JIM BUYS A FOOTBALL
As a room-mate Jim was, Clem soon decided, a very satisfactory
chap. They got on together excellently. Jim was not monotonous as
a companion, for while he might fairly be termed even tempered you
couldn’t call him good-natured in the popular meaning of the term. If
you expected to put anything over on Jim, relying on his good nature
to get away with it, you were in for a surprise. Clem realized that
without a demonstration. Jim would take a joke perfectly, but he had
a sense of dignity that prohibited liberties. That he was capable of
temper Clem didn’t doubt, although he held it well under control.
When Jim had declared in his letter to Clem that he was “neat about
the place” he had, Clem soon decided, stated less than the facts.
Clem himself was certainly not untidy, but his idea of neatness and
Jim’s were wide apart. Jim looked after his part of Number 15 so
carefully and minutely that Clem’s half of the room suffered badly by
comparison. Clem said once: “You aren’t neat, Jim, you’re finnicky!”
For a fortnight Clem really suffered from such excess of tidiness, for
quite unconsciously Jim’s attentions were extended to his room-mate’s
territory and the book tossed on the table in the morning had
mysteriously disappeared by afternoon, to be discovered, after patient
search, neatly hidden under a pile of others. If he left his cap on his
bed, half an hour later it was gone. At first he used to look on the
floor for it and under the bed. Later he learned to go directly to his
closet and take it down from a hook. The second time this experience
fell to him he said: “Hang it all, Jim, what’s the idea? Here it is in
the closet. You must have put it there. I know I didn’t!”
“Really?” asked Jim, surprised. “I don’t remember touching it. I’m
awfully sorry.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” answered Clem, “but do you know what I think? I
think you must have been born in a filing cabinet!”
Jim looked slightly blank, and Clem went out without elucidating.
After some two weeks of life in Number 15 with Jim, Clem caught the
habit. He never attained to such perfection of orderliness as the
other’s, and doubtless to the end of their days together Jim secretly
considered Clem just a trifle careless about the room, but, just as
evidence of how thoroughly he had fallen under Jim’s spell, he once,
having reached the door on his way to chapel, returned the length of
the room to place his slippers more perfectly in alignment under the
head of the bed. It is doubtful, however, if Jim would have given him
any credit for that. Jim would have kept his slippers, had he owned a
pair, in his closet!
At the beginning of the term the two were not together a great deal
outside of sleeping and study hours. Jim foregathered frequently with
certain members of the Maine-and-Vermont Club and Clem’s acquaintances
were not yet Jim’s. They might have been, for Clem suggested more than
once that his room-mate accompany him on his social excursions. But Jim
invariably had an excuse. The latter did meet two or three of Clem’s
circle of intimates, but the meetings were only casual. The school year
was a fortnight old when Jim first blossomed out in society.
The occasion was a birthday party given by Arthur Landorf to Arthur
Landorf and some of Arthur Landorf’s friends. Much assistance, however,
was provided by Art’s parents, for they had sent a box holding
practically all the requirements of a birthday celebration, including a
frosted cake with seventeen pink candles. The affair was held in Number
20 Lykes, which room Art shared with Larry Adams. Art was a hockey and
baseball man and Larry a member of the second eleven. When Art invited
Clem he added: “And bring your room-mate, whatever his name is, if he
cares to come.” So Clem delivered the invitation to Jim and Jim started
to find an excuse, as usual. But Clem was fed up by now.
“Stop it!” he said sternly. “I don’t give a continental if you’ve got a
dinner engagement with Doctor Maitland himself and are down to address
the faculty afterwards! You’re going with me to Art’s blow-out and you
might just as well make up your mind to it. Say, what’s the colossal
idea, anyhow? Aren’t my associates good enough for you?”
“Oh, I don’t like to butt in on that crowd,” said Jim. “I ain’t their
sort, Clem. I--I haven’t got any parlor tricks.”
“Parlor tricks! Who’s asking you to do tricks? You can sit on a chair
or a bed or something without falling off, can’t you? And you can say
‘Thank you’ when some one shoves a hunk of cake at you, I suppose.
Well, that’s all you have to do, you big lummox.”
“We-ell, if you think I won’t be in the way,” said Jim dubiously, “and
this fellow really said to ask me--”
“Oh, shut up,” grumbled Clem. “Would I be asking you if he didn’t?
Thursday night, old son, and don’t forget.”
“Well, maybe--”
“That’ll be all,” declared Clem. “It’s settled.”
So Jim went along, somewhat subdued at first and hanging back when they
reached Number 20 Lykes, from beyond the closed door of which sounds of
merriment issued. But Clem herded him inside and shut off escape, and
then Jim was shaking hands with Art and assuring him that he was “glad
to make his acquaintance.” Whereupon, Art, not to be outdone, replied
gravely: “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Todd,” and Jim made his way
through a sea of protruding legs to a seat in a far corner, fortunately
not observing the smiles that followed his progress. To his relief, he
presently discovered that he knew three of the party, at least to speak
to: Lowell Woodruff and Hick Powers and Larry Adams. The gathering was
presently completed by the arrival of Gus Fingal and George Imbrie, the
latter editor-in-chief of the school weekly, _The Doubleay_. The two
were amusingly unalike, for Imbrie’s short, slim form reached only to
the football captain’s shoulder, and whereas Gus’s big, square head was
radiant with tow-colored hair that looked almost silvery in the light,
Imbrie’s was clad in very dark locks slicked smoothly away from a pale,
intellectual forehead. Imbrie wore tortoise-shell “cheaters,” although
it was rumored that they were only for effect and aided his sight no
more than Harold Lloyd’s aided his! With the arrival of the last guests
the proceedings opened officially. That is, Art turned off the electric
light, switched aside a newspaper that had covered the birthday cake
and applied a match to the seventeen little pink candles. Loud applause
followed and then, at a signal from Larry Adams, Art tried to blow out
the candles in one mighty breath and failed because Gus slammed him
between the shoulders just then. After that the cake was cut--with a
clasp-knife for want of anything better--and the feast began.
Some hosts might have kept the cake until toward the end of the repast,
but Art said it didn’t seem to him to matter whether you ate your cake
first or last, just so you got it, and so it was devoured right along
with the sandwiches and pickles and olives and ginger cookies and sweet
chocolate and all the other delicacies. Of the gathering, however, four
were out of luck, for although the football candidates at Alton were
allowed more leeway in the matter of diet than before the days of Coach
Cade, sweets were not in great favor, and so Jim, who, while not at
the training table, was still bound in honor to observe training table
rules, and Captain Gus and Powers and Adams had to be content with
homeopathic portions of cake and to confine the balance of their menu
to the sandwiches and olives. But there was plenty of tepid gingerale
and they fared well enough.
Lowell Woodruff found a place next to Jim when the party reseated
itself and did his best to be agreeable. Jim, however, still viewed him
with suspicion and the conversation didn’t become animated, and after a
while Lowell gave up and turned to his neighbor on the other side. On
the whole, Jim didn’t have a very happy time at that party. Clem was
separated from him by the width of the room and hidden for the most
of the time by the table, and Jim felt rather out of it. He was glad
when Gus Fingal’s departure broke up the gathering. He tried to tell
his host politely that he had enjoyed his party, but was saved from
the untruth when one of the others pushed him outside. In the jostling
and confusion he got away without a word to Art. Returning to the next
dormitory, Clem did all the talking. Perhaps it didn’t occur to him to
ask if Jim had had a good time. At all events, he didn’t ask, and Jim
was glad of it. Jim was a poor liar, and knew it.
That ended Jim’s social activities for some time. There were no more
birthday parties among Clem’s friends, but Clem tried on several
occasions to get Jim to accompany him on visits to other rooms, and Jim
thanked him and declined firmly. Clem called him a hermit.
Following the Lorimer game Jim’s services were called on daily.
Sometimes he got into the scrimmage for only a handful of minutes,
infrequently he worked through a whole period. He had survived
the second and last cut and had taken his place on the squad as a
second-string tackle. There was even the possibility, indeed the
probability, of getting into the Kenly Hall game, for the roster of
tackles included only three others: Roice, Sawyer and Mulford. Jim was
the least experienced of the lot, and at this stage he knew perfectly
well that so far as playing ability went he was a bad fourth. But he
had hopes of becoming as good as Mulford, at least. In more optimistic
moments he even saw himself rivaling Willard Sawyer, who was the
present incumbent of the right tackle position. What he couldn’t
imagine was ever equaling Roice. “Rolls” was almost the best lineman on
the team. Only Captain Fingal was graded above him by popular opinion.
Jim had not only held the weight he had brought back with him but had
added three pounds to it, and while, later on, he frequently dropped
those three during a hard afternoon, he always found them again. Had
Jim been more experienced he might well have wondered sometimes at
being retained on the squad. He had played football but three weeks
or so before the present season and had not during those three
weeks shown much ability. He was at least six pounds lighter than
the position called for, since Alton always presented a heavy line.
In general appearance, he did not suggest the ideal tackle. But Jim
had seen little football and so it didn’t occur to him that there was
anything unusual in his choice as a tackle. Not a few amateur critics,
however, declared that Todd might be end material but would never be
of any value as a tackle. He didn’t have enough weight, they said, and
what he had wasn’t distributed properly. Besides, who was he, anyway,
and what had he ever done to get where he was?
But Coach Cade wasn’t making a very great mistake. If Jim was somewhat
lacking in weight--he was nine pounds lighter than Rolls Roice, for
instance--he possessed two other of the necessary qualifications of
a good tackle, and might later show that he had a third. Weight he
lacked, mental ability he had not shown, but physical speed and stamina
he did have. He was fast developing into the speediest candidate for
his position, and Coach Cade, who held speed in the deepest reverence,
was ready to forgive him many shortcomings. Also, Jim had hard muscles,
muscles developed in the open air and at a greater variety of strenuous
tasks than most boys know, and he had endurance. You might tire Jim,
but you couldn’t tire him out. At least, no one ever had. Jim’s father
could tell you of walking sixty miles between daybreak and sundown in
the old days of logging in Maine; and Jim looked a whole lot like his
father! Coach Cade couldn’t know of the boy’s stamina yet, but he did
suspect it, and as time went on he was able to indulge in not a little
self-gratulation, which is pleasant even to a football coach.
Once having become thoroughly interested in the game, Jim learned
about twice as fast as he had before. At first he accepted instruction
without giving it much thought. Now he sought the reason for everything
he was taught, found it and understood what he was doing and why. Jim
liked to know the logic of what he undertook. If he couldn’t discover
a reason for doing a thing he didn’t do it unless some one forced him
to. Then he did it only half-heartedly. His rules book helped him a
lot. There were books that would have explained many things to him
and saved him much thought, but he didn’t know of them; and studying
things out for himself doubtless made him remember them better. He
amused Clem about this time--I am speaking of the week between the
Lorimer and Southport games--by buying a football of his own and
keeping it on the closet shelf. Several times daily he would take it
down and handle it; drop it on the floor and catch it as it rebounded,
place it on the floor and pick it up with one hand, his long fingers
wrapping themselves about the end like--as Clem phrased it--a starfish
on a quahog. Sometimes Clem would look up to find Jim with the ball
poised in his right hand as if he meant to hurl it straight through the
window, and always when he studied his rules book the brown leather
spheroid was in his lap. Clem told him one evening, in mild protest,
that he was sickening.
“You fondle that silly thing like it was a baby! What’s the idea, Jim?”
“Just want to--to get used to it,” replied Jim. “Want to know what I
can do with it. You see, shaped like it is, you can’t handle it just
like you can a round ball, Clem.”
“My word! Think of that! And you discovered that all by yourself, too,
didn’t you?”
“Shut up,” said Jim, grinning. “Say, just stand over there and toss me
a few, will you?”
“Toss you-- No, I’ll be switched if I’m going to turn this room into
a gridiron. First thing I know you’ll be moving the furniture out and
kicking the thing around!”
But he did toss the ball to Jim in the end, and Jim caught it various
ways, studying each way, while Clem looked on and waited for the return
of the ball with the expression of one humoring a lunatic. So far as
Clem ever discovered that ball was never taken out of Number 15, until
it went out for good, but it certainly saw a lot of handling there!
The Thursday before the Southport game Jim played a full fifteen
minutes against the second team, and busy, strenuous minutes they were.
He had been tried at left tackle and right tackle, and had discovered
no preference, but to-day he went in between Smith, substituting
Captain Fingal, and Borden, the regular right end. There had already
been a fifteen-minute scrimmage with the scrubs, in which the big team
had scored a solitary touchdown, and now the scrubs were aching for
vengeance. Jim had his hands very full with the opposing guard when the
first team had the ball, for the guard played wide and Jim had a big
stretch of line to cover. But he was fast, and it soon developed that
plays sent through the right of its own line were netting the first
team more than those on the other side. Jim usually beat his opponent
on starting, and he came up hard, with his back straight and a lot of
power in his charge. He made mistakes still and was “called down” half
a dozen times for one thing or another. But even the most experienced
fared not much better that day. Twice Jim spilled a runner behind the
line--once, alas, receiving as his reward harsh words because he should
have gone for the interference instead--and he tackled well, using his
body and not relying on his arms alone. On the whole, while he made no
spectacular plays that afternoon, Jim came out of the fifteen-minute
session with his stock higher than it had been, and when the Alton
paper published the day’s line-up on Saturday morning, the sixth line
read: “Sawyer or Todd.” But then, a hard game was not looked for and
Coach Cade had planned to use several substitutes at the start. As it
turned out, Jim didn’t get in until the third period was half over and
the game was laid safely away, the score 26 to 9. But he showed up
rather well while he played, which was until he got a wrenched knee a
scant three minutes before the end, and emerged with a nickname. When
he came off, limping, some sympathetic freshman shouted, “Atta boy,
Slim!” And “Slim” Todd it was thereafter.