ON THE GRIDIRON
Ranny Phelps left the school building that afternoon in a distinctly
disagreeable mood. He had been feeling vaguely irritable all day, but
since noon there had developed grouchy tendencies, as Court Parker
termed them, and he was ready to flare up at the slightest provocation.
On the way down-stairs he had flown out at Harry Vedder, one of his
particular followers, for no other reason than that the stout youth
expressed an indolent conviction that the new tenderfoot could play
football better than he could drill, and that he would probably show
up on the field. The blow-up, instead of relieving pressure, as such
things often do, seemed to deepen Phelps's discontent, and seeing Ward
on the walk just ahead of him, he yielded to a sudden impulse and
hastily caught up with him.
"Look here, Sherm," he began hastily, "you're not really thinking
of--of--using that nut Tompkins, are you?"
The football captain glanced sidewise at him--a cool, level stare. "Why
not?" he asked briefly. "He's a member of the troop, isn't he?"
Ranny realized his mistake, but temper kept him to it. "Oh, yes! yes, of
course," he snapped petulantly. "Unfortunately he is, but I don't see
why you should encourage him. If he's shown that he--he--isn't wanted,
he may have the wit to--to--"
Conscious of Ward's prolonged, quizzical glance, the blond chap faltered,
and then, furious at himself and with his companion, he went on angrily:
"You needn't look like that. You know yourself he's the extreme limit.
Look at him now!" He waved one hand jerkily toward a group ahead, which
included the boy under discussion chatting eagerly with Parker and Bob
Gibson. "He's a disgrace to the troop with that horrible-looking suit,
all rags and frayed, and--and his hair brushing all over his collar; I
don't believe it's been cut in months."
"Well, what of it?" inquired the taller chap composedly, as Ranny paused
for breath. "What's his hair or his clothes got to do with his being a
good scout?"
"Everything!" snapped Ranny, biting his lips and striving to keep down
his temper. "A fellow that amounts to anything will--will keep himself
decent looking even if he is--poor. Besides he--you saw him last night;
couldn't do the simplest thing without making a show of himself. Take
my word for it, he'll never amount to anything. He's a dead loss, and I
wish-- I can't think what you see in--"
He broke off with grating teeth, maddeningly conscious of the futility
and ineffectiveness of his words. It wasn't at all the sort of thing he
had meant to say. He realized that temper had deadened judgment, and
that the whole must sound excessively silly and childish. He fully
expected his companion to greet the outbreak with open ridicule, but
when he looked up, he discovered with mingled annoyance and relief
that Ward wasn't listening at all. Instead, he was staring at the group
ahead with an expression of such frank curiosity and interest that
instinctively Ranny followed the direction of his schoolmate's eager
glance.
Eight or ten boys, mostly upper-grade grammar-school students and
about half of them scouts, were bunched together at the corner of a
cross-street. Apparently they had been halted by a man of middle age
who was talking with considerable animation, the while keeping one
hand on the shoulder of Dale Tompkins, who looked exceedingly sheepish
and uncomfortable. As Ranny stared, puzzled, he was amazed to see Court
Parker leap suddenly at his classmate with a piercing yell, clutch
him about the waist, and execute a few steps of a wildly eccentric
war-dance. Then he thumped the tenderfoot violently on the back, and
finally the whole crowd flung themselves on the boy in a body. As
Ward and Phelps hastily approached, the victim was engulfed by numbers,
but his vehement, embarrassed protests sounded intermittently above the
din.
"Aw, quit it, fellows! Lay off, won't you? It wasn't anything. I-- Cut it
out--do!"
"Here's the missing hero!" called Court Parker, shrilly. "Where's the
leather medal?" Suddenly he slid out of the throng and faced the
new-comers, his eyes shining. "What do you know about Tommy?" he
demanded. "_He's_ the mysterious guy who rescued Georgie Warren last
night. Fact! Mr. Pegram was there and saw him. He was the one who
'phoned the company to shut off the current, you know. Says Tommy was
cool as a cucumber and had all kinds of nerve And this morning he
never let out a peep about it, even when I asked him. Some kid, eh,
Sherm?"
Ward grinned. "The secretive young beggar!" he exclaimed. "By jinks! That
ought to mean a medal, sure! And he a tenderfoot only a week!"
[Illustration: "Aw, quit it, fellows! It wasn't anything"]
He moved forward toward the throng, eager for further details. Ranny did
not stir. His face was blank, and his mind, usually so active, failed
for a second or two to take in the meaning of what he had heard. When at
length he realized the truth, a sense of grudging admiration stole over
him. From one of those present at the affair last night he had had an
unusually vivid account of the accident. He understood the risks the
hitherto unknown rescuer had run, and fully appreciated his nerve and
resourcefulness. For a flashing second he was filled with an impulse
to follow Ward's example and add his brief word of congratulation to
the chorus, but the impulse was only momentary. In a second or two he
had crushed it back, passed the noisy group, and headed toward the
football field alone.
How absurd he had been even to think of such a thing! The details had
probably been greatly exaggerated. Doubtless, Tompkins had merely
blundered into the affair and done the right thing through sheer fool
luck. At any rate, he still remained precisely the same individual whose
presence Ranny had considered a blot on the appearance of the troop and
likely to injure its "tone." There seemed to him no reason why this
latest development should alter his treatment of the fellow a particle.
Ward and the rest reached the field not long after Phelps, and no time
was lost in commencing practice. Tompkins was started off with the
scrub, an organization composed mostly of scouts who were too small or
lazy or indifferent or unskilful to make the regular eleven, together
with a few outsiders who had been persuaded into lending their aid
merely for the fun of the game. It was a motley crowd, and Sherman had
his hands full holding them together. One or two, to be sure, were
stimulated by the hope, which grew fainter with each day of practice,
that they might supplant some member of the regular team in time to
play in _the_ game of the season, the struggle with the redoubtable
Troop One, which would end the series and decide the championship.
But the majority had no such dominating incentive. Their interest flagged
continually, and it was only by a constant appeal to their scout spirit,
by rebuke and ridicule, interspersed with well-timed jollying, that they
could be kept to the scratch. When Dale Tompkins was given the position
of right tackle, the boy whose place he had taken openly rejoiced,
and not a few of his companions viewed the escape with envy.
The regulars started with the ball, and the first down netted them eight
yards. The second plunge through the line was almost as successful;
the third even more so. The scrub played apathetically, each fellow for
himself. They lacked cohesion, and many of the individuals opposed the
rushes half-heartedly and without spirit. Little Saunders, the scrub
quarter, while working at full pressure himself, seemed to have grown
discouraged by past failures to spur the fellows on. Occasionally he
snapped out a rasping appeal for them to get together and do something,
but there was a perfunctory note in his voice which told how little
faith he had in their obeying.
To Ward, playing at left half on the regulars, it was an old story
which had ceased, almost, to fret him. He had come to feel that the
utmost he could hope for was to keep the scrub together and gain what
practice was possible from their half-hearted resistance. Keeping his eye
on Tompkins, he noted with approval that the boy was playing a very
different sort of game. He flung himself into the fray with snap and
energy, tackling well, recovering swiftly, and showing a pretty knowledge
of interference. But it was soon apparent that his work failed more or
less because of its very quickness. At every rush he was a foot or
two ahead of the sluggish Vedder at guard or the discouraged Morris
playing on his right. He might get his man and frequently did, but one
player cannot do all the work of a team, and the holes in the line
remained as gaping as before.
The regulars scored a touchdown and, returning to the center of the
field, began the process anew. There was a sort of monotonous iteration
about their advance that presently began to get a little on Sherman's
nerves. The crisp, shrill voice of Court Parker calling the signal, the
thud of feet over the turf, the crash as the wedge of bodies struck the
wavering line and thrust its way through it and on, on, seemingly to
endless distance in spite of the plucky efforts of the boy at right
tackle to stop it--it was all so cut and dried, so certain, so unvaried.
Now and again would come the tired, ill-tempered snap of Saunders's
"Get into it, fellows! Wake up, for the love of Pete!" Occasionally,
from left end, Ranny Phelps would make some sarcastic reference to Ward's
"great find," to which, though it irritated him, the captain paid no
heed. He was still watching critically and beginning to wonder, with a
little touch of anxiety, whether Tompkins was going to be engulfed in
the general slough of inertia. In this wise the play had progressed
half-way toward the scrub's goal-posts when suddenly a new note was
injected into the affair.
"Steady, fellows. Let's get together. It's just as easy to fight back
as to be walked over--and a lot more fun. Hold 'em, now!"
The voice was neither shrill nor snappish, but pitched in a sort of
good-natured urgency. One guessed that the owner of it was growing weary
of being eternally buffeted and flung aside. Ranny Phelps greeted the
remark with a sarcastic laugh.
"Great head!" he jeered. "You must be quite an expert in the game. Why
don't you try it?"
Dale Tompkins raised his head and dashed one hand across a dripping
forehead. "That's what we're going to do," he smiled; "aren't we, Morris,
old man? Come ahead, Vedder; all we need is a little team-work, fellows."
Stout Harry Vedder merely grunted breathlessly. But somehow, when the
next rush came, his fat shoulders dropped a little lower and he lunged
forward a shade more swiftly than he had done. Wilks, the weakest point
in the opposing line, caught unexpectedly by the elephantine rush, went
down, and Tompkins brought the man with the ball to earth by a nice
tackle.
"That's the stuff," he gasped as he scrambled up. "Good boy! I knew you'd
do it. Again, now!"
The regulars scored another touchdown, but it took longer than the first.
Insensibly the line in front of them was stiffening. The backs got
into the game; the left wing, stirred by a touch of rivalry, perhaps,
began to put a little snap into their work. By the time the regulars had
forced the pigskin for the third time over their opponent's goal-line,
the scrub seemed actually to be waking up. Vedder grumbled continually,
but nevertheless he worked; many of the others blustered a bit to
cover their change of tactics. It was as if they were doubtfully testing
out Tompkins's statement that it was more fun to fight back than to
be walked over, and finding an unexpected pleasure in the process.
Amazed at first, Sherman Ward lost no time in helping along the good
work. After the third down he gave the scrub the ball and urged them to
make the other fellows hustle. They took him up with a will. Saunders's
perfunctory bark became snappy and full of life; more than one of the
hitherto grouchy players added his voice to the general racket. But
through it all, the good-natured urgence of Dale Tompkins, with that
underlying note of perfect faith in their willingness to try anything,
continued to stir the fellows to their best efforts. The swiftly falling
autumn twilight found the regulars fighting harder than they had ever
done before to hold back the newly galvanized scrub. To the latter it
brought a novel sensation. For the first time on record they were
almost sorry to see the end of practice.
Streaking across the field to the shed which had been fixed up for a
dressing-room, they laughed, and joked, and vehemently discussed the
latter plays.
"Wait till to-morrow!" shrilly advised one of the scrub. "We won't do
a thing to you guys, will we, Tommy?"
"That's the talk!" agreed Tompkins, smilingly. "We'll make 'em hump, all
right."
He seemed quite unconscious of having done anything in the least out
of the ordinary. On the contrary, he was filled with grateful happiness
at the subtle change in the manner of many of the fellows toward him.
It wasn't that they praised his playing. Except Sherman, who briefly
commended him, no one actually mentioned that. But instead of Tompkins,
they called him Tommy; they jollied and joshed him, argued and disputed
and chaffed with a boisterous friendliness as if he had never been
anything else than one of them. And the tenderfoot, hustling into his
clothes that he might make haste to start out with his papers, glowed
inwardly, responding to the treatment as a flower opens before the sun.
From the background Ranny Phelps observed it all with silent
thoughtfulness. Quick-witted as he was, it did not take long for him to
realize the changed conditions, to understand that he could not
longer treat the new-comer with open, careless insolence as a fellow
who did not count. But far from altering his opinion of Tompkins, the new
developments merely served to strengthen his dislike, which speedily
crystallized into a determination to do some active campaigning
against him.
"With a swelled head added to all the rest, he'll be simply intolerable,"
decided Phelps. "I guess I've got a little influence left with the
crowd in spite of all this rot." His eyes narrowed ominously as they
rested on Harry Vedder chatting affably with the cause of Ranny's ill
temper. "I'll start with you, my fat friend," he muttered contemptuously
under his breath. "You need a good jacking-up before you indulge in any
more foolishness."