Kitabı oku: «Right Tackle Todd», sayfa 3
CHAPTER V
A NEW TERM BEGINS
Clem returned to school the day before the beginning of the Fall term to find Alton looking sun-smitten and feeling exceedingly hot. The air, after the fresh, sweet breezes of the Berkshires, seemed stale and stifling, although when the cab had borne him past the business section of the town and residences surrounded by lawns and gardens and shaded by trees had taken the place of brick blocks there was a perceptible change for the better. It had been a dry summer and the campus showed it as Clem was hurried up Meadow street. The trees looked droopy and the grass parched. The buildings lined across the brow of the campus had a deserted appearance, with only here and there a window open to the faint stir of air. He almost wished he had waited until to-morrow.
The cab swerved to the right, proceeded a short distance along the gravel and stopped with a sudden setting of squeaking brakes in front of the first building. Clem helped the driver upstairs with the trunk, their feet echoing hollowly in the empty corridors. Number 15 was hot and close, and Clem sent the two windows banging up even before he paid the cabman. When the latter had gone clattering down again Clem removed his jacket and looked speculatively about him. The old room looked sort of homelike, after all, he concluded. He was glad that Mart had decided to leave his furnishings and pictures for the present. Jim Todd’s possessions up in Number 29, as Clem recalled them, were few and more useful than ornamental! Of course, Clem could have spread his own pictures and things about a bit more, but they’d probably have looked sort of thin. He opened the door of Mart’s closet and the drawers of his chiffonier and sighed as he saw what a deal of truck there was to be packed. However, he had the rest of the afternoon and most of the morning for his task. He routed a packing-case of Mart’s from the basement store-room, tugged it up to the room and started to work.
At five o’clock he had made the disconcerting discovery that Mart’s clothing and books and small possessions, which had seemed to bulk so large before, wouldn’t fill the big box more than three-quarters full, and had thrown himself into a chair to consider the fact and cool off when footsteps sounded below the window and then came nearer up the stairs. Then a voice sounded.
“You up there, Clem?”
“Yes! Come on up!”
“Saw your window open,” panted Lowell Woodruff as he came in, looking very warm, “and thought you must be up here. How are you?” The two shook hands, and Lowell subsided on the window-seat. “What’s brought you back so early?”
Clem pointed to the packing-case. “Mart’s not coming back this fall, and I’ve got the job of getting his stuff packed up and shipped home to him.”
“Oh! Yes, I heard he was off to the Continong, lucky brute! What price a winter on the Riviera, eh? Some guys get it soft! Who’s coming in here with you?”
“A chap named Todd. You know him, I guess. He’s in our class.”
“Jim Todd? Sure I know him! And I’d like to meet up with the silly ass, too. He got notice to report for early practice, and he hasn’t shown hide nor hair.”
“Football?” Clem laughed. “I don’t believe you’ll catch him, Woodie. Didn’t you know he tried it last year and resigned?”
“Crazy nut!” said Lowell disgustedly. “Sure, I knew it, but that’s got nothing to do with this year. Listen, that guy ought to be able to play football, Clem. He was all right for a fellow who didn’t know anything about it, but he didn’t get handled right, see? He’s queer. Stubborn, too, sort of. And Dolf Chapin wouldn’t see it. You know Dolf. Thinks every one’s got to dance when he fiddles. Todd got discouraged and told Dolf so and Dolf laughed at him and told him to quit his kidding. Bet you I could have kept Todd going and made him like it.”
“Why didn’t you?” asked Clem.
“What chance? You know Dolf. Nice guy and all that, but no one else must say a word when he’s around. An assistant coach here hasn’t any say about anything. All he does is run errands and pick up things that the players throw down. I could see that Todd was getting tired and – ”
“You really think he could play?” asked Clem incredulously.
“Jim Todd? Sure he could! Why not? Put twenty pounds on him – ”
“How would you do it?”
“Feed him up, of course. Pshaw, fellows like him don’t know what to eat. Three weeks at training table would put the tallow on him so you wouldn’t know him!”
“Wasn’t he at table last Fall?”
“No. He would have been if he’d stuck a few days longer, I guess, but there were six or eight fellows who didn’t come to the table until after the Hillsport game. That was another of Dolf’s fool notions.”
“How many fellows have you got here now?”
“Fourteen. Billy Frost didn’t show up; missed a steamer or something; and a couple more failed us. Your friend Todd was one. He didn’t even write and tell us to chase ourselves, drat him! And we need another tackle like thunder.”
“Tackle!” Clem whistled. Then he chuckled. “Gosh, Woodie, I can’t see Jim Todd playing tackle! How’d you happen to send him a call, anyway? Thought you only had the old players back for this early season stunt.”
“We needed tackles, like I’m telling you, and both Johnny and I liked Todd’s looks last season, and there weren’t many fellows for the position. Doggone it, Clem, you don’t realize that we lost most of the team last June!”
“How come? Billy Frost, Charley Levering, Fingal, Whittier – ”
“Oh, sure! And ‘Pep’ Kinsey and ‘Rolls’ Roice; but outside of Billy and Gus Fingal and Pep Kinsey they’re all new men, aren’t they? Sure, they played against Kenly, but that don’t make ’em veterans! We’ve got to build a whole new team – pretty near, Clem. That’s why I want all the fellows I can get who happen to know a football from a chocolate sundae, and that’s why I’d like to see this here Jim Long-legged Todd and tell him what I think of him!”
“Stick around until to-morrow and you’ll get a chance. But I don’t believe you’ll dent him any. I guess he’s through with football, if he ever began.”
“Can’t help that, old son. We’ve got to have him; him and two or three others who quit last year for one reason or another; usually on account of trouble with the office. I’m gunning for ’em. Say, Clem, you might help a bit, you know.”
“How?”
“Well, you and Todd are sort of thick, I suppose. He’d listen to you, wouldn’t he?”
“Maybe. Meaning you want me to talk him around to going back? Any inducements?”
“How do you mean inducements?” asked Lowell suspiciously.
“Well, a banana royal at The Mirror, for instikance.”
“Sure! Just the same, it’s Johnny who ought to pay for it. It isn’t my funeral whether any one plays or doesn’t play, is it?”
“Well, you’re manager, aren’t you?” laughed Clem. “What’s the manager for if not to do the dirty work and foot the bills? Besides, you’ll work that banana royal into the expense account somehow!”
“A fat chance!” scoffed Lowell. “Why, you can’t buy a pair of shoe-laces without showing a voucher for it! Oh, well, I’ll stand for your drink.”
“No, I’ll let you off, Woodie. But don’t bank too much on seeing Todd out there. I’ll do what I can, but when you said he was a nut you spoke a mouthful. By the way, who’s your trusty lieutenant this year?”
“A fellow named Barr, Johnny Barr. Know him? Not a bad sort, Johnny. There’s likely to be some confusion, though. Some day I’ll yell ‘Johnny’ and Johnny Cade will think I’m getting fresh and crown me!”
“I hope I’m there,” laughed Clem. “Where are you eating to-night?”
“Anywhere you say, if you’re host.”
“Nothing doing. I’m talking Dutch. How about the Beanery?”
“All right. What time? I’m going to get under a shower before I’m ten minutes older. It was as hot as Tophet on that field to-day!”
“Say half-past six. I’ll meet you in front of Upton.”
“You will not. I’m in Lykes this year. Got the room Spence Halliday had; Number 9; hot stuff!”
“No! Who’s with you? Billy Frost?”
“No, ‘Hick’ Powers. Come and see our magnificence. Should think you’d have changed, Clem.”
“What for? You’ve got nothing in your dive the Lykes of this!”
“Oh, good night! I’m off! Six-thirty, eh? If I’m not there, step inside and yell. So long!”
“Wait a minute! Listen, Woodie. What would you do with this junk? There’s only enough stuff to fill that case about three-quarters full, and if I ship it like that it’ll be an awful mess when it arrives, I guess. What’s the answer?”
“Stick in some of your own things.”
“No, but really! No joking, Woodie. What would – ”
“Have a heart! Have a heart!” Lowell waved his hands protestingly at the doorway. “Boy, I’ve got problems! Don’t pester me with trifles like that!”
The football manager was off, taking the stairs four at a time. Clem went to the window and leaned over the sill. When Lowell emerged from the doorway below he hailed him.
“Oh, Woodie!”
“Yeah, what you want?” Lowell peered up blinkingly through the sunlight.
“Listen, Woodie,” went on Clem earnestly. “Haven’t you got half a dozen old footballs over at the gym that you can’t use?”
“Old foot – Say, what’s your trouble? What do you want ’em for?”
“To fill up this box,” jeered Clem. “Run along, sonny!”
Clem didn’t pass a very restful night. For one thing, Number 15 Haylow was hot and stuffy. Then, too, Clem and Lowell Woodruff and two other fellows had sought to mitigate the heat of the evening by partaking of many and various concoctions of ice cream and syrups, and his stomach had faintly protested for some time. He awoke in the morning, scandalously late, from what seemed to have been a night-long succession of unpleasant dreams. But a bath and breakfast set him right, and afterwards he completed the packing of Mart’s belongings. By rummaging about in the store-room he collected enough pieces of corrugated straw-board and excelsior and old newspapers to fill the top of the packing-case after a fashion, and he hammered the lid down with vast relief, addressed it with a paper spill dipped in the ink bottle and pushed it into the corridor. A visit to the express office completed his responsibilities, and, since it was then only a little after ten, he returned to school and took the path that led, between Academy and Upton Hall, and past the gymnasium, to the athletic field.
Morning practice was already in full swing when he reached the gridiron, and the small squad of perspiring youths were throwing and catching, punting and chasing half a dozen pigskins about the field. Clem greeted the trainer, whose real name was Jakin but who was never called anything but Jake, was introduced by Lowell to Johnny Barr, the assistant manager, and exchanged long-distance greetings with several of the players. Then he found a seat on the edge of the green wheelbarrow in which Peter, Jake’s underling, trundled the football paraphernalia back and forth from the gymnasium and looked on. It wasn’t a vastly interesting scene. Clem, who, while he thoroughly enjoyed watching a football contest, had never felt any urge to play the game, wasn’t able to get any thrill from watching practice. He amused himself identifying some of the candidates, not such an easy task when old gray jerseys, ancient khaki pants and disreputable stockings comprised the attire of each and every one and effectually disguised individuality. There, however, was Gus Fingal, the captain, tall, with hair the color of new rope; and Charley Levering, taller and lighter and as black of head as a burnt match; and Pep Kinsey, a solid chunk of a youth slated for quarter-back position. And the big, square fellow was, of course, Hick Powers, and the long-legged chap farther down the field who was trying drop-kicks none too successfully was Steve Whittier. The others Clem couldn’t place until Lowell came to his assistance. Lowell pointed out Roland Roice – it was fated that he should be known as ‘Rolls’! – Sawyer, Crumb, Cheswick, two or three others, but Clem wasn’t greatly interested. Later, Coach Cade came off the field and shook hands. Johnny, as he was called by the fellows, though not to his face, was perspiring freely, and his face was the color of a ripe tomato. The coach was a short man, perhaps twenty-eight years of age, with a broad, solid body, a head of thick, bristle-like black hair and two sharp eyes set wide apart. Clem reflected, not for the first time, that Johnny Cade must have been a bad man to say “Whoa” to on a football field in his playing days! He had a regular fighting chin under that smiling mouth of his. Just now, having exchanged greetings with Clem, he was mopping his face with the sleeve of a tattered jersey.
“Hot, isn’t it?” he asked. “We’ve had nearly a week of it here. Mean weather for football work. We usually get it about like this every Fall, though. Sometimes I doubt that this pays very well; this before-season practice. I don’t know but that we’d get along just as well without it. But as long as the other fellow does it I suppose we’ve got to. You look well, Harland.” Then his smile deepened. “Lucky for you, though, you’re not in my gang. You’d lose about ten pounds on a day like this!”
“I guess so,” agreed Clem. “Fact is, Mr. Cade, I’ve been pretty lazy this summer. Played some tennis and a few games of golf, and that’s about all.”
“Tennis? Seems to me tennis ought to have kept you harder than you look.”
“Well, it wasn’t very strenuous, you see. Mixed doubles usually.”
“He can’t keep away from the girls, Coach,” interpolated Lowell, shaking his head sadly. “By the way, Clem here is rooming with that Todd guy that didn’t R. S. V. P. to our invitation, and I told him he’d be held accountable for Todd’s appearance on this here field not later than one day hence.”
“That so? Good idea. We want all the promising material we can get, Harland.”
“You think Todd is promising, then, sir?”
“Why, yes, I’d say so. He gave us a mean deal last year, and I ought to refuse to have anything more to do with him, but I can’t afford to indulge my personal tastes. Todd looked to me like good material last fall, and I told him that if he would buckle down and learn the game I could pretty nearly promise him a job this year. But he got tired of it and quit in the middle of the season. An odd chap. Stubborn, too. He got my goat for fair, and I said some harsh things to him, but he didn’t seem to mind much. About all I could get him to say was ‘I guess I’d rather quit.’”
“Well, as I told Woodie, Coach, I’ll speak to him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t see it.”
“Huh!” said Lowell. “He’s got to see it! I’ll make his life a burden to him until he does! You know me, Clem.”
“Yes, indeed, Woodie, I know what a nuisance you can make of yourself. Go to it, old son.”
Mr. Cade chuckled at Lowell’s look of outrage and said: “Well, I wouldn’t bother with him too much. If he doesn’t want to come out after Harland’s talked with him I guess we’ll be better off without him. After all, a man’s got to have some liking for football before he can play it well.”
Clem, Lowell and Hick Powers went to luncheon together after practice was over and then repaired to Lowell’s room in Lykes and lolled about for an hour or so, by which time the summer-long peacefulness of the school was at an end. Taxi-cabs sped, honking, up Meadow street and swirled into the drive that led along in front of the dormitories, voices awoke echoes in the corridors, feet clattered on the stairs, trunks banged and dust floated in at the window before which the three boys, divested of coats and collars, lounged. “The clans gather,” murmured Lowell. “Another year of beastly grinding begins. Ah, woe is me!”
Hick Powers, big, homely and good-natured, chuckled deeply. “Hear him, Clem. The old four-flusher! Of all the snaps, he’s got it. Four courses, mind you!”
“How do you get that way?” demanded Lowell indignantly. “I’m taking six the first half-year!”
“Yeah, four required and two snaps! Bible History or – or Eskimo Literature, or something! Gee, it doesn’t take much to get you guys through your senior year!”
“But think how we worked to get there!” laughed Clem. “You’re junior, aren’t you, Hick?”
“Sure! Finest class in school! First in war, first in peace, first – ”
“First at table,” ended Lowell. “What time is it?”
“Twelve after two,” answered Clem. “Guess I’d better mosey along and see if Jim Todd’s arrived.”
“Oh, don’t go,” protested Lowell. “We’re just beginning to like you. What time’s he due?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he won’t get in until late. I suppose it takes quite a while to get here from Maine.”
“Sure. Two or three days. You do the first thousand miles on snowshoes. Then you take a dog-sled at the trading post – ”
“You’re a nut,” laughed Clem. “I’m sorry for you, Hick. How do you think you’re going to get through nearly nine months with him?”
“Oh, he won’t get funny with me,” answered Hick comfortably. “I’ll give him a paddling every now and then. I’ll make a new man of him by Spring.”
“You, you big flat tire!” responded Lowell. “It would take three like you to paddle me! If it wasn’t so hot I’d box your ears for making a crack like that right in front of visitors!”
Clem’s progress from Lykes to Haylow was retarded by encounters with several acquaintances, and once, having passed the corner of his own building, he spent ten minutes with his arms on the window-sill of a lower-floor room talking to the inmates of it. But he reached his corridor eventually and found the door of Number 15 ajar. As he had closed it behind him in the morning he reached the conclusion that Jim had arrived, and when he had thrust it farther inward and crossed the threshold he decided that the conclusion was correct. Then, as the occupant of the room straightened up from the business of unpacking a suit-case opened on the window-seat, he was in doubt for an instant. If this was Jim, what had happened to him?
CHAPTER VI
JIM REPORTS
After they had shaken hands, Clem took a good look at his new room-mate. The change in Jim’s appearance was due to two things, he decided. In the first place, Jim was dressed differently. He wore trousers of a grayish brown, a white negligee shirt with a small blue stripe, a semi-soft collar and a neatly tied dark-blue four-in-hand. The shoes were brown Oxfords and evidently new. The coat that matched the trousers was laid over the back of a chair. That suit, Clem reflected, had probably cost very little, but it fitted extremely well and looked well, too. Then Jim had filled out remarkably. He was still a long way from stout, but there was flesh enough now on his tall frame to take away the lanky look that had been his most striking feature last year. He seemed to hold himself straighter, too, as though he had become accustomed to his height, and to move with far less of awkwardness.
“What have you been doing to yourself?” asked Clem.
Jim stared questioningly. Apparently he was not aware of any change, and Clem explained. “Well, you look twenty pounds heavier, Jim; maybe more; and – ” But he stopped there. To approve his present attire would be tantamount to a criticism of his former.
“Yes, I guess I am heavier,” replied Jim. “I got mighty good food up at Blaisdell’s, and a heap of it; and then I was outdoors most of the time. Right healthy sort of life, I guess. Didn’t work hard, either; not really work.”
“I suppose it was pretty good fun,” mused Clem. “I’d liked to have got up there for a few days, but it didn’t seem possible.”
“Wish you had. I’d have shown you some real fishing. Like to fish, Harland?”
“N-no, I don’t believe I do. Maybe because I’ve never done much. But it sounded pretty good, what you wrote, and if father hadn’t arranged a motor trip for the last part of the summer I think I’d have gone up there for three or four days.”
“Guess you thought that was pretty cheeky, that letter of mine,” said Jim consciously.
“Not a bit,” Clem assured him heartily. If he had, he had forgotten it now. “Awfully glad to have you, Jim.”
“I hope you mean that.” Jim laughed sheepishly. “I tried hard to get that letter back after I’d posted it, but it happened that the fellow who carried the mail out got started half an hour earlier that morning, and I was too late.”
“Glad you were,” said Clem, and meant it. “Hope you don’t mind having Mart’s things left around. He thinks now he will come back next year and finish out.”
Jim looked about the room and shook his head. “Mighty nice,” he said. “I’ve got a few things upstairs that I’ll have to move out, but they ain’t scarcely suitable for here: there’s a cushion and a couple of pictures and a sort of a thing for books and two, three little things besides.”
“Bring them down and we’ll look them over,” said Clem. “What you don’t want to use can go in your trunk when you send it down to the store-room. Don’t believe we need any more cushions, though.” He thought he knew which of the cushions in Number 29 was Jim’s! “Too much in a place is worse than too little, eh?”
“I suppose ’tis,” Jim agreed. “This room’s right pretty now, Harland, and I guess those things of mine wouldn’t better it none.”
“You’ll have to stop calling me ‘Harland’ sooner or later,” said Clem, “so you might as well start now, Jim.”
Jim nodded. “I was trying to work ’round to it,” he answered. “Guess I’ll go up and get those things of mine out of 29.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” said Clem.
It was not until late that evening that Clem found an opportunity to broach the subject of football. “By the way,” he said, “Lowell Woodruff was in yesterday. He’s football manager, you know. Said he’d sent you a call for early practice and that you hadn’t made a yip.”
“Why, that’s right,” replied Jim. “I found a letter from him when I got home three days ago. You see, after I left Blaisdell’s I went over Moose River way with another fellow for a little fishing. Got some whopping good trout, too. So I didn’t get back to Four Lakes until Monday. Then I didn’t know if I’d ought to answer the letter or not. He didn’t say to.”
“No, I fancy he expected you’d show up. Well, there’s no harm done, I guess. Be all right if you show up to-morrow afternoon.” Clem spoke with studied carelessness and stooped to unlace a shoe.
“Show up?” asked Jim. “Where do you mean?”
“On the field. For practice. You’re going to play, of course.” This was more an assertion than a question.
“No,” said Jim, “I tried it last fall and quit. It takes a lot of a fellow’s time, and then I ain’t – I’m not much good at it.”
“Well, Jim, you’ll have a lot more time this year than you had last, you know. And as for being good at it, why, Johnny Cade said only this morning that you looked like promising stuff. Better think it over.”
“You mean Mr. Cade is looking for me to play?”
“Of course he is. You see, the team lost a good many of their best players last June and Johnny’s pretty anxious to get hold of all the material he can. I gathered from what Woodie said that they are looking to you to fit in as a tackle.”
“Tackle? He’s the fellow plays next to the end, ain’t he? Well, I don’t see what he’d want me back again for, after the way he laid me out last year.” Jim chuckled. “Gosh, he ’most tore the hide off me, Clem!”
“Well, if you ask me, it was sort of cheeky, throwing him down in the middle of the season, Jim, and I can’t say I blame him for getting a bit waxy about it. However, he’s all over that. He isn’t holding anything against you; I’ll swear to that; and if you go out you’ll get treated right. Johnny and Woodie both believe in you as a football player, Jim.”
“If they do,” laughed Jim in a puzzled way, “they’ve got more faith than I have. Why, honest, Clem, I don’t know much about the game, even after what they showed me last fall, and I can’t say that I’m keen about it, either. I always thought playing games was supposed to be fun, but I call football mighty hard work!”
“What of it? Aren’t afraid of hard work, are you? You know, Jim, a fellow has a certain amount of – of responsibility toward his school. I mean it’s his duty to do what he can for it, don’t you see? Now, if you can play football – ”
“But I can’t, Clem.”
“You don’t know. Johnny Cade says you can. Johnny’s a football authority and ought to know.”
Jim was silent a moment. Then he asked, almost plaintively: “You want I should play, don’t you?”
“Why, no, Jim. That is – well, I want you to do what you want to do. Of course, if you think – ”
“Yes, but you think I ought to,” Jim persisted. “That’s so, ain’t it?”
“I think,” responded Clem judicially, “that as long as Johnny Cade wants you, and as long as you have no good reason for not playing, you ought to try. I don’t want to influence you – ”
Clem became aware of Jim’s broad grin and ran down. Then: “What you laughing at, confound you?” he asked.
“Wasn’t laughing,” chuckled Jim. “Just smiling at the way you don’t want to influence me.”
“Well, suppose I do?” asked Clem, smiling too. “It’s for the good of the football team, Jim. And, if you must have the whole truth, I promised Woodie I’d talk to you. And I have. And now it’s up to you. You do just as you please. Guess you know best, anyway.”
“Well, maybe I haven’t got any good reason for not playing this year, or trying to,” mused Jim, enveloping himself in an enormous nightshirt. “I don’t think I’ll ever make a good football player, but if those folks want I should try, and you want I should – ”
“Hang it, Jim, don’t drag me into it! I’d feel to blame every time you got a bloody nose!”
“ – I don’t mind doing it,” concluded Jim. “Last year it didn’t seem like I was really needed out there. Maybe this year it will be different. Maybe Mr. Cade can make me into a tackle. If he can he’s welcome. Maybe after I’ve been at it a while I’ll get to like it. Maybe – ”
“Maybe you’ll put out that light and go to bed,” said Clem. “Of course you’ll like it. You’ll be crazy about it after a week or two, or a month or two, or – ”
“Well, if I got so I could really play,” said Jim musingly, as the light went out, “maybe I would. You can’t tell.”
The next afternoon, having resurrected the football togs he had worn the season before, Jim went dutifully over to the field and stood around amongst a steadily growing gathering of old and new candidates. He found several fellows that he knew well enough to talk to, but, having arrived early, much of his time was spent in looking on. He observed the coming of Peter, preceded by a wheelbarrow laden high with necessities of the game, the subsequent appearance of Manager Woodruff and Assistant Manager Barr, the latter apparently weighted down with the cares of all the world, and then the arrival of Coach Cade, in company with Captain Gus Fingal. By that time fully sixty candidates were on hand and balls were beginning to hurtle around. Formalities were dispensed with to-day. Mr. Cade clapped his hands briskly and announced: “Give your names to Mr. Woodruff or Mr. Barr, fellows, and hustle it up. Men reporting for the first time will start to work on the other gridiron. Last-year fellows report to Captain Fingal here. Let’s get going, Mr. Manager!”
Jim gave his name and other data to Johnny Barr and went across to the second team field. No one seemed interested in his presence there, and he stood around a while longer. Eventually the new candidates stopped coming, and Latham, a substitute quarter-back of last season, took them in charge. Jim went through just such a program as had engaged him a year ago. The afternoon, while not so hot as yesterday, was far too warm for comfort, and the work was a whole lot like drudgery. He caught balls and passed them, chased them and fell on them, awkwardly rolling around the turf, made frantic and generally unsuccessful grabs at them as Latham sent them bouncing away, and then, after a few minutes of rest, started all over again. At four-thirty he trotted two laps of the field, keeping, by injunction, close to the edge of the cinder track.
Save that he “weighed in” on the gymnasium scales the next afternoon, while the worried looking Johnny Barr set the figures down against his name, Saturday’s program was just like Friday’s. He wasn’t quite so stiff Saturday night, though, as he had been after the first session. Clem, feeling responsibility in the matter, asked how he had got along. Jim said: “All right, I guess.” That’s about all he did say regarding his football experiences for the next week. He had bought a book of rules, and Clem observed that every evening he spent a matter of ten or fifteen minutes on it. Once or twice he invited Clem’s aid, but Clem wasn’t much use to him.
“You know,” said Clem one evening, “you don’t really have to know the rules by heart, Jim. You’re not going to referee; you’re just going to play the game.”
“I sort of like to know what it’s all about, though,” said Jim. “And maybe,” he added, with a twinkle, “if the referee made a mistake I’d want to be able to tell him.”
“Yes, I’d try it,” scoffed Clem, who hadn’t seen the twinkle. “You’d make a big hit all around!”
He was “duck walking” and pushing the charging machine these days, for he was listed as a lineman. And he was having his six goes regularly at the tackling dummy, besides. His education was branching out. Perhaps because he had been through the work last year he made steady progress, although he was lacking in the experience of those of his companions who had played football since they were twelve years old. At tackling he was good, and he got praise more than once; and he was learning to handle a ball in a safe, clean fashion, no longer treating it as if it were an egg that might break if he was rude to it. At the end of the first fortnight he was as good a football man as some twenty others on the field and better than perhaps ten more. As that particular ten ceased their connection with football shortly after the Banning High game, Jim was left for a space superior to none.
So far, save for a word in passing, he had held no communication with Coach Cade, and if that gentleman felt any satisfaction over Jim’s presence among the players he disguised it perfectly. Not that Jim had expected any expression of gratitude, of course, but it was difficult to reconcile Clem’s statement on that first night of the term with the coach’s apparent complete indifference. Clem had declared that Mr. Cade was anxious to have Jim report. And since he had reported, Mr. Cade had never even noticed him. Jim reached the not unnatural conclusion that Clem had slightly exaggerated the coach’s concern.
