Barbour Ralph Henry
Left Half Harmon

CHAPTER VII
IN THE COACH’S ROOM

Whether the comedy was good or not, it at least evoked much laughter, and was followed by a thrilling “big picture” that worked Willard to a pitch of excitement that lasted until he was out on State Street again. They ran into Mr. Cade in front of the theater and he fell into step with them as they walked back toward the Green. He and Joe and Bob talked about the show, while Martin and Willard followed behind and listened. At West Street Bob proposed drinks, and they crossed to The Mirror and sat about a tiny table and drank colorful concoctions through paper straws. The coach rather surprised Willard by displaying positive enthusiasm for his tipple, which, as near as Willard could determine, contained a little of everything that could come out of the glistening taps! Willard was a little bit too much in awe of the coach to feel quite at ease, and his contributions to the conversation were few and brief. Not that the talk was very erudite, however, for Bob talked a good deal of nonsense and Mr. Cade certainly didn’t oppress them with a flow of wisdom. On the contrary, he laughed at Bob a good deal and said one or two funny things himself, things at which Willard laughed a bit constrainedly, not being certain that it was right to greet anything a head football coach said with levity. At Schuyler High School the coach had been a most dignified and unapproachable martinet of whom everyone stood in admiring awe!

When they went out Bob leaned carelessly across the counter and instructed the young lady with the enormous puffs over her ears to “put that down to me, please.” Willard, following the others out, reflected that, while trading on a cash basis might be wiser, one missed many fine moments by not having a charge account! (This, perhaps, is a good place to explain that the expression “fine moments” was widely current at Alton that term. Like many other expressions, its origin was a mystery, and, like them, its vogue grew by leaps and bounds until even the freshmen were having their “fine moments” and Mr. Fowler, in English 7, prohibited its use in themes.)

Near the end of State Street, with the lights on the Green gleaming through the trees ahead, Mr. Cade proposed that the boys pay him a visit, and Willard found himself turning in at a little white gate. The old green-shuttered Colonial mansion on the corner was one of several houses standing across from the Green that had at one time or another, sometimes as a gift, sometimes by purchase, become Academy property. This particular mansion was occupied by three of the married faculty members and, in turn, by the football and baseball coaches. Mr. Cade’s apartment was on the lower floor, at the right, two huge, high-ceilinged rooms separated by what had once been a pantry but was now a dressing and bathroom. The furnishings were comfortable but plain, and in the front room a generous grate eked out the efforts of a discouraged furnace. Tonight, however, the sight of the fireplace brought no pleasurable thrill. Instead, it was the four big, wide-open windows that attracted the visitors. Those in front opened on a narrow veranda set with tall white pillars, those on the side shed the light of the room onto a maze of shrubbery and trees beyond which the illumined windows of the dormitories twinkled. There was a big table in the center of the living-room littered with books and writing materials, smoking paraphernalia, gloves, a riding crop, a camera, a blue sweater and many other things, a fine and interesting hodgepodge that Willard, pausing beside it, viewed curiously. The object that engaged his closest attention, though, was a board about thirty inches square. It was covered with green felt on which at intervals of an inch white lines crossed. On the margins were figures: “5,” “10,” “15,” and so on up to “50.” Stuck at random into the board were queer little colored thumb-tacks, twenty-two in all. Half of them were gray and half of them were red, and each held letters: “L. H.,” “R. G.,” “L. E.,” and so on. Willard was still studying the board, its purpose slowly dawning on him, when Mr. Cade spoke.

“Looking at my ‘parlor gridiron,’ Harmon?” he asked. “Nice little plaything, isn’t it?” He came to Willard’s side and lifted the board from the table. “I made it myself, and I’m sort of proud of it, for I’m all thumbs when it comes to doing anything with my hands. Each of the inch lines represents five yards, do you see? And I use these thumb-tacks for the players. It’s rather a help when it comes to studying out a play; although I acknowledge that I can get on faster with the back of an envelope and a pencil stub!”

“I think it’s awfully clever,” said Willard admiringly. “It’s just half a field, though, isn’t it, sir?”

“That’s all; from the goal-line to the fifty-yard-line. That’s all that’s needed, you see. Want to play with it?” The coach laughed and wheeled a deep-seated rep-covered armchair to the table. “Sit down and be comfortable,” he added. Willard subsided embarrassedly into the chair, still holding the miniature gridiron. Joe and Bob were seated by one of the side windows – what breeze there was came from the west this evening – and Martin and the coach shared an old-fashioned sofa nearby. Willard, listening to the talk, began to set the thumb-tacks in place along the thirty-yard-line. Presently he had become so interested in arranging a forward-pass defense for the gray tacks that he had forgotten all about the others. He wasn’t quite certain that the Gray’s ends should play all the way up into the line, and he set them back half the distance to the next white mark. Then he concluded that the pass would be made by that suspicious-looking red tack labeled “L. H.” and that it would go to one of the red ends. Consequently, he advanced the gray ends up to the line once more, but a trifle further out, so that they might cut in quickly and spoil the throw. After that he pulled the Gray’s quarter-back in another yard or two, chancing that the ball would not go more than fifteen yards. Then there was nothing to do but wait for the play, and, since it didn’t materialize, he set the board back on the table and gave his attention again to the others.

“Two years ago,” Mr. Cade was saying, “there were five of us in here for almost a week: Levington and Sproule and Jack Tanner – Who was the chap helped coach the tackles that year, Myers? Do you remember? Tall fellow who wore spectacles and – ”

“Clarke, sir? No, I know! Salters!”

“That’s right! Salters! He was a good hand and I’d like to get him back again this fall. Well, there were five of us, I remember, and we were bunked all over the place; three of us in the bedroom and two of us in here. We had rather a good time, but no one got much sleep. I remember the night before the Kenly game we sat up until nearly three o’clock. Our left tackle, Gadsden, had sprained his ankle that day; someone pushed him coming out of Academy; and we had to make over the whole plan of battle. Gadsden, you’ll remember, was our long punter and we’d mapped out a kicking game. To make things worse, it began to rain and sleet that evening, and we’d looked for a dry field. We certainly had our hands full that night. It was Levington who suggested pulling the guards out and using them on end runs, and we won on those plays. You see our backfield was pretty light and the wet field slowed them up. You played awhile in that game, didn’t you, Myers, toward the end?”

“Yes, for three or four minutes. I was in when we made our second score. We dumped their end and Morgan shot around for four yards and the touchdown.”

“That’s right. It looked like a tie game until near the end. Kenly had a man who could boot a wet ball forty yards every time and we had no one to meet him with. But we certainly wore her ends to a frazzle. She used three pairs before she got through! It was nothing but fight and determination that won that game, fellows. On paper we figured about seventy per cent to their one hundred before the start. They had us licked, but they didn’t know it, and we never told them!”

“What about this year, sir?” asked Martin.

“How many snowstorms are we going to have in January?” asked the coach laughingly. “It’s rather too early for predictions, Proctor. But for all I can see now we’ve got a better show than we had two years ago, and we licked her then. We’re certainly going to be in better shape than last year.”

“We’ve got to find a full-back,” said Joe dubiously.

“Yes, and a new tackle and maybe an end. But we’ll do it. There’s a lot of good material to pick from this year.”

“I suppose you’ve heard, sir, that Kenly’s got that fellow Timmons who played left end on Millwood High last season,” said Bob.

“No, is that so? Is he good?”

“They say so. Funny thing we don’t seem to catch any of the stars, Mr. Cade.”

“We don’t want them, Newhall. Stars are uncertain things. They have a mean way of going out unexpectedly! I’d rather have a bunch of satellites to work with and turn out my own stars!”

The others laughed, but Bob shook his head, not altogether convinced. “That’s all right, sir, but you’d think we’d get more good players here. It isn’t as if Alton was a small school or a punk one. Of course those fellows with big reputations don’t always pan out when you get them, but, just the same, I’d like to see some of them head this way now and then!”

“I dare say it wouldn’t hurt,” agreed the coach. “But, fellows, the longer I stick at this coaching game the more convinced I am that when it comes to the last analysis it isn’t plays or players that win games; it’s spirit! Take eleven corking men, each one a master of his position, and get them so that they play together like a well-oiled machine, and then run them up against a team of ordinary players without much team-work or anything else except a great, big, overwhelming desire to win, and what happens three times out of four? Why, that inferior team wins! She may make mistakes, she may play ragged ball, but grim determination and fight and spirit get her there! You see it happen all the time. I can tell you of twenty games where the best team was beaten just because, while she wanted to win, she didn’t want to win hard enough!”

“Yes, sir, I guess that’s so,” agreed Joe. “And I guess it’s a lot easier to teach a team to play good football than it is to put the right spirit in them.”

“Of course it is! You’ve got to begin with the School, Myers, and work down to the team. If the School hasn’t got the right spirit, the team won’t have it. And that’s why I try to get as many fellows out for football at the beginning of the year as I can. Or, at least, it’s one reason. Interest a fellow, no matter how little, in the team, and he’ll believe in it and work for it. Even if a fellow comes out only to be dropped three or four days later, he’s ‘smelled leather’ and he never quite forgets it. He thinks well of his more successful companion who has made good, even though he may be secretly envious of him, and the team and its success means a lot more to him than it does to the chap who has never had anything to do with it. The team that feels the School behind it works hard and loyally and, when the big test comes, fights like the very dickens! And it’s fight that wins football games, just as it’s fight that wins battles. And that’s that!”

Mr. Cade ended with a little laugh that seemed to apologize for his vehemence, but none of his listeners joined in it. After a moment Martin said: “There’s a little school they call Upton Academy near my home, Mr. Cade. It has only about a hundred and twenty students, I suppose, and more than half of ’em are girls. But they meet teams from bigger schools and beat them right along. One of the teachers coaches them and the girls go with them and cheer like mad and they wipe up the whole county!”

“I guess it’s spirit in that case,” said the coach. “And maybe the girls have a lot to do with it. Ever notice what a deal of fighting spirit girls show? First thing we know – or our children know – the girls will be playing real football. And when they do, fellows, look out!” Mr. Cade chuckled at his direful prediction.

A little later the boys arose to go and Mr. Cade, moving to the table, took up the felt-covered board and looked at it curiously. “Defense for forward-pass, eh, Harmon?” he said. “Which of these red fellows is making the toss?”

“I don’t know, sir,” answered Willard. “I was playing the Gray’s end of it. But I figured that left half-back was throwing to an end.”

The others gathered around to see and Mr. Cade looked speculatively at Willard for a moment before he smiled and laid the board back on the table. “I’d pull my ends in further in that case,” he said, “and bring them nearer the play. What position are you after?”

“Half-back, sir.”

“I see. Well, it’s an interesting job, half-back’s. Lots of chance for initiative there. Quick thinking, too. Well, good night, fellows. Drop in again some evening. I’m generally home.”

CHAPTER VIII
THE BOY IN THE GREEN SWEATER

The following Wednesday, Willard received promotion of a sort. By that time the number of candidates at practice had noticeably lessened and the four squads had become three. Last year’s first team survivors and a goodly number of the second team players formed Squad A, while some twenty youths who showed particular promise made up Squad B. Into the latter company Willard went. A third squad whose personnel changed from day to day as new candidates appeared or old ones fell out, was known officially as C, but popularly as “The Goats.”

Formation drill had begun and Willard ran through signals at the left half-back position, alternating with another youth named Kruger. Only the simplest formations were used and the pace never exceeded a trot. Preliminary to this, there was tackling practice at the dummy each day, and more or less passing and starting. After formation drill Willard joined nearly a dozen other backfield candidates and put in a half-hour of punting and catching and running. Willard’s kicking education had been rather neglected, for at high school, during the two years he had played, the full-back and quarter had shared the kicking duties. Here, however, it was held that a back should be proficient in every department of the game, and Willard showed up rather poorly beside many of his rivals.

The second eleven came into existence the last of that week and the first real scrimmage of the season took place on Friday between it and the first in preparation for the initial contest the next day. Willard was glad he had not been picked for the second, for he had not yet given up hope of better things, and knew from experience how difficult it is to make one’s way from the second team to the first. Several fellows from Squad C were selected, however, and among them Kruger, which left Willard for awhile in undisputed possession of the left half-back job. It wasn’t long, though, before a weedy, temperamental boy named Longstreth took Kruger’s place. Longstreth had been promoted from the Goats and seemed to have an idea that his mission in life was to inject what he called “tabasco” into Squad B. One way of doing it was to aid in the coaching, and he simply oozed advice to both Coach Cade and Richards, the quarter-back. The coach stood it patiently, but Ned Richards ultimately turned upon him and wounded his sensibilities horribly, so horribly that Longstreth became a changed boy and deliberately let the squad worry along without “tabasco.” But most of this was later on and subsequent to the Alton High School game, which started the season for the Academy.

Willard watched that contest from the bench: or, rather, from a seat on the ground near the bench, since the capacity of the bench was limited. It wasn’t much of a game, even for a first one, and there was nothing approaching excitement in it until, near the end of the third ten-minute period, High School threw a scare into her opponent by scoring a touchdown when Cochran, at right half, dropped the ball and the High School left end scooted away with it for sixty-odd yards and brought joy to the visitors. Academy’s quarter-back ought to have stopped him, but Tarver made a miserable tackle and the runner wrenched himself loose and went over the line without further challenge.

High School missed an easy goal and the score was tied at 6 – 6, for the Academy had been able to put over but one touchdown against a weaker but plucky enemy and Cochran had missed the goal as badly as the opponent had later. The Academy rooters woke up from their lethargy then, and there was some cheering during the remainder of the period and throughout the last quarter. It was not until the latter was well along, however, that Academy pulled the game out of the fire. Then, working to striking distance by means of two forward-passes that took the ball from midfield to High School’s thirty-yard-line, the Gray-and-Gold hammered the opposing left side until it gave way and Macon, on an end-around play, landed the pigskin over the goal-line. This time, Cochran having given way to a substitute, Tarver tried for a goal and made it, and the game ended a few minutes later with the Academy on the long end of a 13 – 6 score.

Coach Cade used many substitutes during the final quarter, and Martin Proctor was one of them, and Willard was delighted to see his chum put up a fine game at right guard when Bob went out. At left half, the position that Willard was especially interested in, Arnold Lake played to the end of the third period and then gave place to Mawson. Both played well and Willard was more certain than before that if he was to make the first team this year it would have to be in some other capacity than that of left half!

When the game was done the Squad A players who had not participated were lined up against a Squad B eleven and there followed a short scrimmage in which Willard played left half for B and had a lot of fun. Squad A wasn’t formidable and it was no great stunt to gain outside her tackles, and once Willard got nicely away and would have made the only score of the scrimmage if an obnoxious youth named Hutchins, and better known as “Hutch,” hadn’t pulled him down on the six yards. From there, in spite of all her efforts, B couldn’t make much gain and the fourth down found the ball a yard short of the line. The scrimmage ended with a score and the empty stand attested the amount of interest the game provided the onlookers who had remained after the big contest. But Willard had enjoyed it and won a set of bruised fingers when one of the enemy had set an ungentle foot thereon, and he was quite contented the rest of the evening. But he did a lot of thinking and consulted Martin on the advisability of trying for an end position, and showed no gratitude when he was advised to fatten himself up and try for center!

“You seem to be willing to stick on the bench all season,” he said aggrievedly, “but I don’t see any fun in that. If I – ”

“How do you mean, stick on the bench?” demanded Martin. “I’m not going to stick on any bench. Haven’t you noticed how pale and wan Bob is getting to look? He won’t last much longer. I think it’s sleeping sickness or something else slow and certain. He won’t acknowledge he’s sick, but I can tell! There’s a worried look about his eyes and Cal Grainger says he sleeps more than he used to.”

“Oh, shut up!” said Willard, grinning.

“Fact, though! You look at Bob some time when he doesn’t know he’s – ah – under observation and you’ll see what I mean. Sleeping sickness is very insidious, Brand, but always fatal. I’m sorry for Bob, of course, but I’m not hypocritical about it!”

“Bob will be playing guard and you’ll be lugging the water pail when we meet Kenly,” retorted Willard. “I’m in earnest, though. Why shouldn’t I try for end instead?”

“Because you’re a half-back, sonny. Playing end is something else again, and you’d have to learn a lot of new tricks, and the season might be over before you’d learn ’em.”

“Well, I’d be ready for next year,” murmured Willard.

“If that’s all you’re looking for, stay where you are. They’ll be using half-backs as well as ends next year, unless the Rules Committee gets gay again!”

“Well, of course I do want to make the team this fall,” acknowledged the other.

“Naturally. So do I. I wanted to last fall, too, but a cruel fate willed otherwise.”

“Oh, you don’t care,” scoffed Willard. “You haven’t any – any – ambition.”

“Ambition? Get out! I’m full of ambish! But I don’t propose to be unhappy because I can’t have the whole pie. I like the fun of playing, Brand, and I don’t worry much because I don’t always get into the game. After all, I’m doing my bit, you know. Someone’s got to be second-choice. Besides, think what a comfort it is to Joe and Bob to know that if they have to leave the game there I am ready to take their places and carry on the good work! Don’t you suppose that thought helps ’em to weather many a – many a dark hour?”

“No, I don’t,” answered Willard disgustedly. “But I guess it helps them to go on playing sometimes when they’re all in! The idea of letting you in – ”

“Don’t say it!” warned Martin, laying a hand significantly on a book. “Them’s hard words! Listen, Brand: are we going to the lecture or aren’t we not?”

“What’s it all about?”

“The Cliff Dwellers of – of Montana, or some place.”

“Arizona?”

“Maybe,” replied Martin cautiously. “Anyway, the fellow’s good. He was here last year. Let’s go. I’ve always wished I’d been born a cliff-dweller. There’s something awfully fascinating in the idea of shinning up a tree-trunk and climbing through a window when you’re ready for bed! Think what fun there must have been at a prep school in those days. When the fellow who lived above you was climbing up all you had to do was reach out and push the tree-trunk away. Gee, you miss a lot of innocent amusement by being born too late!”

Sunday dawned cloudy and dismal, with occasional sprinkles of rain. Breakfast was a half-hour later, and when that was over there was nothing much to do but furbish up for church. But shining one’s shoes and brushing one’s Sunday suit doesn’t consume much time, no matter how thorough and deliberate one may be, and after Willard was ready there still remained the best of an hour. The steam heat had not yet been turned on and the dormitory was chill and unsympathetic. He tried to write a letter to the folks at home, but only got as far as: “Dear Father and Mother.” Martin’s usually placid humor was perceptibly rumpled this morning, and efforts to engage him in conversation resulted in grunts and growls. Willard was heartily glad when it came time to start off for church, even though he felt uncomfortable in a derby and detested carrying an umbrella.

Dinner was at one, a heavy repast topped off with ice cream and cake that left the diner feeling like an anaconda who had just swallowed a goat. Willard, who had failed to get placed at Joe’s table and was with an unusually uninteresting group at the far end of the hall, arose from the board wishing he had not accepted young Stanley’s offer of his ice cream. Or perhaps it was the cake that was to blame. In any case, he felt horribly full and sluggish, and when, at the door, Bob brightly suggested a nice long tramp over to Banning to see the new railway bridge that was under construction he shook his head and pleaded letters to write. Banning was three miles away, and Willard wasn’t sure he could even get back to his room before going to sleep!

“Well, if you change your mind, come on over to the room,” said Bob. “We won’t be starting for half an hour, I guess.”

Willard said he would, being quite certain that his mind was incapable of any change. When he reached Number 16, Martin, too, was disgustingly active. “Come on, Brand,” he cried. “We’re going over to see the new bridge at Banning. Get an old pair of shoes on.”

“I don’t want to see any bridges,” replied Willard morosely. “I – I saw one once.”

“What if you did, you chump! You never saw this one. Don’t be a piker. Look, it’s going to clear up!”

Willard gazed through the window with lackluster eyes and shook his head feebly. “I’ve got to write home,” he murmured, subsiding into a chair.

“You look more as if you were going to sleep,” said Martin in disgust. “All right, sonny, see you later.”

Martin went out, slamming the door behind him and whistling gayly down the corridor. Willard shook his head again. He had never noticed before how objectionably noisy Martin was! Several rooms away a graphophone was playing loudly and boys were singing. Everyone, reflected Willard, seemed to be unnaturally animated today. He guessed they hadn’t eaten two plates of ice cream! After a long time, during which he stared somnolently at his shoes, he pulled himself out of the chair with a groan and reseated himself at the table. Half an hour later he signed the fourth page of his letter “Your aff. son, Willard” and folded it quickly lest he yield to the temptation to read it over. He knew that if he did that he would never send it!

When it was ready for mailing he walked to the window and looked out. It really was clearing! Even as he looked, the sun broke through for a moment and shone weakly on the damp field and the running track beyond. He felt a good deal better now and he wished he had gone to Banning with the others. Well, he hadn’t, and rather than moon around in that chilly room he would slip on an old suit and take a walk. Possibly he would meet the crowd coming back later. He changed from his Sunday attire to an old pair of knickerbockers, a sweater, golf stockings, old shoes and a cap and set forth, proceeding first to the mail box in front of Academy Hall and getting rid of his letter. Stacey Ross hailed him from a third-story window of Lykes as he made his way past toward the athletic field, and he stopped and exchanged badinage for a moment, declining Stacey’s invitations, the first of which was to “Come on up,” and the second to “Go to the dickens!”

He knew that the river lay somewhere to the west and not more than a mile distant, and he set out to find it. His way led him across the athletic field and over the stone wall that bounded it and so into a meadow that descended gradually to a winding fringe of woods a quarter of a mile away. Whether the woods hid the river he didn’t know. It didn’t seem likely, however, for he had a notion that the stream was quite a considerable one: in fact, it must be if the railroad was building a large and expensive bridge across it some two miles further inland!

Before he reached the woods he had thrice been ankle-deep in water, but it was only marsh water and the trees, he found, hid only a narrow and shallow brook. By this time the sun was really out, although not very brightly, and the woods and the stream, with its mossy stones and bordering ferns, looked very pretty. He wondered if there were any trout there, and pursued it for some little distance looking for likely holes. When he had satisfied himself that no respectable trout would deign to live in such a brook he made his way across it by jumping from stone to stone, only once missing, and went on through an alder growth on the other side. When he emerged he was at the foot of a second meadow interspersed with outcropping ledges and clumps of white birches and maples and wild cherry trees. Afar at the left, near where the road presumably wound, was a farm with a white dwelling and a red barn and many comical haycocks that looked golden in the sunlight. Ahead of him a stone wall crossed the summit of the field, pricked out at intervals with spindling cedars whose somber foliage stood darkly against the clearing sky. The September sun, freeing itself from the clouds, shone warmly in Willard’s face as he went on up the rise. When he reached the wall he saw the river below him, a broad, curving ribbon of blue. But it was a good half-mile away yet, and he sat himself on the wall to rest before going on.

The sun felt pleasant to him and, after he had sat there a few minutes, he began to lose interest in a nearer acquaintance with the river. Instead of going on in that direction, he decided, he would turn to the left and try to reach the road. Doubtless Bob and Martin and the others would be returning before very long. Turning his gaze southward, he became aware of the fact that he was not alone. Some two hundred yards away a figure was approaching, a figure which appeared at first glance to be that of a man wearing a dark green sweater and advancing up the slope at a strangely deliberate pace. A second look, however, showed that the person was a boy of perhaps eighteen years and that as he walked he held the end of a forked stick in each hand and was oblivious to all else. He was a tall and rather heavy youth with extremely long legs that moved with machine-like precision and regularity over the grass. His slightly bent head prevented a clear sight of his face, but Willard thought he recognized the boy as one he had glimpsed once or twice about school. Why he should be pacing along here a mile from home, however, a Y-shaped branch in his hand, was a mystery, and Willard watched curiously as he came nearer and nearer.