Page:Stanwood Pier--Crashaw brothers.djvu/168

148 worth while! I’ll tell you what my trouble was, Edward. I wanted to be picked at the end of the year as the greatest all-round athlete in  the School. I thought I could be—football, hockey, rowing, all those things—all I needed  to clinch it was to show off in the gymnasium  besides. But when it came really to the point, with the audience there and all—I did only  about half as well as I’d done in practice. That’s the way I’ve been in everything; that’s the way I was in these exams that threw me  down. I’m a great big showy duffer—and no good at all in the crisis. But I’m going to be good”—he caught up the pillow from the  bed and slammed it viciously at the wall. “You bet I am. I’m going to get into college this fall if I have to study twenty-four hours a day. And when I get in!—” He gave the pillow a finishing punch.

Edward was rather embarrassed at such an outpouring of soul; he did not know quite  what to say.

“Don’t you suppose nearly everybody has sort of given up at times, when really they