Newspapers / The Pinehurst Outlook (Pinehurst, … / Dec. 27, 1930, edition 1 / Page 8
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Lucy Lincoln was just the wrong sort of girl for you or me to fall in love with. Her hair was a light, cloudy gold, always with a suggestion of sun and wind—she never kept it in precise order; her eyes we shall call blue, her complexion fair and slightly sunburned; her features, regular and composed, with a certain authoritative expression which 'ho girl can avoid if she is twenty years old, and beautiful, and takes for granted violets from football captains, and triolets from undergraduate poets. Nor was that all. She was accomplished in the efficient modern fashion of doing everything not like a man, but much better. Prizes from horse shows and golf tournaments cluttered the shelves at home and in her room at Wellesley. Her two elder brothers had long since given up the ghost, one going as a consul to Spain and the other as a medical missionary to Japan, where no newspapers with accounts of Lucy’s triumphs could - teach them. It is apparent by now what we meant by saying that she was not the sort of girl for you or me to fall in love wtith. Yet the world contains a number of people not so wise as we, and two of them came to Pinehurst on their college vacations at the same time that Lucy was visiting there. Now Hank MacRider and Dick Stevens were no mean claimants for a lady’s favor. They went to Yale, an institution not without some claim to distinction; but taking on added lustre from the fact that Hank Mac Rider, of the Maryland MacRiders, and Richard Stevens, of the Chicago Stevenses, studied there. Their studies were along somewhat different lines, Hank was a horseman, first and last. He had dallied along the path of glory long enough to pick up a letter in cross-country, but this sport ran counter to his natural inclination, which was to make a horse run while he sat. Every week end during the hunting season found him in the saddle, and the polo squad counted him among its most promising aspirants. Dick, on the other hand, was a golfer, and a good one. He had wasted a few spare moments in managing the soccer team and serving on prom committees, but his life centered around a large leather bag in which thirty-six different clubs, calculated to remove a golf ball neatly from any one given location to any other, awaited his pleasure. Pi These are the facts about these two boys, and,-furthermore, the facts which they would have liked best for you to know. V^''i\:Yet-in the club-car of the train coming to Pinehurst, Hank and Dick, who were already very well acquainted, found out still more about each other. ’ “Did you remember to make our room reservations?” asked Dick. “Sure,” said Hank, looking out of the window. “Well, don’t get sore just because I asked you. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Wouldn’t Lucy give you a date? Too bad you don’t play golf. That’s all she does down there.” “Is that right ? I’m taking her riding tomorrow afternoon.” Really? Hope she isnt too tired to enjoy it. We’re playing eighteen holes together in the morning.” - “She’ll be damned glad to get away from golf. The game bores her to tears, anyway, as you ought to know by now. Anyway, she can beat you and you know it.” This was an unfortunate remark. Lucy could beat Dick, very occas ionally, but when you have the misfortune to be in love with a girl she mustn’t be able to beat you at all. A little silence fell oyer the party, broken by a melancholy tinkle of ice, and the dull thud of a book on the New Humanism which fell out of .the seat. “Which of us is taking her to the movies tonight?” asked Hank. *1 don’t know' We’re going to dinner with her at the Clenendins and 71 suppose we’ll all have to go on to the show together.” A common sorrow erased their differences, for the nonce. Each wished to take her to the movies, but both were saddened by the prospect of going with the dinner party at the Clendenins, whom she was visiting. Shall we describe the dinner that night at the Clendenins? On second thought, no. It was a party so brightly dominated by one person that the ost and hostess, and the other guests, were content to serve as foils for her wit, and as an audience for her beauty. This goes even for Hank and Dick. ~ “Honestly,” she would say occasionally, with a slight catch in her voice which made both Hank and Dick turn to water. “This is simply bound to be the most marvelous vacation.” With this she looked directly at her two victims, who turned from water into its component elements, which are air and other equally insubstantial things. She continued, “If there are men I do like better than any others.... it’s boys who like to play golf and ride, because you know I had rather ride and play golf than do, any thing else in the world.” “Then I expect you’ll have all the golf and riding you want,’’ said Mrs. Clendenin, a middle-aged lady with a kind heart. “Dick is the best golfer in New Haven, and you know how Hank can ride.” > “Any good nags around here now?” asked Hank. - “Oh, just loads of them,” said Lucy. “I’ll give you a stroke every other hole in the morning,” said Dick, “I don’t need them,’.’ said Lucy, sweetly, “but I’ll take them. Thankful for all small favors.” If you think that this conversation is slightly tiresome, there was a guest at the dinner table who agreed with you. His name was Albert Jenkins, he had finished college the year before and was now in business, and he was such an unimportant person that it matters very little where he was working or what college he had attended. For he played a little golf, and rode occasionally, without virtuosity, and was generally incon spicuous. You would scarcely have remembered him very long. Albert liked to go fishing, to read, to play ping-pong, to talk, and to do various other things which are quite all right in their way, but which just don’t get you anywhere. He wasn’t getting a chance to do any of these things at present, and he consoled himself by eating; and as the dinner was really good, we may leave him along for the moment without feeling sorry for him. “Have you been riding to hounds very pften?” asked Hank. Several times, Lucy replied. “We were out yesterday afternoon on a drag, and I’ve never had more fun. I rode Unlucky, and she refused three jumps in succession.” “Have you ever stopped looking up on your swing?” asked Dick. Oh, long ago. Of course I ve picked up lots of other bad habits, even worse. You’ll be giving me a lesson tomorrow, anyway, so we might as well save them.” Hank and Dick, from this point, said nothing to each other, each doing his best to establish a filibuster, without success. It was only when, after dinner, Albert challenged Lucy to ping-pong and she accepted, that some flicker of their former friendship was restored. They stood in the next room and smoked glumly. “A mug’s game, ping-pong,” said Dick. “All right if you don’t know any better, like this Albert person, but I’m surprised at Lucy.” The next morning—remember this is a Pinehurst story—dawned bright and fair. Now it is contrary to our code of ethics to admit that anyone is ever miserable at Pinehurst, but if this story is to ring true with stark realism, there is no use dodging the facts. All during the next morning Hank MacRider was miserable. He sat long over his breakfast; he went to call on some friends of his who owned stables in Southern Pines and Pinehurst, he looked over all the polo ponies, he even played bridge with Albert Jenkins and some other sad egg who was at the hotel. But what ever he did, a bluish-gray cloud, like the smudge on a badly-laundered shirt, hung over hi* mental horizon. When Dick came in from his golf date Hank was unable to face the prospect of eating lunch with him, and by mutual agreement they took separate tables. Dick had enjoyed his morning, but not perfectly. A small cloud had appeared intermittently on his horizon. For one thing, Lucy did beat him, at match play and by medal score—she couldn’t have done it without the handicap he had given her the night before, but it irked him to realize at tpe handicap had been placed too high. And then, her conversation was not limited strictly to the three really interesting topics of conversa
The Pinehurst Outlook (Pinehurst, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Dec. 27, 1930, edition 1
8
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