ROGER G. writes:

Ralph Henry Barbour (1870-1944) was a prolific American writer of adolescent fiction: adventure and sports for boys, romance for girls. A great deal of his oeuvre is free online.

Barbour’s sports stories are generally set at fictitious colleges and private schools (or occasionally public high schools), and involve resolution of moral dilemmas over the course of an athletic season or school year. The plots, character, and dialogue, as well as the sports action, are great (in my opinion, anyway). An excerpt from Weatherby’s Inning (1906) illustrates why I like these books so much. The protagonist, Jack Weatherby, is a freshman at Erskine College in Maine. As he is walking by the river near school, he sees a small boy fall in. Not being able to swim, and terrified of the water from an almost fatal accident as a five-year-old, he can only stare helplessly as the boy floats by. Others effect a rescue. Assuming that Weatherby can swim, like everyone else they know, they decide he’s a coward, and begin shunning him.

Weatherby is befriended by junior classman Anthony Tidball, a tall, gaunt, Lincolnesque and laconic Maine backwoodsman. Of very limited means and enormous intellect, he is much respected by the student body, who foresee great things for him.

The leader of the effort to ostracize Weatherby is senior and star baseball pitcher Tracy Gilberth, a self-righteous prig. In the following excerpt he is still smarting from the dressing down he received from his best friend and fellow senior Joe Perkins, captain and catcher for the team. The cause of Joe’s lecture was Gilberth’s continued abuse of Weatherby, who is a baseball candidate. Now Gilberth is walking back to his rooms, where Anthony Tidball is awaiting him for the purpose of also requesting that he cease tormenting Weatherby:

Tracy Gilberth walked back to his room after luncheon feeling very dissatisfied with life. He had not yet forgiven Joe for the lecture which the latter had delivered to him the day before. Tracy felt deeply wronged. He really believed that when he had publicly affronted Jack Weatherby that he had been performing a service to the college; that it was his duty to protest against the presence at the university of a fellow who had shown himself to be a coward. Tracy had a rather good opinion of himself and of his importance, and had never doubted that, since others had failed to act in the matter, it was his place to step to the front. The wigging he had received from Joe had surprised as well as disgruntled him, and his vanity still smarted.

And what increased his annoyance was the fact that he had been “called down” by the one fellow of all whom Tracy really held in affection, and who, or so Tracy argued, should have been the very last to oppose him. Never before had the two, whose friendship dated back from their sophomore year, come so near to quarreling as they had yesterday. Differences of opinion they frequently had, but Tracy always retired from whatever position he held at the first sign of displeasure on the part of the other. But yesterday Tracy’s backdown had been incomplete; to-day he was not decided whether to do as Joe wanted him to and leave the obnoxious Weatherby strictly alone or to show his resentment by continuing his righteous persecution of that youth with some more than usually severe affront. In fact, Tracy hovered on the verge of open mutiny when, after climbing the first flight of stairs in Grace Hall, he turned to the left down the broad corridor and kicked open the unlatched door of his study. “Hello!” he exclaimed.

“Hello!” was the response from the depths of a big leather armchair, and Anthony, who had been reclining with widely stretched legs and reading a magazine, placed the latter back on the mahogany writingtable and calmly faced his host. The two knew each other well enough to nod in passing, but never before had Anthony paid Tracy a visit, and the latter’s evident surprise was natural enough.

“Found your door open,” explained Anthony, “so I came in and waited. Wanted to see you a minute or two, Gilberth.”

“That’s all right; glad you made yourself comfortable,” answered the other.

“Nice rooms you’ve got,” continued the visitor.

“Oh, they do well enough,” Tracy replied carelessly.

As a matter of fact they were the handsomest in college, and he knew it and was proud of it. The study was furnished throughout in mahogany upholstered in light-green leather, a combination of colors at first glance a trifle disconcerting, but which, when viewed in connection with the walls and draperies, was quite harmonious. The walls were covered to the height of five feet with denim of dark green. Above this a mahogany plate-rail ran about the apartment and held a few old pewter platters and tankards, some good pieces of luster-ware and a half-dozen bowls and pitchers of Japanese glaze. Above the shelf, buckram of a dull shade of mahogany red continued to the ceiling, where it gave way to cartridge-paper of a still lighter shade. The draperies at doors and windows were of the prevailing tones. The effect of the whole was one of cheerful dignity. The room was not overcrowded with furniture and the walls held a few pictures, and those of the best. There was a refreshing absence of small photographs and knickknacks. Tracy was proud of his taste in the matter of decoration and furnishing and proud of the result as here shown. Anthony liked the room without understanding it. Perhaps the little whimsical smile that curved his lips was summoned by a mental comparison of the present apartment and his own chamber with its cracked and stained whitewashed walls and povern fittings.

“You wanted to see me, you said?” prompted Tracy.

“Yes,” answered the visitor. “Maybe it will simplify matters if I start out by telling you that Jack Weatherby’s a particular friend of mine.”

“Oh,” said Tracy. “Well?”

“Well, don’t you think you’ve bothered him enough, Gilberth?”

“Look here, Tidball, I don’t like your tone,” said Tracy with asperity.

“Can’t help it,” answered Anthony. “I don’t like the way you’ve been hazing Weatherby. Now we know each other’s grievance.”

“What I’ve done to Weatherby doesn’t concern you,” said Tracy hotly. “And I’m not to be dictated to. The fellow’s a coward and a bounder.”

“Don’t know what bounder is,” answered the other dryly. “Doesn’t sound nice, though. Suppose we stop calling names? I might lose my temper and call you something, and you mightn’t like it, either. But I didn’t come up here to quarrel with you; don’t like to quarrel with a man in his room; doesn’t seem polite, does it? What I came to say is this, Gilberth: leave Weatherby alone or you’ll have me to deal with.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, I guess not; just a statement of fact.”

“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” demanded Tracy angrily.

“Guess not; keep on tormenting Weatherby and I’ll know you’re not.”

“Now, look here, Tidball, if you want a row, you can have it right off. You don’t need to wait and see what happens to your precious friend. I’ll fight you any time you like. Do you want a fight?”

“No, not particularly,” answered Anthony, with his most exasperating drawl. “Never fought any one in my life. Wouldn’t know how to go about it, I guess. Even—”

“Well, you’ll know all about it mighty soon if you don’t get out of here!”

“Don’t think I shall. Haven’t any intention of fighting.”

“Haven’t you, indeed? Well, what, I’d like to know, are you hinting at?”

“Not hinting at all. You leave Weatherby alone or I’ll catch you in the yard and wallop you with a trunk-strap; but,” he added grimly, “there won’t be any fighting.”

He drew his long length out of the chair and took up his hat. Tracy, pale with anger, eyed him silently a moment. Then he leaped forward and sent him spinning back against the chair with a blow on the shoulder. The next moment he felt himself lifted bodily from his feet, turned head over heels, and deposited in that inglorious position on the broad leather couch. When things stopped revolving he saw Tidball’s calm face bending over him and felt his wrists held tightly together by fingers that grasped them like steel bands. He struggled violently until his opponent placed a bony knee on his chest. Then he subsided.

“Now keep still and listen to me,” said Tidball in quiet, undisturbed tones. “I’m a peaceable fellow, and don’t fight. But if you don’t remember what I’ve told you, I’m going to grab you just like this some day— and it’ll be when there are plenty of men looking on, too—and I’m going to spank you with a trunk-strap. If you don’t believe me,” he added with a slight grin, “I’ll show you the strap!”

“I’ll—I’ll kill—”

“No, you won’t do a thing,” the other interrupted sternly. “You’ll stay just where you are and behave yourself. If you don’t, I’ll lock you up in your bedroom; and that’s a liberty I don’t want to take.”

He released Tracy and stepped back. Tracy leaped to his feet, but something in the look of the eyes behind the steel-bowed spectacles persuaded him to keep his distance. Anthony picked up his hat from the floor, dusted it tenderly with his elbow, and walked to the door.

“Sorry there was any trouble, Gilberth,” he said soberly. “Maybe I lost my temper; it’s a mean one sometimes. Think over what I said.” He closed the door noiselessly behind him, and Tracy, shaking and choking with wrath, groaned futilely.

Please follow and like us: