MR. CADE MAKES AN ENTRY
The next afternoon when Leonard clumped down the steps of the gymnasium
clad for practice a gust of cold air swept around the corner from the
north-west and reminded him that November was two days old. The sky was
gray and clouds sailed low overhead. Fallen leaves played prankishly
along the walks and eddied into quiet harbors about the buildings.
After the warm, moist air of the locker room the outdoor world felt
chill indeed, and Leonard, trudging briskly toward the gridiron, rolled
his hands in the edge of his old sweater. It was a day, though, that
made the blood move fast and called for action. Leonard, to use his own
phrase, felt full of “pep.” They couldn’t work a fellow too hard or too
fast on such an afternoon.
Practice went off at a new gait, and when, routine work over, those
who had played through Saturday’s game were released and Mr. Fadden’s
charges romped over from the second team gridiron, every one knew that
fur was going to fly. And fly it did. A fellow had to work and keep
on working just to be comfortably warm, but besides that there was
a quality in the harshly chill wind that would have made an oyster
ambitious and put speed into a snail. The second started in with lots
of ginger and smeared up Carpenter’s run-back of the kick-off, and
after that held the first and made her punt from her twenty-two yards.
After that it was hammer-and-tongs, the rival coaches barking out
directions and criticisms and hopping about on the edge of the scrap
in the most absorbed way. If every one hadn’t been too much interested
with the battle the spectacle of Mr. Fadden hopping might have
occasioned amusement!
The first presented a line-up of substitutes, with Gurley and Kerrison
playing end, Lawrence and Cash tackle, Squibbs and Falls guard, Muller
center, Carpenter quarter, Kendall and Goodwin half and Dakin full.
Leonard, huddled in a blanket on the bench, forgot the cold in the
cheering knowledge that sooner or later Johnny Cade would be sure
to call on him. Johnny Cade did, but not until the second period.
Meanwhile Lawrence and Cash took plenty of punishment from the cocky
scrubs but managed to hold out. Second was certainly on her toes this
afternoon, and nothing the first could do prevented her from scoring.
It was only a field-goal, for the first, pushed down the field to her
twenty-yard line, held gamely through three downs, but it meant three
points for the scrubs and much exulting. With a strong wind almost
behind him, the second’s left half could hardly have failed to boot the
pigskin over.
First wrested the ball away from second a minute or so later and
started a march toward the opponent’s goal. Kendall got away with a
nice run of a dozen yards, and Dakin twice got half that distance
through left guard. Goodwin plugged hard, but it was not his day.
Carpenter tried a quarterback run and made it good for eight yards,
placing the ball on second’s twenty-four. Kendall went back and faked
a try-at-goal, taking the pigskin on a wide end run that netted him
little but exercise. Then a forward-pass was tried, but, short as it
was, the wind bore it down, and first was lucky not to lose possession
of it. With two downs left, Kendall again threatened a field-goal, but
passed the ball to Dakin, and the full-back smashed through the enemy
left for four. On the same play Dakin added enough to make it first
down on the fourteen. Then, with first already tasting success, the
whistle ended the period!
The scrubs crossed the field to sit in a closely huddled group like a
lot of blanketed Indians and Leonard watched Mr. Cade hopefully. But
when the second period started the coach made but two changes in his
line-up. Raleigh went in at right guard and Wilde at right tackle.
Leonard, disappointed, looked searchingly up and down the bench. So far
as he knew he was the only tackle remaining. In fact, only less than a
dozen fellows were left now, and he didn’t think there was a lineman
among them. He didn’t wish Lawrence any bad luck, but it did seem that
he had played about long enough!
First had a streak of luck right at the start of that period, for
a second team back fumbled on his forty-four and, although second
recovered the ball, the next line-up was close to the twenty-five-yard
line. Two punches and then a punt into the gale that carried a scant
twenty yards, and the ball was first’s in scrub territory. The first
attack sent Goodwin at the enemy’s center for a two-yard gain and when
the warriors had disentangled themselves one form remained on the
ground. Jake seized water bottle and sponge and trotted out. “That’s
Raleigh,” said the fellow at Leonard’s right.
“Sure?” asked Leonard anxiously. “I thought maybe it was Lawrence. No,
there’s Lawrence. You a guard?”
The neighbor shook his head sadly. “Half,” he answered.
They had Raleigh standing up now and Jake was leading him toward the
bench. Coach Cade’s voice came imperatively.
“First team guard!” he called.
The trainer echoed the summons impatiently as he neared the bench.
“Come on, one of you guards!”
Leonard threw off his blanket and bent mutely to the neighbor and the
substitute halfback seized his sweater while Leonard pulled himself out
of it. Then he dashed onto the gridiron. Jake was a dozen feet away,
still supporting the scowling Raleigh.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Deaf? Didn’t you hear the coach
yelling?” Then he stared harder, at Leonard’s back now, and called
suddenly: “Here! You ain’t a guard!”
But Leonard paid no heed. Perhaps the wind bore the words away from
him. He went on, aware, as he gained the waiting squad, of the coach’s
puzzled gaze.
“I called for a guard, Grant,” said Mr. Cade.
“Yes, sir,” answered Leonard. “I’ve played guard two seasons.”
“Maybe, but you’re not a guard now. Send some one else on. Isn’t there
any one there?”
“No, sir.”
Mr. Cade shrugged. “All right. You take it then. You deserve it, I’m
blessed if you don’t! Come on now, First Team! Let’s get going! All
right, Quarter!”
Leonard stepped in between Garrick and Cash, Carpenter chanted his
signal and the lines ground together. Why, this was easy, reflected
Leonard. It was just like old times. He knew what to do here. When you
were a guard you were a guard and nothing else. You didn’t have to
understudy your next door neighbor and go prancing around like a silly
end! Of course, when a shift took you around to the other side of the
line, as it was doing now--
Leonard whanged into an opponent and tipped him neatly aside as
Kendall came spinning through. Three yards, easy. Maybe four. This
was “pie!” He got back to his place again and grinned at his second
team adversary. The scrub player answered the grin with a malignant
scowl. Leonard laughed to himself. He always liked the other fellow
to get good and peeved; that made it easier. Dakin was stopped short
on the next play and Kendall went back. A second team back tried to
sneak inside of Leonard, and Leonard gave him a welcoming shoulder.
Then there was the thud of the ball and he pushed an adversary aside
and sped down the field, the gale behind him helping him on. He was
under the ball all the way and was hard by when Kerrison upset the
scrub quarter for no gain. The pigskin was on the second’s fourteen
now, and the second realized its difficulties. Kicking into that wind
was a thankless job. If you kicked low your ends couldn’t cover the
punt. If you kicked high you made no distance. Even a forward-pass,
were you rash enough to attempt it under your own goal-posts, was
doubly risky. So second tried hard to get a half-back around an end,
first at Gurley’s post and then at Kerrison’s, and made but four yards
altogether. It seemed then that second must punt, but she had one more
trick up her sleeve. She sent an end far out to the left, shifted to
the right and sent the full-back straight ahead. Well, that wasn’t so
bad, for it added another four yards to her total. But it was fourth
down, and the wind still blew hard against her, and punt she must at
last. So punt she tried to.
That she didn’t was primarily due to the ease with which Leonard
disposed of his man and went romping through the scrub line, quite
alone for the instant. A half met him, and the impact, since Leonard
had his hands thrown high, almost drove the breath from his body.
Yet the damage was done, for the second team kicker was too hurried
to punt. Instead, he tucked the ball to his elbow and shot off to
the right in a desperate attempt to circle the first team’s end. But
there was Gurley to be considered, and Gurley dropped his man very
expeditiously and neatly for a six-yard loss. Whereupon first took the
ball, lined up on the scrub’s sixteen and hammered Goodwin and Dakin
over for the score.
Then Kendall booted a nice goal and made it seven points, and going
back up the field Carpenter and Dakin and half a dozen others whacked
Leonard on the back and pantingly told him that he was “all right,”
or words to that effect. Then first kicked off again and went after
another touchdown. You might criticize the second’s science, but you
had to acknowledge that when it came to fight she was right on hand!
Second didn’t hold with Mr. Cade or Quarterback Carpenter when they
assured the first that there was another score to be had. Second denied
it loudly and with ridicule. She dared first to try to get another
score. First accepted the challenge with ejaculations of derision and
the trouble began again.
You mustn’t think that Leonard played through some ten minutes without
receiving his share of censure from the coach and the quarterback, for
nothing like that happened. Mr. Cade showed little partiality, and
every one came in for criticism or rebuke. What Carpenter said worried
Leonard very little. Quarterbacks are always nagging a fellow. But he
did wish, toward the last, that Mr. Cade would stop barking at him. Of
course he knew that he didn’t play the position perfectly, but he was
doing his best, gosh ding it, and no one was making any gains through
him! If only he was a little bigger and had more beef he’d show Johnny
some real playing!
As it was, though, he was doing so well that the coach was secretly
marvelling. Mr. Cade viewed Leonard’s height and his none too broad
shoulders and then glanced at the big Garrick on one side and the rangy
Cash on the other and wondered. “When,” reflected the coach, “he told
me he was a guard he knew what he was talking about!” Much of Leonard’s
success this afternoon was due to following Billy Wells’ advice.
Leonard looked his man in the eye and discovered that, in some strange
fashion, he could tell what the chap was going to do a fraction of a
second before he started to do it. It was almost like mind-reading,
Leonard thought. And he profited, too, by the other tips that Billy had
given him. He couldn’t adopt Billy’s stance thoroughly, but he did try
a modified form of it and found that it gave him a quicker start. And
to-day no one drove his head back and made him see whole constellations
of wonderful stars! No, sir, the old chin was right in against the neck!
First didn’t succeed in scoring again, but she did throw a scare into
the adversary in the final minute of play. By that time Leonard’s
original opponent had been replaced by a fresher but, as it was soon
proved, no more formidable youth, and Mr. Fadden had made other
substitutions in his array of talent. So, too, had Mr. Cade, although
the latter’s resources were nearly exhausted. Cruikshank went in for
Carpenter, and a new half-back appeared. Cruikshank brought a little
more “pep” to the first, and she got the pigskin down to second’s
twenty-eight yards. There, however, the enemy stiffened and tightened
and took the ball away on downs. Wisely, she elected to punt on first
down, but there was a poor pass, and the ball was missed entirely
by the kicker. It hit him somewhere around the feet and bounded to
one side. Instantly twenty-two youths made for it. Some four or
five reached it more or less simultaneously. Of the number was the
first team right guard. How that happened was a subject of official
investigation later by Mr. Fadden. However, the second team’s troubles
are not ours. What interests us is the fact that not only was Leonard
the first man through the second team line but he was the first man
to lay hand on the ball. He accomplished the latter feat by diving
between two hesitant adversaries and, being doubtless favored by luck,
capturing the erratic pigskin during one brief instant of quiescence.
A fraction of a second later that ball would have toppled this way
or that, or jumped into the air, eluding Leonard’s grasp just as it
had eluded others’, but at the instant it had presumably paused for
breath. Anyhow, Leonard reached it and pulled it under him and tucked
his head out of the way. Then half a dozen of the opponents sat on him
more or less violently or tried to get covetous hands on the prize.
The whistle blew and finally he breathed again. Having been pulled
to his feet, his breathing was again disturbed by emphatic blows on
his back or shoulders accompanied by brief but hearty expression of
commendation. He was still fighting for breath when Cruikshank piped
his signal, and Dakin drove harmlessly into the second team line. Then,
to the intense disgust of the first and the vast relief of the second,
with the ball on the seventeen yards and a score as sure as shooting,
some idiot blew a whistle!
There was almost a scrap about that. Up in the locker room Dakin
accused Winship, the assistant manager who had acted as timekeeper, of
having cheated the first of a score. “Time,” answered Winship coldly,
“was up when the whistle blew.” “Yah,” responded Dakin impolitely.
“You’re crazy! You didn’t see straight! Bet you there was a good thirty
seconds left!” “There was not! If anything, you had a second more than
was coming to you, for the whistle didn’t blow until I’d called to
Tenney twice. No use being sore at me, Dakin. Much better have done
something when you had the ball that time!” “Is that so?” snarled the
full-back. “How’d I know you were going to cheat us out of--” “Don’t
you say I cheated!” “Well, what do you call it, you fathead? Step up to
the gym with me if you’re looking for trouble!”
But some of the others stepped in just there, and hostilities were
prevented, and somewhat later Dakin, having been cooled by an icy
shower-bath, apologized handsomely and the entente cordiale was
reëstablished.
That evening, his briar pipe drawing nicely and his feet comfortably
elevated, Coach Cade turned the pages of his little memorandum book
and made marks here and there. Once he reversed his pencil and, using
the rubber-tipped end of it, expunged a name entirely. The last thing
he did was to draw a black mark through the words “Grant, Leonard” and
through half a dozen mysterious hieroglyphics that followed them and
then, turning a page, enter the same words again very carefully in his
small characters. At the top of the latter page was the inscription
“Guards.”