DON GOES TO THE SECOND
LIFE at Brimfield Academy settled down for Don into the accustomed
routine. The loss of one day made no difference in the matter of
lessons, for with Tim's assistance--they were both in the Fifth Form--he
easily made up what had been missed. They were taking up German that
year for the first time and Don found it hard going, but he managed to
satisfy Mr. Daley after a fashion. Don was a fellow who studied hard
because he had to. Tim could skim his lessons, make a good showing in
class and remember enough of what he had gone over to appear quite
erudite. Don had to get right down and grapple with things. He once said
enviously, and with as near an approach to an epigram as he was capable
of, that whereas Tim got his lessons by inhaling them, he, Don, had to
chew them up and swallow them! But when examination time came Don's
method of assimilation showed better results.
The injured hand healed with incredible slowness, but heal it did, and
at last the day came when the doctor consented to let his impatient
pupil put on the padded arrangement that the ingenious Danny Moore had
fashioned of a discarded fielder's glove and some curled hair, and Don
triumphantly reported for practice. His triumph was, however,
short-lived, for Coach Robey viewed him dubiously and relegated him to
the second squad, from which Mr. Boutelle was then forming his second
team. "Boots" was a graduate who turned up every Fall and took charge of
the second or scrub team. It was an open secret that he received no
remuneration. Patriotism and sheer love of the game were the inducements
that caused Mr. Boutelle to donate some two months of time and labour to
the cause of turning out a second team strong enough to give the first
the practice it needed. And he always succeeded. "Boutelle's Babies," as
someone had facetiously termed them, could invariably be depended on to
give the school eleven as hard a tussle as it wanted--and sometimes a
deal harder. Boots was a bit of a driver and believed in strenuous work,
but his charges liked him immensely and performed miracles of labour at
his command. His greeting of Don was almost as dubious as had been Coach
Robey's.
"Of course I'm glad to have you, Gilbert, but the trouble is that as
soon as we've got you nicely working Mr. Robey will take you away.
That's a great trick of his. He seems to think the purpose of the second
team is to train players for the first. It isn't, though. He gives me
what he doesn't want every year and I do my best to make a team from it,
and I ought to be allowed to keep what I make. Well, never mind. You do
the best you can while you're with us, Gilbert."
"Maybe he won't have me this year," said Don dejectedly. "He seems to
think that being out for a couple of weeks has queered me."
"Well, you don't feel that way about it, do you?"
"No, sir, I'm perfectly all right. I've watched practice every afternoon
and I've been doing a quarter to a half on the track."
"Hm. Well, you've got a little flesh that will have to come off, but it
won't take long to lose it this weather. Sit down a minute." They were
in front of the stand and Mr. Boutelle seated himself on the lower tier
and Don followed his example. "Let me see, Gilbert. Last year you played
left guard, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"And if I remember aright your chief difficulty was in the matter of
weight."
"I'm twelve pounds heavier this fall, air."
"Yes, but some of that'll come off, I guess. However, that doesn't
matter. You were getting along pretty well at the last of the season, I
remember. Who's ahead of you on the first?"
"Well, Gafferty's got the first choice, I guess. And then there's Harry
Walton."
"You can beat Walton," said Boots decisively. "Walton lacks head. He
can't think things out for himself. You can. What you'll have to do this
year, my boy, is speed up a little. It took you until about the middle
of the season to find your pace. Remember?"
"Yes, sir, I know."
"Well, you won't stay with us long, as I've said, and so I'm not going
to build you into the line, Gilbert. I've got some good-looking guard
material and I can't afford to work over you and get dependent on you
and then have Robey snatch you away about the middle of the fall. That
won't do. But I'll tell you what we will do, Gilbert. We'll use you
enough to bring you around in form slowly. You'll play left guard for
awhile every day. But what I want you to really do is to help with the
others. You've been at it two years now and you know how the position
ought to be played and you've got hard common-sense. I'll put the guard
candidates in your hands. See what you can do with them. There's a
couple of likely chaps in Kirkwell and Merton, and there are two or
three more after positions. You take them in charge, Gilbert, and show
me what you know about coaching. What do you say?"
"Why, Mr. Boutelle, I--I don't know that I can show anyone else what to
do. I can play the position myself after a fashion, but--well, I guess
it's another thing to teach, isn't it?"
"Oh, I don't know. It is if you go into it with the idea that it is, but
don't do that. Play the position as it ought to be played, tell the
others why, call them down when they make mistakes, pat them on the back
when they do right. Just forget that you're trying to teach. If a fellow
came to you and said: 'Gilbert, I want to play guard but I don't know
how, and I wish you'd tell me how you do it,' why, you wouldn't have any
trouble, would you?"
"N-no, sir, I guess not," replied Don a trifle doubtfully.
"Well, there you are. Try it, anyway. You'll get on all right. I'll be
right on hand to dig the spurs in when your courage fails." Mr.
Boutelle smiled. "We're going to have a dandy second team this fall, my
boy. We've got nothing to build on, only a lot of green material, and
that's the best part of it. I don't care how inexperienced the material
is if it's willing to learn and has the usual number of arms and legs
and such things and a few ounces of grey matter in the cranium. Well,
here we go. Nothing today but passing and punting, I guess. Sure your
hand's all right?"
"Yes, sir, thanks. I don't really need this contrivance; it's awfully
clumsy; but Doc said I'd better wear it for a few days."
"Best to be on the safe side. I'll have you take one squad of these
chaps, I guess, and I'll give the other to Lewis. You know the usual
stuff, Gilbert. Rest 'em up now and then; they're soft and the weather's
warm. But work 'em when they're working. Any fellow who soldiers gets
bounced. All out, second squad!"
There wasn't anything that afternoon but the sort of drudgery that tries
the enthusiasm of the tyro: passing the ball in circles, falling on it,
catching it on the bound and starting. Don was surprised to discover how
soft he was in spite of his daily exercise on the cinders. When the
hour's practice was over he was just about as thankful as any of the
puffing, perspiring youths around him. Considering it afterward, Don was
unable to view the material with the enthusiasm Mr. Boutelle had
displayed. To him the thirty-odd boys who had reported for the second
team were a hopeless lot, barring, of course, a few, not more than four
in all, who had had experience last season. In another week Mr. Robey
would make a cut in the first squad and the second would find itself
augmented by some ten or twelve cast-offs. But just now the second squad
looked to Don to be a most unlikely lot. When he confided all this to
Tim that evening the latter said:
"Don't you worry, old man. Boots will make a team out of them. Why, he
could make a football team out of eleven clothing store dummies!
Sometimes I think that Boots ought to be head coach instead of Robey.
I've got nothing against Robey, either. He's a bit of a 'miracle man'
himself, _but_ for building a team out of nothing Boutelle has him both
shoulders to the mat!"
"I don't believe Boots would want to coach the first," replied Don.
"Why not?"
"I don't know. He's sort of--well, he kind of likes to--Oh, I don't
know."
"Very clearly explained, Donald."
"Well, Boots, if he was a soldier, would be the sort that would want to
lead a charge where the odds were against him. See what I mean?"
"You mean he has a hankering for the forlorn chance business? Maybe so.
That's not a bad name for the second, is it? The Forlorn Chances! I
guess you've got him dead to rights, though. Boots is for the under dog
every time. I guess coaching the first and having his pick of the
players wouldn't make any sort of a hit with Boots. It would be too
tame. Boots likes to take three discarded veterans, two crips and a
handful of green youngsters and whittle them into a bunch that will make
us sweat and toil to score on. And, what's more, he does it! Bet you
anything, Don, this year's second will be every bit as good as last
year's."
"I won't take it, because I think so myself," laughed Don. "I can't see
how he's going to do it, Tim, but something tells me he will!"
"Oh, with you to coach the guards it will be no trick at all," said Tim,
grinning.
Don smiled thinly. "I'll make an awful mess of it, I guess," he
muttered.
"Not you, boy!" and Tim slapped him encouragingly on the back. "You'll
blunder right ahead to glory, same as you always do. You'll make hard
work of it and all that, but you'll get there. Don, you're exactly like
the porpoise--no, the tortoise in the fable. You don't look fast, old
man, but you keep on moving ahead and saying nothing and when the hares
arrive you're curled up on the finish line fast asleep. Tortoises can't
curl up, though, can they? And, say, what the dickens _is_ a tortoise,
anyway? I always get tortoises and porpoises mixed."
"A porpoise is a fish," replied Don gravely. "And a tortoise is a land
turtle. But they're both anthropoids."
"Are they?" asked Tim vaguely. "All right. Here, what are you grinning
at? Anthropoids nothing! An anthropoid is a monkey or--or something."
"You're an anthropoid yourself, Timmy."
"Meaning I'm a monkey?"
"Not at all. Here, look it up." And Don shoved a dictionary across the
table. Tim accepted it suspiciously.
"All right," he said, "but if it's what I think it is you'll have to
fight. Anthesis, anthropocosmic----Say, I'm glad you didn't call me
that! Here it is. Now let's see. 'Anthropoid, somewhat like a human
being in form or other characteristics'! Something like---- You wait
till I get you in the tank again! 'Something like a human being'! For
two cents I'd lay you on the bed and spank you with that tennis racket!"
"I've got two cents that say you can't do it," replied Don.
"Well, I could if there wasn't so much of you," grumbled Tim. "Now shut
up and let me stuff awhile. Horace has been eyeing me in a way I don't
like lately. How's your German going?"
"Not very well. It's a silly language, I think. But I guess I'll get the
hang of it after awhile. What I want to know is why they can't make
their letters the way we do."
"Because they're afraid someone might be able to read the plaguy stuff.
Tell you what we'll do, Don."
"What'll we do?"
"We'll go for a swim in the tank after study. Will you?"
Don winked slowly. "Not after that threat, thanks."
"I won't touch you, honest to goodness, Don! Did you learn to swim any
better this Summer?"
"Where would I learn?" asked the other. "There's no place to swim out my
way, unless it's the river."
"Well, don't the rivers in Kansas contain water?"
"Yes, sometimes! Winter, usually. If you'll promise not to grab me when
I'm not looking I'll go. I hate the taste of that tank water, Tim."
"You ought to know how to swim, old man. Never mind, Mr. Conklin will
get hold of you this Winter and beat it into you."
"I can swim now," replied Don indignantly.
"Oh, yes, you can swim like a hunk of lead! The last time I saw you try
it you did five strokes and then got so elated that you nearly drowned
yourself trying to cheer! I could teach you in three lessons if you'd
let me."
"Much obliged, but nothing doing, Timmy. I'd as lief drown by myself as
have you hold my head under water."
"That was just a joke, Don. I won't ever do it again. I wanted you to
get used to the water, you see."
"I don't mind getting used to it outside, but I hate to fill up with it,
Tim. It tastes very nasty. You may be a good teacher, but I don't like
your methods."
"Well, we'll go and have a dip, anyway," laughed Tim. "It'll set us up
and refresh us after our arduous stuffing."
"If you don't cut out the chatter there won't be any stuffing," warned
Don. "It's almost half-past now. And I've got three solid pages of this
rot to do. Dry up, like a good pal."