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Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis, a fiction by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 4. Dave's Work Goes Stale |
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_ CHAPTER IV. DAVE'S WORK GOES STALE "Aye, you're not---not joking?" demanded Dan Dalzell half piteously. "Do you see any signs of mirth in my face?" demanded Dave Darrin indignantly. Rap-tap! Right after the summons Midshipman Farley and Page entered the room. "Say, who's dead?" blurted out Farley, struck by the looks of consternation on the faces of their hosts. "Tell him, Dave," urged Dan. "Prescott and Holmes won't play on this year's Army team," stated Darrin. "Whoop!" yelled Farley gleefully. "And that was what you're looking so mighty solemn about? Cheer up, boy! It's good news." "Great!" seconded Midshipman Page with enthusiasm. "I tell you, fellows," spoke Dave solemnly, "it takes all the joy out of the Army-Navy game." "Since when did winning kill joy?" demanded Farley aghast. "Why, with Prescott and Holmes out of it the Navy will get a fit of crowing that will last until after Christmas!" "It makes the victory too cheap," contended Darrin. "A victory is a victory," quoth Midshipman Page, "and the only fellow who can feel cheap about it is the fellow who doesn't win. Cheer up, Davy. It's all well enough to wallop a stray college, here and there, but the one victory that sinks in deep and does our hearts good is the one we carry away from the Army. Whoop! I could cry for joy." "But why won't Prescott and Holmes play this year?" asked Farley, his face radiant with the satisfaction that the news had given him. "Because the corps has sent Prescott to Coventry for something that I'm certain the dear old fellow never did," Darrin replied. "Lucky accident!" muttered Farley. "But the corps will repent, when they find their football hope gone," predicted Page, his face losing much of its hitherto joyous expression. "No! No such luck," rejoined Midshipman Darrin. "If the brigade, here, sent a fellow to Coventry for what they considered cause, do you mean to tell me that they'd take the fellow out of Coventry just to get a good player on the eleven?" "No, of course, not," Page admitted. "Then do you imagine that the West Point men are any more lax in their views of corps honor?" pressed Dave. "To be sure they are not---they can't be." "Then there's only a chance in a thousand that Dick Prescott will, by any lucky accident, be restored to favor in the corps---at least, in time to play on this year's eleven. If he doesn't play, Holmes simply won't play. So that takes all the interest out of this year's Army-navy game." "Not if the Navy wins," contended Midshipman Page. "Bosh, there's neither profit nor honor in the Navy winning, unless it's against the best men that the Army can put forth," retorted Dave Darrin stubbornly. "By the great Dewey, I'm afraid nine tenths of my enthusiasm for the game this year has been killed by the miserable news that has come in." Within less than five minutes after the midshipmen had seated themselves around the scores of tables in the mess hall, the news had flown around that Prescott and Holmes were to be counted as out of the Army eleven for this year. Here and there suppressed cheers greeted the announcement The bulk of the midshipmen, however, were much of Dave Darrin's opinion that there was little glory in beating less than the best team that the Army could really put forth. "Darry looks as though he had just got back from a funeral," remarked one member of the third class to another youngster. "I don't blame him," replied the one so addressed. "But he's all the more sure of winning over the Army this year." "I don't believe either of you youngsters know Darrin as well as I do," broke in a second classman. "What I'm afraid of is, if Prescott and Holmes don't play with the soldiers, then Darry will lose interest in the game to such a degree that even Army dubs will be able to take his shoestrings away from him. Danny doesn't enjoy fighting fourth-raters. It's the big game that he enjoys going after. Why, I'm told that he had simply set his heart on pushing Prescott and Holmes all the way across Franklin Field this year." Readers who are anxious to know why Dick Prescott, one of the finest of American youths, had been sent to Coventry by his comrades at the United States Military Academy, will find it all set forth in the concluding volume of the West Point Series, entitled _"Dick Prescott's Fourth Year At West Point."_ Strangely enough, the first effect of this news from West Point was to send the Navy eleven somewhat "to the bad." That is to say, Dave Darrin, despite his best endeavors, seemed to go stale from the first hour when he knew that he was not to meet Dick Prescott on the gridiron. "Mr. Darrin, what ails you?" demanded coach kindly, at the end of the second practice game after that. "I don't know, sir." "You must brace up." "Yes, sir." "You seem to have lost all ambition. No; I won't just say that. But you appear, Mr. Darrin, either to have lost some of your snap or ambition, or else you have gone unaccountably stale." "I realize my defects, sir, and I am trying very, very hard to overcome them." "Are you ill at ease over any of your studies?" persisted coach. "No, sir; it seems to me that the fourth year studies are the easiest in the whole course." "They are not, Mr. Darrin. But you have had the advantage of three hard years spent in learning how to study, and so your present course appears rather easy to you. Are you sleeping well?" "Yes, sir." "Eating well?" "Splendid appetite, sir." "Hm! I shall soon have a chance to satisfy myself on that point, Mr. Darrin. The day after to-morrow the team goes to training table. Have you any idea, Mr. Darrin, what is causing you to make a poorer showing?" "I have had one very great disappointment, sir. But I'd hate to think that a thing like that could send me stale." "Oh, a disappointment?" "Yes, sir," Dave went on frankly. "You see, sir, I have been looking forward, most eagerly, to meeting Prescott and downing him with the tricks that Jetson, Dalzell and I have been getting up." "Oh! Prescott of the Army team?" "Yes, sir." "I think I heard something about his having been sent to Coventry at the Military Academy." "But, Mr. Darrin, you are not going to fail us just because the Army loses a worthy player or two?" exclaimed Lieutenant-Commander Parker in astonishment. "Probably that isn't what ails me, sir," Dave answered flushing. "After all, sir, probably I'm just beginning to go stale. If I can't shake it off no doubt I had better be retired from the Navy eleven." "Don't you believe it!" almost shouted coach. "Mr. Darrin, you will simply have to brace! Give us all the best that's in you, and don't for one instant allow any personal disappointments to unfit you. You'll do that, won't you?" "Yes, sir." Darrin certainly tried hard enough. Yet just as certainly the Navy's boosters shook their heads when they watched Darrin's work on the field. "He has gone stale," they said. "The very worst thing that could happen to the Navy this year!" Then came the first game of the season---with Lehigh. Darrin roused himself all he could, and his playing was very nearly up to what might have been expected of him---though not quite. The visitors got away with a score of eight to five against the Navy. Next week the Lehighs went to West Point and suffered defeat at the hands of the Army. The news sent gloom broadcast through the Naval Academy. "We get beaten by one of the smaller colleges, that West Point can trim," was the mournful comment. It did, indeed, look bad for the Navy! _ |
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