XV
THE UPPER ROOMS
On Mr. Orde's return from the woods, he was promptly called upon toredeem his promise. He therefore, showed Bobby a few of the simplerwrestler's tricks which Bobby adopted and brooded over in his manner.The first game of robber and policeman thereafter, he tried one onJohnny, but bungled it and got sat on harder than ever. Bobby's troublein the practice of such matters arose from the fact that he was tooanalytical. Before an idea could become part of his make-up, he had torevolve it over in his mind, examining it from all sides, understandingthe relations of its component parts, making the mechanism revolveslowly, as it were, in order to comprehend all its correlations. Thisanalytical thought naturally made him, to a certain degree,self-conscious in his movements. It destroyed the instinctive,superconscious accuracy valuable in all games of skill, but absolutelynecessary to such things as skating, boxing, wrestling, wing-shooting,tennis and the like. Self-consciousness in such cases means awkwardness.Bobby, in learning a new thing, was awkward. But he possessed awonderful persistence. In time he would think all around a thing. Inmore time he would have practised it sufficiently to have lost sight ofthe carefully considered "reason why" for each move. Thus the final,though delayed, result was apt to be more consistent performance thanJohnny's brilliantly instinctive achievements.
For example, Bobby tried again and again to attain the quick twistingheave necessary to the common "grape-vine." At no time did he achievemore than partial success. But in his numerous attempts he, withoutknowing it, taught Johnny. That quick-witted youth caught thepossibilities and at his first attempt sprawled Bobby. In fact, by thetime Bobby had even a fair command of the three or four falls shown himby his father, Johnny was skilful in them all and could catch Bobby withthem twice as often as Bobby could catch him. This kept Bobbyhumble-minded, and, as it in no way discouraged him from keeping at it,was a good thing for him. Here is perhaps as good a place as any toremark parenthetically that while the friends scuffled and wrestledconstantly, Johnny never got to be much better than he became in thefirst three weeks, while Bobby, in later years, was the middle-weightchampion of his class at college.
The autumn passed, and colder weather set in. Out of doors was availableonly for the activities of life. As long as energy was burnt with somelavishness, all was well, but when the first enthusiasm had ebbed, JackFrost began to nip shrewdly. Then the children went within doors. Theydivided their favours almost equally between the third stories of theOrde and English homes.
The Englishes' third story had never been finished. Bare walls, barefloors, fresh varnished wood-work and the steam radiators constitutedthe whole equipment.
This very openness of space, however, proved an irresistible attractionto the children. Gradually articles of their amusement became installed,until the latter end of that third story was an official "play room."Shelves--made by Johnny--held books and miscellaneous junk; toys ofvarious sorts were scattered about; against the wall was screwed a noisychest-weight, which nobody disturbed; near the window stood ascroll-saw worked by foot-power. Nobody bothered with that either, forthe simple reason that all the saw blades were broken and the noveltyhad worn off. Bobby would have liked to experiment with it, but ofcourse he did not feel like suggesting repairs.
But the Upper Rooms were full of echoes and noises when one clumped onthe bare floor, and space with nothing to knock over when one scuffled,and the air was always cold enough so one could see his breath.Therefore the Upper Rooms were popular, but in a different manner andfor different purposes than Bobby's warmed and furnished chamber.
Here the rougher, noisier romping took place, and here was finallybrought to adjustment the smouldering rivalry between the two smallboys.