Stover had never been on the Yale field except through the multitudinous
paths of his imagination. Huddled in the car crowded with candidates, he
waited the first glimpse as Columbus questioned the sky or De Soto
sought the sea. Three cars, filled with veterans and upper classmen,
were ahead of him. He was among a score of sophomores, members of third
and fourth squads, and a few of his own class with prep school
reputations who sat silently, nervously overhauling their suits,
adjusting buckles and shoe-laces, swollen to grotesque proportions under
knotted sweaters and padded jerseys.
The trolley swung over a short bridge, and, climbing a hill, came to a
slow stop. In an instant he was out, sweeping on at a dog-trot in the
midst of the undulating, brawny pack. In front--a thing of air and
wood--rose the climbing network of empty stands. Then, as they swept
underneath, the field lay waiting, and at the end two thin, straight
lines and a cross-bar. No longer were the stands empty or the breeze
devoid of song and cheers. The goal was his--the goal of Yale--and,
underfoot at last, the field more real to him than Waterloo or
Gettysburg!
He camped down, one among a hundred, oblivious of his companions, hands
locked over his knees, his glance strained down the field to where,
against the blue sweater of a veteran, a magic Y was shining white. For
a moment he felt a plunging despair--he was but one among so many. The
whole country seemed congregated there in competition. Others seemed to
overtop him, to be built of bone and muscle beyond his strength. He felt
a desire to shrink back and steal away unperceived, as he had that awful
moment when, on his first test at school, he had been told that he must
stand up and fill the place of a better man.
Then he was on his feet, in obedience to a shouted command, journeying
up the field to where beyond the stands a tackling dummy on loose
pulleys swung like a great scarecrow.
"Here, now, get some action into this," said a fiery little coach,
Tompkins, quarter-back a dozen seasons before. "Line up. Get some snap
to it. First man. Hard--hit it hard!"
The first three--heavy linesmen, still soft and short of breath--made
lumbering, slipping attempts.
Tompkins was in a blaze of fury.
"Hold up! What do you think this is? I didn't ask you to hug your
grandmother; I told you to tackle that dummy! Hit it hard--break it in
two! If you can't tackle, we don't want you around. Tackle to throw your
man back! Tackle as if the whole game depended on it. Come on, now. Next
man. Jump at it! Rotten! Rotten! Oh, squeeze it. Don't try to butt it
over--you're not a goat! Half the game's the tackling! Next man. Oh,
girls--girls! What is this bunch, anyhow--a young ladies' seminary?
Here! Stop--stop! You're up at Yale now. I'll show you how we tackle!"
Heedless of his street clothes, of the grotesqueness of the thing, of
all else but the savage spark he was trying to communicate, he went
rushing into the dummy with a headlong plunge that shook the ropes.
He was up in a moment, forgetting the dust that clung to him, shouting
in his shrill voice:
"Come on, now, bang into it! Yes, but hold on to it! Squeeze it.
Better--more snap there! Get out the way! Come on! Rotten! Take that
again--on the jump!"
Stover suddenly felt the inflaming seriousness of Yale, the spirit that
animated the field. Everything was in deadly earnest; the thing of rags
swinging grotesquely was as important as the tackle that on a
championship field stood between defeat and victory.
His turn came. He shot forward, left the turf in a clean dive, caught
the dummy at the knees, and shook the ground with the savageness of his
tackle.
"Out of the way, quick--next man!" cried the driving voice.
There was not a word of praise for what he knew had been a perfect
tackle. A second and a third time he flung himself heedlessly at the
swinging figure, in a desperate attempt to win the withheld word of
approbation.
"He might at least have grunted," he said to himself, tumbling to his
feet, "the little tyrant."
In a moment Tompkins, without relaxing a jot of his nervous driving, had
them spread over the field, flinging themselves on a dozen elusive
footballs, while always his voice, unsatisfied, propelling, drove them:
"Faster, faster! Get into it--let go yourselves. Throw yourself at it.
Oh, hard, harder!"
Ten minutes of practise starts under his leash, and they ended,
enveloped in steam, lungs shaken with quick, convulsive breaths.
"Enough for to-day. Back to the gymnasium on the trot; run off some of
that fatty degeneration. Here, youngster, a word with you."
Stover stepped forward.
"What's your name?"
"Stover."
To his profound disappointment, Tompkins did not recognize that
illustrious name.
"Where from?"
"Lawrenceville. Played end."
Tompkins looked him over, a little grimly. "Oh, yes; I've heard
something about you. Look here, ever do any punting?"
"Some, but only because I had to. I'm no good at it."
"Let's see what you can do."
Stover caught the ball tossed and put all his strength into a kick that
went high but short.
"Try another."
The second and third attempts were no better.
"Well, that's pretty punk," said Tompkins. "Dana wants to give you a try
on the second. Run over now and report. Oh, Stover!"
Dink halted, to see Tompkins' caustic scrutiny fixed on him.
"Yes, sir."
"Stover, just one word for your good. You come up with a big prep school
reputation. Don't make an ass of yourself. Understand; don't get a
swelled head. That's all."
"Precious little danger of that here," said Dink a little rebelliously
to himself, as he jogged over to the benches where the varsity subs were
camped. Le Baron waved him a recognition, but no more. It was as if the
gesture meant:
"I've started you. Now stand on your own feet. Don't look to me for
help."
For the rest of the practise he sat huddled in his sweater, waiting
expectantly as each time Captain Dana passed down the line, calling out
the candidates for trials in the brief scrimmages that took place. The
afternoon ended without an opportunity coming to him, and he jogged
home, in the midst of the puffing crowd, with a sudden feeling of his
own unimportance.
He had barely time to get his shower, and run into the almost deserted
eating club for a quick supper, when Gimbel appeared, crying:
"I say, Stover, bolt the grub and hoof it. We assemble over by Osborne."
"Where's the wrestling?"
"Don't know. Some vacant lot. Ever do any?"
"Don't know a thing about it."
"We're going to call out a chap called Robinson from St. Paul's, Garden
City, for the lightweight, and Regan for the heavy," said Gimbel, who,
of course, had been busy during the afternoon. "Thought of you for the
middleweight."
"Lord! get some one who knows the game," said Stover, following him out.
"Have you thought of any one you'd like to run for secretary and
treasurer?" said Gimbel, locking arms in a cordial way.
"No."
"I've got the whole thing organized sure as a steel trap."
"You haven't lost any time," said Stover, smiling.
"That's right--heaps of fun."
"What are _you_ going to run for?" said Stover, looking at him.
"I? Nothing now. Fence orator, perhaps, later," said Gimbel frankly.
"It's the fun of the game interests me--the organizing, pulling wires,
all that sort of thing. I'm going to have a lot of fun here."
"Look here, Gimbel," said Stover, yielding to a sudden appreciation of
the other's openness. "Isn't this sort of thing going to get a lot of
fellows down on you?"
"Queer me?" said Gimbel, laughing.
The word was still new to Stover, who showed his perplexity.
"That's a great word," added his companion. "You'll hear a lot of it
before you get through. It's a sort of college bug that multiplies
rapidly. Will politics 'queer' me--keep me out of societies? Probably;
but then, I couldn't make 'em anyway. So I'm going to have my fun. And
I'll tell you now, Stover, I'm going to get a good deal more out of my
college career than a lot of you fellows."
"Why include me?"
"Well, Stover, you're going to make a sophomore society, and go sailing
along."
"Oh, I don't know."
"Yes, you do. We don't object to such men as you, who have the right.
It's the lame ducks we object to."
"Lame ducks?" said Stover, puzzled as well as surprised at this
spokesman of an unsuspected proletariat opposition.
"'Lame ducks' is the word: the fellows who would never make a society if
it weren't for pulls, for the men ahead--the cripples that all you big
men will be trying to bolster up and carry along with you into a senior
society."
"I'm not on to a good deal of this," said Stover, puzzled.
"I know you're not. Look here." Gimbel, releasing his arm, faced him
suddenly. "You think I'm a politician out to get something for myself."
"Yes, I do."
"Well, I am--I'm frank about it. There's a whole mass of us here who
are going to fight the sophomore society system tooth and nail, and I'm
with them. When you're in the soph crowd you mightn't like what I'm
saying, and then again you may come around to our way of thinking.
However, I want you to know that I'm hiding nothing--that I'm fighting
in the open. We may be on opposite sides, but I guess we can shake
hands. How about it?"
"I guess we can always do that," said Stover, giving his hand. The man
puzzled him. Was his frankness deep or a diplomatic assumption?
"And now let's have no pretenses," continued Gimbel, on the same line,
with a quick analytical glance. "You're going with your crowd; better
join one of their eating-joints."
Stover was genuinely surprised.
"Have you already arranged it?" said Gimbel, laughing.
"Gimbel," said Stover directly, "I'm not quite sure about you."
"You don't know whether I'm a faker or not."
"Exactly."
"Stover, I'm a politician," said Gimbel frankly. "I'm out for a big
fight. I know the game here. I wouldn't talk to every one as I talk to
you. I want you to understand me--more, I want you to like me. And I
feel with you that the only way is to be absolutely honest. You see, I'm
a politician," he said, with a laugh. "I've learned how to meet
different men. Sometime I'm going to talk over things with
you--seriously. Here we are now. I've got a bunch of fellows to see.
McCarthy's probably looking for you. Don't make up your mind in a hurry
about me--or about a good many things here. Ta-ta!"
Stover watched him go gaily into the crowd, distributing bluff,
vociferous welcomes, hilariously acclaimed. The man was new, represented
a new element, a strange, dimly perceived, rebellious mass, with ideas
that intruded themselves ungratefully on his waking vision.
"Is he sincere?" he said to himself--a question that he was to apply a
hundred times in the life that was beginning.