Kelvin High School - Kelvin Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

Page 32 text:

hKs hired a man but he was a careless, lazy fellow. He only did half the work Phil could do and so Pa was still forced to work all day. Finally he became desperate. He was paying this man wages and yet working himself. The next day he wrote a let¬ ter to Phil and told him that if he came back he would pay him as much as he was paying his hired man. He also en¬ closed enough money for train fare. So Phil returned home. Pa met him at the station with the car. He was friendly and agreeable and Phil was quite surprised. At supper that night, Pa said, “I was speakin’ to Bill North when I was in town this morning. He was askin’ me if you boys was going to the dance to¬ night. I told him I kinda thought you was.” SECOND PRIZE—THE BIG FROGS By Clarence Blundell, Room 26 Abe Hennessey had been village checker champion for as long as most of the old-timers could remember. While still a young man establishing himself as a grocer, he had shown his supremacy over the other players of Linwood Crossings. As the years passed, his continuous string of victories was seldom broken. Each loss of his was followed by a challenge to a match, which Abe always won. Now, as the fat, good-natured grocer, he was still turning back all comers in his checker encounters. Though they still played him often, the other checker players of the town had despaired of ever beat¬ ing him more than once in twenty games. And so it was that when a certain young man visited Linwood Crossings, the poorer checker players decided to take full advantage of his presence there. The young man had arrived on a very hot day and registered at the local hotel. The hotel-owner, Mr. Brown, himself a very poor checkerist, had, of- course, seen his name. It was he who instigated the plot to take revenge on old Abe for his long reign of terror as checker king of the town. He dis¬ covered that the young man was plan¬ ning to do a week’s fishing and rambling about in the pretty lake country sur¬ rounding the village. That should be plenty of time for Mr. Brown to work out his plan. The day after the visitor’s arrival, Mr. Brown asked him if he would take the leading role in the conspiracy he planned to stage. The young fellow, who appeared to be of a fun-loving disposition, agreed to do it. The next day, Mr. Brown visited the grocery store. After buying a package of tobacco, he opened the conversation. “Been playing any checkers lately, Abe?” asked Mr. Brown, filling his pipe rather slowly. “Not for a week or so, Bill. Why?” “Well, I thought you might like to have a game or two with a young fel¬ low staying at the hotel. He’s finding it sort of hard to put in the evenings.” “I’d be glad to. Is he a good player?” Mr. Brown struck a match and lighted his pipe before answering. “I don’t think he has been playing very long, seeing he’s so young. If you come over this evening, you can use the checker table in the lobby.” “All right. I’ll be over.” Mr. Brown wore a smile of satisfac¬ tion as he left the store. His plans couldn’t be working more smoothly. Next, Mr. Brown made a tour of the town, visiting most of his checker-play¬ ing friends. He received pats on the back, and gleeful laughter followed in his wake. Other people who saw him concluded that he must be telling a very good, new joke. But why he should go to the trouble of telling it to a score of different citizens of the town was beyond them. That evening, when Abe arrived at 20

Page 31 text:

“and to tell us what to do this after¬ noon.” They worked on in silence while the sun grew hotter and the work became harder. Finally they saw the car re¬ turning. “Guess it’s dinner-time,” Jack said. They returned to the barn, watered the horses, and went up to the house. There was very little conversation at the table. After the meal was over, Pa said to the boys, “You keep on working in that field. I’ll be over in a while.” Lighting ' his pipe, he sat down and watched Mary wash the dishes. In a few minutes he said, “Well, I guess I’ll go and give the boys a hand out there.” But he sat still and kept on smoking. After some time he spoke again, “Guess I’ll go and help the boys.” This time he rose slowly from his chair and went outside and down the road About five they returned from the fields. Phil went into the kitchen and sat down heavily. In a few minutes Pa came in. “Better go and fetch the cows, Phil. Near milkin’ time,” he said. Phil sighed but rose from his chair and went off down the road. “Couldn’t you have gone for the cows tonight, Pa?” Mary said. “Phil’s been working hard today.” “Huh, me go for the cows,” said Pa, “with him sittin’ here doin’ nothin’.” When Phil returned with the cows Jack helped him milk them. Then they all sat down to supper. Suddenly Jack cleared his throat and said, “There’s a dance in town tonight, Pa, and Phil and me thought you might let us go.” “There’s a lot of work to be done tomorrow,” Pa said. “Let them go,” Mary said, “They’ll work tomorrow.” “No need for them to go to every dance,” said Pa. “We don’t go to every dance,” said Phil, bitterly. “I’m going anyway.” “You’re not going,” said Pa. Phil rose from the table and went out to the barn. When he returned, Mary was mending socks; Jack and Pa were reading. Phil pickel up a paper, and, after looking through it, went to bed. Next morning he rose as usual and went out to the bam. “I’m not staying here much longer,” he told his favorite horse, Prince. Breakfast was eaten in silence and the boys went out to the field again. All day they toiled in the scorching heat. That night when they were milking the cows Phil said to Jack, “Not much use us staying here on the farm all our lives. If we went away we wouldn’t have to work so hard and we’d get paid.” “Neither of us has any money,” said Jack. “We couldn’t run away.” “I could,” said Phil. The next morning Phil was gone! Mary had called him but received no answer. She found in his room a small note, which said there was no use him staying on the farm so he was going away to get a job. In the next town, the freight train stopped. A shabby figure climbed off a boxcar. It was Phil. He walked several blocks until he came to a small, white house on the corner. He knocked on the door. The woman who came to the door gasped when she saw who the dirty, bedraggled figure was. “Phil,” she cried, “what are you doing here?” “I ran away,” said Phil, coolly. He went in and while his aunt pre¬ pared a lunch, he explained every¬ thing. For days he tried to get a job and finally one day he returned and told his aunt he had a job just outside the town. He didn’t get paid much but he didn’t have to work very hard. How proud he felt when he got his first pay! All this time Pa was having his troubles on the farm. For several days after Phil left, Pa tried to get a hired man. But no one seemed to want a job. So, for several days, he was compelled to do Phil’s work himself. He finally

Page 33 text:

the hotel, the young man was intro¬ duced to him as “Mr. Smith.” Abe had a strange feeling that he had seen his face somewhere before. He concluded that the young man had paid an earlier visit to the town. A game was soon started at the table that stood in the centre of the lobby. The inlaid checker board on its top was a familiar sight to Abe. He had won perhaps a hundred games on it. As he waited for his opponent to make a move, he tried to remember how many games he had lost at the table. He was unable to recall a single one. For that matter, he hadn’t lost many games on any checker board. Near the end of the first game, when the position was still fairly even, Abe glanced up from the board. He was astonished to see what a number of men had gathered about the table to watch the game. He had never seen such interest in a game of checkers. When he looked back at the board the young man made his move. The older player, after a short appraisal of the situation, did likewise. He noticed his opponent flinch slightly. After a few more moves, “Mr. Smith” raised his head and looked queerly at Abe. “I guess I’ll have to give up. It’s your game.” It was, in fact, a win for Abe. He took his victory casually enough, but was puzzled at the strange expressions on the faces of the watching men. He felt rather embarrassed by the queer manner in which they stared at him. They appeared also, to be whispering among themselves. Abe heard Dr. Johnson say something about a big frog from a big pond being better than one from a little pond. A second game was started. This time, the young man played more slow¬ ly. Nevertheless, the game was shorter than the first, Abe winning again. The young man wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, got up, and said something to Mr. Brown. To Abe, it sounded something like “The joke’s on me!” The actions of the men about him were certainly unusual, thought he. The third game was the longest. “Mr. Smith” appeared to give of his best. But towards midnight, Abe gained two pieces and, soon after, won the game. After saying good night, the younger player left the lobby with a puzzled expression on his face. “You might as well tell him now, Bill. Be a good sport,” said Dr. John¬ son to the hotelowner. Mr. Brown’s face became rather red when he heard several laughs. “Well, Abe,” began Mr. Brown, “I’ll confess. We planned to have a little joke on you tonight, but it hasn’t worked out so well. Do you know whom you were playing checkers with just then?” “Why, Mr. Smith, of course—at least, that’s the name you gave me when you introduced him.” “That was just part of the joke. As a matter of fact, that was James Mason, the national checker champion!” “James Mason? Well, I’ll be—and I beat him! It can’t be him!” “It is, nevertheless. We thought, naturally, that he would beat you. But apparently you’re even a better player than he is.” “But that’s foolish, Bill. I can’t be.” But the general opinion was that Abe was very likely the best player in the world. The village grocer left the hotel in a slightly dazed condition. It was thus that the national checker champion was beaten by old Abe Hen¬ nessey, who hadn’t played a single game outside of his own county. But that is not the end of the story, though the reader might prefer it to be. In the two following days, ten games were played at Abe’s home between the two. One game was drawn. All the rest were won by Mr. Mason! No good explanation has yet been offered to account for Abe’s astonish¬ ing success in those first three games. Mr. Mason says he was really trying to win. Moreover, he says he never felt