College sports -- Fiction; Short stories, American; Sports stories; Track and field -- Fiction
"No," I answered, rather pleased at his mistake; "that is a Harvard
Freshman, though he bears a good old English name. Since Tom of Rugby,
the Browns have had a name or two in about every good sporting event on
earth. Would you like to know him?" I asked, for just then the young
fellow spied me out and came forward to meet me with a smile of
recognition. I was quite willing to introduce H. J. Brown to the
Colonel, although it was hardly fair to present him as a sample of an
American boy. As Tom would have said, it was showing the top of a
"deaconed" barrel of apples.
The young fellow shook the Colonel's hand with an easy self-possession,
coloring a little under his brown skin at the older man's close
scrutiny, who said a quiet word concerning the games, and asked him if
he felt "fit."
"I'm as fit as they can make a duffer," he answered. "Boal, over there,"
pointing to an older man with a strong face full of color and who was a
bit shorter and even more strongly built,--"Boal is the man who throws
the hammer. He's better than I by a dozen feet."
"Yes," remarked Tom, coming forward and shaking Brown's hand with a
hearty grip, "this young man is not an athlete at all; he worked so hard
at his studies that they sent him over here to recruit his health,
impaired by too close application. He is strong only in his knowledge of
Greek verbs and logarithms."
At this there was quite a laugh, in which Brown joined heartily and the
Colonel came in with a quiet chuckle, for he had come to quite enjoy
Tom's "little jokes;" and under cover of our amusement the young fellow
left us and disappeared in the dressing-room.
The Colonel watched the little string of well-groomed fellows file
along, taking particular notice of the smallest chap of all, who came
laughing by, swinging his dress-suit case as if it weighed a scant
pound. "What does he do?" the Colonel asked.
"That's Rice, the high jumper," spoke up Tom. "He is good for six feet
before or after breakfast. Indeed I think he could do the distance
between every course of a long dinner, with perhaps an extra inch or two
before the roast."
"He has the best style of any man we have," volunteered Gardiner, "and
goes over the bar as if he had wings."
I tried to get the Colonel to look over the English lads. "Oh, they 're
all right, I know. I want to see how near the American boys can come to
them," said he, for the Colonel was loyal to his own, and after his long
absence thought all the more of everything the Old Country produced. We
did get a look at one or two, among them Vassall, an Oriel man, whom Tom
pointed out, although how he knew him I could not guess. He was a
grand-looking fellow, very strongly put together, and he walked as if on
eggs.
"He looks like a winner, sure enough," said I.
"Yes," continued the Colonel, "old Oriel always has a good thing or two
on field and river both."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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