CHAPTER VIII

DAN JOINS THE FOOTBALL SQUAD

The next afternoon at four o’clock Dan joined the throng of candidates in the big locker room in the basement of the gymnasium. He had been examined that forenoon by Mr. Bendix, had been put through strength tests, had been measured and at last presented with a chart which showed his size, strength and development in comparison with a normal youth of his age. He passed well and received official permission to play football. “Your chest, abdomen and upper-arm muscles are very well developed,” Mr. Bendix had told him, “but the lower part of your body seems to have been neglected. But we’ll fix that for you.”

Then Dan had given his name to Andy Ryan and been welcomed like a long-lost son. “Sure, you’re a well-made lad,” declared Andy, “and we’ll find a place for you, never fear. End, is it? Well, why not? Faith, it’s ends we need, I’m thinking. This new-fangled football is just the game for the lightweights like you. Just you take hold right, Mr. Vinton, and we’ll make a real football player out of you.”

This was all very encouraging, but Dan had a suspicion that Andy talked just that way to every new candidate. At a little after four he trotted down to the field with the others, looking very trim and fit in his new khaki trousers and faded, battle-scarred brown sweater. If he had expected any especial consideration from the coach he was disappointed. When he reported Mr. Payson looked at him silently for an instant and then asked:

“What’s the name?”

“Vinton, sir.”

The coach pulled a little memorandum book from his pocket and entered it.

“Let me see, you are trying for quarter?”

“No, sir, end.”

“Been examined?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Go down there and report to Captain Colton.”

Dan turned away a trifle chagrined. Payson had forgotten all about him since yesterday! But he hadn’t gone far when the coach summoned him back.

“Ever played before, Vinton?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, three years.”

“Well?”

“Sir?”

“Is that all? Nothing else you want to tell me?”

“No, sir.”

“Glad to hear it. We haven’t any use for stars here. Tell Mr. Colton I sent you.”

Dan smiled as he trotted away. Payson had laid a trap for him and he had escaped it. He wondered what Payson would have said if he had mentioned his captaincy again. Something pretty tart, he was certain of that! The coach hadn’t forgotten him, after all, and Dan took comfort from that knowledge.

Oliver Colton, the captain, was a strapping big fellow of nineteen, a fine football player, a good all-around athlete and an excellent student besides. Yardley Hall was proud of Colton. He had been Honor Man for the last two years, held the school records for the broad-jump and the hammer, was a good pitcher, batted around three hundred and, above all, was one of the best guards that had ever played on a Yardley eleven. He was good-looking, with rather curly brown hair and such soft eyes of the same color that one would never have suspected him of being the hard, aggressive player he was. His voice, too, was soft, and he had a way of making a command sound like the most courteous request. And yet the fellows who knew Colton jumped just as quickly at his voice as at Payson’s. When Dan found him he had two lines of forwards under instruction in breaking through and blocking, and Dan had to stand by for a moment until the big chap was at leisure.

“That’s better, Hadlock,” said Colton as the lines disentangled themselves. “But you must keep your back down, you know. Don’t double yourself up like a pair of scissors. Maybe you think you can play a _slashing_ game that way, but you can’t.”

The panting players laughed at the pleasantry as they took their places again, and Dan claimed the captain’s attention.

“Mr. Payson told me to report to you,” he said. “I’m trying for end. My name’s Vinton.”

“Glad to see you out,” answered Colton with a genial smile as he shook hands. “We need good ends this year, and if you’re quick enough to make up for your lack of weight you ought to make good. Know the rules pretty well, do you, Vinton?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Well, it won’t do any harm to study them a bit more. If you haven’t a rule book you’d better get one. There’s a quiz on the rules to-night in the trophy room. Better polish up this afternoon. Now you go over there where you see those chaps and join them. Played before, have you?”

“Yes, on my grammar school team.”

“That’s good. Buckle down to it, for we may need you badly before long.”

He nodded pleasantly and turned back to his charges, and Dan walked across the field and joined a ring of candidates who were falling on the ball. It was the awkward squad, but Dan didn’t mind that; he didn’t mean to stay there very long. Later there was practice in starting and running down under kicks, and when practice was over Dan was quite ready to quit work. When he stepped out of the shower, glowing from head to foot, he bumped against Alfred Loring, who, with a big bath towel clutched about him, was talking over his shoulder to another chap.

“Beg pardon,” exclaimed Loring. “Hello, are you with us? Glad to see you. What are you trying for?”

“End,” answered Dan.

“Good work! Played there, have you?”

“Yes, a couple of years. But I guess I’m too light for the team here.”

Loring stepped back, put his head on one side and looked Dan over.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “What’s your weight?”

“A hundred and thirty-six, but I suppose some of that will come off.”

“Well, I only weigh a hundred and forty-four myself,” said Loring encouragingly. “And you look fast. Hope you’ll make it.” Then he disappeared into the bath and a blood-curdling yell and a bath towel floated out at the same instant.

Dan went back to his room that afternoon feeling as though he had found himself again. Tubby, as usual, was curled up on his bed reading something that didn’t look like a text-book, but this evening he hadn’t borrowed Dan’s pillows.

“Well, I suppose everyone was tickled to death to see you,” he said sarcastically. “Had a brass band out, I dare say, to welcome you.”

“Tubby, you’re a cynic,” answered Dan good-naturedly. He hadn’t meant to address Tubby by his nickname; it came out without thought. Tubby looked surprised, was secretly pleased and made believe that he didn’t relish the familiarity.

“I don’t call you Dan, do I?” he growled.

“Oh, you can if you like,” was the answer. “It’s shorter than Vinton, and as we’re destined to see a good deal of each other for awhile you might as well take things easy. I shall call you Tubby, anyway. It fits you like a coat.”

“Go to thunder,” muttered Tubby, returning again to his book. Dan laughed cheerfully.

“Tubby,” he said, “to judge by your manner sometimes one would almost think you bad-tempered.”

Silent contempt on the part of Tubby Jones.

When Dan entered the trophy room in the gymnasium at a few minutes before seven he found the room already well filled. At least half a dozen fellows nodded to him, Alf Loring amongst the number, and Dan was secretly much elated. There followed a short talk by Payson on the new rules and then the “quiz” began. Some of the questions were not easy to answer:

_What happens when a legal forward pass crosses the goal line on the fly without being touched by a player? When the same ball has been legally touched by a player?_

_When is a player of the side which has kicked the ball put on-side?_

_Is tackling below the knees illegal for all players? And, if not, what are the exceptions?_

_What is the penalty for holding or unlawful use of hands or arms when the offending side has the ball? When the offending side is not in possession of the ball?_

_What is the signal for a fair catch? What is the penalty for interference with a fair catch?_

If marks had been awarded I doubt if many of the fellows would have received an A. At a few minutes before eight they were dismissed with the advice to study the rules. Dan obeyed the instructions so implicitly that when ten o’clock came he found that he hadn’t so much as glanced at his lessons for the morrow. So he burned the midnight oil, greatly to Tubby’s disgust, and got Cæsar’s Gallic War so mixed with the football rules that he might just as well have gone to bed at ten.

A few days later Dan awoke one morning to find the sunlight streaming into the room, to feel the crisp air of a frosty October morning blowing in through the window and to realize that, should the traditional fairy princess appear on the scene ready to transport him with a dip of her wand to any place in the world he would choose to stay just where he was. He lay there with his knees hunched up, the sunlight glaring on the white spread, and smiled at the knot in the left-hand upper panel of his closet door. The knot and he were getting to be pretty good friends. When he awoke in the morning the knot was always the first thing to meet his gaze, and of late it had seemed to have a welcome for him. There is a lot of expression in a knot if you look at it a long time, and sort of half close your eyes and--and--

Dan gave a start. He had almost gone to sleep again. That wouldn’t do, for it must be fully time to get up. He raised himself on his elbow and looked at the watch in his vest pocket. Then he gave a grunt of satisfaction and tumbled back on the pillow. There was a good ten minutes yet. Across the room Tubby was represented by a round mound under the bed clothes. Not an inch of him was showing, for Tubby slept with his head under the covers to guard against those drafts which were forever troubling him. Dan put his hands under his head, stared contentedly at the knot in the closet door and went through the day in anticipation.

Chapel at half-past seven in Assembly Hall, the fellows sitting by classes on the old, knife-scarred benches, and “Old Toby,” as the principal was called, reading from the Bible in his pleasant, mellow, English voice; afterwards an invocation by Mr. Collins or Mr. Frye, the boys joining together at the end in the Lord’s Prayer; then announcements by Mr. Collins, the singing of a hymn and a decorous exit as far as the door turning to a wild, riotous stampede down the two flights of stairs.

Breakfast at eight; a good breakfast, too--all the milk you wanted to drink, or coffee or cocoa; steak or chops or eggs and bacon, with big steaming-hot baked potatoes and toast or rolls. Dan’s expression grew beatific. He had his regular place in commons now, and if all went well he would go to one of the football training tables in a week or so. He didn’t know any of the fellows at his table very well yet, but he was becoming better acquainted every day. The chap at his left--his name was Paul Rand--kept a jar of orange marmalade and was very generous with it. Dan rather liked Rand--or the marmalade; he wasn’t certain which.

At nine o’clock there was a Latin recitation in Oxford G, with Mr. Collins. Dan wasn’t awfully fond of Latin, but he accepted it philosophically as a necessary evil. French was better. That came at half-past nine. The instructor was Mr. von Groll, a great favorite with the fellows. He was just out of college, an Amherst A.B., and hadn’t yet forgotten what it was to be a boy. After French there was a half-hour in which to brush up on math. And it was a pretty good thing to brush up on, as Dan had already learned. For Mr. McIntyre--“Kilts” was his popular name--was pretty severe. “Kilts” wasn’t very well liked; there was a general idea prevalent that he had long since forgotten the first two letters of the alphabet; anyhow, it was an event in school when he awarded a B to anyone, while as for an A! Tradition had it that he had never marked a student with an A but once, and that it so upset him that he was ill for a week.

In the school catalogue he figured as Angus McIntyre, A.A., Edinburgh. That “A.A.,” which really stood for Associate of Arts, was variously interpreted by the boys as “Almost Anything,” “Abominable Algebra” and “Acrimonious Angus.” They said he had tacked so many A’s onto his name that he had none left for his pupils. In age he was somewhere about fifty, tall, lean, smooth-shaven, with a shock of iron-gray hair and piercing, deep-set eyes. Yardley didn’t love Kilts, but at the same time it was proud of him. He had written numerous books on higher mathematics, and, as one of his students had said in a moment of grudging admiration, “could take Euclid by the back of the neck and shake the change out of his trousers.” So far Dan had got along pretty well with Kilts.

After mathematics there was nothing to do to-day until dinner time, unless he was wise enough to study. At two there was English with Mr. Gaddis, a big, bullet-headed, good-natured man of thirty-six who would have looked more at home on the football field than in the class room. Old Tige was the name awarded him, probably because of a likeness to an unlovely, kind-dispositioned bulldog. The fellows liked Old Tige, even while they made fun of him; and there was no doubt about his ability as an instructor of the English Language.

At four came football practice. Dan’s heart warmed at the thought of it. He was getting on down there on the field, was Dan. Already he had been accepted as a possibility at end. That didn’t mean a great deal, for early-season possibilities often become late-season impossibilities, but Dan was encouraged and was doing his level best to make good. He had plenty of speed, followed the ball as a cat follows a mouse, and barring lack of weight, seemed to have the making of an ideal end. And whether he made the team or not, he was having a lot of good fun out of it and, better yet, was making acquaintances and friends. He knew lots and lots of fellows well enough to speak to now, while several had asked him to their rooms. He hadn’t gone yet, but he meant to. Alf Loring was very friendly, but Dan didn’t seem to get very far with him. He was sorry, too, for he liked Loring thoroughly, liked him better than ever since he had seen him run the first team in the scrimmages with which the practice ended nowadays. Loring was a wonderful quarter-back; there was no doubt about that. Dan wished that he might know him better. But Alf Loring was one of the popular fellows in school and doubtless had as many friends now as he wanted, Dan reflected. Perhaps in time--. Well, meanwhile there was his fidus Achates, Tubby Jones. Dan looked across at Tubby’s inert form and smiled.

After practice came a jolly half-hour in the gymnasium, while the fellows took their showers, dressed and talked over the day’s events. Then supper and a clear hour of loafing; only to-night was letter night for Dan, and letter writing would take the place of a loaf. Then study from eight to nine or half-past, or, in case Tubby’s friends didn’t happen in, until ten. And then bed again. A busy day, but a happy one, thought Dan.

But now the knot on the closet door was looking back at him warningly and Dan, his thoughts returning at a bound to the present, leaped out of bed, shut the window and called to Tubby.

“Seven o’clock and past, Tubby! You’ll be late for Chapel!”

“Don’t care if I am,” growled Tubby.