DAN JOINS THE FOOTBALL SQUAD
The next afternoon at four o’clock Dan joined the throng of candidates
in the big locker room in the basement of the gymnasium. He had been
examined that forenoon by Mr. Bendix, had been put through strength
tests, had been measured and at last presented with a chart which
showed his size, strength and development in comparison with a normal
youth of his age. He passed well and received official permission to
play football. “Your chest, abdomen and upper-arm muscles are very well
developed,” Mr. Bendix had told him, “but the lower part of your body
seems to have been neglected. But we’ll fix that for you.”
Then Dan had given his name to Andy Ryan and been welcomed like a
long-lost son. “Sure, you’re a well-made lad,” declared Andy, “and
we’ll find a place for you, never fear. End, is it? Well, why not?
Faith, it’s ends we need, I’m thinking. This new-fangled football is
just the game for the lightweights like you. Just you take hold right,
Mr. Vinton, and we’ll make a real football player out of you.”
This was all very encouraging, but Dan had a suspicion that Andy talked
just that way to every new candidate. At a little after four he trotted
down to the field with the others, looking very trim and fit in his
new khaki trousers and faded, battle-scarred brown sweater. If he had
expected any especial consideration from the coach he was disappointed.
When he reported Mr. Payson looked at him silently for an instant and
then asked:
“What’s the name?”
“Vinton, sir.”
The coach pulled a little memorandum book from his pocket and entered
it.
“Let me see, you are trying for quarter?”
“No, sir, end.”
“Been examined?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Go down there and report to Captain Colton.”
Dan turned away a trifle chagrined. Payson had forgotten all about him
since yesterday! But he hadn’t gone far when the coach summoned him
back.
“Ever played before, Vinton?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, three years.”
“Well?”
“Sir?”
“Is that all? Nothing else you want to tell me?”
“No, sir.”
“Glad to hear it. We haven’t any use for stars here. Tell Mr. Colton I
sent you.”
Dan smiled as he trotted away. Payson had laid a trap for him and he
had escaped it. He wondered what Payson would have said if he had
mentioned his captaincy again. Something pretty tart, he was certain of
that! The coach hadn’t forgotten him, after all, and Dan took comfort
from that knowledge.
Oliver Colton, the captain, was a strapping big fellow of nineteen,
a fine football player, a good all-around athlete and an excellent
student besides. Yardley Hall was proud of Colton. He had been Honor
Man for the last two years, held the school records for the broad-jump
and the hammer, was a good pitcher, batted around three hundred and,
above all, was one of the best guards that had ever played on a Yardley
eleven. He was good-looking, with rather curly brown hair and such soft
eyes of the same color that one would never have suspected him of being
the hard, aggressive player he was. His voice, too, was soft, and he
had a way of making a command sound like the most courteous request.
And yet the fellows who knew Colton jumped just as quickly at his voice
as at Payson’s. When Dan found him he had two lines of forwards under
instruction in breaking through and blocking, and Dan had to stand by
for a moment until the big chap was at leisure.
“That’s better, Hadlock,” said Colton as the lines disentangled
themselves. “But you must keep your back down, you know. Don’t double
yourself up like a pair of scissors. Maybe you think you can play a
_slashing_ game that way, but you can’t.”
The panting players laughed at the pleasantry as they took their places
again, and Dan claimed the captain’s attention.
“Mr. Payson told me to report to you,” he said. “I’m trying for end. My
name’s Vinton.”
“Glad to see you out,” answered Colton with a genial smile as he shook
hands. “We need good ends this year, and if you’re quick enough to
make up for your lack of weight you ought to make good. Know the rules
pretty well, do you, Vinton?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, it won’t do any harm to study them a bit more. If you haven’t a
rule book you’d better get one. There’s a quiz on the rules to-night
in the trophy room. Better polish up this afternoon. Now you go over
there where you see those chaps and join them. Played before, have you?”
“Yes, on my grammar school team.”
“That’s good. Buckle down to it, for we may need you badly before long.”
He nodded pleasantly and turned back to his charges, and Dan walked
across the field and joined a ring of candidates who were falling on
the ball. It was the awkward squad, but Dan didn’t mind that; he didn’t
mean to stay there very long. Later there was practice in starting and
running down under kicks, and when practice was over Dan was quite
ready to quit work. When he stepped out of the shower, glowing from
head to foot, he bumped against Alfred Loring, who, with a big bath
towel clutched about him, was talking over his shoulder to another chap.
“Beg pardon,” exclaimed Loring. “Hello, are you with us? Glad to see
you. What are you trying for?”
“End,” answered Dan.
“Good work! Played there, have you?”
“Yes, a couple of years. But I guess I’m too light for the team here.”
Loring stepped back, put his head on one side and looked Dan over.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “What’s your weight?”
“A hundred and thirty-six, but I suppose some of that will come off.”
“Well, I only weigh a hundred and forty-four myself,” said Loring
encouragingly. “And you look fast. Hope you’ll make it.” Then he
disappeared into the bath and a blood-curdling yell and a bath towel
floated out at the same instant.
Dan went back to his room that afternoon feeling as though he had
found himself again. Tubby, as usual, was curled up on his bed reading
something that didn’t look like a text-book, but this evening he hadn’t
borrowed Dan’s pillows.
“Well, I suppose everyone was tickled to death to see you,” he said
sarcastically. “Had a brass band out, I dare say, to welcome you.”
“Tubby, you’re a cynic,” answered Dan good-naturedly. He hadn’t meant
to address Tubby by his nickname; it came out without thought. Tubby
looked surprised, was secretly pleased and made believe that he didn’t
relish the familiarity.
“I don’t call you Dan, do I?” he growled.
“Oh, you can if you like,” was the answer. “It’s shorter than Vinton,
and as we’re destined to see a good deal of each other for awhile you
might as well take things easy. I shall call you Tubby, anyway. It fits
you like a coat.”
“Go to thunder,” muttered Tubby, returning again to his book. Dan
laughed cheerfully.
“Tubby,” he said, “to judge by your manner sometimes one would almost
think you bad-tempered.”
Silent contempt on the part of Tubby Jones.
When Dan entered the trophy room in the gymnasium at a few minutes
before seven he found the room already well filled. At least half a
dozen fellows nodded to him, Alf Loring amongst the number, and Dan was
secretly much elated. There followed a short talk by Payson on the new
rules and then the “quiz” began. Some of the questions were not easy to
answer:
_What happens when a legal forward pass crosses the goal line on the
fly without being touched by a player? When the same ball has been
legally touched by a player?_
_When is a player of the side which has kicked the ball put on-side?_
_Is tackling below the knees illegal for all players? And, if not, what
are the exceptions?_
_What is the penalty for holding or unlawful use of hands or arms when
the offending side has the ball? When the offending side is not in
possession of the ball?_
_What is the signal for a fair catch? What is the penalty for
interference with a fair catch?_
If marks had been awarded I doubt if many of the fellows would have
received an A. At a few minutes before eight they were dismissed
with the advice to study the rules. Dan obeyed the instructions so
implicitly that when ten o’clock came he found that he hadn’t so much
as glanced at his lessons for the morrow. So he burned the midnight
oil, greatly to Tubby’s disgust, and got Cæsar’s Gallic War so mixed
with the football rules that he might just as well have gone to bed at
ten.
A few days later Dan awoke one morning to find the sunlight streaming
into the room, to feel the crisp air of a frosty October morning
blowing in through the window and to realize that, should the
traditional fairy princess appear on the scene ready to transport him
with a dip of her wand to any place in the world he would choose to
stay just where he was. He lay there with his knees hunched up, the
sunlight glaring on the white spread, and smiled at the knot in the
left-hand upper panel of his closet door. The knot and he were getting
to be pretty good friends. When he awoke in the morning the knot was
always the first thing to meet his gaze, and of late it had seemed to
have a welcome for him. There is a lot of expression in a knot if you
look at it a long time, and sort of half close your eyes and--and--
Dan gave a start. He had almost gone to sleep again. That wouldn’t do,
for it must be fully time to get up. He raised himself on his elbow
and looked at the watch in his vest pocket. Then he gave a grunt of
satisfaction and tumbled back on the pillow. There was a good ten
minutes yet. Across the room Tubby was represented by a round mound
under the bed clothes. Not an inch of him was showing, for Tubby slept
with his head under the covers to guard against those drafts which
were forever troubling him. Dan put his hands under his head, stared
contentedly at the knot in the closet door and went through the day in
anticipation.
Chapel at half-past seven in Assembly Hall, the fellows sitting by
classes on the old, knife-scarred benches, and “Old Toby,” as the
principal was called, reading from the Bible in his pleasant, mellow,
English voice; afterwards an invocation by Mr. Collins or Mr. Frye,
the boys joining together at the end in the Lord’s Prayer; then
announcements by Mr. Collins, the singing of a hymn and a decorous exit
as far as the door turning to a wild, riotous stampede down the two
flights of stairs.
Breakfast at eight; a good breakfast, too--all the milk you wanted to
drink, or coffee or cocoa; steak or chops or eggs and bacon, with big
steaming-hot baked potatoes and toast or rolls. Dan’s expression grew
beatific. He had his regular place in commons now, and if all went well
he would go to one of the football training tables in a week or so. He
didn’t know any of the fellows at his table very well yet, but he was
becoming better acquainted every day. The chap at his left--his name
was Paul Rand--kept a jar of orange marmalade and was very generous
with it. Dan rather liked Rand--or the marmalade; he wasn’t certain
which.
At nine o’clock there was a Latin recitation in Oxford G, with
Mr. Collins. Dan wasn’t awfully fond of Latin, but he accepted it
philosophically as a necessary evil. French was better. That came at
half-past nine. The instructor was Mr. von Groll, a great favorite
with the fellows. He was just out of college, an Amherst A.B., and
hadn’t yet forgotten what it was to be a boy. After French there was a
half-hour in which to brush up on math. And it was a pretty good thing
to brush up on, as Dan had already learned. For Mr. McIntyre--“Kilts”
was his popular name--was pretty severe. “Kilts” wasn’t very well
liked; there was a general idea prevalent that he had long since
forgotten the first two letters of the alphabet; anyhow, it was an
event in school when he awarded a B to anyone, while as for an A!
Tradition had it that he had never marked a student with an A but once,
and that it so upset him that he was ill for a week.
In the school catalogue he figured as Angus McIntyre, A.A., Edinburgh.
That “A.A.,” which really stood for Associate of Arts, was variously
interpreted by the boys as “Almost Anything,” “Abominable Algebra”
and “Acrimonious Angus.” They said he had tacked so many A’s onto his
name that he had none left for his pupils. In age he was somewhere
about fifty, tall, lean, smooth-shaven, with a shock of iron-gray
hair and piercing, deep-set eyes. Yardley didn’t love Kilts, but at
the same time it was proud of him. He had written numerous books on
higher mathematics, and, as one of his students had said in a moment
of grudging admiration, “could take Euclid by the back of the neck and
shake the change out of his trousers.” So far Dan had got along pretty
well with Kilts.
After mathematics there was nothing to do to-day until dinner time,
unless he was wise enough to study. At two there was English with Mr.
Gaddis, a big, bullet-headed, good-natured man of thirty-six who would
have looked more at home on the football field than in the class room.
Old Tige was the name awarded him, probably because of a likeness to an
unlovely, kind-dispositioned bulldog. The fellows liked Old Tige, even
while they made fun of him; and there was no doubt about his ability as
an instructor of the English Language.
At four came football practice. Dan’s heart warmed at the thought
of it. He was getting on down there on the field, was Dan. Already
he had been accepted as a possibility at end. That didn’t mean a
great deal, for early-season possibilities often become late-season
impossibilities, but Dan was encouraged and was doing his level best to
make good. He had plenty of speed, followed the ball as a cat follows
a mouse, and barring lack of weight, seemed to have the making of an
ideal end. And whether he made the team or not, he was having a lot
of good fun out of it and, better yet, was making acquaintances and
friends. He knew lots and lots of fellows well enough to speak to now,
while several had asked him to their rooms. He hadn’t gone yet, but
he meant to. Alf Loring was very friendly, but Dan didn’t seem to get
very far with him. He was sorry, too, for he liked Loring thoroughly,
liked him better than ever since he had seen him run the first team
in the scrimmages with which the practice ended nowadays. Loring was
a wonderful quarter-back; there was no doubt about that. Dan wished
that he might know him better. But Alf Loring was one of the popular
fellows in school and doubtless had as many friends now as he wanted,
Dan reflected. Perhaps in time--. Well, meanwhile there was his fidus
Achates, Tubby Jones. Dan looked across at Tubby’s inert form and
smiled.
After practice came a jolly half-hour in the gymnasium, while the
fellows took their showers, dressed and talked over the day’s events.
Then supper and a clear hour of loafing; only to-night was letter night
for Dan, and letter writing would take the place of a loaf. Then study
from eight to nine or half-past, or, in case Tubby’s friends didn’t
happen in, until ten. And then bed again. A busy day, but a happy one,
thought Dan.
But now the knot on the closet door was looking back at him warningly
and Dan, his thoughts returning at a bound to the present, leaped out
of bed, shut the window and called to Tubby.
“Seven o’clock and past, Tubby! You’ll be late for Chapel!”
“Don’t care if I am,” growled Tubby.