by Herman Wouk
Bulldog, bulldog, bow-wow-wow,
Man-i-tou.
We always will come through,
Bulldog, bulldog, bow-wow-wow,
and so on. This anthem was a relic of the first head counselor, Uncle Yale, a graduate of Old Eli, of course, and now a drudging lawyer far from the Berkshires. When Herbie first heard the song he had been puzzled by the numerous references to bulldogs, but everybody else seemed to think it made sense, so he refrained from showing his ignorance. Soon he, like the others, took the words for granted, and formed a sentimental liking for them.
But he had never heard “Bulldog” sung before as it was this day. Thrill chased thrill down his back as he shouted the tune with all his might. He glanced sidelong at Ted, and saw that the cynical old Gauss-hater was singing his soul out, too, his skinny face lit with fervor, his big mouth working, his eyes wet and glistening. Poor Ted! The love in a boy's heart must go out to familiar things. What had he had to love, for six long summers, but Camp Manitou?
Out to the best baseball diamond, which had been newly clipped, trimmed, and marked with whitewash, marched the Penobscots, followed by the whole Gaussian crew from the Midgets to the Super-seniors. Soon the enemy were seated along the first-base line, while the Manitou spectators ranged along the path to third base. Now in the distance sweet voices were heard chanting “Over hill, over dale,” and the girls' camp hove into sight, dressed as prettily as for services and singing the Penobscot tune with roguish glances at the strangers. It was considered a handsome gesture by everybody except the Manitou boys, who looked sullen. A whisper spread through their ranks that Aunt Tillie was “sweet” on the head counselor of Penobscot, Uncle Husky, a tall, long-jawed man with blond hair and a heavy tan. Indeed, Aunt Tillie did look almost slim for once in a gleaming white dress, and her freckles were mysteriously not in evidence. The boys, ignorant though they were of the arts of cosmetics and corsetry, nevertheless were suspicious of the striking change. And when Aunt Tillie, smiling happily, shook hands with this Uncle Husky, she stood condemned as a weak-minded traitress, and scattered jeers were heard from the vicinity of third base.
The girls' camp was placed beside the Penobscots. Herbie could not see his sister, but luckily both he and Lucille were in front ranks. It was not easy to send passionate glances across the breadth of a baseball diamond, but Herbie did his best, and though the features of his loved one were indistinct, he could see her returning his look and smiling. The boy decided that it might be a pleasant day after all.
The Manitou team took the field, to a vigorous “Oink-oink, bowwow” led by Uncle Irish. All the players were Seniors or Super-seniors, except for the shortstop, Lennie Krieger. Though Lennie was large for his age, he was puny in this company; nor would he have been in the game, except for the ivy poisoning of Yishy Gabelson. He had taken the place of the Senior shortstop, Boy Kaiser, who had been shifted to Yishy's pitching duty. Misgivings about Lennie were rife when he trotted to his post, a grammar-school boy among youths of fifteen, but in the few moments of warming up before play he showed that he was not overmatched. The speed and accuracy of his throws, the deftness of his running catches, were good to see. A wave of sympathy for him spread among the spectators. The Penobscot cheering section astonished and pleased their hosts by rendering their camp cry, “Bang chugga bang,” in honor of Lennie. The girls' camp, let by Aunt Tillie herself, immediately took up the idea with:
Strawberry shortcake, huckleberry pie,
V-I-C-T-O-R-Y,
Are we in it? Well, I guess.
Lennie! Lennie! Yes, yes, yes!
After this there was nothing left for the boys to do but to honor Lennie with an “Oink-oink, bow-wow” all for himself. Lennie acknowledged these unusual tributes with modest nods, and continued to practice coolly. Cast for once in the role of underdog, Lennie had never been a more sympathetic figure. Herbie felt he could forgive him the injuries of all the years if only he would help to win the game.
But, faultlessly as the Intermediate performed, it soon became evident that Yishy Gabelson's passion for blackberries was going to cost Manitou dear. Boy Kaiser seemed to be serving up his pitches to the Penobscot athletes for batting practice. They hit, and hit, and hit, and were only retired when the outfielders were lucky enough to catch long flies. At the end of the fourth inning the score was 17 to 2 in favor of the Penobscot side. Silence hung over the sunlit field, broken only by the excited squeaks of the little cluster of enemy cheerers. Boy Kaiser was replaced by the first baseman, Gooch Lefko, who had never pitched before, and the girls and boys of Manitou counted the game lost.
Then lo, hope sprang up. Gooch struck out two carelessly confident Penobscot batters, and the third went out on a fly. Manitou came to bat, and, urged on by an anguished “Oink-oink, bow-wow,” let loose a thunderstorm of hits. With the bases full, under-size Lennie hit the ball clear into the tennis courts for a home run. From the shrieking demonstration that ensued it was obvious that he could have married any female of Manitou, camper or counselor, at that moment, with the possible exception of Aunt Tillie. The tumultuous inning ended with the score at 17–11. As Lennie trotted out to his position at shortstop, Herbie, quite beside himself, danced up to third base and yelled, “Come on, Lennie, you can win this game yourself! For good old Homer Avenue!” And Lennie waved at him and grinned, and Herbie was as proud as if he had received a letter from the President.
But this flurry was the last. The Penobscot boys blasted Gooch Lefko out of the pitcher's box, and a dismal parade of substitutes failed to stem them. The home team lost heart. Soon it became a matter of hoping for a quick finish. Unlike more primitive struggles like war and boxing, which can end when one side is hopelessly done for, the rules of baseball require the ceremony of nine innings no matter what happens. With the score at the unbelievable figure of 41 to 11, and the game stretching into the lunch time, the Penobscots finally brought the debacle to its close by the humiliating stunt of sending their cheering section to bat. Even so, the crushed Manitou team permitted two more runs; and so the game went down in history, an everlasting stain on the escutcheon of the cohorts of Gauss, 43 to 12.
But the ghastly blow was neutralized at once in an unexpected way.
It had been the custom in previous years for the teams and spectators to march from the baseball field to the dining halls, led by the Manitou head counselor on horseback. Technical difficulties had arisen this year in connection with using Clever Sam. Uncle Sandy, having had a couple of duels with the horse, flatly informed Mr. Gauss that he would not ride him. It was not his own feelings, he admitted under pressure, but the sentiments of the horse, that were decisive. But the camp owner was anxious to avoid giving Penobscot the impression that Manitou was having a horseless year. It was decided that Cliff should ride the horse to the baseball diamond and back again, if Clever Sam proved to have no objections to the traditional green and gray blanket which read, “Welcome, Penobscot.” As it turned out, he was philosophically indifferent to it.
When the game ended, Cliff, who had been lurking behind a far-off tree with the animal, came cantering into the field, the blanket flapping its faded message to the breeze. He stopped for a moment before the Penobscots, who forthwith rendered a “Bang chugga bang” for Clever Sam. After this Cliff brought his steed alongside Uncle Sandy at third base. It happened that the Penobscot leader, Uncle Husky, was conferring with Sandy at that moment. Aunt Tillie had edged herself into the talk, too, and it was noticed glumly by the boys that she and the fellow called Husky were in rare spirits, while Sandy, like a true man of Manitou, was downcast.
“Well, Sandy,” said Uncle Husky with a laugh, as Clever Sam came up, panting, “are we going to have the riding exhibition now?”
“No,” said Sandy sulkily.
Husky looked carefully at Clever Sam. “New horse, eh? Moth-eaten beast.”
“Maybe, but he's too much for me,” said Sandy. “He's a devil. That kid is the only one in camp who can ride him.”<
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Aunt Tillie spoke up. Her voice was a loud one, and all the boys could hear her. “It's a shame to spoil the parade. Husky, why don't you ride him?”
The handsome stranger smiled.
“Nonsense, Tillie,” put in Uncle Sandy. “You know perfectly well the animal is unmanageable.”
“For you, maybe, but not for Husky,” shrilled Aunt Tillie, with a superior smile. “He's a magnificent horseman. He's won cups.”
Hate radiated at her from the entire boys' camp. But under certain conditions women develop leaden hides.
“I don't mind trying him,” said the Penobscot carelessly, “if Sandy doesn't object.”
The head counselor hesitated. All the boys were listening.
“Go ahead, Uncle Sandy!” shouted Herbie suddenly from the ranks. “Let him try.”
Uncle Sandy's vexed look slowly faded, and was replaced, equally slowly, almost with the sound of cogs grinding, by an expression of the most Satanic cunning.
“Why, of course,” he said, grinning and squinting. “By all means, Husky. Let him have the horse, Cliff.”
The boy dismounted, handed the reins to Uncle Husky, and backed off hurriedly. For a moment the Penobscot leader and Clever Sam looked each other in the eye. Uncle Husky seemed to flinch slightly at what he saw. He said, “Tillie, I'd better mount him away from the kids,” and led the willing horse out to the center of the field.
Penobscot's chief counselor swung himself into the saddle with grace; and as soon as his thighs settled against the leather, Clever Sam's head dropped to the ground as though released by a spring and he began eating grass. The tall, powerful rider looked astounded, and snickers were heard in the ranks of Manitou. The next moment Clever Sam's head was yanked into the air by a pull that all but tore it off his neck.
“None of your nonsense!” cried Husky. He gave the animal a potent kick in the ribs. “Let's go, horse.”
Clever Sam turned and studied his rider briefly. Then he seized the man's right sneaker in his teeth, tore it off, and dropped it on the ground.
All Manitou cheered.
Aunt Tillie screamed, “Husky, be careful! The beast is vicious!”
Husky threw her a contemptuous look, gave his mount a slap on the flank that resounded among the hills like a pistol shot, and jerked the horse's head back as far as it could go three times. “Get going, horse!” he commanded.
Clever Sam got going, in his fashion. He began to do a decidedly original waltzing step, backward, and backed and backed. With his rider cursing, sawing the reins, and pummeling him with fists and heels, he backed around in a circle twice, then backed into the ragged wire netting behind home plate. Here he tried to rub his rider off against the posts, but Husky hung on, at the cost of a nasty scratching from the wire. The boys and girls of Manitou were rolling on the grass, half dead with laughter. The Penobscots were still. Aunt Tillie, in tears, was pleading for someone to go to the rider's aid, but nobody paid any attention to her, or noticed that her freckles were reappearing here and there in streaks along her face.
Clever Sam finally stopped trying to rub his rider off. He pranced sideways to the center of the field, and assumed a pose that can only be described as standing on his head, and issued several hoarse, grating noises. The third time he kicked up his hind legs to renew this position Uncle Husky gave up and thumped to the ground almost on the spot where he had mounted. Clever Sam at once ceased his ridiculous antics, and resumed his consumption of grass. Husky rose to his feet, dusted himself off angrily, and returned to his group, ignoring Aunt Tillie's anxious call, “Husky, Husky, are you all right?”
With one accord, without benefit of cheer leader, the boys of Manitou gave Clever Sam the loudest “Oink-oink, bow-wow” of all time.
Cliff trotted out to the horse, mounted him, and rode him off the field toward the dining halls, to great hosannas. The Penobscots had beaten Manitou in one contest, but had just as certainly been trounced in another. The score for the day stood at one victory apiece.
A sumptuous lunch followed. The noonday meal at Manitou, except on weekends (when most parents came to visit) was usually an affair of vague stew or creamed, chipped beef or Spanish omelet—wholesome, perhaps, but conceived in a spirit of compromise between bankbook and cookbook rather than in the intent to delight. Today, however, there was turkey, with fresh corn and watermelon. Penobscot's meals took a similar turn for the better when the games were on their grounds. The camp owners probably hoped to do some polite recruiting in this way, but they reckoned without the emotions the rivalry aroused. The boys were, in general, fooled into believing their enemies were better fed, but it only made them more bitter, both about the other camp and about their own. Manitou campers frequently went elsewhere after a summer under Gauss, but never to Penobscot, and there were no ex-Penobscots in the Gauss domain. This banquet was perhaps the only useless expenditure that the camp owner made, and he hopefully went on making it year after year.
An hour was set aside after lunch for sleeping, during which nobody slept. All thoughts were on the coming basketball game. The Penobscots lay about under trees, glorying over the baseball massacre and anticipating new conquest. Among the Manitous the mood was bleak. Mr. Gauss visited Yishy Gabelson in the infirmary to see if there were the slightest chance of allowing him to play. A thrill of hope raced through the camp when he was seen to enter the sick ward. As is usual in such situations, hope quickly gave birth to rumor. Defying the rest-hour rules, a lone Junior came capering along the deserted Company Street, shouting, “Yishy's all better! Yishy's gonna play!”
Everybody believed him. The campers leaped off their beds and danced out of their bunks into Company Street, yelling. Uncle Sandy charged from his tent and dispersed the carnival with a blast of his whistle. But the boys simply retreated into the bunks and kept up the wild merriment, jumping from bed to bed, swinging on rafters, and hugging each other. Mr. Gauss hurried out of the infirmary and exchanged words with the head counselor, who stood glaring in the middle of the empty street. Once again he blew his whistle, and shouted through the megaphone, “An announcement!” The noise stopped as though shut off by a switch. Boys stood on one foot or hung from rafters in rigid listening attitudes.
“The disgraceful exhibition that has just taken place gets its proper reward. Mr. Gauss informs me that Yishy can't possibly play and won't play. Now return to your cots and keep quiet! This is rest hour.”
The order to keep quiet was superfluous. Crushed, the boys dropped heavily on their beds, and moped away the rest of the hour. Herbie, who had danced and cheered as hard as anybody, lay with his face in his pillow. The honor of Camp Manitou, this flimsy, rundown device of poor Mr. Gauss, existing only to eke out his small salary as a schoolmaster, had become as important to Herbie Bookbinder as his own destiny.
The basketball game, surprisingly enough, began as a tight, vicious fight, in which Lennie Krieger outshone everybody on the court. He played in a frenzy of courage. Darting in and out among opponents a head taller than himself, twisting, scrambling, pouncing on the ball like a wild animal and tearing it out of the hands of opposing players, he kept the score even almost single-handed through three thrilling quarters. Victory began to seem likely, only because of him. His performance raised howl upon howl.
The best that was in Lennie came out in this game. He was a boy who, usually to his misfortune, saw reality in terms of ball games. Nothing but athletic prowess was vital to him, and this was why he could not study school subjects. This was also why he was a ruffian—caring for only one thing in life makes for crude manners; and this was why he was a bully—judging other boys by the yardstick of his own skill, he was left with a rough contempt for nearly all of them. But in the present instance he was challenged to his heart, and he met the challenge. An ancient sage said, “Despise no thing and no man—for there is no man that has not his hour, and no thing that has not its place.” This basketball game was Lennie Krieger's hour, and it was fine and grand.
/> At the very start of the fourth quarter, wrestling for the ball with the captain of the Penobscots, Lennie pulled his heavy opponent to the ground on top of him in a tangle of arms and legs, and rose with his right arm hanging queerly. He could not move it, and was obviously in pain, though he made no outcry. The game was halted. The doctor examined him, gave a verdict of dislocation and possible fracture, and ordered him to leave the court. A great moan came from the spectators, and even the Penobscots sympathized. “Please, please, I can play with my left hand,” Lennie begged the doctor, and reached wildly for the sweat-soaked basketball on the dusty ground to prove it. But the doctor held him back. Not until Uncle Sandy came and put his arm around the boy's shoulders did he wilt and permit himself to be led off the field, red-faced and weeping with pain and frustration. For whatever consolation it could give him, he received a cheer almost as loud as Clever Sam had had in the morning, as he dwindled away with the doctor toward the infirmary.
Penobscot proceeded to win the game, 45 to 35, and rode off cheering and singing in their busses, gorged with triumph. They left behind them a funereal atmosphere.
That night was movie night. When the show was an old cowboy picture, as was usually the case, it was run off on separate evenings for the boys and the girls. But now and then Mr. Gauss would pay the larger fee for a new film. In that case the camps were both assembled in the social hall at once, so that the owner could save money by keeping the print only one night. When Yishy had come down with poison ivy, Mr. Gauss, foreseeing the gloomy outcome, had hired a stirring new Douglas Fairbanks picture to lighten the misery of his campers. It was a humane notion. Merely assembling with the opposite sex on a week night gave the children a sense of festivity, and the thought of seeing a picture of later vintage than 1925 was gay, too. Trooping into the social hall, they found their grief diminishing.
