Instantly everything changed. What had been a sure rally died away, killed at its most promising moment. The noise from the Bannister bench became perfunctory, the cheers and shrieks from the low bleachers behind were silenced, the clamor died down; now the sounds came from their own side, from the coach pleading with them to hold it, his two fists upraised, from the subs yelling at them to get the next batter, from the men around the infield, and the boys out there behind.
“Cool and nervous, Jim...”
“Now let’s go, Jim...”
“Ok, Jim, nice and loose, Jim.”
“That’s pitching, Jim.”
“Let him hit it, Jim; we’ll pick it up for you.”
He did hit, a grass cutter toward first. Ronald felt nervous. He got down on one knee to make it sure. He wanted to make it safe, and watched the rasping hard grounder come at him. It struck his glove, bounced up in the air, and in his excitement he stabbed at the ball and missed. There it was, on the ground, rolling away from him. He pounced on it, pulled himself to his feet and dashed for the bag. By a second he managed to cross over before the runner.
They tramped happily across the thick grass of the outfield toward Bob Patterson and the waiting bus, toward the gym and the showers at Abraham Lincoln, toward their clothes and dinner. Jim, his windbreaker slung over his shoulders, his red hair damp and moist, was grinning; Mike Fronzak was still carrying his catcher’s mask, and Ned was spitting into his glove, a smile on his face. Crane Davis, the manager, with the bat bag, and the coach came up in the rear. Everyone was shouting something.
“Hey there, Ronny...”
“That’s playing, Ronny...”
“Shucks, it’s your pitching, Jim...”
“No, sir! You saved that game.”
“Boy, were you hot, Ronny!”
“We were all hot today.”
“Yeah, whoops, bring on that pitcher up there on the Hill.”
“Let’s go, gang, let’s go.”
“Let’s get that Academy crowd, gang.”
They piled into the yellow bus. Bob Patterson with his ankle on a seat was smoking a cigarette. He quickly put it out as the crowd piled in. At the Academy no one would have dared smoke in training. Ronald suddenly looked round at their dirty stained uniforms, some of the kids wearing faded sweaters, or sweatshirts underneath, all of them so different from the spick and span team on the Hill. They were different, this crowd. They were different, but they could play ball.
And they were a great bunch to play with. He felt affection for them, for Jim, tired and drawn about the mouth, for Bob, wincing as the bus moved forward with a jerk, for Mike, slumped in his seat in the rear. For all the rest, laughing and yelling at each other, calling back and forth, to Mac the driver, to the coach. His face was as wet and sweaty as theirs. It was easy to see what he had gone through on the bench that final inning.
The bus moved on. For just a minute their jokes and shouts were lost as the gears ground. Then they rolled down the highway. “Hey, Coach!” Someone from the rear was yelling at him. “Hey, Coach. If this Ronny is as good next fall as he is at baseball, we’re gonna have a team ’at won’t lose a game.”
The coach frowned. That was one of his superstitions. He never permitted cracks about games to come. He pretended not to hear and said something to the driver. Then he leaned over to Ronald in the next seat.
“You sure kept your head on that ball, Ronald. You played that one just right.”
Now for the Academy. Say, we’ll show that crowd something.
III
A feeling of uneasiness hung over the entire room. Chairs squeaked continually, making a chorus of scratchy noises. Voices hummed and buzzed. It was the end of the marking period; the day that came regularly once every few months. And it was the last hour of the day—when in every homeroom each student’s report card was issued for the period.
This scene, so different from anything at the Academy, always interested Ronny. At the Academy you did your work everyday or else you got a detention and stayed in afternoons until you did. Here you might fail in a subject and not be sure of having failed until the end of the marking period. He looked around the excited class, at the boys in sweaters without neckties or coats, now all familiar figures who had names and personalities attached. At the girls who gave the room that high-pitched tone so strange to him from the start. At Stacey in a kind of shirt with sleeves cut high above the elbows and the school name in green on his breast; at Ned LeRoy, slumped in his seat and staring ahead, apparently prepared for the worst; at Meyer Goldman in the back of the room, laughing nervously with Mike Fronzak across the aisle. And at Sandra in front. Especially at Sandra. She had on the white shoes with brown tips, and the pink sweater....
Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Mr. Kates standing by his desk tapped severely with his pencil for order. He glanced over the crowded room. “Quiet, please, quiet. Keep it down.” For about a minute he stood silently waiting, glancing around the forty seats, every one occupied by a nervous boy or girl. All save one. Gordon Brewster at the side was undisturbed by the sight of the report cards in Mr. Kates’ hand. The noise, the chatter, the squeaking of chairs subsided. Slowly the teacher came forward with that little brown package in his fist.
Eager hands reached out. Subdued murmurs of delight or deep silence even more meaningful greeted the cards. He came down the aisle toward Ronald. As he slipped the card down on the desk, he leaned over, whispering, “Will you please step into Mr. Curry’s office a minute before you leave, Ronald?”
He knew at once. He knew without opening the small folded card what had happened. He had failed. But he didn’t know the whole of it.
At the top of the folded brown cardboard were the words: REPORT CARD. Underneath that, one line: ACCOMPLISHED IN STUDIES. Every pupil had a serial number. His serial number, 1166, was in the upper left-hand corner.
The card was ruled off into squares, one for each week in the marking period. Grades were listed at the side: 95 was high honors, 85 was honors, 70 was passing. At the top were printed the five subjects he took, and checks had been made in red ink in each square. Thus you—not to mention your teachers and your parents who had to sign the card—could see the progress or lack of it in every subject you took from week to week.
Yes, he knew. He knew all right. He knew as he studied the card that he was below 70 in Latin. But the history, that’s bad. Oh, that’s bad; definitely, as Sandra would say. Honors in algebra, English, and French. But the Latin and the history. That’s bad. No wonder Mr. Curry wanted to see him. Ronald folded up the card and stuffed it into his pocket, discovering with some relief he wasn’t in the least terrified at the coming interview as he had been whenever the Duke called him in. Still and all, you couldn’t help being a little worried.
“Come in. Sit down, Ronald.” Mr. Curry was telephoning, but he put one hand over the mouthpiece and nodded toward a chair. Then he went on talking. “Yes. Yes, I think so. I imagine he will. Yes, I’d agree to that. At the next meeting of the Board? All right. Yes, I will. Yes, if you wish. All right. Very good. Call me Tuesday then. All right. Good-bye.”
While he was talking, Ronald watched him. You’d certainly never think he was the principal of a big high school. Rather a colorless man, on the whole. Naturally you weren’t exactly terrified when he called you into his office. Still and all, you couldn’t help feeling a little worried.
“Ronald, sit down. Glad to see you. This is almost the first chance I’ve had to talk to you since you got out of the hospital. Everything working out?”
Surprising man. You got ready for a kind of a bawling out, and then you got a question like that. “Uhuh. Yessir.”
“I see. That little incident was unpleasant for you; but it sort of cleared the atmosphere, didn’t it?”
“Yessir. It sure did.”
He smiled. “Let’s see now. You’ve been here four, no five months nearly, haven’t you? Tell me, how do you like us on the whole? Do you like this school?”
“Yessir, I like it. I like it now.”
“H’m. I imagine it must have been hard for you at first. Different from the Academy.” He looked down at the ruler in his hand. He glanced at the papers on his desk and rearranged them. He looked over at the window with the shade half pulled. But he never looked straight at you the way the Duke did. “H’m. Tell me, Ronald, what do you think of your report card this period?”
The question startled him. “Not so hot.”
“No, it wasn’t, was it? What seems to be the matter?”
“I really don’t know, sir.”
“Study habits? You surely don’t need to be told how to study. You’ve been taught that already. We’ve had several boys from the Academy; they all had first rate study habits.”
“Yessir, I mean, nosir.”
“Now it’s probably true, you had more individual attention in your work at the Academy.” Ronald found himself breaking in to explain how things were.
“See, at the Academy you had to do your homework because you had a two-hour study period in Hall every night.”
“Exactly. Here you have no study hall at night. You can go to the movies. Or listen to the Aldrich Family or see your girl. Here you’re on your own. We can’t watch you, we can’t baby you. We don’t want to. In this school, Ronald, every pupil has to be responsible for himself. That’s one of the principles of a democracy, isn’t it?”
Well, yes. Yes, he had something there. Obviously this diffident man, so unlike the Duke, had much more on the ball than you’d think at first glance. He wasn’t a personality. Yet...
“Now there’s one thing you’ve got to learn, everyone here has to learn. In this school you’re on your own. You are lucky. You don’t need to be taught how to study. You’ve been taught that. But in a democracy each citizen is on his own. It’s up to him. You must get used to being on your own and you better do so here, now.”
“Yessir.” He understood. The man behind the desk leaned back, his hands behind his head, and looked at the shaded window.
“You know, it’s a funny thing, I remember you so well last fall in that football game. You were a fine player, and I hope you’ll be just as good on our team next year. You were a great little fighter out there, that’s why you licked us.”
Well, maybe so. Not exactly. But then, yes, maybe.
The principal paused a minute. “I can remember once in that last quarter watching you go through our line—and our line was plenty tough last fall—with Stacey and Goldman on your neck and...”
Suddenly he was back. Back on Academy field, and his cleats were digging into the turf, and his heart was pounding, and clutching hands were grabbing at him, and he could hear Goldman’s tense breathing in his ear... “huff... huff... huff...”
“...and that’s the way you must be in your work, too. You’ve got to be aggressive, you’ve got to lick your studies. Or they’ll lick you. Have you been really fighting your studies this way in the last six weeks?”
From a feeling of warmth and satisfaction, from the field behind the Academy he came back to earth and the principal’s room at Abraham Lincoln High. With him came an uneasy feeling of what was coming. Ronald’s respect for this quiet man grew. Nope, he wasn’t a personality like the Duke. His clothes, for instance, weren’t at all like the Duke’s, and somehow he didn’t wear them the same way. But he had something.
“Nosir.”
“Have you been neglecting your work at all the last few weeks, do you think?”
“Nosir, yessir, maybe...”
“What for?” Ronald was now bewildered. This man was amazing the way he pinned you down to things, the way he got things out of you.
“Do you think possibly you haven’t been working as much nights as you should?”
“Yessir, possibly.”
“Well, what have you been spending your time on? Girls?”
“Yessir, I mean nosir, I mean, maybe so.”
“Any one girl?”
“Yessir.”
“It wouldn’t be Sandra Fuller, would it?”
There! It was out now. The principal was tapping the ruler gently on the desk and looking down hard at it. Ronny felt warm all over, and he knew red was coming up into his face. But the man behind the desk still stared at the ruler.
“Sandra’s a lovely girl. I don’t blame you for liking her. Been seeing a good deal of her, do you think, lately?”
“Yessir.”
“How much, since you came out of the hospital?”
“Two, three times a week.”
“Or more?”
Hang it, this man had something, he really had something. “Yessir, I guess... well, maybe.”
“I guess so, too.” He laughed. Ronald laughed. This made things easier. “Yes, I guess so, too. Tell you why; reason is I’ve seen you twice in the last month at the Empire with her, and several times in at Walgren’s drinking cokes. Right?”
“Yessir.”
“Now see here, Ronald. Sandra’s a fine girl. She’s a swell kid. But just think a minute. You know, I can remember when your father was in Yale, and I remember seeing him play in the game in the Bowl in ’22, was it? No, ’23. The one when he ran way out to the side and grabbed the lateral pass in the last minute of play. Right down the field for a touchdown. What a game that was! A heartbreaker for us to lose. When I watched you on the field last fall I could see your dad every minute; same way of holding your head, of handling the ball, of waiting until the last minute to chuck a pass. Look! That’s what you’re risking, all that. Yale, that’s your job. Just imagine how your dad would feel if you failed to get into Yale. Imagine!”
He leaned over, and for the first time looked Ronald squarely in the face. “You could, you know, if you keep on this way!” Then quickly he leaned back and began turning the ruler over and over in his hands, and staring down at it silently.
Well, there really wasn’t much you could say to this sort of thing. He hadn’t thought of it that way, never.
“I’m mighty glad you like Sandra. She’s one of the finest girls in this school. I’m glad you like us; we like you. You’re part of the school, you’re one of us. It’s true, I know, you had a hard time at first; the boys were a little tough on you. Because you came from the Academy they suspected you, they had to get to know you. There’s cruelty here. It’s a kind of primitive cruelty that’s hidden away in us all, I guess. We try to keep it down, yet every once in a while it does crop out, and you happened, as I say, to be the victim. But that’s over. We all like you and respect you and want you to like us. And we want you to do well here. Only you must do your part. You’ve got to think first of all of getting into Yale.”
“Yessir.”
“Just imagine how you’d feel a year from now, how Sandra would look at you if you failed your College Boards. If you want to see Sandra, that’s fine. See her weekends and see her then as much as you like. But keep your evenings all week for work. You had baseball in the afternoon, and you just weren’t doing the work. From Monday to Friday, remember, you have a full time job on your hands. Getting into Yale.”
“Yessir.”
“Don’t forget, I can’t study for you; neither can your parents or your teachers. You’re old enough now to be on your own. You’re a citizen of a democracy. You have responsibilities. See you live up to them.”
He stood up. He held out his hand. He looked you in the face, just the trace of a smile on his lips.
“Yessir, I will. You bet I will, Mr. Curry.” They shook hands, a firm, hard fist. Ronny liked him, liked everything about him. ’Course, he wasn’t a personality as the Duke was. But just the same, he was some gent.
“Oh! One thing more.” Ronald turned at the doorway. “Naturally you’re ineligible to play baseball until your marks come up in the next period. You understand, that means no more extramural sport this year.”
He stumbled from the room. He hardly saw the girls typing away behind the counter in the big room outside. He moved in
to the corridor, bewildered. He was dizzy. No more extramural sport! He couldn’t play on the baseball team!
Jeepers! That meant he couldn’t play next week against the Academy!
IV
“Hey, Ronny.”
“Hullo there! What’s up?”
“How ’bout the flickers tonight?”
“Can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“‘Cause I gotta work.”
“Work?”
“Sure. Work.”
“Aw, c’mon. Cagney and Joan Fontaine.”
“Nope. I made a rule I just wouldn’t go out again nights until I got my marks back.”
So it was work. Work every evening in the week. Latin. History. Other things, too.
“Look, Ronny! Hey, Ronald Perry, have you got your tickets for the Junior Prom next week?”
“Nope. Can’t make it, Jane.”
“But you must. We all want you to come. Why a couple of seasoned rug cutters like Sandra and you...”
“I know. But I gotta study. I made a rule with myself....”
“Oh, you must come. Casey’s band. It’ll be snazzy.”
“Sorry. I’d like to. But I just can’t.”
“Look, if you change your mind will you buy your tickets off me, please?”
“I will, sure I will; only you better not count. I really hafta work these nights.”
It was work. Work every night in the week. Latin. History. Other things, too.
“Ruth, what’s the matter with Ronald and that girl these days?”
“What girl, Dad?”
“That girl he used to be seeing every evening. Fred Fuller’s daughter, what’s her name? He used to be over there almost every night.”
“Well, I guess he’s worried about his work. It shocked him being kept out of the baseball game against the Academy although he hasn’t said much. But it was a big disappointment to him, I know. He’s made a rule with himself he won’t go anywhere at night during the week until he’s raised his marks. So far this period he’s stuck to it.”
“Fine! Good enough. I noticed he’s upstairs almost every night recently. Do you imagine he’s really studying though, or listening to the Aldrich Family? Well, his marks will tell the story soon enough.”
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