Read Ebook: Full-Back Foster by Barbour Ralph Henry Caswell Edward C Illustrator

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Ebook has 1287 lines and 65752 words, and 26 pages

other buildings very effectually he could hear the patter of feet on gravel and steps, voices in shouts or laughter and, from somewhere, the tuning of a banjo. As he looked down, leaning from the sill, two lads came across the grass and paused a little further along under a window. They were in flannels, and one carried a racket. They tilted their heads and hailed:

"O Jimmy! Jimmy Lynde! He-e-ey, Jimmy! Jimmy-y-y!"

After a moment a voice answered from a neighbouring window: "Hello, Gus, you old rascal! 'Lo, Petey! How's everything?"

"Lovely. Come and have a game. Channing's over there, and he and Pete'll play you and me. Huh? Oh, forget it! There's oodles of time for that. All right, hustle along. We'll go on over. Get a move on!"

The two waved and turned toward the gymnasium. Myron felt a trifle lonesome when they had gone, for it came to him that he was a stranger in a strange land. He wondered how long it would be before fellows stopped under his window and called to him. It probably didn't take long to get acquainted, he decided, but still he sort of wished he knew at least one of his school-fellows as a starter. Perhaps, after all, it would have been nicer to have had a room-mate. Personally, he hadn't cared much one way or the other, but his mother had exclaimed in horror at the idea of his sharing his room with a strange boy. "Why, you can't tell what sort of a person he might be, Myron dear," she had protested. "Of course we know that Parkinson is one of the nicest schools and that some of the very best people send their sons there, but nowadays it's quite impossible to keep the wrong sort out of anywhere. It would be awful if you found yourself with some dreadful low kind of boy." So Myron had said, "Oh, all right, Mater," and dismissed the notion. And maybe she was right, too, for it would be a frightful bore to have to live in such close quarters with some "roughneck." On the whole he guessed he was better off alone, even if he did feel rather lonely for a few days.

Myron pulled the portal open. Framed in the doorway stood a veritable giant of a boy, a battered valise in each hand, a ragged-edged stiff straw hat tilted far back from his perspiring countenance and a none too clean handkerchief dangling from inside a wilted collar.

"Atta boy!" said the stranger genially, and then, to Myron's amazement, he piled into the study, fairly sweeping the other aside, dropped his bags with mighty thuds on the floor and mopped his broad face with the dangling handkerchief. "Geewhillikins, but that's some tote, kiddo!" he observed with an all-encompassing grin. "I'm sweating like a horse!"

"It is warm," replied Myron in a voice that was quite otherwise. "But haven't you--er--made a mistake?"

"Watyer mean, mistake?" asked the other, puzzled.

"In the room. This is seventeen."

"Sure! That's all right. I just came from the Office. That Hoyt guy said seventeen. And, say, kiddo, it's some swell dive, ain't it? Guess you and I are lucky guys, all right, to get it, eh?"

SO DOES JOE DOBBINS

Myron didn't know who "that Hoyt guy" might be, but he was sure that he or some one else had made a horrible mistake. Why, this big, good-natured, badly-dressed boy was the roughest sort of a "roughneck," the identical type, doubtless, that his mother had spoken of so distastefully! Myron viewed him during a moment of silence, at a loss for words. The newcomer had removed his tattered hat and was now struggling with a jacket that, far too tight in the sleeves, parted reluctantly from the moist garments beneath. But it came off finally and the boy tossed it carelessly to a chair and stretched a pair of long arms luxuriously ere he sank onto it. "That train was like a furnace all the way, and the ice-water gave out at Hartford," he said. "Well, here we are, though. What's your name? Mine's Dobbins; Joe Dobbins, only they generally call me 'Whoa.'"

"My name is Foster," replied Myron rather weakly.

"Foster, eh? That's all right. I know a fellow at home name of Foster. Drives for Gandell and Frye. They're the big dry-goods folks. He's an all-right guy, too, Sam is. He and I used to be pretty thick before I came away. Were you here last year, Foster?"

"No, I--this is my first year."

"What class?"

"Third, I expect."

"Same here. I'm new, too. I was at St. Michael's last year, until April. I beat it then. Got in wrong with faculty, you know." He smiled and winked. "Great little school, St. Michael's, but sort of narrow. My old man said he guessed I needed more elbow-room. So I thought I'd try this place. Looks all right so far; sort of pretty: plenty of trees. I like trees. Grew up with 'em. Maybe that's why. Dad made his money out of trees."

"Indeed?" responded Myron, coldly polite. "Lumber, I suppose."

"Wrong, kiddo. Spruce gum."

"Oh!"

"Maybe you've heard of him: Tom Dobbins: the Spruce Gum King, some call him."

Myron shook his head. For some absurd reason he felt slightly apologetic, and was angry with himself for it.

"No? Well, I guess you don't come from my part of the country. Portland, Maine's my home. We've been living there six or seven years. I missed the woods at first a heap, let me tell you. Why, we used to live right in 'em: big trees all around: no town nearer than six miles. I was born there, in a log house. So were my three sisters. Them was the happy days, as the guy says."

"Very--very interesting, I'm sure," said Myron, "but about this room, Dobbins: You're quite certain that they told you Number 17?"

"Sure! Why not? What's wrong with it?" Dobbins gazed questioningly about the study and then leaned forward to peer through the open door of the bedroom. "Looks all right. Plumbing out o' order, or something? Any one had smallpox here? What's the idea?"

"The idea," replied Myron a bit haughtily, "is that I am supposed to have this suite to myself. I particularly asked for a single suite. In fact, I am paying for one. So I presume that either you or I have made a mistake."

"Don't bother. I haven't registered yet. I'll straighten it out. Maybe he meant one of the other halls."

"Yes. Well, I'll find out about it. Meanwhile you might just--er--wait."

"Got you, kiddo. I'll come along, though, if you say so. I don't mind. I'm fine and cool now. Maybe I'd better, eh?"

"No, no," replied Myron quickly. "You stay here." He repressed a shudder at the thought of being seen walking into the Administration Building with Dobbins! For fear that the latter would insist on accompanying him, he seized his hat and fairly bolted, leaving the intruder in possession of the disputed premises.

The Administration Building was but a few rods away, and Myron, nursing his indignation, was soon there. But it was evident that he would have to wait a considerable time, for the space outside the railing that divided the secretary's office in half was well filled with returning students. There was nothing for Myron to do save take his place in the line that wound from the secretary's desk across the room and back again. But the official, in spite of a nervous manner, handled the registrations efficiently, and after fifteen minutes or so, during which he was annoyedly aware of the amused stares and whisperings of a couple of fourth class youngsters, Myron's turn came. He gave his name and answered the questions and then, when the secretary waved him on, "There's been a mistake made about my room, sir," he said. "I engaged a single suite nearly two months ago and you wrote that I was to have Number 17 Sohmer. Now I find that you've put another fellow in with me, a fellow named Dobbin or Dobbins."

The secretary rescued the card that he had a moment before consigned to the index at his elbow and glanced quickly over it. "Oh, yes," he answered. "I recall it now. But I wrote to your father several days ago explaining that owing to the unexpectedly large number of students this year we'd be unable to give you a study to yourself. Possibly you left before the letter reached your home in--ah, yes,--Port Foster, Delaware. The school catalogue states distinctly that rooms are rented singly only when circumstances permit. The suite assigned you is a double one and we have had to fill it. Very sorry, Mr. Foster, but perhaps you will find it an advantage to have a companion with you."

"That has been arranged. One-half of the first term rental has been refunded. That is all, Mr. Foster?"

"Why--why, I suppose so, but I don't like it, sir. You agreed to give me a room to myself. If I had known how it was to be, I--I think I'd have gone somewhere else!"

"I guess you'd better do that," replied Myron haughtily. "I'll telegraph my father right away."

"What do you think this is, Dobbin?" he demanded angrily. "A--a stable?"

Dobbins' jaw dropped and he viewed Myron with ludicrous surprise. "How do you mean, a stable?" he asked.

"Oh!" said Joe, in vast relief. "That's it! I thought maybe you were going to crack some joke about me being a horse, on account of my name. Don't gentlemen put their feet on the table and let their galluses down?"

"No, they don't!" snapped Myron. "And as long as you're rooming with me--which I hope won't be long--I'll ask you to cut out that 'roughneck' stuff."

"Sure," grinned Joe. "Anything to oblige, Foster." He had already dropped his feet, and now he drew his suspenders over his shoulders again and slipped his feet back into his shoes. "Don't guess I'll ever get on to the ways of the best circles, Foster. I'm what you call an Unspoiled Child of Nature. Well, what did the guy in the Office say? I'm betting I was right, kiddo."

"And don't call me 'kiddo'! You know my name. Use it."

"Gosh-all-hemlock!" murmured the other. "Say, you must have one of those fiery Southern temperaments I've read about. Now I know how the Civil War happened. I'll bet you're a direct descendant of General Lee!"

"I'm not a Southerner," answered Myron. "Just where do you think Delaware is?"

"Well, I didn't know you hailed from there," replied Joe untroubledly, "but I'd say Delaware was sort of Southern. Ain't it?"

"Dobbins, please; with an S."

"Dobbins, then," continued Myron impatiently. "That fellow over there says the school's so full I can't have a room to myself. They promised me I could two months ago, and we've paid for one. Well, I'm going to get out and go somewhere where--where they know how to treat you. But--but I can't leave until tomorrow, so we'll have to share this place tonight."

"That'll be all right," replied Joe affably. "I don't mind."

"I'm not used to sharing my room with others," answered Myron stiffly. "And I'm afraid you and I haven't very much in common. So I guess we'll get on better if--if we keep to ourselves."

"All right, kiddo--I mean Foster. Anything for a quiet life! Suppose we draw a line down the middle of the room, eh? Got a piece of chalk or something?"

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