Chapter XXIII: A Few Closing Confessions 317 (2)

Ninety-one is very poor golf for nine holes, and I am sure that with practice under a capable golfer Miss Harding could do much better. She has just the figure for a long, true and swinging stroke. I shall make it a point to ask her to play before Carter gets a chance to forestall me.

Unless I am entirely in error Carter is badly smitten with Miss Harding. It also occurs to me that I have written enough about that young lady.

Mr. Harding is also in the city. I wish I had his opinion about the future of N.O. & G. railroad stock. It has gone down another point, which means the loss of two thousand dollars to me.

An odd sort of an incident happened yesterday morning. None of the scratch players was about, so I accepted an invitation to play a round with LaHume and Miss Lawrence. She is a very pretty girl, though in my opinion she is not to be compared with Miss Harding. LaHume is devoted to her, as much as he can be devoted to any one or anything, and there have been rumours now and then that they were engaged or about to be engaged, but since it has always been possible to trace these reports back to LaHume I have had my doubts of their accuracy. Miss Olive Lawrence has inherited a large fortune, and is the master of it and of herself.

LaHume has been a persistent fortune hunter, and if patience be a virtue he deserves to win. He had a tiff yesterday with Miss Lawrence, and it came about curiously enough.

The Bishop farm adjoins the club grounds on the east, and everyone for miles about knows Bishop. He has little use for anything but work and money, and he always has difficulty in keeping farm labourers, or "hired men," as he terms them.

About a month ago he employed a fellow named Wallace, who admitted that he did not know much about farming, but who said he was strong and healthy and was willing to do the best he could. It was in the haying season and Bishop was short of men, so he gave this chap a chance.

I met Bishop one day shortly after he put Wallace to work, and he told me something about him.

"He's strong an' willin' enough," said Bishop, as we stood talking over the fence, "but he surely is the blamedest, funniest hired man I ever had, an' I've had some that'd make a man quit the church. What do you think he wants?"

I assured him that I could not imagine.

"Soap in his room, and cake soap at that!" he exclaimed. "If I hadn't given it to him he'd a quit, so I had to give it to him. He takes a bath every morning, an' shaves. That's what he does! Gets up about four o'clock and goes down to the old swimming hole in the crick, paddles around a while, an' then comes back to the house an' shaves, an' then goes out an' milks an' cleans out the stables. Never saw a man wash his hands so much in my life, but accordin' to his lights he's a mighty good worker. He eats a lot, but then all hired men eats a lot. An' he reads! Brought a big trunk with him, an' in it was a lot of books in French, Dutch or some other language that no white man can understand. And fight! You know Big Dave Cole, that's been with me for years?"

I assured him that I should never forget "Big Dave" Cole. I have known him ever since he went to work for Bishop, and that was when I was a boy. From that day he has been the terror of the neighbourhood, and I have sometimes thought that even Bishop stood in fear of him.

"Wal," he said slowly and impressively, biting the end from a plug of tobacco, "this here Wallace licked the life plumb out of Big Dave no more than yesterday, an' Big Dave is that disgusted he has packed up and quit me."

"What caused the trouble?" I asked.

"Big Dave called him an English dude, an' it seems that Wallace took offense because he's Scotch," explained Bishop, "at least that's what the other men who was there when it started said. I couldn't get a word outer Wallace, who said he'd quit if I wanted him to, but I told him that a man who could lick Big Dave and come out without a scratch had the makings of a rattlin' good hired man, an' I raised his wages two dollars a month an' gave him Big Dave's room, which is bigger than the one he had. If he could milk, an' run a seeder, or a thresher, or stack oats an' corn as well as he can fight, I would give him forty dollars a month."

This incident was related to me several weeks ago, and I have made it a point to study this chap when I have met him. I should say he is about my age, twenty-five or so, and I must say that he is a good-looking fellow. He is tall, dark of complexion, broad of shoulder and narrow of loin, and certainly looks as if he was able to take care of himself. I presume that he is some college chap who cannot make his way in the profession he has chosen, and who is trying to get a financial start by working on a farm.

I am going to have a talk with him at the first opportunity, and if my suspicion is verified I shall try to find some way to give him a quicker start. I doubt if Bishop is paying him more than twenty dollars a month.

As I started to describe, LaHume, Miss Olive Lawrence and I were playing a threesome. It was along about noon when we came to the tenth tee, which is located so that a sliced ball may go into or over the country road which separates the Bishop farm from the golf course. Miss Lawrence is not an accurate player, but she drives as long a ball as any woman golfer in Woodvale.

She hit the ball hard, but sliced it, and a strong westerly wind helped deflect it to the right. It sailed over the fence, and struck in a ploughed field only a few feet from a man whom I recognised as Wallace.

He had evidently been looking in our direction, and he followed the flight of the ball. He walked up to it.

"Are you playing bounds?" he shouted, lifting his cap.

"Yes!" answered LaHume, "throw it back!"

Wallace carried a stout stick of some kind in his hand. He looked at the end of it critically, placed the ball on a clod of soil, glanced at us and called "Fore!" and then lofted that ball with as clean a shot as ever I saw, dropping it almost at LaHume's feet. He bowed again, twirled the stick about his fingers, and then turned and went toward the farmhouse.

"Well, what do you think of the cold nerve of that clodhopper?" exclaimed LaHume, staring at the retreating figure of Wallace. "I presume he has ruined that new ball."

"Not with that stroke," I said. "I wish I could make as good an approach with any club in my bag as he did with that improvised cane."

I picked up the ball and found that there was not a blemish on it.

"Wasn't he a handsome young gentleman?" murmured Miss Lawrence, whose eyes had been fixed on Wallace until he vanished behind a clump of trees. "Who is he?"

"Gentleman?" laughed LaHume, teeing the ball. "He's a farm labourer; old Bishop's hired man. One of his duties is to deliver milk every morning at the club house."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Miss Lawrence. "I presume it is impossible for him to attend to such duties and remain a gentleman."

"Not impossible, but highly improbable," laughed young LaHume, unaware that he was treading on thin ice.

"My father made his start in that way, and before he died there were many who called themselves gentlemen who were glad to associate with him," declared Miss Lawrence with a warmth uncommon to her. "What did your father do?"

"Really now, I did not mean anything," stammered LaHume, the red flushing through the tan of his face. It suddenly dawned on me that there was a period in the life of my father when he worked as a hired man in order to earn the money with which to marry my mother, and that from this humble start he was able finally to acquire the ancestral Smith farm, then in the possession of a more wealthy branch of the family. I made common cause with Miss Lawrence, and I did it with better grace from the fact that I resent the airs assumed by LaHume.

"LaHume's father founded the roadhouse down yonder," I said, pointing towards a resort which yet goes by the LaHume name, and one which does not enjoy a reputation any too savory. Of course this is not the fault of the elder LaHume, who has since made a fortune in the hotel business. I could see that the shot went home.

"I say, Smith, let's play golf and cut out this family history business," protested LaHume, who was fighting angry. "It is your shot, Miss Lawrence."

"Don't you think he is handsome, Mr. Smith?" she asked.

"Who; Mr. LaHume?" I returned, not averse to rubbing it into the descendant of the roadhouse keeper.

"Of course not," she replied, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I mean that lovely hired man."

"He's a rustic Apollo," I said, "and it may interest our friend to know that he also combines the qualities of Hercules and Mars."

And while LaHume fumed and Miss Lawrence clapped her hands I told the story of the downfall of "Big Dave" at the hands of the quiet and cleanly Wallace, making sure that the defeat of the village bully lost nothing in its telling.

All the way back to the club house--we did not play out the remaining holes--Miss Lawrence plied me with questions concerning Wallace. Of course I know that her object was to punish LaHume, and she did it most effectively.

She pretended to believe that there is some great romance back of Wallace's present status. She pictured him as a Scotch nobleman, or the son of one, I have forgotten which, forced by most interesting circumstances to remain for a while in foreign lands. She conjured from her fancy the castle in which he was born, and over which he will some time rule, and I helped her as best I could.

I can see that it will be a long time before LaHume will ask me to make up a threesome with Miss Lawrence. I wonder what "the hired man" would think if he knew that his lucky stroke with a hickory club had created so great a furor? I have a suspicion that this was not a lucky day in LaHume's campaign for the Lawrence hand and fortune.

ENTRY NO. V

THE EAGLE'S NEST

Miss Grace Harding is here again, and I am to play a game of golf with her to-morrow. Carter does not know it yet, but that is because I have not had a chance to tell him.

Carter is a rattling good fellow and a fine golfer--he has made Woodvale in seventy-seven; two strokes better than my low score--but he is a bit conceited; he imagines he is a lady's man, and I propose to take him down a peg.

I am certain he schemed to play with Miss Harding before I did, and he went about it in what he doubtless thought was a diplomatic way. He opened his campaign this morning by playing a round with her father. Carter furnished clubs and balls for Mr. Harding, who broke two of the clubs and lost six new balls, to say nothing of those he mutilated.

Diplomacy is not my long suit. I prefer to carry things by assault. When I saw what Carter was up to I formed a plan and put it into operation without delay. It was very simple. I walked right up to Miss Harding and asked her if she would like to play a round with me. That was this morning.

"When?" she asked, with a charming smile which told me victory was in sight.

"Right now!" I said, bold as could be.

"You are brave to ask me to play with you, after what I have told you of my game," she said, pressing down a worm cast with the toe of her dainty shoe. We were standing on the edge of the practise putting green. I am no hand to describe a woman's gowns, and in fact know nothing of them, but I recall distinctly that she was dressed in blue, with some white stuff here and there, and it was very becoming.

"Why?" I inquired.

"If I could play in eighty-five, as you and Mr. Carter do, I would not recognise one who requires from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and sixty," laughed Miss Harding.

For the life of me I cannot recall what I said in answer to this assertion, but it was something stupid, no doubt. She finally promised to play with me to-morrow, explaining that she and her father were about to go automobiling.

We strolled over to one of the practise tees, and I was delighted when she asked me to observe her swing, and advise her how to correct it. I spent half an hour doing this, and she made wonderful improvement. I hoped Carter would come along and see us, but I saw nothing of him.

While we were there, Marshall, Chilvers and Lawson passed and asked me to make up a foursome. For the first time in my life I refused, and the way those idiots looked back at me and grinned tempted me to break a club over their heads. There is no law to compel a man to play golf if he does not wish to. I figured that a rest for half a day would improve my game. The fact is, and the best golfers are coming to realise it, that a man can play so much that he goes stale.

I have just been looking back over the notes of my second entry in this diary of a golfer, and I wish to modify the statement to the effect that a woman under no circumstances appears graceful or attractive in golf attitudes.

In fact I absolutely repudiate that ungallant and prejudiced assertion. In one place I said: "If Miss Harding is beautiful enough to overcome the handicap which always attaches to the golf duffer, she can give Venus all sorts of odds and beat her handily. I have yet to see the woman who shows to advantage with a golf regalia."

I take that back, also.

To see a woman raise a golf club with a jerky, uneven stroke, and come down on the helpless turf with the head of it, as if beating a carpet, has always given me a chill and a sensation of wild rage, but there is something about the way Miss Harding does this which is actually artistic. There are combinations of discords which make for perfect harmony, and it is the same with the little eccentricities of Miss Harding's swing.

The poise of the head and shoulders, the sweep of the arms, and the undulations of the figure seem to take on an added charm from what might be called the "graceful crudity" of her stroke. I do not know why this is so, but it is a fact.

I shall never forget the attempt I once made to instruct my sister in the rudimentary principles of the swing of a golf club. She was a pretty girl; bright, lively and graceful, but after I had given her two lessons we were so mad at one another that we did not speak for weeks. It seemingly was impossible to make her distinguish between the back sweep and the follow through. She would persist in coming down on the tee with the face of her club, but at that she made a splendid marriage, and is a happy wife and mother.

Miss Harding will make a first-class golf player, and I told her so.

"Do you really think so?" she asked, after several swings, most of which would have hit the ball.

"I certainly do," I declared. "All that you need is the constant advice of someone who is thoroughly familiar with the technique of the game."

She utterly ignored this hint.

"My one ambition," she said, with a bewitching little laugh, rather plaintive, I thought, "is to drive a ball far enough so that there will be some difficulty in finding it. It must be jolly to hit a ball straight out so far that you cannot tell within yards just where it is. Do you know," and she looked really sad, "I have never lost a ball in my life?"

"How remarkable!" I exclaimed. "I have known Carter to lose a dozen at one game."

"Indeed! I think Mr. Carter is a perfectly splendid player," she declared. "I was watching him one day last week. He is so strong, confident and easy in his execution of shots. If I could drive like he does I would be willing to lose a dozen balls every time I played."

I changed the subject, and was showing her a new way to grip the club when I heard a step behind us.

"Hello, Smith! If you are going out in that buzz-wagon with me, Kid, you had better drop that stick and get a move on."

Of course it was her father. No one else would dare talk to Miss Harding like that. To hear him one would think that she was twelve years old, but I suppose fathers can do as they like.

"Fix up a ball, Kid, and let's see how far you can soak it," he said.

"I am just practising the follow through," explained Miss Harding. "Mr. Smith has told me many things about the correct way to follow through."

"When your mother was your age she was practising the 'follow through,' as you call it, on a scrubbing board over a wash tub," declared Mr. Harding, and he said it as if he were proud of it.

"I could do that if I had to," laughed Miss Harding, handing me the club. "Thank you, Mr. Smith. To-morrow I expect to show decided improvement. Come on, papa!"

"So long, Smith," said Harding. "I'm going to trim you youngsters at your own game before I get through with you."

I took a rest all the afternoon so as to be in shape for to-morrow. I propose to show Miss Harding that I am the peer of Carter or anyone else who plays here.

It never occurred to me that it was possible to get enjoyment out of a golf course by any method other than by playing over it, but I had keen pleasure all the afternoon in studying the men who frequent the Woodvale links. My refusal to play created a sensation, and I enjoyed that.

It is amusing to study the way in which different players go about this game. The railway station is only a few hundred yards away, and as I watched those men who came on the 1:42 train from the city the thought occurred to me that I could have picked out the good players even had I been a stranger to those who approached the club house. You can class the various types of golfers by their mannerisms, even if you have never seen them with a club in their hands. For instance there were two members who left the station platform at the same time--Duff and Monahan. Both are men of standing in the community, and both are charter members. They started to learn the game at the same period, and both play at least five afternoons during the season, yet Monahan plays consistently in eighty-two, while Duff is fortunate to score in ninety-five. Why this woeful inferiority of Duff?

They are great friends and always play together, and they go through the same performance every time they reach the grounds.

The moment Monahan left the train he headed for the club house as if it were on fire and all of his money in its lockers. Duff says Monahan is perfectly quiet and sane until he catches the first glimpse of the links, but that his blood then begins to boil, and that he burns in a fever of haste to get a club in his hands.

Monahan barely nodded to me as he passed and rushed up stairs. In less than two minutes he was back and ready to play. As he tore out he met Duff, who had strolled complacently up the walk, stopping now and then to speak to a friend or to watch a shot.

Duff's clothes were the model of fashion and good taste. In his hand was twirled a cane, and in his lapel was the inevitable boutonniere. He had paused to chat with Miss Ross--Duff is married and has a daughter older than Miss Ross--and was engaged in a discussion concerning a new play when Monahan approached. Monahan had on a golf suit which would cause his arrest as a tramp if he wandered from the links.

"Did you come up here to play golf or to pose on the veranda?" demanded the indignant Monahan, grasping Duff by the shoulder and swinging him half way around. "Please go away from him, Miss Ross; he will talk you to death."

Twenty minutes later Duff wandered leisurely out to the first tee, where Monahan had been waiting, glaring every few seconds at the club house, and swearing under his breath. Duff looked even neater than in his street clothes. His shirts, scarfs, trousers, shoes and caps form combinations which are sartorial poems.

Duff smiled complacently during the tongue lashing administered by the irate Monahan. This happens regularly every time they play. One would think that the calm, unruffled Duff would defeat the nervous and impatient Monahan, but nothing of the kind happens. The latter exacts revenge by beating Duff to a frazzle.

I do not mean to infer that the slow or deliberate person will not make a good player, but with deliberation he must have that keen interest which dominates all of his faculties.

Marshall, for instance, is the slowest player I ever saw, and one of the best. It is tiresome to watch him prepare to make a shot. He averages four practise strokes. He has become so addicted to the practise-stroke habit that he makes a series of preliminary manoeuvres before carving a steak, and he raises his glass and sets it down several times before taking a drink. His game is the sublimation of caution. It is the brilliancy of care.

Later in the afternoon I wandered down the old lane which bisects the links and climbed "The Eagle's Nest," a jagged pile of rocks which rise on the southeastern part of the course. When a boy I discovered a way to reach the crest of the higher ledge, fully two hundred feet above the brook which takes its rambling course to the west. At this altitude there is a natural seat, so formed by the rocks that those below cannot see the one who uses this as a sentinel box.

It suited my mood to climb there this afternoon. Lazily smoking a cigar I drank in the pastoral panorama spread out before me. The old Sumner road wound as a dusty-gray ribbon amid fields of grain and corn. Below were the pigmy figures of golfers, grotesque in their insignificance, striding along like abbreviated compasses.

What dwarfs they were compared with their huge playground; what insects they were contrasted to the splendid area within the sweep of the horizon; what microbes they were when the eye wandered from them to the superb vault of the skies!

I heard the lowing of cattle, and saw the Bishop herd coming over a hill from the meadows. The notes of a Scotch air, sung in a clear, mellow baritone came to my ears, and a moment later I saw Bishop's "hired man," Wallace, driving the kine before him. His cap was in his hand, and his jet-black hair fell back from his forehead.

I have no idea what impelled me to do so, but I leaned over the cliff and looked below.

Half-way up the gentler slope of "The Eagle's Nest" I saw the figure of a girl, or a woman. I keep my eyes on her, and as near as I can determine she never once took hers from Bishop's hired man. Not until he vanished in the woods which surrounds the farmhouse, did she move. Then she turned and slowly picked her way down the rather dangerous path.

It was Miss Olive Lawrence.

ENTRY NO. VI