Tramping on Life Part 50

Hurrying into my track suit, I went out to the Oval. It was three days before the meet.

Dunn was there, with several others, measuring out distances and chalking lanes.

With all the delicate joy of an aesthete I took my slim, spiked running shoes. I patted them with affection as I pushed my feet into them. I removed the corks from the s.h.i.+ning spikes....

I struck out with long, low-running, greyhound strides ... around and around ... the wind streamed by me....

I knew I was being watched admiringly. I could see it out of the tail of my eyes. So I threw forward in a final sprint, that brought me up, my eyes stinging with the salt of sweat, my legs aching ... my chest heaving....

"Good boy," complimented Dunn, coming up to me, and patting me on the back ... Gregory, I'm _for_ you. I'm so glad you've come out a clean, fine, clear-cut Christian."

For the two-mile, the half, and the mile, each--a single athlete was training, his heart set on the record. It seemed impossible that I should win all three races. Yet I did.

I was all nerves and sinews for the two-mile. The night before I had lain awake. I could not sleep so I read a poor translation of the odes of Pindar. But behind the bad verbiage of the translator, I fed on the s.h.i.+ning spirit of the poetry. With Pindar's music in me, I was ready for the two-mile.

Tensely we leaned forward, at the scratch. I had my plan of campaign evolved. I would leap to the fore, at the crack of the pistol, set a terrific pace, sprint the first quarter, and then settle into my long, steady stride, and trust to my good lung power ... for I had paid special attention to my lung-development, at "Perfection City."

I felt a melting fire of nervousness running through my body, a weakness.

I bowed my face in my hands and prayed ... both to Christ and to Apollo ... in deadly seriousness ... perhaps all the G.o.ds really were....

The gun cracked. Off I leapt, in the lead ... in the first lap the field fell behind.

"Steady, Gregory, steady!" advised Dunn, in a low voice, as I flashed into the second....

I thought I had distanced everybody ... but it chilled me to hear the soft swish, swish of another runner ... glancing rapidly behind, I saw a swarthy lad, a fellow with a mop of wiry, black hair, whom we called "The Hick" (for he had never been anywhere but on a farm)--going stride for stride, right in my steps, just avoiding my heels....

Run as I might, I couldn't shake him off....

Every time I swept by, the crowd would set up a shout ... but now they were encouraging "The hick" more than me. This made me furious, hurt my egotism. My lungs were burning with effort ... I threw out into a longer stride. I glanced back again. Still the chap was lumbering along ... but easily, so easily ... almost without an effort....

"Good G.o.d, am I going to be beaten?" I sensed a terrific sprinting-power in the following, chunky body of my antagonist.

There were only two more laps ... the rest of the field were a lap and a half behind, fighting for third place amongst themselves ... jeered at by the instinctive cruelty of the onlookers....

My ears perceived a cessation of the following swish, the tread.

Simultaneously I heard a great shout go up. I dared not look back, however, to see what was happening--I threw myself forward at that shout, fearing the worst, and ran myself blind....

"Take it easy, you have it!"

"Shut up! he's after the record."

The shrill screaming of the girls who had come over, in a white, linen-starched wagon load, from Fairfield, gave me my last spurt.

Expecting every moment to hear my antagonist grind past me, on the cinders, I sped up the home-stretch.

The air was swimming in a gold mist. I felt arms under mine, and I was carried off to the senior tent, by my cla.s.s-mates....

Yet I am convinced that I would have been beaten, if my rival had not had the string that held his trunks up, break. He had sunk down on the track, when they had fallen, not to show his nakedness ... and, pulling them up, and holding them, amid great laughter, he had still won second ribbon.

I won the second race--the half-mile, without the humour of such a fateful intervention. It was my winning of the first that won me the second. I had just equalled the two-mile record, in the first....

I ran that half, blindly, like a mad man. I was drunk with joy over my popularity ... for when I had gone into the big dining room for lunch, all the boys had shouted and cheered and roared, and pounded the dishes with their knives.

"Now, Gregory, you've just got to take the mile away from Learoyd ...

he's a junior ... you've just _got_ to!... besides, if you don't ...

there's Flammer has lost the broad jump ... and we won't win the cla.s.s banner after all."

Learoyd was a smallish, golden-faced, downy-headed boy ... almost an albino.... I had seen him run ... he ran low to the ground, in flashes, like some sort of sh.o.r.e-bird.

In the cla.s.s-tent, alone. Dunn had driven my cla.s.s out, where they had been ma.s.saging and kneading my legs ... which trembled and tottered under me, from the excessive use they had already undergone.

I sat down and put my head between my knees, and groaned. Then I straightened out my right leg and rubbed it, because a cramp was knotting it.

"h.e.l.lo, Gregory!"

The tent-flap opened. The athletic director poked his head in.

"Come on, Gregory, we're waiting for you."

"Wait a minute, Smythe ... I want to pray," I replied simply. Reverently he withdrew ... impressed ... awed....

I flung myself on my face.

"Look here, G.o.d, I'll really believe in you, if you give me this last race ... it will be a miracle, G.o.d, if you do this for me, and I will believe in your Bible, despite my common sense ... despite history ...

despite Huxley and Voltaire," then, going as far as I could--"yes, and despite Sh.e.l.ley ... dear G.o.d, dear Christ, please do what I have asked."

My hand struck on a bottle of witch hazel as I rose. Impulsively, I drank off half the contents. It sent a warmth through me. I straightened up, invigorated.

"Come on, Gregory ... what's the matter?" it was Dunn, protesting, "we'll have to run off the mile without you, if you don't come."

"I'm ready ... I'm coming."