Page:Stanwood Pier--Crashaw brothers.djvu/226

206 the partisans on either shore there was a shout; red flags waved on the eastern hill and blue  on the western; and then there rolled out  the long St. Timothy’s cheer, followed by the  quicker, sharper St. John’s.

Edward, wrapped in his warm red blanket and sitting in the sun, shivered with excitement. Beside him Sheldon sat and talked reminiscently.

“It was just there two years ago that they took their spurt when we’d held ’em neck and  neck all the way,” he said, pointing to a big  boulder which rose out of the water a hundred  feet or so from the eastern shore. “And they had just a little more left in them than we had,  to spurt with. But it won’t be so to-day.” He lowered his voice still further. “Some of ’em look a little too fine. Your brother—is n’t he sort of drawn and pale?”

“Oh, I guess not,” Edward answered. But he had had the same thought the moment  when he had first seen Charles; and somehow  Sheldon’s corroboration of that thought was  unwelcome.