University of Vermont - Ariel Yearbook (Burlington, VT)

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18 THE ARIEL, 1908 Tlllbi Training of william BY Fiuznnrucic TUPPER, JR. OT long enough ago to be called once on a time, Anson, Harris and I directed with academic dignity and decorum a Summer School for Guides in the Temagami Forest of Qntario, boasting only one pupil on our rolls. The Hudson Bay Store at Haileybury was the enrolling office. To us talking volubly with our outiitter of boots, beans and birchbark, entered Vlfilliam, our future companion in boat and bush. VVith holiday optimism we had awaited some keen-eyed Deerslayer, some Uncas or Chingacheook, tall and straight as a pine-our extensive knowledge of the woods was derived chiefly through Fenimore Cooper. Alas for great expecta- tions! lfVilliam,s slight form recalled not the pine of our hopes, but the light quivering aspenfy No leather stocking graced his nether limbsg but the con- cavo-convexity of their curve was offset by slack and -beltless knickerbockers and drooping garterless hose. His smile was as pathetically futile as his hat- band and cravat, whose gaiety was now only a faded memory. In him con- quering and conquered races had met without malice, and washed out in the strong liquor beloved of both all substance of hate or wrong, leaving only this harmless hybrid as an aftermath. I had read in a German story of a man without a shadow: here was a shadow without a man. The best snap-shot of Wfilliam kodaked on my memory now was granted to me an hour later, while awaiting at the station the belated train that was to bear us and our fortunes to Lachford, the starting point of our water-journey. As usual at such times, all things were in storm and stress. A gay wedding-party was unintentionally thwarting by its merry and noisy ubiquity our efforts to End and forward packs and canoes. In the middle of a confusion increased by the trainis arrival, the same question sprang from us all: lVhere is Vifilliam ? No sooner asked than answered. Across a broad field dotted with blackened tree-stumps he came-rapidly and with infinite variety of step. The acre was his chess-board, and it was his right, nay his bounden duty, to execute in turn the moves of every piece Between the charred obstacles he described with jerky impatience the rectangle of the knight, the lateral of the castle, the diagonal

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THE ARIEL, 1908 17 In 1892 the first of the long southern trips was taken during the Easter recess, and these early spring trips were continued for a few years, the team going as far south as North Carolina. These trips were successful both in number of games won and in paying expenses, but have been discontinued for various reasons. The opening game of the first Southern trip is remarkable from the fact that although the team had had no chance to play out of doors, and no cage except a room with a low ceiling and less than 60 feet long for indoor practice, we were able to shut out our opponents CFordham Collegej in an crrarlcss game. Upon this trip the only games lost were those with the Wfashington and Philadelphia League teams, while we defeated the University of Virginia and the Georgetown College teams. Another example of good 'ball playing under difficulties was seen on the spring trip in '93. The team travelled all night without sleepers from Char- lottesville, Va., to Raleigh, N. C.. and defeated the University of North Carolina that afternoon. The next day. after a short railroad run to Chapel Hill, N. C., they again defeated the same team in the rain, and after changing their wet ball suits in the baggage car they rode all night without sleepers, on account of the necessity of changing cars frequently, and defeated VVashington and Lee Uni- versity the next afternoon. Again they took the train at midnight Qthis time each man having half a berth il, reached Philadelphia at noon, and literally knocked three University of Pennsylvania pitchers out of the box that afternoon, making 24 hits with a total of 41. Such a trip demands that men be in very good physical condition. The success of the team during those four C90-'93j years, aside from the maintenance of pretty strict training, was due to our having four unusually good pitchers CAbbey, 0iConnor, Pond and Cookej and the fact that batting was prac- ticed fully as much as fielding, until the team became a very hard-hitting one. Dur- ing these years much was said about professionalism in this University by repre- sentatives of other colleges, and while this criticism was to some degree just, still I know positively that other colleges were more blameworthy in the matter than we were, as can be proved by l:l1'l2ll1Cl3.l offers to many of our players -to go to other colleges, which at the same time were pretending to be entirely free from professionalism, and were criticising us. The collegiate standing of the mem- bers of the teams from '90-,93 is well proven by the fact that all but three of the members of those teams took their degrees, and many of those baseball men have now risen high in their chosen callings.

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THE ARIEL, 1908 19 of the bishop and then with miraculous agility emulated the free range of the queen. lyiy skilful maneuvering we checkmated him after several minutes' play, and led him captive to a seat in the smoker. So much for the Williaiii of the settlements. Behold now a transformation as sudden and complete as that in the old fables! Handle-'grip of axe or of paddle wrought as lightning a change as any wand of fairy godinother. Once in the woods or on the water, the uncertain shadow became a man-not only that, but a man with a past. It was of this past, a youthful time of cakes and ale and ginger hot i' the mouth that he discourscd in slow hesitating monologue, as his blade skilfully kept stroke with mine during our first two leagues on the Montreal River. He had gained and fought and fled from the law. He had led two wives to the church-door. He had visited many lands and found out many inventions. But the crowning glory of his life was his stay in Africa, where, in two years with rich English sportsmen, he had drunk deep of wonders undreamed of by Baker and Living- ston. This thrilling recital somehow recalled to me Othellois moving accidents by flood and fieldng and I began to wonder if, like that dusky gentleman, Wil- liam owed his vaunted success with the ladies to the dangers he had passed. Unsusceptible male creatures, even in the credulous hours of twilight and camp- fire-blaze, were, however, forced to boggle many times at the lions, hydras and chimaeras dire that growled, hissed or shrieked throughout the story of his wander-years. VVhich is coming it strong, yet I state but the facts was not always entirely convincing. That first night, prodigal in the after glow of the rosy that had cheered his day, VVilliam nearly bankrupted himself by too generous drafts on his funds of anecdote. As a story-teller he was far from contemptible. There were no quips and cranks in his style. His words were simple, his manner quiet, and the stuff itself, tremendous, magnificent: it was genuine nature or flagrant art. He spoke with full circumstance of a near-by island, where no one could find sleep, of an Ontario lake in whose seemingly still waters whirlpools were boiling, of a Quinze chute at whose base bleached the bones of many voyageurs, of a camp- ing ground on the Saguenay haunted -by the ghostly voice of a long-drowned luniberinan, chanting appealingly from that weird black river, Viens pour moi, viens pour moi. He dabbled in folk-tales, swimming through an hour-long story of a devil's mill, whose incessant grindings caused the sea to become salt: which veracious narrative Anson had heard from the lips of Portuguese sailors at New Bedford and I have since enjoyed in more lively form in the Old Norse