On Your Mark! A Story of College Life and Athletics

“Who’s that fellow, Steve?”

“Ware, a freshie; he runs, or tries to. He was in the mile and two miles at Boston week before last and didn’t do a thing in either of them. Guess the Athletic Association will take his job away now. They just employed him to keep him in college, I guess. This thing of giving fellows work just because – ”

The words ended as suddenly as they had begun, so far as Allan was concerned, and he strode on to the laboratory. But his cheeks were burning and his heart was filled with wrath. For the first time he realized that his employment by the E. A. A. had a suspicious look, to say the least, while it was even probable that what the fellow he had overheard thought was really true. He was angry at the unknown youth for saying what he had, angry with Stearns for placing him in such a questionable position, and angry at Professor Nast for countenancing it. He wondered whether all the fellows he knew or who knew him believed as did the fellow he had passed, that he was knowingly allowing the Athletic Association to present him with money he was not earning.

The blood dyed his face again, and he marveled at his blindness. Why had he not seen from the first that Stearns had secured him the place in the office merely to ensure his stay at college and his participation in the dual meet with Robinson? And hadn’t he more than half suspected all along? But no, he was guiltless of that charge. Credulous and blind he had been, but not dishonest. And dishonest he would not be now. He passed a miserable, impatient half-hour, and when it was over hurried to the office of the Athletic Association and found Professor Nast at his desk.

The professor was a mild-mannered little man, rather nervous and seemingly indecisive, but he was executively capable and had much sound common sense. He viewed Allan’s arrival with mild curiosity, nodded silently, and turned back to his work. But Allan didn’t allow him to continue it.

“How much am I worth here, sir, if you please?” he demanded, unceremoniously. The chairman looked somewhat startled and disconcerted.

“Why – er – that is a difficult question to answer, Mr. Ware. But if you – ah – consider that you are not being paid enough, I shall be glad to consider the matter of increased remuneration if you will make out an application in writing, stating – ”

“Well, is my work here worth a dollar an hour, sir?”

“Eh? A dollar an hour? I – er – But I think you are receiving that amount, are you not?”

“Yes, sir; and that’s what the trouble is.”

“Trouble? Suppose you explain what you mean.”

“Well, I – ” He hesitated for words an instant and then threw politeness to the winds. “You’ve made me do what isn’t honest, you and Stearns,” he charged, angrily. “You offered me the work here just to keep me in college, so I could run at your old meet, and you gave me a dollar an hour for work that any one would do for half that money. Oh, I know it’s lots my fault,” he went on, silencing the professor’s remonstrances. “I ought to have guessed it, but I didn’t. I didn’t think a thing about it until to-day I overheard a fellow say in plain words that I was taking money I wasn’t earning. That’s a nice thing to have fellows say about you, isn’t it? And I dare say the whole college thinks just as he does, and – and – ”

“Hold up a minute,” said the professor, finally making himself heard. “You’re accusing Mr. Stearns and me of pretty hard things. Let’s talk this over quietly. Sit down, please.”

Allan obeyed. The professor swung around in his chair until he faced him, clasped his hands over his vest, and gravely studied Allan’s angry countenance.

“I’m not sure that you – ah – have any right to come here and charge me – or Mr. Stearns – with unfair dealings. But I will accord you the right, Mr. Ware, for I see that there has been a mistake made. It was, however, a mistake and nothing more, I assure you. Neither Mr. Stearns nor I had any intention of deceiving you. Allow me to finish, please,” he added, as Allan made an impatient movement.

“It has been the custom here, of recent years, to give employment in this office to men who have needed the work, and preference has been given to athletes. If they have been paid more for their labor than that labor was really worth – and I am ready to grant that they usually have – the money with which they were paid has always come out of the general athletic fund and not from the college. I am not – ah – prepared to defend this custom; on the contrary, sir, I think it a very bad one, and I for one should be glad to see it discontinued. In your case, now, Mr. Stearns came and saw me and told me you needed employment. The place was vacant and I offered it to you at the terms which have always been paid. You are not earning one dollar an hour, Mr. Ware, and if you feel that you have been deceived by us, I am very sorry. No deception was intended on my part, and I am sure Mr. Stearns believed that you – er – understood the situation.”

“I didn’t, though,” answered Allan, somewhat conciliated by the other’s manner. “I didn’t dream of it. I – I did think the work was rather easy considering the pay, but I thought maybe it would get harder, and that – that I could make up. If I had known the truth, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with the work.”

“I am sorry, but, as I have said, there was no intent at deception. I offer you my apologies, and I am sure Mr. Stearns will be quite as regretful as I am. If there is anything I can do to better matters, I shall be delighted to do it, Mr. Ware.”

“Yes, sir, there is. I’d like to keep on with the work until I have squared myself.”

“You mean you want to work without wages?”

Allan nodded. The professor considered the matter for a while in silence. Then —

“If you insist,” he said, “we will make that arrangement. But there is another method that may answer fully as well. Are you averse to continuing the work at – er – a just remuneration?”

“N-no, I suppose not,” Allan replied. “I need the work, and if you’ll pay me only what it’s worth I’d like to go ahead with it.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so, for you have been very conscientious, Mr. Ware, and your services in the office have become valuable to me. I should dislike to make a change. Supposing, then, you continue at – ah – fifty cents an hour? Would that be satisfactory?”

“Is it worth that much?” asked Allan, bluntly.

“Yes, it honestly is; it is worth quite that. Well, and in regard to – ah – let us say arrears; I am working on the compilation of a rather difficult lot of statistics which are to be incorporated into my report. You could assist me vastly with that matter and could work, say, an hour three evenings a week. In that way, it seems to me, you could very shortly ‘square’ yourself, as you term it, and could, to some extent, choose your own time for doing so. What do you – ah – think?”

Allan considered the matter. It sounded rather easy, and since an hour ago he had grown to view easy tasks with suspicion. But he could find no ground for objection, and in the end he accepted the proposal gratefully and stammered a somewhat lame apology for his hasty discourtesy. The Chairman of the Athletic Committee waved it politely aside.

“We will consider it settled, then,” he said. “This afternoon we will decide on the hours for the extra work. I’m glad you brought this matter up, Mr. Ware, for I think the time has come to do away with a pernicious custom. Good morning.”

On his way to his next recitation Allan reflected somewhat ruefully that under the new arrangement there was one thing which had been lost sight of, and that was a public vindication. As long as he continued to work in the office fellows would continue to think he was receiving money not earned. To be sure, he had the consolation of a clear conscience, but it was hard to have the fellows he knew and whose respect he craved think badly of him.

But there Allan was mistaken, for the story got out in short order – Tommy saw to that! – and it wasn’t long before he heard an account of the matter, in which he figured as a model of indignant virtue and a galley-slave to conscience, from a fellow whom he knew very slightly. After that he had no doubts about public vindication.

It was not a difficult matter to find three hours in the evening each week for the new labor, and he found it, since he had a fondness for mathematics, far more interesting than the daily letter-writing and clerical work. But five dollars a week wasn’t ten, and so, despite the protests of Pete and all the other members of the club table, he left the hospitality of Mrs. Pearson’s and went back to the college dining-hall, where he could, by careful management, make his monthly bill ridiculously small. Pete commanded and implored to be allowed to “fix things up” so that Allan need not leave the table; he almost wept; but Allan was obdurate. Pete even threatened to “let the table go hang” and return with Allan to Commons, but was finally dissuaded when Allan pointed out that in all probability he (Allan) would very shortly be taken onto the training-table of the track squad.

So Pete accepted the inevitable and draped Allan’s chair with some dozen yards of black crêpe, and allowed none to occupy it for a week of mourning. But Allan wasn’t a stranger to the table, for every Saturday night he returned there as Pete’s guest and sat in his old seat and was made much of by the crowd.

CHAPTER XVIII

AN ALARM OF FIRE

“Mary had a little dog,It was a noble pup;’Twould stand upon its front legsWhen you’d hold its hind legs up!”

Thus warbled Tommy as, having kicked the door shut, he subsided into one of Allan’s chairs by sliding over the back. Allan pushed his book away, yawned dismally, and looked over at his visitor mutely questioning:

“Where’s Pete?” Tommy demanded.

“Am I his keeper?” asked Allan.

“You’re his fidus whatyoucallit. Seen him to-night?”

“No; maybe he’s studying.”

“Careless youth,” muttered Tommy. “Say, did you hear about Pete and Bœotia?”

“No; who’s Bœotia, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s that place in – er – ancient history, you know. It was at recitation this morning; Professor Grove asked Pete how Bœotia was situated. Pete wasn’t prepared, but he thought he’d make a bluff at it. So he gets up and drawls out in his cheerfully idiotic way, ‘Oh, he had a pretty good situation, but he lost it.’”

“What did old Grove say?” laughed Allan.

“Well, I wasn’t there and can’t tell you. I’m going to settle my debts this week, and we’ll have that dinner at the Elm Tree Saturday night, if that’s all right for you fellows.”

“It’s all right for me,” said Allan.

“The funny part of it is,” Tommy went on, smiling, “that I made just enough to pay for the dinner out of the reports of Pete’s drowning which I sent to the Boston paper. I got my account yesterday.”

“Tell that to Pete,” laughed Allan.

“I’m going to. Where’s the angel child?”

“The angel child is probably out in the kitchen. I can’t keep her at home since vacation; she found out then where the grub comes from.”

“I think she ought to go to the dinner with us, don’t you?”

“Well, scarcely. Let’s go down to the ‘Ranch’ and see what Pete’s up to. I can’t study any more to-night.”

Town Lane was as dark as pitch save at remote intervals where street lamps flickered half-heartedly, and to reach Pete’s domicile at night without breaking a limb was quite a feat. To-night nothing more exciting occurred than a collision with a stable door which was swinging open, and the two reached the corner to find Pete’s windows brightly illumined. Tommy, being in a musical mood, took up a position underneath and broke into song.

“Here ’neath thy window, Love, I am waiting,Waiting thy sweet face to see,”

he declared, strumming the while on an imaginary guitar. But the verse came to an end without signs from the window, and so they climbed the stairs. The “Ranch” was deserted. But even as they assured themselves of the fact by looking into the bedroom, soft footfalls sounded on the stairs from the third-story loft, and a moment after Pete, looking like a conspirator, crept into the front room and softly closed the door behind him. Then his eyes fell on Allan and Tommy, and he grinned mysteriously.

“Where’d you come from?” Allan demanded.

“Up-stairs.”

“What’s doing up there?” asked Tommy, suspiciously.

“Nothing at all.” But the grin remained. Tommy sniffed.

“I’m going up to see,” he threatened.

Pete sank into a chair, took up his pipe, and spread his hands apart as if to say, “Please yourself; believe me or not, as you like.” Then he lighted his pipe.

“What have you done with your coat?” asked Allan. “And why are you festooned with cobwebs and decorated with dust?”

“Quien sabe?” answered Pete, shrugging his broad shoulders.

“Just the same, you’ve been up to something,” declared Allan, sternly. “And you’d better ’fess up.”

“Huh!” grunted Pete.

“Out with it!” commanded Tommy.

“Huh!” said Pete again.

“Sounds like a blamed old Indian, doesn’t he?” asked Tommy, disgustedly. “Well, don’t you come and beg me to intercede with the Dean for you.”

The smile on Pete’s face broadened; he chuckled enjoyably; but commands and demands failed to move him to confession, and, after arranging for the dinner at the Inn, Allan and Tommy took their departure, Pete, for some reason and contrary to custom, making no effort to detain them. As they clambered down the steep stairs, Pete called after them:

“Say, it would be a great night for a fire, wouldn’t it?”

“Fire?” repeated Allan. “Why?”

“Oh, such a dandy old high wind,” answered Pete. “Well, adios.”

“Wonder what he meant?” said Allan, on the way back. “It would be just like him to get into another mess.”

“About time,” chuckled Tommy. “Good night.”

Allan went to bed soon after eleven, with Two Spot, according to nightly custom, curled up against the small of his back. For a while he lay awake listening to the howling and buffeting of the wind, but presently sleep came to him.

It seemed hours later, but was in reality scarcely thirty minutes, when he awoke abruptly with the wild clanging of a bell in his ears. He sat up and listened. It was undoubtedly the fire-bell, and had he had any doubt about it the sound of running footsteps in the street would have convinced him at once.

For a moment he weighed the prospective excitement of a conflagration against the comforts of the warm bed. In the end the fire offered greater inducements, and he leaped out of bed, lighted the gas, and tumbled into his clothes. And all the time the fire-bell clanged and clashed on the March wind. Leaving Two Spot to the undisputed possession of the bed, Allan left the house and looked expectantly about him. But there was no glow in the sky in any quarter; darkness reigned everywhere save about the infrequent street lamps. Here and there persons were running toward the fire-house, and Allan followed their example.

Down Main Street he hurried, entered the yard back of the library, and cut across in the face of the buffeting wind to the beginning of Town Lane. When he reached Elm Street he was part of a steady stream of excited citizens and students, all hurrying anxiously toward where, half-way down the narrow thoroughfare, the brazen alarum was pealing deafeningly forth. And then, for the first time since he had awoke, Allan recollected Pete and his mysterious observation regarding fire. And instantly he knew that Pete and the fire-bell were in some way working mischief together.

Pete’s rooms were in the building at the corner of Center Street, and next door stood the fire-house, a plain two-storied building, surmounted by a twenty-foot tower, at the top of which hung the bell. When Allan reached the scene the windows of Pete’s front room were brilliantly illumined, and from one of them hung Pete, exchanging lively salutations with friends in the throng below.

For a moment Allan’s suspicions were deadened. In front of the fire-house the crowd jostled and craned their necks as they stared wonderingly upward to where the tower showed indistinctly against the midnight sky. On every hand were heard bewildered ejaculations, while members of the volunteer fire department ran hither and thither, questioning, suggesting, and plainly distracted. The big doors were open and inside the engine and hose-cart, horses in harness, were ready to sally forth the instant any one discovered where the fire was or why the bell clanged on and on without apparent reason. Through a hole in the ceiling a big rope descended, and at every clang of the bell it rose and fell again, and the building shook with the jar.

“Hello, Allan! Isn’t this great?” shouted a voice in his ear, and Allan turned to find Hal, arrayed principally in a plaid dressing-gown and white duck cricket hat, grinning from ear to ear.

“But – but what is it?” asked Allan, bewildered.

“Don’t know; nobody knows. There’s the bell and there’s the rope; no one’s pulling it; must be spooks! Isn’t it jolly?” And Hal leaped with delight and thumped Allan on the back.

“But why does the bell ring?” he asked, following the general example and staring upward at the tower.

“That’s it! Why does it? Some say it’s the wind, but that’s poppycock, you know. What I think is that some one’s got a rope hitched to the bell and is pulling it from the back of the building somewhere; that’s what I think.”

“But haven’t they been around there to see?”

“Yes, but they’re so excited and fussed they wouldn’t know a rope if they fell over it. Some one’s having a lark, you can bet on that. Isn’t it a picnic? Just hear the old bell! Wow! Listen to that!”

Allan put his mouth to Hal’s ear and whispered a single word. Hal started, shot a glance at Pete’s window and Pete himself, and burst into a gale of laughter.

“D-d-do you think so?” he gasped. “But – how could he? Look, there he is at the window. O Pete!”

“Hush up!” whispered Allan. “They’ll get onto it. Look, they’ve got a ladder! They’ll find out what’s up now, all right, because the rope will be hanging. We ought to warn Pete; come on!”

They wormed their way through the crowd, exchanging shouts of salutation with acquaintances as they went, until they were under Pete’s window. There they found Tommy, note-book in hand, looking very important and excited.

“O Pete!” shouted Allan. “Is your door unlocked?”

“Hello, partner!” returned Pete in a happy bellow. “Isn’t this great? Here I sit at my parlor window and watch all the wealth, beauty and fashion of our charming metropolis. And, say, ain’t the racket fine? This is more noise than I’ve heard since a dynamite blast went off behind my back! Why, it’s almost like living in a city! Say, if you fellows – ”

“We want to come up,” shouted Allan. “Unlock your door.”

Pete shook his head.

“Not on your life, partner; I’ve only got my nightie on. Want me to freeze to death?”

“Well, put something on,” said Allan anxiously, “and come down.”

“’Fraid of catching cold. Besides, I must turn in now; I’m losing my beauty sleep.”

“But – but, Pete, they’re – they’re putting up a ladder!” blurted Allan.

“Are they?” asked Pete imperturbably. “Well, I’m not coming down to help ’em. They’ll have to get on without me, my boy. Hello, Hal, that you? Ain’t this wano? Such a cheerful – ”

Pete’s roar stopped suddenly, as did the noise of the crowd. Two firemen half-way up the ladder at the front of the building nearly fell off. For a sudden appalling silence gave place to the uproar! The bell was still!

After a moment of startled surprise – for at first the silence seemed louder than the noise – every one broke into incoherent laughter and ejaculations. The men on the ladder paused, undecided, and finally slid back to earth to hold a consultation.

“Well, ain’t that a shame!” lamented Pete. “Just when I was beginning to get sleepy! Now I’m all woke up again. Say, you chaps, wait a bit and I’ll slip something on and let you up.” He disappeared from the window and was gone some time. Then the key scraped in the door at the foot of the stairs and Allan, Hal, and Tommy slipped through. Pete, standing guard, locked the portal in the faces of several undesired fellows and followed them up-stairs.

As Allan entered the room he glanced eagerly around. Just what he expected to find would have been hard to say, but whatever it was he didn’t find it. The room presented its usual appearance, save that articles of apparel lay scattered widely about just wherever Pete had happened to be when they came off. Pete locked the room door, took his pipe from the table and proceeded to fill it. The others looked about the room, looked at each other and looked at Pete. Pete scratched a match, lighted his corn-cob and smiled easily back. Allan sank into the easy chair.

“How – how did you do it?” he gasped.

“Do it? Do what?” asked Pete, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the open window. Outside sounds told of the dispersing of the throng.

“You know what,” said Allan.

Pete went to the window, called good night to an acquaintance, closed the sash and ambled back, smiling enjoyably.

“Wasn’t it moocha wano?” he asked. “Just answer me that, Allan. Did anything ever go off more beautifully, with more – er —éclat, as we say in Paree? Is your Uncle Pete the boss, all-star bell-ringer? Did you get on to the expression, the – the phrasing? Did you – ”

“Shut up, Pete,” said Hal, grinning. “Tell us about it. Go on, like a good chap.”

“There’s little to tell,” said Pete with becoming modesty. “Up there” – he pointed toward the ceiling – “is a loft. Over there is a bell. Bring a rope from the bell into the back window of the loft, down-stairs and through that door and – there you are! Quite simple.”

“But, look here,” piped up Tommy. “You were at the window when the bell was doing its stunts. How – how was that?”

“Simple, too,” answered Pete, waving aside a cloud of smoke. “There was a noose in the end of the rope and the noose fitted over my knee as I kneeled on the floor. It was hard work and I guess the hide’s about wore off, but it was all for the sake of Art.”

The three deluged him with questions simultaneously, and Pete, sitting nonchalantly on the edge of the table, answered them as best he could.

“But how about the rope?” asked Allan finally. “They’ll see it and trace it through the window.”

“Oh, no, they won’t, because, my boy, it isn’t there any longer. When I said I’d put something on and let you fellows in, I cut it off at the foot of the tower and brought my end of it away. They’ll find a rope there, all right, but they’ll never guess it went through the back window. Besides, I can prove an alibi,” he ended, with a generous and virtuous smile.

“That’s so,” answered Tommy. “We saw you at the window.”

“When the bell was ringing,” added Hal.

“And I saw both his hands,” supplemented Allan.

“Yes, I meant you should,” said Pete. Going to the trunk he took from behind it the lariat which usually hung on the wall, and from one end of it detached a few feet of hemp rope. This he put into the stove. The lariat he replaced upon the wall.

“Thus we destroy all evidences of guilt,” he said.

CHAPTER XIX

PETE PUTS THE SHOT

For a few days following the mysterious serenade on the fire-bell there was an epidemic of mild colds throughout the college; and as each fellow who had a cold was able and eager to tell – through his nose – what had happened at the fire-house, it would seem that there might have been some connection between the affliction and the midnight occurrence. But no serious illness resulted, and so we may leniently assert that no harm came of Pete’s joke.

Not that any one knew it was Pete’s joke, save the quartet and one other. The one other was Mr. Guild, out at Hillcrest. When morning came the severed rope hung in plain sight from the bell tower, and although it told clearly what had happened, yet it threw no light on the identity of the culprit. Of course every one – townfolk especially – declared it to have been a student prank, but none suspected Pete Burley, for it apparently entered no one’s head that the bell might have been rung from Pete’s room. The perpetrator was popularly believed to have been hidden in some near-by yard.

That Pete’s innocence was never questioned was a lucky thing for Pete, because the faculty would have viewed the affair in the light of a last straw, and Pete’s connection with Erskine College would have ceased then and there. As it was, the affair remained forever a mystery.