T. TUCKER PLAYS GOAL
Toby set himself earnestly to learn hockey. I’m not going to tell you
that after a week of sliding and whanging around with the third or
fourth squad he displayed such a marvelous ability that Yardley Hall
was amazed and delighted at the advent of a new star, or that Orson
Crowell, bowing his head in surrender, offered him the captaincy. Such
a thing may happen sometimes, although it is usually in stories, but
it didn’t happen in Toby’s case. No, sir, not by a lot! Toby began by
being just about as awkward and useless as any one could be. For the
first day or two he evidently believed that a hockey stick was meant
to trip over, and when he did use it for other purposes, he wielded it
like a baseball bat. However, after he had cut Fanning’s forehead open
with one of his wild swings, and been sternly reminded for the tenth
time that the rules forbade lifting the stick above the shoulder, he
handled it more discreetly. Loring Casement, who was slated for the
second team captaincy, had charge of the third and fourth squads, and
Loring made the mistake of sizing up Toby as a possible forward, and
for the better part of a week, in fact until the Monday following the
game with St. John’s School, he was allowed to dash wildly and more
or less confusedly about the ice to his own vast enjoyment and the
entertainment of the spectators. Toby’s method of advancing the puck
was to get a good start, stumble over his stick, slide a few yards,
scramble to his feet again and hurl himself on the nearest adversary,
whether said adversary happened to have possession of the puck at the
moment or not. We are told that a rhinoceros, being wounded, will
charge at the first object he sees, whether it is a man or a tree or
an ant-hill. These were Toby’s tactics. The first person who met his
eyes was his prey. It took Toby several experiences to connect his
thunderbolt charges with the blowing of the referee’s whistle and the
cessation of play. But eventually, after Casement had almost tearfully
reiterated that the rules prohibited the checking of a player not in
possession of the puck, Toby saw his error. Possibly he would have
developed after awhile into a fair sort of center or wing, although
all indications were against that supposition, but he wasn’t given
the chance. On that Monday before mentioned Captain Crowell advised
Casement to try Toby at defense, and so Toby suddenly found himself at
point.
Playing point is vastly different from scurrying up and down as a
forward, as Toby discovered. When you played point you did a lot of
waiting and watching, and when you did have anything to do you had a
whole lot! It was rather a breathless moment for him when, for the
first time, he set himself in the path of the invaders. It almost made
him dizzy trying to keep his eyes on the puck, which was slipping from
one onrushing forward to another, and when he did check he got the
wrong man and the puck was in the net by the time he had scrambled to
his feet again. The goal-tend viewed Toby disgustedly and muttered
uncomplimentary things. But Toby showed up better on defense than
attack, soon got a glimmering of what was expected of him and, whatever
his faults may have been, never exhibited any lack of enthusiasm. The
heel-plates had so far failed to arrive――they did come eventually,
but not yet――and so Toby had to wear his old skates. They were forever
coming loose and causing him trouble and delaying the game. His
team-mates begged him to “scrap ’em, Tucker, and buy some skates.”
Toby discovered very early in his experience that hockey required
mental as well as physical abilities. Quick thinking and cool thinking
were, he decided, prime requisites. Watching Orson Crowell or Arnold
or Jim Rose, all seasoned players, zig-zag in and out between eager
opponents, feinting, dodging, but keeping the puck all the while, was
quite a wonderful sight. He had thought so before he had tried it
himself. After he had tried it he was just about ten times as sure of
it. Where Toby made his error at first was in mistaking calculating
science for headlong recklessness. When Crowell, as an example, skated
into a mêlée and brought the puck out, Crowell knew beforehand what he
was going to do and how he was going to do it. When Toby tried it he
merely flung himself into the maelstrom without having any distinct
idea of what was going to happen; except, of course, that he knew he
was going to get his shins cracked or dent the ice with some prominent
angle of his anatomy. After awhile Toby decided that there was a
difference between daring and mere recklessness, and he concluded that
he would skate more with his head and less with his feet!
Several things came hard to him. For a long time he could not learn to
use both hands on his stick, and the exhortation from Casement: “Both
hands, Tucker, both hands!” followed him everywhere. When he did get
the hang of it, though, he found that he was far better off, if only
for the reason that the stick was always in front of him and never
getting mixed up with his skates. But besides that he discovered that
it aided him a lot in keeping his balance and when dodging. And it was
always ready for use, something that couldn’t be said for a trailing
stick. Another thing that was difficult for him to master was dribbling
instead of hitting the puck. Toby’s ball playing had left him with a
natural inclination to use anything in the nature of a stick or club
with a swing, and merely pushing the little hard-rubber disk along the
ice seemed too slow. But after he had lost the puck innumerable times
by striking it he understood the philosophy of dribbling. If Toby was
slow to learn, at least, having learned, he remembered.
The ambition to own his own stick took possession of him before long,
and one afternoon he and Arnold and Homer Wilkins walked over to
Greenburg and had a regular splurge of spending. To be sure, it was
Arnold and Homer who left the most money behind, but Toby spent a whole
half-dollar for the best hockey stick he could find and fifteen cents
more for hot sodas. Selecting that stick was a long and serious matter.
Toby left it largely to Arnold, and Arnold, sensible of the honor done
him, was not to be hurried.
“You want a Canadian rock elm stick,” he declared gravely. “Rock elm
won’t fray on the edge the way other sticks will. Take rough ice and
your stick will have whiskers all along the bottom of the blade if it
isn’t made of the right stuff. And you want to choose one that’s got a
close, straight grain, too. The grain ought to run perfectly straight
with the haft and turn with the blade. Here’s one――No, it’s got a knot
in it. See it? A good whack with another stick would break that there
as sure as shooting.”
“How’s this one?” asked Toby.
“Too heavy, son. It isn’t seasoned, I guess. If you get one that isn’t
dried and seasoned perfectly it’ll warp on you, and――”
“I’d hate to have a hockey stick warp on me,” murmured Homer
distastefully. “Still, I suppose I could take it off, eh?”
“I guess this is the best of the lot,” continued Arnold, too much
absorbed to heed levity. “It’s got a medium wide blade, with a knife
edge; not too sharp, though, either. How do you like it? Feel good?”
Toby hefted it doubtfully. “I think so. Only I thought maybe I’d rather
have one with a narrower thingamabob.”
“Narrower blade? But that’s a forward stick, T. Tucker. You want a
stick for defense, don’t you? You can use this one at point or goal,
either one. Those narrow blades won’t stop a puck the way the wide ones
will. And it’s light, too, and has a peachy grain. I’ve got some tape
you can have, so you needn’t buy any.”
So the matter was eventually settled, and the salesman, who had long
since wearied of standing by, returned and accepted Toby’s fifty-cent
piece and offered to wrap the stick up. But Toby preferred to carry it
unwrapped so that he could examine the grain and swing it speculatively
and admire it to his heart’s content. After that Arnold bought a bottle
of glue, half a dozen pencils, a pair of garters and three bananas, and
Homer purchased a red-and-green necktie which attracted his attention
away across the street and a book with a splashy cover entitled “Dick
Dareall in the Frozen Seas.”
“That doesn’t sound like sense,” objected Arnold when they were outside
again. “If he was in the frozen seas he’d be stuck tight, wouldn’t he?”
“Maybe he was,” said Homer. “Or maybe I’m the one who’s stuck.”
“That sounds fair,” agreed Arnold. “Say, he must have had a fine time
playing hockey, eh? I guess those frozen seas would make a dandy rink?”
They induced Homer to unwrap his necktie for their re-examination, and
Arnold pretended to be frightened and dashed wildly into the street and
was almost run over by an express truck. Toby secretly admired that
vivid tie very much and wanted one just like it, but it was more fun
pretending that it made him feel squirmy and faint. Homer wasn’t in the
least disturbed by their criticisms, however.
“It’s just envy,” he said tranquilly. “You’d both mighty well like to
have it. Besides, it has the green of old Broadwood, and you know how I
love the dear old school.”
As usual, they found a sprinkling of Broadwood boys in the drug
store when Toby stood his modest treat. They were really quite nice
looking chaps, but Homer insisted that they showed every indication of
degeneracy. “Observe the sloping foreheads,” he whispered, “and the
weak chins. Also the vacant expression of the eyes. Still, these aren’t
so bad, really. They only let the best looking ones out.”
“I know,” replied Arnold gravely. “They tell me,” he went on, raising
his voice, “that they’re starting post-graduate courses at Broadwood.”
“That so?” inquired Homer, in the encouraging tone of an interlocutor
in a minstrel show.
“Yes,” drawled Arnold. “They’re going to teach reading and writing
to the advanced students, I understand. And I believe there is even
some talk of a course in elementary arithmetic, but that may be an
exaggeration.”
“My word! Well, Broadwood’s an awful up-and-coming place! I _have_
heard that they were going to introduce football――”
“Aw, cut it!” interrupted a disgusted voice from behind Toby. “That’s
old stuff!”
“Is it?” asked Arnold, innocently regarding the scowling countenance
showing around Toby’s shoulder. “We just heard of it. Much obliged.”
“Fresh snips,” growled another Broadwood youth. “I didn’t know they let
their juniors come to town.”
“What’s yours, gentlemen?” inquired the attendant behind the counter.
“Three hot sodas, please,” began Toby. But Homer interrupted, with a
wink.
“We’ll take three Broadwood punches, please.”
“I don’t know those,” said the clerk, smiling doubtfully. “Spring it.”
“There ain’t no such thing,” answered Homer.
“Give him the regular Yardley drink,” advised a hostile voice from
further along the counter. “Just fill a glass with hot air.”
Toby was beginning to wonder when the trouble would start, but at the
sound of the last voice Arnold leaned forward with a grin and, “Hello,
Tony!” he called. “How’s the boy?”
“Hello, Arn! That you shooting your silly mouth off? Come down here and
have something.”
“Can’t, thanks. How’s everything back in the hills?” But Tony was
making his way to them and an instant later Toby and Homer were being
introduced to “Mr. Spaulding, the world-famous athlete.” Tony Spaulding
proved to be a fine-looking fellow of seventeen or eighteen with a
remarkable breadth of shoulders and a pair of snapping black eyes. Four
other Broadwood boys were haled forward and introduced, and presently,
armed with glasses, they crowded around a diminutive table in the
rear of the store and hobnobbed very socially. Toby gathered during
the course of the ensuing conversation that Tony Spaulding was the
identical left tackle who had caused so much trouble to Yardley last
November, although Toby would never have recognized him in his present
apparel. It also appeared that Mr. Spaulding was a prominent member of
the Broadwood hockey squad and that he was looking forward with much
glee to meeting Arnold on the ice a month or so later. Another member
of the Broadwood contingent was dragged into the limelight with the
remark: “Towle, here, is going to play goal for us this year, Arn.
Johnny, you want to watch out for this shark, Deering, when we play
’em. If you see him coming, spread yourself, boy, spread yourself! And
maybe you’d better yell for help, too!”
It was almost dark when they tore themselves away from their friends,
the enemy, and set out for home, and quite dark by the time they
climbed the hill and reached the radiance of the lighted windows, Toby
bearing his new hockey stick with tender solicitude lest its immaculate
surface be scratched and Homer regretting the fact that he had intended
buying some peanut taffy and had forgotten it.
That was the afternoon preceding the game with St. John’s, and it
wasn’t until the next morning that it became certain that the game
could be played. But a sharp fall in temperature during the early
hours set the ice again and by three o’clock it was in fairly good
shape. That game wasn’t very exciting, for St. John’s showed a woeful
lack of practice and Yardley ran away with the event in the first half
and only supplied a spice of interest in the last period by throwing
an entire team of substitutes in. Toby, with many a better player,
watched the contest from the bench outside the barrier, sweatered and
coated against the cold of the afternoon but ready at any moment to
throw wraps aside and leap, like Mr. Homer’s Achilles, full-panoplied
into the fray. Still Toby didn’t really expect to be called on to
save the day, and he wasn’t. Flagg and Framer played point and played
it quite well enough. Frank Lamson took Henry’s place at goal in the
second period and it was against Frank that St. John’s was able to
make its only two tallies. The first team forwards, Crowell, Crumbie,
Rose and Deering, showed some fine team work that afternoon and won
frequent applause, but, as Sid Creel said to Toby, most any one could
have got past those St. John’s fellows. Halliday showed himself a
really remarkable cover point, and he and Flagg worked together like
two cog-wheels. The final score was 12 to 2, and it was very generally
agreed that Captain Crowell had material for a fine team and that
Yardley had made a good start on her way to the championship.
After the contest was over, willing hands swept the ice surface and
the third and fourth squads staged a battle which, if not quite so
skillful, had it all over the big show for excitement and suspense. As
Sim Warren, who had been playing goal for the fourth squad, was not on
hand, Stillwell, presiding in the absence of Loring Casement, looked
about for some one to take his place. Stillwell had little data to
work on and so solved the problem by moving the cover point to point
and the point back to the net, and filling the vacant defense position
with a substitute forward. Toby’s emotion at finding himself in charge
of the fourth squad’s goal was principally that of alarm. Ever since
Crowell’s remark to the effect that in his estimation Toby might make
a good goal-tend, Toby had secretly longed to play that position, but
this was so――well, so sort of sudden! He had watched Henry preside at
the net time and time again, watched admiringly and enviously, and
theoretically at least knew the duties of the office, but he was
possessed by grave doubts of his ability to profit by his observations.
However, he had no choice in the matter. Some one helped him strap
on a pair of pads, some one else thrust a wide-bladed goal-tender’s
stick into his hands and thirteen youths awaited his pleasure with
ill-concealed impatience. Then Stillwell blew his whistle, dropped the
puck and skated aside, and the battle was on.
There was nothing especially momentous about that half-hour’s practice
of the scrubs. They hustled around and banged away and got very excited
and were off-side every two minutes. And now and then they managed to
give a fair imitation of team-work. Stillwell, who would have much
preferred being up in the gymnasium talking over the afternoon’s game,
went through with his task conscientiously enough, but he was chary
with the whistle and many a foul went unpenalized. Of course, Toby let
several shots get past him, especially in the first fifteen-minute
half, when he was decidedly nervous every time the play approached his
end of the rink. Later, he settled down and made one or two clever
stops, one with his wrist. The latter was unintentional and deprived
him of the use of that member for several minutes. But his team-mates
applauded and so Toby didn’t mind. And after awhile the wrist stopped
hurting some. On the whole, Toby put up a pretty fair game at goal that
afternoon, doing better than the opposing goal-keeper by four tallies,
a fact which Stillwell noted and later mentioned casually to Crowell.
“Young Tucker played goal down there this afternoon,” he remarked.
“Warren was off and I didn’t know who else to put in. He wasn’t half
bad, Orson.”
“Tucker? Oh, is that so? That reminds me that I meant to have Loring
try him out at that very position. Glad you mentioned it. I’ll have
a look at him. Lamson let two mighty easy ones get by to-day, and we
could use another goal-tend if we had him.”
Which conversation would have been remarkably cheering to Toby could he
have overheard it at the moment. But he didn’t. What he did hear just
then was Arnold telling him to “Hold still, you chump! I know it hurts,
but this is good for it.” Whereupon Arnold rubbed the injured wrist
harder and Toby grinned stoically.