第10章 CHAPTER III THE ESCUTCHEON CLEARED(2)

In an hour of desperation she ventured to point out to her husband that these farmers were extending their holdings and buying machinery with notes that bore interest. "And besides, Michael,"she said, "Lawrence must go to High School next year. He will pass the Entrance examination this summer, and he must go.""He shall go," said her husband. "I am resolved to make a change in my method of business. I shall go after these men. They shall no longer use my money for their business and for their families while my business and my family suffer. You need not look that way, I have made up my mind and I shall begin at once."Unfortunately the season was not suitable for collections. The farmers were engrossed with their harvesting, and after that with the fall ploughing, and later with the marketing of their grain.

And as the weeks passed Mr. Gwynne's indignant resolve that his customers should not do business on his money gradually cooled down. The accounts were sent out as usual, and with the usual disappointing result.

Meantime Mr. Gwynne's attention was diverted from his delinquent debtors by an enterprise which to an unusual degree awakened his sympathy and kindled his imagination. The Reverend Heber Harding, ever since his unfortunate encounter with the travelling evangelist, was haunted with the uneasy feeling that he and his church were not completely fulfilling their functions in the community and justifying their existence. The impression had been the more painfully deepened in him by the sudden eruption of a spirit of recklessness and a certain tendency to general lawlessness in some of the young men of the village. As a result of a conference with the leading men of his congregation, he had decided to organise a young men's club. The business of setting this club in active operation was handed over to Mr. Gwynne, than whom no one in the village was better fitted for the work. The project appealed to Mr. Gwynne's imagination. A room was secured in the disused Orange Hall. Subscriptions were received to make purchase of apparatus and equipment necessary for games of various sorts. With vivid remembrance of his college days, Mr. Gwynne saw to it that as part of the equipment a place should be found for a number of sets of boxing gloves.

There were those who were not too sure of the uplifting influence of the boxing gloves. But after Mr. Gwynne had given an exhibition of the superior advantages of science over brute force in a bout with Mack Morrison before a crowded hall, whatever doubt might exist as to the ethical value of the boxing gloves, there was no doubt at all as to their value as an attractive force in the building up of the membership of the Young Men's Club. The boxing class became immensely popular, and being conducted under Mr. Gwynne's most rigid supervision, it gradually came to exert a most salutary influence upon its members. They learned, for one thing, to take hard knocks without losing their tempers.

In the boxing class thus established, none showed a greater eagerness to learn than did Larry. Every moment of his father's spare time he utilised to add to his knowledge of the various feints and guards and cuts and punches and hooks that appeared necessary to a scientific acquaintance with the manly art. He developed an amazing capacity to accept punishment. Indeed, he appeared almost to welcome rough handling, especially from the young men and boys bigger than himself. Light in weight and not very muscular, he was wiry and quick in eye and in action, and under his father's teaching he learned how to "make his heels save his head." He was always ready for a go with any one who might offer, and when all others had wearied of the sport Larry would put in an extra half hour with the punching bag. With one boy only he refused to spar. No persuasion, no taunts, no challenge could entice him to put on the gloves with Mop Cheatley. He could never look steadily at Mop for any length of time without seeing again on his face the sneering grin and hearing again the terrible words spoken two years ago in the cedar woods behind the mill pond:

"You're a coward and your mother's a coward before you." He refused to spar with Mop for he knew that once face to face with him he could not spar, he must fight. But circumstances made the contest inevitable. In the working out of a tournament, it chanced that Mop was drawn to face Larry, and although the disparity both in age and weight seemed to handicap the smaller boy to an excessive degree, Larry's friends who were arranging the schedule, among them Mack Morrison with big Ben Hopper and Joe Gagneau as chorus, and who knew something of Larry's skill with his hands and speed on his feet, were not unwilling to allow the draw to stand.

The days preceding the tournament were days of misery for Larry.

The decision in the contest would of course be on points and he knew that he could outpoint without much difficulty his antagonist who was clumsy and slow. For the decision Larry cared nothing at all. At the most he had little to lose for it would be but small disgrace to be beaten by a boy so much bigger. The cause of his distress was something quite other than this. He knew that from the first moment of the bout he would be fighting. That this undoubtedly would make Mop fight back, and he was haunted by the fear that in the stress of battle he might play the coward. Would he be able to stand up to Mop when the fight began to go against him? And suppose he should run away, should show himself a coward?