Ira sat down.
The clapping and stamping and laughter might have been heard across on Faculty Row. It went on and on, and Hodges, smiling broadly as he pounded his gavel, might just as well have been hitting a feather bed with a broom-straw!
“Get up!” urged Humphrey. “Go on! They want more!”
“There isn’t any more,” said Ira, smiling. “And they don’t need any more.”
And maybe they didn’t, for it was a vastly different gathering that scrambled for the slips of paper and put down figures and names. Perhaps tomorrow or still later some of them would regret the size of the figures, but just now they were in the mood to be generous, for Ira’s story had succeeded where all the rest of the oratory had failed. They still chuckled as they passed the slips along and were still smiling when the pledges were dumped on the table. Among them was one which bore the inscription “$2.00 – Humphrey Nead.”
The meeting broke up then, but most of the audience waited until those on the stage had hurriedly reckoned up the pledges, and when Hodges held up his hand for silence and announced the total to be three hundred and forty-one dollars they cheered loudly and long. And when Steve Crocker pushed past Hodges and called for “a regular cheer for the Team, fellows, and make it good!” the result indicated that Parkinson School had experienced a change of heart!
CHAPTER XVI
IRA PLANS
Ira escaped that night from the gratitude of those in charge of the meeting, but he had to face it next day. Fred Lyons was almost tearful and Gene slapped him on the back repeatedly and Manager Lowell shook hands with him earnestly on three separate occasions. And at least three of the class presidents if not all of them – Ira became a bit confused eventually – congratulated him and told him he had saved the meeting. Later, between recitations, he was waylaid on the steps of Parkinson by a youth with glasses and a long, thin nose and asked to join the Debating Society.
“But I couldn’t make a speech to save my life,” declared Ira.
“You’d learn very soon, Rowland. Any fellow who can tell a story as you did last night has the making of a public speaker. In my own experience – ” and the president of the Debating Society managed to give the impression that he had spent a lifetime on the rostrum – “I have found it much more difficult to tell a story or anecdote effectively than to deliver an argument.”
Ira managed to escape by agreeing to “think it over” and let the other know his decision when the football season was done.
For several days he experienced the treatment that falls to one who becomes suddenly prominent. He had the feeling that fellows looked after him as he passed and spoke his name in lowered tones. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it made him a little self-conscious, and Ira didn’t exactly like to feel self-conscious. Fellows who usually nodded to him on campus or gridiron now fell into casual conversations, during which mention was generally made of the football meeting, if not of his share in it. At the field, too, there were signs of a new consideration, or else Ira imagined them. Coach Driscoll, who never referred to the meeting in Ira’s hearing, nevertheless gave more attention to the substitute guard, and the same was true of Fred Lyons. It seemed to Ira that one or the other always had an eye on him, was always offering criticisms or suggestions. It was flattering, no doubt, but it made him a little nervous at first, and his playing suffered a bit. Even Billy Goode got the habit of hovering over him like a fussy old Mother Hen, just as he hovered over such celebrities as Captain Lyons or “The” Dannis or Billy Wells or numerous others whose welfare might be considered a matter of importance. Several times Ira was “pulled” from play merely because he was a little short of breath or had developed a momentary limp. He usually protested weakly, but Billy never listened to protests. He was an extremely decided trainer.
Another event traceable to Ira’s participation in the football meeting occurred the Tuesday evening following. Neither Fred nor Gene had so far accepted Ira’s invitation to his room at Maggy’s, nor had Mart Johnston repeated his visit, but on the evening mentioned Fred, Gene, Mart and Brad turned up, and, as Humphrey was also at home for some inexplicable reason, the room’s seating accommodations were severely tested. Mart displayed the famous window seat and told humourously of their bewilderment when, on putting it together, they had discovered that it formed a right angle. Ira saw that the visitors viewed Humphrey both curiously and, perhaps, a trifle dubiously at first, but Humphrey was quite at his best tonight and by the time Gene had disappeared down the stairs and subsequently returned with a supply of rye bread sandwiches and hot frankfurter sausages the entente cordial was firmly established. They had a very merry evening, and talked of more subjects than could be set down here. Once Gene asked Ira about the story of Old Bess, and Ira explained that he had heard it told several times in a lumber camp.
“‘Fritzy’ Smart used to tell it,” he said. “‘Fritzy’ is about seven feet tall and all angles, and he talks out of one side of his mouth – like this.” Ira mimicked him. “‘Fritzy’ could make that story last a quarter of an hour and used to get up and give an imitation of Old Bess trotting down the track so you could almost see her. I was afraid I strung it out too much, although, at that, I left out most of the details that ‘Fritzy’ gets in.”
“It wasn’t a bit too long,” said Fred. “You had us sitting on the edges of our chairs. I guess as a story it doesn’t amount to so much, Rowland, but it was certainly corking the way you told it.”
“Half of the fun,” chuckled Brad, “was the way he hit off the Down-East dialect. The fellows around me were doubled up half the time.”
“Anyway, it did the business,” declared Mart. “It was just the thing for the moment. I had a nice little speech all framed up myself, but – ”
“You!” scoffed Brad. “You couldn’t make a speech if your worthless life depended on it!”
“Run around! Run around! I taught Cicero and Billy Sunday all they ever knew! William Jennings Bryan was one of my first pupils!”
“Making a speech is no fun, anyway,” sighed Fred. “I made a awful mess of it the other night, and I knew it all the time and couldn’t seem to help it.”
“Well, you did sound a bit sepulchral,” agreed Gene. “I wanted to stick a pin into you or something.”
“You made a nice little address,” said Mart kindly. “I liked your speech, Gene. It was so short.”
“It would have been shorter if I’d had my way,” Gene grumbled. “For that matter, every fellow that spoke sounded as though he was just back from a funeral and didn’t expect to live long himself! We were a merry lot!”
“If those slips had been passed around before Rowland here leaped nimbly into the breeches – I mean the breach – you’d have collected the munificent sum of nine dollars and thirty-seven cents,” said Mart. “I already had my hand on the seven cents.”
“And I’ll bet you kept it there,” laughed Brad.
“You guess again! I subscribed for such a vast sum that I won’t get square with my allowance until Spring. And it was all your fault, Rowland. You and your Old Bess! If I run short I’ll be around here to borrow, so keep a little something handy.”
“Seen any more of ‘Old Earnest,’ Rowland?” asked Fred.
Ira replied that he hadn’t, and Mart was for inviting him up. “He’s a good old scout, Hicks is, and he’d love to sit in and listen to our enlightening discourse I should think.” But the others vetoed the proposal and shortly after the party broke up.
Humphrey was somewhat impressed with the visitors, although he pretended to make fun of them when they had gone. “That fellow Johnston is a regular village cut-up, isn’t he?” he asked. “I guess a fellow would get fed up with him pretty quick. Does Bradford room with him?”
“Yes, in Goss. They have a corking room. We’ll go around some night, if you like.”
“Oh, I haven’t time for those ‘screamers,’ thanks.” “Screamers” was a word evidently of Humphrey’s own devising and was used by him to indicate anyone who “put on side.”
“I don’t think you can call those chaps ‘screamers,’” said Ira mildly. “They aren’t snobs, anyway.”
“Lyons acts as if he wanted to be,” Humphrey sniffed. Then, after a few moments of silence, he said: “I don’t see how you got acquainted with that bunch, anyway. I don’t. I never meet up with anyone at school except pills!”
“Want to know the real reason?”
“Yes,” answered Humphrey, with a trace of suspicion, however.
“Well, you don’t give yourself a chance, Nead. You train with that bunch of loafers in the town and it takes all your time.”
“Loafers! Don’t call my friends names, please. They aren’t loafers. Every one of them has a steady, respectable job, Rowland.”
“Y-yes, when they work, but it seems to me they’re a lot like a fellow who used to live in my town. He sat in front of the grocery most all day, or, if it was Winter, he sat inside. He had a steady, respectable job, too, but he didn’t work at it much. He was a maker of wooden shoes.”
“Oh, piffle,” grunted Humphrey. “The fellows I know work just as hard as anyone.”
“All right, but they always seem to be able to get away for a game of pool,” answered Ira drily. “If you’ll cut loose from them, Nead, and get acquainted with fellows of your own age and – and class, you’ll be a lot better off. Why, thunderation, you might as well be a day scholar for all the school life you get!”
“I get all the school life I need,” answered Humphrey grumpily. “All those fellows like Lyons and Johnston and Goodloe talk about is football and baseball and rot like that. They make me tired.”
“No, they don’t, and you know it,” replied Ira calmly. “You’d be glad to know a dozen fellows like them. And you’re going to, too.”
“How am I?”
“Why, you’re going to cut down your evenings at the Central Billiard Palace, or whatever it’s called, to two a week, for one thing. And you’re going to keep away from there entirely in the daytime, for another thing. And you’re going to pay a few visits with me for a third thing.”
“Like fun I am!” But Humphrey couldn’t disguise the fact that the programme held attraction for him. “I don’t talk their sort of baby talk,” he added sourly.
“You’ll learn. It isn’t hard. We’ll run over tomorrow evening and see Johnston and Bradford.”
Humphrey was silent a minute. Then: “I promised to do something tomorrow night,” he said doubtfully.
“All right, we’ll make it Thursday, then. One night’s as good as another for me. By the way, how did it happen you were around here tonight?”
“Oh, I thought I’d stay at home.” Then, after a moment: “Fact is,” he went on, “I’m broke, and there’s no fun going down there and just looking on.”
Ira pushed himself back from the table, crossed his legs and observed his roommate thoughtfully, drumming gently on his teeth with the pen in his hand. Humphrey grinned back a trifle defiantly.
“Know what I think?” asked Ira finally. “I think you need a financial agent, Nead, a sort of guardian to look after your money affairs. How much do you get a month?”
“Fifteen dollars regularly. If I want more I usually get it. My mother ponies up now and then and dad is generally good for an extra fiver.”
“Then you have at least twenty a month, eh? Seems to me you ought to be able to scrape along on that.”
“It does, does it? Well, it isn’t so easy. Food costs a lot, for one thing.”
“But you don’t have to pay for your food out of your allowance, do you?”
“Some of it. I get seven a week for board, but eating around at restaurants costs a lot more than eating in hall or at a boarding house, you see.”
“Then why not go to Alumni or come with me to Trainor’s? That’s what you’d better do, I guess. Then, when you get your allowance you hand it across to me – ”
“Help!” laughed Humphrey. “I can see myself doing that!”
“Why not? I’ll hand a quarter of it back to you every week. If you need more than that I’ll advance it, but I’ll take it out of the next month’s allowance. Then you won’t have to write home for extra money every ten days or two weeks. Yes, I guess that’s what we’ll have to do, Nead. I’ll put your money in bank with mine and you’ll find that it will last twice as long. Tomorrow you come around to the boarding house and I’ll get you started.”
Humphrey stared dubiously. At last: “Oh, well, I’ll try it,” he said. “But if I don’t like it I don’t have to keep it up.”
“No, but you will like it. Meanwhile, how much do you need?”
CHAPTER XVII
THROUGH THE ENEMY’S LINE
Parkinson played Musket Hill Academy the next Saturday at North Lebron and met her second defeat. As, however, Musket Hill was, with the possible exception of Kenwood, the most formidable adversary on the season’s schedule, the school was not much surprised nor greatly disappointed. Of course, there had been a secret hope that the Brown would triumph, but to have done that she would have had to play a far better game than she had so far exhibited, and Coach Driscoll was not ready to speed up the team for the sake of a single victory. Parkinson played true to midseason form and so did Musket Hill, and as Musket Hill’s midseason form was by far the better she took the contest. The score, 16 to 6, fairly represented the merits of the teams.
Parkinson was outplayed in three periods and held her own and no more in the fourth. By that time Musket Hill had accumulated a touchdown from which she had failed to kick goal and a field-goal, and had held her adversary scoreless although the latter had twice threatened to tally. Once Parkinson had reached the home team’s twenty-two yards and had attempted a forward-pass across the line which had failed, and again, in the third inning, she had rushed the ball as far as Musket Hill’s eighteen, where, held twice for downs, she had tried to put the ball over the bar from placement. Instead of going between the uprights, though, the pigskin went into the mêlée and was captured by the opponents. It was that failure of Right Half-Back Cole’s that paved the way for Musket Hill’s second score, for the fortunate youth who picked the ball from the ground got nearly to the centre of the field before he was stopped and from there it was rushed to the visitors’ twenty-six and, when the brown line stiffened, was sent across the bar for three points.
In the fourth quarter, Parkinson went bravely at it to retrieve her fallen fortunes, but a fumble by Basker, who had gone in for Dannis a minute or two before, gave the ball to Musket Hill on Parkinson’s thirty-yard line and Musket Hill was not to be denied. She tore big holes in the brown line between tackles, favouring the centre for the last stage of the journey, and at last pushed her full-back over. She brought her score up to sixteen by kicking a pretty goal from a hard angle. Parkinson wanted to give way to discouragement then, but Coach Driscoll sent back Donovan and Walker and replaced Almy with Conlon at centre, Almy having been injured in the final play of the drive, and somehow the Brown took on a new lease of life and acquitted herself rather heroically. And when, with some five minutes of playing time left, one of Basker’s punts went over the head of the Musket Hill’s quarter, Ray White dropped on it near the enemy’s twenty-yards. Then the Brown pulled herself together in really superb style and showed an offence which, had it matured earlier in the game, might have written a different page in history. Parkinson went over the immaculate Musket Hill goal line in just five plays, of which three were mighty rushes by Wirt, one a delayed pass to Billy Wells for a slide off tackle and the fifth and last a straight plunge through the centre of the crumbling Musket Hill line by Cole. That final rush met with so little opposition that Cole went stumbling and falling half-way to the end line!
But six points – Lyons failed at goal by a mere inch or so – while comforting, didn’t alter the fact of defeat, and Parkinson went home through a cloudy, chilly evening with another dent in her shield. But the fact that the school had “come back” in its allegiance was proved well that afternoon, for the hundred-odd boys who had accompanied the team stood up in the stand after the battle was over and cheered again and again for “Parkinson! Parkinson! PARKINSON!”
As it turned out later, Parkinson had sustained something more serious than a defeat that day. She had lost the services for most if not all of the balance of the season of Bill Almy, the centre. Almy had borne the brunt of the last half-dozen rushes made by Musket Hill when on the way to her final score and he had paid for it. They had taken him off groaning and half fainting, but it wasn’t known until the next morning that he had broken a collar bone in two places! The attending physician seemed highly elated over that second break, but his enthusiasm was shared by no one else. There was hopeful talk of a pad later on and of Almy getting into the Kenwood game at least, but Coach Driscoll didn’t deceive himself. On Monday afternoon he moved Conlon into Almy’s place and looked around for a likely substitute for Conlon. His choice fell on Tooker, a guard, and Tooker was put through a course of sprouts that almost ruined an excellent disposition but failed to satisfy Mr. Driscoll. Crane, too, was given a chance to demonstrate that he was intended for a centre rather than a guard, and Crane failed quite as signally as Tooker.
There was a time when “any old man,” provided he had weight, bulk and strength, did well enough for the centre position on a football team, but that time has long since passed. Today the centre position is rightly called the pivotal position. A poor centre may do more to handicap a team than any other one player, and a good centre can do more to perfect it. He is the man that the team lines up about, and his spirit is, more frequently than is realised, the spirit of the whole eleven. In these days, instead of merely learning two passes, one to the quarter and another to the kicker, a centre must become accomplished in anywhere from six to a dozen, for each of the new formations requires its special sort of pass. Instead of being guardian only of the little piece of territory on which he stands, the centre today must be “all over the lot.” He goes down the field with the ends under a punt, plunges into the interference on mass plays or end runs and must do his part when a forward-pass is tried. Nor is he less busy on the defensive, for he shares the responsibility for end runs and forward-passes and must help in blocking off the opponents going down the field under kicks. And, whether on offence or defence, he must handle the opposing centre and at all times use his head as well as his body. Consequently, an ideal centre must combine a good many qualities, as many if not more than any other man on the team. He must be steady, fast, intuitive and high-spirited. If he has weight besides, so much the better but some of the weight should be inside his head and not all below the neck.
Ira had not been used in the Musket Hill game, but the following Saturday, after a week of longer and harder practice than had fallen to the lot of the team all season, he found himself at right guard when the third quarter of the game with Chancellor School began. Chancellor had not come up to expectations and the Brown had run up nineteen points in the first half and had the contest secure. Brackett had played at right of centre during the first half and Neely was supposed to be next in succession, but for some reason Coach Driscoll called Ira’s name. Tooker had started at centre, but had lasted only through the first quarter and half of the second, and Crane had taken his place. Crane, while a fairly good substitute guard, was still quite at sea in the centre position and much of his work devolved on the guards. As Chancellor School was not yet acknowledging defeat; had a slow-moving but heavy line and was relying on rushes between tackles for the most part, Ira and Tom Buffum, the latter playing at the left of Crane, had their hands pretty full. Crane could be relied on to play his man on most occasions, but on the attack he was slow in recovering after the pass and it was usually Ira or Buffum who blocked the opposing centre. Any save ordinary passes to quarter or kicker were beyond Crane, and so most of the direct passes were eliminated. On getting the ball back to the kicker Crane was inclined to be erratic, but so far had not sinned many times. He worked as hard as he knew how, perhaps twice as hard as he would have had to work had he known his position better. For most of the third quarter he got on well enough, with the two guards sharing his duties, but when the period was nearly over he began to weaken and Chancellor discovered the fact very speedily. Play after play came through the centre of the brown line, in spite of the efforts of the guards and the backfield, and had there not been a fumble by a Chancellor half-back on the opponent’s twenty-seven yards Chancellor would surely have scored. She recovered the fumble for a twelve-yard loss and began her rushes again, but the distance was too great and an unsuccessful attempt at a field-goal from near the thirty-five yards gave the ball to Parkinson.
Cole tore off four yards and Wirt got two and then the latter was sent back to punt. Crane had been pretty badly used and what might have happened earlier in the game happened then. The pigskin flew away from him at least two feet above Wirt’s upstretched hands and went rolling and bobbing toward the goal line. It was merely a question of whether a Chancellor end would get to it before it could be recovered. Something told Ira that the pass had gone wrong almost as soon as he had seen it vanish from Crane’s hands, and he was tearing back nearly on the heels of the ball before his own backfield had more than sensed the catastrophe. Chancellor came piling through and her ends fought desperately to get around. Wirt was legging it back after the pigskin and several other Parkinson players had begun pursuit. But Ira’s start had given him the advantage and he passed Wirt at full speed. The ball was trickling toward the five-yard line. Behind, pounded the feet of friend and foe as Ira slackened, caught the ball up, stumbled, recovered his gait and swung to the long side of the field. He might have played it safe by taking it over the line for a touchback, but the idea didn’t occur to him. Instead, he pushed the ball into the crook of his left elbow as he had been taught to do, raised his right hand to ward off tacklers and plunged back the way he had come, circling, however, well over toward the further side of the field.
Hasty interference gathered to his aid, but the enemy was abreast of him and stretching toward him as he reached the twenty yards. He avoided one tackler by dodging. Then two of the enemy faced him and escape looked impossible to the watchers. But he stopped short in his tracks, stopped for such a perceptible period that it seemed as if he was deliberatingly studying his chances, and then, just as the two pair of striped arms reached for him, he was off again, swinging on his heel, swerving to the left, leaving the enemy empty-handed as they staggered and rolled over the turf. After that only something approaching a miracle could account for Ira’s escape. In evading the last danger he had thrown himself straight into the centre of the enemy horde. His interference, never very effective, was scattered now and he had only his own wits to serve him. But serve him they did. And so did his weight and strength, for twice he literally tore himself loose from Chancellor players when it looked from the side line as though he was stopped, and twice he bowled over an eager tackler by sheer weight and impetus. He deserved to carry the pigskin the remaining length of the field for a touchdown, after such an exhibition, but we don’t always get what we deserve – when we deserve it. Ira still had the Chancellor quarter to reckon with, and that canny youth had refused to be drawn up to the line and was waiting just short of the centre of the field.
Eager shouts urged the runner on and behind him brown legs and striped legs sped desperately. Ira changed his course a little toward the nearer side line and the quarter edged in to meet him. Then they came together. The Chancellor quarter tackled surely and Ira’s attempt to get past him failed. But then, with the quarter hanging to his hips, Ira kept right on. The exclamations of dismay from the stands turned to shrieks of laughter, for the quarter-back, who, although smaller than the runner was of no mean size, dangled from Ira like a sack of meal, squirming, dragging, pulling! Five yards Ira gained. Then his plunging steps shortened, for the quarter had slipped his clutching arms lower until they were binding Ira’s legs together. But even then he managed to conquer another two yards, and perhaps he would have gone on and on to the far-off goal line had not a ponderous Chancellor linesman reached the scene at the next moment and hurled himself on the runner.
When they wrested the ball away it was just past the centre line and Ira had made a good forty-five yards in that plucky run. Fred Lyons hugged him as he helped drag him to his feet, and Basker shouted: “That’s going some, Rowland! That’s going some, boy!” and thumped what little breath was left in his lungs away. That ended Crane’s session and Conlon went in at his position. After that Parkinson took the ball forty-eight yards without losing it and shot Cole across for the fourth score. When the whistle shrilled Billy Goode summoned Ira out and sent him trotting back to the gymnasium and Neely came into his own. Ira was not at all pained at being taken out, for he had had a pretty busy fifteen minutes and was glad enough to get under a shower. He was dressed and out of the building before the others returned and only heard the final score at supper time.
Coach Driscoll had put in too many substitutes in the fourth period, he was told, and one of them – some said Cheap and some said Mason – had fumbled a pass near goal and a Smart Aleck Chancellor youth had fallen on the ball. It had taken the full allowance of downs to get the ball over, but they had done it, and the final score stood 26 to 7. Ira was something of a hero at Mrs. Trainor’s table that evening, but he must have been a disappointing one, for his account of his achievement had to be dragged from him piecemeal and sounded extremely flat as he told it. To his credit, it may be stated that he didn’t look on his feat as at all remarkable and didn’t feel at all heroic. Only rather tired. He fell asleep over his Latin about nine and was in bed ten minutes later.
When he wrote home the next morning – it was a rainy Sunday and so eminently suited to the writing of letters and the balancing of bank books and the “getting up” on neglected studies – he did mention his part in the Chancellor game, but he didn’t make much of it, first, because he didn’t think much of it and, second, because his father didn’t know as much about a game of football as Ira himself had known before coming to Parkinson!
On Monday Ira might have seen evidences of new respect in the looks and behaviour of his teammates, but he wasn’t looking for them. It didn’t occur to him that picking up a football and carrying it through the opposing team for a matter of forty-five yards could make any difference in his status. But there was a difference, and he was ultimately forced to perceive it. For awhile, however, he was far too busy. Coach Driscoll beckoned him from the bench before practice started. The coach had a quizzical smile on his face as Ira approached.
“Rowland,” he said, “that was a nice little piece of work of yours on Saturday, and it seems too bad to find fault with you, but, my boy, you had no more business with that ball than a tramp with a cake of soap!”
“Oh!” murmured Ira. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Your duty was to play your position, no matter what went on behind. As it turned out you got away with it, but you might not have. It was Wirt’s place to pick up that ball, or Basker’s, but not yours. When you left the line you left a hole open for half the opposing team to pile through. If you’d made a slip they’d have brushed you and Wirt aside and had a touchdown in the shake of a lamb’s tail. See it?”
“Yes, sir,” agreed Ira sheepishly. “I’m afraid I didn’t think of that.”
“No, but those are the things you must think of, Rowland. You must use your head every minute. You’re not likely to do the same thing again and we’ll say no more about it. Aside from the fact that it was wrong at the start, Rowland, that was as pretty a piece of running in a broken field as I ever saw. And I was mighty glad to see one thing in especial: you didn’t stop when you were tackled. I liked that. You got a good seven yards after Myers grabbed you, and when you did go down you went down the right way, toward the other fellow’s goal. That may seem a small thing to you, Rowland, but if you put together all the ground lost during a game by men who give in too soon when tackled and who don’t ‘stretch’ when they’re down you’d have a fairly respectable slice of territory. All right. Now, here’s something else. Do you think you could play centre?”
“Centre?” Ira stared blankly. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Well, we’ve got an opening for a bright, industrious lad like you,” said the coach, with a smile. “You’d have to work like the very dickens, Rowland, but I have a hunch that we can make a centre of you if you’ll do your part. Want to try it?”
“Why, yes, sir, if you want me to.”
“Hm! Your soul doesn’t exactly crave it, I see.”
“I’d just as lief, Mr. Driscoll, but I don’t know much about it. I’ll be glad to try.”
“And try hard?”
“Hard as I know how, sir.”
“Well, we can’t expect more than that, I guess. Anyway, we’ll see in a few days how you shape up. Today you’d better study Conlon and try to see how it’s done. Keep your blanket on and follow scrimmage from behind the line. Use your eyes, Rowland. Maybe we’ll get you in for a minute or two at the end. Have you ever tried to pass?”