Now, the Freshman had a perfectly healthy body and very prettily shaped muscles, but joined to these a set of nerves that hung like hair-triggers. Because of this, he felt and was hurt by many things which had no reason to hurt him, and never touched other people. Because of this, the week which had passed since he had read in the ’varsity daily his name among the entries had been a nightmare, in which all the outside world seemed leagued in a plot to disgrace him. Because of this, every time the cheers or the starter’s shrill whistle came to him where he lay wrapped in sweater and blankets on the floor of the locker-room, or he saw the runners drag themselves in from the last race to fall on the floor in a heap, or caught the warm, rank smell of liniment and witch-hazel which weighted the air of the room, he cringed and pressed his hot sweaty hands between his knees.
The Freshman stepped out on the track as a nervous horse steps on a shaky bridge. The white figures of the others in his event, the half-mile, were already there, slowly trotting for a few rods down the track, careful, business-like, and self-possessed, as though they really believed it did some good. With long, springy, limbering strides, the Freshman followed. He held his eyes away from the great wall of crowded “bleachers,” as you would keep your eyes fixed upward when climbing a precipice. The big, moving, many-colored mass said nothing, but it had a silent stare, the sum of hundreds of watching eyes, which was awful. After a dozen steps he turned and walked slowly back. Even that had made his breath come quicker, and he tried to calculate how far could he get before his wind would give out, and the pitiful hollow feeling would overcome him. He fancied he might get as far as the first quarter.
In front of him the line of crimson tape was drawn across the black cinders. He drew near it with a shivery feeling. He was not a coward. But there was something so new and untried and relentless in it all. There was no luck, no escape. In two minutes he must cross it, either ahead, or with only enough strength left to faint gracefully. The great crowd, a blank of black with splashes here and there of white. and blue and pink, stared down gayly and whispered all over, like great trees rustling in the breeze. It was fun for the crowd, sitting in its summer clothes in comfortable seats; it used to be fun for another crowd, to sit beneath the silken awnings and turn down its thumbs to the gladiators below. Getting used to all this strain, and learning how to run one’s self to a standstill, is what wins races. Many grow to like it. The Freshman, however, was running his first, race, and he looked at the crowd and the crimson tape as you might at the glittering surgical instruments and the rows of eager-faced medical students in attendance to see your leg cut off.
The eight figures stood waiting. A clerk-like young man, with book and pencil, examined the number on each man’s back.
“All right,” said he, stepping aside. Then a sharp-eyed fellow stepped forward with a little nickel-plated pistol in his hand.
“Ready, in your places,” he said, sternly.
The Freshman had the outside. He felt a dim gladness. Not so much would be expected of him. Next him was a blue jersey, and so on alternately. The crimson veteran was next to the inside.
“On your marks,” commanded the sharp-eyed man. Each runner glanced at the toe of his shoe to see that it touched the tape.
“Ready!”—–“Set!” Two of the blue jerseys crouched to the ground with arms stiffened straight and thumb and finger just touching the tape. The Freshman leaned forward and squeezed his sweaty fingers tighter. His mouth was like cotton. He listened for the shot behind him, as though the pistol were loaded and pointed at his back. Unconsciously he leaned farther and farther forward. There was a quick wabble in his legs, and he sprawled over the line.
“Come, come, come!” drawled the starter. “This is no fifty-yard dash,” And he lowered his pistol. The Freshman stepped back, much confused.
“Now! On your marks!”
Again there was crouching and leaning and stiffening and straining of muscles.
“Re-eady—–Get set!” There was a tense, tearing instant; then a short, foolish little click. Someone said something between his teeth. The Freshman had sprawled across the line again. The crimson veteran straightened up and slowly turned his head. He looked much bored. The starter sighed distressedly. He turned a chamber in the revolver.
“All right! Now—on your marks!” “Ready!” “Set!” The starter glanced sharply along the rigid line. Then his arm went up above his head. There was a snappy report, a quick scattering of cinders, a leaping of muscles into life, and the Freshman felt himself falling through bottomless depths of air. When he came to himself he was a dozen yards down the track, fiercely elbowing for the place next the pole. The first furious moment of pushing and cutting across in front and cutting in behind was over, and, like different sized stones rolling down a steep incline, the runners had shaken themselves into place. It suddenly occurred to the Freshman that the thing which had hung over his mind like a heavy paining cloud had burst.
He could not have told why he was trying so madly to pass the object at his side, and thus was wasting the strength that should have been saved for his legs. He had no idea of the pace they kept, nor how long he could stand it. The blue jersey merely moved faster, and blind instinct urged him ahead. Then he remembered that the blue jersey, being on the inside, was running the shorter distance, and that there was a whole half mile ahead of them. There are ten chances to one that he would have forgotten this, The Freshman dropped in behind, and hooked his glance to the number on the other’s back.
As they passed the first turn, he saw the veteran sweeping grandly into the first straightaway, as one sees the locomotive from a car window when the train rounds a curve. To that steadily advancing figure of white, its legs rising and falling with the regularity of pistons, he felt a sort of invisible attraction, as though it drew the others after it. Between the leader and himself were figures, but he did not know how many, or that a blue jersey was second, a crimson hand third, then two blue jerseys, and sixth himself. He realized only the inexorable fact that he was in something which could not stop. He fixed his eye on the big black number in front of him, as in the midst of a herd of stampeded cattle you would fix your eye on the animal in front. He felt entirely on the defensive. The spirit of a race never occurred to him. The runners, the audience, were all combined to pull him through an ordeal which they hoped he could not endure.
As his mind accustomed itself to the steady, relentless stride, stride, stride, and he began to feel his toes touch the ground and hear the breath rush in and out of his nose, he felt a new difficulty. It grew big and important in his mind. The pace was too fast.
There is a certain speed which no man can keep up for half a mile. It troubled him that the others did not see that they were going at such a pace. It seemed foolish and unfair, and he felt like stopping to expostulate. Sometimes, while you stand beside a locomotive, the safety-valve bursts into its fiendishly thunderous rattle. You put your hands to your ears, but it does not stop. You feel like asking it to “Wait a moment till I am ready.” The Freshman felt in just that mood, as, with the same sort of irritating effect, the outrageous pace dragged him on.
Thud, thud, thud, went the feet in front and behind him. He was now just entering the straightaway opposite the grand-stands. He observed that he was keeping stride with the one in front of him. He knew that old runners sometimes weary out novices, by thus making them run an unnatural stride. It worried him, but he could not seem to change. His eyes still clung to the number. He studied it nervously. It was 3. Each roughness in the printing, the spots of dust, the threads of the cloth, he examined intently. It occurred to him that it could be easily made into an 88. At the time, this seemed a deduction of importance.
The thudding crunch of the spikes into the track and the rain of the cinders against his bare legs, which he now began to notice, told him how fast they swept along. Now and then a lump hit his face, and one, swifter than the rest, struck into his eye. It scratched painfully, and he saw the black 83 with but one eye. They were directly across from the stands now, and as they filed rhythmically by there were pleased little “Ohs” which he could not hear. Nor did he notice, except in a confused way, the shouts from the half-dressed figures who, leaning from the balcony and upper windows of the field-house, as the group passed, yelled, “Good work! Hang on” and “Keep it up! You’re all right!”
A white flat stone slipped past beside his feet, and he knew that the 220 mark was passed, and the race was just quarter done. It would take three times the strength he already had used to finish. Just as the dread impossibility of it all sank on his mind, the blue jersey behind pushed himself forward. As the Freshman saw him, out of the side of his eye, he instinctively quickened his own stride. Then he discovered that his legs, which he had forgotten, lifted very heavily, and his breath came hissingly between his teeth. This meant that he was getting tired. At the same moment the black 83 began to move steadily away. What was happening was this: they were just entering the straightaway that led past the stands, and everyone was trying to appear well in front of the crowd. As the Freshman saw the number slip from him, saw the wall of spectators looming up ahead, and thought that there was still more than half the distance to run, a cold fear fell upon him. He doubted that he could pass the crowd. He squeezed his fists tighter and bit his lips hard. He cast a short, defiant look at the stands, and, lest they see how weak and wabbly he really was, he stepped as straight as though he were running between two barb-wire fences two feet apart.
The rope fence had broken just as the runners had been sent off, and the crowd had pushed out on the track. With cries of “Get back! Get back! Give ’em a show!” the mass opened into a narrow lane, through which the racers tramped single file. With the same ceaseless crunch, crunch, swish, swish, and breath hissing through teeth, they approached the gauntlet of stares. It seemed to the Freshman that he was in some struggle of dreadful seriousness, and the glimpses of faces and ordinary clothes seemed far away and irrelevant, as might appear the trees and shore to one struggling in the water. As he entered the lane, the stares seemed to reach out for him, to pull him toward them, and then dismiss him with a shove.
As he neared the upper end he could see the timers leaning out over the edge of the track, watch in hand. A voice said “fifty-seven” as he passed, and he knew that he had done the first quarter-mile in three seconds less than a minute. In all his quarter-mile trials he had never done better. There was still another quarter to go. The thought of the thing seemed monstrous in its rashness. He almost smiled grimly at the irony of it. At that moment, just as they passed the timers, the blue jersey ahead of him sprang away, apparently as fresh as at the start.
That is what always happens. When the distance is half covered, and the race is merely from one mark to the same mark again, a sort of devil-may-care courage seizes the racers. It is in the little sprint that follows that the half-mile may be won. The novice is likely to be deceived by this sudden freshness. He does not know that his rival is really as weak and hollow as he himself. The Freshman felt his last ounce of strength leave him. It was only a desperate stubbornness that made him squeeze his fists and go through the motions of spurting. At the moment he remembered having once read,
“When you pass the quarter mark you should begin to pick up those ahead of you—if there still remain any.” Again he almost smiled at the irony of it all. Faster came the chuck, chuck of spiked feet. They were past the crowd, and rounding the upper turn. More desperate were the Freshman’s struggles to increase his pace; and, finally, just as they turned into the long side, he felt the prick of cinders against his bare legs. All his strength of will he centered on the black 83 in front. It seemed to move forward with the steady relentlessness of the rear platform of a railway car which one is trying to catch. They were now in the middle of the long straightaway that led past the field house. His breath seemed only to touch the top of his lungs before an irresistible pull snatched it back. His legs were growing wooden. He felt that he could last but a moment longer.
At that instant something took his gaze away from the 83. Just to the right of the blue jersey and slowly falling back toward them, was the crimson-banded runner who had held third place. His stride had so lost its regularity that he had swerved toward the center of the track. His arms, which had moved stiff and steadily at his sides, were doubled up as a child runs, with fists churning in front of his face. His head and upper body pumped, as though he were pushing
himself along. The Freshman was amazed. That one of those others should thus show signs of weakness, while he himself kept his feet, seemed incongruous. Then the exhausted runner wabbled; once his foot struck out sideways, and he was thrown out of his stride. At that moment number 83, passed by. Close upon him, mystified but dogged, the Freshman found himself slowly but steadily slipping past the beaten racer. As he did so, the face of things changed. As they say of ships, he had “found himself.” When he snapped his eyes back to the 83, he felt a new look in them. Before, it had been that of the stubborn terror of a child; there was now a suggestion of the eyes of a fox-terrier who stands before a rat-hole with tail bobbing nervously and legs trembling with excitement.
It was a big thing which the Freshman had learned in the last second, but it did not make new legs, or lungs full of air. They were just passing the three-eighths mark, and he must finish as he was. The same relentless chuck—swish—chuck—swish—beat upon the cinders. The Freshman’s legs seemed to have lost all feeling and to rise and fall mechanically, like wooden sticks. Suddenly one of them slipped, just as when some one hits you unexpectedly behind the knee. This meant that he was falling out of his stride, and it frightened him. The breath fell so shallowly into his lungs that he seemed to be seizing it in bites. Once he discovered a fist in front of his face, and he knew then that he, too, was “pumping.” Things were getting wavy and hazy before his eyes. He was learning the meaning of the phrase, “running yourself out.” It means run till you are ready to drop, then shut your eyes, squeeze your fists, and sprint! It is about as easy as holding, your breath as long as you can, then diving under water.
The Freshman did not realize, in the excitement of it all, that he was unconsciously increasing his speed at every step. But he saw the 83 come nearer—slowly, maddeningly slow—but steadily nearer. As each dead leg heaved forward, and the breath slipped from the grasp of his teeth, he approached inch by inch until he could have touched it with his hand. Then a rash courage came upon him. His eyes left the 83; he swerved quickly to the right, his left arm grazed the other’s right, and he was past.
They were entering the stretch. Striding ahead, with first place easily his, was the veteran. The second blue jersey was not more than a rod ahead. The Freshman fastened his eyes upon the advancing back, and, foot by foot, came up to it, as you would pull yourself, hand-over-hand, up a rope. He shut his eyes for an instant, and again swerved to the right. Then he heard something from the waiting stands down the track. For several seconds there had been confused cheering, but he had not understood it. This was something he had never heard before. It was his own name shouted out by the black
waving mass that stretched all along the straightaway to the tape. All in a flash it came to him that the great crowd, instead of being a cruel, silent, staring enemy, was with him. And the track, instead of being a sort of operating table, was a place on which to race, and sometimes win. And the other runners, the spectators, every detail of it all, were only parts of a big game which, after all, ought to be fun.
Fifty yards away in front he could see, stretched breast-high across the track, the narrow line of crimson tape. With the shouts at his side sounding gloriously in his ears, he took his eyes from his rival, and held them to that narrow streak of red. In his mind he took in the number of strides and the strength it would take to reach it, just as you understand a whole sentence of print at a glance. He felt that he could do it, though it had come to be amazingly hard. For the track had taken on an odd habit of rolling, rather like the deck of a ship; once it came up to meet him so that his foot struck before he meant it to. From the finish mark he could hear the trainers sternly calling, “Keep your feet! Keep—your—feet!”
Then at last he saw the back in front of him waver a bit in its course, and the arms and upper body begin to pump. At the same instant the great black mass along the lines seemed to grow taller. The Freshman fixed his eyes again on the wavering number, and again drew himself nearer and nearer. He was almost neck-and-neck now—just a shade behind, then a shadow ahead. The two struggling figures seemed inevitably to run together. The track behaved strangely, and the Freshman could not keep clear of the man at his side. The tape was not more than ten feet away, when their elbows hit hard against each other. For a moment the Freshman thought he was falling; then, half running, half diving, he lunged toward the tape—and fell on the other side.
Scrambling to his feet, with arms and neck hanging very limp and breath coming very quick, he looked round him in a dazed way, as though he wondered what had happened. Then, because his knees suddenly felt very queer and weak, he started slowly to sit down, when many arms grabbed him and he felt himself raised. There was pushing and noise and much dust. As for our Freshman, he blinked down from somebody’s shoulder in pleased embarrassment upon the crowd, and then, because he had done a big thing and felt very empty and weak and queer, he let his head droop and beneath his half-closed eyes grinned inside at the crimson “H” upon his breast.
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