Yardley Hall series

There was a warning clang from the engine bell and a sudden return to darkness as the fireman slammed the furnace door and tossed the slicer-bar back onto the tender. The express messenger in the car behind pulled close the sliding door and hasped it, pausing afterwards to glance questioningly at the cloudy night sky. At the far end of the train, which curved serpent-wise along the track, the conductor’s lantern rose and fell, the porter seized his footstool and Dan Vinton, after a final hurried kiss, broke from his mother’s arms and ran nimbly up the steps of the already moving sleeper. “Good-bye, mother,” he called down into the half-darkness. “Good-bye, father! Good-bye, Mae!”

“All together! Cheer on cheer! Now we’re charging down the field! See how Broadwood pales with fear, Knowing we will never yield! Wave on high your banner blue, Cheer for comrades staunch and true; We are here to die or do, Fighting for old Yardley!” They sang it at the top of their voices as they came down the hill, arm in arm, and crossed the meadow toward the village. There was no one to hear, and they wouldn’t have cared if there had been. Tom Dyer sang the bass, Alf Loring the tenor and Dan Vinton whatever was most convenient, since about the best he could do in a musical way was to make a noise. It was a glorious morning, in the middle of October, and there was a frosty nip in the air that made one want to sing or dance, and as they were in a hurry and dancing would have delayed them, they sang.

Dan Vinton returned to Yardley after the Christmas vacation on an afternoon of one of those bright, warm days which sometimes happen along in the middle of Winter. As the train rumbled over the bridge, Dan caught a fleeting glimpse of Long Island Sound sparkling in the sunlight and pricked out here and there with a white sail. On his way up the winding road to the school—he had the station carriage to himself save for the unobtrusive presence of a homesick Preparatory Class boy—he saw clean russet meadows aglow in the mellow light, and, farther inland and across the little river, Meeker’s Marsh a broad expanse of reeds and grass and rushes shading from green-gold to coppery red. So far, although it was the third of January, there had been no snow storm worthy of the name in the vicinity of Wissining, and, save that the trees were bare of leaves, one might have thought himself in Autumn. It was as though a careless, laughing October day had lost its place in the procession and now, after a two months’ truancy, had squirmed and crowded itself back into line again. Dan cast a glance toward the athletic field, half expecting to see the brown footballs hurtling up against the sky.

“Wonder why it always rains on Saturdays?” muttered Alf Loring, laying his book face-down in his lap and staring discontentedly out of the window beside him. It was a cheerless outlook. Through the blurred panes his gaze traversed the Yard, empty and bedraggled, to the back of Merle Hall and the gymnasium. Everywhere was rotting snow or pools of water, while from a low, leaden sky the rain fell straight and persistently. It had been raining just this way all day and half of last night, and to all appearances it intended to continue raining in the same manner for another twenty-four hours. Yesterday the Yard had been a foot deep in nice clean snow, the result of the blizzard that had swept over Wissining and New England in general two days before, and there had been more than one jolly battle royal out there. But now—Alf sighed; and, turning, looked aggrievedly at his roommate.

The Banjo and Mandolin Club, huddled together on the right of the platform in Assembly Hall, strummed diligently and with enthusiasm, their zeal atoning for shortcomings due to lack of practice. For this was the first night of the fall term, and many members had not touched their instruments since the final chord had been twanged on class day. (Brewster, playing second mandolin, was doing bravely with a silver dime, having lost his pick and not being able to borrow one!) Beyond the platform some two hundred and fifty clear-eyed, clean-skinned boys sang the words with vim. Many, unable to satisfactorily express their enthusiasm vocally, kept time with their feet. Across the platform from the musicians sat the Assistant Principal, Mr. Collins, the physical instructor, Mr. Bendix, the head coach, Mr. Payson, the president of the First Class, Lawrence Goodyear, and the football captain, Dan Vinton. The mass meeting had been called to formally open the football season at Yardley Hall School. The song ended in a final triumphant burst of sound and Goodyear arose. As he moved to the front of the platform the applause began, the stamping of feet and the long-drawn “A-a-ay!” repeated over and over until Goodyear’s upraised hand commanded quiet.

"This way, everyone!” Coach Payson sent the call to each end of the field and then, swinging his small blue megaphone in his hand, waited for the panting players to gather about him in front of the bench. They came running in from all parts of the gridiron, a motley gathering of football aspirants; seasoned veterans of last year’s Yardley Varsity, Second Team men, substitutes, new boys; big, little, fat, thin, all sizes and conditions. Andy Ryan, the little red-haired trainer, stood over his pile of blankets and his water pail, back of the side-line, and viewed the sixty-odd candidates with a pessimistic shake of his head. John Payson, turning at the moment, saw it and smiled. “What’s the matter, Andy? Don’t they look good?” he asked.

A boy with light blue eyes that just about matched the slightly hazy June sky sat on the float below the town landing at Greenhaven, L. I., and stared thoughtfully across harbor and bay to where, two miles northward, the village of Johnstown stretched along the farther shore. He had a round, healthy, and deeply tanned face of which a short nose, many freckles, the aforementioned blue eyes, and a somewhat square chin were prominent features. There was, of course, a mouth, as well, and that, too, was prominent just now, for it was puckered with the little tune that the boy was softly whistling. Under a sailor’s hat of white canvas the hair was brown, but a brown that only escaped being red by the narrowest of margins. That fact was a sore subject with Toby Tucker.

Such was the legend, neatly inscribed on a small white card, that met the gaze of the visitor to Number 22 Whitson. As Number 22 was the last room on the corridor, and as the single light was at the head of the stairway, the legend was none too legible after nightfall, and the boy who had paused in front of it to regain his breath after a hurried ascent of the two steep flights had difficulty in reading it. When he had deciphered it and glanced at the little cardboard box below, in which reposed a tiny scratch-pad and a stubby pencil, he smiled amusedly ere he raised his hand and rapped on the portal.

We ought to be there in about twenty minutes,” observed Arnold Deering, glancing at his watch. One of his companions in the day-coach tossed the magazine he had been idly glancing through, to the top of the pile of suitcases beside him, yawned widely, and nodded without enthusiasm. “If nothing happens,” he agreed. “What’s going to happen, you chump?” “Nothing, I suppose. Only, something might. There might be an earthquake, or the train might jump the track, or——” “Or you might talk sense, Frank! As for jumping the track, this old train couldn’t jump a crack in the floor! I guess you’re wishing something would happen so you wouldn’t have to go back.”