three years at old Bannister, had made himself the most popular and beloved youth on the campus, but, he had not won his B!
And he had tried. With a full realization, of his Dad's ambition, his life-dream to behold his son a great athlete, the blithesome Hicks had tried, but with hilariously futile results. Nature had endowed him, as he told his loyal comrade, Butch Brewster, with ”the Herculean build of a Jersey mosquito,” and his athletic powers neared zero infinity. In his Freshman year, he inaugurated his athletic career by running the wrong way in the Soph.o.m.ore-Freshman football game, scoring a touchdown that won for the enemy, and naturally, after that performance, every athletic effort was greeted with jeers by the students,
”Itried!” said Hicks, producing two letters from the study-table, ”But not like I should have tried. I could never have played on the eleven, or on the nine, but I have a chance in the high-jump. I know I've been indolent and care-free, and I ought to have trained harder. Well, I just must win my track B this spring, but as to keeping the rash promise I made to Butch as a Freshman--not a chance!”
It had been at the close of his Freshman year, after Hicks, in the Intercla.s.s Track Meet, had smashed hurdles, broken high-jumping cross-bars, finished last in several events, and jeopardized his life with the shot and hammer, that he made the rash vow to which he now had reference. Butch, believing his sunny friend had entered all the events just to entertain the crowd, in his fun-loving way, was teasing him about his ridiculous fiascos, when Hicks had told him the story--how his Dad wanted him to try and be a famous athlete; he showed Butch a letter, received before the meet, asking his son to try every event, and to keep on training, so as to win his B before he graduated. Butch, great-hearted, was surprised and moved by the revelation that the gladsome youth, even as he was jeered by his friendly comrades, who thought he performed for sport, was striving to have his Dad's dream come true; he had sympathized with his cla.s.smate, and then his scatter-brained colleague had aroused his indignation by vowing, with a swaggering confidence:
”'Oh, just leave it to Hicks!' Remember this, Butch, before I graduate from old Bannister, I shall have won my B in three branches of sport!”
Butch had snorted incredulously. To win the football or the baseball B, the gold letter for the former, and the green one for the latter sport, an athlete had to play in three-fourths of the season's games, on the ”'Varsity”; to gain the white track letter, one had to win a first place in some event, in a regularly scheduled track meet with another team. And now, Butch's skepticism seemed confirmed, for at the start of his last year at college, Hicks had not annexed a single B, though he bade fair to corral one in the spring in the high-jump.
”Heigh-ho!” chuckled Hicks, at length. ”Here I am threatening to get gloomy again! Well I'll sure train hard to win my track letter, and that seems all I can do! I'd like to win my three B's, and jeer at Butch, next June, but--! I shall now tw.a.n.g my trusty banjo, and drive dull care away.”
Quite forgetful of the football conclave across the corridor, and of Butch Brewster's request for quiet, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. dragged out his beloved banjo, caressed its strings lovingly, and roared:
”Fifteen men sat on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the--”