Left Half Harmon

“Yes, but why don’t you take something?”

“What’ll I take?” groaned Martin.

“Soda-mint tablets are good, I think. Hot water, too. Want me to get you some hot water?”

Martin nodded weakly but gratefully, and Willard went off to the lavatory and presently returned with a tooth-mug filled with scalding-hot water. As it was then time for a nine o’clock recitation, he had to leave Martin sipping and shuddering. When he next saw him, shortly before dinner, he was much better physically but in poor mental condition. His disposition was utterly vile. He put his tongue out and wagged it accusingly at Willard.

“I burned my tongue,” he said. “That water was too blamed hot!”

“Too bad,” replied Willard soothingly. “It made you feel better, though, didn’t it?”

“What if it did? What’s the good of feeling better if your tongue is all scalded?” Martin demanded huffily. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” asked Willard indignantly. “Not to burn your tongue, you simp?”

“Tell me it was so hot! How’d I know?”

“I thought maybe you could tell by the feel of it,” answered Willard dryly. “Most folks can!”

“Funny, aren’t you?” Martin turned disgruntedly to the window, and after a moment Willard asked:

“Did you get to any classes?”

“Math,” grunted the other. “I was too sick for the rest of them. What time is it?”

“Nearly half-past. Coming along?”

“I don’t believe I want any dinner. What’s the use? It’ll just taste of – of those things!”

“Onions?” asked Willard innocently.

“Shut up! Don’t speak of ’em!” yelled Martin. “Now you’ve made me all squirmy again!” He sank to the window-seat, placed anxious hands on his waistcoat and glared at Willard accusingly. “I was feeling all right, too!”

“Well, how did I know you didn’t want me to say – ”

“Cut it out, I tell you!”

“I wasn’t going to say on – ”

“You’re saying it!” shrieked Martin. “I hope you get it, too! When you do, I’ll say ‘onions’ to you! You see if I don’t!”

“You just said it yourself,” said Willard, grinning.

“That’s different.” Martin glared ferociously. “You’re just trying to make me sick again!”

“Oh, be good,” answered the other humoringly. “Tell you what I’ll do, Mart. I’ll go over to the drug store and get you some soda-mints right after dinner.”

Martin looked slightly mollified for an instant. Then he asked suspiciously: “Do they taste awful?”

“N – no, not very. Come along to dinner. You’d better try to eat something, even if you don’t feel hungry.”

“Well, all right, but I know I can’t eat.”

CHAPTER XV

MARTIN CALLS QUITS

From his own table, by craning his neck, Willard could see Martin’s, and it was apparent that the latter was not making much of a meal. Bob, who sat at his left, was plainly sympathetic and solicitous: Willard could see Bob passing the spinach and urging his neighbor to eat, and could see Martin’s dismal refusal. Perhaps it was because Martin partook only of a little soup and a dish of rice pudding that the malady returned to him less severely after the noon meal. Willard kept his promise and procured a small bottle of soda-mint tablets, and all the rest of the day Martin’s expression was one of supreme disgust as he continuously dissolved the tablets in his mouth. The remedy at least allowed him to take an active part in practice, which was fortunate since he was given a try-out at left tackle. He was a bit slow at first, but, with Mr. Cade constantly urging, he showed quite a lot of speed toward the end of the practice. He confessed to Willard later that he might have done better if the onion smell hadn’t bothered him. “It came on in the locker room,” he said. “I didn’t notice it until I was changing. Then I got it strong and it stayed with me all the time. I – I get it yet, but it’s not so bad.”

“It must be your imagination,” said Willard. “Ever troubled like this before? I say, Mart, there isn’t – isn’t any – ”

“Any what?”

“Well, any – er – insanity in your family, is there?”

“Don’t be a silly fool!” begged Martin.

“I just thought that maybe – ”

“Listen here, Brand! There’s no imagination about it. I’ve been poisoned.”

“Poisoned!” gasped Willard. Martin nodded gravely.

“Yes, I’ve got it all doped out. I’ve been onion poisoned.”

“But onions aren’t – aren’t poisonous,” expostulated Willard.

“Maybe not to some folks, but they are to me,” Martin spoke with conviction. “What happened is just this. That night we went to the lunch-cart the place was full of onion odor. Remember? Well, I breathed a lot of it into my system and it poisoned me. It’s in my blood probably. If I’m not all right tomorrow I’m going to see a doctor.”

Willard considered the theory for a moment and then gravely acknowledged that there might be something in it.

“You bet there is,” Martin assured him. “Why, it stands to reason. Look what chloroform does. It gets into your blood when you inhale it, doesn’t it? Well, it’s the same way with onions. Some folks aren’t affected by it, but I’m different. I guess a doctor would be mighty interested in my case.” Martin paused to consider the idea and then went on proudly. “Yes, sir, I’ll bet he would! I’ll bet he’d write about me to the – the medical association!”

“I dare say,” assented Willard. “Maybe it would get in the New York papers, too. ‘Poisoned by Onions! Strange Case of Young Preparatory School Student Puzzles the Medical Fraternity!’ Maybe they’d print your picture, Mart.”

“You can make a silly joke of it if you like,” said Martin, “but I’ll bet I’m right!”

Joe and Bob came up to the room that night and Martin explained his theory again for their benefit. He was undergoing another visitation of the onion malady, but interest in his case and in his solution of it gave him strength to bear up better than usual. Joe and Bob – Bob especially – were tremendously impressed with the theory and Bob recalled having read of a similar case. “Only,” he said, “in that case the man had been poisoned by eating watercress.”

“Eating what?” asked Martin incredulously.

“Watercress,” repeated Bob. “It doesn’t affect most people, but some fellows can’t eat it at all. You’ve heard that, haven’t you, Joe?”

“Yes,” Joe assented soberly. “I had a cousin like that. Watercress and strawberries were like poison to him.”

Martin looked from Joe to Bob suspiciously, but they were so evidently in earnest that he asked: “What happened to this fellow?”

“Why, he ate watercress and was poisoned. It got into his blood, you know, and the only way they could save his life was by transfusion.”

“What’s that? You mean pumping someone else’s blood into him?”

“Sure! That’s the only thing possible in extreme cases.”

Martin hurriedly produced his bottle and popped a soda-mint into his mouth. “Well, I guess onions wouldn’t do that to a fellow,” he said with a confidence that didn’t quite ring true. “Would you think so, Joe?”

“Search me,” replied Joe comfortingly. “I never heard of onion poisoning before.”

“Nor I,” said Bob troubledly. “I guess it’s a pretty rare disease, and maybe the doctors don’t understand it yet. Guess it’s sort of like sleeping sickness,” he added blandly.

Martin shot a hostile and wary look at him, but Bob only smiled sympathetically and reached out his hand. “Let’s see one of those tablets, Mart,” he requested. “I’ve got a sort of a heavy feeling myself tonight.”

“You don’t notice the taste of onions, do you?” asked Martin hopefully as he tossed the bottle across the table.

“N – no, not exactly. More a sort of gone sensation. I guess it was the baked potato I ate.” He took some time to get a tablet out, under cover of the table; so long that Martin said impatiently: “Shake the bottle. They’re probably stuck.”

“I’ve got it, thanks.” Bob popped a tablet into his mouth, made a wry face, screwed the cover on the bottle again and tossed it back. “Nasty tasting things, aren’t they?” he asked.

“You get used to them after awhile,” replied Martin consolingly. “I guess I’ve eaten twenty of them today. When you have blood trans – whatever it is, Bob, how do you do it? I mean, where do you get the blood?”

“Advertise, I think. It isn’t easy, of course, because the other fellow, the one who gives the new blood, has to be pretty healthy. Lots of times you can’t find anyone and it’s no use.”

“What happens then?” inquired Martin uneasily.

Bob shrugged. “The patient dies, of course. You hear of it very often.”

Martin gulped and almost swallowed his tablet. “Gee! I guess I’d find someone if I had to,” he said. “Maybe, though, it’s more imagination than anything with me. You know you can imagine all sorts of things, and I guess onions wouldn’t be very hard, eh?”

“N – no,” said Joe, “but I have a hunch that your theory is about right, Mart. It certainly sounds mighty reasonable to me.”

“I don’t see how you make that out,” replied Martin shortly. “If it was really a case of – of being poisoned I guess I’d be a lot worse now than I am. It’s been going on two days, and anyone knows that poison acts pretty quick.”

“Some poisons,” answered Bob significantly. “But there are others that act – er – very slowly. There’s hemp, for instance.”

“That’s a rope,” said Martin derisively.

“It’s a very deadly poison,” said Bob sternly, “and it’s very – very – what’s the word, Joe?”

“Lingering?” asked Joe.

“Insidious,” suggested Willard.

“Insidious, that’s it! Sometimes the patient suffers for weeks.”

“Well, I haven’t eaten any hemp,” said Martin crossly. “I haven’t eaten anything, confound it! I’m mighty near starved! Maybe that’s what the trouble is. If it wasn’t so late I’d go out and get a sandwich or a piece of pie or something.”

“What you need is hearty food,” said Bob. “A nice steak and onions, for instance.”

“Shut up! I hope you choke!” Martin fairly gibbered. “I wish you had it! I wish you all had it, you gang of grinning apes! You make me sick!” In proof of the latter assertion he shuddered violently, hurriedly produced his bottle of soda-mint tablets and, keeping his lips very tightly closed, agitatedly unscrewed the top. The others watched with almost painful intensity. Martin inverted the bottle, seized a tablet and popped it into his mouth. Instantly a strange, haunted look came over his face. He swallowed once, his eyes round and alarmed, and then the tablet came out of his mouth even quicker than it had gone in and he laid hands on his stomach and closed his eyes.

“What is it?” asked Bob anxiously. “Feeling sick, Mart?”

“Sick! I – I’m dying! They – they’re full of it!”

“What are? Full of what?” asked Joe.

“The tablets.” Martin opened his eyes slowly, and gazed in horror at the questioner. “They’re full of – of onion! Oh, gee!”

“Nonsense,” said Bob cheerfully. “How could they be? Let’s see them.” Martin weakly brought them forth from his pocket and held them out with averted head. Bob removed the lid and held the bottle to his nose. “I don’t smell anything,” he said. “Do you, Brand?”

“Not a thing,” replied Willard gravely. “You try, Joe.”

“Well, there’s a faint – ah – medicinal odor apparent,” said Joe judicially, “but as for onions – ”

“Let me smell,” demanded Martin. He took the bottle and put it to his nostrils. Then it went flying across the room and its contents rolled merrily about the floor. “It is!” he yelled. “They are! Can’t you fellows smell it?”

“Look here, Martin,” responded Joe sternly. “You’d better pull yourself together, old man. It won’t do to let this – this hallucination go too far. Better get into bed and try to forget about onions. Maybe a good night’s rest is what you need. In the morning I’d have a talk with the doctor. Of course your trouble may not be serious, Mart. I dare say if you take it in time you can be cured. But I’d feel a whole lot easier if you saw a doctor, old man.”

Martin’s expression of glowering distaste changed slightly. He stared in growing fascination at Bob.

“It might be,” continued the latter kindly, “that you’ve been bitten by the Diptera onionensis, otherwise known as the onion-fly. Of course, it isn’t probable, but you never can tell, Mart. There’s the tse-tse fly, now. You wouldn’t expect to find that around here, but I’ve been told that it is quite common. Then why not the onion-fly?”

Martin’s gaze was fixed on Bob and Martin’s mouth was slowly dropping open. He was like one who is seeing a Great Light and who is still too dazed by its refulgence for speech. Bob smiled gently and continued, keeping, however, perhaps unintentionally, the table between him and Martin.

“You’ve been so awfully sympathetic about my sleeping sickness, Mart, that I just can’t bear to see you troubled like this. It would certainly be a load off my mind if you’d just talk things over with the doctor – ”

“You did it!” hissed Martin. “You – you played a trick on me!”

“Why, Mart,” protested Bob in hurt tones. “How can you sit there and say them cruel words?”

Martin glared wildly about him. Joe was so entirely overcome by some emotion that he had his head in his hands and Willard was gasping, perhaps with pain, his countenance hidden behind a propped-up book. Martin swallowed hard once, drew his feet beneath him and then was out of his chair with a roar.

“I’ll onion you!” he shouted. “I’ll – I’ll – ”

Around the table they plunged, hurdling Joe’s legs, since that youth was too helpless to draw them back, twirling Willard around in his chair like a chip in a maelstrom as they passed, Bob a half circuit to the good at the end of each lap. Noise and confusion reigned supreme, but through it came Bob’s voice, made faint by laughter:

“For the love of Mike, Mart, use discretion!”

Martin’s invariable reply was a savage howl of wrath.

On the tenth circuit – or perhaps it was the eleventh! – disaster overtook the pursued. Bob slipped coming into the backstretch and went down, and Martin hurled himself on him. Over and over they went, grunting, gasping, gurgling. Willard rescued the lamp just before the table went over on top of the battlers, showering them with books and papers. Had Bob been in his best form that contest would have been brief, for he was bigger and stronger than his antagonist, but laughter drugged him and before he could cry for mercy Martin had thumped his head many times on the rug and jounced merrily up and down on his ribs. When, at last, Martin drew off and Bob climbed weakly to his feet the room was a wreck and over the scene hung, like a horrible miasma, the sickening concentrated odor of onions!

Martin sniffed and would have flung himself on Bob again if the latter had not pointed beseechingly to the floor. Martin looked and picked up the stoppered remains of a broken bottle. To it clung a paper label. “Onion Extract,” he read.

When peace, if not complete order, had been restored Bob confessed. “I gave you fair warning, Mart,” he said. “I told you I’d get even. Trouble with you is you think you invented joking and that no one else can get away with it. I got the idea that night when you turned up your nose at the onions in the lunch-cart. I paid the cook a quarter for that bottle of onion extract and the rest was easy. All I had to do was get to table long enough ahead of you to drop a little of the stuff around: on your napkin, in your porridge, in your salt-cellar and so on. I was clever enough not to be too generous with it, you know. Once, when you were looking the other way, I got some on your meat, and another time in your coffee. Yesterday I sprinkled a good big lot on your football togs. Maybe you noticed it?”

Martin said: “Hm!” grimly.

“I tried to get Brand to put some on your toothbrush and your pillow, but he was too tender-hearted,” added Bob. Martin turned a sorrowfully accusing look on Willard. “And that’s that,” Bob ended, smilingly.

“Huh,” said Martin this time, scornfully. “I knew all along it was just some silly joke!”

“Oh, no, you didn’t, pettie! Anyhow, we’ll call it quits now if you like. I’m satisfied if you are. Only, Mart, no more ‘tse-tse flies’ and ‘sleeping sickness’ stuff. My health is very good, thank you, and if you want a place on the team, son, you get out and earn it!”

“Oh, that’s all right, Bob,” answered Martin, grinning. “Johnny told me today I was to play left tackle after this. So I don’t care whether you have sleeping sickness or not!” Then, after a perceptible pause, he added: “Much!”

CHAPTER XVI

DIPLOMACY

Martin’s statement that he had been assigned to left tackle position was not believed very implicitly that night, although, in the press of other matters demanding discussion, none expressed doubt. But the next day proved that Martin had spoken no more than the truth, for when the scrimmage commenced he was in Leroy’s place, and there he stayed not only for the rest of the day but for the rest of the season. At left half, Willard and Mawson each served, the latter yielding to Willard near the end of the practice. The second team managed a field-goal that afternoon, but the first scored three touchdowns and for once showed plenty of punch.

With Lake at left end and Martin Proctor at left tackle, that side of the line improved remarkably. For a few days Martin fitted none too perfectly into the new position, but he had had much experience, wanted badly to be something better than a second-choice player and worked hard, with the result that long before the Kenly game he was looked on as a remarkably good tackle. The weak spot in the team continued, however, for no satisfactory alternative to Steve Browne had been found. Browne tried pitifully hard to fill the difficult requirements of the full-back position, but he failed utterly and palpably. Linthicum was tried, and so was Austen, a half-back from the second, but none suited. Kenly was developing a stiff line this year, as proved by the last two games she had played, and more weight and aggressiveness in the backfield was sorely needed at Alton. Discounting his possible ultimate failure to find a satisfactory full-back, Coach Cade experimented with plays built on the substituting of Bob Newhall or Stacey Ross for a half or the full-back. The difficulty, however, lay in the fact that the backfield man who played up in the line found it hard to perform his temporary duties satisfactorily. Placing Bob at full-back for straight plunges between tackles worked fairly well and was accountable for some good gains against the second team, but Browne in Bob’s place was as ill-fitting as a square peg in a round hole and would doubtless prove in Captain Joe Myers’ words, “easy meat” for Kenly. Coach Cade had a strongly-imbedded dislike for unbalanced formations, anyhow, and, although he used shifts sparingly and was responsible for the play that put Captain Myers behind the line so that he might receive a forward-pass, he wanted no more “freaks” and frowned on these new inventions even while he used them. And so matters stood on that Wednesday morning preceding the Hillsport game when Willard, having a whole fifty minutes between recitations, took a Latin book over to the first base bleachers and draped himself over three seats in the sunlight. It was a genuine Indian summer day, with no breeze, or only just enough to disturb the straight column of smoke that came from the big chimney behind Lawrence Hall, a very blue sky that melted to a hazy, purplish gray toward the horizon and a flood of mellow sunlight over all. By occasionally changing his position when the edges of the planks pressed too fervently against him, Willard managed a whole page of his book, making many marginal notes in his very small and extremely neat writing. He was, though, getting somewhat drowsy when the sound of footsteps came to him and he looked up to find Felix McNatt approaching. McNatt had soiled hands and wore a triumphant expression, and both were explained when, having climbed to Willard’s side and seated himself there, he lifted the wooden lid of the grape basket he carried.

“Agaricus pratensis,” he announced impressively.

“The same to you,” answered Willard, “and many, many of them.”

McNatt smiled humoringly. “I found them over near the farm. They are rather scarce about here.”

Willard eyed the contents of the basket unenthusiastically. The five mushrooms made very little appeal to him and he hoped McNatt wasn’t going to ask him to help eat them. “Are they edible?” he asked anxiously.

“Oh, yes, although my book says they’re not so tasty as many other sorts.”

“They don’t look awfully appetizing,” murmured Willard. “Do you cook them or what?”

“They’re excellent fried,” replied McNatt, gazing almost affectionately into the basket. “Or you can stew them in milk.”

“No, thanks.” Willard shook his head. “I don’t like the smell of them. They – they smell as if they were dead!”

“Of course they’re dead,” said McNatt a trifle impatiently. “Or I suppose they are. Possibly they continue to live for a certain time after they are picked: I must find out about that: it would be interesting to know.”

“Very,” agreed Willard politely. “Are you going to eat them?”

To his great relief, McNatt shook his head. “No, there aren’t enough to make a mess.”

“Aren’t there? I should think those would make a mess all right, a beastly mess!”

McNatt smiled, even chuckled. “I fancy you aren’t a mushroom lover,” he said. “You wait, though. Some time I’ll get a fine lot of puff-balls and we’ll have a feast. You’ll change your mind then.”

“Maybe I’ll change more than that,” said Willard sadly. “Maybe I’ll change my habitation. Lots of folks have gone to heaven after eating mushrooms, haven’t they?”

“No, not mushrooms,” said McNatt, “toadstools. There’s a difference.” He covered the basket again, set it carefully between his feet and gazed in silence for a moment across the field. Presently: “You are on the football team, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Willard, “sort of. I’m a substitute half.”

“What sort of a team have we got this year?”

“Pretty fair, I think. Haven’t you seen them play?”

“I saw part of the first game, but you can’t tell much about a team so early. I haven’t followed it very closely since then.”

“Well, we’re sort of getting together, I guess,” said Willard. “There have been a good many changes made and so the team isn’t playing together awfully smoothly yet. Mr. Cade’s having a lot of trouble finding a full-back.”

“A full-back? Is that so?” McNatt seemed rather more interested than previously. “What’s wrong there, Harmon?”

Willard explained as best he could and McNatt nodded assent. “He’s right,” he declared. “To my way of thinking the full-back is the most important man on the team. He’s got to be strong and clever and have enough weight to carry him through the first defense. I don’t bank much on the very heavy sort, though. They generally lack the proper mental attributes. Do you know, Harmon, it’s strange to me that scientists have never made a thorough study of the relation of mind quality to body formation. Now take a type of fellow who is big of torso and neck; large above the waist, you understand; probably he will have a large head, too; most of them do. That fellow will be a persistent, hard fighter when he’s started and he will have good sound judgment. But he won’t be resourceful and he won’t be capable of quick decision. See what I mean? I believe that a thorough study of the subject would enable anyone to tell a man’s mental character off-hand by observing his physical construction.”

“You’d better come out this afternoon and look over the substitutes,” laughed Willard. “Maybe you could pick out a full-back for Mr. Cade.”

“Full-backs,” answered McNatt solemnly, “are very scarce. Good ones, I mean. I remember that when I played here two or three years ago it was difficult to find a satisfactory substitute.”

“It isn’t a substitute that’s bothering this year,” said Willard ruefully, “it’s the real thing. Where did you play, McNatt? I mean what position.”

“Full-back,” answered the other gravely.

“Full-back!”

“Yes, I played there my first year off and on, although I was only fifteen. I was large for my age, though. The next year I played the position until I was taken sick. After that I sort of fell out of the game. Well, I must get back.” He picked up his basket, nodded and went striding off toward Upton.

Willard watched him go thoughtfully. After a minute, though, he tucked his pencil into a pocket, seized his book and hurried across to Lykes. Luck was with him when he knocked at Number 2 and entered. Joe was propped up on the window-seat, half hidden by a newspaper.