A FEW years ago, all the boys living in the town of Princeton who were at that age when it is easy to remember the fall, winter, spring, and summer as the foot-ball, coasting, swimming, and base-ball seasons, regarded Richard Carr as embodying their ideal of human greatness.
When they read in the history primers how George Washington became the Father of his Country, they felt sure that with a like opportunity Richard Carr would come to the front and be the stepfather of his country at least.
They lay in wait for him at the post-office, and as soon as he came in sight, would ask for his mail and run to give it to him; they would go ahead of him on the other side of the street, and cross over and meet him with a very important “How do you do, Mr. Carr?” and were quite satisfied if he gave them an amused “Hello!” in return.
They hung photographs of him and the woodcuts from the daily papers around their rooms, and their efforts to imitate his straight, military walk, with shoulders squared and head erect, were of great benefit to their lungs and personal appearance.
Those ragged hangers-on of the college, too, who picked up odd dimes from the students, by carrying baggage and chasing tennis balls, waited on Richard Carr, and shouted “Hurrah for you, Carr!” whenever that worthy walked by.
Those who have not already guessed the position which Richard Carr held in the college will be surprised to learn that he was captain of the college foot-ball team, and those who cannot understand the admiration that Arthur Waller, and Willie Beck, and the rest of the small fry of Princeton felt for this young man would better stop here—for neither will they understand this story.
Among all these young hero-worshippers, Richard Carr’s most devoted follower was Arthur Waller—for, while the other boys, looking upon Carr as their ideal, hoped in time that they might themselves be even as great as he, Arthur felt that to him, this glorious possibility must be denied. Arthur was neither strong nor sturdy, and could, he knew, never hope to be like the captain of the foot-ball team, whose strength and physique seemed, for this reason, all the grander to him.
He never ran after Carr, nor tried to draw his attention as the others did; he was content to watch and form his own ideas about his hero from a distance. Richard Carr was more than the captain of the team to him. He was the one person who, above all others, had that which Arthur lacked—strength; and so Arthur did not merely envy him,—he worshipped him.
Although Arthur Waller was somewhat older in his way of thinking than his friends, he enjoyed the same games they enjoyed, and would have liked to play them, if he had been able; but, as he was not, the boys usually asked him to keep the score, or to referee the matches they played on the cow pasture with one of the college’s cast-off foot-balls. On the whole, the boys were very good to Arthur.
It was the first part of the last half of the Yale-Princeton foot-ball match, played on the Princeton grounds. The modest grand stand was filled with young ladies and college boys, while all the townspeople covered the fences and carriages, and crowded closely on the whitewashed lines, cheering and howling at the twenty-two very dirty, very determined, and very cool young men who ran, rushed, dodged, and “tackled” in the open space before them,—the most interested and least excited individuals on the grounds.
Arthur Waller had crept between the spectators until he had reached the very front of the crowd, and had stood through the first half of the game with bated breath, his finger-nails pressed into his palms, and his eyes following only one of the players. He was entirely too much excited to shout or call as the others did; and he was perfectly silent except for the little gasps of fear he gave involuntarily when Richard Carr struck the ground with more than the usual number of men on top of him.
Suddenly, Mr. Hobbes, of Yale, kicked the ball, but kicked it sideways; and so, instead of going straight down the field, it turned and whirled over the heads of the crowd and settled among the carriages. A panting little Yale man tore wildly after it, beseeching Mr. Hobbes, in agonizing tones, to put him “on side.” Mr. Hobbes ran past the spot where the ball would strike, and the Yale man dashed after it through the crowd. Behind him, his hair flying, his eyes fixed on the ball over his head, every muscle on a strain, came Richard Carr. He went at the people blindly, and they tumbled over one another like a flock of sheep, in their efforts to clear the way for him. With his head in the air, he did not see Arthur striving to get out of his way; he only heard a faint cry of pain when he stumbled for an instant, and, looking back, saw the crowd closing around a little boy who was lying very still and white, but who was not crying. Richard Carr stopped as he ran back, and setting Arthur on his feet, asked, “Are you hurt, youngster?” But, as Arthur only stared at him and said nothing, the champion hurried on again into the midst of the fray.
“There is one thing we must have before the next match,” said the manager of the team, as the players were gathered in the dressing-rooms after the game, “and that is a rope to keep the people back. They will crowd on the field, and get in the way of the half-backs, and, besides, it is not safe for them to stand so near. Carr knocked over a little boy this afternoon, and hurt him quite badly, I believe.”
“What’s that?” said Richard Carr, turning from the group of substitutes who were explaining how they would have played the game and tendering congratulations.
“I was saying,” continued the manager, “that we ought to have a rope to keep the people off the field; they interfere with the game; and they say that you hurt a little fellow when you ran into the crowd during the last half.”
“Those boys shouldn’t be allowed to stand in front there,” said Richard Carr; “but I didn’t know I hurt him. Who was he? where does he live? Do you know?”
“It was the widow Waller’s son, sir,” volunteered Sam, the colored attendant. “That’s her house with the trees around it; you can see the roof from here. I think that’s where they took him.”
“Took him!” exclaimed Richard Carr, catching up his great-coat. “Was he so badly hurt? You wait until I come back, Sam.”
A pale, gentle-faced woman, who looked as if she had been crying, came to the door when Richard Carr rang the bell of the cottage which had been pointed out to him from the athletic grounds. When she saw his foot-ball costume, the look of welcome on her face died out very suddenly.
“Does the little boy live here who was hurt on the athletic grounds?” asked Richard Carr, wondering if it could have been the doctor she was expecting.
“Yes, sir,” answered the lady, coldly.
“I came to see how he was; I am the man who ran against him. I wish to explain to you how it happened—I suppose you are Mrs. Waller?” (Richard Carr hesitated, and bowed, but the lady only bowed her head in return, and said nothing.) “It was accidental, of course,” continued Carr. “He was in the crowd when I ran in after the ball; it was flying over our heads, and I was looking up at it and didn’t see him. I hope he is all right now.” Before the lady could answer, Richard Carr’s eyes wandered from her face and caught sight of a little figure lying on a sofa in the wide hall. Stepping across the floor as lightly as he could in his heavy shoes, Carr sat down beside Arthur on the sofa. “Well, old man,” he said, taking Arthur’s hands in his, “I hope I didn’t hurt you much. No bones broken,—are there? You were very plucky not to cry. It was a very hard fall, and I’m very, very sorry; but I didn’t see you, you know.”
“Oh, no, sir,” said Arthur, quickly, with his eyes fixed on Richard Carr’s face. “I knew you didn’t see me, and I thought maybe you would come when you heard I was hurt. I don’t mind it a bit, from you. Because Willie Beck says—he is the captain of our team, you know—that you wouldn’t hurt any one if you could help it; he says you never hit a man on the field unless he’s playing foul or trying to hurt some of your team.”
Richard Carr doubted whether this recital of his virtues would appeal as strongly to Mrs. Waller as it did to Arthur, so he said, “And who is Willie Beck?”
“Willie Beck! Why, don’t you know Willie Beck?” exclaimed Arthur, who was rapidly losing his awe of Richard Carr. “He says he knows you; he is the boy who holds your coat for you during the practice games.”
Richard Carr saw he was running a risk of hurting some young admirer’s feelings, so he said, “Oh, yes, the boy who holds my coat for me. And he is the captain of your team, is he? Well, the next time you play, you wear this cap and tell Willie Beck and the rest of the boys that I gave it to you because you were so plucky when I knocked you down.”
With these words he pressed his orange and black cap into Arthur’s hand and rose to go, but Arthur looked so wistfully at him, and then at the captain’s cap, that he stopped.
“I’d like to wear it, Mr. Carr,” he said slowly. “I’d like to, ever so much, Mamma,” he added, turning his eyes to where Mrs. Waller stood looking out at the twilight and weeping softly,—“but you see, sir, I don’t play myself. I generally referee. I’m not very strong, sir, not at present; but I will be some day,—won’t I, Mamma? And the doctor says I must keep quiet until I am older, and not play games that are rough. For he says if I got a shock or a fall I might not get over it, or it might put me back—and I do so want to get well just as soon as I can. You see, sir, it’s my spine——”
Richard Carr gave a sharp gasp of pain and dropped on his knees beside the sofa, and buried his face beside the boy’s on the pillow, with his arms thrown tightly around his shoulder.
For a moment Arthur looked at him startled and distressed, and patted Richard Carr’s broad back to comfort him; and then he cried:
“Oh, but I didn’t mean to blame you, Mr. Carr! I know you didn’t see me. Don’t you worry about me, Mr. Carr. I’m going to get well some day. Indeed I am, sir!”
Whether it was that the surgeon whom Richard Carr’s father sent on from New York knew more about Arthur’s trouble than the other doctors did, or whether it was that Richard Carr saw that Arthur had many medicines, pleasant and unpleasant, which his mother had been unable to get for him, I do not know,—but I do know that Arthur got better day by day.
And day after day, Richard Carr stopped on his way to the field, and on his way back again, to see his “Baby,” as he called him, and to answer the numerous questions put to him by Arthur’s companions. They always assembled at the hour of Richard Carr’s arrival in order to share some of the glory that had fallen on their comrade, and to cherish and carry away whatever precious thoughts Richard Carr might let drop concerning foot-ball, or the weather, or any other vital topic on which his opinion was decisive.
As soon as the doctor said Arthur could be moved, Richard Carr used to stop for him in a two-seated carriage and drive him in state to the foot-ball field. And after he had drawn up the carriage where Arthur could get a good view of the game, he would hand over the reins to one of those vulture-like individuals who hover around the field of battle, waiting for some one to be hurt, and who are known as “substitutes.” In his orange and black uniform, one of these fellows made a very gorgeous coachman indeed.
And though the students might yell, and the townspeople shout ever so loudly, Richard Carr only heard one shrill little voice, which called to him above all the others; and as that voice got stronger day by day, Richard Carr got back his old spirit and interest in the game, which, since the Yale match, he seemed to have lost.
The team said Richard Carr’s “Baby” brought them luck, and they called him their “Mascot,” and presented him with a flag of the college colors; and when the weather grew colder they used to smother him in their white woollen jerseys, so that he looked like a fat polar bear.
It was a very pretty sight, indeed, to see how Richard Carr and the rest of the team, whenever they had scored or had made a good play, would turn first for their commendation to where Arthur sat perched above the crowd, waving his flag, his cheeks all aglow, and the substitute’s arm around him to keep him from falling over in his excitement. And the other teams who came to play at Princeton soon learned about the captain’s “Baby,” and inquired if he were on the field; and if he was, they would go up and gravely shake hands with him, as with some celebrated individual holding a public reception.
Richard Carr is out West now at the head of a great sheep ranch, and Arthur Waller enters Princeton next year. I do not know whether he will be on the team, though he is strong enough; but I am sure he will help to hand down the fame of Richard Carr, and that he will do it in such a way that his hero will be remembered as the possessor of certain qualities, perhaps not so highly prized, but almost as excellent, as were those which fitted him to be captain of the team.