THE CONSULTING COACH
Clif’s father was to have visited him Sunday, but the morning brought
a telegram stating that a sudden journey to Boston necessitated a
postponement of the Freeburg trip to the following Sunday. Clif’s
disappointment was not lasting. In the afternoon he and Tom and Loring
went for a walk. That is, he and Tom walked and took turns pushing
Loring’s chair, long since mended by the local carpenter. Wattles was
left behind, delighted by the prospect of two hours of browsing in the
school library but uneasy at intrusting his charge to the two boys.
The day was fair and, for the latter part of October in that region,
quite warm. Along Oak Street many of the residents were on their
porches, and the sight of the boy in the wheel chair created much
interest and curiosity. Clif was conscious of the craning necks and
low-voiced comments, but Loring seemed not to be aware of them.
Perhaps, Clif thought, you got used to that sort of thing after a
while. They went through the village and then westward and came to a
halt at last beside the little river where the end of the old covered
bridge offered a sheltered, sunny nook. Clif and Tom climbed to the
top of a fence. Loring, supplied with a willow wand at his request,
trimmed it with his knife and whittled contentedly while conversation
roamed from one subject to another. They were on a little-traveled road
and the only vehicle to rattle across the bridge during their sojourn
was an old buggy drawn by a fat gray horse and occupied by a roly-poly
old man who gave them a cheerful “Afternoon, boys,” and painstakingly
forbore to stare at Loring. Loring’s gaze followed the retreating
figure and he smiled.
“He wanted so much to take a good look, too,” said Loring. “Nice old
codger. I almost wanted to tell him I didn’t mind.”
“I guess you’re pretty used to it,” Tom mused. “Say, how long have you
been this way?”
Clif looked startled, but Loring only smiled as he answered: “Sixteen
years and seven months, Tom.”
“Six――you mean _always_?”
“Ever since I was born.”
“Gosh! Can’t they do anything? What’s it like?”
Clif thought the questions in rather poor taste and looked apologetic
on his friend’s behalf, but Loring didn’t appear to mind. “They haven’t
done much yet,” he answered. “I’ve been treated by a lot of doctors,
here and abroad, but nothing much has come of it. My leg bones don’t
pick out the right food to grow on, it seems. They’re too fond of lime.
Calcification the doctors call it. That and a lot of other things.
Usually each one has his own pet name for it. Anyway, there’s too much
chalk in those bones down there, and if I ever got mad with you, Tom,
and kicked you, you’d have the laugh on me because I’d break my leg.
They’re so brittle they’re no use at all as legs. Sometimes I think
it would be better to get rid of them and save the price of shoes and
stockings, but no one else seems to. The doctor father is supporting
now makes believe I’ll be able to use the silly things some day; says
that as I get older the bone structure will get more sense. I don’t
know, though.”
“But don’t you do anything for it?” asked Clif.
“Oh, yes, I’m on a funny diet, for one thing. You’d be surprised,
fellows, to know what perfectly innocent looking things contain lime!
And this doctor’s working on the theory that if I don’t give the bones
enough lime to suit them they’ll get discouraged and use something
else. Then poor old Wattles has to take me to walk every morning and
night.”
“Take you to walk!” exclaimed Tom incredulously.
“That’s what he calls it,” laughed Loring. “We’re doing an eighth of
a mile now twice a day; a two-twenty-yard dash, you know! You see,
they won’t let me use my legs myself, so Wattles does it for me. He
massages the pesky things and works all the joints――as carefully as if
they were made of glass――and has a jolly good time of it. Wattles is
really a brick. He had to put in a week or more at the hospital and
take a course of instruction before he could get the job, and I believe
he honestly thinks now that he’s an authority on bone diseases. He’s
a conscientious chap, too, and if the house caught on fire while he
was ‘exercising’ me I’ll bet he wouldn’t get out until I’d had my full
thirty minutes!”
“But couldn’t you use crutches?” asked Tom.
“Yes, but they won’t let me do it. Too much chance of an accident, they
say. I’m not even allowed to cross my legs! Not that I’m at all sure
I could do it, for it’s so long since I tried that I honestly believe
I’ve forgotten how.” He turned to smile at Clif. “That was a pretty
close call the other day, you know. I dare say that if that car had
dumped me out of the chair Wattles would have had to sweep my legs up
into a dustpan!”
“What was that?” demanded Tom. “I didn’t hear about it.”
“Didn’t Clif tell you?” asked Loring. Then he laughed. “Sorry, Clif. I
thought he knew.”
“He does know. That is, I told him all he needed to know,” muttered
Clif.
“You never did! Whatever it is, you didn’t say a word about it.”
“Didn’t I tell you about meeting Loring in the village last Sunday?
Well, then!”
“Sure, but you didn’t say anything about Loring being dumped out of his
chair!”
“He wasn’t dumped out of his chair. All that happened――”
“Better let me tell it,” said Loring.
“Go ahead,” answered Clif. “There’s nothing to tell, anyway. You were
coming across the street――”
“Shut up!” Tom commanded sternly. “No one wants to hear from you. Go
ahead, Loring.”
So Loring went ahead and gave a perfectly truthful and not at all
sensational account of the affair, and Tom viewed Clif accusingly
during the narrative and, when it was finished, exclaimed disgustedly:
“Of all the tight mouthed, secretive vipers! Loring, I’ve watched over
that guy ever since he came here. I was the first one to befriend him.
Without me, he――he wouldn’t be anywhere to-day. And look at the way he
repays me! Goes out and makes a silly hero of himself saving people
from being trampled underfoot by rampageous automobiles and never says
a word about it! And he calls that friendship, I suppose!”
“You make me tired, both of you,” grumbled Clif. “There wasn’t much
danger, anyway, and all I did was give a yank to the chair. The fellow
in the car would have missed him even if I hadn’t touched it. And if
you go and tell this to any one else, Tom, I’ll make you wish you
hadn’t!”
“Oh, shut up,” said Tom good-naturedly. “You might have known I
wouldn’t spill it, Clif. Next time you come right home, like a good
little boy, and tell daddy all about it.”
“There won’t be any next time,” answered Clif emphatically.
“Not with me,” chuckled Loring. “Wattles will never give me another
chance to congest traffic. The poor chap had nightmares so badly that
night that I had to wake him up twice!”
“It’s a wonder he let you go without him to-day,” marveled Clif.
“I was surprised myself,” agreed Loring. “I more than half expected to
find him tagging along behind, keeping a watchful eye on me. You don’t
happen to see a black derby sticking up behind a bush anywhere, do you?”
Going back, Tom, trundling the chair, broke a silence of several
minutes with: “Look here, Loring, I wish you’d do something for me. I
mean for us, for the Scrub Team.”
“I will if I can. What is it?”
“Well, you’ve been looking on at practice and scrimmage almost every
day, and you know a lot about football and how it ought to be played,
and I’ve been thinking that a fellow on the side-line sees a good deal
that gets by those on the field.”
“Well――”
“Now what I’d like you to do is this. You watch how things go; watch
the fellows play; size up the whole performance, you know, and then
you tell me afterwards what’s wrong. Of course the Scrub’s just the
Scrub, but I’m captain of it and I’d like to see the old outfit make a
good showing. You’ve got some pretty good ideas about the game, Loring,
and I guess if you sort of kept an eye on us and then we had a talk
afterwards, why――”
“That’s the most sensible remark you ever got off,” said Clif. “I call
that a corking good idea!”
“I’ll be glad to try,” said Loring. “I’d like to immensely, fellows,
but, after all, my football’s just what you might call theory, and it
seems rather cheeky for a chap who has never played a lick to――to set
up as a critic!”
“No, it doesn’t,” answered Tom firmly. “Critics are always like that.
The good ones, I mean. I don’t have to be a baker to know when a pie is
punk! You just watch us play, Loring, and see where we fall down. I’m
not throwing off on ‘Cocky.’ He’s a dandy coach. But he isn’t on the
outside looking in, and he’s got a lot of stuff to think about all at
once. Things might easily get by him――little things especially――just
because he’s right on top of the play. Then there’s strategy, too.
There’s a whole lot in that, Loring, and you’ve sort of studied that
end of it. So, if it wouldn’t be too much of a bother, I wish you’d
help us out, Loring.”
“Of course I will! Why, it’ll be a lot of fun for me, Tom. Almost like
playing football myself!”
“Done! Here, you push awhile, you lazy beggar!”
“Lazy yourself,” answered Clif as he took the other’s place. “I should
think, though, you’d be glad to keep the job, Tom. It isn’t every day
you get the chance to be chauffeur to the consulting coach!”
After they had consigned Loring to the care of a relieved Wattles and
were returning to West, Clif said: “How did you happen to think of that
scheme, Tom? I’ll bet he can give us some mighty good tips, eh?”
“Oh, well; it can’t do us any harm, I guess.”
“Any harm?”
Tom turned on his companion a look of mild perplexity. “For goodness’
sake, Clif,” he replied, “you don’t suppose I really meant all that
guff!”
“What did you say it for, then?” asked Clif indignantly.
“Because,” Tom answered equably, “I wanted to give the poor chap a
little more interest in life. Didn’t you see how pleased he was? Why,
as he said, it will be almost like playing the game himself. I like
that chap, old son, and I want to do anything I can to――to――”
“Oh, you do? Then why try to make a fool of him? Don’t you suppose he
will find out quick enough that you don’t really want his advice?”
“No, why should he? And I haven’t said I didn’t want his advice. Of
course I want it if it’s any good. I just don’t suppose it will be,
that’s all. The big thing is to give him a better time here, don’t you
see?”
“Yes,” answered Clif dubiously, “but, just the same, it seems sort of
mean to fool him, Tom.”
“I’m not fooling him until he finds it out,” replied the other
philosophically, “and he never will find it out unless you tell him.”
“I’d be likely to,” jeered Clif.
“Exactly. So that’s that. See you at supper, old timer.”
Coach Otis made several shifts in the First Team on Monday and it was
late when the Scrub was called over. During one fifteen-minute session
the First scored two touchdowns, Whitemill making the first on a long
run from midfield and Fargo going over for the second from the Scrub’s
seven-yards. Tom’s team was on the defensive most of the time and, if
truth must be told, played rather raggedly. On the First, Billy Desmond
was displaced by Quinlan, and Couch and Williams held the ends. The
First, nettled by Saturday’s defeat, played savage ball. Jimmy Ames, in
tackling Jensen soon after the trouble started, sustained a bad wrench
of his left knee and was out for the day and for many more days to
follow. Clem Henning retired early, too, after some zealous First Team
man had put his knee into him, but Clem’s injury was only temporary.
On the whole, the Scrub got pretty well battered up during that brief
session, and minor injuries were numerous.
That afternoon Loring watched the Scrub during its practice and then
followed it across to the First Team field, and after supper, when Clif
and Tom dropped in on him he was well primed with criticism. But the
faults Loring had discovered were already known to coach and captain,
and while Tom treated Loring’s disclosures with the utmost respect Clif
knew quite well that he was not taking them seriously. Loring pointed
out that several of the Scrub linemen were slow in starting, that
“Wink” Coles played too high, that Stiles had a bad habit of slowing
up before reaching the line and that Clif Bingham had missed two
tackles! Loring also criticized Jackson for attempting a forward-pass
on fourth down on his own thirty-eight yards, which attempt resulted
in an interception by the First and brought about the latter’s second
touchdown. Tom declared that he was glad to get the tips and that he
would pass them on to “Cocky.”
“Of course some of it won’t be news to him, though. He’s been trying to
speed up the forwards right along, for instance; and that stuff about
Clif is old, too. He does miss too many tackles, and that’s no joke.”
“I don’t see why, either,” Clif complained. “I try hard enough.”
“I thought to-day that you tried _too_ hard,” said Loring. “That
time you tried for Whitemill, Clif, you weren’t near enough when you
grabbed, and you got only one hand on him. It’s possible that you’re
too anxious, isn’t it? Hadn’t you better try getting closer to your man
before tackling?”
“Maybe that’s it,” said Clif, glumly. “There’s something wrong. ‘Cocky’
has told me all along that I’m a punk tackler, and I guess I am.”
“Oh, you’re not as bad as that,” said Tom. “There are others!”
“Of course I didn’t think that I was telling you news,” said Loring.
“You asked me to tell you what I saw, Tom, and that’s what I’ve done. I
still say that it’s cheeky of me to set up as a football authority and
critic, you know!”
“I don’t see it,” Tom answered. “You certainly got the dope on us
to-day, didn’t you? You keep up the good work, old son. Unless we do a
heap better than we did to-day we’re going to need all the help we can
get!”