Evening star., 1935-06-16

Entering the room, Dan looked at
the faces. blank or frankly sneering,
then lay on the floor, his back to most
of the Others. He was very tense. In
the quietneSs of the room, he made
himself relax. 1t was as though he
were in a dream. and the dream about
to be broken. What he was going to
do or how. he was not sure. But he
had a chance to do perfect thing; he
sensed this at first, being not entirely
sure of the thought. Perhaps when
this dream he was in was broken, he
would know what the thing was.
Time went swiftly. Murtaugh stood
in the doorway.
Men," he said, II haven't thing
to say. Cowalt is sick and that makes
it tough. Do what you can"
He should slap me in the face, Dan
thought, so coldly he was frightened; it
would be the same thing. But the
dream was broken.
Murtaugh went away, and the
oarsmen stood up. They were looking
at him, Dan saw. Their faces made
something come back to him. some
thing like hate. He was to say some
thing. He had once spoken their Ian
guage. What he was going to try to do,
what the thing was, was to win and
vindicate AL and himself and Pete
Haley. But you cannot say these
things to your own generation; which
is why youth speaks strange Ian
guage So Dan stood before the others
and staggered little and sneered.
Wise guys" he said; you're all
wise guys, aren't you? You don't like
me to stroke this crew, do you? But
you've got to like it. you've got to
take it. And you don't know what I'm
going to do - any of you. don't
myself. But I'll tell you one thing -
I'm going to break your hearts"
That would be his catch-word, his
talisman. He would break their hearts.
He saw their faces change and knew
that they had not understood him.
that they had taken his words literally.
Fear came suddenly to him, and he
turned and went out of the room. Be-
hind him. as they followed him onto
the float, he heard their voices, low
and tense, wondering what he had
meant.
Dan never remembered much of the
long paddle upstream to the start.
Before him, Crogan gave orders,
already edged and charged with fury.
He would show them, Dan thought.
He thought more of his father now
than of AL or himself, for he sud-
denly saw that however much his sons
might require vindication, Peter
Haley required none Not In his sons
eyes But Others, some newspaper man
to make good story, had made Peter
Haley part Of the string of failures.
Anger grew in Dan. Some subtle
change took place in his mind so that,
like the rest of the crew, he came to
take the literal meaning of what he
had said as being his sole intention.
And yet, with some other level of his
mind, he knew that ne would do this
thing for Others, as well as for himself.
So that as they came up to the stake
boats, fastened IN a line across the
river, he had only one thought. but it
meant everything. He would break
their hearts - for AL, for himself, for
the old man.
Grogan was jockeying the shell
around. making little snarIing noises
The shells stern met the stake-boat.
The air was cooler. and In the sudden
stiffness, the voice of the referee from
his boat sounded unnaturalIy loud.
The oarsmen in the nine shells raised
their long arms and pulled the brief
jerseys from their bodies To the left
the observation train steamed.
1t was very still, and the air about
them was blue. Dan was calm. He
would simply set pace such as they