Bill’s Shadows

Bill's Shadows By HARR'SON R. MERRILL W, HEN Bill Gardner opened his eyes he found himself lying on a training table in the club house. The university doctor and Coach Karl Winston were bending over him. He attempted to sit up. It was then he became conscious of pain. 'Take it easy," the doctor ad- monished, busying himself with his first-aid materials. "Did you hear the little birdies?" Bill comprehended. He had been "out" before in high school. "No birds out there," he re- sponded, masking his pain as best he could. "Did I stop him?" 1 HE doctor helped him to a sitting position and ar- ranged a support for his back be- fore he set to work with his band- age. Coach Winston winked at the medical man. "His old dad over again," he said whimsically. "What matter a few bones if he stopped him?" Then turning to Bill — "You threw him out of bounds. Staeger '11 have to win after that." Bill grinned happily. "Was afraid I was too late." "Bill Gardner's son!" the coach mused. "There was a great foot- ball machine. I've never seen his equal before or since. Always felt with him in the game that I just about had two teams on the field — especially on defense. Tackled like a tiger." B (ILL'S heart thrilled. He had always looked upon his dad as a modern Hercules. 'You got his fire, youngster," Coach Winston continued, "but not his physique." He felt the skinny leg dangling from the training table. "He'd a made two of you, son, but he never at his best charged better than you did out there today." "Glad you liked my stuff," Bill managed to mumble. "He told me nothing but my best would be good enough for Staeger." The old coach, graying around the temples, glanced up at the ceil- ing and swung back on the hind legs of his chair. "But I wouldn't play any more football — if I were you." "No more football!" Bill jerk- ed around to face the coach. The doctor swore. ' NOPE — b o d y and spirit don't match, son," the coach said gently. "You've got old Bill Gardner's spirit cramped up in that skinny body somehow — I saw your dad out there in that tackle you made. That's why I came in. Old Bill without his tousled head; old Bill with the meat all off." "Well, what of that?" young Bill asked. 'That's what." The coach pointed to the bandaged shoulder. "Old Bill Gardner's spirit will tear that puny body to pieces in a foot- ball game. — Nope, you're not to play football any more this year at all, even if you recover in time. That's settled. I loved old Bill too much for that." No more football?" Bill questioned ruefully. "That'll be a blow to Dad. He's expecting „fLSO?J UlHtT-^ me to be at least one wing of the line. He's just got his heart set on that." The . coach rose, out pugnaciously. ^■p cannot _ —AHOHYMOUS ' _^& "Tut, tut." his chin thrust "Who's coach here, me or old Bill Gardner? No more football for you this year — do you hear?" "What about next year?" Bill asked anxiously. "We'll see — next year. If Bill Gardner's spirit gathers some of Bill Gardner's beef, some of his iron, why — " But the door which closed after the coach as he went out shut off the remainder of his sentence. 'There you are," the doctor an- nounced as he gathered up his ma- terials. "A broken collar bone and a badly wrenched shoulder for you." But Bill Gardner paid no atten- tion .to the doctor. He was not to play football, and he thought he knew how his father would feel about that — his father who had set his heart on seeing his son play the game for Staeger in which he himself had starred a quarter of a century earlier. JDILL returned for his sophomore year with high hopes, but they were soon blasted. "Nope," the old coach said after examining him at the open- ing of school, "it's just out of the question, Bill. You're not going to play football on any of my teams. I'm not going to have you run some of those brittle bones through my ambitious freshmen." No amount of argument would change him. "It'd be the same old story," he finished bluntly, "a broken rib, a fractured collar bone, a smashed ankle — nope, you'll have to go in- to something else for your letter, if you're going to make one at this school. Plenty of sports besides football. Jump into one of them and show your stuff."

540 The improvement Era for June, 1930 A FEW days later Bill received a letter from his father that twisted his face into a pathetic grin. In it the elder Gardner said that he had looked in vain through the football prospects at Staeger University for that of his son. Now Bill knew that his name would not appear in those lists either this year or ever. Despite the fact that he had worked all summer on Lake Michi- gan as life guard in the hope that the out-of-doors and plenty of ex- ercise would aid him in putting on "beef," as Coach Winston had called it, he had not grown heavier. His muscles were all right, he knew — as tough as whip cord — but stretched on pipe stems. He could almost see every one indi- vidually through his semi-trans- parent skin. Bill crumpled up his father's letter which he had finished read- ing. "Oh, well," he philosophized, "I'll just have to show him and old Winston that there's other ways than football to do big things." Hi .E flung out of his room and down toward the' uni- versity. He'd look the situation over, pick out a good sport, and head in somewhere. He'd find a place. He'd show 'em. He turned in at the gymnasium. He'd take a swim and think it over. Then he'd study over ev- ery inter-collegiate sport on the list and make his selection. That slender body of his would serve both him and the university or he'd know the reason why. He could remember yet the scene at the Union station in West- over when his father had sent him away to the university. He could almost see the expression on his father's face, and hear the inflec- tion of his voice, standing before the mural painting of a train of pioneer prairie schooners which adorned the half moon gable of the ceiling. "Bill," he^ had said, "there's the stock you're from. Your an- cestors were pioneers, men who would die before they'd quit. Your great-grandfather was cap- tain of a pioneer wagon train like that; your grandfather was one of the first settlers of this valley. You see, you have some mighty shad- ows back of you." 13ILL remembered his own reply and his father's re- joinder. "But the schooners sail no more over the desert seas," he had said, "and the last bit of land in this valley has been taken under the enlarged homestead act." "Yeah, both were gone in my day," his father had replied. "But there are plenty of other ways in which you can show your stuff. I showed mine in football. You can do the same." "Looks like it," Bill mumbled as he strode into the dressing room. He was stirred up inside as he began throwing off his clothes. He could remember his father's un- reasonable reply when he had re- minded him of the difference in their weights and builds. 'The Lord only knows where you picked up those gander shanks and pipe-stem arms," he had ex- claimed, as he grasped his son's waist with his two great hands. "I can almost span around you. But you're going to Staeger where the name William Gardner is en- graved on their silver loving cups and trophies — where it stands for what those chaps up there stand for. I'd like to see William Gard- ner, Junior, on some of their cups." A- lT that point, Bill remembered, Rad Bowen and his dad had come into the station — Rad with his huge white "W" blazing on his breast, a letter he, Bill Gardner, had been unable to win because of his brittle bones that would not stand football. He had felt like tweaking Bowen Senior's nose when that gentleman casually mentioned the fact that Bill had not made his letter. That was one of Bill's bitterest memo- ries. Just now he could not forget that (it was against Rad's thigh that he crashed in that frosh foot- ball game when he had broken his collar bone and had been elim- inated from Staeger football for all time. He knew that Rad was not to blame for the accident, yet he felt that he would have to wipe that memory out sometime. He threw his clothes into the locker and slammed the door. His face twisted into a cynical grin as he remembered his father's parting words : "This means a lot to me, son," he had said at the car steps. "For twenty years I've dreamed of this day — when I'd be sending a boy back to Staeger; when once more the old battle cry would call a Gardner to defend the Gold and Blue. In a few minutes you'll be on your way bearing my dreams. In you are powers of which you are not aware. As great shadows, but real figures your great-grand- father is there; your grandfather, who cut ten thousand feet of lum- ber in a day with an axe, is there; and I am there. When your hour comes, you are to answer for all of us." "I have all right," Bill grunted disgustedly. "I've answered. Dad's plumb off his bean about that football business, hut — I guess there's nothing to do about it." H, .E seized his towel and started for the showers and the pool. "I'll have to find a way to sur- prise 'im — I'll find a place some- where— got to. I'm going to give those said Shadows their chance or my name ain't Gardner. We'll see just what those Shadows are worth in a pinch." In this aggressive frame of mind, he took his place on the rim of the tank where he paused for a mo- ment spreading his long arms like thin rudimentary wings. Then he plunged in and sped over the sur- face of the water. He turned at the end with a jack-knife move- ment he had mastered racing be- tween piers on Lake Michigan and sped back. When his hand grasped the ca- nal running around the pool and he drew his head above the con- crete floor, he found himself look- ing up into an eager and animated face ornamented with two bird- like eyes. "Here, come here," the little man on the floor exclaimed. "Come into my office." Bill climbed out wondering if his bony body was now to be ban- ished from the pool also. T J- HE little man closed the door carefully behind them, then he danced over in front of Bill and looked up approvingly. "Say, where did you get that?" (Continued on page 584)