OUT FOR THE TEAM
Despite Tom’s forebodings the interview with Mr. Frost went off quite
pleasantly the next morning. The Principal’s assistant was rather bald
and wore thick-lensed spectacles, but he was quite a young man and did
not strive to appear otherwise. He seemed more amused than pained by
the explanation of the visit.
“Tough luck, boys, to buck the rules the first night of the term!” he
commented. “Of course you knew you shouldn’t do it?”
Clif assured him he hadn’t known it, and Mr. Frost――“Homer” the
school called him, that being his given name――turned to a page in a
blue-covered booklet, placed a finger half-way down it and invited Clif
to read. It was there, as plain as daylight, and Clif, who had perused
that volume thoroughly, as he thought, couldn’t understand how he had
missed it. As for Tom, the latter explained cheerfully that he had only
looked at the pictures! Mr. Frost gravely presented each of them with a
copy of the booklet, advising them to become better acquainted with the
school regulations, and dismissed them smilingly.
Returning to West Hall, Clif made fun of his companion for having been
so pessimistic last evening. Tom grinned. “There’s something wrong with
that fellow,” he answered. “He won’t be here long. You mark my words,
Clif. He’s too easy!”
That first day was devoted principally to preparing for future labor.
He and Tom visited several class rooms and listened to instructions and
made notes. They bought books and stationery. They also visited Mr.
Babcock, the Physical Director, in the gymnasium, which stood a few
rods back of East Hall, and underwent tests. Since there were at least
a dozen other fellows waiting, “Cocky” put them through expeditiously,
handed each a small card bearing his name and a lot of figures and
dismissed them. Then came dinner, followed by another visit to Middle
where, in Room H, they listened while Mr. Waltman explained what a
beautiful thing was the Science of Mathematics and how much pleasure
could be derived from the study of it, if they would but realize it.
“The Turk” also dwelt at some length on the results that might accrue
to them if they didn’t realize it! Tom, who had taken a dislike to the
instructor since last evening, made sarcastic comments under his breath
and caricatured “The Turk” on the back of a blue book. Finally, having
obediently taken note of to-morrow’s lesson, they were released. Going
out, Clif glimpsed the wheel chair and its occupant rolling along the
corridor toward East Hall. He had encountered them several times before
during the day. Evidently, he concluded, the fellow was Third Class,
too. He spoke to Tom about it.
“I don’t know what class he is,” said Tom, “but his name’s Deane. I
heard a chap call him that this morning. Get your togs and wait for me
down front. I won’t be more than a minute.”
They obtained adjoining lockers in the gymnasium and changed into
football attire. Then, since they were early for practice, they snooped
around the building, upstairs and down. The gymnasium was new and well
appointed. The floor was large enough for two basketball games to be
played at once, there was a good running track above, and, occupying
the second story of the wing, a rowing room and two other apartments
variously used for fencing, boxing, wrestling and possibly other
sports. Underneath was a large baseball cage and a dressing room for
visiting teams. The basement, which was half above ground and well
lighted, held the lockers, a swimming pool, shower baths and the
trainer’s quarters. On the main floor, near the front entrance, Mr.
Babcock had his office.
There were numerous trophies to be viewed and a wealth of pictures
hung about the halls and rooms, most of the latter group photographs
of teams and crews of former years. Here and there, however, was
to be seen a picture of a football game or a view of a crew race.
“‘1919――Wyndham 16――Wolcott 0,’” read Tom. “Huh! ‘1917――Wyndham by
Seven Lengths.’ Say, it’s a funny thing you can’t find any photographs
where we were licked!”
“Well,” laughed Clif, “here’s a football game we only tied. ‘Wyndham
7――Wolcott 7,’ it says.”
“That must have got hung up by mistake! But it’s a pretty nifty gym,
just the same. Let’s go and see what the field’s like.”
Wyndham School had almost outgrown its athletic field, but the fact
wasn’t apparent to Clif and Tom as they left the gymnasium and started
across the grass toward the football gridiron. The farther line
of the school property was indicated by a soldierly array of tall
poplars. Against them, almost directly across from the gymnasium, was
a commodious concrete stand. The quarter-mile track was in front,
inclosing the First Team gridiron. Another pair of goals, farther
away, provided a field for the second squad, while what was known as
the class field lay, somewhat cramped, behind the school halls. There
were two diamonds, although in the fall the Second Team gridiron
infringed on the more distant one. A brook flowed across one corner of
the property and had been dammed to make a sizable pond well south of
the running track. In winter the pond supplied skating facilities and
sufficient surface for two rinks, but at other seasons its usefulness
was not so evident. When the soccer team played on the small expanse of
turf awarded to them the small punt now moored to a stake was occupied
by some Junior School volunteer whose duty was to recover errant balls
from the placid surface of the pond.
There was only a handful of candidates present when Clif and Tom
reached the shade of the covered grandstand and the latter clumped
their way to a couple of seats and awaited the beginning of practice.
It was a warm afternoon, with but little air stirring, and, although
Freeburg was set well amongst the lesser slopes of the Berkshires, that
air was decidedly humid. Tom mopped his forehead with the sleeve of a
brown jersey and then tried to fan himself with an ancient headguard.
“Hope the coach doesn’t give us much to do,” he muttered. “It’s too hot
for football.”
“You might suggest it to him,” answered Clif. “I guess that’s he now;
the man in the white shirt.”
Tom looked and said he guessed so, too, but he didn’t leave his seat to
offer the coach any advice. A more self-assured fellow than Tom would
have hesitated to approach “G.G.” on any matter not vitally important.
“G.G.’s” name was George G. Otis. Some said the second “G” stood for
“Grumpy,” but it really didn’t. It stood for Gray. Mr. Otis wasn’t very
large――Captain Dave Lothrop, beside him, was four inches taller and
quite as wide of shoulders; and even the long trousers of faded gray
flannel didn’t wholly conceal the fact that he was slightly bowlegged.
But there was plenty of body there, and the fact that his legs weren’t
quite straight hadn’t kept him from winning a fair share of fame as
a plunging half not many years back. He hadn’t greatly distinguished
himself while at Wyndham, but his subsequent career had been linked
with two football teams by which all later teams at his college were
judged. He had a rather bullet-shaped head, with thin hair of a faded
brown, sharp eyes of a brown that wasn’t the least bit faded, a short
nose a bit too flat for beauty, a mouth that closed tight and straight
and an aggressive chin. On the whole he wasn’t an Apollo. But he knew
a lot of football and could teach it to boys; and teaching football to
boys is a different and much harder task than teaching it to men.
“G.G.” didn’t seek popularity, and so he won it. He was a hard
taskmaster, could act the tyrant on occasion and had a sharp, harsh
tongue. He insisted on absolute obedience and had been known to use
drastic methods to enforce discipline. He was sometimes intensely
disliked by those who didn’t share his views on the necessity for
obedience. But he was fair, could laugh as heartily as any one, off the
field, and never made the mistake, a too common one, of expecting boys
of preparatory school age to think or perform like collegians. Best of
all, perhaps, from the point of view of the School, was the fact that
during his three years as coach at Wyndham his charges had won twice
from Wolcott. That was almost enough to account for popularity, but I
think that there was another reason for it. Boys have a respect for
despotism and a liking for being firmly ruled just so long as they are
certain that the despotism is just and the ruler is worthy. And as a
despot George G. Otis would have satisfied the most demanding!
Tom, after looking the coach over exhaustively from the distance of
some ten yards, said “Huh!” in a very doubtful tone. After a moment he
said “Huh!” again, and this time it seemed to express conviction. It
did, for he followed it with: “Something tells me, Clif, I’m not going
to like that guy! He――he’s got a bad eye!”
The gathering in front of the stand increased rapidly, while the
stand itself began to fill along its front seats with spectators. Mr.
Hilliard, Instructor in Modern Languages, who was also assistant coach,
joined the throng by the bench. The trainer, Dan Farrell, a short,
chunky man with a round, good-natured countenance and sharp blue eyes,
directed the unloading of the two-wheeled pushcart of its contents; two
canvas bags of ancient and scarred footballs, a carboy of water, two
cartons of paper cups, two buckets, a large sponge, several headguards,
a skein of shoe lacings, a battered black bag and some other objects.
The black bag held Dan’s first-aid appliances. The manager, Jack
Macon, carried a board with a clip at one end that held down several
large sheets of paper. He talked with Mr. Otis while the two assistant
managers, one from the Second and one from the Third Class, wandered
about vaguely as though anxious to be helpful but not knowing how. Clif
saw the coach pull a watch from his trousers pocket and glance at it,
and nudged his companion.
“Let’s get down,” he said.
So they clumped back to the field, Clif, at least, feeling extremely
unimportant amidst the gathering of older, larger and self-confident
youths. Here and there, however, was a boy whose appearance or bearing
proclaimed the neophyte, and Clif regained a trifle of assurance. Tom,
although still plainly disapproving of Mr. Otis, showed no indication
of being troubled by an inferiority complex. He sauntered to the thick
of the throng, and Clif went with him, showing, though, a disposition
to keep in the lee of his companion’s slightly larger bulk. The coach
clapped his hands and silence fell, while some sixty canvas-clad youths
closed about him.
“Fellows, we’re starting to-day to lick Wolcott,” announced “G.G.”
“We’ve got eight weeks to do it in. We’re going to keep our objective
in mind every minute of those eight weeks. There’s going to be a lot
of hard work, and any of you who are afraid of work had better keep
away from me. You won’t like me, and I’m certain I shan’t like you,
and we’d better not try to mix. I’m dead set on having my own way, and
I’m a crank when I don’t get it. Any one who doesn’t like the prospect
should resign right now. Those of you who sign up will be expected to
stick for the duration. All right. Shed your headguards, fellows. You
won’t need them to-day. Last season First and Second Team players and
substitutes down the field. The rest of you here. Mr. Hilliard, will
you take this bunch, please? Balls, Dan!”
Clif and Tom found themselves in the squad under Mr. Hilliard and
put in nearly an hour passing the ball and receiving it. There were
frequent rests, for the day was hot and most of the squad were soft
with easy living, but the work was hard enough to cause more than
one erstwhile ambitious youth to wonder whether it wouldn’t be wiser
to seek glory in some other less strenuous pursuit. Even Clif, who
had sought to keep himself conditioned during the summer, was soon
perspiring freely and was both surprised and a trifle dismayed to
find himself puffing. It was evident to him that his system of summer
training had not been a success. Looking back, he realized that he had
spent more time on the hotel porch or lolling on the sand than he had
meant to!
Mr. Hilliard was called “Pinky” because his hair was coppery-brown.
It didn’t approach red, but since no other faculty member presented a
better claim to the nickname it was awarded to Mr. Hilliard. He was
about thirty years old, Clif concluded. He was fairly tall and thin,
with a peculiar quick manner of moving his head; sort of jerky, as Clif
phrased it to himself; like a hen’s!
Practice ended with a single lap around the inner border of the running
track. It nearly finished Clif, and he ended the circuit at a slow
walk. Tom poked fun at him as they returned to the gymnasium, and Clif
was much too short of breath to make any defense. So ended the first
day.
The second wasn’t much different. There was more long passing and
they practiced starts, but getting acquainted with the ball was the
principal desideratum, just as yesterday. Both Clif and Tom slightly
resented being treated as members of the kindergarten class, although
acknowledging that it probably wouldn’t do them any harm. Mr. Otis,
who had the first squad in charge, found time to look over the
others occasionally, and at such times Mr. Hilliard’s pupils sought
pathetically hard to attract the coach’s favorable notice. Or most of
them did. Tom, for some reason not quite plain to Clif, resented the
infrequent visits of “G.G.” Once, seeing the head coach’s approach,
Tom, at the receiving end of a ten-yard pass, opened his arms wide as
the ball came to him and made a most ridiculously amateurish effort at
catching. The ball went through, bounded from his body and trickled
across the turf. Tom affected deep chagrin and followed it. He picked
it up a few yards from Mr. Otis and then looked at him invitingly. The
coach returned the look for a moment. Then he said: “Your left shoe
lace is trailing. Fix it.”
Tom sped the ball across vindictively. In a pause he said to Clif: “Did
you hear him? Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t going to like that guy?”
Clif laughed and then sobered. “What did you want to do that for,
anyway? Just to show off?”
“Why, heck,” answered the other indignantly, “a fellow can’t catch it
every time!”
“Run along and sell your papers!” jeered Clif. “You did that on
purpose. You just wanted Mr. Otis to jump on you so you could have a
grouch on him. Anyway, I see you’ve tied your lace!”
“Oh, go to the dickens,” grumbled Tom.
To-day’s practice lasted longer than yesterday’s and, since it involved
a good deal of running around, it left the candidates rather more wrung
out than on the previous afternoon. Clif confided to Tom that if he
was called on to jog the track he’d die before he was half-way around.
Fortunately, then, only a handful of fellows, all from Mr. Otis’s
squad, were called on for that final martyrdom, and Clif was able to
reach the gymnasium and to insinuate himself under the refreshing
downpour of a shower bath without further suffering. But he was so
fagged out and so lame by the time supper was over that he flatly
refused Tom’s challenge to chess――a game he knew very little of――and
dragged his weary body up to Number 17 and flopped on his bed. Tom, not
to be deprived of his chess, sought the recreation room, promising to
meet the other for study hour.
Walter Treat looked mildly disapproving when Clif stretched his tired
body out on the bed. Walter’s athletic activities were confined to
an infrequent game of tennis and an even more infrequent afternoon
of golf, and it is probable that he didn’t appreciate his roommate’s
condition. Interpreting the look correctly, though, Clif presented his
excuse, wondering as he did so why he should consider it necessary to
secure Walter’s approval.
“I don’t see why they make you fellows practice on such a warm day,”
observed Walter when Clif had added a groan to his explanation for good
measure. “Still, I dare say there’s so little time that they can’t
afford to waste any. Better take a hot bath before bed.”
“Gee, that sounds good,” assented Clif. After a minute he asked: “Say,
Walter, do you know who the fellow in the invalid’s chair is?”
“His name is Deane; either Laurence or Lorin, I think. His father is
Sanford Deane.”
“Sanford Deane? You don’t mean _the_ Sanford Deane, do you?”
“Yes. I’m telling you what I heard. It may not be right.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was,” said Clif. “He sort of looks
like――like somebody important. Was he here last year?”
“No, he’s new. As for his looking important, maybe he does, Clif, but I
don’t know that the fact that his father is immensely wealthy gives him
the right to!”
“Why, no, and I didn’t mean just that, I guess. Still, his father is
pretty well known, pretty prominent, aside from being rich, isn’t he?
You’re always reading about him in the papers.”
“Important in a financial way, certainly.” Walter almost, but not
quite, shrugged. “Any one who gets hold of fifty or sixty million
dollars can get his name in the papers every day if he wants to.
Sometimes it gets there when he doesn’t want it to.”
Walter smiled cynically.