The winter gymnastic exhibition occurred in Lindsay’s third week at school. Influenced by Marchmont’s contemptuous declaration that such things were a bore, he had at first decided to stay away; but a lack of more attractive occupation for the half holiday, and a strong though unconfessed curiosity to see what was doing, drove him to a change of plan. In the gymnasium he found himself in good company, for Poole and Tompkins, who had seemed rather inclined to let him alone since his intimacy with Marchmont had developed, sat near him, and in their common interest in the events were more cordial and friendly than they had ever been.

Everything was novel and delightful to the new boy; and the older ones, who had seen the same thing before, seemed as much interested as he. What struck him most was their enthusiasm, their eager interest that every boy should do well, the pride they showed in the work of their fellows because they were their fellows, because what they did was in a way a school achievement.

First came some kind of a squad drill. Then Guy Morgan and Durand, seniors, and Eddy, a middler, gave a performance on the horizontal bar. The first was the expert, as every one knew, but he kept himself in the background until the others had shown their skill, when, after a few less difficult feats, he brought the event to a pleasing end by his own peculiar triumph,—the giant swing. He was the only boy in school who was master of that swing, and though many had seen him perform it a dozen times, they were never tired of watching him.

To-day, with the exhilaration of the public performance, the lithe, strong body seemed alive with nervous elasticity. A quick snap brought him waist to the bar; a hard fling with his feet backward lifted him into position for the downward swing, which in turn was to furnish the momentum necessary for the rise on the other side. Downward he swept at full length, rigid yet mobile, keeping his feet well behind; up he floated on the other side of the circle until nearly at the zenith, when a quick shift of hands on the bar and a cunning snap of the body carried the dragging feet suddenly forward and left the gracefully curving figure for an instant poised on the hands aloft in perfect balance. Then slowly the athlete gathered headway again for the new descent and the new rise to another balance. It was no less the accuracy in calculating the momentum to be gained in the downward rush and spent in the upward rise than the grace and strength and deliberateness of the motions that gave the performance its perfect finish.

“That was just right!” Tompkins was saying, as the applause died away. “And how dead easy it looked! You’d never think it took him two years to learn it, would you?”

“I don’t know,” Poole answered thoughtfully. “As far as I can make out, it takes a lot of hard work and practice to do anything in athletics, anyway. That’s why so few really try. Most of them are too lazy to do the plugging.”

“How that little Eddy has come on!” said Tompkins, taking up another subject with the usual boy abruptness. “You’d never think he was the same fellow that used to dope around Bosworth’s room last year. You’ve had a hand in that change, I guess.”

Poole smiled and shook his head. “It’s no work of mine. All I’ve done is to encourage him occasionally.”

“Well, he hangs to you like a Man Friday, anyway,” answered Tompkins.

So they chattered on through the tumbling and parallel bars, the rope climbing and the pyramid building. At last the centre was cleared and the mats were adjusted for the wrestling. There were only two or three bouts, and these short—just enough to show the quickness and strength of the contestants. The last pair were Durand and a larger fellow named Frieze. For a few seconds they eyed each other like two warlike cats, each crouching slightly with arms held close to the chest, and edging in a short arc of a circle round his antagonist. Then Durand made a feint, Frieze caught for a hold, and in an instant they were flopping on the mats like two puppies at play; yet apparently to no purpose, for both were soon on their feet, breathing harder and again cautiously edging for an opening. Frieze made the next start, leaping for a neck hold. Durand ducked under, and Frieze, folding his body down on the back of his opponent so that the two together formed an animated vaulting-horse, and putting all his strength into the effort to sweep Durand off his legs, rushed him furiously across the cushioned space. In a moment more they were two yards off the mat on the hard floor of the gymnasium.

The official reached out to stop the absorbed strugglers and bring them back to safer territory. But Durand suddenly straightened up, still clutching the legs of his bewildered antagonist, and lifted him on his shoulders like a bag of meal. Thus balanced head downward in the air, Frieze clung fast, not knowing what to do in the unusual predicament; while Durand with rare presence of mind walked deliberately back to the cushioned space and threw his helpless burden flat on the mattress with a force that carried the thrower himself in a somersault over the prostrate form.

A burst of spontaneous applause smote the timbers of the roof.

“Wasn’t that great!” cried Poole, turning with glowing face to Lindsay. “Why, if Durand had smashed him on the floor out there, he’d have broken every bone in the fellow’s body. That’s the bully thing about Durand: he always knows what he’s about. What a quarter-back he’d make if he were only big enough for the game! Just think what he’d be if he were as big as you are!”

“A second Nowell,” said Tompkins.

“Such a fellow would have a reputation in school, wouldn’t he?” asked Wolcott.

“You can bet your hat he would,” replied Tompkins, “and out of school, too.”

“Tommy knows,” observed Poole, with a meaning smile. “He’s pitched on a winning nine.”

“And never will again,” declared Tompkins, tragically.

The words were evidently spoken in jest, yet underneath, but half covered by the air of mock tragedy assumed, rang clear the real tone of bitter disappointment and regret. Poole said not a word in reply. Wolcott himself, unfamiliar as the school spirit still was to him, understood partially, and was silent. He had heard among the first items of school gossip that Tompkins, who had pitched for the school the year before, had failed his preliminaries and been forbidden by the Faculty to play again. The tale, related among a dozen others, had at the time made little impression on him. Now, with the example before him of the glory of what was really but minor athletic achievement; with these two gloomy faces beside him, heavy and despondent at the reminder of Tompkins’s disability, he got his first true notion of the serious part played by athletics in the life of the school.

Instantly Laughlin’s words came back to him, “It is a great thing to win a Hillbury game; it’s fine just to play in one!” The gymnasium suddenly stretched to the dimensions of a football field; the circle of good-natured spectators swelled to a mighty crowd, filling the benches, tier on tier all about the great rectangle, enthusiastic, wild, hoarse with cheering; and in the centre, watched by thousands of eyes, he stood, Wolcott Lindsay, holding his place in the line of red. The signal is for him, the ball comes back, with one tremendous impulse in which his whole body seems to bound like a mighty steel spring he sweeps his antagonist back and opens a way for the ball!

It was the impulse of the athletic temperament, the call to action of nerves and muscles yearning for the conflict. But Wolcott knew only that it was a vision—a vision that quickly faded, leaving him to the sad reaction of fact. There was no Lindsay the football player, but only Lindsay the tenderfoot, the calf, who had no more chance of making the eleven than Marchmont or the twins or little thirteen-year-old Simmons, who sat in the corner seat among the juniors, and answered all the questions.

Outside he met Laughlin, flannel-shirted and mittened.

“How was the show?” asked the captain. “Good?”

“Fine! Weren’t you there?”

“No; had to shovel snow all the afternoon.”

Laughlin went whistling on to his room and his lessons.

“Snow shovellers and furnace cleaners!” thought Lindsay, bitterly. “Those are the fellows who make football players. I guess March isn’t so far out when he calls them brutes and bullies. It can’t be a gentleman’s game.”

Almost unintentionally he took the direction of Marchmont’s room.

“Well, how did it turn out? Dull as a sermon, wasn’t it?”

“Not exactly,” replied Lindsay, hesitating to own his opinion in the face of authority. “Some of it I thought pretty good.”

Marchmont laughed: “That’s because it’s new to you. The poorest circus has it beaten by a mile. I’ve read a novel ’most through this afternoon.”

Lindsay moved toward the door. He really had no reason for a call, and many reasons for being at home at his desk.

“What’s your hurry? You can’t study after the dead strain of that kind of a show. Let’s have a couple of hands of poker. We’ll make the ante small.”

Marchmont opened a drawer for the cards, while Lindsay picked up his hat.

“I really must go,” said the visitor, shamefacedly. “I’ve got work I really ought to do.”

“Well, sorry you can’t stay,” replied Marchmont, smiling politely. “We’ll try it some other day.”

Lindsay trudged home in ill humor, cursing himself for not having the courage to say frankly that he did not play cards for money, and conscious that Marchmont understood him full well. All together it had been an afternoon of very mixed impressions.