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.

Caffrey seated himself in Mike’s place when the crews went out—Mike was cox of the second—and coached the first from the second boat, occasionally transferring his exhortation to the crew that pulled him. Hardie put his whole soul into his rowing and listened with all his ears. Caffrey’s principal point of attack in the first boat was Pitkin at bow, whom he accused of minor shortcomings and one very serious fault—not rowing hard enough. “You’re late all the time, Bow. Your oar must move as soon as it strikes the water, otherwise you back water. You’re shirking, Bow! Don’t let the boat finish out your stroke. Keep over the keel, Two; you’re rolling round too much. Don’t follow your arms around, that makes you swing out. Together there—you’re awfully sloppy!”

And then he gave his attention for a time to the second. “Pull straight through, Three. Keep your hands down and pull straight in. Quicker on the recover, Bow. Don’t feather under. Take your oar out square and feather as you drop your hands and shoot away. That’s better. Don’t bury your oar so deep!”

How different it was from knocking about with Wilmot in the pair-oar! There was a feeling in the boat as if boat and oars and men worked in unison, a swift, steady, exhilarating, forward glide that gave the oarsmen a sense of power and skill. Every one worked intently with Caffrey’s eye upon him. Every stroke was a contest against one’s own treacherous faults, with the feel of the boat, the facility of the oar, the criticism of the coach as test of success. By this test Roger was satisfied that he had acquitted himself well. When, at the Cottage Farm bridge, the coach called, “Let her run,” he rested on his oars, with such a feeling of delight as he had not experienced even when Westcott’s won the Newbury football game, back in November. To make clear what happened during the rest of the row that day, and to set forth certain events of the remainder of the week, we cannot do better than transcribe Roger’s own letter to his mother, written on the following Sunday. Nine-tenths of it was about rowing, in which Mrs. Hardie could only feel the reflection of her son’s interest; and half of what she read she did not understand. Perhaps my reader can do better.

“Dear Mother:

“This has been a great week for me, and I’m going to tell you all about it, though I can’t make you see it as I do. You know I got saved over for the pair-oar when the Westcott squad was narrowed down to two crews and a pair-oar, with coxes for each. This is the final narrowing down except that the day before the race the pair-oar bunch gets the hook. I had been slopping along in the pair-oar with Steve Wilmot, being more or less rotten all the season, never at all decent, and often for long stretches absolutely ROTTEN, making both cox and Steve awfully sore, and doing much worse than the worst school crew on the river, which is saying a good deal. A few days ago I went out as usual and began badly, but after a while I seemed to catch on all at once, and began to row decently. We went a long way up river, and I kept on getting the habit of pulling somewhat right. By the time I got home my rowing had improved several thousand per cent. Pete saw me just as we came in (Pete is the captain) and seemed awfully surprised that I was doing so well.

“The next day Eliot Weld was out with a sore finger, and they put me into his place in the second. Caffrey acted as cox, and I felt that if I ever was going to have a chance to show what I could do, I had it then. I did pretty well, I think, for Caffrey didn’t say much to me. The two crews went along together for a while, then the coach sent the first down and made us all stop and put on sweaters. Then he pulled out a clipping about the adoption of a new, unorthodox stroke in England by some of their colleges, and read it to us, making comments and illustrating and explaining. He had found some one who had the same idea he had and who believed in the same stroke that he tried to teach us.

“We started down just as an inferior college eight came along, pulling a regulation good hard stroke. Caffrey said: ‘We may as well race this eight now they are here,’ and started us up. He is heavy, but he knows more about managing a crew than all the other coxes together, and everybody has confidence in him and doesn’t get rattled. He pushed us along as fast as we could go to a bridge. We had a fraction of a length start, but we gained until we went through the bridge a length ahead of the other crew. Of course the eight was not racing, but it was pretty good for us, to spurt a four-oar faster than an eight goes when rowing at a good pace. This was not one of the Varsity eights, of course, but an upper class eight, or a club eight. It would have been the height of ridiculousness and especially of freshness to row against the freshmen or the 2d or 3d Varsity. After a short stop to tell us what he wanted us to do, we went all the way back to the boat-house without a break and at a good pace. On the way down Caffrey talked to us, telling us how to save strength or favor some muscle, and trying to get us to rest on the recovery.

“I was dead tired when we got to the boat-house, but I think I pulled just as hard on the tired stretch as at any other time, excepting, of course, the race. I think Caffrey raced us to give us confidence and to get us into the habit of not getting rattled. And now for the most important thing of all. I was promoted to the second. It was because I pulled so hard and didn’t give in or weaken. Pete told me so while we were dressing. Weld must take the pair-oar. I’m out of that. I may get kicked back in a little while, but it will not be from lack of effort on my part if I do. I would rather make the second crew than anything else (except the first), as that means something; for our crews are in a different class from any of our other teams, and 2d crew this year means 1st crew next year (if I can possibly make it)!

“That was on Tuesday. Since then I’ve been rowing on the second every practice without being kicked, but I live in a continual state of terror that some one will oust me from my place. Of course there’s only Wilmot and Weld, and Wilmot’s too short and fat to be any good, while Weld is not supposed to have the staying power, but I shan’t be free from worry until the race starts (and that’s still nearly three weeks off). Even if I can hold my place, I might get sick or hurt somehow, and so be thrown out.

“On Friday we went out in the worst weather we ever had. The rain blew so fast that sheets of it would go into Mike’s megaphone, so that he really spent more time in blowing out water than in talking, though this was only when we were bucking the wind. We were all soaked about five minutes after we left the boat-house. The waves were very bad, often piling right over the boat. The rain came down so fast that it looked like a mist, and you couldn’t see the shore from the middle of the river. We didn’t stay out long, for there was no chance for good rowing. When we came in, we found that the roof leaked. Little Mike was down on the Newbury bunch because some one of them pinched his collar buttons one day, so that he hadn’t anything to button his collar to. So he put the clothes of the Newbury crews, who were still out, under the leak.

“This is a terribly long letter and will cost something to send it to Buenos Aires, but I wanted to tell you all about the crew business even if it does bore you. It means a lot to me. If you went to Westcott’s, you would understand. You can read between the lines that my health is good and the studies are going all right. I got 82 in a history exam, on Monday. Love to all.

“Your affectionate son,

“Roger.”

“What do you think of that?” asked Mrs. Hardie, four weeks later, after her husband had patiently toiled through the letter. “Fancy their going out in a tempest that soaked them in five minutes!”

“I don’t care about that,” said Mr. Hardie. “It’s the race that troubles me. It is a great strain on the heart, and the Hardies have a tendency to weak hearts.”

“Roger takes after me, and my family have good tough hearts,” returned Mrs. Hardie, quickly, seeing, as she thought, a disposition on the part of her husband to disapprove the boy’s rowing. She was touched that her son should count on her loving interest in all that occupied his thoughts; she objected strongly to making use of his confidences to thwart the ambitions which he cherished most deeply, thus perhaps banishing forever the frankness in which her mother heart delighted.

“Besides,” she added, “I wrote him all about that last week. He can be trusted to look out for himself.”