Page:The purple pennant (IA purplepennant00barb).pdf/263

Rh nor the other sprinters were once allowed to show their real speed.

Meanwhile, Perry was observing such strict rules of diet that Mrs. Hull was in despair. Perry's natural liking for pie and cake was sternly repressed and his mother became frequently quite impatient and said that training was a piece of foolishness and that Perry would soon be only skin and bones unless he ate more. There seemed to be some justification for her fears, for the steady work on the cinders was certainly carving Perry pretty fine. He had not been by any means fat before, but now he was getting down to his muscles, and one morning when his mother surprised him on his way to the bath and viewed the slimness of his legs as revealed by a flapping dressing-robe, she sent up a wail of alarm and forthwith sought the Doctor, declaring that "this running just had to be stopped or Perry would starve to death before their eyes! He looks right now," she said, "like one of those Indian famine victims!" But the Doctor declined to become concerned. "He's better off as he is, Mother," he replied. "A fifteen-year-old boy doesn't need fat."

"But he's not eating anything!"

"You mean," the Doctor chuckled, "he's not eating pie and cake and a mess of sweet truck. I've