Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/253

 Neale's latent acuteness and forced it into action. With shame, with praise, with reproach and enthusiasm, he drew out of Neale more than Neale had dreamed could be there. If one—even one—of the teachers of English or Greek or chemistry or economics had taught Neale as this semi-illiterate, wealthy young barbarian taught him …! If Neale had given even a tenth as much attention to any of his courses …!

Neale clambered up over himself, raging with hope; up over his first realization that there was infinitely more to this problem than he had ever supposed; over his next, that he did not know even the rudiments, of the game he had thought he knew so well; over his occasional glimmers of understanding, why he failed sometimes and succeeded at other times; over an increasing percentage of successes, and finally stood, a little giddy with the new height, on the peak towards which Atkins had urged him, where he waited clear-headed, strong, confident, behind the tackle, hoping the next play would come his way.

The play did come his way. The Varsity tried out against the scrub its new delayed pass from close formation. To the left it worked very well. But when they tried it to the right, Neale dropped Rogers for a loss, three times in succession. The look on Atkins' face was glory.

The next afternoon Neale was back on the Varsity and Biffy on the scrub.

There was a pang in his beatitude, a painful moment of generous distress when Biffy came up to congratulate him. The two hard-faced, frowsy-headed, gum-chewing young savages griped each other's hands in an inexpressive silence; and each saw deep into the other's big heart as he was rarely, in all his life thereafter, to look into any other human being's inner chamber.

Biffy carried it off splendidly, Neale thought, but he couldn't fool a man who had just been there himself. He felt sorry for Biffy. He remembered to be sorry for Biffy till the whistle blew for the Annapolis game.