“But you played football when you were in high school, didn’t you? And did track work? And was on the Glee Club, or whatever the fearful thing was called?”
“Yes, but I suppose I was sort of under dad’s eye and he knew that I was getting along all right in school. Being away off here, he sort of thinks I’m being purely ornamental!”
“I don’t see how he could think you ornamental,” said Stanley soothingly. “Hasn’t he ever seen you?”
“It’s all well enough for you to joke,” replied Dick, grinning half-heartedly, “but you don’t know my dad.”
“Tell you what! Let me write and tell him what a whale you are in class room. After he’d read what I’d written he’d send you a letter of apology, Dickie! I can see it now. ‘My dear son, can you forgive me for my unjust and unworthy doubts? Your – er – your estimable companion, Mr. Gard, has written me the truth and I see now how terribly I misjudged you. It makes me extremely happy to know – to know that you have Mr. Gard as a friend. He is, as I discern, a young gentleman of great – er – mental attainment and – ”
“Oh, shut up!” laughed Dick. “You’d joke at a funeral!”
“Not at my own, anyway! Well, cheer up, old top, and hope for the worst. Then you’ll get the best. If your father refuses to finance you I’ll take up a collection and your loving friends will see you through; at least, to the end of the football season!” And Stanley chuckled enjoyably.
Of course Dick answered that letter immediately and spent the better part of an hour and much ink trying to convince his father that in spite of the evidence he was doing his full duty. Perhaps he had secret qualms even as he wrote, though, for it is a fact that from that day forth he managed another hour of study, by hook or by crook, and perceptibly improved his standing in various classes. And finding time for more study was less easy than it sounds, for the day following his appearance at training table found him accepted by coach and players as the second-choice quarter-back, and if he had thought he knew what hard work in practice meant he now saw his mistake. For he was added to the select coterie who remained on the field three or four afternoons a week after the others had been dismissed and who were drilled in punting and catching until their legs ached and they saw a dozen footballs where there was but one.
Guy Stone’s attitude toward Dick was peculiar, or so Dick thought. He appeared to miss no opportunity to chat with him and was very friendly, but afterwards, thinking Stone’s conversation over, Dick invariably found that the first-string quarter had seemingly sought to instill self-doubting and discouragement in his possible substitute. One short conversation will do as an illustration.
“I see you take the snap-back almost facing centre,” said Stone when they were on their way to the gymnasium after a hard practice. “Think you can work faster that way?”
“No, but I feel surer of the pass,” answered Dick. “Do you think I ought to stand more sidewise?”
Stone looked doubtful. “I don’t know. Of course, Dick, if you face your backs more you don’t have to turn so far when you continue the pass. It’s well to have the ball travel from centre to runner on as straight a line as possible, you know. If you take it so, and then have to turn like this before you shoot it at the runner, you’re losing time, aren’t you?”
“Why, yes, but only a fraction of a second, I’d say. I do it that way because I can see the ball better from the time centre starts the pass until it’s in my hands. When I turn I just slip my right foot around a few inches and swing on my left. But if it’s better to stand sidewise to the line – ”
“Oh, I’m not suggesting that you change now,” protested Stone. “It’s always dangerous to change your style of doing a thing as late in the season as this. If you’d started earlier – but then you may be right about it. You’re the doctor, Dick. If you can do it better the way you are doing it, I say keep on. Of course, in a real game you’ll probably find sometime that your back isn’t where you expect him and there’ll be a mix-up, because when you’re excited you do funny things. Take Gaines, now. He has a great way of trying to beat the ball and goes loping away from position before you’re ready to toss to him. That means he has to slow up or lose the pass. If you stand so you can see your backs as the ball comes to you you know how to act. Of course, when the pass is to the back direct, mistakes like that can’t happen often, but Driscoll doesn’t fancy the direct pass much.”
“Then you don’t think my way is correct and you don’t think I ought to change it,” said Dick, puzzled. “Mr. Driscoll has never said anything about it being wrong.”
“My dear fellow, I’m not saying it’s wrong, either, am I? I think there’s a natural way for everyone to do a thing, and that’s your natural way. And I guess it wouldn’t be wise to try to change now. All I do say is that you’re likely to wish you had changed it some old day. But I wouldn’t worry about it. I dare say you’ll muddle through all right.”
When Dick mentioned the talk to Stanley the latter laughed.
“Forget it, Dick,” he said. “Stone’s worried for fear you may beat him out for the place. Haven’t you any gumption!”
“Beat him!” Dick exclaimed. “That’s likely, I don’t think!”
“Well, convince him that it isn’t likely, and you’ll find that he will stop talking that way. Can’t you understand that if he can get you worried enough you’ll fall off in your playing? He isn’t afraid of Cardin, evidently, but he is of you.”
“Do you think so?” asked Dick thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s it, then. Just the same, there isn’t a chance that I’ll beat him. I do think I’m doing better work than Cardin, but Stone has it all over me.”
“Now, yes, but maybe he thinks you’ll keep on coming. How does Cardin take it, by the way?”
“Cardin? Oh, he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s an awfully nice chap, Cardin.”
“Yes, he is. But don’t fool yourself into thinking he doesn’t care, Dick. It’s just he’s too decent to let you see it. He’s a good loser; and there aren’t many of that sort. I hope, whatever happens, he’ll get his letter.”
“Oh, so do I!” agreed Dick earnestly. “I do like Cardin!”
CHAPTER XVII
IN CONFERENCE
“I wish,” said Blash one evening, “that someone would invent a new sport.”
“What for?” asked Sid. “Thinking of taking a little exercise? Ever try checkers, Blash? That’s about your style of a game.”
“Cease your idle chatter,” answered his room-mate with dignity. “I’m not thinking of myself. I’m thinking of Sandy Halden. Sandy is out of a job again. They let him go from the Track Team today. Billy Goode thinks the school can worry along through the year without him as a jumper or half-miler or shot-putter. Of course, Billy’s probably mistaken, but there it is.”
“Just what was Sandy? A shot-putter or one of the other things you mentioned?” Sid laid down his pencil and tipped back squeakingly in his chair. It was study hour in Number 27 Goss, but Blash wasn’t in a studious mood.
“George Keene says he was broad-jumping the last thing. He’d tried running, and maybe everything else for all I know, and had got Billy to let him try jumping. This afternoon, Keene says, Sandy managed a perfectly marvellous jump of eighteen feet or something and then claimed that Hollaway, who had the tape, didn’t measure it right. Claimed he’d done twenty-one even and pointed to his foot-prints – only they happened to be someone else’s – and was very nasty until Hollaway offered to beat him to a pulp and Billy gave him his time. So now Sandy is nursing a new grouch and looking for new worlds to conquer.” Blash yawned widely. “That’s why I want a new sport. You see, Sid, Sandy has tried everything now.”
“He might try canoeing and tip over,” suggested Sid.
“Don’t be heartless. Besides, he can probably swim!” Blash drummed his fingers on the edge of the table until Sid, who had returned to work, exclaimed protestingly. “Look here, what am I going to do about Dick Bates?” asked Blash, thrusting his hands into his pockets to make them behave.
Sid pushed his book away and sighed in resignation. “All right, hang you,” he said. “Go ahead and talk yourself out, and when you’re quite through I’ll finish this math. What about Dick?”
“Why,” laughed Blash, “I owe him something. You haven’t forgotten that hoax he worked on me in the movie house, have you?”
“Not by a long shot!” Sid grinned. “That was corking, Blash.”
“Hm. Well, yes, I acknowledge that it was. And being corking, it demands a corking come-back. But I can’t seem to see one. My powers of – of invention – ”
“You never had any. Why not forget it and call quits? You put one over on Dick the day you came up in the carriage with him, didn’t you?”
“Oh, that was nothing. Purely impromptu, Sid. What I want now is something – something grand and magnificent, something worth while! Can you think of anything?”
“No, and if I could I wouldn’t. You let Dick alone until he’s through football. Your old tricks will only get his mind off his work.”
“Think so? I wouldn’t want to worry him, Sid. My idea is only to amuse him, to provide diversion.” Blash was silent a moment and Sid, eyeing him doubtfully, stretched a tentative hand toward his book. But Blash wasn’t talked out yet. He chuckled. “Stan told me something funny about Dick yesterday,” he announced. “It seems that he’s a bit of a hero back home and his high school paper has been copying everything about him it could find in The Leader and playing it up hard. Now his father is writing to ask him if he doesn’t do anything here besides play football and is threatening to take him out of school!”
“Get out!” Sid looked incredulous. “That’s just one of Stan’s yarns.”
“Honest to coconuts, Sid! And Dick’s terribly worried and is afraid the old man will learn that he’s been taken into the Banjo and Mandolin Club. Say if his father hears that, he’ll disown him!”
Sid laughed. “Must be a cranky old codger! Most fathers would be rather proud, I guess. I recall that mine slipped me a twenty-dollar check when I wrote home that I’d been elected baseball captain!”
“Well, that’s different,” said Blash gently. “You see, he’d never expected much from you, Sid, and the surprise momentarily unnerved him. And I suppose that by the time he’d pulled himself together again and tried to stop payment on that check you had it cashed.”
“I sure did,” laughed Sid. “And spent, too, most of it!”
“I think I remember the occasion. Well, I’ve been sort of dallying with the notion that there might be a chance to get a rise out of Dick in connection with his father’s – er – attitude. I don’t just see my way clear yet, but – there’s an idea floating around at the back of my brain – ”
“It will probably die of loneliness,” said Sid comfortingly, “so don’t trouble about it. Just you take my advice and let Dick alone. I’ll tell you right now that I shan’t help you in any of your nefarious plots, Blash.”
“That’s all right. I think I’ll be able to work this alone.” Blash stared thoughtfully at the light and a slow smile overspread his lean countenance. “Yes, I think I shall,” he added with conviction.
Sid looked across suspiciously. “I’ve a good mind to warn him against you,” he said; “tell him to look out for plots.”
“Piffle! You mind my own business. I’m not going to hurt Dick. Besides, I – I haven’t got it quite. It – it eludes muh!”
“I hope it’ll continue to elude you. Now, for the love of Pete, shut up and let me study, will you?”
“Sure! I didn’t ask you to stop studying. Think your conversation is interesting to me? Go on and study. I’m going to Sohmer.”
“Stan’s?”
“I might drop in there. Come over when you’re through with that rot. What you want to bother with it for is more than I know, anyway. You’re just making it harder for the rest of us!”
When, a half-hour later, Sid joined his room-mate in Number 14 Sohmer, he found to his relief three boys amicably and unemotionally discussing the prospects of the college football teams. Blash, however, looked horribly pleased and innocent, and Sid’s suspicions returned. He always suspected Blash when he looked innocent.
The St. Luke’s Academy game on the following Saturday proved one of the best contests of the season. The visitors usually gave an excellent account of themselves, but the closeness of the score on this occasion was a big surprise to Parkinson. The best the home team could do in the first half was to drop a single field-goal over the cross-bar, and even that modest performance was delayed until the second quarter was almost over.
It was Newhall, the big right guard, who made the tally possible by breaking through on St. Luke’s thirty-two yards and spoiling a punt. The pigskin bounded away from Newhall’s body as he leaped into its path, and went trickling across the sod. A dozen players pursued it but it was Bob Peters who won, and when the pile-up was disentangled it was found snuggled under his chest. From the enemy’s twenty-eight to her eighteen Gaines and Kirkendall alternated, the latter finally making the last of the distance with only inches to spare. Warden failed to gain and a quarter-back run netted but three yards. With Kirkendall back, on a fake kick, Gaines got through right guard for three more. With four to go on fourth down Kirkendall dropped the ball between the uprights for the only score of the half.
St. Luke’s presented a heavy team and a most aggressive one. From end to end, her line outweighed Parkinson’s by many pounds, but weight didn’t mean slowness in her case, and time and again the visitors made gains by getting the jump on their opponent. In the back-field she was lighter but quite as fast as the Brown-and-White. St. Luke’s suffered, however, as was generally agreed, from a lack of good scoring plays. She relied on weight and speed to break through the enemy line and her reliance was not misplaced. But she had not counted evidently on the excellent defence put up by Parkinson’s back-field. Her lighter backs, once through the line, were almost invariably stopped short of conclusive gains. She had almost nothing to offer in the way of variety and her runs outside tackles were weak. The overhead game she let severely alone during the first half of the contest and tried but four times later. At punting, however, she excelled Kirkendall by five yards and, in the last quarter, when K went out, bested Gaines by fully eight.
The third period opened up with Parkinson kicking off and St. Luke’s running the ball back from her goal-line to her thirty-eight, Furniss missing a tackle and Harris finally bringing the runner down. St. Luke’s battered the Brown-and-White for her distance, smashing through Cupp on the left of centre for five yards and again for two and completing her job by an unexpected slide off Wendell. Once over the fifty-yard-line, however, she failed to gain in four and punted to Warden on his fifteen. Warden gained five. Kirkendall threw Peters on his thirty-three and Bob was downed. Off-side on the next play set Parkinson back and three downs gained but six yards. Kirkendall punted. St. Luke’s fumbled but recovered and ran in twelve yards across the field. Parkinson’s line failed to give and St. Luke’s tried her first forward-pass. Although she managed to bunch three men for the catch, the pass grounded. She punted on the next down and Stone misjudged the ball and followed it across the line for a touchback. A few minutes later Warden got away around the enemy’s left and zigzagged nearly twenty yards before he was run out at his forty. A fake-kick, with Kirkendall carrying the ball on a wide run around the enemy’s right, added seven more and Gaines made the distance on the fifty. With Peters coming around from right end, Stone made two through centre, and the same play, with Peters carrying, gained four outside St. Luke’s left end. A subsequent attempt by Gaines failed and Parkinson punted. The kick went short and cross the boundary at the enemy’s thirty-two yards.
St. Luke’s made four around Furniss and failed at the centre. She then tried her second forward-pass and made it good, taking the ball just past midfield. Scoville took Furniss’ place for Parkinson. St. Luke’s tried out the new end and was stopped for a two-yard loss. A cross-buck on right tackle gave her four and her full-back romped through a wide hole in Parkinson’s centre for eight. St. Luke’s now concentrated on Newhall and Wendell and made short gains, Newhall finally giving up and going out in favour of Bartlett. The Parkinson right side was weakening and the enemy battered it hard and inched along to the Brown-and-White’s twenty-nine. There a fumble cost her a seven-yard loss. Faking a place-kick, her right half took the ball through Wendell for six and it was second down on Parkinson’s thirty. A plunge at centre was stopped and again St. Luke’s prepared to kick. This time the ball went to quarter and that nimble youth romped ahead for the needed distance and was downed on the twenty-five.
Two attempts at the right side gave the visitors five yards and necessitated the substitution of Cairns for Wendell. Cairns stopped a plunge at his position and, on fourth down, with a tackle back in kicking position, St. Luke’s made her distance on a skin-tackle play that shot her left half off Harris to Parkinson’s fourteen.
St. Luke’s ran on a fresh right tackle and a substitute left half, and, for Parkinson, Long went in for Gaines. With a tackle back and every indication of a forward-pass, St. Luke’s smashed at the Parkinson right side for three and repeated the play for two more. From the nine yards the enemy reached the three in two attacks at centre and then hurling her whole back-field at Bartlett, she sent her right tackle trickling around the Parkinson left end. Warden nailed the runner just short of the line, but couldn’t prevent a score. It was a touchdown by less than a hand’s breadth, but a touchdown nevertheless. St. Luke’s failed on the punt-out and the score stood 6-3.
The period ended with the next play and Parkinson made four changes. Gleason went in for Cupp, Dean for Upton, Trask for Kirkendall and Bates for Stone. St. Luke’s made two substitutions, sending in a new centre and a new full-back.
Dick carried instructions from Mr. Driscoll to open up the play, and Trask, standing on his twenty-four yards, sent off a forward-pass to Peters well up the field. Peters touched the pigskin but couldn’t hold it. The same play to the other side of the field, Trask to Long, netted eighteen yards. Dick sent a plunge at the St. Luke’s right side but Trask made only a yard. Warden ripped off four outside left tackle. A forward-pass, Trask to Scoville, added twelve, Scoville being downed where he caught. Three line plunges left Parkinson three yards short of her distance and Trask punted short to the enemy’s seventeen.
St. Luke’s tried the Parkinson ends and gained five in two downs and punted to midfield, the ball going out. Dick was getting more speed into the team than it had shown before and St. Luke’s was finding the attacks at her line harder to stop. A weak spot developed at the St. Luke’s right tackle and thrice Warden and Trask plunged through for gains. In eight downs Parkinson advanced to the enemy’s twenty-eight yards. There, with Trask back in kicking position, Dick scurried around the St. Luke’s left end and found a free field to her twelve, where he was tackled by the quarter just inside the boundary. The ball was outside on the next play and was paced in on the eleven yards. Warden slid off right tackle for three and put the pigskin down in front of the right-hand goal-post. With Cairns back as though to kick, Dick tossed the ball to Long and Long shot it across the line to Peters for a touchdown. Parkinson arose in the stand and howled approval.
And that ended the scoring. Coach Driscoll ran on numerous second- and third-string players in the final four minutes and the game became hectic and uncertain, with several penalties and two costly fumbles, shared by the two teams, and Dick having heart-failure every time he called his signals. But, although St. Luke’s worked her way back to Parkinson’s thirty-five yards and looked formidable, the defenders took the ball away before she could try a field-goal and punted out of danger. And before the enemy could start another advance the whistle blew.
On the whole, both teams played good football, and there were plenty who maintained that, given a half-dozen tricky plays, St. Luke’s would have scored a victory. Of course Parkinson had shown plenty of weak spots. For three periods she had been slow in the line and not much faster behind it. Newhall had made a poor showing against St. Luke’s left guard and Furniss, at left end, had had an off-day. Stone had sometimes chosen the wrong plays. But everything considered Parkinson had proved herself a powerful team and shown considerable improvement over her performance of a week ago.
Parkinson’s best-beloved rival Kenwood, had had a season of ups and downs and, as Coach Driscoll said at the first conference following the St. Luke’s game, there was no telling what sort of a team she would present against Parkinson on the twenty-third of November. She had been decisively beaten in mid-season by Bonright School, had turned around a week later and slammed Wainstow to the tune of 26-0, had been tied by Musket Hill and now, on Saturday last, had just nosed out a victory over Chancellor.
“She’s got good material,” said Mr. Driscoll, “but it isn’t running true to form. And she’s had some hard luck, too. Losing her best back, Shotwell, early in the season was against her. But the chief trouble, as I see it, is that she doesn’t seem to have settled on a definite playing policy, unless she’s done it within the week. She started out with light backs and a lot of fast, clever trick plays that worked all right until she ran up against Bonright. Bonright seems to have beaten her at her own game. After that she laid off heavy Browne and that other half, whatever his name was, and took on two heavy men and started in playing a line game, smashing tandems between tackles and using a very good forward-pass with two men receiving. But she hasn’t developed a dependable goal-kicker yet, unless she’s got someone in hiding. Nutting missed two tries, both easy, on Saturday. So, as I say, there’s no such thing as sizing her up. Of course, we may get a sort of a line on her after we’ve met Chancellor this week, but I don’t expect much that will help us.”
“It never seems to make much difference how Kenwood plays during the season,” observed Stearns Whipple. “She’s always top-of-form when she gets to us!”
“We’ll have one advantage, anyhow,” said Bob Peters. “We’ve come along pretty steady and what we know we’ve learned. Kenwood has sort of gone one step forward and two back, and she doesn’t know just where she’s at, I guess. What about her condition, Billy?”
“Oh, she’s got a first-class trainer in Connell and he will do his part all right. You mustn’t look for any advantage there, Cap. Her men will be in condition all right. As good as ours, I guess.”
“We’ll outpunt her, Coach,” said Stone.
“With Kirkendall in, yes. But that man of hers, Brighouse, has a clever foot. And he puts his punts where he wants them to go, I hear. We may outdistance him a few yards, but a lot depends on the wind. I have a sort of a hunch, fellows, that Kenwood is keeping something up her sleeve. I can’t tell you why I think that, or what the something is, but that’s my hunch.”
“And your hunches are generally right,” mused Peters. “Any second-string fellow that looks as if he was being held back? A clever back-field man, for instance?”
“I haven’t found any. No, I think it’s a goal-kicker, or maybe they’ve got a new scoring play that they haven’t shown. Well, I’m only guessing. We’ll know better a week from Saturday. Now let’s do some planning on the week from now to Thursday. We’ve got to buckle down and find a way of getting some punch into those split-plays. Or else drop them. What’s your idea, Cap?”
Whereupon the meeting became very technical and abstruse.