Up the Street

Front matter

By Holworthy Hall Author of "The Pepper McHenry Stories" Etc.

AuxTOC|

Chapter 1

I

THERE once lived in Olympus, Ohio, a gentleman whose hobby was archæology. Given a college education and a less energetic set of ancestors, this gentleman might have worn the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor in his buttonhole, and addressed learned societies on matters of paramount unimportance; but, lacking the education, and goaded relentlessly by his heritage of Yankee blood, he merely accumulated a substantial fortune in the manufacture of perforated union suits, and eventually donated to the local public library a few hundred volumes of which no one in town save the Unitarian clergyman understood so much as the meaning of the titles.

Toward the zenith of his life this Olympian gentleman married slowly and wisely, as all his friends had expected, and took his bride on a trip around the world. It was his first opportunity to view the land he loved, and he made the most of it. An unheralded revision of the tariff summoned him back to Olympus from the plain of ancient Troy, where he was reveling in antiquity and corrupting the natives with double tips; and although he promptly forgot his disappointment, and busied himself with the vital problem of finding a cheap substitute for sea-island cotton, yet he retained enough of the Old World impression to name his only child from sentiment. It was to have been either Hector or Helen, and Hector seemed more appropriate to the sex.

From the very moment when Hector Blanding spoke his first authentic syllable—which his mother didn't live to hear—his father took up the task of making a scholar of him, whether he liked it or not. At the mature age of ten, Hector was constantly subject to the mental suggestion that a college professor is the noblest work of man; and that the Blanding trade-mark, which now adorned the backs of a million or two good American citizens, was in future to embellish their intellects. The arbiter of his son's destiny succeeded in getting him into Harvard, and the optician's at about the same time; and lived just long enough to see him take his A. B. with highest honors, and to observe with less interest a further degree which the newspapers printed L. H. B. It stood for left half back, and meant that Hector was worthy of his name. While his father had developed his brain, nature had looked after his muscles; so that he was possessed of a vast body as well as a vast mind, and when he exercised them simultaneously, he helped create some contemporary history, and taught the smaller New England colleges the virtue of playing eight or nine men on the rush line.

At the news of his father's sudden death, which came at the end of his third year of graduate work, Hector went back to Olympus by the limited, and found that he was heir to some two hundred thousand dollars, and a sacred trust. The last words of Blanding, senior, were simple, and to the point.

"Tell him," he had whispered to the Unitarian clergyman, who would understand, "tell him I don't care a darn how rich he is—I want him to be famous! Celebrated! Tell him I couldn't be. Hes got to be. Not in underwear—academic! I want his name a household word!"

Hector, perceiving that his duty obviously lay in the field of archæology, and considering the two hundred thousand dollars as a sort of conditional bequest, hung his varsity sweater in the hall closet of the Blanding home, and, as soon as he deemed proper, began to play tennis at the country club every morning to keep himself healthy while he wrote a book. He wrote it in Olympus partly because the necessary references were at hand, and partly because he wanted to be quiet. The book was dedicated to Cyrus H. P. Blanding, and the title was "The History of Carthage from Mummius to Herodes Atticus."

And that stumped even the clergyman.

Chapter 2

II.

It so happened that the chairman of the history section of the Woman's Club of Olympus cherished just the faintest atom of aversion for Miss Eleanor Redway. To a man, the thing was wholly incomprehensible, for Eleanor was not only the very sweetest of our Olympian girls, but also one of the prettiest and most womanly. Very young, too—and that may possibly have been the seat of the trouble, for Miss Jenks was a maiden lady, with all the recognized social requisites but youth. At any rate, the chairman had opposed Eleanor's admission, ostensibly on the ground of age; and after the election she was astonished and somewhat abashed to discover that Eleanor was perfectly capable of holding her own with her elders in the tortuous paths of French art, medieval literature, and dramatic reading. After the first two or three meetings there was even some talk of decorating her with the historical chairmanship for the next term; so that the present incumbent, who had been interested—platonically—in a State senator, borrowed a leaf from the tome of politics, and bestowed upon her twenty-year-old rival the highest honor in her keeping. Naturally it was an honor with a rider attached to it. It was the distinction of the longest paper of the year; the subject, announced in the Reporter one day before Eleanor was notified by mail, was "A Critical Analysis of the Frankpledge System." The chairman got it out of a dictionary, and felt rather clever over it.

Eleanor, walking downtown on a shopping excursion for a spool of thread at the Five and Ten, and a chocolate sundae at the Sign of the Green Teapot, ran full tilt into Hector Blanding, who was also thinking too diligently, to watch his step.

"Oh, I didn't see you!" said Eleanor, settling her hat. "You're awfully—solid, Hector!"

"I didn't see you, either," declared Hector. "I hope I didn't damage you."

"Not a bit." A sudden inspiration illumined her already expressive eyes. "Hector! Don't you want to do a favor for a lady?"

"Certainly—if you're the lady."

"I am," she admitted. "Tell me—do you by any chance know anything about the Frankpledge System?"

"Do I?"

"Well," she told him, "then you're the man I need. I don't even know what it means. For a minute I thought it had something to do with loan sharks. The library hasn't a single thing about it—but, of course, I knew that before I looked."

"Not that I grasp the logic, but2"

"It's absurdly simple," she explained. "It's a paper for the Woman's Club two weeks from next Friday. That's also the date of the annual election of officers. I don't see how anything could be much more logical."

Hector shook his head.

"I don't see the point, Eleanor, but if I can help you with your paper, say the word."

"The word is 'Thank you.' "

"If you could drop in this afternoon or to-morrow, I'll start you on a course of reading—or, better yet, I'll give you an old notebook of mine. After you've been over it once or twice, you can write your essay with a pair of scissors. Will you come?"

"Three o'clock?"

"That's convenient for me if it is for you. I'll try to inveigle my housekeeper into letting us have some tea."

"You're an angel!" said Eleanor fervently. "I'll be there at three, Hector. Who says a college education isn't worth while?"

Chapter 3

III.

Hector's housekeeper, who disapproved only of dust, cigar ashes, and girls, ushered the visitor into his study at fifty-nine minutes past two. They found him scribbling squares and circles on the blank pages at the back of a loose-leaf notebook labeled "History 8a."

"Why, Hector!" exclaimed the searcher after wisdom. "I didn't suppose that silly system had to do with mathematics!"

"This isn't mathematics. Sit down, won't you?"

"It looks like geometry," declared Eleanor, taking the only chair not preempted by calfskin bindings. "It surely isn't history—unless it's one of those war maps full of hollow squares and things."

Hector laughed, and pushed the notebook across the desk.

"When I came to run over the notes," he said, "I found a diagram of a trick play from regular formation, so I was working it out. Like everything else on paper—from trick plays to high finance—I don't see how you can stop it."

"I never could understand you at all," she conceded frankly. "When you have those tortoise-rimmed glasses on, you look as though you thought in Sanskrit, and didn't know a football from an ostrich egg—and when you take them off, you look like a composite photograph of all the college posters from the year one. You're a regular trust, aren't you? How did you ever manage to do it?"

"It certainly isn't altogether my fault," he owned. "I can't explain how I did it. It came as natural to play football as it did to study history. Do you follow football? You see, in this play the quarter back stands as close to center as he can get2"

"The quarter back? That duck's egg thing?"

Hector nodded.

"I can't draw a free-hand circle and get it round—can you? Yes, the quarter back's the duck's egg. Now, each of these men follows the dotted line. Right half back smashes into the line as a blind—it looks like a simple delayed pass. Left half goes out here, very wide. Full back is outside him, and a little behind. Now, if the end was pulled in by the fake line plunge, left half has a clear field. As a matter of fact, the end won't be pulled in, probably. He'll hesitate, and when he sees the half back carrying the ball, apparently without interference, he'll dive for him. Well—the half back simply passes the ball to the full back, who's still farther out in the field; puts the end out of the play himself, and there you are!"

Eleanor stared dumbly at the extremely lucid diagram.

"What a tremendous waste of time!" she commented. "I don't mean to criticize you, Hector, but if men want to play football, why don't they just go out and play it, without planning beforehand? I should think you'd take all the spontaneity out of it!"

"Let's see—you've never seen a big game, have you?"

"I saw all the high-school games until two years ago."

"I mean a really big game?"

"No," said Eleanor, turning to the first page of the historical notes. "I have a cousin in New Haven, but somehow I never went. What funny handwriting, Hector—it doesn't look like yours at all."

"The lecturer talked too fast," said Hector, sighing a little. "And he used all short words, too. If you'll let me tear out those pages in the back—there! now you can keep the book. Perhaps I'd better explain the first few lectures to you."

At a quarter past three the pupil looked her young instructor squarely in the eyes, and interrupted him in the middle of a sentence.

"Hector!" she said. "I didn't suppose you or anybody else could talk like that! Why, I haven't understood a single word you've said!"

Hector, somewhat disconcerted at the indifferent compliment, stammered. "You—you looked so intelligent—I thought you were following very nicely."

"Following! I hadn't even started! Miss Jenks was cleverer than I thought. You don't honestly like this sort of thing, do you?"

"Like it? Why, I don't know that I ever considered liking it. I had to specialize in something, and this was it."

"Is—is your book like this?"

"More so."

"If you had to do it—if you were going into teaching," she said thoughtfully, "I could—how you can keep at it for fun is beyond me!"

The heir to the sacred trust gazed calmly over his tortoise-rimmed spectacles.

"To tell the truth, I wouldn't keep at it ten minutes longer if it weren't for father."

Eleanor asked the question tacitly.

"Fame," said Hector dryly. "It's my only chance. It's all I know. It's rather an odd trick, too—to get anywhere in archæology you've got to live the other man's life; you've got to project your personality into his. You've got to think with him, work with him, be with him. You've got to know instinctively how a mason at Tiryns felt when he cemented a wall, and what sensations a Carthaginian had when he was pounding clamshells for dye. It's almost a detective instinct—and—and self-hypnosis. You remember the man who lost a cow, and found her by hunting in the places he thought he'd have gone to if he'd been a cow? Well, I can put myself absolutely in the place of the people I'm studying, and that's why I can do research work. That's all I know—that trick. Now, it was father's dream to have our name associated with something besides mesh underwear. This book is a beastly bore—it may take several years even for the rough draft, and then I'll be elected to the Academy, and wear whiskers. That's a certain kind of fame, you know—father didn't specify the kind he wanted. He told me once that he'd be happy if no intelligent man could see the name of Blanding without knowing instantly who he was and what he'd done. So—I'm sticking to archæology."

"But if that was all he wanted, you've got it already. Blanding underwear2"

"You forget," he prompted, "that it isn't Blanding underwear except in Olympus. The trade-mark is Olympic underwear."

"Change the trade-mark."

"It's too valuable, and, besides2"

"Oh, all right—I admire you, Hector, and I'm almost afraid of you—but I think you could do a lot better for yourself if you'd only look around a bit. I'd like to see you in something more human—like teaching, or traveling for your health. Now, let's begin over again."

"As many times as you like," promised Hector, regarding her with a queer inward sensation of pleasurable discomfort. She reminded him of apt quotations from Horace, Heine, Goethe, Tennyson, and Eugene Field, but he thought it best not to distract her attention by quoting them to her. "Turn back to 'Introductory Remarks,' " said Hector patiently.

Chapter 4

IV.

From the annual meeting of the Woman's Club, Eleanor hurried homeward with unusually flushed cheeks. It had been a triumph, complete and undiluted. Beginning with a seven-page prelude which served the double purpose of hypnotizing her audience and encouraging herself, she had tacked into deep water so surely and so swiftly that only Miss Jenks, who shared the platform with her, kept up the subterfuge of trying to look absorbed and appreciative.

At page twenty-six some one gasped pitiably—it was the lady whose paper on "Motherhood, Its Problems," was next on the program. At page thirty-five this lady, becoming suddenly and obtrusively indisposed, sent her manuscript to the chair to read and went out to fresher air. At page fifty, where the original research began to come in polysyllables, Olympus capitulated; and at the last of the typewritten pages the club burst into violent handclapping and the Chautauqua salute, with fully as much relief as admiration. Then, partly to recognize the erudition of their youngest member, and partly to prevent a repetition of the performance, they unanimously chose Eleanor general vice president—for the general vice president was absolved from platform work—and reëlected Miss Jenks to the chairmanship of the history division.

Eleanor, flushed with the pride of conquest, hesitated at the corner of Myrtle Avenue, turned abruptly into it, and went up the brick walk of the Blanding homestead. She found Hector translating hieroglyphics on the veranda.

"Congratulate me!" she cried joyously. "I've done it, Hector!"

The young man rose to welcome her.

"I congratulate you," he returned promptly. "What is it you've done?"

"Vice president—but I wonder if they elected you or me."

"Not me," he deprecated, filling a big wicker chair with cushions designed for comfort rather than beauty. "I only gave you a good start."

Eleanor, radiant with success, laughed up at him. Hector caught his breath.

"It was splendid of you!" she said. "Why, you took days and days away from your own work to help me. You'd have thought it was worth the trouble, though, if you could have seen their faces! And they made me vice president! I can't begin to thank you, Hector!"

The archæologist had not resumed his seat; he was leaning against a pillar of the shaded veranda, watching her closely.

"It wasn't anything—I wish it might have been something important."

"Why, it was!"

"Oh, no—it was incidental. The only important part of it was the time we spent together going over those notes."

"Oh!" said Eleanor faintly.

The young man sat down without removing his eyes from their magnet.

"I'm not a very lively young person," he admitted. "I don't do any of these slithy dances, and I'm not much on society stuff—you know that. I'm— I can't promise you a lot of fun, Eleanor, but if you can be satisfied with the kind of life I've got to lead, I do wish you'd marry me!"

It was so startling that her expression didn't even remotely approximate the finer tenets of romance. She shrank a little among the cushions, and stared. Hector said no more—he evidently considered that his share of the dialogue was over, and that it was her turn to say something. This was in the air. At length she sensed it.

"I'm—I'm so astonished!" she faltered. "You never let me know—hadn't even suspected it!"

"Neither had I," said the young man. "That is, not until day before yesterday. It was about half past five. After we finished the peroration, and you went home, this was the loneliest, stupidest veranda in all the world. And yet there was something homelike about those tea things that made me wonder —and after I'd thought about it, I knew what I'm missing."

"You aren't confusing it—with something else, are you? It isn't just that you want a home? Men feel that way often—when they're lonely."

"Not that—no." He fumbled in his pockets. "Here's an itinerary I mapped out for us."

"What!"

"Yes," said Hector, raising his eyebrows. "I thought father would like to have us take a sentimental journey. We'll follow the same route they took —New York to Liverpool and London, a month in the north country2"

"Hector!"

"Certainly," he insisted. "I want to take you around the world, Eleanor. Now, from England we go to France, then we2"

"But your book!"

"Drat the book!" said Hector violently. "I want to marry you!"

There was a dynamic silence while Eleanor examined the pattern of the grass-cloth rug with scrupulous attention to the weave. When she raised her eyes they were very soft, and a little brighter than usual.

"Hector," she began, "I don't believe you'll understand this—I'm afraid you won't. Please try, anyway. I'm awfully fond of you—I never realized how much until—just now. During these weeks I've thought a lot about you, and what a wonderful work you're doing for your father's sake. I'm not as clever as those club women think I am—I'm bored stiff by serious things like history—but there's a pathetic side to your studying that sort of—catches my heart. Your father wanted you to be a famous man—and if you were married now, and spent a long time traveling, you'd never have the same interests again. You couldn't. And I'd always feel as though your father knew how I'd spoiled his dreams for you—so—you can't marry any one until you've made good."

"My dear child!"

"Please don't look at me like that!"

"But do you know what you're saying?"

"P-perfectly."

He passed a hand through his hair, and scowled.

"Eleanor, it's absurd! I'm only twenty-five—the book can wait. And I need travel to broaden me2"

"Do you truly think you could study archæology on your wedding trip?"

Hector pondered briefly.

"You're right—I couldn't. But there isn't any desperate hurry about this, you know."

"We're terribly young," said Eleanor sententiously. "I can't begin to tell you how truly and deeply anxious I am to have you make a name for yourself and I can't spoil it for you, Hector—I just can't!"

"Fame!" said Hector. "What is it, anyway? How can we tell whether I'm wasting time or not? Tell me—would you marry me now if it weren't for that idiotic book?"

"Yes," said Eleanor simply. "I would."

"And you can actually sit there and tell me that you won't do it because I haven't made myself famous? I ask you to marry me, and you can say 'Go out and get a reputation'?"

"Y-yes."

"And you will marry me as soon as I've made it?"

"If you—still want me."

Hector breathed deeply.

"What's your present conception of fame?"

Eleanor resumed her study of the rug.

"Why not take your father's definition—when the average well-read man can't see your name in print without knowing who you are, and what you've done."

"As for example," said Hector bitterly, "they know all about Richard Hildreth and Jean Victor Duruy and Wolfgang Menzel—historians a thousand times greater than I'll ever be! As for example, Eleanor—you're educated—who was Goldwin Smith?"

"I—I don't know."

"Only the greatest genius Canada ever produced. There's fame for you!"

"Oh!" she cried, scenting a loophole. "We were talking about Americans!"

"It's a pretty tough standard—I hope you're not serious, Eleanor. I'm twenty-five—it may be fifty years before I 'make good'—and travel isn't so much fun after you're seventy-five."

Eleanor came to him swiftly, and laid her hands on his massive shoulders.

"Hector," she said, "it may be because I'm so stupid myself. I'm like most girls nowadays—I don't really know very much. I want—as much as your father wanted you—to be a success. I don't care whether it's books, or what it is—I don't think he did. And I don't want to wait forever. But I won't marry you until you've started well on the road—for his sake. I can't let myself hinder you, Hector."

"I'll bet dad would have told you to marry me."

"But not yet. Can't you work for me—too?"

"Yes, I can!" He stooped and kissed her cheek. "And now," said the extraordinary young man, "we'd better pretend we aren't engaged."

"But we're not!"

"We'd better pretend we aren't," he gravely corrected, "because engaged girls miss a lot of fun in Olympus. I've seen 'em."

"You'll work hard—won't you?"

"Do you doubt it?"

"I'll have to hurry along," said Eleanor hastily. "I ought to have been home ages ago. Where's my handkerchief?"

She stood uncertainly at the top of the steps.

"What's the matter?" inquired Hector.

Eleanor returned daintily, hesitantly to the vine-shaded portion of the veranda, where she paused, and looked down.

"We're not engaged—but I should think you'd want to pretend we are—just this once!"

An hour nearer sunset Miss Redway bethought herself of the handkerchief she hadn't found. The telephone was near at hand.

"Oh, Mrs. Jones," she said. "This is Miss Redway. Can I speak to Mr. Blanding a moment?"

"No, ma'am," retorted Hector's housekeeper. "He's a-workin' on his book, and he told me he can't be disturbed for nothin' nor nobody. Thanks!"

Chapter 5

V.

In Cambridge, in the Commonweath of Massachusetts, on the evening of the fifth of November, a little group of men sat at the operating table of the Varsity Club's consulting room. Upon their faces sat deeply graven consternation and doubt. At the eastern window an aggressive man of middle age stood peering out at the scattered lights of Linden Street, and the shadowy façade of the Union. Some one at the table stirred restlessly, and at the sound the man near the window faced sharply about.

"If it weren't for the line," he said savagely, "they'd have beaten us a hundred to nothing! What good is a defense like a brick wall if there isn't a man in the backfield who doesn't shut his eyes when he hits the line? Two lickings in succession—and we rushed the ball less than fifty yards altogether! Unless something's done about it now, we've as much chance at New Haven as a snowball will have by and by. If we couldn't beat 'em when we had Bull Blanding to take the ball, what chance have we got with that dainty, delicate bunch of backs this year? What? Well—what's the answer?"

The older coaches looked at each other, saying nothing. It had all been said after the last two games. The youngest coach smiled seriously, and kept counsel.

"If we could only get some pep into 'em!" jawed the aggressive man. "Come, who's got an idea? I'm dry."

"Wire Blanding," said the youngest coach.

"I wrote him two weeks ago—he said he's too busy."

"Wire him."

"He won't come. He's the only man I know who could fill the bill, but he wouldn't come last year, and he won't come now. He's working on some harebrained literary rot he thinks is important. Piffle!"

"He'll come," contradicted the youngest coach. "He'll come if you get him right."

"I'll be interested to know," said the head coach stiffly, "why he'll come for you if he won't for me."

"Write out a telegram," suggested the junior, "and then I'll tell you."

The head coach stared aggressively for a moment.

"Oh, all right," he said shortly, and took to scratching with a fountain pen. The younger man also wrote.

"Here," said the head coach. "What's the matter with this?

fine block|"Hector Blanding, Olympus, Ohio: We greatly need you to assist in coaching the backs. Loyalty to the university demands your presence, if possible. W. H. Prince."

"That's pretty punk, Prince! This is what we'll send. Listen:

"Harvard 0, Amherst 10. Backfield averages 151 pounds, and gained 24 yards by rushing. Odds now 3 to 1 on Yale. When do you arrive?

"That," said its author complacently, "isn't so blamed dignified, but it'll bring Blanding in two jumps."

"Somebody ring for a boy," commanded Prince. "Well, then, if we have Hector Blanding to coach the backs2"

Chapter 6

VI.

Out in Olympus, where early rising is considered one of the cardinal virtues of the young, Eleanor Redway was rarely late for seven o'clock breakfast. On this glorious November morning, however, it was more than virtuously early when she was rudely awakened by a sound outside her window. Struggling against the interruption to her sleep, she rubbed her eyes, and picked out a smooth section of the pillow—and then a small missile bounded off the mosquito netting, and fell into the roof gutter with a pleasant tinkle. Eleanor sat upright; a third pebble rattled on the roof. Quickly she infolded herself in a flaming kimono, and ran to the window. On the lawn below, Hector Blanding was aiming another pebble. His suit case was beside him on the grass.

"Why, Hector!"

"Hello!" he called guardedly. "I pretty nearly missed you, sleepyhead! I've been throwing rocks for ten minutes."

"What's the matter?"

"I'm taking the six-fifteen—I'll connect with the Lake Shore express at Dimityville. I'm going to Cambridge."

"Cambridge!" she echoed, shivering. "Is anything wrong?"

"I should say there is! Here's the telegram—I'll pin it on the front door —so! It didn't come until nearly midnight. I don't know when I'll be back."

"Tell me—what is it?"

"Football—they need me."

Eleanor sat down on the window ledge.

"Do you mean to tell me you waked me—you're going to take that old milk train simply to save an hour or two getting to Cambridge? Why couldn't you be sensible and wait for the ten-forty-five?"

She yawned healthily. "When are you coming back?"

"Not until after the game—a month at least."

"A month! Are you perfectly crazy? You can't afford to waste a month on a silly trip like this!"

"Well, I'm going," he said. "I couldn't go without saying good-by. The boys are all at sea—I had to take the first train. I'll get there in time for afternoon practice to-morrow, you see. Take care of yourself, dear."

"But—Hector!"

"Yes?"

"It's so—sudden!"

Casting about him for a moment, he observed that the lattice of the side porch ran within a few feet of her window.

"I'm coming up, Eleanor."

"Oh—you mustn't!"

He tested the lattice with his full weight, and, finding that it held, scrambled nimbly to the top, whence he could touch his lady's hand, if not her lips. She watched him fearfully—and stretched down her hand. Accepting the alternative, he kissed it thoroughly.

"Not a soul in sight," he whispered. "Good-by, Eleanor."

"I didn't think it of you," she whispered ecstatically. "I didn't know you were so—romantic, Hector!"

"This isn't romance—it's reality. I'm going away."

"I think you're perfectly silly—but good luck to you!"

"Thank you," he said, dropping to the ground. "I'll write as soon as I get there."

"And your book?"

"Oh, drat the book!" he said, for the second time. "I've got to run! Goodby!"

At the corner he turned and waved his hand—then he was out of sight. To Eleanor came, as from a great distance, his clear tenor whistle. The words of the tune she hadn't heard; if she had been wiser, she would have known them by heart.

Look where the crimson banners fly, Hark to the sound of marching feet; There is a host approaching nigh— Harvard is marching up the street."

"Oh," said Eleanor, creeping back to bed. "One of those foolish football songs. I thought for a minute it had some significance." She tucked herself in warmly, and yawned again. "Like—like—'The Girl I Left Behind Me,' for instance."

Chapter 7

VII.

When the new subway brought him to Harvard Square, Hector, adroitly avoiding an old professor who was always relocating Attic puns, hired a taxicab to the Stadium. It gave him a thrill of pleasure to note that the chauffeur took him for a freshman, and tried to overcharge him. The day was consecrated to secret practice, but the ground-keeper recognized Hector with a toothless grin, and passed him through the grilled gates.