Guarding His Goal

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.

“Come in!” called a voice from beyond the door, and the visitor turned the knob and entered.

The room was small, with a ceiling that sloped with the roof, and rather shabby. There was an iron cot at one side, and a small steamer trunk peeped out from beneath it. A bureau, grained in imitation of yellow oak, was across the room and bore a few photographs in addition to such purely useful articles as brushes and a comb and a little china box holding studs and sleeve-links. The room contained two chairs, although at first glance one seemed quite sufficient for the available space: an armchair boasting the remains of an upholstered seat and a straight-backed affair whose uncompromising lines were at the moment partly hidden by a suit of blue serge. The one remaining article of furniture was a deal table such as one finds in kitchens. It was a good-sized table and it stood against the wall at the right of the window embrasure and under the gas bracket. From the bracket extended a pipe terminating at a one-burner gas stove which, on a square of zinc, adorned one end of the table. On the stove was a smoothing iron of the sort known to tailors as a goose. A second such implement was being pushed back and forth over an expanse of damp cloth in a little cloud of steam, hissing, but less alarmingly than the other sort of goose, and filling the room with a not unpleasant odor. The iron didn’t stop in its travels to and fro, but its manipulator, a well-set-up boy of fifteen with very blue eyes and red-brown hair, looked around as the visitor entered.

“Hello,” he said. “Sit down, please, and I’ll be through this in a shake.”

“No hurry.” The visitor seated himself gingerly in the dilapidated armchair and draped a pair of gray trousers across his knees. While the boy at the table deftly lifted the dampened cloth and laid it over another part of the coat he was pressing and again pushed the hot iron back and forth, the visitor’s gaze traveled about the little room in mild surprise. There were no pictures on the white walls, nothing in the shape of decoration beyond three gaudily colored posters. Two of them depicted heroic figures in football togs surmounting the word “Yardley” in big blue letters, and the third was an advertisement for an automobile, showing a car of gigantic size, inhabited by a half-dozen lilliputian men and women, perched precariously on the edge of a precipice. The boy holding the gray trousers hoped that the man at the wheel, who seemed to be admiring the view with no thought of danger, had his brakes well set! He hadn’t known that anywhere in Yardley Hall School was there a room so absolutely unattractive and mean as Number 22. To be sure, Whitson was the oldest of all the dormitories and so one naturally wouldn’t look for the modern conveniences found in Merle or Clarke or Dudley, but he had never suspected that Poverty Row, as the top floor of Whitson was factitiously called, held anything so abjectly hideous as the apartment of T. Tucker. Further reflections were cut short by his host, who, returning the iron to the stove and whisking the cloth aside, picked up the coat he had pressed, folded it knowingly and laid it on the foot of the bed. After which, plunging his hands into his trousers pockets, he faced the visitor inquiringly.

“Something you want done?” he asked briskly.

“Yes, if you can do it this evening,” was the reply. “But you look pretty busy. It’s just this pair of trousers, Tucker. I want to wear them away in the morning.”

“All right, I’ll do ’em. Cleaned or just pressed?” Toby Tucker took the garment and examined it with professional interest.

“Oh, just pressed. I don’t think they’re spotted. Are you sure you want to do them? You look sort of busy already.” His glance went to the half-dozen coats and waistcoats and trousers lying about.

“I am,” replied Toby cheerfully, “but I’ll have these ready for you in the morning. Seven early enough?”

“Oh, yes, there’s no chapel to-morrow, you know. If I’m not up just toss them in the room somewhere.”

“All right. You’re in Dudley, aren’t you?”

“Yes, four. Crowell’s the name.”

“I know. You’re hockey captain. I suppose it’s hard to learn that game, isn’t it?” Toby turned the light out under the burner and seated himself on the edge of the bed.

“Hockey?” asked Orson Crowell. “N-no, I don’t think so. Of course a fellow’s got to know how to skate a bit, and not mind being roughed, you know. The rest comes with practice. Thinking of trying it, Tucker?”

“Me? No, I wouldn’t have time. I just wondered. Arnold Deering’s on the team, and he’s talked a good deal about it.”

“Oh, you know Arn?”

Toby nodded, hugging his knees up to his chin. “It was Arnold who got me to come here to school. His folks have a summer place over on Long Island where I live. Greenhaven. Ever been there?”

Crowell shook his head.

“Nice place,” continued Toby thoughtfully. “Arnold and I got acquainted and he talked so much about this school that I just made up my mind I’d come here. So I did.”

“Like it now you’re here?” asked the other boy, smiling.

“Oh, yes! Yes, I’m glad I came, all right. Of course――” Toby glanced about the room――“I’m not what you’d call luxuriously fixed up here, but I’ve got the room to myself, and that’s good, because if I had a room-mate he might object to my staying up all hours pressing clothes. Besides, it was just about the only room I could afford.”

“Yes, I suppose it’s just about all right for you,” agreed the other dubiously. “Do you――do you do pretty well?”

“Fair. It gets me enough to keep going on. I don’t charge much, you see, and it’s easier for fellows to bring their things to me than to take them to the village or over to Greenburg. It was sort of hard getting started. Fellows thought at first I couldn’t do it, I guess. But now they keep me pretty busy. To-day’s been a whopper. Every one wants his things pressed to go home in. I’m almost done, though. Only got three more suits――and these trousers of yours. Those won’t take me long. I’ll be through in a couple of hours.”

“I shouldn’t think you’d have time to do anything else,” commented Crowell. “When do you get outdoors? And how about studying?”

“Oh, I have plenty of time. I get up at six, and that gives me a good hour before chapel. And then I have another hour at eleven, and, since football’s been over, an hour or so in the afternoon.”

“Did you go out for football?”

“Yes, I had a try at it. I was on the second about three weeks and then they dropped me and I played on my class team. It was lots of fun, but it took too much time.”

“Yes, it does take time,” granted Crowell. “When I started in in my second year I was in trouble with the office all the time.”

“I’d certainly like to be able to play it the way you do,” said Toby admiringly. “I guess it takes a lot of practice, though.”

“Oh, I’m not much good at it,” responded Crowell, modestly. “Did you see the Broadwood game?”

“No, I didn’t have time. And it cost too much. I wanted to, though. I’ll see it next year, when they play here.”

Crowell had been studying the younger boy interestedly while they talked and liked what he saw. There was something very competent in the youngster’s looks, and the blue eyes expressed a fearlessness that, taken in conjunction with the determination shown by the square chin, argued results. He had a round, somewhat tanned face, a short nose and hair that, as before hinted, only just escaped being red instead of brown. (It didn’t do to more than hint regarding the color of Toby Tucker’s hair, for Toby was touchy on the subject and had fought more than one battle to emphasize the fact that it was distinctly brown and could not by any stretch of imagination be termed red!) For the rest, Toby was well built, healthy and strong, and rather larger than most boys of his age.

“Look here,” said Crowell suddenly. “How are you at skating, Tucker?”

“Oh, I can skate.”

“Done much of it?”

“Yes, I skate a lot, but I don’t know much fancy business.”

“Why don’t you try hockey then? You’d like it awfully. It’s a ripping sport.”

“I’d be afraid I’d fall over one of those sticks you push around,” laughed Toby.

“Maybe you would at first,” said Crowell, smiling, “but you’d soon get the hang of it. You look to me like a fellow who’d be clever about learning a thing. How old are you, any how? Sixteen, I suppose.”