IN THE LINE-UP
Country Day School came Saturday and put up a good fight, but was
defeated by the score of 7 to 3. Ira witnessed that contest from the
bench and found more interest in it than in the Mapleton battle because
he wanted very much to have Parkinson win. He felt certain that a
defeat would make much more difficult the already discouraging task
ahead of captain and coach. Then, too, there was a personal side to
it. He was, to a limited extent, a member of that brown-legged team,
and, naturally enough, he preferred to be associated with success. But
he just couldn't get up any real excitement, even when, in the third
period, Country Day scored that field-goal and took the lead, or when,
ten minutes later, Parkinson, with Dannis back to yelp and drive,
marched from the enemy's forty-yard line to her nine and then tossed a
forward-pass over to Ray White. Of course, now that he knew what it was
all about--or some of it!--and realised how hard the brown team was
working on that thirty-yard march, he found more interest, but, unlike
some of the others around him, he was able to sit quietly on the bench
without squirming, didn't make funny noises in his throat when Wells
fumbled a pass and, in brief, kept his heart beating away at its normal
speed. But he _was_ glad when it was over and Parkinson had won, and he
said as much to Logan, a substitute end, with whom he walked back to
the gymnasium.
"I'm glad we won it," he said in a quietly satisfied tone. "Aren't you?"
Logan turned and viewed him quizzically. "Are you really?" he asked.
"Just like that, eh? Well, if I were you I'd try to restrain my
enthusiasm, Rowland. Over-excitement is bad for the heart!"
"Over-exci--Oh, well, I guess I haven't been here long enough to get
very excited about it. I was just thinking that maybe the school would
be pleased and be more--feel better disposed toward the team."
"The school!" scoffed Logan. "Who cares what the school does? We play
our own game." With which somewhat cryptic remark he kicked open the
door and hurried in to get undressed before the showers were all
occupied.
The next Monday Ira was taken from the seclusion of the fourth squad
and handed over to the none too tender mercies of a large, red-faced
youth of nineteen named Neely. Dave Neely looked Ira up and down
almost, as Ira felt, compassionately. "Oh, all right," said Neely as
though disclaiming further responsibility, "get in with that gang
there and see what you can do. You can't be worse than most of them, I
suppose. What's your name?"
"Rowland."
"What makes you think you want to play guard, Rowland?"
"Nothing. I mean, I don't want to play guard, especially."
"You don't!" growled Neely. "Then what are you doing here?"
"Coach Driscoll told me to report to you. He didn't tell me what I was
to do. But I'd just as lief be guard as anything."
"Suffering cats!" groaned Neely. "And this is what happens to a
peace-loving citizen like me! Have you ever played guard?"
"No." Ira shook his head, smiling a little in sympathy with Neely's
outraged feelings. "I haven't played anywhere. I'm just beginning."
"Fine! I can see that you're going to be a huge success. Well, all
right." Neely waved a hand weariedly. "Cut across to that gang and do
what you see them do. Only for the love of Mike, try to do it better!"
The "gang" alluded to consisted of some ten or a dozen boys who were
divided into two lines. They faced each other and, when one of their
number stooped down and trickled a ball back between his wide-spread
legs immediately crashed together and lunged and pushed and shoved and
gave a good imitation of a small riot. Most of the linesmen were older
than Ira, and several of them were larger. He couldn't find a place to
station himself and was still hesitating when Neely arrived, almost on
his heels.
"Move up one, Buffum, and let this man in there. You're a guard,
Rowland. The other side has the ball. Now get through."
The man nearly opposite Ira grunted and trickled the pigskin away. Ira
was watching him intently and would have continued to watch had not
the youth in front of him plunged into him and sent him reeling back.
Dave Neely's face became apoplectic. "Didn't you see you were in the
gentleman's way, Rowland?" he demanded with heavy sarcasm. "Why didn't
you lie down and let him go over you?"
Ira regarded him doubtfully. "Should I have stopped him!" he asked.
A roar of laughter arose from the panting players and Neely's
countenance became even redder. "Should you have--Oh, no! Oh, dear,
no! Not if it's too much trouble, Rowland! This is just a little light
exercise, you know. Nothing of consequence. We're just whiling away an
idle hour. Why, you--you--Look here, don't you know anything about the
duties of a linesman?"
"I'm afraid not, but if you'll tell me----"
"Oh, I'll tell you! Listen now. That brown oblate spheroid, or whatever
the scientific name of it is, is a football. Those fellows in front of
you are attacking. When you see that football snapped you want to get
through and go after it. You have other duties, but that's enough for
now. Get through! Get through! Try it now."
Away trickled the ball, the lines crashed together and--Ira was lying
on the ground four yards behind the opposing line with the ball
snuggled to his chest! Neely stared a moment. Then, seeing the grins on
the faces of the others, he chuckled. "All right, Rowland," he called.
"Let him up. You needn't bother to fall on the ball just now, but that
_is_ the way I want you to get through. That was all right. Now, then,
Tooker, what happened to you?"
Tooker looked puzzled and shook his head vaguely. "I guess he caught me
napping," he replied.
"You _guess_ he did! You _know_ he did! Try it again."
Ira didn't get by the next time, for his opponent was prepared, but he
gave Tooker all the work he could stand, and Neely grunted approval.
They kept at it for some twenty minutes longer, one side playing on
defence and then the other. Ira discovered things from watching the
rest and Neely instructed between each charge. After that they had ten
minutes with the machine, a wooden platform having a padded rail on
one side and four small and absolutely inadequate iron wheels beneath.
Having loaded the platform with half the squad, Neely set the rest at
pushing it ahead with their shoulders set against the rail. It was
punishing work for the chargers, only partly compensated for when it
became their part to ride and watch the others push.
Work with the linesmen continued for a week without much variety.
Always the afternoon started with tackling practice on the dummy and
ended with a jog around the field. Ira made progress and Neely no
longer viewed him with an air of patient fortitude. In fact, Neely was
rather pleased with him and more than once said so. Almost anyone save
Ira would have been all perked up by that commendation, and would have
had hard work concealing the fact. But Ira only looked mildly gratified
and said simply that he was "glad if he was any use, thanks!"
The Cumner High School game went to Parkinson, 18 to 7, and was
quite an exciting event if only because of the numerous fumbles and
misplays which were about evenly divided between the contending teams.
Cumner was light and fast and Parkinson heavier and decidedly slower.
A wet field aided the home team by handicapping Cumner's speedy
backfield. All three of Parkinson's touchdowns resulted from steady
line-plunging--diversified by fumbles of the wet ball--and Cumner
scored by the overhead route, tossing a long forward-pass across
the line in the third quarter. Cumner kicked her goal, while Cole,
of Parkinson, missed each attempt. The brown team suffered several
injuries that afternoon, for a slippery field invariably takes its toll
of the players. Donovan, left guard, sprained his knee badly, French, a
tackle, pulled a tendon in his leg and Cole, first-string right half,
got a nasty bruise on his head. Cumner, too, sustained injuries, but
none were serious.
Ira went back with Gene Goodloe to Williams that evening after a
lecture in the auditorium and found Lyons and several football fellows
present. He had entertained the notion that the afternoon's victory
was something to be mildly proud of, but after listening, in silence
for the most part, to the conversation he saw that he had been far too
optimistic. Parkinson had committed every sin in the football category.
Everyone agreed on that. The line had been slow and had played too
high, the backfield had lacked punch and the ends--well, the least said
of the ends the better! Everyone was inclined to be very gloomy, and
the injury to Donovan didn't seem to cheer them up any! Ira went home
at ten o'clock realising that football was not merely the pastime he
had believed it to be, but something terribly earnest and important, a
little more important, evidently, than mid-year examinations or--or a
presidential election! He shook his head and sighed as he climbed the
stairs at Maggy's. It was beyond his comprehension, he concluded.
They put him in a line-up one afternoon the next week and he struggled
for some ten or twelve minutes in a perfectly hopeless effort to
outplay Brackett, of the first squad. Perhaps he shouldn't have
expected to get the best of a veteran like Brackett, but he was, at all
events, rather disappointed when he was taken out and sent hobbling
off to the showers. He hobbled because someone had ruthlessly stamped
on his foot and he had a suspicion that one or two of his toes were
crushed and broken beyond repair. Also, his head was still ringing from
the hearty impact of someone's shoe. He was relieved to find that,
although red and swollen, the toes were apparently intact, while, as
for his head, that responded to cold water and rest.
"Football," said Ira to himself as he limped down the steps on his way
to the town, "is a funny sort of game. You work like the dickens five
days a week so you'll be able to 'play' on the sixth. Only I don't call
it playing exactly, at that. Well, if I don't get killed I suppose I'll
manage to get through the season. Unless, that is, they realise, as I
do, that I'm no earthly use to them. I sort of hope they'll let me go
before I break something worse than a couple of toes!"
But it didn't seem to be their plan to let him go, for two days later,
when the first real cut came and the fourth squad ceased to exist, Ira
was still kicking his heels on the bench during scrimmage. It seemed
to him that Coach Driscoll had let many a better player depart in
peace, and he wondered why he was retained. The second team had been
made up for nearly a fortnight and Ira had been rather relieved at not
being relegated to it. If, he argued, they put him on the second he
might prove just good enough to be kept there for the balance of the
season, while, if they kept him out for the first it was very likely
that after awhile they would recognise his deficiencies and let him
off. He was willing to stay there and do what they asked him to do just
as long as he was wanted, but he always entertained the hope that some
fine day Captain Lyons would gently and kindly inform him that they had
decided to worry along without him.
He was given instruction in catching punts, something at which he
failed to distinguish himself, and was glad to find that the course was
merely a sort of "extra" and intended to qualify him for an emergency
rather than to fit him to play in the backfield. Of course, if Driscoll
had said: "You go in for Dannis, at quarter, Rowland," he would have
nodded and gone, just as he would have done had he been nonchalantly
informed that he was to play right end or centre. But he did secretly
hope that, failing to drop him, they would let him continue to play
in a guard position. Without flattering himself, he felt that he
could play guard fairly well if he wasn't opposed to some wonder like
Brackett or Donovan. Ira's estimate of himself as a football player was
modest those days, for, although he frequently received commendation,
he concluded that folks were just being nice to him and "letting
him down easy." Once when Fred Lyons said warmly: "Rowland, you're
certainly shaping, old man, wonderfully!" Ira looked mildly gratified
and said "Thank you" and secretly liked Fred better for being gracious
to a "dub" like he.
After that first cut Ira could count on playing a few minutes every
afternoon. Sometimes he was opposed to the first squad men and
sometimes he was lined up with the first against the second team. When
the latter event happened he usually gave a fairly good account of
himself, always, in fact, when he played at left of centre, for then
he was opposed to a rather light and seedy chap named Faulkner, and he
could do about as he liked with Faulkner. If they played him at right
guard--and they didn't seem to care much which side of the line they
put him--he had his work cut out, for Johns was a hard, fast fellow
to stand up to. As the days went by Ira began, rather to his own
surprise, to look forward to those more or less brief periods of play.
After all, there was something exciting about a physical encounter like
that, something very interesting in matching his wit and brawn against
the wit and brawn of another. Such times as he gave a good account of
himself, Ira went back to the gymnasium and, later, to his room, in
quite a glow of satisfaction. The glow didn't last long, however, and
he always ended by laughing at himself for caring whether he or Johns
had emerged victor in the struggle.
Parkinson met her first reverse when she went away and played
Phillipsburg Academy. Phillipsburg had won from Kenwood by one score
the week before and Parkinson was anxious to defeat her. Perhaps Fred
Lyons was more anxious than anyone else, for it seemed to him that a
victory over a team which had lately defeated Parkinson's special rival
would convince the school at large that the brown team was worthy of
support. But it was not to be. With Donovan out of the game, the left
side of the Parkinson line was unbelievably weak. Buffum did the best
he could, doubtless, but Buffum was not a Donovan and never would be.
Cole was not called on until the beginning of the third quarter, by
which time Phillipsburg had a lead that Parkinson couldn't wear down.
Coach Driscoll thrust a veritable army of substitutes into the fray
in the final ten minutes, but all to no purpose. Ira had his baptism
by fire that chilly, blowy October afternoon, and did neither better
nor worse than the player he succeeded. Phillipsburg already had the
game on ice by a score of 19 to 9, and as she played entirely on the
defensive during most of the final period, Ira had little chance to
distinguish himself. He played through six minutes, most of which was
spent by him, or so he thought afterwards, in running up and down the
field. Phillipsburg punted every time she got the ball, with the one
thought of keeping the adversary outside her twenty-five-yard line.
Parkinson nearly forced another score on her in the last three minutes
when a forward pass from Wirt went to a Phillipsburg player and he had
almost a clear field ahead of him. Dannis, however, managed to pull him
to earth just short of the ten-yard line and when the home team had
exhausted two downs in a vain attempt to puncture the brown line, her
try-at-goal went a few inches wide of the upright. In the end 19 to 9
was the result, and Parkinson went home with trailing banners.