THE FOOTBALL FIELD.
The Rockspur baseball ground, leveled and fenced through the energies
of Dick Sterndale, captain of the village nine, was also to serve as a
football field. Already Sterndale and Renwood, assisted by others who
were interested and enthusiastic, had measured and lined off the field
and erected the goal-posts at each end.
The marked-off field was three hundred and thirty feet long and one
hundred and sixty feet in width. The measurements had been obtained by
the aid of a tape, and then lime-lines had been drawn with a marker to
indicate the actual field of play. Outside this field and inside the
fence was a varying amount of room. At one point the fence was only
eight feet from the boundary of the playing field, and this was the
smallest permissible amount of space.
Having obtained the outer boundaries of the playing field, the tape was
run down the side-lines and wooden pegs were driven into the ground
exactly five yards apart. When the pegs were all down, the tape was
stretched across the field from a peg on one side to a corresponding
peg on the opposite side, and the lime marker was run over the tape, so
the field was marked off with twenty-one lines between the ends, or
twenty-three lines if the end lines were included.
Then the fifth line out from the end, or the twenty-five yard line,
the point of kick-out, was made broader than the others, so it could
be plainly distinguished. This was done at both ends of the field, and
then the exact centre of the field, on the eleventh five-yard line, was
marked with a large round spot to indicate the place of kick-off.
With this accomplished, the field was fully laid out, and the setting
of the goal-posts, the most difficult task of all, followed. Sterndale
selected four cedar posts which were long and straight and obtained two
cross-bars which satisfied him in every particular. The posts were cut
to a length of twenty-three feet, which gave an allowance of three feet
to be sunk into the ground, and the cross-bars were somewhat more than
nineteen feet long, as the posts were to be set exactly eighteen feet
and six inches apart, it being necessary for the cross-bars to over
lap, so that they might be securely spiked to the posts.
In setting the posts, the tape was stretched across the end of the
field and the middle of the line marked, which was a distance of eighty
feet from either side. This done, with the middle mark as a starting
point, nine feet and three inches were measured off in opposite
direction along the line, the two points for the posts being thus
determined. Holes nearly three feet in depth were excavated at these
points and the posts erected in them, the ground being packed solidly
about them, causing them to stand securely without braces, which are
needless and dangerous, as a player might trip over them or be forced
upon them and injured.
When Scott and Bentley reached the field they found all the members
of the newly-organized Rockspur Eleven were present, besides a number
of youthful spectators and a few who were anxious to be classed as
substitutes.
A little at one side from the others, Dick Sterndale, the handsome,
manly-looking captain of the team, was essaying the drop-kick, coached
by the boy Don Scott disliked, Dolph Renwood. Renwood was rather
slender, although just now, in his padded football suit, he did not
look so, and he had sharp, blue eyes, which to the village boys often
seemed full of laughing scorn and contempt even while he spoke to them
in a most serious or friendly manner. It was those eyes which caused
the Rockspur lads to distrust Dolph for all of his apparent sincerity
and interest in their sports and pleasures; and those eyes had done not
a little to arouse the resentment of quick-tempered Don Scott, who bore
half-hidden ridicule with less grace than open contempt.
The players’ bench used by the baseball team had been moved aside
to make room for the football field, but it stood back by the rail
in front of the bleachers, and Don walked toward it, passing close
to Sterndale and Renwood. Having seated himself on the bench beside
two small boys, he was able to overhear Renwood’s instructions to
the captain of the team, although he pretended to be giving them no
attention whatever.
“There are three ways to make a drop-kick,” Dolph was explaining. “You
can’t do it any old way, Sterndale. In the first place, you must take
hold of the ball right.”
“How’s that?” the big captain meekly asked.
“You may hold it with one hand, like this, with the point toward the
goal, and drop it that way, taking a somewhat side-swinging kick; or
you may hold it precisely the same with both hands and drop it; or,
finally, you may hold it with both hands in this manner, pointing it
away from the goal. It must never be dropped flat or directly upon the
end. Now watch.”
The “coach” dropped the ball and kicked it handsomely, sending it
sailing through the air in a long, graceful arc. It was pursued and
captured by some small boys, who had a scrimmage over it, out of which
one broke with it hugged under his arm and came running back toward
Dick and Dolph.
“In kicking the ball,” Renwood went on, “you must hit it squarely with
the toe the very instant that it rises off the ground. Now let me see
you try it.”
Sterndale took the ball from the panting youngster who brought it up,
held it with both hands as directed, and dropped it. In kicking he was
a trifle too quick, and the result was anything but satisfactory.
“No, no!” exclaimed Renwood, impatiently. “Don’t kick it after it hits
the ground. Can’t you understand that? Your toe must hit it just the
instant it rises from the ground. Try to fix that in your head.”
“Is that Sterndale?” Don Scott asked himself, in amazement. “Can it be
that he’ll let anybody talk to him in that tone of voice?”
Dick was the acknowledged leader of the village boys and their accepted
commander in all things. As captain of the baseball nine, he had seemed
to know everything worth knowing about the game, and he had been
skillful in imparting his knowledge to others and in handling his men
to the very best advantage. When the Rockspur lads decided to organize
a regular football team for the first time, Sterndale was unanimously
chosen captain, although he confessed that he was almost unfamiliar
with the game.
The boys regarded it as a piece of good fortune when Redwood offered to
coach them, claiming to have been a member of the Hyde Park A. A. C.
and to have played in a large number of football games in and around
Boston; but Scott and Bentley were not the only ones who had been
annoyed by the city lad’s supercilious ways and condescending airs,
although the others held their resentment in check, feeling that they
could not afford to antagonize Dolph as long as he was instructing them
in the arts of the game they wished to learn.
Again Sterndale tried the drop-kick, and this time he was successful,
sending the pigskin sailing through the air in handsome style, so that
Renwood declared:
“That was good. Try it again.”
When the ball was returned, the captain made a still better kick, and
again received an expression of approval from the coach.
“Now,” said Dolph, “all the members of the team seem to be here, so
I think we’d better get them together and put in some practice on
signals. They bungled things terribly last night. I think you’ll find
some of them are no earthly good.”
As he said this, he turned and looked at Don Scott, who felt on the
instant that the words were meant for him, and a pang of anger shot
through his heart, causing his hands to clench savagely and his jaws to
harden.
“We have the best fellows in the village on the eleven,” asserted
Sterndale, loyally.
“Good fellows do not always make good football players,” said Dolph,
knowingly. “But get them together, and we’ll see if they can do any
better than they did last night.”
Observing Don, Dick called:
“Come on, Scott. Where’s your suit?”
“Don’t need it,” returned the boy on the bench. “I’m not going to
practice.”
“What?” exclaimed Dick, walking over. “Oh, come, that’s nonsense! You
aren’t sick, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s different,” said the captain, quickly. “If you’re sick, I
don’t expect you to practice.”
Don rose to his feet.
“Yes, I’m sick,” he hoarsely declared. “I’m sick of that fellow Renwood
and his airs and insults. I’ve stood them just as long as I can. I know
he meant me when he said some of the men on the team were no earthly
good, and----”
“I know you’re mistaken,” cut in Dick, quickly. “Now, wait a minute,
Don. It was only a short time ago that we thought of getting the team
together for practice, and he observed that you were not here, and that
Bentley had not arrived. He said we’d better wait, for, while we might
get along without Bent, we needed you in your position as half-back.
That was not all. He said that, whatever changes were made on the team,
he believed you had been given the right position and should be kept
there.”
For a moment Don found himself at a loss for words, but he finally
muttered:
“He didn’t mean it. It was just some of his sarcasm.”
“I am sure it was nothing of the sort. He was in earnest.”
“Then why did he make such talk to me last night? And why did he look
at me in such a way just now when he said some fellows on the team were
no earthly good?”
“He didn’t talk to you any plainer than he does to any of the fellows.
They say professional coaches sometimes swear at the men they are
training and are as bad as slave-drivers. You must remember that he has
been coached by a professional on the team he played with in Boston,
and I suppose he considers that the proper way to talk to men. Now,
Don, old man, you know we can’t get along without you on the eleven
any more than we could have made the record we did if you hadn’t been
on the nine. I know you’re loyal to Rockspur, and you’re going to
help us down those Highlanders. Don’t mind the way Renwood gives his
instructions, but just get right into gear and show what you can do.
I’m depending on you, Scott.”
Dick had a hand resting on Don’s shoulder while speaking, and there
was deep persuasion in his manner and the inflection of his voice. It
was this quality of inducing others to do as he desired that had made
Sterndale a leader.
Don wavered a moment, the thought coming to him once more that he must
do his best to conquer his temper and that this was another occasion
for him to prove his self-control, whereupon he said:
“All right, Sterndale; I’ll do it for you. But I can’t stand everything
from Renwood. I’ll get into a suit in a hurry.”
Then he trotted off toward the dressing-room beneath the grand-stand,
while Dick, following him with his eyes, muttered:
“Confound your surly temper! I’d like to tell you just what I think of
you, but it isn’t policy now, for we need you on the team.”