Left Tackle Thayer | Page 9

black and was always in
need of trimming, and his garments--he seldom wore trousers, coat and
vest that matched--always seemed about to fall off him. Clint's first
glimpse of Penny came one afternoon. The door of Number 13 was
open as Clint returned to his room after football practice and lugubrious
sounds issued forth. It was very near the supper hour and Penny's room
was lighted only by the rays of the sinking sun. Against the window
Clint saw him in silhouette, his hair wildly ruffled, his violin under his
chin, his bow scraping slowly back and forth as he leaned
near-sightedly over the sheet of music spread on the rack before him.
The strains that issued from the instrument were awful, but there was
something fine in the player's absorption and obvious content, and what
had started out as a laugh of amusement changed to a sympathetic
smile as Clint tiptoed on to his own door.
The sorrow of Penny's young life was that, although he had made
innumerable attempts, he could not succeed in the formation of a
school orchestra. There was a Glee Club and a Musical Society, the
latter composed of performers on the mandolin, banjo and guitar, but
no one would take any interest in Penny's project. Or no one save a
fellow named Pillsbury. Pillsbury played the bass viol, and once a week
or so he and Penny got together and spent an entranced hour. Time was
when such meetings took place in Penny's room or in Pillsbury's room,
but popular indignation put an end to that. Nowadays they took their
instruments to the gymnasium and held their chamber concerts in the
trophy room. Amy one day drew Clint's attention to a fortunate
circumstance. This was that, while there was a connecting door
between Number 14 and Number 15, there was none between Number

14 and Number 13. That fact, Amy declared, rendered their room fairly
habitable when Penny was pouring out his soul. "It's lucky in another
way," he added, staring darkly at the buff-coloured wall that separated
them from Number 13. "If that door was on this side I'd have broken it
open long ago and done murder!"
Clint laughed and inquired: "Who rooms on the other side?"
"Schuman and Dreer." The contemptuous tone of his reply caused Clint
to ask:
"Anything wrong with them?"
"Oh, Schuman's all right, I guess, but Dreer's a pill." There was a
wealth of contempt in the word "pill" as Amy pronounced it, and Clint
asked innocently what a "pill" was.
"A pill," replied Amy, "is--is--well, there are all sorts of pills. A fellow
who toadies to the instructors is a pill. A fellow who is too lazy to play
football or baseball or tennis or anything else and pretends the doctor
won't let him is a pill. A fellow who has been to one school and got
fired and then goes to another and is always shooting off his mouth
about how much better the first school is is the worst kind of pill. And
that's the kind Harmon Dreer is. He went to Claflin for a year and a half
and then got into some sort of mess and was expelled. Then the next
Fall he came here. This is his second year here and he's still gabbing
about how much higher class Claflin is and how much better they do
everything there and--oh, all that sort of rot. I told him once that if the
fellows at Claflin were so much classier than we are I could understand
why they didn't let him stay there. He didn't like it. He doesn't narrate
his sweet, sad story to me any more. If he ever does I'm likely to forget
that I'm a perfect gentleman."
But Clint's neighbours were not of overpowering interest to him those
days. There were more absorbing matters, pleasant and unpleasant, to
fill his mind. For one thing, he was trying very hard to make a place on
one of the football teams. He hadn't any hope of working into the first
team. Perhaps when he started he may, in spite of his expressed doubts,

have secretly entertained some such hope, but by the end of the second
day of practice he had abandoned it. The brand of football taught by
Coach Robey and played by the 'varsity team was ahead of any Clint
had seen outside a college gridiron and was a revelation to him. Even
by the end of the first week the first team was in what seemed to Clint
end-of-season form, although in that Clint was vastly mistaken, and his
own efforts appeared to him pretty weak and amateurish. But he held
on hard, did his best and hoped to at least retain a place on the third
squad