Barbour Ralph Henry
Left Half Harmon

CHAPTER XIX
BLACK PAINT

As Bob had pointed out, it was Saturday night, and even in Hillsport most of the merchants kept their shops open. As it was considered unwise to ask the location of a hardware store, the quartette was some time finding one. But success rewarded their efforts presently and, lest numbers create suspicion, Bob was delegated to do the purchasing alone. Cal emptied his pocket of all it contained except sufficient to pay his fare back to Alton and Bob pulled his cap down and entered the store. In a very few minutes he emerged, a paper-covered package under one arm, and strolled casually along the street to a dimly lighted corner where the others awaited him.

“Get it?” whispered Martin.

“Sure! Also and likewise a brush.” Bob pulled the latter article from a trousers pocket and waved it triumphantly. “Here’s the change,” he added.

Cal held the few coins that dropped into his palm to the uncertain light of a distant street lamp. “Huh, there isn’t much of it,” he said.

“Paint’s high, owing to – to – I forget what,” answered Bob cheerfully. “But the brush was only thirty cents. That was cheap, eh?”

“It must be a wonder!” commented Cal. “Bet you the bristles all come out before we get through with it.”

“We ought to soak it in water first,” said Bob, “but I guess there isn’t time.”

“You’re a swell little guesser,” answered Martin. “Which way do we go?”

“Back the way we came,” said Cal. “The nearer the school, the better, I say.”

“That’s right. I wonder should we stir this stuff up.” Bob tore off the disguising paper and revealed a quart can. “Guess we’ll have to. Let’s get the cover off and find a stick or something.”

Getting the cover off was not difficult, Cal prying it up with his locker key, but finding a piece of wood with which to stir was more of a problem. They searched and poked around in the gloom of the back street without success until Martin found a broken fence picket and pulled off a nice long splinter. Then, in the added darkness of a tree, they put the can on the sidewalk and proceeded to mix the ingredients thoroughly. Once a passer on the other side caused them to straighten up and assume casual attitudes, but for the rest they were undisturbed. Even on the business thoroughfares Hillsport was not a crowded town tonight. Presently they set off, Bob bearing the paint and Cal the brush, keeping to the darker streets until the center of the town was left behind. Then they crossed to the residence avenue by which they had returned from the school and began to look for blank walls or fences appropriate to their purpose.

After some five blocks had been traveled Bob voiced disparagement. “This is a punk town for decorating,” he said. “Nothing but iron and picket fences.”

“What’s that over there?” asked Martin, pointing. It proved, when they had crossed the street, to be the clapboarded side of a stable or garage set some three feet back from the fence. Bob gloated fiendishly and called for the brush. But, although until that instant scarcely half a dozen persons had been sighted, now the long street suddenly became densely populated, or so it seemed to the vandals. A man came out of a house across the way, a boy and a dog appeared from a cross thoroughfare and two ladies appeared from the direction of the shopping district. Bob deposited the paint can against the fence and the boys stood in front of it in negligent attitudes. Cal whistled idly and unmusically. The boy passed unsuspiciously, but the dog showed signs of curiosity until Martin lifted him swiftly but mercifully from the vicinity with a dexterous foot. Then the man, having lighted a cigar very deliberately, took himself off and the two ladies passed, casting nervous glances at the quartette, and the street was again quiet.

Bob dipped brush in paint and reached toward the immaculate whiteness of the building. Willard looked on dubiously, but forebore to remonstrate. It was a difficult reach and Bob was grumbling before he had formed the big A that started the inscription. But, although the black paint ran down the handle of the brush and incommoded him vastly, he persevered and in a minute the sign stood forth in the semi-darkness, huge and startling:

One brief instant they tarried to admire, and then they hurried away from the place. It seemed to them that those big black letters and numerals were visible for blocks! By common consent they turned the next corner and dived into the comparative blackness of a side street. Presently they stopped and exchanged felicitations.

“Swell!” chuckled Cal. “Gee, I wish I could see the Hillsport fellows tomorrow when they catch sight of it!”

“So do I,” said Bob. “Didn’t it show up great? Who’s got a handkerchief he’s not particular about?”

“Wipe your hands on your trousers,” advised Martin coldly.

“What’s the matter with your own handkerchief?” inquired Cal. “You get too much paint on your brush, anyway.”

“Well, you can’t be very careful when you’ve got to hurry,” grumbled Bob. “You can do the next one, seeing you know so blamed much about it! Gosh, the silly stuff is running up my sleeve!”

“I’ve got an old handkerchief you can have,” said Willard.

“Thanks, Brand. You’re the only gentleman in the bunch. Excepting me,” added Bob as Martin laughed.

“Where next?” asked Cal while Bob wiped his hand.

“Let’s paint a good one somewhere near the school,” Martin suggested. “Seems to me there was a brick wall across from where we were waiting for the car that would be just the ticket.”

“Lead me to it,” begged Cal. “This is my turn.”

They got back to the main street a block farther on and a few minutes’ walk brought them in sight of the main entrance to the school. “We don’t want to stay around too long,” said Willard. “It’s nearly eight o’clock now.”

“Guess we’ll have to do one more and call it a day,” replied Bob. “I never saw such a punk town for – for decorative purposes!”

Three Hillsport fellows, returning to school, overtook them as they neared the entrance and, as it seemed, viewed them very, very suspiciously. But the four kept their heads down, and Cal, now carrying the pot of paint, was careful to keep it hidden. The three entered the school grounds and were lost to sight and the conspirators breathed more freely. The wide street ended at the campus. A cross street ran right and left and for a block in each direction the high iron fence of the school bore it company. From the right the street car line came, turning in front of the gate. As, however, they had seen but one car since they had started forth on their expedition, interruption from that source seemed unlikely. The brick wall of which Martin had spoken could not have been placed more advantageously. It surrounded the small premises of a residence on the left-hand corner, and, as Bob triumphantly pointed out, a sign painted there would be the first thing seen by anyone coming through the school gate.

“That’s all right,” returned Cal dubiously, “but it’s awfully light here.” And so it was, for just inside the gate an electric arc lamp shed its blue radiance afar.

“I’ll stand at the gate,” volunteered Bob, “and Mart and Brand can watch the streets. If anyone comes we’ll whistle.”

“What about the folks in the house?” Cal’s enthusiasm was rapidly waning. The residence was brightly lighted and the strains of a piano came forth.

“They can’t see through the wall, you lunkhead,” answered Bob, “and if anyone comes out we’ll see ’em and let you know. All you need to do then is set the paint pot down and just walk away, careless-like.”

“We-ell, but you fellows watch,” said Cal resignedly.

Bob posted himself across the street at the entrance and Martin and Willard took up positions from where they could see anyone approaching on either street. Then Cal set to work. Painting on the rough surface of a brick wall is not so simple as painting on wood, and Cal made slow progress. Now and then the others heard disgusted murmurs from where, a darker form against the shadows, he stooped at his task. Several minutes passed, and Willard, concerned with the fact that train time was approaching, grew nervous; which, perhaps, accounted for a momentary lapse from watchfulness. At all events, the approaching pedestrian, coming along on the school side of the cross street, was scarcely a dozen yards distant when Willard saw him. The latter’s warning might, it seemed, have been heard a mile away.

“Beat it!” yelled Willard.

Afterwards he explained that shouting was quicker than whistling, and that if he had taken time to pucker his lips they would never have got away without being seen.

They came together a block down the main thoroughfare, breathless and hilarious. “He – he went in the gate,” panted Bob. “I saw him. Looked like one of the faculty, too. Gee, it was a lucky thing he didn’t catch us! D-did you get it done, Cal?”

“Just! I was going over the naught a second time when I heard Brand yell. I had the paint can in one hand and the brush in the other and I just heaved ’em both over the wall and ran!”

“I’ll bet it looks great,” chuckled Martin.

“I know it does,” answered Cal proudly. “I made the letters and figures as big as that.” He held his hands nearly a yard apart. “It took most of the paint, too. Brick’s awfully hard to work on. What did you do with Brand’s handkerchief, Bob?”

“Gave it back,” said Bob.

“No, you didn’t,” denied Willard.

“Didn’t I? I thought I did. Meant to, anyway. Must have dropped it somewhere, then. Wipe your hands on your own hanky. That’s what you told me to do!”

“I will like fun,” muttered Cal. “I’ll bet the stuff is all over me, hang it!”

“You can wash up at the station,” said Martin. “Who knows when the cars run over to Darlington?”

An uneasy silence followed. Then Bob said: “What about it, Cal? You asked, didn’t you?”

“I asked when the trains went,” replied Cal. “I – I suppose the cars go every ten minutes or so, don’t they?”

“What time is it now?” asked Martin bruskly.

“Five to eight,” answered Willard.

With one accord the four broke into a trot. “If we miss that train we’re dished!” said Bob. “Seems to me you’d find out something, Cal, while you were at it! What time does the train go?”

“Eight-thirty-eight,” replied Cal. “You didn’t ask me to find out about the trolley. I thought you knew about it. How was I to know – ”

“Save your breath for running,” advised Bob coldly. “If we can’t get a trolley we’ll have to foot it.”

“Gee, we’ll never do it in thirty minutes!” exclaimed Martin.

“We’ll have to,” said Bob grimly, “if we can’t get a car. If we’re not back at school by ten we’ll get fits. And then, if the faculty over here makes a fuss about those signs, why, we’ll be nabbed!”

“I told you it was too risky,” mourned Martin.

“Well, you took a hand in it, didn’t you?” asked Bob shortly. “Shut up and get a move on! Isn’t that the square ahead there?”

It was, and when, very much out of breath, the quartette reached it, a car obligingly swung around a corner and paused in front of a waiting station a block away. “Come on!” yelled Cal. “That’s ours!”

Of course, having reached it and staggered breathlessly inside, they had to sit there for quite ten minutes before the car resumed its journey. But they were too grateful to mind that, and, although Willard looked at his watch frequently and anxiously, the conductor assured them that, if they didn’t burn out a fuse or run off the track or if the power didn’t give out, they would reach the Darlington station eight minutes before train time. Bob advised Cal to keep his hands out of sight and Cal hung them down between his knees all the way. The conductor’s prediction proved correct, and, as there were no misadventures on the journey, Cal was able to eradicate most of the paint from his hands before the train arrived. To his disgust, however, he discovered that his coat and trousers were liberally specked with black, and when Bob told him cheerfully that the paint wouldn’t be very noticeable on mixed goods he became quite angry. In the end they reached the Academy well before ten o’clock and unobtrusively sought their rooms, everyone very weary and, if the truth must be told, rather short-tempered by now.

CHAPTER XX
EVIDENCE

Coach Cade was pleased with Saturday’s game, and said so. So, too, was the school in general. In fact, it seemed that the school found more encouragement than was warranted. One heard a good deal on Sunday about what Alton was going to do to Kenly when the time came. Doubtless much of this optimism was due to the arrival of Felix McNatt in the backfield, which, with the placing of Proctor at left tackle, appeared to round out the team remarkably. Certainly there was little in Saturday’s victory over a palpably weaker opponent to account for all the enthusiasm which spread over the school like a contagion.

Sunday afternoon, walking across to Academy Hall to post a letter, Willard encountered McNatt bent on a similar errand. McNatt showed evidences of having played football recently, for three strips of adhesive plaster formed a star over one cheek-bone. Having dropped their letters in the box beside the entrance, the two boys stood for a few minutes and talked. McNatt was evidently a trifle discouraged about his mission of reforming football on a more scientific basis.

“Mr. Cade says there’s a good deal in it, but thinks the – ah – impetus should come from the colleges. Now I don’t agree with him there, Harmon – By the way, is your name Harmon or Brand? I heard some of the players calling you Brand yesterday.”

“Harmon. Brand’s just a nickname.”

“I see. Well, as I was saying, I don’t think Mr. Cade is right. I believe that if we fellows at this school developed the game along the lines that you and I have discussed so frequently, others would follow. There – there’d be a movement, Harmon. If we look to the colleges to make the start we’ll have to wait a long time, I fear. In my opinion colleges are extremely conservative in the matter of football, especially the larger ones, the – ah – the leaders. Of course I realize that the season is so far advanced that any extreme changes now would possibly militate against the team’s success. Nevertheless, I am hoping that Mr. Cade will decide to experiment in a small way. I have spoken to quite a number of the players and they all appeared most interested. In fact, I don’t recall that any of them offered a serious criticism.”

“I guess it’ll take time,” murmured Willard. “Great ideas generally have to – to overcome a good deal of opposition, don’t you think? How does it seem to be playing again, McNatt?”

The full-back’s face lighted. “Splendid,” he replied. “Do you know, Harmon, I didn’t suppose I could find so much pleasure in the game again. Of course I realize that I’m still rather stale, but it’s coming back to me, it’s coming back.” McNatt nodded gravely. “I make mistakes and I’m frightfully slow, but with practice I’ll improve. At least, I hope to,” he corrected modestly. “It’s possible, though, that I shan’t do as well as I should. The fact is, Harmon, I’m conscious of the variance of thought that exists between those in charge of the team and me. I approach the problem confronting us scientifically. They approach it in the old hit-or-miss style. I strive not to let the lack of – shall I say? – harmony trouble me, but I fear it does at times. So often, when the quarter-back signals one play, I know that the situation calls for another, and I fear that the absence of a sympathetic approval of the play demanded sometimes – ah – unconsciously reduces my enthusiasm for it. And, really, one must be thoroughly convinced of the propriety of a play before one can go into it wholeheartedly, just as one must be convinced as to any other act. You see what I mean, Harmon?”

“Oh, absolutely,” answered Willard, “absolutely! But, really, McNatt, I wouldn’t trouble much about that. Seems to me you’ve been playing a mighty sweet game.”

“You think so?” asked the other doubtfully. “I don’t know. If only it was possible to give reasoning thought to the conduct of the game! But it will come, I’m certain of that. Meanwhile I shall do the best I can.”

“I’m sure of that,” said Willard earnestly.

“There’s just one thing that might happen,” resumed McNatt as they strolled away from Academy, knitting his brows. “Some time that quarter-back – is his name Tarbox?”

“Tarver, Gilbert Tarver,” replied Willard gravely.

“I think I’ve called him Tarbox several times. Well, as I was saying, there is a possibility that some time he may call a play that I shall subconsciously rebel against and, under a certain mental condition, it might be that I would – ah – spill the beans.”

Willard went off into a gale of laughter. McNatt viewed him in mild surprise. “I’m afraid,” he said, gently reproving, “the result would be far from humorous. It is conceivable that it might, happening at a crucial moment in the contest, even prove disastrous to our fortunes!”

“I – I wasn’t laughing at that,” moaned Willard, wiping his streaming eyes. “I was laughing at – at your slang!”

“Slang? Oh!” McNatt smiled. “I dare say it did sound queer. I pick up quite a good deal of slang from Winfred. Well, I must get back. I’m working on a plan that will, I think, produce more certainty of result to the kick-off. You may have noticed how seldom the team in possession of the ball at the kick-off is able to concentrate defensively in the locality of the catch. My idea, if it proves practical – and I think it will – would enable the team to know where the ball would descend and so concentrate on that point. Well, I’ll see you again, Harmon.”

Willard reported the conversation to Martin, who was doing his best today to convince himself that what had every appearance of a cold in the head was merely a touch of hay fever, and Martin mixed laughter with his sniffles. “The poor nut,” he said. “He’d try to introduce science into eating a fried egg if he thought of it! How the dickens can the team know where a kick-off is going to land when the fellow who kicks the ball doesn’t know himself half the time? I suppose his idea is to have the ball brought back if it doesn’t go where it’s expected to! Say, Brand, remind me to get a Darlington paper tomorrow, will you? There ought to be something about last night’s job in it. I’ll bet those fresh chumps over at Hillsport are hopping mad today!”

“That’s a safe bet,” laughed Willard. “I only hope they’re not mad enough to raise a row about it.”

“How could they?” asked Martin indignantly. “Didn’t they do the same thing to us last fall? Much good it would do ’em if they did get sore! I guess faculty would have a pretty good comeback, son! Anyhow, you should worry. You didn’t have anything to do with it. Any more than I did,” added Martin after a moment.

Willard laughed. “It sounds fine the way you say it, Mart,” he answered, “but I guess faculty would have a lot of trouble getting your point of view. We were right there, old chap, and we even kept watch while the – the nefarious deed was perpetrated.”

“Where do you get that talk?” demanded Martin, punctuating the question with three mighty sneezes. “You’d better keep away from McNatt, son. You’re catching it! Brand, just so long as my conscience is at rest I care naught for what faculty may say or do. And I’ve got what is probably the most restful conscience in captivity!”

“Well, I guess Hillsport’s too good a sport to make a howl,” replied Willard. “Cal’s clothes are simply covered with paint, Bob says. And he doesn’t dare wear them for fear faculty might notice and get a line on what happened. He’s going to smuggle them over to the tailor’s and have ’em cleaned.”

“Well, he would have a hand in it,” said Martin complacently. “You didn’t see me begging to be allowed to desecrate the walls of the dear old town, did you? I knew better. Paint always spatters, especially when you try to put it on bricks. I could have told Cal that, but he’s so blamed knowing that he wouldn’t have paid any attention to me.” Martin sneezed again and shook his head. “It was coming over in that old trolley that gave me this cold. I guess I got worse than a spoiled suit out of the adventure. If I don’t manage to break this up tonight I’ll be out of football for days! I know these colds of mine.”

“I thought you said it was hay-fever,” remarked Willard innocently.

Martin growled. “It’s more than a month too late for hay-fever, I guess.” He seized his handkerchief, opened his mouth and twitched his nose. Nothing happened, however, and he relapsed again, with a dismal shake of his head. “It’s getting worse all the time,” he muttered. “Is there a window open anywhere?”

“No, but I’ll open one,” answered Willard obligingly.

“Don’t be a silly ass,” requested the other. “If you had this grippe you wouldn’t be so plaguey comic!”

“It’s growing fast,” laughed Willard. “An hour ago it was just hay-fever. Then it was a cold. Now it’s grippe. Better see a doctor, Mart, before pneumonia sets in!”

“Oh, shut up! What time is it?”

“Almost time for supper. What shall I bring you? Do you care for milk-toast?”

“I do not! And I’ll look after my own supper. I guess maybe some food will do me good. If it turned out to be influenza I’d be all the better for having lots of strength. It’s weakened constitutions that cause so many fatalities. A fellow wants power of resistance, I guess.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but a clean handkerchief wouldn’t hurt!”

Monday introduced real November weather. The sky was overcast when Willard piled out of bed in the morning, and a cold breeze was blowing from the east. Radiators were sizzling and the bath-robed, gossiping groups were noticeably absent from the corridor when he set forth for the lavatory. Winter was in the air, and the coffee at breakfast never tasted so good.

It was just before ten that Willard received the disturbing message from the school office. Mr. Wharton, the secretary, desired to see him immediately after twelve. Oddly, perhaps, Willard failed to connect the summons with the Hillsport episode for some time. All during his ten o’clock recitation he subconsciously tried to think of some neglected study or duty that would account for the secretary’s desire for his company, and it wasn’t until he had disposed of that explanation by the slow process of elimination that Saturday night’s affair obtruded itself.

He didn’t allow that to alarm him, though. After all, a mere prank of that sort, common wherever there were boys’ schools, couldn’t be taken very seriously. In any case, he would get off with a reprimand. What bothered him more was the question of how Mr. Wharton had managed to associate him with the affair, and he wondered whether Martin and the others were wanted at the office also. He hoped to run across one or the other of them and compare notes, but luck was against him, and as soon as he was released from classroom at twelve he set forth a trifle uneasily down the corridor to the office.

He had to wait several minutes while the secretary heard and denied a freckle-faced freshman’s request for leave of absence over the next Sunday and then he made his identity known and received a distinct shock when Mr. Wharton jerked a thumb over his shoulder and said: “Doctor McPherson.”

The thumb indicated a closed door across the width of the outer office. Although Willard had never passed through that portal, he knew that it admitted to the Principal’s sanctum. His confidence waned as he opened the gate in the railing, heard it click behind him and hesitated before the blank portal.

“You needn’t knock,” said the secretary, over his shoulder. “The Doctor expects you.”

Willard thought the latter sentence sounded horribly grim!

The Principal’s office, unlike the outer room, was large and spacious, with a flood of pale light entering by three big windows that overlooked the Green. A half-dozen mahogany armchairs stood about the room, a wide bookcase almost filled one wall space and a huge table-desk, remarkably free from books or papers occupied the geometrical center of the soft green rug. At the desk, his back toward the windows, sat Doctor Maitland McPherson, a man of well under fifty years, thin-visaged, clean-shaven, somewhat bald. He laid aside the book he had been reading at Willard’s entrance, slipping an ivory marker between the pages before he closed it, and nodded pleasantly.

“Harmon?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring one of those chairs here, please, and be seated.”

Willard followed instructions and then looked inquiringly across the few feet of shining mahogany and green blotting pad to the countenance of the Principal. This was his first close view of Doctor McPherson, although he had seen him at least once every day. Usually the length of the assembly hall separated them, and just now Willard wished mightily that it still separated them. Not that the Doctor looked very formidable, for he didn’t. He wasn’t a large man, and his strength and vigor were evidently that of the mind rather than of the body. His brown eyes, rather golden brown, were soft and kindly, and two deep creases that led from the corners of his short, straight nose to the ends of his rather wide mouth suggested that he preferred smiling to frowning. Even now there was a smile on the Doctor’s face, although it wasn’t a smile that encouraged the caller to emulate it.

“I presume,” said the Doctor, “that you know why I sent for you, Harmon.”

“No, sir,” answered Willard, honestly enough.

“Really?” The Doctor’s grizzled brows went up in faint surprise. Leisurely, he swung his chair a little and opened the upper left-hand drawer beside him. Then he laid something midway between him and Willard, something that by its appearance seemed to desecrate the immaculateness of the mahogany on which it rested. It was a crumpled object, white in places, black in other places, smeared and stiffened. In brief, it was a white handkerchief befouled with black paint.

“Have you ever seen that before, Harmon?” asked the Doctor.