STORY OF TOM DARE AT THE MARBLE TOURNEY

By HOWARD STEPHENSON

Alfred Batche was looking all over for Tom. He had to get Tom’s lucky aggies back to him. Tom wasn’t in line for breakfast with the first group of kids to eat. So he returned to the hotel room and pounded on his door. Tom wasn’t there either. That’s when he heard the bugle sound the raising of the American flag down at Ringer Stadium. The games were about to begin. Any minute and Tom could be called into play. He was standing in the 5th floor of the hotel with Tom’s lucky aggies and Tom no doubt was standing ringside without ‘em. This wasn’t good.

Fast as Alfred could he raced down the grand stairway and out the giant doors of the hotel onto the boardwalk. There were people standing all around looking over the rails at the action below. They must have started playing already, he thought.

Picking his way through the crowd Alfred worked his way down to the beach. He scanned across the rings and up in the bleachers for Tom, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Then Alfred saw Mr. Earl, the newspaperman that was Tom’s chaperone.

“Sir,” Alfred called out to Mr. Earl. “Sir, have you seen Tom?”

“No sonny, I’m looking for him myself,” answered Mr. Earl. “Tom was supposed to be sitting in the bleachers. He’s up next.”

“Sir. I have Tom’s lucky aggies,” Alfred Batche announced.

“Thanks, sonny. Tom’s been looking for these. Now all we need is Tom.”

TOM reached his place in the bleachers just as the finial call was going out. He was so relieved to have his lucky aggies back in his hands. He didn’t think he’d ever see them again. He might have borrowed someone else’s agate to play. There are lots of aggies at the National Marbles Tournament. But that just wouldn’t be the same. He needed his aggies, the aggies that brought him to the tournament. He needed his lucky aggies or he didn’t stand a chance in the ring.

Tom’s prolonged absence was delaying the marble tournament. In the case of a player not being present without good cause, his game is forfeited. Tom hurried to report. He was immediately assigned to a ring and the referee called: "Lag."

A boy who has spent his time early in the morning frantically engaged in looking for his lucky aggies is not in condition to play marbles or do anything else well. Tom's hand trembled as he lagged. He lost by a good two inches.

It was one of the best marble shots in the United States that he was facing, a lad who was out to win. Coolly, slowly, Tom's opponent cracked out six mibs before Tom could get a shot. He still had one chance. With a great effort to concentrate his thoughts on the game and to try to forget he’d almost lost his lucky aggies, Tom shot. One by one, the mibs flew from the ring. One, two, three, four, five, six--then he missed. The other player calmly took roundsters and cracked out the remaining mib.

Tho the play in the semi-finals went back to the two-out-of-three rule, Tom's morale had been weakened. He found it impossible to keep up the pace. He fell from the running on the sixth game. Sitting cross-legged on the sand, he watched the remaining games with interest. He heard the scores announced and saw the national runner-up and the national champion decided in the final contest. To Tom Dare the disappointment was as keen as to any boy in the tournament. He hand seen victory waiting, had fancied it smiled upon him, and then, almost at the last moment, he lost his cool because he’d lost his luck.

The spirit, the determination to win at all costs, had stayed with the 13-year-old champion almost to the end. But that was not enough. He held the mistaken belief his agate shooter held some kind of miraculous power that enabled him to win. And he mistakenly believed that without his lucky marble he couldn’t win. The supreme victor, whether in golf, or billiards or auto racing or even marbles, knows that luck has nothing to do with winning. It’s all about the character of boy knuckling down to play. If you practice hard, learn all the rules, give it your very best and keep your head about you – that’s what makes a champion.

* * *

BUT Tom was determined to show that he could take defeat like a man. On the day of the finals, he was the first boy, after tie national runner-up, to grasp the hand of the champion of the United States, and to congratulate him on his victory.

His eyes a little moist, but his lips firm, Tom turned from the marble rings to hunt up Mr. Earl. That gentleman saw him first, and laid his hand on his shoulder.

"Why, Mr. Earl, you see, sir, I," Tom started to explain. But Mr. Earl. shook his head. "You have learned one of the biggest lessons of your life, I hope, Tom," he said quietly. "I'm sorry you didn't knuckle down to marbles and trust in yourself. That’s all you ever needed. It was inside you all the time. It had nothing to do with your aggie. But now it's all over and we're off for fun."

And off for fun they were indeed. That afternoon a sail on the ocean on a yacht, with the salt spray blowing in their faces, came first. At Steeplechase Pier there were slides higher than the ordinary house, moving stairways, comic looking glasses that made Tom seem now a giant and now a dwarf, whirligigs and sudden gusts of wind that blew folks' hats off while everybody laughed--it was FUN.

At the Million Dollar Pier Tom watched while fishermen pulled up a hundred kinds of strange sea creatures -- porpoises that were like a round and prickly rubber ball when they came out of the water and quickly went down like toy balloons, the air escaping from them making a funny s-s-s-s. Fish of more kinds than Tom knew existed were there.

* * *

AT another pier a famous band was playing. A theater on the boardwalk provided free tickets for all the champs. In a little shop a clever artist cut out silhouettes of Tom and his friends. And when they were tired of play and romping, they had but to call a rolling chair and they were pushed, as fast or as slowly as they liked, along the wide boardwalk, where the salt air of the sea came in a steady and refreshing blow.

Tom no longer thought of his aggies as lucky. First of all, he thought of the grand time he was having. And as the glorious week of holiday came to a close, he began to think of home.

(To Be Continued)