“I’m almost glad that I couldn’t play on that nine,” he said one evening as he brought in his books; “they’re a terribly poor lot, and Stover doesn’t get anything out of ’em. Think of Newbury beating them twelve to two the other day!”
“They may brace up near the second game,” suggested Roger.
Dunn shook his head; “No, they won’t. It isn’t in ’em. Did you see Smithy leading the cheering at the game? He was wild to beat!’
“If they can win the baseball and the crew now, they can get along without the football.”
“Oh, they won’t win the crew,” declared Dunn, “we’ll have ’em there.”
“Lanning says they’re going to,” said Roger. “He coaches Newbury.”
Dunn considered a moment. “I don’t see how Pitkin can be strong enough to row a hard race. He’s bow on the first, isn’t he?”
“You ought to be there. You could stand the pace.”
Roger laughed. “I can’t even make the second. A little while ago Wilmot wanted to kick me off the pair-oar.”
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NEVER did small boy yearn for the swimming-hole as Roger Hardie for the next practice. He lay awake for an hour, going over the details of the stroke as he hoped to use it. He had got control of the oar now, he was sure; he didn’t swing out, he didn’t rush his slide, and he did pull straight through—all positive virtues. The problem now was to catch sharply, to pick up the movement with the legs as his trunk came up, shoot the whole body back in one continuous and even strain, throwing his entire weight against the stretcher—“jump right back from the stretcher,” as Caffrey had once said. After that he must make a smart recover, get the hands away promptly, and rest as his slide went cautiously back, so as to be able to put all his strength and weight into the next push against the water. It wasn’t the back that was to do the rowing, nor the arms, but the whole body, and especially the legs. All this as theory was splendidly clear, but how much could he put in practice? What right had a clumsy fellow like him to expect to attain a skill which other fellows had failed to gain with years of practice?
He fell asleep with this question echoing in his brain, alternately vowing that he would do it and convinced that he could not. The rising bell woke him. He was unspeakably glad to be waked, for he was dreaming that he had fallen back into his old bad ways, that the water sucked the oar blade down after every stroke, that Coolidge and Wilmot had rebelled and Pete had told him to try baseball, and put Redfield into his place. He was inclined to take the dream as a bad omen until at luncheon Talbot informed him that Weld was out with a sore finger, and that he would have to row bow on the second that afternoon. He bethought himself then that dreams are said to go by contraries, and took heart.