MORE FOOTBALL
From that day there was in practice a growing trouble on the left of the
school centre. The plays on that side frequently went wrong. Some one
would rise in the path of the ball from beside Butler’s knees, or there
would be no hole between tackle and guard when it was called for, or
when a hole was made, big Milliken would be found crouching behind it,
with Lindsay scrambling free from his opponent within striking distance.
And occasionally, even when the play was aimed at Laughlin’s side,
Lindsay would dive through, wheel round the centre and tear away the men
who were pushing behind, just at the moment when their impulse was most
needed.
He was not always so successful. Sometimes Butler would fall squarely
upon him, and so give Buist or Wendt a chance to hurdle them both.
Sometimes Butler would catch him badly balanced on his feet, and throw
him before he could steady himself. At times, also, the older player
would resort to more violent methods, especially when the second had the
ball and the first were free to use their hands, and would charge
open-handed at Wolcott’s eyes, or with a sudden upward sweep of his
forearm bring the head of his crouching opponent up to the desired
level. But Wolcott kept both his temper and his wits. When a new trick
was used against him, he devised a way of meeting it. He learned to hold
his head up long enough to detect the course of the play, and safely
down when he went for the ball; to start like a flash without false
moves; to strike his opponent, with his feet not one behind the other or
in each other’s way, but well apart and strongly braced; to fall, when a
heavy man tried to flatten him, not helpless with legs and arms
outstretched, but on his hands and knees in a crawling position; to turn
his opponent’s direction by a dexterous twist; and, above all, to play
his game on the ground. It was a personal contest day after day between
the old and the new guard to see which should prevail over the other—a
contest which, though not bitter, was yet hard and fierce and exciting.
And every day, though the coachers behind the first exhorted and
reviled, Lindsay’s advantage grew.
The second was transformed. The efforts and example of Durand and
Lindsay and Milliken had put life into the whole faint-hearted flabby
set. Their plays often did not work; the right side of their line
regularly broke after a momentary struggle, to let Laughlin through. But
on the other side Lindsay and Peters, his tackle, could usually open
some kind of a hole; and when Milliken hugged the ball in his two arms
and butted, bull-like, at an opening, something usually gave way. And
now and then Durand would get a chance to run back a punt, or would slip
round the school tackle on a quarter-back run, and with the jerky,
zigzag, dodging movement that made him disappear under the hand like a
flea, would work his way a third the length of the field. Such
occurrences were, however, exceptional; the practice of the second was
mainly on the defence.
“It’s too good to last,” said Durand, mournfully, after a game in which
the second had made an unusually good resistance. “They’ll soon be
taking Milliken away from me, and swapping Butler for you. That’s the
trouble with a second eleven: as soon as you develop a good man, they
steal him.”
“Well, they won’t steal me,” returned Wolcott, laughing. “I’m more
useful to them where I am.”
On the next day there was a “shake-up” on the second. Milliken was put
on the first, and Lindsay was transferred to left guard, opposite
Laughlin.
“You see I was right,” he said to Durand, as the players shifted
positions. “I’m the animated tackling dummy for the first to practise
on. When one man’s got enough of me, they turn me over to another. Well,
here goes! My work’s cut out for me this time all right.” And he went to
his place with the spirit of battle burning like a fire within him.
There was fierce struggling that day between right guard on the first
and left guard on the second. Wolcott early found that the methods used
with success against Butler would not all serve against Laughlin.
Sometimes the captain lifted him up and threw him over; sometimes he
simply swept him back by his immense strength and weight. Only by
extreme rapidity of attack could Wolcott scramble by his enemy on the
defensive; only by playing on his knees and charging low could he keep
the heavier man from the play. The fight took all his strength and all
his attention. It was lift and smash, and smash and lift, regardless of
time or distance. He did not know whether one touchdown had been made or
four; whether he was doing well or ill: he merely played his man to the
limit of his powers. And when the whistle finally sounded, and he gave a
last look into Laughlin’s face before turning to hunt up Ware and his
sweater, he noticed for the first time how the perspiration was pouring
down the captain’s face and the big body shook with panting.
Wolcott went to bed that night at eight o’clock, completely tired out,
but supremely content. He had given Laughlin the hardest tussle that the
doughty veteran had faced in many a long day.
On Saturday came a match, and Wolcott played in Butler’s place during
the second half. The crowd at the side-lines made various comments on
the merits of the two players. But a guard occupies an inconspicuous
place. With the centre he forms the backbone, the anchor of the line;
but his best work is hidden by the scrimmage. It may have been merely
because they were in better training than their antagonists that Seaton
played a so much stronger game during the second half; it may have been
due entirely to his freshness that Lindsay was so effective in holding
up his men and dragging them along, after they were tackled, several
times to a first down. The bleacher critics were uncertain, and the
coachers, who knew best, would not commit themselves.
Again Wolcott took his practice opposite Laughlin. The head coach was
most of the time behind the second; and though he kept close watch on
the general game, he always had one eye on Laughlin and Lindsay. Wolcott
had lost something of his fear of his redoubtable antagonist. As the
game advanced, he discovered that though he could not stand before the
captain in a contest of strength, Laughlin was inclined to be slow, and
when once started in a given direction could not quickly change his
course. With this new light to guide him, he succeeded in giving the
dread guard a most lively and absorbing ten-minutes bout. At the end of
that time Lauder took him out and put him in Butler’s place on the
first. In the signal practice that followed the general game, Lindsay
found himself still occupying Butler’s position.
“He must play with the first from this time on,” said the coach that
evening, as he discussed Lindsay’s case with Laughlin. “We’ve only ten
days more of good practice left, and that allows us little enough time
to work him well into the attack. He’s good enough on the defence now.”
“I suppose you’re right,” responded Laughlin; “but I’d like to have one
or two more tries at him. He’s the toughest proposition I’ve struck this
year. The second’s been the making of that fellow. If we had put him on
the first as soon as he began to show what was in him, he wouldn’t be
half so good.”
“Give me that man for two years, and I’d make him the greatest guard
that ever played!” cried Lauder, who had the true trainer’s enthusiasm
for his pet athlete. “Light as he is, he’s a match for ’most any man
twenty pounds heavier, and he’s growing all the time. Why, he’s all you
can handle now, and just think how green he is!”
“That’s the trouble with Wolcott,” said Laughlin, thoughtfully, “he’s
had so little experience. The Hillbury game is a pretty hard strain on a
green man. If he only keeps his head!”
“He’ll do it, I’m sure,” the coach answered with confidence. “He’s a
natural player, and fellows of that kind play by instinct; they think
more with their nerves than with their minds. We’ll see how he gets
along with that Harvard Second man.”
The game with the Harvard Second was at the same time Wolcott’s glory
and his undoing. He had opposite him a player of the familiar college
type,—big, strong, experienced, well versed in the tricks of the trade,
but without the power or the brains or the temperament necessary to make
a first-class varsity man. He played a game of smash and drive, much
like that which Wolcott had learned to expect from Butler,—high in the
air and slow. The ease with which the Seaton left guard did the work
expected of him set the coaches on the side-lines dancing with joy. So
unsuccessful was the bulky Harvard man in stopping his troublesome
opponent that toward the end of the second half he lost his head or his
temper; and in his struggles, by accident or design, one of his fists
landed smartly on Wolcott’s nose. As luck would have it, in the same
scrimmage, Wolcott also received a hard, numbing blow in the leg from
some heavy Harvard boot. Though the limping fellow protested that he was
quite able to play, Laughlin, fearing to take risks with a valuable man,
sent him to the side-lines and called in Butler to finish the game.
“Lindsay’s nose wasn’t broken, was it?” asked Mr. Graham, meeting the
school physician a few hours later.
Dr. Kenneth laughed. “Oh, no; he had nothing worse than nosebleed. His
thigh will be lame for a day or two from the kick that he got in the
last scrimmage, but neither injury requires my care.”
And while Wolcott was having his leg rubbed, and gossiping joyously with
Laughlin about the work of the eleven of which he was at last a
full-fledged member, the professional disseminator of evil tidings was
preparing the following “story” for the Boston _Trumpeter_:—
“The Harvard Second went to Seaton yesterday and received a drubbing to
the tune of 16 to 0. It wasn’t as easy as the score seems to indicate,
for the game was a fight from start to finish, only the gilt-edged
training and splendid team work of the Seatonians enabling them to pull
out a victory. Milliken was the sledge hammer most successfully used to
smash the Harvard line, though Buist also proved no slouch in pushing
the pigskin forward. Laughlin was as invincible as usual, while Lindsay,
Seaton’s new left guard, put up an especially lively, scrappy game,
until he was carried off the field near the end of the second half, with
the blood streaming down his face. It is to be hoped that his injuries
won’t keep him permanently off the gridiron, as he seems to be the great
find of the season.”
Wolcott read the account the next morning when he returned from his
first recitation, and hooted with amusement. Mr. Lindsay read it at his
breakfast table and shuddered. He carried the paper down town with him
to his office to keep it out of Mrs. Lindsay’s hands; and all the way
down he grew more and more indignant. The first thing he did at the
office was to call up the school authorities at Seaton and demand a
report of his son’s condition. The reassuring answer did not change his
purpose. He sat down at his desk and wrote the misguided youth a letter,
ordering him peremptorily to play football no more. Then, having by
parental ukase rescued his son from threatening peril, he took up with
relief the business of the day.
Wolcott received the letter that afternoon, as he came in from the field
where he had been watching the practice. He read it through in
amazement. He reread it with quickened breath and a mist forming before
his eyes. And then, big fellow as he was, he threw himself on his bed
and wept.