Читать книгу Right Half Hollins - Ralph Henry Barbour - Страница 5

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Chick—his full name, by the way, was Charles Sumner Burton—concluded on Monday that Coach Cade’s preoccupation in the matter of getting to the station in time for his train Saturday night had kept him from realizing the other’s offense. Of course, being a trifle late into bed was no hanging matter, but Johnny had been more than usually strict during the ten days or so of school, and Chick had no wish to be called down. Johnny was mild-mannered and soft-spoken enough when things went right, but when they didn’t he could be decidedly caustic. He was about thirty years of age, a short, solidly-built, broad-shouldered and deep-chested man with the blackest of black hair that reminded one of the bristles on a shoe-brush. His countenance presented the not unusual contrast of a smiling mouth and a fighting chin. Tradition had it that some ten years before Johnny Cade had been a very difficult man to stop when he had the ball in his arms and his head down! Chick believed it, and it was far from his plan to interpose any sort of opposition between Johnny and his desires.

Besides, Chick liked Mr. Cade a whole lot. In a way of speaking, Johnny had made a football player of Chick during the last two years. Of course Chick didn’t give all the credit to the coach; he felt that he himself had contributed largely to the result; but he did acknowledge a considerable obligation and was correspondingly grateful. Chick liked him for other reasons, too, which were the reasons that swayed most of those who knew Johnny. The coach was acknowledgedly square, quite as prompt and generous with praise as with blame; if he worked his charges hard, he set the pace himself; he was easy of approach, liked a joke and never took advantage of his authority, which was that of a faculty member. In short, he was, in school parlance, a “white man.” He had been in charge of the Alton teams for a number of years and had turned out winning elevens in most of them. There was a rumor current this fall to the effect that the end of the present season would likewise be the end of Johnny’s coaching career, but the report lacked official confirmation and the School hoped it wasn’t correct.

That Monday afternoon was largely given over to the first principles of football, which was one way of informing those who had taken part in the Southport game that their labors had not been wholly satisfactory. About sixty fellows had reported since the beginning of the term and these were divided into three squads at present: Squad A, which consisted of nineteen players who had served on the First Team last year; Squad B, which contained the members of the former Second Eleven and a few fellows who had shown promise on the various scrub teams, and Squad C, composed of those whose ambition excelled their experience and a half-dozen or so who had entered school this fall and who were as yet unknown quantities. But to-day, whether you were a Squad A or a Squad C man, you tackled the dummy until you were thoroughly covered, even impregnated, with the still-damp loam of the pit, passed and caught and fell on the ball in the most rudimentary manner and, if you happened to be a candidate for a line position, duck-waddled and, with your head and shoulders thrust into the charging harness, did your best to drag two restraining youths with you over the slippery turf. If you happened to have to set your heart on holding down a backfield position you were spared the harness but worked just as hard at starting and at various other tasks cunningly devised to teach celerity, accuracy and the rest of the football virtues.

There are always those who resent what, in class room, would be termed review work. To a fellow who had played against Kenly Hall for two seasons, being returned to the drudgery of kindergarten stuff was a ridiculous imposition in the judgment of several of the Squad A members. Chick was among those who resented the imposition, but he showed his resentment less than most of the others. He had a hunch that it might be just as well not to court the limelight this afternoon, that if he could survive practice without coming to the notice of the coach he would not be likely to awaken memories, memories dating back to Saturday night at some four minutes to ten o’clock! So Chick, albeit his soul revolted, ground his face into the dirt and filled his ears with it at tackling practice and maintained a cheerful countenance, abstaining, even when at the end of the waiting line farthest from Mr. Cade, from joining in the grumbles and sarcasms delivered in guarded tones.

To an unbiased onlooker it might have appeared that the smiling, shock-haired man in the faded and torn sweater and the old khaki trousers had some reason for trundling the stuffed effigy along the wire for the benefit of Squad A, because, after all, quite a few members of that coterie performed extremely poorly at the task of wrapping their arms about the dummy and dragging it to earth, and not much better at throwing their bodies in front of it in blocking. In fact, those who appeared to have really mastered these sciences were to be counted on the fingers of two hands, omitting the thumbs! Even Captain Jonas Lowe, who, with Andy Dozier, left tackle, towered inches above all the others and looked the perfect football lineman, failed to win commendation to-day; a fact which aided Chick considerably to endure the indignity put upon him. Chick had not yet forgiven Jonas for winning the captaincy over his head, something which, of course, Jonas wasn’t in the least to blame for, although if you had charged Chick with harboring resentment at this late day he would have denied the allegation indignantly. He would probably have felt rather insulted. Certainly he would have reminded you that he had himself put the motion to make Jonas’s election unanimous, and he would have pointed out that he and the new captain were the best of friends. The latter assertion would, however, have been only negatively true. That is to say, he and Jonas were friends merely to the extent of never being unfriendly, which constitutes a relationship somewhat different from that implied by Chick. Whether Jonas realized that Chick still begrudged him the leadership of the team, would have been hard to say, but it was perfectly apparent that if he did realize it he was not in the least troubled about it. There was something rather Jovian about the big, cumbersome, placid Jonas. You got the impression of one gazing calmly down from Olympus, untroubled by petty mortals and their affairs.

Of those who did win a word of praise from Johnny Cade this afternoon one was Bert Hollins. There were quite a few things in the line of football essentials that Bert was good at, and tackling, whether of the dummy or a hard-running enemy, was one of them. Bert’s relation to the team was somewhat peculiar. Last season, after trying very hard to make the Second until well into October, he had succeeded only in getting hurt in his third scrimmage. He had attended practice with a crutch under his left arm for a week and watched it from the bench for nearly a week more. Then, almost before he had limbered that injured knee up again, there had come a demand from the First for a light, fast backfield man and Mr. McFadden, coach of the Scrubs, had sent Bert across on approval. That had been a big moment in the boy’s life, that sudden elevation to the First Team, and he had tried desperately hard to make good. In a manner he had succeeded, for he had shown about everything except weight and experience. One without the other might have served, but together they kept him in the background. He played in two of the late-season contests and won good words, and, as a reward, was sent in by the coach near the end of the big game to earn his letter. There had been no opportunity for a signal display of brilliancy. He had not seized the ball and dashed sixty or seventy or eighty yards down the field for a touchdown and consequent victory.

None of the thrilling, dramatic feats which story tellers love to relate, and which sometimes really are performed, fell to his portion. As a matter of unromantic fact, he had the ball but once and lost better than two yards in an ill-advised attempt to knife through inside tackle. Better men than he had repeatedly failed at that play already. He emerged from that fray with no more glory than he had entered, but he had at least emerged a full-fledged member of the Alton Academy Football Team, with the right to wear a big golden-yellow A on his gray sweater, a tiny yellow football on his cap and a gray-gold-gray ribbon on his straw hat in summer. There were other privileges and benefits, too, although of secondary importance. For instance, he could reserve four seats in the center of the stand for the Kenly games, he could cast a vote in the election of captain—a prerogative he had subsequently exercised—and his countenance, together with some thirty other countenances, would grace the wall of the gymnasium for posterity to gaze upon with awe—or boredom.

Bert was mighty proud of his membership, but his satisfaction was dulled by the suspicion that he didn’t really deserve the honor. There were fellows—he could think of half a dozen, perhaps—who played better football than he did and who had not won the coveted A. In short, Bert secretly looked on himself as a Letter Man in name only! But he meant to correct all that. This fall he was going to deserve the prize he had won. He was going to try so blamed hard that success simply wouldn’t be able to escape him! He had added several pounds since last winter and at least an inch of height, and he had handled a football nearly every day during the summer, generously obeying Mr. Cade’s injunction to the members of the squad. If all the milk he had drunk and all the eggs he had eaten could have been mixed together the result would have been an omelet as big as—well, I don’t know how big. But I do know that in August Bert’s mother had to call the family physician in to advise a bilious boy to omit eggs from his diet for the rest of the summer. Perhaps what had kept Bert from attaining the height of Captain Jonas and the rotundity of Lum Patten by the middle of September was the fact that when he wasn’t throwing or kicking a football around he was playing tennis or swimming.

No matter how he figured it, Bert couldn’t make himself out better than a third-choice substitute half-back. Storer, Ness, Savell, Keys and Tyron were the mainstays, and then there were at least three other backfield candidates who, in Bert’s estimation at least, were held in higher esteem than he. And goodness only knew who else might suddenly spring into the spot-light before the season was over! Well, if hard work and the most determined efforts would avail he meant to land considerably nearer the head of the list than he was now. What he feared more than all else was a repetition of last fall’s catastrophe. He was light and so subject to rude handling, and last season’s experience had proved how surprisingly easy it was to get hurt. Why, he had merely stumbled over some fellow’s legs and been out of the game for almost a fortnight with a wrenched knee! Even as late as early summer the silly thing had twinged him occasionally, although he had been careful not to mention the fact. He believed it to be as good as ever now, but he was haunted by the fear that it might not be, that he would hurt it again and be laid off. Being laid off was a fatal thing sometimes. Like time and tide, football seasons wait for no one, and more than one poor fellow on the injured list has watched a hale substitute run off with his position under his very eyes. Fear of another injury to that left knee or to some other portion of his anatomy was threatening to become an obsession, although he didn’t realize it.

Going back to Upton after practice was over, Bert asked Chick whether Coach Cade had said anything about Saturday night. Chick laughed. “Not a word, old scout. Know what I think? Well, I think he was so taken up with getting that train that he forgot all about seeing me. Anyway, he didn’t say a word to-day. Didn’t even look cross-eyed at me!”

“That’s luck,” said Bert. “Take my advice, Chick, and don’t get caught again.”

“Not going to, believe me. Another time I’ll come home by River street, even if it is longer. It’s a safe bet Johnny doesn’t wander around over there!”

“Maybe not, but the safest thing is to be in the dormitory by nine-thirty, and that’s your play from now on. You can’t be quite certain about Johnny. Maybe he’s forgotten about meeting you the other night and maybe he hasn’t. I wouldn’t want to bet either way, Chick.”

“Oh, well, he’s got too many other things to worry about, I guess. Say, he had an awful cheek to work A Squad the way he did to-day. Regular beginners’ stuff! Gosh, I’ve got more dirt in my hair than I’ll be able to get out in a dozen shampoos. Funny thing was, though,” added Chick as they started upstairs, “that we tackled the dummy like a lot of pups!”

“The tackling in the Southport game was pretty rotten,” said Bert. “I don’t believe there were more than two clean tackles made by our gang, Chick.”

“And I made them both?” laughed Chick. “Thanks!”

“You did not! You were as bad as any of them. Pete Ness made one corking tackle the time he got that Southport guy over by the side-line, and I think it was Billy Haines made the other. Generally we just sort of tagged the other fellow on the shoulder and let him by!”

“Well, you’ve got to be polite to your guests,” replied Chick, grinning. “I did miss my tackles pretty awfully, though, and I know it as well as you do, old scout. Fact is, Bert, I haven’t been playing my real game yet. I guess it takes a fellow a week or so to get back into harness, eh? Oh, by the way, I told Coles we’d be around to see him this evening. He’s got some apples his folks sent him from New Hampshire or somewhere and he wants them eaten up before they go bad. He says the training table starts Wednesday evening, Bert.”

“I wonder if I’ll get on it.”

“Sure! Why not? At that, though, you’ll be lucky if you don’t. You get beastly tired of the grub after about a month of it.”

“I saw Mr. McFadden at the field to-day,” said Bert. “I guess they’ll be starting the Scrub Team pretty soon.”

“Next week, probably. Good thing, too, for the place is all littered up over there now.”

“I hope it doesn’t occur to Johnny to put me back where he got me,” Bert observed ruefully. “I dare say fellows do get dropped to the Second sometimes, don’t they?”

“Yes, but I don’t think you need to worry about that. You’ll get along all right, Bert. I have a hunch that Johnny’s going in for a fast backfield this year, and when it comes to speed you’ve got it all over some of the chaps. It was that lot of heavy, slow backs that spilled the beans for us last year, if you make inquiry of me. Things went a heap better in the last quarter, after some of those truck horses had quit!”

“I’d hate to go back to the Second,” mused Bert.

“Gosh, you can find more things to worry about!” laughed the other. “Last week you were afraid you were going to break a leg or something. You’re the original calamity howler, Bert!”

Bert smiled. “I suppose it’s because I want so hard to make good this year, Chick,” he answered apologetically.

“You’re going to, old scout, so buck up. Not that you’ve any right to expect it, either. Most fellows don’t get a position nailed down until their senior year.”

“You did. And so did Lowe.”

“Exceptions proving the rule, Bert. As for Jonas, I’ll say he played in a good deal of luck last fall. If Peabody hadn’t gone bad on account of studies and getting all worked up over the way Mac and the rest of the Faculty nagged him there for a while Jonas would still be a sub, I’ll bet. Mind you, Bert, I’m not saying he isn’t a good player when he gets started, but no one would have discovered it if Dick had held his job. Why, up to the Lorimer game or after Jonas was kicking his heels on the bench more times than he was playing!”

“Yes, I guess there was some luck in that,” acknowledged Bert. “But Jonas certainly filled Peabody’s place mighty nicely after he got it. Who’s going to make left end position this fall, Chick?”

“Left end? Why, I guess Joe Tate’s pretty certain of it. Just as certain as I am of right end.” Chick’s laugh suggested that there wasn’t much doubt in his mind about that!

“Kruger was awfully good Saturday for the little while he played,” said Bert.

“Oh, Dutch is good, too. One of the best. But I guess Joe’s got it cinched. Where you’re going to see some surprises, though, before Johnny has knocked the outfit into shape is between Joe and center. Meecham won’t last at guard and I wouldn’t give an awful lot for Andy Dozier’s chance at tackle. Unless I miss my guess Nat Wick will have Meecham out of there inside of a fortnight.”

“But Dozier’s a crackajack, Chick! Why, last year—”

“All right, but what happened in the Kenly game? They ripped him to pieces in just about twenty minutes, didn’t they?”

“I heard he was sick. Some one said he was up in Patten’s room for an hour that morning and Lum and two or three others were dosing him with everything from hair oil to Seidlitz powders! I remember myself that he looked like the dickens just before lunch.”

“Funk, probably. I’ve seen fellows worse than he was before a big game. They get over it by the time to start. Gosh, I’ve been sort of teetery myself!”

“You! Bet it was something you’d eaten then,” jeered Bert. “You’ve got about as much—as much whatever it is as a goat!”

“Is that so? I’ll have you understand that I’m a man of very delicate—er—susceptibilities. Highly strung, nervous, you know. Temperamental! That’s the old word I wanted.”

“Put your coat on and let’s get over to supper,” said Bert. “You’re saying things that don’t mean anything!”