ENTRY NO. IV
BISHOP'S HIRED MAN
Miss Harding is still in the city, and I have added nothing to this diary for several days. She is expected back to-morrow.
I do not know how to account for it, but since the coming of the Hardings my game has fallen off several strokes. It seems impossible for me to concentrate my mind on my shots.
Ninety-one is very poor golf for nine holes, and I am sure that with practice under a capable golfer Miss Harding could do much better. She has just the figure for a long, true and swinging stroke. I shall make it a point to ask her to play before Carter gets a chance to forestall me.
Unless I am entirely in error Carter is badly smitten with Miss Harding.
It also occurs to me that I have written enough about that young lady.
Mr. Harding is also in the city. I wish I had his opinion about the future of N.O. & G. railroad stock. It has gone down another point, which means the loss of two thousand dollars to me.
An odd sort of an incident happened yesterday morning. None of the scratch players was about, so I accepted an invitation to play a round with LaHume and Miss Lawrence. She is a very pretty girl, though in my opinion she is not to be compared with Miss Harding. LaHume is devoted to her, as much as he can be devoted to any one or anything, and there have been rumours now and then that they were engaged or about to be engaged, but since it has always been possible to trace these reports back to LaHume I have had my doubts of their accuracy. Miss Olive Lawrence has inherited a large fortune, and is the master of it and of herself.
LaHume has been a persistent fortune hunter, and if patience be a virtue he deserves to win. He had a tiff yesterday with Miss Lawrence, and it came about curiously enough.
The Bishop farm adjoins the club grounds on the east, and everyone for miles about knows Bishop. He has little use for anything but work and money, and he always has difficulty in keeping farm labourers, or "hired men," as he terms them.
About a month ago he employed a fellow named Wallace, who admitted that he did not know much about farming, but who said he was strong and healthy and was willing to do the best he could. It was in the haying season and Bishop was short of men, so he gave this chap a chance.
I met Bishop one day shortly after he put Wallace to work, and he told me something about him.
"He's strong an' willin' enough," said Bishop, as we stood talking over the fence, "but he surely is the blamedest, funniest hired man I ever had, an' I've had some that'd make a man quit the church. What do you think he wants?"
I assured him that I could not imagine.
"Soap in his room, and cake soap at that!" he exclaimed. "If I hadn't given it to him he'd a quit, so I had to give it to him. He takes a bath every morning, an' shaves. That's what he does! Gets up about four o'clock and goes down to the old swimming hole in the crick, paddles around a while, an' then comes back to the house an' shaves, an' then goes out an' milks an' cleans out the stables. Never saw a man wash his hands so much in my life, but accordin' to his lights he's a mighty good worker. He eats a lot, but then all hired men eats a lot. An' he reads! Brought a big trunk with him, an' in it was a lot of books in French, Dutch or some other language that no white man can understand. And fight! You know Big Dave Cole, that's been with me for years?"
I assured him that I should never forget "Big Dave" Cole. I have known him ever since he went to work for Bishop, and that was when I was a boy. From that day he has been the terror of the neighbourhood, and I have sometimes thought that even Bishop stood in fear of him.
"Wal," he said slowly and impressively, biting the end from a plug of tobacco, "this here Wallace licked the life plumb out of Big Dave no more than yesterday, an' Big Dave is that disgusted he has packed up and quit me."
"What caused the trouble?" I asked.
"Big Dave called him an English dude, an' it seems that Wallace took offense because he's Scotch," explained Bishop, "at least that's what the other men who was there when it started said. I couldn't get a word outer Wallace, who said he'd quit if I wanted him to, but I told him that a man who could lick Big Dave and come out without a scratch had the makings of a rattlin' good hired man, an' I raised his wages two dollars a month an' gave him Big Dave's room, which is bigger than the one he had. If he could milk, an' run a seeder, or a thresher, or stack oats an' corn as well as he can fight, I would give him forty dollars a month."
This incident was related to me several weeks ago, and I have made it a point to study this chap when I have met him. I should say he is about my age, twenty-five or so, and I must say that he is a good-looking fellow. He is tall, dark of complexion, broad of shoulder and narrow of loin, and certainly looks as if he was able to take care of himself. I presume that he is some college chap who cannot make his way in the profession he has chosen, and who is trying to get a financial start by working on a farm.
I am going to have a talk with him at the first opportunity, and if my suspicion is verified I shall try to find some way to give him a quicker start. I doubt if Bishop is paying him more than twenty dollars a month.
As I started to describe, LaHume, Miss Olive Lawrence and I were playing a threesome. It was along about noon when we came to the tenth tee, which is located so that a sliced ball may go into or over the country road which separates the Bishop farm from the golf course. Miss Lawrence is not an accurate player, but she drives as long a ball as any woman golfer in Woodvale.
She hit the ball hard, but sliced it, and a strong westerly wind helped deflect it to the right. It sailed over the fence, and struck in a ploughed field only a few feet from a man whom I recognised as Wallace.
He had evidently been looking in our direction, and he followed the flight of the ball. He walked up to it.
"Are you playing bounds?" he shouted, lifting his cap.
"Yes!" answered LaHume, "throw it back!"
Wallace carried a stout stick of some kind in his hand. He looked at the end of it critically, placed the ball on a clod of soil, glanced at us and called "Fore!" and then lofted that ball with as clean a shot as ever I saw, dropping it almost at LaHume's feet. He bowed again, twirled the stick about his fingers, and then turned and went toward the farmhouse.
[Illustration: "Fore"]
"Well, what do you think of the cold nerve of that clodhopper?" exclaimed LaHume, staring at the retreating figure of Wallace. "I presume he has ruined that new ball."
"Not with that stroke," I said. "I wish I could make as good an approach with any club in my bag as he did with that improvised cane."
I picked up the ball and found that there was not a blemish on it.
"Wasn't he a handsome young gentleman?" murmured Miss Lawrence, whose eyes had been fixed on Wallace until he vanished behind a clump of trees. "Who is he?"
"Gentleman?" laughed LaHume, teeing the ball. "He's a farm labourer; old Bishop's hired man. One of his duties is to deliver milk every morning at the club house."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Miss Lawrence. "I presume it is impossible for him to attend to such duties and remain a gentleman."
"Not impossible, but highly improbable," laughed young LaHume, unaware that he was treading on thin ice.
"My father made his start in that way, and before he died there were many who called themselves gentlemen who were glad to associate with him," declared Miss Lawrence with a warmth uncommon to her. "What did your father do?"
"Really now, I did not mean anything," stammered LaHume, the red flushing through the tan of his face. It suddenly dawned on me that there was a period in the life of my father when he worked as a hired man in order to earn the money with which to marry my mother, and that from this humble start he was able finally to acquire the ancestral Smith farm, then in the possession of a more wealthy branch of the family. I made common cause with Miss Lawrence, and I did it with better grace from the fact that I resent the airs assumed by LaHume.
"LaHume's father founded the roadhouse down yonder," I said, pointing towards a resort which yet goes by the LaHume name, and one which does not enjoy a reputation any too savory. Of course this is not the fault of the elder LaHume, who has since made a fortune in the hotel business. I could see that the shot went home.
"I say, Smith, let's play golf and cut out this family history business," protested LaHume, who was fighting angry. "It is your shot, Miss Lawrence."
"Don't you think he is handsome, Mr. Smith?" she asked.
"Who; Mr. LaHume?" I returned, not averse to rubbing it into the descendant of the roadhouse keeper.
"Of course not," she replied, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I mean that lovely hired man."
"He's a rustic Apollo," I said, "and it may interest our friend to know that he also combines the qualities of Hercules and Mars."
And while LaHume fumed and Miss Lawrence clapped her hands I told the story of the downfall of "Big Dave" at the hands of the quiet and cleanly Wallace, making sure that the defeat of the village bully lost nothing in its telling.
All the way back to the club house—we did not play out the remaining holes—Miss Lawrence plied me with questions concerning Wallace. Of course I know that her object was to punish LaHume, and she did it most effectively.
She pretended to believe that there is some great romance back of Wallace's present status. She pictured him as a Scotch nobleman, or the son of one, I have forgotten which, forced by most interesting circumstances to remain for a while in foreign lands. She conjured from her fancy the castle in which he was born, and over which he will some time rule, and I helped her as best I could.
I can see that it will be a long time before LaHume will ask me to make up a threesome with Miss Lawrence. I wonder what "the hired man" would think if he knew that his lucky stroke with a hickory club had created so great a furor? I have a suspicion that this was not a lucky day in LaHume's campaign for the Lawrence hand and fortune.
ENTRY NO. V
THE EAGLE'S NEST
Miss Grace Harding is here again, and I am to play a game of golf with her to-morrow. Carter does not know it yet, but that is because I have not had a chance to tell him.
Carter is a rattling good fellow and a fine golfer—he has made Woodvale in seventy-seven; two strokes better than my low score—but he is a bit conceited; he imagines he is a lady's man, and I propose to take him down a peg.
I am certain he schemed to play with Miss Harding before I did, and he went about it in what he doubtless thought was a diplomatic way. He opened his campaign this morning by playing a round with her father. Carter furnished clubs and balls for Mr. Harding, who broke two of the clubs and lost six new balls, to say nothing of those he mutilated.
Diplomacy is not my long suit. I prefer to carry things by assault. When I saw what Carter was up to I formed a plan and put it into operation without delay. It was very simple. I walked right up to Miss Harding and asked her if she would like to play a round with me. That was this morning.
"When?" she asked, with a charming smile which told me victory was in sight.
"Right now!" I said, bold as could be.
"You are brave to ask me to play with you, after what I have told you of my game," she said, pressing down a worm cast with the toe of her dainty shoe. We were standing on the edge of the practise putting green. I am no hand to describe a woman's gowns, and in fact know nothing of them, but I recall distinctly that she was dressed in blue, with some white stuff here and there, and it was very becoming.
"Why?" I inquired.
"If I could play in eighty-five, as you and Mr. Carter do, I would not recognise one who requires from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and sixty," laughed Miss Harding.
For the life of me I cannot recall what I said in answer to this assertion, but it was something stupid, no doubt. She finally promised to play with me to-morrow, explaining that she and her father were about to go automobiling.
We strolled over to one of the practise tees, and I was delighted when she asked me to observe her swing, and advise her how to correct it. I spent half an hour doing this, and she made wonderful improvement. I hoped Carter would come along and see us, but I saw nothing of him.
While we were there, Marshall, Chilvers and Lawson passed and asked me to make up a foursome. For the first time in my life I refused, and the way those idiots looked back at me and grinned tempted me to break a club over their heads. There is no law to compel a man to play golf if he does not wish to. I figured that a rest for half a day would improve my game. The fact is, and the best golfers are coming to realise it, that a man can play so much that he goes stale.
I have just been looking back over the notes of my second entry in this diary of a golfer, and I wish to modify the statement to the effect that a woman under no circumstances appears graceful or attractive in golf attitudes.
In fact I absolutely repudiate that ungallant and prejudiced assertion. In one place I said: "If Miss Harding is beautiful enough to overcome the handicap which always attaches to the golf duffer, she can give Venus all sorts of odds and beat her handily. I have yet to see the woman who shows to advantage with a golf regalia."
I take that back, also.
To see a woman raise a golf club with a jerky, uneven stroke, and come down on the helpless turf with the head of it, as if beating a carpet, has always given me a chill and a sensation of wild rage, but there is something about the way Miss Harding does this which is actually artistic. There are combinations of discords which make for perfect harmony, and it is the same with the little eccentricities of Miss Harding's swing.
[Illustration: "There is no law to compel a man to play golf"]
The poise of the head and shoulders, the sweep of the arms, and the undulations of the figure seem to take on an added charm from what might be called the "graceful crudity" of her stroke. I do not know why this is so, but it is a fact.
I shall never forget the attempt I once made to instruct my sister in the rudimentary principles of the swing of a golf club. She was a pretty girl; bright, lively and graceful, but after I had given her two lessons we were so mad at one another that we did not speak for weeks. It seemingly was impossible to make her distinguish between the back sweep and the follow through. She would persist in coming down on the tee with the face of her club, but at that she made a splendid marriage, and is a happy wife and mother.
Miss Harding will make a first-class golf player, and I told her so.
"Do you really think so?" she asked, after several swings, most of which would have hit the ball.
"I certainly do," I declared. "All that you need is the constant advice of someone who is thoroughly familiar with the technique of the game."
She utterly ignored this hint.
"My one ambition," she said, with a bewitching little laugh, rather plaintive, I thought, "is to drive a ball far enough so that there will be some difficulty in finding it. It must be jolly to hit a ball straight out so far that you cannot tell within yards just where it is. Do you know," and she looked really sad, "I have never lost a ball in my life?"
"How remarkable!" I exclaimed. "I have known Carter to lose a dozen at one game."
"Indeed! I think Mr. Carter is a perfectly splendid player," she declared. "I was watching him one day last week. He is so strong, confident and easy in his execution of shots. If I could drive like he does I would be willing to lose a dozen balls every time I played."
I changed the subject, and was showing her a new way to grip the club when I heard a step behind us.
"Hello, Smith! If you are going out in that buzz-wagon with me, Kid, you had better drop that stick and get a move on."
Of course it was her father. No one else would dare talk to Miss Harding like that. To hear him one would think that she was twelve years old, but I suppose fathers can do as they like.
"Fix up a ball, Kid, and let's see how far you can soak it," he said.
"I am just practising the follow through," explained Miss Harding. "Mr.
Smith has told me many things about the correct way to follow through."
"When your mother was your age she was practising the 'follow through,' as you call it, on a scrubbing board over a wash tub," declared Mr. Harding, and he said it as if he were proud of it.
"I could do that if I had to," laughed Miss Harding, handing me the club. "Thank you, Mr. Smith. To-morrow I expect to show decided improvement. Come on, papa!"
"So long, Smith," said Harding. "I'm going to trim you youngsters at your own game before I get through with you."
I took a rest all the afternoon so as to be in shape for to-morrow. I propose to show Miss Harding that I am the peer of Carter or anyone else who plays here.
It never occurred to me that it was possible to get enjoyment out of a golf course by any method other than by playing over it, but I had keen pleasure all the afternoon in studying the men who frequent the Woodvale links. My refusal to play created a sensation, and I enjoyed that.
It is amusing to study the way in which different players go about this game. The railway station is only a few hundred yards away, and as I watched those men who came on the 1:42 train from the city the thought occurred to me that I could have picked out the good players even had I been a stranger to those who approached the club house. You can class the various types of golfers by their mannerisms, even if you have never seen them with a club in their hands. For instance there were two members who left the station platform at the same time—Duff and Monahan. Both are men of standing in the community, and both are charter members. They started to learn the game at the same period, and both play at least five afternoons during the season, yet Monahan plays consistently in eighty-two, while Duff is fortunate to score in ninety-five. Why this woeful inferiority of Duff?
They are great friends and always play together, and they go through the same performance every time they reach the grounds.
The moment Monahan left the train he headed for the club house as if it were on fire and all of his money in its lockers. Duff says Monahan is perfectly quiet and sane until he catches the first glimpse of the links, but that his blood then begins to boil, and that he burns in a fever of haste to get a club in his hands.
Monahan barely nodded to me as he passed and rushed up stairs. In less than two minutes he was back and ready to play. As he tore out he met Duff, who had strolled complacently up the walk, stopping now and then to speak to a friend or to watch a shot.
Duff's clothes were the model of fashion and good taste. In his hand was twirled a cane, and in his lapel was the inevitable boutonniere. He had paused to chat with Miss Ross—Duff is married and has a daughter older than Miss Ross—and was engaged in a discussion concerning a new play when Monahan approached. Monahan had on a golf suit which would cause his arrest as a tramp if he wandered from the links.
"Did you come up here to play golf or to pose on the veranda?" demanded the indignant Monahan, grasping Duff by the shoulder and swinging him half way around. "Please go away from him, Miss Ross; he will talk you to death."
Twenty minutes later Duff wandered leisurely out to the first tee, where Monahan had been waiting, glaring every few seconds at the club house, and swearing under his breath. Duff looked even neater than in his street clothes. His shirts, scarfs, trousers, shoes and caps form combinations which are sartorial poems.
Duff smiled complacently during the tongue lashing administered by the irate Monahan. This happens regularly every time they play. One would think that the calm, unruffled Duff would defeat the nervous and impatient Monahan, but nothing of the kind happens. The latter exacts revenge by beating Duff to a frazzle.
I do not mean to infer that the slow or deliberate person will not make a good player, but with deliberation he must have that keen interest which dominates all of his faculties.
Marshall, for instance, is the slowest player I ever saw, and one of the best. It is tiresome to watch him prepare to make a shot. He averages four practise strokes. He has become so addicted to the practise-stroke habit that he makes a series of preliminary manoeuvres before carving a steak, and he raises his glass and sets it down several times before taking a drink. His game is the sublimation of caution. It is the brilliancy of care.
Later in the afternoon I wandered down the old lane which bisects the links and climbed "The Eagle's Nest," a jagged pile of rocks which rise on the southeastern part of the course. When a boy I discovered a way to reach the crest of the higher ledge, fully two hundred feet above the brook which takes its rambling course to the west. At this altitude there is a natural seat, so formed by the rocks that those below cannot see the one who uses this as a sentinel box.
It suited my mood to climb there this afternoon. Lazily smoking a cigar I drank in the pastoral panorama spread out before me. The old Sumner road wound as a dusty-gray ribbon amid fields of grain and corn. Below were the pigmy figures of golfers, grotesque in their insignificance, striding along like abbreviated compasses.
What dwarfs they were compared with their huge playground; what insects they were contrasted to the splendid area within the sweep of the horizon; what microbes they were when the eye wandered from them to the superb vault of the skies!
I heard the lowing of cattle, and saw the Bishop herd coming over a hill from the meadows. The notes of a Scotch air, sung in a clear, mellow baritone came to my ears, and a moment later I saw Bishop's "hired man," Wallace, driving the kine before him. His cap was in his hand, and his jet-black hair fell back from his forehead.
I have no idea what impelled me to do so, but I leaned over the cliff and looked below.
Half-way up the gentler slope of "The Eagle's Nest" I saw the figure of a girl, or a woman. I keep my eyes on her, and as near as I can determine she never once took hers from Bishop's hired man. Not until he vanished in the woods which surrounds the farmhouse, did she move. Then she turned and slowly picked her way down the rather dangerous path.
It was Miss Olive Lawrence.
ENTRY NO. VI
I PLAY WITH MISS HARDING
I regret that lack of intimacy with the muses prevents me from recording this entry in verse. I have been playing golf with Miss Harding!
Not until this afternoon did I realise that constant association with Marshall, Carter, Chilvers, and other hardened golfers has dulled my finer sensibilities and deadened my appreciation of the wonderful scenic beauties of the Woodvale golf course.
Like the fool bicycle scorcher who tears past beautiful bits of landscape, his eyes fixed on the dusty path spurned by his whirring wheel, or like the goggled maniac who steers an automobile, I now find that I have played hundreds of times over this course without once having seen it.
When I was a boy my foolish parents took me on a tour of the continent, for the reason, I presume, that they did not dare leave me at home. My impression of the colossal splendour beneath the vaulted heights of Saint Peter's was that a certain smooth space on the tiled floor offered unequalled facilities for playing marbles. I marvelled that baseball grounds were not laid out in the noble open spaces surrounding the palaces of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. The Swiss Alps had a fascination for me by reason of their unsurpassed opportunities for coasting.
It never occurred to me until to-day that nature had any motive in planning Woodvale other than to provide a sporty golf course. Miss Harding has opened my eyes to the fact that it is one of the most beautiful spots on the face of the earth.
When I told Carter I was to play with Miss Harding, he looked sort of queer for a moment, and then bet me a box of balls I would not make eighty-five. This was the only thing he could think to say. He tried hard to conceal his surprise, but I could see that he was hard hit.
He wins the box of balls, all right. As a matter of fact we did not finish the round, but I did not tell Carter that. I simply grinned happily and told him that he had won.
There is no reason why I should attempt to write an account of this game in this diary. I shall never forget the slightest detail of it as long as I live.
The night is black as a raven's wing, but I am certain that I can start from the first tee and retrace every step made by Miss Harding over the fourteen holes played, and I will admit that it was far from a straight line. I will wager that I can place my hand on every place where her club tore up the turf, and can locate the exact spots where she drove out of bounds.
The day was beautiful, the weather perfect. A few fleecy clouds drifted across a deep sky. The rich green of the slopes blended into the darker shades of the encompassing forests. As a rule, the only thing I can recall after a golf game, so far as weather is concerned, is whether it rained or if a high wind were blowing. It was different to-day.
I noted that the breeze was just strong enough to ruffle the lace at her throat, and that the blue of her gown matched perfectly with cloud, sky, and the dominating tones of the undulating carpet on which she tread.
I might play with Marshall or Chilvers a thousand times and not know or care if the links were garbed in green or yellow, or if the clouds were pink or Van Dyke brown, but as I said before, the only sentiment aroused by association with these vindictive golf fiends is a wild and unreasoning desire to beat the life out of them at their own game. I dislike to say it, but they have never inspired in me one sentiment of which I am proud.
At my suggestion we decided to start at the third tee. The first one requires a long drive to carry the lane, and on the second it is necessary to negotiate the old graveyard, and I disliked to put Miss Harding to so severe a test on the start.
As I made a tee for her and carefully placed a new white ball on it, I could not help think of the many times I have sneered and laughed at Thomas, who is the only good player in the club who has really seemed to enjoy a game of golf with one of the opposite sex.
I can see now that I have been very unfair to Thomas.
The man who refuses to play golf with a woman, or who even hesitates, and who justifies such conduct on the plea that she cannot play well enough to make the contest an equal one—well, he has none of the finer instincts of a gentleman.
I told Marshall and Chilvers so this evening, and they laughed at me.
Both of these men are married, and both used to play golf with their sweethearts when they were engaged. Once in a great while they now play a round with the alleged partners of their joys and sorrows, but they do it as if it were a penance, and seem immensely relieved when the ordeal is over. It is pitiful to watch these two ladies forced to play together, while their lords and masters indulge in fierce foursomes, waged for the brute love of victory—and incidentally, perhaps for a ball a hole.
If I ever marry I shall play with the habitual golfer only when Mrs.
Smith is disinclined to favour me with her society on the links.
Chilvers and Marshall say that they made the same resolution—and kept
it nearly six months. Let them watch me.
Miss Harding missed the ball entirely the first time she swung at it, and both of us laughed heartily.
Now that I come to think of it, nothing used to infuriate me more than to have to wait on a tee for a woman who was wildly striking at a ball. But one must learn, and it is no disgrace for a lady to miss so small an object as a golf ball.
She hit the ball on the second attempt. It did not go far, it is true, but it went gracefully, describing a parabolic curve considerably to the right of the line of the green.
Then I drove a long, straight ball, and felt just a little bit ashamed of myself. It seemed like taking an unfair advantage of my fair opponent. In fact it seemed a brutal thing to do, but she expressed delight.
"That was splendid, Mr. Smith!" she declared, as my ball stopped rolling, more than two hundred yards away. "I know that my poor little game will bore you to death, but you invited this calamity."
"I only wish that—that I——" and then I stopped in time to keep from saying something foolish.
"Well?" she said, a smile hovering on her lips.
"I only wish that I could drive as far as that every time," I continued, "and—and that you could drive twice as far."
"What an absurd wish!" declared Miss Harding.
It was worse than absurd; it was stupid! Imagine a woman driving a ball four hundred yards! I would never dare marry such a woman, and I came near making some idiotic remark to that effect, but luckily at that moment we came to her ball. I selected the proper club for her, jabbered something about how to play the shot, and thus got safely out of an awkward situation.
At my suggestion we were playing without caddies. There are times when these little terrors take all of the romance out of a situation, and I did not wish to be bothered with them.
On her fourth shot Miss Harding landed her ball in the brook, and it took quite a time to find it. While we were looking for it Boyd and LaHume arrived on the tee, and I motioned them to drive ahead.
I have seen this brook a thousand times. It was my greatest source of amusement and mischief when a boy, but never until this afternoon did I observe its perfect beauty. Heretofore it has been no more nor less than a ribbon of water with weed-lined banks and tall rushes, into which a poor player is likely to drive a ball and lose one or more strokes. It is one of our "natural hazards," and I have thought no more of it than I would of the cushion on a billiard table.
I shall never cross that brook again without thinking of her face as I saw it mirrored in the shadows of the old stone bridge. The reflection was framed with delicate interfacings of water cress, while in the bed of the stream the smooth pebbles gleamed like pearls. The pointed reeds nodded and waved in the gentle breeze.
Now that I think of it, I have cursed those reeds many, many times while hunting for a lost ball.
"Is it not beautiful?" I exclaimed to Miss Harding.
"That drive of Mr. Boyd's?" she asked in reply. Boyd had made a ripper, which went sailing over our heads. "It was a lovely drive! He has beaten you by several yards."
"I meant the brook," I said.
"The brook?" she exclaimed. "I am surprised, Mr. Smith! I had no idea that a confirmed golfer could find beauty in anything outside of a drive, brassie, approach or putt."
"You malign us, Miss Harding," I declared, looking first in her eyes and then in her mirrored image in the water. "From where I stand that brook is the most lovely thing in the world, except—except——"
"Mr. LaHume has put his ball square on the green on his second shot!" interrupted Miss Harding, clapping her hands in excitement.
I do not know whether she knew what I was going to say or not. I wish I had the nerve to finish some of the fine speeches and compliments I plan and begin, but as a rule I end them without a climax.
We found the ball and I dropped it a few yards back of the brook. She promptly drove it into the brook a second time, and what became of it will always remain a mystery to me. It did not go more than fifteen feet, and we looked and looked but could not find it, so I smiled and dropped another one, and this time she made a really good shot.
Counting all of the strokes and penalties it took Miss Harding fifteen to make that hole, the bogy for which is four, but I assured her that I have known men to do worse, and I believe the statement a fact, though I cannot recall at this moment who did it in such woeful figures.
Miss Harding insisted in trying to drive over the pond on the fourth hole, and said she would gladly pay for all the balls that went into it, but of course I would not listen to that. The pond is very shallow at this season of the year, and in fact is a mud hole in most places, and it is therefore impossible to recover a ball which fails to carry less than eighty yards.
She barely touched the ball on her first attempt, and I got it after wading in the mud to my shoe tops. Then she hit it nicely, but it failed to carry the pond by a few yards, and disappeared in the ooze.
"I thought I could do it, but I give it up," she said, and I could see that she was disappointed.
"Try it again," I insisted, teeing up a new one. "Keep your eye on the ball when your club comes down, and don't press."
She made a brave effort, but hit the ball a trifle on top. It struck the water, ricochetted and eventually poised itself on a mud bank. I recall how white it looked against the black slime with lily pads in the background, but I saw at a glance that it would remain there, so far as we were concerned.
[Illustration: "We rested on top of the hill"]
Against her protest I teed another ball, but she went under it and it met the fate of its predecessors. It took all my eloquence to induce her to make the five attempts which followed, and then I made the discovery that I had brought only eight new balls with me. So I excused myself and went back to the club house and bought a box of a dozen, but nothing would change her determination not to try it again.
I am firmly convinced that with a little luck she could have done it, but it was the first time Miss Harding had played this course, and that makes lots of difference.
Of the various incidents in this most delightful game nothing gave me more keen enjoyment than when Miss Harding played Carter's ball. It was by mistake, of course. Nature has implanted in woman an instinct which leads her to play any ball rather than her own. The ball thus selected is generally without a blemish, and it has been ordained that a weak little creature can with one stroke cut that sphere in halves.
That is what happened to Carter's ball when Miss Harding played it by mistake, and I never laughed more heartily. Carter smiled and bowed and pretended to be amused, but I knew he was not.
We rested on top of the hill after this exploit and talked of the rare view and of other topics which had nothing whatever to do with golf. Never before have I rested during a game, and I did not think it possible. I have been on that hill innumerable times, but it never occurred to me to take more than a passing glance at the inspiring vista which spreads away to the north and west.
We talked of poetry and of art. Think of sitting with a golf club in your hand, resting a few rods from a tee where a clean shot will carry the railway tracks a hundred feet below and land your ball on a green two hundred and eighty yards from the tee—it is one of the finest holes in the country—think of idling an hour away on the most perfect golf afternoon you ever saw, and repeating line after line of verse descriptive of "meadows green and sylvan shades," and all that sort of thing!
We did that! I would not believe it, but I actually felt sorry for the chaps who went past us, their minds absorbed in the mere struggle to see which would take the fewer numbers of strokes in putting golf balls in certain round holes. Honestly I pitied them.
And they envied me. I could see that. The arrival of Miss Harding has created a sensation, and it was no small honour to play the first game with her. Of course Marshall, Chilvers, Pepper and other married men hardly noticed me, but Thomas, Boyd, Roberts and such young gallants smiled, bowed and looked longingly in my direction.
It took us more than five hours to play twelve holes, and I have played twice around in less than that. I have not the slightest idea what my score is, and that is something which never before happened to me. Carter wins a dozen balls, and he can have them, or a dozen dozen for all I care.
Miss Harding has promised to play with me again.
ENTRY NO. VII
TWO BOYS FROM BUCKFIELD
When Harding was in the city he purchased a huge golf bag, the most wonderful assortment of clubs imaginable, also two golf suits and a bewildering array of shirts, caps, scarfs, shoes and other articles that some dealers assured him were necessary for the proper playing of the game.
"If I have got to play this fool game, and I suppose there is no way I can get out of it," he said to me, looking down disdainfully at his knickerbockered legs and taking an extra hitch on his new leather belt, "I may as well have the regulation uniform. How do I look?"
I told him the suit was very becoming. He was a sight! On his huge, bushy head was a Scotch cap, and it is certain that no clan stands sponsor for that bewildering plaid. The silk shirt was a beauty, but it did not harmonise with the burning red of his coat, with its cuffs and collar of vivid green.
His trousers were of another plaid, but I should say that his stockings were the dominating feature of his make-up. They were of green and gray, the stripes running around instead of up and down, the effect being, of course, to emphasise the appearance of stoutness. When you pull a thick stocking or legging over an eighteen-inch calf you have done something which compels even those who are near-sighted and blasé to sit up and give attention.
Harding's feet are of generous proportions, and his tan shoes with their thick, broad soles armed with big spikes to keep him from slipping looked most impressive.
He was the personification of newness. The leather of his bag was flawless, and the grips of his clubs were new and glossy. The steel and nickel of his iron clubs shone without one flaw to dim their lustre. In the pocket of his bag were a dozen new balls, so white and gleaming that it seemed a shame to use them. I could see that the art collection of balls being made by Miss Dangerfield would take on a boom from the advent of Harding.
"Tell you what I want to do, Smith," said Harding, as we stood on the veranda of the club house, early this forenoon. "I want to find some place where I can soak a ball as far as I can and not have it stopped by a hill or a brook, or something like that. I haven't been over this place yet, but isn't there some smooth, level place where a ball would naturally roll a quarter of a mile or so if you hit it good and hard?"
"The eighteenth hole is six hundred and thirty-two yards—one of the longest in the country," I said, "and it is smooth as a barn floor after you carry the railroad tracks. That is a long carry, and most players go short and take the tracks on their second shot."
"Six hundred odd yards," he mused. "Let's see; over a third of a mile, eh?"
I said that it was, and a par hole in six.
"Anybody ever drive it yet?" he asked.
"Drive it?" I repeated, laughing. "Well, I should say not! I have reached the green in three only twice in all the times I have played it, and am well satisfied to be there in four."
"That proves nothing to me," he said, looking me over, "but you're a pretty husky-appearing chap at that. You're nearly six feet, aren't you, Smith?"
"A quarter of an inch more than six feet in my stockings," I said.
"And how much do you weigh?"
"One hundred and eighty-five."
"You'd ought to be able to drive a ball farther than you do," he said, with the air of one who had mastered the game in all its details. There is not a man in the club who can consistently out-drive me, and I'll wager that Kirkaldy himself cannot average ten yards more than I do, but what was the use of arguing with Harding?
It was easy to see that this magnate actually believed that his first stroke at a golf ball was no accident, and was confident that with a little practice he could far surpass that terrific drive of two hundred and seventy yards. But though I well knew what was coming to him I held my peace.
I asked Kirkaldy if he had ever known of a happening similar to Harding's now famous drive. He said he could not recall when a duffer had reached so great a distance, but it was not unusual for a husky novice to drive a few good balls before he began to attempt an improvement of a natural, but of course crude, stroke.
"But," I asked Kirkaldy, "how did Harding manage to drive it so far?"
"Strength and luck, mon," said our Scotch professional, "the more luck. It war th' same as when ye won a match with me by makin' th' last three holes in less than bogy. Luck, mon, is yer truest friend."
I think Kirkaldy is right.
"I never like to take up a thing unless it is difficult," said Harding, as we started for the eighteenth tee. "I like to do the things other men say cannot be done, and without blowing my own horn I have done a few of them. I am fond of work, but when I play I play with all my might. The boy who is not a good player will never make a good worker. You take a boy who is playing baseball, for instance. I can watch a game among youngsters and pick out those who are likely to win out later on in life."
"How?" I interrupted.
"By the way they go at it. The one who covers the most ground on a ball field will cover the most ground later on in whatever he undertakes. The one who plays to win, who takes chances even at the risk of making errors is the coming man. The boy who sits down in the out-field, on the theory that a ball is not likely to come in his direction, will be poor all his life. The boy who plays an unimportant position as if his very existence depended upon it will get along all right, and don't you forget it. But this golf game is so simple that it does not call on a man to let himself out. Billiards is my game. Billiards is a game of endless possibilities, and no matter how well a man plays there is always room for improvement."
That made me mad, and I resented this assertion the more for the reason that I once held the same views as he then expressed. I went right at him.
"When you have played as many games of golf as you have of billiards," I said, and I play a fair billiard game myself, "you will not mention them in the same breath. Let me assure you, Mr. Harding, that golf is the most difficult game in the world, and you have only the slightest conception of what you must master before you can play more than an indifferent sort of a game."
He smiled indulgently.
"What is there hard about it?" he demanded. "In billiards, for instance, you—"
"You play billiards on a table which is not more than five feet by ten," I broke in, "and you play golf on a table which may cover two hundred acres of hills, woods, marshes, ponds, brooks, and meadows. You play billiards in a room which is always at about the same temperature, and where there is not a breath of air stirring. You play golf out-of-doors, where it may be one hundred in the shade or far below freezing; under conditions of perfect calm, or with winds ranging all the way from a zephyr to gales from every point of the compass."
"There is something in that," he admitted, "but you need not get mad about it, Smith."
"Your billiard table is always the same," I continued. "It consists of the cloth and four cushions, and they are smooth as art can make them. Your golf course is never the same on any two days, and would not be if you played through all eternity. Sometimes the grass in a certain place is long, and sometimes it is short; sometimes it is thick, and again it is thin; sometimes the ground is hard from lack of rain, and again it is soft and spongy from an excess of rain. There are millions of variations in these conditions, and every one of them must be considered in making a perfect shot."
"Yes, I suppose that is so," he admitted, and I could see I had started him thinking.
"There are days when the air is light," I went on, "and when a certain stroke will send the ball where you wish it to go. There are other days when the air is heavy, and when a hit ball seems to have no life in it. You must allow for the force and direction of every slant of wind. There are conditions of atmosphere when objects seem near, and others when they seem far away, and you must take this into account."
He was silent, and I went on.
"On a billiard table your ball is always within easy reach. You stand on a level floor and play on a level table. In golf your ball never lands in the same place twice. It may be above you, or below you. It may lie in any one of ten million separate conformations of ground, and for each you must exercise judgment. Your clubs change in weight as you clean them; no two golf balls have the same degree of elasticity when new, and as you use them it decreases. But more than all else, you are not the same man physically or mentally on any two days. A slight increase in weight, the wearing of an extra garment, the congestion of a muscle or the stiffening of a chord may be sufficient to throw you off your stroke and seriously impair your game."
"Nonsense; I don't believe it," he declared. "When I once find out how to make a certain shot I will keep right on improving until I have it perfect."
"If that were possible golf would lose its charm," I said. "A man will go on making a certain shot with almost perfect accuracy for months, and all at once lose the knack of it, and not be able to recover it for months, and perhaps never. In order to hit a golf ball accurately there are scores of muscles which must act in perfect accord, and the several parts of the body must maintain certain positions during the various parts of the stroke. If the shoulder drops the quarter of an inch, if the heel rises too soon by the minutest fraction of a second, if either hand grasping the club turns in any degree the stroke is ruined. You will hit the ball, but it will not go the distance or the direction required."
"Must be a mighty hard game, from all that you say," he laughed, grimly. "Guess I'd better go back and not try it, but I notice that there was nothing the matter with the position of my muscles, cords, hands and the rest of my anatomy the other day when I whacked that ball out of sight. And I can do it again, Smith, and don't you forget it."
I preferred to await the arbitrament of events so far as that boast was concerned.
We had arrived at the eighteenth tee, and he looked over the field with much satisfaction. The railroad embankment is about one hundred and fifty yards from the tee, and few try to carry it. The old post road runs parallel to the line of this hole, and forms the western boundary of the Woodvale links. There is no bunker save the railroad bank for the entire distance, and it is an ideal hole for the golf "slugger."
"Where is the green?" asked Harding, standing on the elevated tee. I pointed in the line of the old church belfry, and after a long look he declared that he could see the white flag floating from the standard.
"Nobody ever drove it, you say?" he observed, throwing his shoulders back.
"Of course not," I laughed, and added, "and never will."
"Don't be too sure about that," he said, piling a mound of sand. "It's nothing more than a 'putt,' as you call it, to bat a ball over that railroad."
"You talk about driving six hundred yards to that green," I said, annoyed at his ignorant nerve, "I will bet you a box of cigars that you do not carry that railroad track in a month."
"Don't be foolish, Smith."
"Do you wish to bet?"
"Of course I do," he replied, teeing a ball, "and we'll get action on it in about ten seconds. Just keep your eye on this ball!"
Disdaining to take a practice stroke, he swung viciously at it. He must have caught it on the toe of his club, for it sliced to the right in a low and sweeping curve.
As I followed its flight I saw a farm wagon in the road. The driver had stopped his team, and was standing up watching Harding. I recognised Farmer Bishop, and noted that his sallow face was distorted in a disdainful grin, which froze on his lips when he saw the ball curving toward him.
It is difficult for an experienced golfer to dodge a sliced drive, even when he has a chance to run to one side or the other, but all that Bishop could do was to duck, which he did, with the result that the ball hit his left temple. He half fell and half jumped to the ground, and was not so badly hurt as to prevent his being the maddest agriculturist I have seen in many years.
He danced up and down at the edge of the road, his hand to his head, warm, loud words flowing in a torrent from his mouth.
Harding dropped his club and we both ran toward the injured man. Harding was the first to reach the fence, but he did not climb over.
"Did it hit you?" he asked Bishop.
The farmer took one more hop and then turned and faced the railroad magnate. There was a lump over his eye bigger than a hen's egg, and on it I could see the bramble marks of the ball. It was a moment before his rage permitted utterance. He spit out a mouthful of tobacco so as not to be handicapped.
"Did you hit me; you dod-gasted old poppinjay of a fat dude!" he exclaimed, shaking a brawny, freckled fist at Harding. "Did you hit me; you flabby old chromo! Do you suppose I fall out of my wagon and dance up and down this road for exercise; you old boiled lobster?"
"I am very sorry, sir," said Harding, amusement and growing anger struggling for mastery. "I wasn't shooting in this direction. Something happened to my ball; what do you call it, Smith?"
[Illustration: "Did it hit you?"]
"You sliced it," I said.
"That's it; I sliced it," declared Harding, as if that were more or less of a valid excuse.
"You come over that fence an' I'll slice you!" roared Bishop, taking a step forward. "Things have come to a fine pass in this country if an honest farmer can't take his milk to town without riskin' bein' murdered by plutocrats with 'sliced balls' and all that blankety-blank tommyrot. Climb over on this side of the fence an' I'll lick seven kinds of stuffin' out of you in erbout a minute."
"Keep your shirt on!" retorted Harding, "you won't lick nobody."
He looked curiously at the maddened farmer.
"Your name is Bishop, isn't it?" he asked, and I wondered how he happened to know.
"Yes, my name's Bishop," was the sullen and defiant answer.
"Jim Bishop?"
"Yes; Jim Bishop."
Harding grinned good-naturedly.
"Don't you know who I am?" he asked.
"No, I don't, and I don't give a damn!" replied Bishop, looking at him more closely, I thought.
"Did you know a young fellow named Harding when you were a boy?" asked
Harding.
"Bob Harding?"
"Yes, Bob Harding!"
"Do you mean to tell me that you're the Bob Harding who uster live on a farm near Buckfield, Maine?" asked Bishop, the anger dying from his voice.
"That's what I am!" declared the millionaire, as Bishop came toward him, a curious smile on his tanned face. "How are you, Jim?"
"Well; I'll be jiggered! How are you, Bob?" and they shook hands across the fence. For a moment neither spoke.
"It's thirty years or more since I've seen you," said Harding. "When did you move to this country?"
"Over twenty-five years ago," said Bishop. "And what have you been doing with yourself all these years? I surely hope you've found something better to do than play this here fool game an' knock people's heads off."
He tenderly rubbed the lump on his forehead.
"I just took this game up," said Harding rather sheepishly. "I've been building railroads."
"Are you Robert L. Harding, the railroad king that the papers talks so much erbout?" demanded Bishop.
"I guess I'm the fellow," admitted Harding.
"Well; I never would er believed it!" gasped Bishop, and then they shook hands again.
They sat on a rock and talked about Buckfield and their boyhood days for an hour. It seems that they were born and raised on adjoining farms, and were chums until Harding's father died, at which time Harding went West and found his fortune.
Not until the horses became restless and started to go home did Bishop note the passing of time. He cordially invited Harding and his daughter to come and call on him, and Harding did not hesitate in accepting the invitation.
Now that I think of it, none of us gave a thought to that ball, and I suppose it is out in the road yet. Harding said that was all the golf he wished that day, and so we went back to the club house.
"Talk about driving a ball six hundred yards, Smith," he said, as we came to the eighteenth tee. "I knocked that ball so far that I hit a boy in Maine, and that's hundreds of miles from here."
ENTRY NO. VIII
DOWNFALL OF MR. HARDING
I do not know whether to be annoyed or amused over the result of my second golf game with Miss Harding. It was not in the least like my anticipations.
Our first game was so romantic. It was as if the kindly skies had raised a dome over earth's most favoured spot and reserved it for our use. It was different to-day.
I presume it is necessary that beautiful maidens shall have fathers. I raise no doubt that Mr. Harding is a wonderful financier and railroad genius, and it is likely he is entitled to a vacation and to that relaxation which comes from taking exercise, but this does not justify him in—well, in "butting in" on our game. I don't use slang as a rule, but no other term so accurately describes the conduct of that gentleman this afternoon.
As for Carter—I have no words to express what I think of Carter.
If I had a daughter nineteen years old it would occur to me that she might prefer to play golf with a young gentleman somewhere near her own age rather than with me, especially if that young gentleman were a good golfer, and possessed of wealth, prospects, and honourable ambitions. But Mr. Harding treats her as if she were a school miss in short dresses. He persists in calling her "Kid," and only rarely does he address her by the beautiful name of Grace.
When Miss Harding started from the club house her father was on the lawn not many yards away engaged in the interesting but expensive experiment of trying to drive balls across the lake. He was buying new balls by the box—they cost $5.50 a box—with the joyous abandon of a pampered boy purchasing fire-crackers on the Fourth of July.
All he asks of a ball is "one crack at it," and the caddies were reaping a harvest. He had not made one decent drive, and was surprised and angry.
As luck would have it he turned and saw us as we were starting for the first tee. He had laid aside that flaming red-and-green coat, and was in his shirt sleeves. His face was crimson from exertion, and his hair wet with perspiration.
"Where are you going?" he called.
"We're going to play a round," I answered, with a sinking heart.
"Good; I'll go with you," he returned. "Chuck the rest of those balls into that sack," he said to one of his caddies, "and follow me."
What could I do but say we would be delighted to have him join us? We were waiting for him, when who should come from the club house but Carter.
"Hello there, Carter!" shouted Harding. "Come on and play with us! This is my first real game, and we'll make it a foursome, or whatever you call it. What d'ye say?"
"That's fine!" declared Carter.
I happen to know that he had already made up a game with Marshall, Boyd, and Chilvers, but he did not hesitate to abandon them for his long-coveted chance to play with Miss Harding.
"We'll have a great game," asserted Mr. Harding mopping his brow. "How shall we divide up? I suppose you're the best player, Carter, and Smith comes next, but I can beat the Kid, here," patting Miss Harding on the shoulder.
"I'll bet you cannot," I declared, angry that he should class Carter above me.
"Bet I cannot beat my Grace?" he exclaimed. I told him that such was my opinion.
"Of course I can beat you, papa," laughed Miss Harding. "You have never played, and know nothing of the game. I can beat you easily."
"Talk of the insolence and ingratitude of children!" he gasped. "Kid, I'm astonished at you! I'll teach both of you a lesson. What do you want to bet, Smith?"
I suggested that a box of balls would suit me as a bet.
"Box of monkeys!" exclaimed Harding. "I thought you were a sport, Smith!
A box of balls don't last me as long as a box of cigarettes does Carter.
Tell you what I'll do. We'll all keep track of our shots, and for every
one I beat her you pay me a box of balls, and for every one she beats me
I pay you a box of balls. How does that strike you?"
"Take him up, Mr. Smith," said Miss Harding, a smile on her lips and a meaning glance in her eyes. I would not have hesitated had I known it would have cost me every dollar in the world.
"You are on, Mr. Harding," I said.
"We'll teach you a good lesson, Papa Harding," she declared, with a confidence which surprised me. "You have never seen me play."
He roared with laughter.
"Talk about David and Goliath!" he exclaimed. "Tell you what I'll do, Kid. I'll make you a small bet on the side. You remember that sixty horse-power buzz wagon we were looking at in the city the other day?"
"The one in red that I admired so much?" asked Miss Harding.
"Yes, the one you tried to soft soap me into buying. Tell you what I'll do. If you beat me I'll buy that machine for you, and if I beat you I get a new hat which you pay for out of your pin money."
"It's a shame to take advantage of you, papa, dear," she hesitated, "but
I want that machine awfully, and I'll make the wager."
[Illustration: "… and missed the ball by three inches"]
"If you never get it until you beat me at this shinny game you will wait a long time," he declared. "Who shoots first?"
"Miss Harding and I will be partners," suggested Carter, before I could get the words out of my mouth.
"Since I am interested in Miss Harding's play to the extent of a box of balls a stroke, I claim the right to act as her partner and adviser," I said, looking hard at Carter.
"Mr. Smith and I will be partners," said Miss Harding, and it was the happiest moment of my life.
"I don't care who are partners," said Harding, stepping up to the tee.
"I'll shoot first, and you keep your eye on your Uncle Dudley!"
He piled up a hill of sand, gripped his club like grim death, drew back, swung with all his might—and missed the ball by three inches.
"One stroke!" laughed Miss Harding.
"That don't count!" he declared. "I didn't hit the blamed thing at all!
Look at it! It's just where I fixed it a minute ago. Don't cheat, Kid!"
"A missed ball counts a stroke," laughed Carter.
"Are you sure that's the rule?"
We all assured him there was not the slightest doubt of it.
"All that I can say is that it's a fool rule," he protested, "but at that, one missed swipe cuts little figure with me. Here goes for number two!"
"Don't press!" cautioned Carter.
"I'll press all I darned please. Keep your eyes on this one!"
He grazed the ball enough to make it roll not more than twenty feet into a clump of tall grass. He looked blankly at it, but did not say a word. Then he took a jack-knife from his pocket and cut two notches in the shaft of his club.
Carter drove out a good one, and I teed a ball for Miss Harding. The lane is about a hundred yards away, and I thought of advising her to play short, but on reflection determined not to embarrass her by suggestions so early in the game.
The moment she took her stance and grasped her club I noted a difference in her style of play as compared with that of the preceding day. Her club head came back with a free, even curve, and on the return she caught the ball with a good though not perfect follow through. The ball carried straight and true over the lane, and did not stop rolling until it had passed the 130-yard mark. It was a nice clean drive, and I smiled my approval.
"Good work, Kid," grinned Harding, but he did not seem the least dismayed. I should not care to play poker with him. I lined out a beauty, and then Harding returned to the attack.
It took two strokes to get his ball out of the grass. On his fifth shot the ball had a good lie about ten yards from the lane fence. He smashed at it with a brassie, but drove too low. The ball hit a fence post and bounded back fully seventy-five yards. In five strokes he had not gained a foot. After a combination of weird and wonderful shots he reached the green in twelve.
Harding's putting was a revelation in how not to drop a ball in a cup. He went back and forth over the hole like a shuttle. This performance added six to his score, and he holed out in nineteen. He was fighting mad, but did not say a word. While the rest of us were holing out he sullenly added seventeen notches to his club.
I was astonished and pleased at the reversal in form shown by Miss Harding. Two iron shots laid her ball on the green, her approach was a little weak, and she missed an easy two-foot putt, but she made the hole in seven, which is not at all bad for a woman. Carter and I both got fours.
When Harding finally got his ball out of the old graveyard in playing the second hole there was a dispute as to how many strokes he had taken. I counted twelve, but he claimed only nine, and we let him have his own way about it. I did not dare to dispute with him, fearing that he might have a stroke of apoplexy. He marked eleven new notches on his club shaft for this hole.
He made a fair drive over the marsh on his third hole, flubbed his second and third shots, but his fourth was a screaming brassie which landed him on the green within two inches of the cup. It was one of those freak shots which a man makes once a season, but Harding took vast credit for it and was the happiest person on the links over his bogy five for this long hole.
Miss Harding was playing like a veteran. This hole is 355 yards from the tee, but she was well on the green on her third, and holed out in six. Carter did the same, but I got a five and saved the hole for our side.
I do not know how to account for Miss Harding's improved playing. It was not in the least like that of the day when we were alone. For the entire eighteen holes she played steady, consistent golf. It was not brilliant, but it was a creditable exhibition for a woman. She kept on the course, missed only two drives, and rarely failed to get distance and direction.
Not until we had played half-way around and Harding was hopelessly behind did he give voice to his amazement.
"This is the time you have got the old man down and out, Kid," he said, after she had made the ninth hole in four to his fourteen. "I'll admit that there is a trick about this game that I'm not on to, but you just wait; you just wait. I seem to hit 'em all right, but confound 'em, they don't go right. I don't understand it. I'd have bet a million dollars against a perfecto cigar that I could drive a ball farther than a 125-pound girl, even if she is my daughter."
"We will call our bet off, Mr. Harding," I suggested, satisfied that we had tumbled him from the pedestal reared by his conceit.
"We'll call nothing off," he promptly declared. "Soak it to me as hard as you can; I'll get even with all of you before the season's over."
No language can describe the game played by the railway magnate. His miserable playing was supplemented by worse luck. A predatory cow swallowed his ball. He drove another one into the crotch of a tree, hit Carter in the shin, broke a window in the club house, tore his trousers, sprained his thumb, and poisoned his hands with ivy while searching for a lost ball. He conversed much with himself when Miss Harding was not near.