The Rockspur Eleven
A FINE FOOTBALL STORY FOR BOYS
BY
BURT L. STANDISH
AUTHOR OF
“_The Merriwell Stories_”
[Illustration]
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
79-89 SEVENTH AVE., NEW YORK CITY
Copyright, 1900
By STREET & SMITH
The Rockspur Eleven
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_GREAT STORIES BY A GREAT AUTHOR_
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_By WILLIAM WALLACE COOK_
1--The Desert Argonaut.
2--A Quarter to Four.
3--Thorndyke, of the _Bonita_.
4--A Round Trip to the Year 2000.
5--The Gold Gleaners.
6--The Spur of Necessity.
7--The Mysterious Mission.
8--The Goal of a Million.
9--Marooned in 1492.
10--Running the Signal.
11--His Friend, the Enemy.
12--In the Web.
13--A Deep Sea Game.
14--The Paymaster’s Special.
15--Adrift in the Unknown.
16--Jim Dexter, Cattleman.
17--Juggling With Liberty.
18--Back From Bedlam.
19--A River Tangle.
20--An Innocent Outlaw.
21--Billionaire Pro Tem and the Trail of the Billy Doo.
22--Rogers of Butte.
23--In the Wake of the _Simitar_.
24--His Audacious Highness.
25--At Daggers Drawn.
26--The Eighth Wonder.
To Be Published During July.
27--The Catspaw.
To Be Published During October.
28--The Cotton Bag.
To Be Published During January.
29--Little Miss Vassar.
THE ROCKSPUR ELEVEN.
CHAPTER I.
A BOY WITH A TEMPER.
Danny Chatterton came up the street whistling a merry tune, while Don
Scott lay under an apple-tree back of his father’s house, munching
an apple and scowling blackly, although the September afternoon was
pleasant and sunny enough to put any boy in an agreeable humor. Judging
by the sour expression on Don’s face one might never have fancied the
half-devoured apple in his hand was sweet.
Spying the boy beneath the tree, Danny stopped, leaned on the fence,
and called:
“Hullo, Scotty! What you dud-dud-dud-doing?”
“Can’t you see?” growled the boy addressed. “I’m eating an apple.”
“Dud-does it hu-hurt ye much?” grinned the cheerful lad at the fence.
“What do you eat it for if it makes you fur-fur-feel so bad?”
Don’s answer to this bit of persiflage was a still blacker scowl and
sullen silence. Danny kicked the fence and whistled, a twinkle in his
eyes.
“Say, gimme an apple,” he entreated. “You’ll mum-mum-mum-make yourself
sus-sick trying to eat the ho-ho-whole of ’em.”
The boy under the tree picked up an apple and threw it viciously at the
sarcastic fellow outside the fence, who caught it with one hand, crying:
“Judgment! Out! Gug-gug-great work!”
Then he gave the apple a wipe on his jacket and took a trial bite out
of it, his manner being suspicious till he had tested it, upon which
his face betrayed satisfaction and he immediately took a still larger
bite.
“Ji-ji-ji-jimminy!” he stuttered, speaking with his mouth full and
chewing and talking at the same time. “It’s sus-sus-sweet! I never
knew that was a sus-sweet apple tut-tut-tree, and I thought it must be
sus-sour or bub-bub-bitter from the way you looked. If I’d known----”
“Better not come round here for apples after dark,” grimly warned Don.
“Pat sleeps over the kitchen, and his window looks right out onto this
orchard. He’s got a gun loaded with rock-salt, and he’d shoot just as
quick as he’d take a drink of water.”
“If that’s the case,” grinned Danny, “judgin’ by the cuc-cuc-color
of his nose, there ain’t no great danger that he’ll ever dud-do any
sus-sus-sus-shooting. But say, ain’t you coming up to the field for
pup-pup-practice?”
“No!”
Don replied in such a short, savage manner that Chatterton paused with
his mouth stuffed full and stared.
“Hey?” he exclaimed. “Wh-why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Well, that’s a gug-good reason, but it ain’t mum-mum-much of an
explanation. We cuc-cuc-can’t do our bub-best without the whole eleven,
and we’ve got to pup-put in some hot pup-practice if we expect to
cuc-cuc-cut any ice with them Ha-Highlanders next Saturday. Sterndale
will lul-look for every mum-man this afternoon.”
“Let him look and be hanged!” snapped Don, sitting up and clasping
one knee with both hands. “He’ll find out there is one fellow who
won’t stand to be called a chump and a duffer by that cheap city dude,
Renwood.”
Danny threw the apple-core backward over his shoulder.
“But Renwood is our cuc-cuc-coach, you know,” he said. “He knows all
abub-bub-bub-about playing football.”
“He says he does, but I don’t believe he knows half as much as he
pretends to, and I’ll bet he’s a great bluffer. Anyhow, he can’t shoot
off his mouth at me. What’s the matter with Sterndale? He’s captain,
but he permits this Renwood to run things. He makes me sick!”
“So that’s what ails ye, is it? I knew it was sus-sus-something. You
gug-gug-gug-got mad because Renwood mum-made some talk to ye when you
fur-fur-fumbled his pass last night.”
“I didn’t fumble it!” snarled Don. “He was to blame himself, for he
didn’t pass it right, and then he tried to lay it all on to me. I won’t
take that kind of talk from anybody, I don’t care who it is!”
“Bub-bub-bub-but the rest of us have to tut-tut-take it,” chattered
Danny. “He even gave Sus-Sterndale a bub-bub-brushing up abub-bout his
kicking.”
“And the more fools you for standing it! Just because he’s lived in
Boston and played football on Boston Common, he takes us for a lot of
chumps down here. No stuck-up city chap can lord it over me, and don’t
you forget it!”
“But he’s our coach!” said Danny, again. “We don’t know much about
fuf-fuf-football, and he knows everything. Highland has a reg’ler
college player for a cuc-cuc-coach, you know.”
“That’s all right. He doesn’t play with the Highlanders; he only
coaches them; and he knows his business. If we had such a fellow as
that----”
“You’d get mum-mum-mad the first tut-time he tut-talked straight to ye.
You’re always gug-gug-gettin’ mad and sus-sulking so you sus-sus-spoil
everything you go into. That’s what’s the mum-mum-matter with you.”
Don sprang to his feet, his face turning pale and his eyes gleaming.
With his hands clenched, he advanced toward the fence.
“You better go along about your business, Chatterton!” he grated. “I
won’t take that kind of talk from you, either! You can run your old
football team without me, and you’re all a lot of soft-headed chumps to
let Renwood lord it over you. Now, don’t make any back talk to me! Go
on and tell them what I think of them.”
Danny backed away from the fence and sidled off, as Don came forward
threateningly.
“I don’t know but we’ll get along bub-bub-better without ye,” he
declared, with a taunting grin. “You’re always rah-rah-raising a
rah-rah-row.”
Don had reached the fence, and, in a sudden burst of rage, he tore off
a broken picket and flung it after Danny, who skillfully dodged the
missile and then hastily scudded away, still laughing.
“That’s right--run!” snarled Don, glaring after the little fellow. “If
I had hold of you, I’d make ye laugh out of the other corner of your
mouth!”
He kicked the fence savagely, and then retreated to the apple-tree once
more, in anything but an agreeable humor.
Pat, the Irish hostler and man about the place, came round to the front
of the house, leading Dr. Scott’s horse, attached to a light driving
carriage. The doctor, medicine-case in hand, appeared at the front
door; but, instead of descending the walk and entering the carriage at
once, he came down the steps and turned into the orchard back of the
house, where his son was still sulking under the sweet apple-tree.
“My boy,” said the doctor, a gravely handsome man with iron-gray beard
and dark eyes, which now seemed strangely sad, “sitting there at my
window just now, I happened to overhear your conversation with that
other lad.”
Don flushed a little, but continued to scowl, though he had risen to
his feet and was standing in a respectful attitude of attention before
his father.
“I noted,” said the gentleman, “that you were in a very bad humor, and
your words told me why you were angry. I also observed that you flew
into an unreasonable passion at the close of your talk. Now I am not
going to lecture you, Don, but I wish to warn you. You must learn to
govern your temper, my son, or it will control you, to your sorrow and
everlasting regret.”
“But, father, there are times when it’s impossible not to become
angry,” protested the boy.
“Perhaps it may seem so, but every time a person gives way to a fit of
anger he weakens his self-control and makes himself less capable of
successfully coping with the trials and emergencies of life.”
Don made a swift, impatient gesture.
“I can’t help getting mad!” he cried. “It’s no use for me to try to
restrain my temper; I have tried, and I can’t do it.”
“It shows how much your will-power is weakened already when you make
such a confession,” said the doctor, regretfully. “I once thought the
same about myself.”
“You, father?” exclaimed the boy, in surprise. “Why, I never knew you
to lose your temper. I didn’t suppose----”
“Because I was taught to control my passions at any cost, and a bitter
lesson it was, my son. When I have noted how quick and choleric you
are, I have sometimes been tempted to tell you the whole sad story, but
it is something of which I do not like to think or speak, and so I have
refrained. Perhaps I will do so some day; but, in the meantime, I urge
you, Don, to struggle with yourself to get the mastery of your temper
at any cost, which I sincerely hope may never bring to you such sorrow
as an act of mine, done in a moment of anger, brought upon me.”
The doctor spoke with such earnestness that Don was greatly impressed,
and he immediately promised:
“I’ll try, father--I’ll try, though I am afraid I cannot succeed.”
“You can and must, my boy. Be sure you have my sympathy, for I know you
inherited your passionate temperament from me. Do not fear to come to
me for sympathy and encouragement any time.”
With those words, the doctor turned away, leaving Don standing there
beneath the tree, watching him depart. The gentleman entered his
carriage, and, with a wave of one gloved hand to his son, drove away.
Don followed the retreating figure with his eyes till it disappeared
from view, and then he earnestly murmured:
“It doesn’t seem possible that he ever could know what it is to be
really and truly angry, for he is the best and kindest father in the
whole world. For his sake I’ll do my best to control my temper--I’ll do
my best.”