CHAPTER VOUT FOR THE TEAM
Despite Tom’s forebodings the interview with Mr. Frost went off quite pleasantly the next morning. The Principal’s assistant was rather bald and wore thick-lensed spectacles, but he was quite a young man and did not strive to appear otherwise. He seemed more amused than pained by the explanation of the visit.
“Tough luck, boys, to buck the rules the first night of the term!” he commented. “Of course you knew you shouldn’t do it?”
Clif assured him he hadn’t known it, and Mr. Frost—“Homer” the school called him, that being his given name—turned to a page in a blue-covered booklet, placed a finger half-way down it and invited Clif to read. It was there, as plain as daylight, and Clif, who had perused that volume thoroughly, as he thought, couldn’t understand how he had missed it. As for Tom, the latter explained cheerfully that he had only looked at the pictures! Mr. Frost gravely presented each of them with a copy of the booklet, advising them to become better acquainted with the school regulations, and dismissed them smilingly.
Returning to West Hall, Clif made fun of his companionfor having been so pessimistic last evening. Tom grinned. “There’s something wrong with that fellow,” he answered. “He won’t be here long. You mark my words, Clif. He’s too easy!”
That first day was devoted principally to preparing for future labor. He and Tom visited several class rooms and listened to instructions and made notes. They bought books and stationery. They also visited Mr. Babcock, the Physical Director, in the gymnasium, which stood a few rods back of East Hall, and underwent tests. Since there were at least a dozen other fellows waiting, “Cocky” put them through expeditiously, handed each a small card bearing his name and a lot of figures and dismissed them. Then came dinner, followed by another visit to Middle where, in Room H, they listened while Mr. Waltman explained what a beautiful thing was the Science of Mathematics and how much pleasure could be derived from the study of it, if they would but realize it. “The Turk” also dwelt at some length on the results that might accrue to them if they didn’t realize it! Tom, who had taken a dislike to the instructor since last evening, made sarcastic comments under his breath and caricatured “The Turk” on the back of a blue book. Finally, having obediently taken note of to-morrow’s lesson, they were released. Going out, Clif glimpsed the wheel chair and its occupant rolling along the corridor toward East Hall. He had encountered them several times before during the day. Evidently, he concluded, the fellow was Third Class, too. He spoke to Tom about it.
“I don’t know what class he is,” said Tom, “but his name’s Deane. I heard a chap call him that this morning. Get your togs and wait for me down front. I won’t be more than a minute.”
They obtained adjoining lockers in the gymnasium and changed into football attire. Then, since they were early for practice, they snooped around the building, upstairs and down. The gymnasium was new and well appointed. The floor was large enough for two basketball games to be played at once, there was a good running track above, and, occupying the second story of the wing, a rowing room and two other apartments variously used for fencing, boxing, wrestling and possibly other sports. Underneath was a large baseball cage and a dressing room for visiting teams. The basement, which was half above ground and well lighted, held the lockers, a swimming pool, shower baths and the trainer’s quarters. On the main floor, near the front entrance, Mr. Babcock had his office.
There were numerous trophies to be viewed and a wealth of pictures hung about the halls and rooms, most of the latter group photographs of teams and crews of former years. Here and there, however, was to be seen a picture of a football game or a view of a crew race. “‘1919—Wyndham 16—Wolcott 0,’” read Tom. “Huh! ‘1917—Wyndham by Seven Lengths.’ Say, it’s a funny thing you can’t find any photographs where we were licked!”
“Well,” laughed Clif, “here’s a football game we only tied. ‘Wyndham 7—Wolcott 7,’ it says.”
“That must have got hung up by mistake! But it’s a pretty nifty gym, just the same. Let’s go and see what the field’s like.”
Wyndham School had almost outgrown its athletic field, but the fact wasn’t apparent to Clif and Tom as they left the gymnasium and started across the grass toward the football gridiron. The farther line of the school property was indicated by a soldierly array of tall poplars. Against them, almost directly across from the gymnasium, was a commodious concrete stand. The quarter-mile track was in front, inclosing the First Team gridiron. Another pair of goals, farther away, provided a field for the second squad, while what was known as the class field lay, somewhat cramped, behind the school halls. There were two diamonds, although in the fall the Second Team gridiron infringed on the more distant one. A brook flowed across one corner of the property and had been dammed to make a sizable pond well south of the running track. In winter the pond supplied skating facilities and sufficient surface for two rinks, but at other seasons its usefulness was not so evident. When the soccer team played on the small expanse of turf awarded to them the small punt now moored to a stake was occupied by some Junior School volunteer whose duty was to recover errant balls from the placid surface of the pond.
There was only a handful of candidates present when Clif and Tom reached the shade of the covered grandstand and the latter clumped their way to a couple of seats and awaited the beginning of practice. It wasa warm afternoon, with but little air stirring, and, although Freeburg was set well amongst the lesser slopes of the Berkshires, that air was decidedly humid. Tom mopped his forehead with the sleeve of a brown jersey and then tried to fan himself with an ancient headguard. “Hope the coach doesn’t give us much to do,” he muttered. “It’s too hot for football.”
“You might suggest it to him,” answered Clif. “I guess that’s he now; the man in the white shirt.”
Tom looked and said he guessed so, too, but he didn’t leave his seat to offer the coach any advice. A more self-assured fellow than Tom would have hesitated to approach “G.G.” on any matter not vitally important. “G.G.’s” name was George G. Otis. Some said the second “G” stood for “Grumpy,” but it really didn’t. It stood for Gray. Mr. Otis wasn’t very large—Captain Dave Lothrop, beside him, was four inches taller and quite as wide of shoulders; and even the long trousers of faded gray flannel didn’t wholly conceal the fact that he was slightly bowlegged. But there was plenty of body there, and the fact that his legs weren’t quite straight hadn’t kept him from winning a fair share of fame as a plunging half not many years back. He hadn’t greatly distinguished himself while at Wyndham, but his subsequent career had been linked with two football teams by which all later teams at his college were judged. He had a rather bullet-shaped head, with thin hair of a faded brown, sharp eyes of a brown that wasn’t the least bit faded, a short nose a bit too flat for beauty, a mouth that closed tight and straight and anaggressive chin. On the whole he wasn’t an Apollo. But he knew a lot of football and could teach it to boys; and teaching football to boys is a different and much harder task than teaching it to men.
“G.G.” didn’t seek popularity, and so he won it. He was a hard taskmaster, could act the tyrant on occasion and had a sharp, harsh tongue. He insisted on absolute obedience and had been known to use drastic methods to enforce discipline. He was sometimes intensely disliked by those who didn’t share his views on the necessity for obedience. But he was fair, could laugh as heartily as any one, off the field, and never made the mistake, a too common one, of expecting boys of preparatory school age to think or perform like collegians. Best of all, perhaps, from the point of view of the School, was the fact that during his three years as coach at Wyndham his charges had won twice from Wolcott. That was almost enough to account for popularity, but I think that there was another reason for it. Boys have a respect for despotism and a liking for being firmly ruled just so long as they are certain that the despotism is just and the ruler is worthy. And as a despot George G. Otis would have satisfied the most demanding!
Tom, after looking the coach over exhaustively from the distance of some ten yards, said “Huh!” in a very doubtful tone. After a moment he said “Huh!” again, and this time it seemed to express conviction. It did, for he followed it with: “Something tells me, Clif, I’m not going to like that guy! He—he’s got a bad eye!”
The gathering in front of the stand increased rapidly, while the stand itself began to fill along its front seats with spectators. Mr. Hilliard, Instructor in Modern Languages, who was also assistant coach, joined the throng by the bench. The trainer, Dan Farrell, a short, chunky man with a round, good-natured countenance and sharp blue eyes, directed the unloading of the two-wheeled pushcart of its contents; two canvas bags of ancient and scarred footballs, a carboy of water, two cartons of paper cups, two buckets, a large sponge, several headguards, a skein of shoe lacings, a battered black bag and some other objects. The black bag held Dan’s first-aid appliances. The manager, Jack Macon, carried a board with a clip at one end that held down several large sheets of paper. He talked with Mr. Otis while the two assistant managers, one from the Second and one from the Third Class, wandered about vaguely as though anxious to be helpful but not knowing how. Clif saw the coach pull a watch from his trousers pocket and glance at it, and nudged his companion.
“Let’s get down,” he said.
So they clumped back to the field, Clif, at least, feeling extremely unimportant amidst the gathering of older, larger and self-confident youths. Here and there, however, was a boy whose appearance or bearing proclaimed the neophyte, and Clif regained a trifle of assurance. Tom, although still plainly disapproving of Mr. Otis, showed no indication of being troubled by an inferiority complex. He sauntered to the thick of the throng, and Clif went with him, showing, though,a disposition to keep in the lee of his companion’s slightly larger bulk. The coach clapped his hands and silence fell, while some sixty canvas-clad youths closed about him.
“Fellows, we’re starting to-day to lick Wolcott,” announced “G.G.” “We’ve got eight weeks to do it in. We’re going to keep our objective in mind every minute of those eight weeks. There’s going to be a lot of hard work, and any of you who are afraid of work had better keep away from me. You won’t like me, and I’m certain I shan’t like you, and we’d better not try to mix. I’m dead set on having my own way, and I’m a crank when I don’t get it. Any one who doesn’t like the prospect should resign right now. Those of you who sign up will be expected to stick for the duration. All right. Shed your headguards, fellows. You won’t need them to-day. Last season First and Second Team players and substitutes down the field. The rest of you here. Mr. Hilliard, will you take this bunch, please? Balls, Dan!”
Clif and Tom found themselves in the squad under Mr. Hilliard and put in nearly an hour passing the ball and receiving it. There were frequent rests, for the day was hot and most of the squad were soft with easy living, but the work was hard enough to cause more than one erstwhile ambitious youth to wonder whether it wouldn’t be wiser to seek glory in some other less strenuous pursuit. Even Clif, who had sought to keep himself conditioned during the summer, was soon perspiring freely and was both surprised and a trifle dismayedto find himself puffing. It was evident to him that his system of summer training had not been a success. Looking back, he realized that he had spent more time on the hotel porch or lolling on the sand than he had meant to!
Mr. Hilliard was called “Pinky” because his hair was coppery-brown. It didn’t approach red, but since no other faculty member presented a better claim to the nickname it was awarded to Mr. Hilliard. He was about thirty years old, Clif concluded. He was fairly tall and thin, with a peculiar quick manner of moving his head; sort of jerky, as Clif phrased it to himself; like a hen’s!
Practice ended with a single lap around the inner border of the running track. It nearly finished Clif, and he ended the circuit at a slow walk. Tom poked fun at him as they returned to the gymnasium, and Clif was much too short of breath to make any defense. So ended the first day.
The second wasn’t much different. There was more long passing and they practiced starts, but getting acquainted with the ball was the principal desideratum, just as yesterday. Both Clif and Tom slightly resented being treated as members of the kindergarten class, although acknowledging that it probably wouldn’t do them any harm. Mr. Otis, who had the first squad in charge, found time to look over the others occasionally, and at such times Mr. Hilliard’s pupils sought pathetically hard to attract the coach’s favorable notice. Or most of them did. Tom, for some reason not quiteplain to Clif, resented the infrequent visits of “G.G.” Once, seeing the head coach’s approach, Tom, at the receiving end of a ten-yard pass, opened his arms wide as the ball came to him and made a most ridiculously amateurish effort at catching. The ball went through, bounded from his body and trickled across the turf. Tom affected deep chagrin and followed it. He picked it up a few yards from Mr. Otis and then looked at him invitingly. The coach returned the look for a moment. Then he said: “Your left shoe lace is trailing. Fix it.”
Tom sped the ball across vindictively. In a pause he said to Clif: “Did you hear him? Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t going to like that guy?”
Clif laughed and then sobered. “What did you want to do that for, anyway? Just to show off?”
“Why, heck,” answered the other indignantly, “a fellow can’t catch it every time!”
“Run along and sell your papers!” jeered Clif. “You did that on purpose. You just wanted Mr. Otis to jump on you so you could have a grouch on him. Anyway, I see you’ve tied your lace!”
“Oh, go to the dickens,” grumbled Tom.
To-day’s practice lasted longer than yesterday’s and, since it involved a good deal of running around, it left the candidates rather more wrung out than on the previous afternoon. Clif confided to Tom that if he was called on to jog the track he’d die before he was half-way around. Fortunately, then, only a handful of fellows, all from Mr. Otis’s squad, were called on for that final martyrdom, and Clif was able to reach thegymnasium and to insinuate himself under the refreshing downpour of a shower bath without further suffering. But he was so fagged out and so lame by the time supper was over that he flatly refused Tom’s challenge to chess—a game he knew very little of—and dragged his weary body up to Number 17 and flopped on his bed. Tom, not to be deprived of his chess, sought the recreation room, promising to meet the other for study hour.
Walter Treat looked mildly disapproving when Clif stretched his tired body out on the bed. Walter’s athletic activities were confined to an infrequent game of tennis and an even more infrequent afternoon of golf, and it is probable that he didn’t appreciate his roommate’s condition. Interpreting the look correctly, though, Clif presented his excuse, wondering as he did so why he should consider it necessary to secure Walter’s approval.
“I don’t see why they make you fellows practice on such a warm day,” observed Walter when Clif had added a groan to his explanation for good measure. “Still, I dare say there’s so little time that they can’t afford to waste any. Better take a hot bath before bed.”
“Gee, that sounds good,” assented Clif. After a minute he asked: “Say, Walter, do you know who the fellow in the invalid’s chair is?”
“His name is Deane; either Laurence or Lorin, I think. His father is Sanford Deane.”
“Sanford Deane? You don’t meantheSanford Deane, do you?”
“Yes. I’m telling you what I heard. It may not be right.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was,” said Clif. “He sort of looks like—like somebody important. Was he here last year?”
“No, he’s new. As for his looking important, maybe he does, Clif, but I don’t know that the fact that his father is immensely wealthy gives him the right to!”
“Why, no, and I didn’t mean just that, I guess. Still, his father is pretty well known, pretty prominent, aside from being rich, isn’t he? You’re always reading about him in the papers.”
“Important in a financial way, certainly.” Walter almost, but not quite, shrugged. “Any one who gets hold of fifty or sixty million dollars can get his name in the papers every day if he wants to. Sometimes it gets there when he doesn’t want it to.”
Walter smiled cynically.