PAYSON, COACH
Those first six days were busy ones, yet Dan found plenty of time in
which to be homesick. I don’t mean that he wept or went around with a
long face; he was pretty nearly sixteen years of age, and, of course,
a chap when he gets to be that old has altogether too much pride to
act like a baby no matter how much he may feel like one. But on his
first and second days at Yardley he went for long walks along the
shore or struck inland along the river bank and thought a good deal
about Graystone and the folks there and wished heartily that he could
see them. The East and Yardley Hall in particular seemed to him then
a very lonely, unfriendly place, and the three months which stretched
ahead between the present and the Christmas recess looked interminable.
Once--it was a dull, cold afternoon with an unfamiliar salt tang in the
damp air--he even considered giving it up and going home. He had only
to get his bag from his room, walk to the station and take a train.
He had plenty of money for all expenses and he felt certain that his
father would forgive him even though he would be disappointed in him.
The knowledge that it was possible to cut and run at any moment was
comforting and reconciled him to remaining for awhile longer. Perhaps
he might manage to hang on until the recess. Then, once home, trust him
to stay there!
But on the third day, when as usual he started out in the afternoon
for a tramp, he suddenly discovered what he had not noticed on the
preceding days; that the Sound, aglitter in the afternoon sunlight,
dotted here and there with white sails and feathered with the trailing
blue smoke of distant steamers, was very beautiful; that the curving
shore, clothed in green turf and mellowing trees, edged with gray
boulders or warm white sand, was vastly pleasant; that the blue sky,
tranquil and summer-like, flecked here and there with streamers of
cottony clouds, looked kindly after all; that, in short, this eastern
world wasn’t so different from Ohio. He swung along that day with
a lighter heart, whistling as he went. He cut a stick from an old
willow that grew back from the shore and flourished it merrily. His
walk was a series of surprises. The shore curved and capered along the
edge of the Sound, revealing all sorts of interesting little coves
and nooks and promontories. Once a stone wall came straggling down a
hill across a meadow and wandered right out into the water like a bad
little boy insisting on getting his feet wet. Dan followed it out,
balancing himself on the big stones, and, at the end, jumping from one
to another until he stood precariously on the last one of all with the
blue sunlit water before him and around him. At a little distance a
sloop lay moored. The tide was well out and Dan believed that he could
reach it by wading. So he sat down and pulled off shoes and stockings
and rolled his trousers as high as they would go and started out. The
water was surprisingly warm and save that he once stepped into some
sort of a hole and went down until his trousers were wet, he reached
his goal without misadventure. The sloop was an old one, broad of beam
and snub of nose, and it wasn’t very clean. But Dan pulled himself
up onto the deck and dropped from there into the cockpit, where, the
tiller under his arm, he sat a long while and watched the sea and the
distant boats and made believe--for even at nearly sixteen one may
still make-believe--that he was asail.
After awhile he noticed that whereas he had begun by looking eastward
he was now looking in quite the opposite direction. That was strange!
But the mystery was soon solved. The tide was coming in again and
the sloop had swung around until her blunt nose was pointing straight
toward the open. Dan glanced toward the shore and the end of the stone
wall in dismay. Even as he looked a little wave crept up the side of
the last boulder and playfully lapped the toe of one of his stockings.
It was time for action. So he slipped over the side and found the water
almost to his hips. When he reached the stone and rescued his shoes and
stockings he was pretty wet. He went back up the wall and picked out a
nice warm spot to dry off in and there with his back to a comfortable
rock he spent another half hour, rousing himself at length to finish
dressing and go home. There was a good four miles between him and the
school, but he felt as though he could walk forty, and so, his willow
cane swinging, he stepped out briskly. For the first time since he had
reached school he was thoroughly glad just to be alive, to feel the
springy turf underfoot, the sun on his face and the little salty breeze
about him.
When he reached the turn of the path at the corner of Whitson he
remembered that down on the football field practice was going on. Until
now he had thought little about football. Before he had reached Yardley
he had entertained notions of trying for the team, but what Tubby and
Jake had told him had rather discouraged him; and besides that he had
seen some of the players and they were so much older and larger than
he that it seemed silly to offer his services; doubtless he would be
only laughed at. And then, too, he had been so low-spirited that sport,
even football, which of all sports held first place in his affections,
had failed to appeal to him. But to-day there was a change in his
spirits and he decided that he would go down to the field and look on
awhile. So he went, and as he passed along the front of Merle Hall a
nice-looking boy with a blue cap tucked rakishly on the back of his
head smiled and nodded to him, and Dan’s heart lightened still more. He
didn’t know who the boy was, couldn’t even recollect his face, but it
was nice to be noticed. Dan never became well acquainted with the youth
with the blue cap, but he always felt grateful to him for just that
little smiling nod which meant little to the giver but so much to Dan.
The tennis courts were all in use and the players, for the most part
white-clad, darted back and forth, to and fro, in a merry scene. Up
towards Flat Island two canoes, each manned by a pair of white-shirted
boys, were racing down with the tide, the paddles catching the sun as
they rose from the water. But the busiest scene was on the gridiron.
Dan sought a place along the side-line near the middle of the field and
looked on. There were fully sixty candidates in sight, and Dan noticed
hopefully that several of them were no older than he and no whit larger
nor stronger. Perhaps, after all, he reflected, he might stand a show.
If he could make a place with the scrubs it would be better than having
no football at all. He realized that when the frost came into the air
he would feel strangely lost of an afternoon were he not chasing a
pigskin over the yellowing grass.
At the farther end of the field a dozen candidates were punting and
catching. These were fellows trying for the backfield positions. An
awkward squad of a dozen or so more were falling on the ball. Then
there were four squads trotting about the gridiron learning the simpler
plays, each squad commanded by a hard-working quarter-back. No signals
were used. As one of the squads came abreast of Dan he heard the
quarter shout his directions:
“Left half between guard and tackle on his own side!”
Then the ball was passed, left half sprang forward, clutched the ball
and went stumbling through the line.
“What’s the matter?” cried an impatient voice. “Who is that man,
Watkins? Well, you’ll have to learn to keep your feet under you,
whoever you are. Try that again and let me see you hit the line as
though you meant it!”
Dan put the speaker down for Payson, the coach. He was a large,
broad-shouldered man of about thirty with a determined jaw and a pair
of quick, restless black eyes that seemed capable of seeing the whole
field at once. In weight he must have been nearly two hundred pounds,
but he had the height to carry the weight; and, besides, there was
an alertness about him and an easy manner of carriage that gave him
a suggestion of speed as well as weight and strength. In college--he
had played on both the Cornell and Yale teams--he had been known as
“Whopper” Payson, and that was in an age of big men, too. He had played
guard, and for one year full-back in those days, and there are plenty
of folks who remember his work in the Yale-Princeton game in his last
year at New Haven. At Yardley the older boys liked him well, but the
younger ones, and especially those who had failed to please him, called
him hard names, “bully,” “bear” and “big brute” were some of the more
popular ones. He was a hard taskmaster; Dan soon saw that for himself;
and he was impatient of shirking or awkwardness or stupidity. When he
spoke--and he was not a man who talked when he had nothing to say--he
said things in a quick, decisive manner that reminded one of cold steel.
There were a good many fellows at Yardley who believed that Payson
didn’t take enough trouble with new candidates, that every year he
missed good material for the reason that he was not willing to accord
a sufficient amount of patience to green players. There may have been
truth in this, yet, on the other hand, Payson, although he had failed
the preceding year, had managed during his four-year régime to turn out
two winning teams. There was his side of it, too.
“I can’t bother,” he said once, “to spend valuable time teaching the
rudiments of football to fellows who may never make good. I have only
eight weeks at the most to build my team, and I need every moment of
those eight weeks for perfecting. Let the novices learn how to handle
the ball on their class teams. Next year I’ll try them out. But a coach
can’t conduct a kindergarten and turn out a decent team in eight weeks.
Anyhow, I can’t.”
That was John Payson’s side of it, and doubtless there was a good deal
of sense in his contention.
Dan liked the coach’s looks very well on the whole. He seemed honest
and capable and dependable; above all dependable. He was just the sort
of a fellow, thought Dan, that one would want to find on the bridge of
a steamer when the rockets were soaring, and just the sort one would
be glad to find waiting on the side-line when you trotted off after
having been worsted in the first half of your Big Game. Dan approved
of Payson. That sounds rather presumptuous, to be sure, but in the
same way that a cat may look at a king, doubtless a candidate may pass
judgment on a coach.
It was a warm afternoon, and presently Andy Ryan, the trainer, a
brisk little, middle-aged Irishman with sandy hair, red face and a
pair of eyes as green as his own beloved emerald sod, sought out the
coach and secured the release of all candidates save a half-dozen or
so unfortunates who, having unwisely taken on unnecessary fat during
the summer, were doomed to two laps around the track. The others
trotted up the path to the gymnasium and showers, the little gallery
of spectators melted away, Andy busied himself with gathering the
footballs into the big canvas bag and Dan found himself practically
alone with the head coach. Payson was watching the little bunch of
players jogging along the cinders across the field, but he was thinking
of other matters, wondering, in fact, just how much recognition it
would be best to accord to this “new football” which was entering on
its second season. He had all of the old-style player’s contempt for
the new-fangled tricks like the forward pass and the on-side kick. Last
Fall the game with Broadwood had gone against him just by reason of
one of those same idiotic tricks, a forward pass, which, after having
been handled and dropped by most of the players of the two teams, had
been finally captured by a Broadwood tackle on Yardley’s five yards,
the tackle managing to fight his way across for a touchdown with the
entire playing force struggling about him like chips on the edge of a
maelstrom. Instead of accepting this as a vindication of the new game
Payson declared it the veriest fluke and added it to his arguments in
opposition.
“What science,” he demanded of Andy, “is there in throwing the ball
down the field for the whole bunch of players to claw at? What if you
do make it go once in ten times? or once in five times? Why, I dare
say I could kick a placement from the middle of the field as often as
that, but you wouldn’t call me anything but an idiot if I tried it!
The onside kick has some sense to it; it might be possible to develop
that into a scientific play, but this forward pass business--! Piffle!”
And Andy, who was still smarting over Yardley’s defeat, agreed
enthusiastically.
Still, Payson wasn’t blinding himself now to the fact that this same
forward pass had possibilities in the hands of a fast, well-drilled
team, and he would have given a good deal at this moment to have known
what Myers, the Broadwood coach, was planning. As far as Yardley was
concerned the new football would suit better than the old, for the
material was not the sort which promised a powerful attack. Well, he
would know better what to do in another week. Probably a mixture of old
football and new would be the safest campaign to prepare for. As he
turned his eyes encountered Dan’s and he presumed that the boy had been
waiting to speak to him.
“Well?” he demanded sharply.
Dan didn’t know whether he had intended speaking to the coach or not,
but the opportunity had presented itself and he decided to seize it.
“Is it too late to try for the team, sir?” he asked.
“No.” Payson’s gaze swept him from head to foot swiftly. “Ever played
before?”
“Yes, sir, three years.”
“Where?”
“At home on my grammar school team; Graystone, Ohio.”
“What position?”
“End.”
Payson’s face brightened.
“What do you weigh?”
“About a hundred and thirty-eight, I think.”
Payson’s face fell again.
“Can you run?”
“I think so, sir.”
“What’s your time for the hundred?”
“I never tried it.”
“Can you punt?”
“Pretty well.”
“Catch?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. See Ryan, get yourself examined by Mr. Bendix, and report
to me to-morrow.”
Payson nodded and turned away toward the gymnasium. Dan gave him
a start and then followed. Half way up the hill Payson heard the
footsteps behind him, turned and waited.
“Know much about this new football?” he asked as Dan joined him.
“We tried it last year, sir, and it went pretty well--sometimes.”
“Sometimes! Yes, I dare say.”
“I think we’d have done pretty well with it,” said Dan, “only we lost
our quarter in the middle of the season and I had to break in a new
man.”
“Oh, you were captain, were you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sorry to hear it,” said Payson. “I never had a captain show up here to
me that amounted to a hill of beans. Think you could forget it in time?”
Dan flushed at the note of sarcasm in the coach’s voice.
“I don’t think it troubles me much,” he answered stiffly.
“Sounds as though it did,” said the coach dryly. “Still, you didn’t
start off your conversation with the announcement, and that’s
promising. What’s your opinion of the forward pass?”
Dan hesitated, rather taken aback. He wondered whether Payson
was mocking him, but a glance at the coach’s face dispelled that
supposition.
“I think,” answered Dan finally, “that it ought to be a good play this
year under the changed rules. Last year if the pass failed you lost the
ball, no matter what down it was, but this year on the first or second
downs you are penalized fifteen yards and keep the ball.”
“Yes, that makes it easier going,” said Payson. “But do you think that
the forward pass can be developed into a certain play?”
“No, sir, no more than any other play. It will be perfected a good deal
this year, I guess, but the defense will be perfected, too.”
“Do you think it can be developed to a point where you can depend on
its gaining once in two tries?”
“Yes, sir. I think it might be made to do better than that if you could
keep your opponent in the dark.”
“As how?”
“Well, of course I don’t pretend to know much about it,” said Dan with
a note of appeal in his voice. The coach nodded. “But it seems to me
that the best thing about the forward pass is its unexpectedness. It
ought to be made always from some regular formation, don’t you think
so, sir?”
Payson nodded again. They had reached the corner of the gymnasium now
and had halted in front of the steps.
“I--we tried it last year by having the quarter make the pass, but it
didn’t work. He had to run five yards and by that time the other team
was through on us enough to spoil the throw. Then we made it from a
kick formation and that worked better, although we lost about seven
yards at the start from throwing the ball from a position farther back
of the line. But it worked better, for the other fellows could never be
sure whether we were going to kick or pass.”
“But it gave them a chance to cover their backfield,” objected the
coach.
“Yes, sir, but toward the last of the season we’d all got so we were on
the lookout for forward passes whenever anything except close formation
was used by the opponent.”
“I suppose so. Well, we will have to try the crazy play ourselves
this year, I suppose. You seem to be able to use your brain, my boy,
so study this forward pass business up. See what you can contrive for
attack and defense. Come and see me some time. By the way, what did you
say your name is?”
Dan hadn’t said, but he forbore to mention the fact.
“Vinton, sir; I’m in the Third Class.”
“Vinton, eh? Sounds like an automobile, doesn’t it?” The coach
absolutely smiled, which so surprised Dan that he hadn’t the presence
of mind to smile back. When he had recovered himself the big oaken door
was swinging shut behind the coach’s broad shoulders.
Dan crossed the colonnade between the gymnasium and Merle Hall and
cut through the Yard. It was getting well toward twilight and the
old stone sun-dial cast a long purple shadow across the turf. Some of
the windows were still open in Dudley and Whitson and Clarke, and Dan
caught glimpses of groups of fellows at the casements. But this evening
the sight neither made him depressed nor envious. At last someone had
recognized his existence, someone who counted. Dan climbed the stairs
of Clarke with a light heart and when he reached the door of Number 28
flung it open with a bang, for all the world as though he was a person
of importance!
Tubby Jones was sprawled Turk-fashion on his bed, with his own pillows
and Dan’s at his back, reading a novel. He looked up in scowling
bewilderment.
“What do you want to do?” he gasped. “Knock the building to pieces?”
Dan laughed gayly as he tossed his cap onto the window-seat.
“If I do,” he answered, “I’ll build a new one and a better one, and
I’ll call it Vinton Hall. And I’ll see that you have half a dozen
pillows of your own, Jones, so that you won’t have to use these two,
which--” Here he deprived Tubby of half his support, sending him
rolling against the wall like a football--“happen to belong to me, my
friend.”
“I wasn’t hurting them,” declared Tubby in injured tones.
“Oh, no, just getting them nice and dirty,” answered Dan as he threw
the pillows onto his own bed, “and--Hello, you’ve been eating that
messy popcorn again! It’s all over the shop. Jones, do you know you’re
an awful little fat pig? You ought to have a sty of your own, you
really ought!”
“Look here, Vinton--” began Tubby wrathfully.
But Dan strode over to Tubby’s bedside and with his hands in his
pockets viewed the recumbent one with a broad smile.
“Jones,” he announced, “if I hear one tiny little grunt from you, one
fretful squeal, I’ll turn you over and paddle you with your own tennis
racket!”
And Tubby was so amazed at the sudden transformation of his sober,
taciturn room-mate that he could merely gasp open-mouthed until it was
too late for a suitable reply. So he relapsed into a silent condition
of wounded dignity, while Dan raked his football togs out of the closet
and examined them closely, whistling merrily the while.