Stanford Stories: Tales of a Young UniversityIrwin, Will
General
Stanford Stories: Tales of a Young University
Irwin, Will
College stories, American; Short stories; Stanford (Calif.) -- Fiction; Stanford University -- Fiction
Some fifteen minutes later, the two came down the corridor toward the
training table.
"Good-night, Ashley."
"Won't you stay to dinner, Diemann?"
"No, I must go down, and you are late as it is. Hurry along in."
"All right. I'm not going stale if I can help it. I just felt a little
faint over there; I got pretty tired."
Diemann stepped up closer to him beside the curving balustrade and
looked the football man steadily in the eyes.
"You are playing more like Blake every day," he said.
"I wish I were."
"We are going to the Springs to-morrow," went on the coach, "and you can
rest. By the way, if I were you I wouldn't say anything about your
feeling faint just now. It would only trouble Lyman and the rest of the
boys."
"What does it all mean?" Diemann mused as the palms bordering the
bicycle path flashed by him. "There was something about him like Fred,
in his way of speaking, and some of the things he said about the game,
but it stopped there. With all my questioning, I never got a word that
belonged to us two alone. I suppose I must admit that it is merely the
memory of the subjective mind, a case of dual personality brought on by
hyper-aesthetic conditions. Oh, if it were only the other thing, if I
only could know! But it can't be; he would give me some clue, some sign.
Then again the substitution has not come at a critical time, only after
the practice, when Ashley is tired. If it were Fred, he would appear in
the play, he would come at a time like that, if there is anything in
it."
Diemann gripped his handle-bar tightly as he shot through the sandstone
gates.
"Oh," he thought, "whatever it is, if it would only come stronger, if I
could only be sure!"
* * * * *
On Thanksgiving morning when the long special runs up on the University
track and stops between the Library and Encina, the flaming bunting
looped along its sides starts the excitement of the day. Everybody is
out on the walk, bristling with the College cardinal, from Professor
Grind and his wife to the Jap who cleans house Saturdays. If there is
anyone who cannot or does not want to go up to town to-day, he has
hidden himself in grief or shame. The President wears a ribbon in his
coat, and talks gravely with Professor Diemann, who has been at the
Springs with the team. A knot of students have already determined to get
the Doctor to lead the yell when he comes in to the grounds. They know
he will do it; he is as full of the spirit of the day as any of them.
"Rah, Rah, Rah,
Rah, Rah, Rah,
Rah, Rah,
Stanford!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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