JIM REPORTS
After they had shaken hands, Clem took a good look at his new
room-mate. The change in Jim’s appearance was due to two things, he
decided. In the first place, Jim was dressed differently. He wore
trousers of a grayish brown, a white negligee shirt with a small blue
stripe, a semi-soft collar and a neatly tied dark-blue four-in-hand.
The shoes were brown Oxfords and evidently new. The coat that matched
the trousers was laid over the back of a chair. That suit, Clem
reflected, had probably cost very little, but it fitted extremely
well and looked well, too. Then Jim had filled out remarkably. He was
still a long way from stout, but there was flesh enough now on his
tall frame to take away the lanky look that had been his most striking
feature last year. He seemed to hold himself straighter, too, as though
he had become accustomed to his height, and to move with far less of
awkwardness.
“What have you been doing to yourself?” asked Clem.
Jim stared questioningly. Apparently he was not aware of any change,
and Clem explained. “Well, you look twenty pounds heavier, Jim; maybe
more; and--” But he stopped there. To approve his present attire would
be tantamount to a criticism of his former.
“Yes, I guess I am heavier,” replied Jim. “I got mighty good food up
at Blaisdell’s, and a heap of it; and then I was outdoors most of the
time. Right healthy sort of life, I guess. Didn’t work hard, either;
not really _work_.”
“I suppose it was pretty good fun,” mused Clem. “I’d liked to have got
up there for a few days, but it didn’t seem possible.”
“Wish you had. I’d have shown you some real fishing. Like to fish,
Harland?”
“N-no, I don’t believe I do. Maybe because I’ve never done much. But
it sounded pretty good, what you wrote, and if father hadn’t arranged
a motor trip for the last part of the summer I think I’d have gone up
there for three or four days.”
“Guess you thought that was pretty cheeky, that letter of mine,” said
Jim consciously.
“Not a bit,” Clem assured him heartily. If he had, he had forgotten it
now. “Awfully glad to have you, Jim.”
“I hope you mean that.” Jim laughed sheepishly. “I tried hard to
get that letter back after I’d posted it, but it happened that the
fellow who carried the mail out got started half an hour earlier that
morning, and I was too late.”
“Glad you were,” said Clem, and meant it. “Hope you don’t mind having
Mart’s things left around. He thinks now he will come back next year
and finish out.”
Jim looked about the room and shook his head. “Mighty nice,” he said.
“I’ve got a few things upstairs that I’ll have to move out, but they
ain’t scarcely suitable for here: there’s a cushion and a couple of
pictures and a sort of a thing for books and two, three little things
besides.”
“Bring them down and we’ll look them over,” said Clem. “What you
don’t want to use can go in your trunk when you send it down to the
store-room. Don’t believe we need any more cushions, though.” He
thought he knew which of the cushions in Number 29 was Jim’s! “Too much
in a place is worse than too little, eh?”
“I suppose ’tis,” Jim agreed. “This room’s right pretty now, Harland,
and I guess those things of mine wouldn’t better it none.”
“You’ll have to stop calling me ‘Harland’ sooner or later,” said Clem,
“so you might as well start now, Jim.”
Jim nodded. “I was trying to work ’round to it,” he answered. “Guess
I’ll go up and get those things of mine out of 29.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” said Clem.
It was not until late that evening that Clem found an opportunity to
broach the subject of football. “By the way,” he said, “Lowell Woodruff
was in yesterday. He’s football manager, you know. Said he’d sent you a
call for early practice and that you hadn’t made a yip.”
“Why, that’s right,” replied Jim. “I found a letter from him when I
got home three days ago. You see, after I left Blaisdell’s I went over
Moose River way with another fellow for a little fishing. Got some
whopping good trout, too. So I didn’t get back to Four Lakes until
Monday. Then I didn’t know if I’d ought to answer the letter or not. He
didn’t say to.”
“No, I fancy he expected you’d show up. Well, there’s no harm done, I
guess. Be all right if you show up to-morrow afternoon.” Clem spoke
with studied carelessness and stooped to unlace a shoe.
“Show up?” asked Jim. “Where do you mean?”
“On the field. For practice. You’re going to play, of course.” This was
more an assertion than a question.
“No,” said Jim, “I tried it last fall and quit. It takes a lot of a
fellow’s time, and then I ain’t--I’m not much good at it.”
“Well, Jim, you’ll have a lot more time this year than you had last,
you know. And as for being good at it, why, Johnny Cade said only this
morning that you looked like promising stuff. Better think it over.”
“You mean Mr. Cade is looking for me to play?”
“Of course he is. You see, the team lost a good many of their best
players last June and Johnny’s pretty anxious to get hold of all the
material he can. I gathered from what Woodie said that they are looking
to you to fit in as a tackle.”
“Tackle? He’s the fellow plays next to the end, ain’t he? Well, I don’t
see what he’d want me back again for, after the way he laid me out last
year.” Jim chuckled. “Gosh, he ’most tore the hide off me, Clem!”
“Well, if you ask me, it was sort of cheeky, throwing him down in the
middle of the season, Jim, and I can’t say I blame him for getting
a bit waxy about it. However, he’s all over that. He isn’t holding
anything against you; I’ll swear to that; and if you go out you’ll get
treated right. Johnny and Woodie both believe in you as a football
player, Jim.”
“If they do,” laughed Jim in a puzzled way, “they’ve got more faith
than I have. Why, honest, Clem, I don’t know much about the game, even
after what they showed me last fall, and I can’t say that I’m keen
about it, either. I always thought playing games was supposed to be
fun, but I call football mighty hard work!”
“What of it? Aren’t afraid of hard work, are you? You know, Jim, a
fellow has a certain amount of--of responsibility toward his school. I
mean it’s his duty to do what he can for it, don’t you see? Now, if you
can play football--”
“But I can’t, Clem.”
“You don’t know. Johnny Cade says you can. Johnny’s a football
authority and ought to know.”
Jim was silent a moment. Then he asked, almost plaintively: “You want I
should play, don’t you?”
“Why, no, Jim. That is--well, I want you to do what you want to do. Of
course, if you think--”
“Yes, but you think I ought to,” Jim persisted. “That’s so, ain’t it?”
“I think,” responded Clem judicially, “that as long as Johnny Cade
wants you, and as long as you have no good reason for not playing, you
ought to try. I don’t want to influence you--”
Clem became aware of Jim’s broad grin and ran down. Then: “What you
laughing at, confound you?” he asked.
“Wasn’t laughing,” chuckled Jim. “Just smiling at the way you don’t
want to influence me.”
“Well, suppose I do?” asked Clem, smiling too. “It’s for the good
of the football team, Jim. And, if you must have the whole truth, I
promised Woodie I’d talk to you. And I have. And now it’s up to you.
You do just as you please. Guess you know best, anyway.”
“Well, maybe I haven’t got any good reason for not playing this year,
or trying to,” mused Jim, enveloping himself in an enormous nightshirt.
“I don’t think I’ll ever make a good football player, but if those
folks want I should try, and you want I should--”
“Hang it, Jim, don’t drag me into it! I’d feel to blame every time you
got a bloody nose!”
“--I don’t mind doing it,” concluded Jim. “Last year it didn’t seem
like I was really needed out there. Maybe this year it will be
different. Maybe Mr. Cade can make me into a tackle. If he can he’s
welcome. Maybe after I’ve been at it a while I’ll get to like it.
Maybe--”
“Maybe you’ll put out that light and go to bed,” said Clem. “Of course
you’ll like it. You’ll be crazy about it after a week or two, or a
month or two, or--”
“Well, if I got so I could really play,” said Jim musingly, as the
light went out, “maybe I would. You can’t tell.”
The next afternoon, having resurrected the football togs he had worn
the season before, Jim went dutifully over to the field and stood
around amongst a steadily growing gathering of old and new candidates.
He found several fellows that he knew well enough to talk to, but,
having arrived early, much of his time was spent in looking on. He
observed the coming of Peter, preceded by a wheelbarrow laden high with
necessities of the game, the subsequent appearance of Manager Woodruff
and Assistant Manager Barr, the latter apparently weighted down with
the cares of all the world, and then the arrival of Coach Cade, in
company with Captain Gus Fingal. By that time fully sixty candidates
were on hand and balls were beginning to hurtle around. Formalities
were dispensed with to-day. Mr. Cade clapped his hands briskly and
announced: “Give your names to Mr. Woodruff or Mr. Barr, fellows, and
hustle it up. Men reporting for the first time will start to work on
the other gridiron. Last-year fellows report to Captain Fingal here.
Let’s get going, Mr. Manager!”
Jim gave his name and other data to Johnny Barr and went across to the
second team field. No one seemed interested in his presence there, and
he stood around a while longer. Eventually the new candidates stopped
coming, and Latham, a substitute quarter-back of last season, took them
in charge. Jim went through just such a program as had engaged him a
year ago. The afternoon, while not so hot as yesterday, was far too
warm for comfort, and the work was a whole lot like drudgery. He caught
balls and passed them, chased them and fell on them, awkwardly rolling
around the turf, made frantic and generally unsuccessful grabs at them
as Latham sent them bouncing away, and then, after a few minutes of
rest, started all over again. At four-thirty he trotted two laps of the
field, keeping, by injunction, close to the edge of the cinder track.
Save that he “weighed in” on the gymnasium scales the next afternoon,
while the worried looking Johnny Barr set the figures down against his
name, Saturday’s program was just like Friday’s. He wasn’t quite so
stiff Saturday night, though, as he had been after the first session.
Clem, feeling responsibility in the matter, asked how he had got along.
Jim said: “All right, I guess.” That’s about all he did say regarding
his football experiences for the next week. He had bought a book of
rules, and Clem observed that every evening he spent a matter of ten or
fifteen minutes on it. Once or twice he invited Clem’s aid, but Clem
wasn’t much use to him.
“You know,” said Clem one evening, “you don’t really have to know the
rules by heart, Jim. You’re not going to referee; you’re just going to
play the game.”
“I sort of like to know what it’s all about, though,” said Jim. “And
maybe,” he added, with a twinkle, “if the referee made a mistake I’d
want to be able to tell him.”
“Yes, I’d try it,” scoffed Clem, who hadn’t seen the twinkle. “You’d
make a big hit all around!”
He was “duck walking” and pushing the charging machine these days, for
he was listed as a lineman. And he was having his six goes regularly at
the tackling dummy, besides. His education was branching out. Perhaps
because he had been through the work last year he made steady progress,
although he was lacking in the experience of those of his companions
who had played football since they were twelve years old. At tackling
he was good, and he got praise more than once; and he was learning to
handle a ball in a safe, clean fashion, no longer treating it as if it
were an egg that might break if he was rude to it. At the end of the
first fortnight he was as good a football man as some twenty others
on the field and better than perhaps ten more. As that particular ten
ceased their connection with football shortly after the Banning High
game, Jim was left for a space superior to none.
So far, save for a word in passing, he had held no communication with
Coach Cade, and if that gentleman felt any satisfaction over Jim’s
presence among the players he disguised it perfectly. Not that Jim had
expected any expression of gratitude, of course, but it was difficult
to reconcile Clem’s statement on that first night of the term with the
coach’s apparent complete indifference. Clem had declared that Mr. Cade
was anxious to have Jim report. And since he had reported, Mr. Cade had
never even noticed him. Jim reached the not unnatural conclusion that
Clem had slightly exaggerated the coach’s concern.
Lowell Woodruff, though, fully atoned for any inattention on the
coach’s part. Lowell assured Jim more than once that he fully
appreciated the latter’s presence among the candidates, and he was
almost embarrassingly solicitous as to his welfare. In fact, his
efforts to keep Jim contented with his lot were so painstaking that Jim
got it into his head that the manager was making fun of him, and he
took a mild dislike to the well-meaning Lowell. As he made no mention
of the matter to Clem, the misunderstanding existed well into the
season.
Alton played the local high school team, winning by 21 to 7 in a
long and uninteresting contest, and defeated Banning High School a
week later by 17 to 0. Jim watched both contests from the bench and
added considerably to his knowledge of the science in which he was
a beginner. But neither game produced any thrilling moments, and
Jim continued unmoved in his opinion that football was rather an
uninteresting pursuit and certainly not deserving of all the time
and attention given it. Then, after a week of practice that made the
preceding fortnight seem in retrospect a period of languid idleness,
Lorimer Academy visited Alton, and Jim’s conviction was slightly
shaken.