CHAPTER XI

Archaeologists of a future age will doubtless, in their minute explorations of this region, come upon the petrified remains of golf b.a.l.l.s in such number as will occasion learned dispute. Found so profusely and yet so far from any known course, they will perhaps give rise to wholly erroneous surmises. Prefacing his paper with a reference to lost secrets once possessed by other ancients, citing without doubt that the old Egyptians knew how to temper the soft metal of copper, a certain scientist will profoundly deduce from this deposit of b.a.l.l.s, far from the vestiges of the nearest course, that people of this remote day possessed the secret of driving a golf ball three and a half miles, and he will perhaps moralize upon the degeneracy of his own times, when the longest drive will doubtless not exceed a scant mile.

For three days Sharon sprayed out over the landscape, into ideal golf-ball covert, where many forever eluded even the keen eyes of Wilbur Cowan, one hundred b.a.l.l.s originally purchased by the selecter golfing set of Newbern. Hereupon he refused longer to regard the wooden driver as a possible instrument of precision, and forever renounced it. Elihu t.i.tus heard him renounce it balefully in the harness room one late afternoon, and later entering that apartment found the fragments of a shattered driver.

It remained for Wilbur Cowan to bring Sharon into the game by another avenue. A new campaign was entered upon, doubtfully at first by Sharon, at length with dawning confidence. He was never to touch a wooden club.

He was to drive with an iron, not far, but truly; to stay always in the centre of the fairway and especially to cultivate the shorter approach shots and the use of the putter. The boy laboured patiently with his pupil, striving to persuade him that golf was more than a trial of strength. From secret lessons back of the stable they came at length to furtive lessons over the course at hours when it was least played. John Knox McTavish figured at these times as consulting expert.

"It's th' shor-r-t game that tells th' stor-r-r-y," said John; and Sharon, making his whole game a short game, was presently telling the story understandably, to the vast pride of the middle man who provided endless b.a.l.l.s for his lessons.

It was a day of thrills for them both when Rapp, Senior, publicly challenged and accepting with dreams of an easy conquest, bent down before the craft of Sharon Whipple. Sharon, with his competent iron in a short half-arm swing--he could not, he said, trust the utensil beyond the tail of his eye--sent the ball eighteen times not far but straight, and with other iron shots coaxed it to the green, where he sank it with quite respectable putting. Rapp, Senior, sliced his long drives brilliantly into shaded gra.s.sy dells and scented forest glades, where he trampled scores of pretty wild flowers as he chopped his way out again.

Rapp, Senior, made the course excitingly in one hundred and thirty-eight; Sharon Whipple, playing along safe and sane lines, came through with one hundred and thirty-five, and was a proud man, and looked it, and was still so much prouder than he looked that he shuddered lest it get out on him. Later he vanquished, by the same tactics, other men who used the wooden driver with perfect form in practice swings.

Contests in which he engaged, however, were likely to be marred by regrettable asperities rising from Sharon's inability to grasp the nicer subtleties of golf. It seemed silly to him not to lift his ball out of some slight depression into which it had rolled quite by accident; not to amend an unhappy lie in a sand trap; and he never came to believe that a wild swing leaving the ball untouched should be counted as a stroke. People who pettishly insisted upon these extremes of the game he sneeringly called golf lawyers. When he said that he made a hole in nine, he meant nine or thereabouts--approximately nine; nice people, he thought, should let it go at that. So he became feared on the course, not only for his actual prowess but for his matchless optimism in casting up his score. He was a pleased man, and considered golf a good game; and he never forgot that Wilbur Cowan had made him the golfer he was. More than ever was he believing that Harvey D. Whipple had chosen wrongly from available Cowans. On the day when he first made the Newbern course in, approximately, one hundred and twenty--those short-arm iron shots were beginning to lengthen down the centre of the fairway--he was sure of it.

It must be said that Sharon was alone in this conviction. The others most concerned, had he allowed it to be known, would have been amazed by it--Winona Penniman most of all. Winona's conviction was that the rejected Cowan twin conspicuously lacked those qualities that would make him desirable for adoption by any family of note, certainly not by Whipples. He had gone from bad to worse. Driving a truck had been bad.

There had been something to say in its favour in the early stages of his career, until the neophyte had actually chosen to wear overalls like any common driver. In overalls he could not be mistaken for a gentleman amateur moved by a keen love for the sport of truck driving--and golf was worse. Glad at first of this change in his life work, Winona had been shocked to learn that golf kept people from the churches. And the clothes, even if they did not include overalls, were not genteel. Wilbur wore belted trousers of no distinction, rubber-soled sneakers of a neutral tint, and a sweater now so low in tone that the precise intention of its original shade was no longer to be divined. A rowdyish cap completed the uniform. No competent bank president, surveying the ensemble, would have for a moment considered making a bookkeeper out of the wearer. He was farther than ever before, Winona thought, from a career of Christian gentility in which garments of a Sabbath grandeur are worn every day and proper care may be taken of the hands.

It was late in this summer that she enforced briefly a demand for genteel raiment, and kept the boy up until ten-thirty of a sleepy evening to manicure his nails. The occasion was nothing less than the sixteenth birthday of Merle Whipple, to be celebrated by an afternoon festivity on the grounds of his home. The brothers had met briefly and casually during Merle's years as a Whipple; but this was to be an affair of ceremony, and Winona was determined that the unworthy twin should--at least briefly--appear as one not socially impossible.

She browbeat him into buying a suit such as those that are worn by jaunty youths in advertis.e.m.e.nts, including haberdashery of supreme elegance, the first patent-leather shoes worn by this particular Cowan, and a hat of cla.s.s. He murmured at the outlay upon useless finery. It materially depleted his capital--stored with other treasure in a tin box labelled "Cake" across its front. But Winona was tenacious. He murmured, too, at the ordeal of manicuring, but Winona was insistent, and laboured to leave him with the finger tips of one who did not habitually engage in a low calling.

He fell asleep at the final polishing, even after trying to fix his gaze upon the glittering nails of the hand Winona had relinquished, and while she sought to impress him with the importance of the approaching function. There would be present not only the Whipples, but their guests, two girl friends of Patricia from afar and a school friend of Merle's; there would be games and refreshment and social converse, and Winona hoped he would remember not to say "darn it" any time in such of the social converse as he provided; or forget to say, on leaving, what a charming time it was and how nice every one had been to ask him. He dozed through much of this instruction.

Yet Winona, the next day, felt repaid for her pains. Arrayed in the new suit, with the modish collar and cravat, the luminous shoes and the hat of merit, the boy looked entirely like those careless youths in the pictures who so proudly proclaim the make of their garments. No one regarding him would have dreamed that he was at heart but a golf caddie or a driver of trucks for hire. Winona insisted upon a final polish of his nails, leaving them with a dazzling pinkish glitter, and she sprayed and anointed him with precious unguents, taking especial pains that his unruly brown hair should lie back close to his head, to show the wave.

When he installed her beside him in Sharon Whipple's newest car, pressed upon the youth by its owner for this occasion, she almost wished that she had been a bit more daring in her own dress. It was white and neat, but not fancy dressmaking in any sense of the word. She regretted for a moment her decision against pink rosebuds for the hat, so warmly urged by her mother, who kept saying nowadays that she would be a girl but once. Winona was beginning to doubt this. At least you seemed to be a girl a long time. She had been a little daring, though. Her stockings were white and of a material widely heralded as silkona. Still her skirt was of a decent length, so that she apprehended no scandal from this recklessness.

When her genteel escort started the car and guided it by an apparently careless winding of the wheel she felt a glow that was almost pride in his appearance and nonchalant mastery of this abstruse mechanism. She was frightened at the speed and at the narrow margin by which he missed other vehicles and obtruding corners. When he flourished to an impressive halt under the Whipple porte-cochere she felt a new respect for him. If only he could do such things at odd moments as a gentleman should, and not continuously for money, in clothes unlike those of the expensive advertis.e.m.e.nts!

She descended from the car in a flutter of pretense that she habitually descended from cars, and a moment later was overjoyed to note that her escort sustained the greetings of the a.s.sembled Whipples and their guests with a practiced coolness, or what looked like it. He shook hands warmly with his brother and Patricia Whipple; was calm under the ordeal of introductions to the little friends Winona had warned him of--two girls of peerless beauty and a fair-haired, sleepy-looking boy with long eyelashes and dimples.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE GIRL WAS ALREADY READING WILBUR'S PALM, DISCLOSING TO HIM THAT HE HAD A DEEP VEIN OF CRUELTY IN HIS NATURE. PATRICIA WHIPPLE LISTENED IMPATIENTLY TO THIS AND OTHER SINISTER REVELATIONS."]

These young people were dressed rather less formally than Winona had expected, being mostly in flannels and ducks and tennis shoes not too lately cleaned. She was instantly glad she had been particular as to Wilbur's outfit. He looked ever so much more distinguished than either Merle or his friend. She watched him as he stood unconcerned under the chatter of the three girls. They had begun at once to employ upon him the oldest arts known to woman, and he was not fl.u.s.tered or "gauche"--a word Winona had lately learned. Beyond her divining was the truth that he would much rather have been talking to Starling Tucker. She thought he was merely trying to look bored, and was doing it very well.

The little friends of Patricia, and Patricia herself, could have told her better. They knew he was genuinely bored, and redoubled their efforts to enslave him. Merle chatted brightly with Winona, with such a man-of-the-world air that she herself became fl.u.s.tered at the memory that she had once been as a mother to him and drenched his handkerchief with perfume on a Sabbath morning. The little male friend of Merle stood by in silent relief. Patricia and her little guests had for three days been doing to him what they now tried doing to the new boy; he was glad the new boy had come. He had grown sulky under the incessant onslaughts.

The girl with black hair and the turquoise necklace was already reading Wilbur's palm, disclosing to him that he had a deep vein of cruelty in his nature. Patricia Whipple listened impatiently to this and other sinister revelations. She had not learned palm reading, but now resolved to. Meantime, she could and did stem the flood of character portrayal by a suggestion of tennis. Patricia was still freckled, though not so obtrusively as in the days of her lawlessness. Her skirt and her hair were longer, the latter being what Wilbur Cowan later called rusty. She was still active and still determined, however. No girl in her presence was going to read interminably the palm of one upon whom she had, in a way of speaking, a family claim, especially one of such distinguished appearance and manners--apparently being bored to death by the attention of mere girls.

Tennis resulted in a set of doubles, Merle and his little friend playing Patricia and one of her little friends--the one with the necklace and the dark eyes. The desirable new man was not dressed for tennis, and could not have played it in any clothes whatever, and so had to watch from the back line, where he also retrieved b.a.l.l.s. Both girls had insisted upon being at his end of the court. Their gentlemen opponents were irritated by this arrangement, because the girls paid far more attention to the new man than to the game itself. They delayed their service to catch his last remark; delayed the game seriously by pausing to chat with him. He retrieved b.a.l.l.s for them, which also impeded progress.

When he brought the b.a.l.l.s to the dark-eyed girl she acknowledged his courtesy with a pretty little "Thanks a lot!" Patricia varied this. She said "Thanks a heap!" And they both rather glared at the other girl--a mere pinkish, big-eyed girl whose name was Florrie--who lingered stanchly by the new man and often kept him in talk when he should have been watchful. Still this third girl had but little initiative. She did insinuatingly ask Wilbur what his favourite flower was, but this got her nowhere, because it proved that he did not know.

The gentlemen across the net presently became unruly, and would play no more at a game which was merely intended, it seemed, to provide their opponents with talk of a coquettish character. Wilbur ardently wished that Winona could have been there to hear this talk, because the peerless young things freely used the expletive "Darn!" after inept strokes. Still they bored him. He would rather have been on the links.

He confessed at last to his little court that he much preferred golf to tennis. Patricia said that she had taken up golf, and that he must coach her over the Newbern course. The dark-eyed girl at once said that she was about to take up golf, and would need even more coaching than Patricia. Once they both searched him--while the game waited--for cla.s.s pins, which they meant to appropriate. They found him singularly devoid of these. He never even knew definitely what they were looking for.

He was glad when refreshments were served on the lawn, and ate sandwiches in a wholehearted manner that disturbed Winona, who felt that at these affairs one should eat daintily, absently, as if elevated converse were the sole object and food but an incident. Wilbur ate as if he were hungry--had come there for food. Even now he was not free from the annoying attentions of Patricia and her little friends. They not only brought him other sandwiches and other cake and other lemonade, which he could have condoned, but they chattered so incessantly at him while he ate that only by an effort of concentration could he ignore them for the food. Florrie said that he was brutal to women. She was also heard to say--Winona heard it--that he was an awfully stunning chap. Harvey D. Whipple was now a member of the party, beaming proudly upon his son. And Sharon Whipple came presently to survey the group. He winked at Wilbur, who winked in return.

After refreshments the young gentlemen withdrew to smoke. They withdrew unostentatiously, through a pergola, round a clump of shrubbery, and on to the stables, where Merle revealed a silver cigarette case, from which he bestowed cigarettes upon them. They lighted these and talked as men of the world.

"Those chickens make me sick," said the little friend of Merle quite frankly.

"Me, too!" said Wilbur.

They talked of horses, Merle displaying his new thoroughbred in the box stall, and of dogs and motor boats; and Merle and the other boy spoke in a strange jargon of their prep school, where you could smoke if you had the consent of your parents. Merle talked largely of his possessions and gay plans.

They were presently interrupted by the ladies, who, having withdrawn beyond the shrubbery clump to powder their noses from Florrie's gold vanity box, had discovered the smokers, and now threatened to tell if the gentlemen did not instantly return. So Merle's little friend said wearily that they must go back to the women, he supposed. And there was more tennis of a sort, more chatter. As Mrs. Harvey D. said, everything moved off splendidly.

Winona, when they left, felt that her charge had produced a favourable impression, and was amazed that he professed to be unmoved by this circ.u.mstance, even after being told, as the n.o.ble car wheeled them homeward, what the girl, Florrie, had said of him; and that Mrs. Harvey D. Whipple had said she had always known he was a sweet boy. He merely sniffed at the term and went on to disparage the little friends of Patricia.

"You told me not to say 'darn,'" he protested, "but those girls all said it about every other word."

"Not really?" said Winona, aghast.

"Darn this and darn that! And darn that ball! And darned old thing!"

insisted the witness, imitatively.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Winona.

She wondered if Patricia could be getting in with a fast set. She was further worried about Patricia, because Miss Murtree, over the ice cream, had confided to her that the girl was a brainless coquette; that her highest ambition, freely stated, was to have a black velvet evening gown, a black picture hat, and a rope of pearls. Winona did not impart this item to Wilbur. He was already too little impressed with the Whipple state. Nor did she confide to him the singular remark of Sharon Whipple, delivered to her in hoa.r.s.ely whispered confidence as Merle spoke at length to the group about his new horse.

"Ain't he the most languageous critter!" had been Sharon's words.

And Winona had thought Merle spoke so prettily and with such easy confidence. Instead of regaling Wilbur with this gossip she insinuated his need for flannel trousers, sport shirts with rolling collars, tennis shoes of white. She found him adamant in his resolve to buy no further clothes which could have but a spectacular value.

To no one that day, except to Wilbur Cowan himself, had it occurred that Merle Whipple's birthday would also be the birthday of his twin brother.

Winona hoped that some trace of the day's new elegance would survive into Wilbur's professional life, but in this she suffered disappointment. He refused to wear, save on state occasions, any of the beautiful new garments, and again went forth in the cap and dingy sneakers, the trousers without character, and the indeterminate sweater which would persist in looking soiled even after relentless washing.

Not even for golf with Patricia Whipple would he sound a higher note in apparel. Patricia came to the course, accompanied by the dark girl, who said she was mad about golf, and over the eighteen holes each strove for his exclusive attention. They bored him vastly. He became mad about golf himself, because they talked noisily of other subjects and forgot his directions, especially the dark girl, who was mad about a great many things. She proved to be a trial. She was still so hopeless at the sport that at each shot she had to have her hands placed for her in the correct grip. The other two were glad when she was called home, so that Patricia could enjoy the undivided attention of the coach. The coach was glad, but only because his boredom was diminished by half; and Patricia, after two mornings alone with him, decided that she knew all of golf that was desirable.

The coach was too stubbornly businesslike; regarded her, she detected, merely as someone who had a lot to learn about the game. And the going of her little friend had taken a zest from the pursuit of this determinedly golfing and unresponsive male. He was relieved when she abandoned the sport and when he knew she had gone back to school.

Sometimes on the course when he watched her wild swings a trick of memory brought her back to him as the bony little girl in his own clothes--she was still bony, though longer--with her chopped-off hair and boyish swagger. Then for a moment he would feel friendly, and smile at her in comradeship, but she always spoiled this when she spoke in her grand new manner of a grown-up lady.

Only Winona grieved when these golf sessions were no more. She wondered if Patricia had not been shocked by some unguarded expression from Wilbur. She had heard that speech becomes regrettably loose in the heat of this sport. He sought to rea.s.sure her.

"I never said the least wrong thing," he insisted. "But she did, you bet! 'Darn' and 'gosh' and everything like that, and you ought to have heard her once when she missed an easy putt. She said worse than 'darn!'

She blazed out and said--"