Arranged on a large white cloth on the bench were the glittering parts of an almost finished fishing reel, and Mr. Stark was putting the finishing touches with a file on the S-shaped crank for it.
Mr. Stark’s hair was snow white; there was a touch of gray in his closely clipped mustache, and he wore a pair of steel-rimmed glasses that had the upper half of the lenses cut away in such a manner that he could look over them when he dropped his chin.
Out of the corner of one eye Mr. Stark saw Andy come to a halt at his elbow. Out of the corner of the other he glanced up at the big clock on the wall. He rapped the edge of his file on a block of wood to clear the chips from it and said, “Mmmm, somebody is walking in his sleep. Otherwise he wouldn’t be caught dead showing up at school twenty-five minutes before the first bell.”
Mr. Stark made one more stroke with his file, then laid it aside and took the fishing-reel crank out of the copper jaws of the vise and held it in the palm of his hand for Andy to see. “Pretty as a spotted pup, isn’t it?” he chuckled, then pretended to peer fiercely over his low-cut eyeglasses at Andy. “This is the kind of work you’ll have to turn in if you want an A plus in machine shop, young fellow. And none of this slicking up your file scratches with a piece of emery cloth.”
As though drawn by a magnet Andy felt his hand reaching out to take the fishing-reel crank from Mr. Stark’s hand.
The little instructor snapped his fingers down over the part in his palm and stabbed Andy with a stern look. “You might just as well start learning now the first rule of a good mechanic—never touch another man’s work or his tools. And remember that when you graduate from college and come strutting into a machine shop with your engineering degree still dripping wet ink. Nothing burns up a self-respecting mechanic like having the boss pawing over his tools and his work.”
Andy got another crusty look, and Mr. Stark said, “Quit standing there as if you had a muskrat trap clamped over your mouth. Open up and tell me what’s on your mind—football, I’ll bet a hat.”
Only freshmen were ever frightened—and then not for long—by the way Mr. Stark glowered and barked. But more than one new teacher, overhearing the old shop instructor “practically eating a boy alive,” had rushed in a high state of indignation to Mr. McCall.
Mr. McCall would listen to the complaint very patiently. Then he would say—without even a faint trace of a smile, “Strange as it may sound, there is no higher distinction a boy of this school can attain than to receive a complete dressing down by Mr. Stark. At the next dinner of the Alumni Association I suggest that you observe how many of the speakers attribute their success in later life to one of Mr. Stark’s person-to-person lectures.”
Which explains why Andy, who had just left Coach Dorman feeling as though the world were coming to an end, was grinning to himself as he took his father’s note from his shirt pocket. But not for anything he could think of would he have allowed that grin to show, because that would have spoiled everything. Mr. Stark had no time to waste on a boy who wasn’t at least smart enough to pretend that he was impressed.
Mr. Stark took the still folded note from Andy and grumbled, “Learn to unfold a document before you ask somebody else to waste his time reading it.” And then he proceeded to read the note.
He handed it back to Andy and said, “This is addressed to Mr. McCall. If you have decided to drop machine shop in order to chase a football all afternoon, it is no concern of mine.”
Andy said, “But I haven’t decided yet that football comes first. I promised my father I’d talk it over with you first.”
This seemed to annoy Mr. Stark more than anything Andy had said so far. He frowned over his glasses and said, “So I am to be the goat in this matter, eh? I’m supposed to take the responsibility for deciding your future. Then if you make a mess of your life you can look back and say, ‘It is all that windy fellow Stark’s fault! Instead of grubbing away at this job of designing airplanes or diesel engines I might have been a famous football coach, with my name in the papers every day for two months in the fall’—and doctoring for nervous indigestion the rest of the year, no doubt.” Mr. Stark tossed in that last remark free of charge and picked up his file again.
Andy just stood there saying nothing, for as every boy in school knew, or had been told by an older boy, the best way to keep Mr. Stark talking was to keep your mouth shut and wait until he actually ordered you out of his sight.
Mr. Stark put his file away in a drawer, brushed off the bench, and then carefully wrapped up the parts for his handmade fishing reel in that piece of clean white cloth. Then, without looking at Andy, he waved to a number of framed pictures of machinery that were hung on the walls of the room. “If you haven’t anything else to do before the first bell rings, take a look at those pictures. Every one of those machines was designed by an engineer who passed through this machine shop course you’re dropping. After you’ve looked ’em over, come back and tell me how many pictures of famous football coaches who started their careers here at Riverford are hanging in the Trophy Room of the gym.”
Andy had seen most of those pictures before. But a new one—a large color photograph of a powerful diesel locomotive—had been hung since he saw them last. Across the lower right-hand corner of the photograph was written, “To the best engineer of us all, John Stark—from one of his many ardent admirers, Walter L. Cutting (Riverford ’28).”
Pasted on the lower right-hand corner of the glass over the picture was a curt warning to the world, written in crabbed, square letters: “Warning! Never believe all you read. J.S.”
The picture hung beside a window, through which could be seen the tracks of the Monon Railroad. And just as Andy had finished looking at the picture he heard the whistle of the Hoosier Limited, bound for Chicago. Then a big diesel locomotive flashed by—a duplicate of the one in the picture that he had just been looking at!
There were still five minutes left before the first bell would ring. Unaware that Mr. Stark, across the room, was watching him closely, Andy lifted his sagging shoulders and headed straight for the property room of the gym. Mr. Stark drew his hand across his bristly gray mustache and indulged in a silent chuckle of triumph.
Scarcely a minute later Andy had taken the new pair of football shoes, which Ted Hall had given him yesterday, from his locker and dropped them on the floor beside Ted, who had just finished sorting the box of old shoes for the reserve squad.
“For Pete’s sake, don’t tell me now they don’t fit,” said Ted wearily. “They just got to fit, because Coach Dorman says there isn’t another dime in the athletic department budget for more shoes. That’s why the reserves are wearing these old ones from last year’s varsity.”
“Give these to Cornstalk,” said Andy. “I noticed yesterday that he was wearing old ones that made him stumble when he tried to catch a long pass.”
Ted straightened up with a jerk. “You mean——” But he saw the answer in Andy’s nod even before he got the question out, and groaned, “No! You can’t quit football, Andy. You just can’t. Why, this is the first year we’ve had even a chance to beat Mansfield. But it is going to take manpower, and plenty of it, to do it.” He grabbed Andy’s arm and shook it. “Look—it’s the fourth quarter, with just six minutes left. We’ve just come from behind to score a touchdown, but we miss the try for the extra point. Mansfield leads us 7 to 6——”
Carried away by his imagination, Ted pointed with his free hand at the row of shower bath stalls as though they were the gridiron. “Ken has just carried the ball down to Mansfield’s thirty-yard line. But he doesn’t get up after he’s tackled. You know what that means when Ken isn’t the first one up. He’s hurt is why! Wants to stay in but can’t.”
Ted gave