THE TACKLING MACHINE.
Even without a football, Renwood succeeded in getting some profitable
practice out of the eleven. Early on Monday morning he went to
a certain carpenter’s shop in the village and placed before the
proprietor the plan of a somewhat novel arrangement, consisting of two
upright timbers, with guy-ropes and pullies and running lines.
“It’s rather out of my line to make anything of the sort,” said the
carpenter; “but I guess I can do it if I can git Enos Berry, the
sail-maker, to help me. He knows more about splicin’ ropes and riggin’
up tackle than anybody round here. If I had anything else to do, I
wouldn’t touch it, but I’ll see what can be done.”
“I want it all done by to-night,” said Dolph. “We must have it
to-night, and it must be set up on the field.”
“Well, I don’t agree to have anything to do with your dummy and weight.”
“I have those over home, and I’ll send for father to have them brought
here. I’ll come in at noon and see how you’re getting along. By that
time I ought to be able to show you just how to fix it so it will work.”
At noon he visited the shop and found the two men had progressed in
a most satisfactory way with the work, although they were a trifle
foggy in regard to the manner in which the machine was operated. Dolph
carefully and fully explained this to them, and gave them some final
instructions, departing in high spirits.
But, to his disappointment, when school was over that afternoon,
instead of finding the arrangement set up on the football field, as
he had hoped it would be, it was not completed, another complication
having arisen. So Renwood was not on hand when the boys gathered after
supper for such practice as they could obtain without a ball, and
Sterndale was obliged to do what he could unaided by the coach. This
sort of work was very unsatisfactory, and after a time the boys gave it
up and left the field, all of them wondering what had become of Dolph.
The field had not been deserted long when Renwood appeared upon it,
accompanied by the men he had employed, and there they labored till
nearly dark.
Almost all the members of the eleven were in the club-rooms when
Renwood appeared there.
“Come on, fellows!” he cried. “I have something to show you.”
“Where?” demanded several.
“What is it?” asked others.
“You’ll all find out if you follow me,” answered the coach,
mysteriously.
“Is it fur?” yawned Thad Boland, wearily.
“No, it isn’t fur that I’m going to show you,” laughed Renwood. “What
are you looking for--a bearskin coat?”
“I mean is it fur off,” explained Old Lightning. “’Cause I’m too tired
to walk fur.”
“You’re alwus tired,” asserted Jotham Sprout. “You was born that way.”
“Don’t try to be funny, Bubble,” advised Thad; “for when you try to be,
you ain’t funny at all. Sometimes, when you don’t mean to be, you’re
really funny.”
“Well, are you coming?” demanded Renwood. “If you want to see it
to-night you’ll have to hustle, or it will be too dark.”
“What is it?” was again asked.
“Something worth seeing,” was his mysterious assertion, which aroused
their curiosity, and he soon had them following him down the stairs,
even Old Lightning lumbering along grumblingly and wearily in the rear.
Straight to the field he led them, persistently refusing to enlighten
them on the way.
“You’ll find out what it is when you see it,” he said.
On the way they picked up Danny Chatterton, who had been talking with
Leon Bentley.
“Bent is sore as bub-bub-blazes,” declared Danny. “He says
Sus-Sterndale’s gettin’ to be an old wo-woman, for he lets
somebub-bub-body else ru-run the eleven and ch-changes his mind about
mum-making Scott’s father pup-pup-pup-pay for the fuf-football and
suits. He sus-says he’d ha-ha-had to pay if he’d done it, and he
thinks Sus-Sterndale ought to bub-bub-back up his threat to gug-go to
Scott’s fuf-father.”
“I wouldn’t have too much to say to that fellow, Chat,” advised Dick.
“You’ll be just as well off if you keep away from him.”
When the football field was reached, Renwood led them through the gate.
It was already quite dark, and rapidly getting darker.
“Look there!” he said, with an outward fling of his arm.
They looked, and what they saw caused some of them to utter
exclamations of astonishment, not unmingled with alarm. Before their
eyes, dimly seen through the gloom, something dangled in the air. And
that something very much resembled a human being, hung by the neck,
with its feet lifted just clear of the ground!
“Jupiter!” exclaimed Rob Linton.
“Pwhat is it, Oi dunno?” gasped Dennis Murphy.
“A mum-mum-mum-man!” fluttered Chatterton. “Hu-hung up by the nun-neck!
Oh, gug-ginger!” His teeth began to chatter and he backed away.
“It does look like a man,” admitted Water Mayfair.
Renwood burst out laughing, then suddenly ran forward, flung himself
at the dangling object, clutched it with his arms and came down to the
ground with it immediately.
“Fair tackle!” laughed Sterndale. “Boys, I know what it is. I’ve heard
of them. It’s a tackling machine.”
“You’ve hit it,” acknowledged Renwood, getting up, whereupon the
human-looking object that he had dragged down rose like a thing of
life and once more dangled upright in the air, bobbing slightly, as
if dancing on nothing. “I’ve had this put up so that I may teach you
fellows how to tackle correctly without getting you all bruised and
battered and sore in the last few days before the game.”
“Oi breathe again!” murmured Murphy, in great relief. “Oi wur about to
take to me heels an’ run fer it.”
“Run for it!” gurgled Jotham Sprout. “By smoke! I was just getting
ready to run the other way.”
The boys went forward and examined the tackling machine with great
interest. They found two upright timbers had been erected about twenty
feet apart, being connected by a strong rope from the top of one timber
to the top of the other, and held in place by guy-ropes attached to
stout pins that were driven into the ground. On the connecting rope
ran a pulley-truck with an iron hook that held another and smaller
block-pulley, through which passed the rope that suspended at one end
the dummy to be tackled and at the other end the weight that lifted
the dummy clear of the ground. This weight was arranged to drop just
low enough to lift the dummy to the proper distance and then stop.
When the dummy was tackled and brought down, the weight went up, the
rope running through the lower and smaller block. To the upper block a
second rope was made fast, running to small pulleys attached to the
upright timbers a few inches from the top, so that by pulling on either
end of this rope the dummy could be set in motion, drawn along swiftly,
stopped suddenly, and caused to retreat in opposite direction. The
dummy was a stout, heavy figure, made to represent a man dressed in a
padded football suit, but having neither arms nor feet.
All this was very interesting, and the boys poured out their questions
in single shots, scattering fires and volleys, so that it was not
possible for Dolph to immediately answer them; but he explained that
the dummy was one he had brought with him from Boston, having been
purchased for him by his father, and the machine in a general way
resembled the one invented by Captain Garret Cochran, of the Princeton
University Football Team.
Then they were eager to try it.
“Clear the road!” bellowed Jotham Sprout, bracing himself at a distance
of about twenty feet and pulling his cap down over his fat head. “I’m
going to show ye how to tackle the old thing. Just watch me do it.”
Renwood immediately caught hold of one end of the rope that drew the
dummy along, while the boys stood aside to witness the fat lad’s
tackle. Jotham charged furiously and flung himself at the dummy with
outstretched arms, but Dolph gave a sharp pull on the rope, and the
figure moved aside, so that Sprout clutched nothing but empty air, and
crashed to the ground like a fallen elephant, his breath being driven
from his body in a great grunt of astonishment.
The boys shouted with laughter, while Jotham sat up and stared in
disgust at the swaying dummy, wheezing:
“The blamed thing dodged!”
“Oh, Bubble!” shouted Mayfair. “It’s a wonder you didn’t burst when you
struck the ground. Ha! ha! ha!”
“He! he! he!” mocked Jotham, sourly. “What made the hanged old thing do
that?”
“That’s what it’s for,” asserted Renwood. “What would it be good for
if it always hung still and let you tackle? A running man will dodge
you if he can, and the dummy is made to do the same thing. That is so
you’ll tackle quick and sure, and be on the watch for any move the
other fellow may try to make.”
“Well, it wasn’t fair that time, for I warn’t ready for it to jump like
that,” said Bubble, heavily rising to his feet.
“Try it again,” urged several.
“Excuse me!” Jotham protested. “I guess I’ll look on and see some of
the rest of ye try it.”
“Hurroo!” cried Dennis Murphy, prancing off and spitting on his hands.
“Oi’ll be afther havin’ a go at it, an’ let’s see thot bag av sawdust
dodge me.”
“All right,” said Renwood. “Go ahead, Murphy.”
Dennis made a dash at the dummy, expecting Dolph would give it another
pull in the same direction as before, but Sterndale had slipped up and
taken hold of the other end of the rope, and, at the critical moment,
the figure seemed to spring the other way. The result was that the
Irish youth miscalculated entirely and went down, but he came up from
the ground as if he had been thrown erect by springs.
“Howld on!” he ejaculated, whirling about and glaring at the object,
while the amused lads shouted again. “Is it backward ye dodge, Oi
dunno? Sure, ye’re a shlick crayther, av Oi ivver saw wan, but Oi’ll
down yez av it takes me all noight, so Ol will.”
He sprang at the dummy again, caught it waist high, and brought it down
immediately.
After this the boys took turns at it, having it drawn swiftly along and
running at an angle to head it off, pursuing it, meeting it, and coming
at it in various ways. Dolph showed them just how to tackle low and
effectively, and they would not stop till it was too dark for them to
practice on the machine with any success.
“Let every fellow get up here by seven o’clock to-morrow morning,”
said Sterndale, “and we’ll put in an hour on this machine. We ought to
get our new ball by to-morrow night, and so we’re not going to be hurt
much, as far as practice is concerned, by the destruction of the other
one.”
In high spirits, they left the field, laughing, joking and singing,
and the sentiment universally expressed was that a fellow who took so
much trouble and interest in coaching them was the right person for the
position.