CHAPTER XII
Once more the aging Wilbur Cowan stood alone by night thrillingly towatch the arched splendour of stars above and muse upon the fleetingyears that carried off his youth. The moment marked another tremendousepoch, for he was done with school. Now for all the years to come hecould hear the bell sound its warning and feel no qualm; never againneed sit confined in a stuffy room, breathing chalk dust, and compel hiserrant mind to bookish abstractions. He had graduated from the NewbernHigh School, respectably if not with distinguished honour, and thesuperintendent had said, in conferring his rolled and neatly tieddiploma, that he was facing the battle of life and must acquit himselfwith credit to Newbern.
The superintendent had seemed to believe it was a great moment; therehad been a tremor in his voice as he addressed the class, each in turn.He was a small, nervous, intent man whose daily worries showed plainlythrough the uplift of the moment, and Wilbur had wondered what he foundto be so thrilled about. His own battle with life--he must have gone outto the fight years ago under much the same circumstances--had apparentlybrought him none of the glory he was now urging his young charges tostrive for. He had to stay in a schoolroom and breathe chalk dust.
Whatever the battle of life might be, he was going to fight itout-of-doors; not like imprisoned school-teachers and clerks andbookkeepers in First National banks. Only when alone under that splatterof stars did he feel the moment big with more than a mere release fromtextbooks. Then at last he knew that he had become a man and must putaway childish things, and his mind floated on the thought, off to thosedistant stars where other boys had that night, perhaps unwittingly,become men.
He wished that people would not pester him with solemn questions aboutwhat he now meant to make of himself. They seemed to believe that heshould be concerned about this. Winona was especially insistent. Shesaid he stood at the parting of the ways; that all his future hung uponhis making a seemly choice; and she said it gloomily, with frankforeboding, as one more than half expecting him to choose amiss.
Judge Penniman was another who warned him heavily that it was time toquit being a Jack-of-all-trades. The judge spoke as from a topless towerof achievement, relating anecdotes of his own persistence underdifficulties at the beginning of a career which he allowed his hearer toinfer had been of shining merit, hampered, it is true, by the mosttrying ill health. Even Mrs. Penniman said that they were expectinggreat things of him, now that he had become a man.
The boy dimly felt that there was something false in all this urgency.The superintendent of schools and Winona and the judge and Mrs. Pennimanseemed to be tightly wound up with expectancy about him, yet lived theirown lives not too tensely. The superintendent of schools was notinspiring as a model; the judge, for all his talk, lived a life of fatidleness, with convenient maladies when the Penniman lawn needed mowing.Mrs. Penniman, it is true, fought the battle of life steadily with herplain and fancy dressmaking, but with no visible glory; and Winonaherself was becoming a drab, sedate spinster, troubled about manythings. He wondered why they should all conceive him to be meant for somuch more than they had achieved. Why couldn't he relax into a life suchas they led, without all this talk of effort and planning? It seemed tohim that people pretty much allowed life to make itself for them, andlived it as it came. He was not going to bother about it. Let it come.He would find a way to live it. People managed. Judge Penniman was neverso ailing that he couldn't reach the harness shop for his game ofcheckers. The only person he knew who had really worked hard to makesomething of himself was Spike Brennon.
* * * * *
So he resorted to the golf links that summer, heedless and happy."Without ideals so far as one can read him," wrote Winona in herjournal, underlining the indictment and closing it with three boldexclamation points. He was welcomed effusively to the golf course byJohn Knox McTavish.
"Good!" said John on the morning of his appearance, which was effusivefor any McTavish.
He liked the boy, not only because he drove a sweet ball, but becauseyou could talk to him in a way you couldn't to par-r-r-rties you wasteaching to hold a club proper-r-r-r and to quit callin' it a stick.
He caddied that summer only for golfers of the better sort, and forSharon Whipple, choosing his employ with nice discrimination. John hadsaid golf was a grand game, because more than any other game it showedhow many kinds of fool a man could be betwixt his mind and his muscles.His apprentice was already sensitive to the grosser kinds. In additionto caddying he taught the secrets of the game when pupils came tooplenteously for John. But he lacked John's tried patience, and for theideal teacher was too likely to utter brutal truths instead of politeand meandering diplomacies. He had caught perhaps a bit too much ofSpike Brennon's manner of instruction, a certain strained brusquerie,out of pace with people who are willing to pay largely for instructionwhich they ignore in spite of its monotonous repetition. John warned himthat he must soften his clients--butter-r-r 'em up with nice words--orthey wouldn't come back. He must say they was doing gr-r-rand. He didsay it now and then, but with no ring of conviction.
Still it was a good summer. Especially good, because all the time heknew he was waiting for that morning in early September when the schoolbell would ring and he would laugh carelessly at what had once been theimperious summons. He thought that after this high moment he might beable to plan his life at least a little--not too minutely.
* * * * *
Late that summer Merle and Patricia Whipple came by appointment to playthe course with him. Merle, too, had become a man--he would entercollege that fall. Apparently no one was bothering about the plan of hislife. And Patricia had become, if not a woman, at least less of a girl,though she was still bony and utterly freckled. They drove off, Patricianot far but straight, and Merle, after impressive preliminaries thatshould have intimidated any golf ball, far but not straight. After hisshot he lectured instructively upon its faults. When he had done theyknew why he had sliced into the miry fen on the right. Then with anexpert eye he studied his brother's stance and swing. The ball of Wilburwent low and straight and far, but the shot was prefaced, apparently, byno nice adjustment of the feet or by any preliminary waggles of theclub.
"No form," said Merle. "You ought to have form by this time, but youdon't show any; and you put no force into your swing. Now let me showyou just one little thing about your stance."
With generous enthusiasm he showed his brother not only one littlething, but two or three that should be a buckler to him in time of need;and his brother thanked him, and so authoritative was the platformmanner of Merle that he nearly said "Yes, sir." After which Patriciaplayed a brassy shot, and they all went to find Merle's ball among theoaks. After that they went on to Wilbur's ball, which--still without atrace of form--he dropped on the green with a mashie, in spite ofMerle's warning that he would need a mid-iron to reach it.
They drove, and again Merle lectured upon the three reasons why his ballcame to rest in a sand trap that flanked the fairway. He seemed to feelthis information was expected from him, nor did he neglect a generousexposition of his brother's failure to exhibit form commensurate withhis far, straight drive. His brother was this time less effusive in histhanks, and in no danger whatever of replying "Yes, sir!" He merelyretorted, "Don't lunge--keep down!" advice which the lecturer receivedwith a frowning, "I know--I know!" as if he had lunged intentionally,with a secret purpose that would some day become known, to the confusionof so-called golf experts. Wilbur and Patricia waited while Merle wentto retrieve his ball. They saw repeated sand showers rise over the topof a bunker. From where they stood the player seemed to be inventing anew kind of golf, to be played without a ball. A pale mist hung over thescene.
"I know just what he's saying," Patricia told Wilbur.
"Shame on you!" said he, and they both laughed, after which Patriciaglanced at him oftener.
It should be said that he was now arrayed as Winona would have him, insummer sports attire of careles
s but expensive appearance, including asilk shirt alleged by the maker to be snappy, and a cap of realcharacter. The instinct of the male for noticeable plumage had at lastworked the reform that not all of Winona's pleading had sufficed for.Wilbur Cowan at the moment might, but for his excellent golf, have beenmistaken for a genuine Whipple.
Merle's homilies continued after each shot. He subjected his own drivesto a masterly analysis, and strove to incite his brother to correctform, illustrating this for his instruction with practice swings thatwere marvels of nicety, and learnedly quoting Braid and Vardon.
It was after one of these informative intervals, succeeding abrilliantly topped drive by the lecturer, that Patricia Whipple, full inthe flooding current of Merle's discourse, turned her speckled faceaside and flagrantly winked a greenish eye at Wilbur Cowan; whereuponWilbur Cowan winked his own left eye, that one being farthest from thespeaker. The latter, having concluded his remarks for the moment, wentto find his ball, and the two walked on.
"He just ought to be taken down," suggested Patricia, malevolently.
"Think so?" demanded Wilbur.
"Know so!" declared the girl. "'Tisn't only golf. He's that way abouteverything--telling people things--how to do it and everything. Only noone at our house dares come down on him. Harvey D. and Ella and evengrandfather--they all jump through hoops for him, the cowards! I givehim a jolt now and then, but I get talked to for it."
"The boy needs some golf talk--he certainly does," conceded the other.
"Too bad you're afraid to do it," Patricia said, resignedly.
She looked sadly away, then quickly back at him to see if it had taken.She thought it hadn't. He was merely looking as if he also considered ittoo bad. But on the next tee he astonishingly asserted himselfas---comparatively--a golfing expert. He wasn't going to have thissplendid brother, truly his brother for all the change of name, making afool of himself before a girl. Full in the tide of Merle's jauntydiscourse he blazed out with an authority of his own, and in tones soarrogant that the importance of the other oozed almost pitiably fromhim.
"Quit that! Listen! We've played ten holes, and you haven't made oneclean drive, and I've got off every one clean. I make this course inseventy-three, and you'd never make it in one hundred and twenty the wayyou're going. But every time you stand there and tell me things aboutyour drive and about mine as if you could really play golf."
"Well, but my dear chap--" Merle paused, trying to regain some lostspiritual value--"I'm merely telling you some little things about form."
"Forget it!" commanded the other. "You haven't any form yourself; youdon't have form until you can play the game, and then you don't thinkabout it. Maybe my form doesn't stick out, but you bet it must be tuckedin there somewhere or I couldn't hit the ball. You don't want to thinkI haven't any just because I don't stand there and make a long speech tothe ball before swatting it."
"Well, I was only saying----" Merle began again, but in meekness such asPatricia had never observed in him.
Hearing a sound in the background Wilbur turned. She was staging apantomime of excessive delight, noiselessly clapping her thin brownhands. He frowned at her--he was not going to have any girl laughing athis brother--and returned his attention to the late exponent of Braidand Vardon.
"Here"--he teed a ball--"you do about every wrong thing you could. Youdon't overlook a single one. Now I'll show you. Take your stance,address the ball!"
He had forgotten, in the heat of his real affection, all the differencein their stations. He was talking crisply to this Whipple as if he weremerely a Cowan twin. Merle, silent, dazed, meek, did as he was directed.
"Now take your back swing slower. You've been going up too quick--go upslow--stay there! Wait--bend that left wrist under your club--not outbut under--here"--he adjusted the limp wrist. "Now keep your weight onthe left foot and come down easy. Don't try to knock the ball a mile--itcan't be done. Now up again and swing--easy!"
Merle swung and the topped ball went a dozen feet.
"There, now I suppose you're satisfied!" he said, sulkily, but hisinstructor was not, it seemed, satisfied.
"Don't be silly! You lifted your head. You have to do more than onething right to hit that ball. You have to stay down to it. Here"--heteed another ball--"take your stance and see if you can't keep down.I'll hold you down." In front of the player he grasped his own driverand rested it lightly upon the other's head. "Just think that clubweighs a hundred pounds, and you couldn't lift your head if you wantedto. Now swing again, turn the left wrist under, swing easy--there!"
They watched the ball go high and straight, even if not far.
"A Texas leaguer," said Wilbur, "but it's all right. It's the firsttime this afternoon you've stayed in the fairway. Now again!"
He teed another ball, and the threesomes had become a mere golf lesson,plus a clash of personalities. Wilbur Cowan did all the talking; he wasgrim, steely eyed, imperious. His splendid brother was mute andsubmissive, after a few feeble essays at assertion that were brutallystifled. Patricia danced disrespectfully in the background when neitherbrother observed her. She had no wish to incur again the tightly drawnscowl of Wilbur. The venom of that had made her uncomfortable.
"See now how you hit 'em out when you do what I tell you!" said theinstructor at last, when Merle had a dozen clean drives to his credit.But the sun had fallen low and the lesson must end.
"Awfully obliged, old chap--thanks a heap!" said Merle, recoveringslightly from his abjectness. "I dare say I shall be able to smack thelittle pill after this."
The old chap hurled a last grenade.
"You won't if you keep thinking about form," he warned. "Best way toforget that--quit talking so much about it. After you make a shot, keepstill, or talk to yourself."
"Awfully good of you," Merle responded, graciously, for he was no longerswinging at a ball, but merely walking back to the clubhouse, where oneman was as good as another. "There may be something in what you say."
"There is," said Wilbur.
He waved them a curt farewell as they entered the latest Whipple car.
"But, you know, the poor kid after all hasn't any form," theconvalescent Merle announced to Patricia when they were seated.
"He has nice hair and teeth," said the girl, looking far ahead as thecar moved off.
"Oh, hair--teeth!" murmured Merle, loftily careless, as one possessinghair and teeth of his own. "I'm talking about golf."
"He lines 'em out," said Patricia, cattishly.
"Too much like a professional." Merle lifted a hand from the wheel towave deprecation. "That's what the poor kid gets for hanging about thatclubhouse all the time."
"The poor kid!" murmured Patricia. "I never noticed him much before."
"Beastly overbearing sort of chap," said Merle.
"Isn't he?" said Patricia. "I couldn't help but notice that." Sheshifted her eyes sidewise at Merle. "I do wish some of the folks couldhave been there," she added, listlessly.
"Is that so?" he demanded, remembering then that this girl was never tobe trusted, even in moods seemingly honeyed. He spurted the new roadsterin rank defiance of Newbern's lately enacted ordinance regulating thespeed of motor vehicles.
Yet the night must have brought him counsel, for he appeared the nextafternoon--though without Patricia--to beseech further instruction fromthe competent brother. He did this rather humbly for one of his station.
"I know my game must be pretty rotten," he said. "Maybe you can show meone or two more little things."
"I'll show you the same old things over again," said Wilbur, overjoyedat this friendly advance, and forthwith he did.
For a week they played the course together, not only to the bettermentof Merle's technic, but to the promotion of a real friendliness betweenthis Whipple and a mere Cowan. They became as brothers again, seeming tohave leaped the span of years during which they had been alien. Duringthose years Wilbur had kept secret his pride in his brother, hisexultation that Merle should have been called for this hig
h eminence andnot found wanting. There had been no one to whom he could reveal it,except to Winona, perhaps in little flashes. Now that they were alone ina curious renewal of their old intimacy, he permitted it to shine forthin all its fullness, and Merle became pleasantly aware that thissharp-speaking brother--where golf was concerned--felt for him somethingmuch like worship. The glow warmed them both as they loitered over thecourse, stopping at leisure to recall ancient happenings of theirboyhood together. Far apart now in their points of view, the expensivelynurtured Merle, and Wilbur, who had grown as he would, whose educationwas of the street and the open, they found a common ground and rejoicedin their contact.
"I don't understand why we haven't seen more of each other all theseyears," said Merle on a late day of this renewed companionship. "Ofcourse I've been away a lot--school and trips and all that."
"And I'm still a small-towner," said Wilbur, though delightedly. It wasworth being a small-towner to have a brother so splendid.
"We must see a lot of each other from now on," insisted Merle. "We mustget together this way every time I come back."
"We must," said Wilbur. "I hope we do, anyway," he added, reflectingthat this would be one of those things too good to come true.
"What I don't understand," went on Merle, "you haven't had theadvantages I have, not gone off to school or met lots of people, as I'malways doing, not seen the world, you know, but you seem so much olderthan I am. I guess you seem at least ten years older."
"Well, I don't know." Wilbur pondered this. "You do seem younger someway. Maybe a small town makes people old quicker, knocking round one theway I have, bumping up against things here and there. I don't know atall. Sharon Whipple says the whole world is made up mostly of smalltowns; if you know one through and through you come pretty near knowingthe world. Maybe that's just his talk."
"Surly old beggar. Somehow I never hit it off well with him. Toosarcastic, thinking he's funny all the time; uncouth, too."
"Well, perhaps so." Wilbur was willing to let this go. He did notconsider Sharon Whipple surly or uncouth or sarcastic, but he was notgoing to dispute with this curiously restored brother. "Try a brassy onthat," he suggested, to drop the character of Sharon Whipple.
Merle tried the brassy, and they played out the hole. Merle made aneight.
"I should have had a six at most," he protested, "after that lovely longbrassy shot."
Wilbur grinned.
"John McTavish says the should-have-had score for this course is amar-r-rvel. He says if these people could count their should-have-hadsthey'd all be playing under par. He's got a wicked tongue, that John."
"Well, anyway," insisted Merle, "you should have had a four, because youwere talking to me when you flubbed that approach shot; that cost you acouple."
"John says the cards should have another column added to write inexcuses; after each hole you could put down just why you didn't get itin two less. He says that would be gr-r-r-and f'r th' dubs."
"The hole is four hundred and eighty yards, and you were thirty yardsfrom the green in two," said Merle. "You should have had--"
"I guess I should have had what I got. Sharon Whipple says that's theway with a lot of people in this life--make fine starts, and then flubtheir short game, fall down on easy putts and all that, after they geton the lawn. He calls the fair greens lawns."
"Awful old liar when he counts his own score," said Merle. "I playedwith him just once."
Wilbur grinned again. He would cheerfully permit this one slander of hisfriend.
"You certainly can't trust him out of sight in a sand trap," heconceded. "You'll say, 'How many, Mr. Whipple?' and he'll say, 'Well,let me see--eight and a short tote--that's it, eight and a tote.' Hemeans that he made eight, or about eight, by lifting it from the roughabout ten feet on to the fairway."
"Rotten sportsmanship," declared Merle.
"No, no, he's a good sport, all right! He'd expect you to do the same,or tee up a little bit for a mid-iron shot. He says he won't read therules, because they're too fine print. I like the old boy a lot," heconcluded, firmly. He wanted no misunderstanding about that, even ifMerle should esteem him less for it.
They drove from the next tee. One hundred and fifty yards ahead thefairway was intersected by a ditch. It was deep, and its cruel mawyawned hungrily for golf balls. These it was fed in abundance daily.
"Rottenly placed, that ditch!" complained Merle as he prepared to drive.
"Only because you think so," replied his brother. "Forget it's there,and you'll carry it every time. That's what Sharon Whipple does. It'swhat they call psychology. It's a mental hazard. Sharon Whipple saysthat's another thing about golf that's like real life. He says most allthings that scare us are just mental hazards."
"Stuff!" said Merle. "Stuffy stuffness! The ditch is there, isn't it,psychology or no psychology? You might ignore a hungry tiger, butcalling him a mental hazard wouldn't stop him from eating you, would it?Sharon Whipple makes me tired." He placed a drive neatly in the ditch."There!" he exploded, triumphantly. "I guess that shows you what the oldgas bag knows about it."
"Oh, you'll soon learn to carry that hole!" his brother soothed. "Nowlet's see what you can do with that niblick." He grinned again as theywent on to the ditch. "Sharon Whipple calls his niblick his 'gitter'."Merle, however, would not join in the grin. Sharon Whipple still madehim tired.
In the course of their desultory playing they discussed the otherWhipples.
"Of course they're awfully fond of me," said Merle.
"Of course," said Wilbur.
"I guess Harvey D.--Father--would give me anything in the world I askedfor, ever since I was a kid. Horses, dogs, guns, motor cars--notice theswell little roadster I'm driving? Birthday! You'd almost think he looksup to me. Says he expects great things of me."
"Why wouldn't he?" demanded the other.
"Oh, of course, of course!" Merle waved this aside. "And GrandfatherGideon, he's an old brick. College man himself--class of sixty-five.Think of that, way back in the last century! Sharon Whipple never got tocollege. Ran off to fight in the Civil War or something. That's why he'sso countrified, I s'pose. You take Gideon now--he's a gentleman. Any onecould see that. Not like Sharon. Polished old boy you'd meet in a club.And Mrs. Harvey D.--Mother--say, she can't do enough for me! Bores mestiff lots of times about whether I'm not going to be sick or something.And money--Lord! I'm supposed to have an allowance, but they all hand memoney and tell me not to say anything about it to the others. Of courseI don't. And Harvey D. himself--he tries to let on he's very strictabout the allowance, then he'll pretend he didn't pay me the lastquarter and hand me two quarters at once. He knows he's a liar, and heknows I know it, too. I guess I couldn't have fallen in with a nicerbunch. Even that funny daughter of Sharon's, Cousin Juliana, she warmsup now and then--slips me a couple of twenties or so. You should haveseen the hit I made at prep! Fellows there owe me money now that I bet Inever do get paid back. But no matter, of course."
"That Juliana always makes me kind of shiver," admitted Wilbur. "Shelooks so kind of--well, kind of lemonish."
"She's all of that, that old girl. She's the only one I never do getclose to. Soured old maid, I guess. Looks at you a lot, but doesn't saymuch, like she was sizing you up. That nose of hers certainly does standout like a peak or something. You wouldn't think it, either, but shereads poetry--mushiest kind--awful stuff. Say, I looked into a book ofhers one day over at the Old Place--Something-or-Other Love Lyrics wasthe title--murder! I caught two or three things--talk about rawstuff--you know, fellows and girls and all that! What she gets out ofit beats me, with that frozen face of hers."
A little later he portrayed the character of Patricia Whipple in termsthat would have incensed her but that moved Wilbur to little but mildinterest.
"You never know when you got your thumb on that kid," he said. "She'sthe shifty one, all right. Talk along to you sweet as honey, but all thetime she's watching for some chance to throw the harpoon into you.Venomous--regular vixe
n. No sense of humour--laughs at almost anything afellow says or does. Trim you in a minute with that tongue of hers. Andmushy! Reads stories about a young girl falling in love with strange menthat come along when her car busts down on a lonely road. Got that bugnow. Drives round a whole lot all alone looking for the car to go blooeyand a lovely stranger to happen along and fix it for her that turns outto be a duke or something in disguise. Sickening!
"Two years ago she got confidential one night and told me she was goingto Italy some day and get carried off to a cave by a handsome bandit inspite of her struggles. Yes, she would struggle--not! Talk about mentalhazards, she's one, all right! She'll make it lively for that familysome day. With Harvey D. depending on me a lot, I'm expecting to have noend of trouble with her when she gets to going good. Of course she'sonly a kid now, but you can plot her curve easy. One of these kindthat'll say one thing and mean another. And wild? Like that time whenshe started to run off and found us in the graveyard---remember?"
They laughed about this, rehearsing that far-off day with itsvicissitudes and sudden fall of wealth.
"That was the first day the Whipples noticed me," said Merle. "I madesuch a good impression on them they decided to take me."
At another time they talked of their future. Wilbur was hazy about hisown. He was going to wait and see. Merle was happily definite.
"I'll tell you," said he when they had played out the last hole oneday, "it's like this. I feel the need to express my best thoughts inwriting, so I've decided to become a great writer--you know, take upliterature. I don't mean poetry or muck of that sort--seriousliterature. Of course Harvey D. talks about my taking charge of theWhipple interests, but I'll work him round. Big writers aresomebody--not bankers and things like that. You could be the biggestkind of a banker, and people would never know it or think much about it.Writers are different. They get all kinds of notice. I don't know justwhat branch of writing I'll take up first, but I'll find out at college.Anyway, not mucky stories about a handsome stranger coming along justbecause a girl's car busts down. I'll pick out something dignified, youbet!"
"I bet you will," said his admiring brother. "I bet you'll get a lot ofnotice."
"Oh"--Merle waved an assenting hand--"naturally, after I get startedgood."
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