ENTER MR. ELDRED CHICHESTER STAPLES
Eldred Chichester Staples had not arrived by the time Leonard had
unpacked his bag. His trunk, which was to have joined him inside an
hour, according to the disciple of Ananias who had accepted his claim
check, had not appeared, and, since it was dinner time now, Leonard
washed, re-tied his scarf, used a whisk brush rather perfunctorily
and descended the stairs in search of food. It wasn’t hard to find
Lawrence Hall. All he had to do was follow the crowd, and, although the
entire assemblage of some four hundred students was not by any means
yet present, there were enough on hand to make a very good imitation
of a crowd. Leonard endured some waiting before he was assigned a
seat, but presently he was established at a table occupied by five
others--there were seats for four more, but they weren’t claimed until
supper time--and was soon enjoying his first repast at Alton. The food
was good and there was plenty of it, but none too much for the new boy,
for his breakfast, partaken of at home before starting the first leg
of his journey to New York City, was scarcely a memory. He followed
the example of his right-hand neighbor and ordered “seconds” of the
substantial articles of the menu and did excellently. Towards dessert
he found leisure to look about him.
Lawrence Hall was big and airy and light, and although it accommodated
more than twenty score, including the faculty, the tables were not
crowded together and there was an agreeable aspect of space. The
fellows about him appeared to be quite the usual, normal sort; although
later on Leonard made the discovery that there was a certain sameness
about them, somewhat as though they had been cut off the same piece of
goods. This sameness was rather intangible, however; he never succeeded
in determining whether it was a matter of looks, manner or voice; and
I doubt if any one else could have determined. Dinner was an orderly
if not a silent affair. There was an ever-continuing rattle of dishes
beneath the constant hum of voices and the ripples of laughter. Once a
dish fell just beyond the screen that hid the doors to the kitchen, and
its crash was hailed with loud hand-clapping from every quarter. After
awhile the scraping of chairs added a new note to the pleasant babel,
and, contributing his own scrape, Leonard took his departure.
He had seen a notice in the corridor of Academy Building announcing
the first football practice for three o’clock, and he meant to be on
hand, but more than an hour intervened and he wondered how to spend
it. The question was solved for him when he reached the walk that led
along the front of the dormitories, for there, before the entrance of
Haylow, a piled motor truck was disgorging trunks. His own proved to
be among them, and he followed it upstairs and set to work. It wasn’t
a very large trunk, nor a very nobby one, having served his father for
many years, before falling to Leonard, and he was quite satisfied that
his room-mate continued to absent himself. He emptied it of his none
too generous wardrobe, hung his clothes in his closet or laid them in
the drawers of his chiffonier, arranged his small belongings before the
mirror or on the table and finally, taking counsel of a strange youth
hurrying past in the corridor, lugged the empty trunk to the store-room
in the basement. Then, it now being well past the half-hour, he changed
into an ancient suit of canvas, pulled on a pair of scuffed shoes and
set forth for the field.
The hot weather still held, and, passing the gravel tennis courts, a
wave of heat, reflected from the surface, made him gasp. The gridiron,
when he reached it, proved to have suffered in many places from the
fortnight of unseasonable weather and lack of rain. Half a dozen
fellows, dressed for play, were laughingly squabbling for a ball near
the center of the field, and their cleats, digging into the dry sod,
sent up a cloud of yellow dust. Early as he was, Leonard found at
least a score of candidates ahead of him. Many of them had, perhaps
wisely, scorned the full regalia of football and had donned old flannel
trousers in lieu of padded canvas. A perspiring youth with a very
large board clip was writing busily in the scant shade of the covered
stand, and a short, broadly-built man in trousers and a white running
shirt, from which a pair of bronze shoulders emerged massively, was
beside him. The latter was, Leonard concluded, the coach. He looked
formidable, with that large countenance topped by an alarming growth
of black hair, and Leonard recalled diverse tales he had heard or read
of the sternness and even ferocity of professional football coaches.
Evidently football at Alton Academy was going to prove more of a
business than football at Loring Point High School!
This reflection was interrupted by a voice. A large youth with rather
pale blue eyes that, nevertheless, had a remarkable sparkle in them
had come to a stop at Leonard’s elbow. “I’ve accumulated seventeen
pounds this summer,” the chap was saying, “and it cost the dad a lot
of good money. And now--” his blue eyes turned from Leonard and fell
disapprovingly on the sun-smitten gridiron--“now I’m going to lose the
whole blamed lot in about sixty minutes.” He looked to Leonard again
for sympathy. Leonard smiled doubtfully. It was difficult to tell
whether the stranger spoke in fun or earnest.
“If it comes off as easy as that,” he replied, “I guess you don’t want
it.” Looking more closely at the chap, he saw that, deprived of those
seventeen pounds, he would probably be rather rangy; large still, but
not heavy. Leonard judged that he was a backfield candidate; possibly a
running half; he looked to be fast.
“I suppose not,” the fellow agreed in doubtful tones. “Maybe it isn’t
losing the weight that worries me so much as losing it so quick. You
know they say that losing a lot of weight suddenly is dangerous.
Suppose it left me in an enfeebled condition!”
Now Leonard knew that the chap was joking, and he ventured a laugh.
“Maybe you’d better not risk it,” he said. “Why not wait until
to-morrow. It might be cooler then.”
“I would,” replied the other gravely, “only Johnny rather leans on me,
you know. I dare say he’d be altogether at a loss if I deserted him
to-day. Getting things started is always a bit of a trial.”
“I see. I suppose Johnny is the coach, and that’s him up there.”
Leonard nodded in the direction of the black-haired man on the stand.
“Him or he,” answered the other gently. “You’re a new fellow, I take
it. Fresh?”
Leonard, nettled by the correction, answered a bit stiffly, “Sophomore.”
The tall youth gravely extended a hand. “Welcome,” he said. “Welcome to
the finest class in the school.”
Leonard shook hands, his slight resentment vanishing. “I suppose that
means that you’re a soph, too.”
The fellow nodded. “So far,” he assented. Then he smiled for the first
time, and after that smile Leonard liked him suddenly and thoroughly.
“If you ask me that again after mid-year,” he continued, “you may get
a different answer. Well, I guess I’d better go up and get Johnny
started. He’s evidently anxious about me.” He nodded once more and
moved past Leonard and through the gate to the stand. Leonard had not
noticed any sign of anxiety on the coach’s countenance, but it wasn’t
to be denied that the greeting between the two was hearty. Leonard’s
new acquaintance seated himself at the coach’s side and draped his long
legs luxuriously over the back of the seat in front. The youth with
the clip looked up from his writing and said something and the others
threw their heads back and laughed. Leonard was positively relieved to
discover that the coach could laugh like that. He couldn’t be so very
ferocious, after all!
The trainer appeared, followed by a man trundling a wheelbarrow laden
with paraphernalia. The throng of candidates increased momentarily
along the side-line and a few hardy youths, carrying coats over arms,
perched themselves on the seats to look on. Leonard again turned to
observe the coach and found that gentleman on his feet and extending
his hand to a big chap in unstained togs. The two shook hands, and then
the big fellow turned his head to look across the field, and Leonard
saw that he was Gordon Renneker. A fifth member had joined the group,
and him Leonard recognized as the boy who had accompanied Renneker into
the office. Leonard surmised now that he was the captain: he had read
the chap’s name but had forgotten it. After a moment of conversation,
during which the other members of the group up there seemed to be
giving flattering attention to Renneker’s portion, the five moved
toward the field, and a minute later the business of building a
football team had begun.
Coach Cade made a few remarks, doubtless not very different from
those he had made at this time of year on many former occasions,
was answered with approving applause and some laughter and waved a
brown hand. The group of some seventy candidates dissolved, footballs
trickled away from the wheelbarrow and work began. Leonard made one of
a circle of fifteen or sixteen other novices who passed a ball from
hand to hand and felt the sun scorching earnestly at the back of his
neck. Later, in charge of a heavy youth whose name Leonard afterwards
learned was Garrick, the group was conducted further down the field
and was permitted to do other tricks with the ball--two balls, to be
exact. They caught it on the bound, fell on it and snuggled it to
their perspiring bodies and then again, while they recovered somewhat
of their breath, passed it from one to another. In other portions of
the field similar exercises were going on with other actors in the
parts, while, down near the further goal balls were traversing the
gridiron, propelled by hand or toe. Garrick was a lenient task-master,
and breathing spells were frequent, and yet, even so, there were many
in Leonard’s squad who were just about spent when they were released
to totter back to the benches and rinse their parched mouths with warm
water from the carboy which, having been carefully deposited an hour
ago in the shade of the wheelbarrow, was now enjoying the full blaze of
the westing sun. Leonard, his canvas garments wet with perspiration,
his legs aching, leaned against the back of the bench and wondered why
he wanted to play football!
Presently he forgot his discomforts in watching the performance of
a squad of fellows who were trotting through a signal drill. Last
year’s regulars these, he supposed; big, heavy chaps, most of them;
fellows whose average age was possibly eighteen, or perhaps more. The
quarterback, unlike most of the quarters Leonard had had acquaintance
with, was a rather large and weighty youth with light hair and a
longish face. His name, explained Leonard’s left-hand neighbor on
the bench, was Carpenter. He had played on the second team last year
and was very likely to prove first-choice man this fall. He was, the
informant added admiringly, a corking punter. Leonard nodded. Secretly
he considered Mr. Carpenter much too heavy for a quarterback’s job. The
day’s diversions ended with a slow jog around the edge of the gridiron.
Then came showers and a leisurely dressing; only Leonard, since his
street clothes were over in Number 12 Haylow, had his shower in the
dormitory and was wearily clothing himself in clean underwear and a
fresh shirt when the door of the room was unceremoniously opened and he
found himself confronted by a youth whose countenance was strangely
familiar and whom, his reason told him, was Eldred Chichester Staples,
his poetic roommate. Considering it later, Leonard wondered why he had
not been more surprised when recognition came. All he said was: “Well,
did you get rid of the whole seventeen?”