Right Tackle Todd

CHAPTER VI

JIM REPORTS

After they had shaken hands, Clem took a good look at his new room-mate. The change in Jim’s appearance was due to two things, he decided. In the first place, Jim was dressed differently. He wore trousers of a grayish brown, a white negligee shirt with a small blue stripe, a semi-soft collar and a neatly tied dark-blue four-in-hand. The shoes were brown Oxfords and evidently new. The coat that matched the trousers was laid over the back of a chair. That suit, Clem reflected, had probably cost very little, but it fitted extremely well and looked well, too. Then Jim had filled out remarkably. He was still a long way from stout, but there was flesh enough now on his tall frame to take away the lanky look that had been his most striking feature last year. He seemed to hold himself straighter, too, as though he had become accustomed to his height, and to move with far less of awkwardness.

“What have you been doing to yourself?” asked Clem.

Jim stared questioningly. Apparently he was not aware of any change, and Clem explained. “Well, you look twenty pounds heavier, Jim; maybe more; and – ” But he stopped there. To approve his present attire would be tantamount to a criticism of his former.

“Yes, I guess I am heavier,” replied Jim. “I got mighty good food up at Blaisdell’s, and a heap of it; and then I was outdoors most of the time. Right healthy sort of life, I guess. Didn’t work hard, either; not really work.”

“I suppose it was pretty good fun,” mused Clem. “I’d liked to have got up there for a few days, but it didn’t seem possible.”

“Wish you had. I’d have shown you some real fishing. Like to fish, Harland?”

“N-no, I don’t believe I do. Maybe because I’ve never done much. But it sounded pretty good, what you wrote, and if father hadn’t arranged a motor trip for the last part of the summer I think I’d have gone up there for three or four days.”

“Guess you thought that was pretty cheeky, that letter of mine,” said Jim consciously.

“Not a bit,” Clem assured him heartily. If he had, he had forgotten it now. “Awfully glad to have you, Jim.”

“I hope you mean that.” Jim laughed sheepishly. “I tried hard to get that letter back after I’d posted it, but it happened that the fellow who carried the mail out got started half an hour earlier that morning, and I was too late.”

“Glad you were,” said Clem, and meant it. “Hope you don’t mind having Mart’s things left around. He thinks now he will come back next year and finish out.”

Jim looked about the room and shook his head. “Mighty nice,” he said. “I’ve got a few things upstairs that I’ll have to move out, but they ain’t scarcely suitable for here: there’s a cushion and a couple of pictures and a sort of a thing for books and two, three little things besides.”

“Bring them down and we’ll look them over,” said Clem. “What you don’t want to use can go in your trunk when you send it down to the store-room. Don’t believe we need any more cushions, though.” He thought he knew which of the cushions in Number 29 was Jim’s! “Too much in a place is worse than too little, eh?”

“I suppose ’tis,” Jim agreed. “This room’s right pretty now, Harland, and I guess those things of mine wouldn’t better it none.”

“You’ll have to stop calling me ‘Harland’ sooner or later,” said Clem, “so you might as well start now, Jim.”

Jim nodded. “I was trying to work ’round to it,” he answered. “Guess I’ll go up and get those things of mine out of 29.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” said Clem.

It was not until late that evening that Clem found an opportunity to broach the subject of football. “By the way,” he said, “Lowell Woodruff was in yesterday. He’s football manager, you know. Said he’d sent you a call for early practice and that you hadn’t made a yip.”

“Why, that’s right,” replied Jim. “I found a letter from him when I got home three days ago. You see, after I left Blaisdell’s I went over Moose River way with another fellow for a little fishing. Got some whopping good trout, too. So I didn’t get back to Four Lakes until Monday. Then I didn’t know if I’d ought to answer the letter or not. He didn’t say to.”

“No, I fancy he expected you’d show up. Well, there’s no harm done, I guess. Be all right if you show up to-morrow afternoon.” Clem spoke with studied carelessness and stooped to unlace a shoe.

“Show up?” asked Jim. “Where do you mean?”

“On the field. For practice. You’re going to play, of course.” This was more an assertion than a question.

“No,” said Jim, “I tried it last fall and quit. It takes a lot of a fellow’s time, and then I ain’t – I’m not much good at it.”

“Well, Jim, you’ll have a lot more time this year than you had last, you know. And as for being good at it, why, Johnny Cade said only this morning that you looked like promising stuff. Better think it over.”

“You mean Mr. Cade is looking for me to play?”

“Of course he is. You see, the team lost a good many of their best players last June and Johnny’s pretty anxious to get hold of all the material he can. I gathered from what Woodie said that they are looking to you to fit in as a tackle.”

“Tackle? He’s the fellow plays next to the end, ain’t he? Well, I don’t see what he’d want me back again for, after the way he laid me out last year.” Jim chuckled. “Gosh, he ’most tore the hide off me, Clem!”

“Well, if you ask me, it was sort of cheeky, throwing him down in the middle of the season, Jim, and I can’t say I blame him for getting a bit waxy about it. However, he’s all over that. He isn’t holding anything against you; I’ll swear to that; and if you go out you’ll get treated right. Johnny and Woodie both believe in you as a football player, Jim.”

“If they do,” laughed Jim in a puzzled way, “they’ve got more faith than I have. Why, honest, Clem, I don’t know much about the game, even after what they showed me last fall, and I can’t say that I’m keen about it, either. I always thought playing games was supposed to be fun, but I call football mighty hard work!”

“What of it? Aren’t afraid of hard work, are you? You know, Jim, a fellow has a certain amount of – of responsibility toward his school. I mean it’s his duty to do what he can for it, don’t you see? Now, if you can play football – ”

“But I can’t, Clem.”

“You don’t know. Johnny Cade says you can. Johnny’s a football authority and ought to know.”

Jim was silent a moment. Then he asked, almost plaintively: “You want I should play, don’t you?”

“Why, no, Jim. That is – well, I want you to do what you want to do. Of course, if you think – ”

“Yes, but you think I ought to,” Jim persisted. “That’s so, ain’t it?”

“I think,” responded Clem judicially, “that as long as Johnny Cade wants you, and as long as you have no good reason for not playing, you ought to try. I don’t want to influence you – ”

Clem became aware of Jim’s broad grin and ran down. Then: “What you laughing at, confound you?” he asked.

“Wasn’t laughing,” chuckled Jim. “Just smiling at the way you don’t want to influence me.”

“Well, suppose I do?” asked Clem, smiling too. “It’s for the good of the football team, Jim. And, if you must have the whole truth, I promised Woodie I’d talk to you. And I have. And now it’s up to you. You do just as you please. Guess you know best, anyway.”

“Well, maybe I haven’t got any good reason for not playing this year, or trying to,” mused Jim, enveloping himself in an enormous nightshirt. “I don’t think I’ll ever make a good football player, but if those folks want I should try, and you want I should – ”

“Hang it, Jim, don’t drag me into it! I’d feel to blame every time you got a bloody nose!”

“ – I don’t mind doing it,” concluded Jim. “Last year it didn’t seem like I was really needed out there. Maybe this year it will be different. Maybe Mr. Cade can make me into a tackle. If he can he’s welcome. Maybe after I’ve been at it a while I’ll get to like it. Maybe – ”

“Maybe you’ll put out that light and go to bed,” said Clem. “Of course you’ll like it. You’ll be crazy about it after a week or two, or a month or two, or – ”

“Well, if I got so I could really play,” said Jim musingly, as the light went out, “maybe I would. You can’t tell.”

The next afternoon, having resurrected the football togs he had worn the season before, Jim went dutifully over to the field and stood around amongst a steadily growing gathering of old and new candidates. He found several fellows that he knew well enough to talk to, but, having arrived early, much of his time was spent in looking on. He observed the coming of Peter, preceded by a wheelbarrow laden high with necessities of the game, the subsequent appearance of Manager Woodruff and Assistant Manager Barr, the latter apparently weighted down with the cares of all the world, and then the arrival of Coach Cade, in company with Captain Gus Fingal. By that time fully sixty candidates were on hand and balls were beginning to hurtle around. Formalities were dispensed with to-day. Mr. Cade clapped his hands briskly and announced: “Give your names to Mr. Woodruff or Mr. Barr, fellows, and hustle it up. Men reporting for the first time will start to work on the other gridiron. Last-year fellows report to Captain Fingal here. Let’s get going, Mr. Manager!”

Jim gave his name and other data to Johnny Barr and went across to the second team field. No one seemed interested in his presence there, and he stood around a while longer. Eventually the new candidates stopped coming, and Latham, a substitute quarter-back of last season, took them in charge. Jim went through just such a program as had engaged him a year ago. The afternoon, while not so hot as yesterday, was far too warm for comfort, and the work was a whole lot like drudgery. He caught balls and passed them, chased them and fell on them, awkwardly rolling around the turf, made frantic and generally unsuccessful grabs at them as Latham sent them bouncing away, and then, after a few minutes of rest, started all over again. At four-thirty he trotted two laps of the field, keeping, by injunction, close to the edge of the cinder track.

Save that he “weighed in” on the gymnasium scales the next afternoon, while the worried looking Johnny Barr set the figures down against his name, Saturday’s program was just like Friday’s. He wasn’t quite so stiff Saturday night, though, as he had been after the first session. Clem, feeling responsibility in the matter, asked how he had got along. Jim said: “All right, I guess.” That’s about all he did say regarding his football experiences for the next week. He had bought a book of rules, and Clem observed that every evening he spent a matter of ten or fifteen minutes on it. Once or twice he invited Clem’s aid, but Clem wasn’t much use to him.

“You know,” said Clem one evening, “you don’t really have to know the rules by heart, Jim. You’re not going to referee; you’re just going to play the game.”

“I sort of like to know what it’s all about, though,” said Jim. “And maybe,” he added, with a twinkle, “if the referee made a mistake I’d want to be able to tell him.”

“Yes, I’d try it,” scoffed Clem, who hadn’t seen the twinkle. “You’d make a big hit all around!”

He was “duck walking” and pushing the charging machine these days, for he was listed as a lineman. And he was having his six goes regularly at the tackling dummy, besides. His education was branching out. Perhaps because he had been through the work last year he made steady progress, although he was lacking in the experience of those of his companions who had played football since they were twelve years old. At tackling he was good, and he got praise more than once; and he was learning to handle a ball in a safe, clean fashion, no longer treating it as if it were an egg that might break if he was rude to it. At the end of the first fortnight he was as good a football man as some twenty others on the field and better than perhaps ten more. As that particular ten ceased their connection with football shortly after the Banning High game, Jim was left for a space superior to none.

So far, save for a word in passing, he had held no communication with Coach Cade, and if that gentleman felt any satisfaction over Jim’s presence among the players he disguised it perfectly. Not that Jim had expected any expression of gratitude, of course, but it was difficult to reconcile Clem’s statement on that first night of the term with the coach’s apparent complete indifference. Clem had declared that Mr. Cade was anxious to have Jim report. And since he had reported, Mr. Cade had never even noticed him. Jim reached the not unnatural conclusion that Clem had slightly exaggerated the coach’s concern.

Lowell Woodruff, though, fully atoned for any inattention on the coach’s part. Lowell assured Jim more than once that he fully appreciated the latter’s presence among the candidates, and he was almost embarrassingly solicitous as to his welfare. In fact, his efforts to keep Jim contented with his lot were so painstaking that Jim got it into his head that the manager was making fun of him, and he took a mild dislike to the well-meaning Lowell. As he made no mention of the matter to Clem, the misunderstanding existed well into the season.

Alton played the local high school team, winning by 21 to 7 in a long and uninteresting contest, and defeated Banning High School a week later by 17 to 0. Jim watched both contests from the bench and added considerably to his knowledge of the science in which he was a beginner. But neither game produced any thrilling moments, and Jim continued unmoved in his opinion that football was rather an uninteresting pursuit and certainly not deserving of all the time and attention given it. Then, after a week of practice that made the preceding fortnight seem in retrospect a period of languid idleness, Lorimer Academy visited Alton, and Jim’s conviction was slightly shaken.

CHAPTER VII

OFF-SIDE

Lorimer always gave a scrappy argument. In fact, she had on one occasion argued so well that a tie score had resulted. This year she looked better than usual when she went onto the field for practice, and there were those on the stands who, perhaps naturally pessimistic, shook their heads and predicted a defeat for the Gray-and-Gold. They had reason on their side, too, for Lorimer was known to have a practically veteran team while Alton’s team was still in the throes of constructing itself around no more than four proven warriors. And the visitors had superior weight in both line and backfield, although the superiority was not vast. So the pessimists had plenty of arguments with which to support their dismal prophecies.

Coach Cade put his best foot forward when the game started, using the best material he had in the hope of getting a safe lead in the first half. After that he could use his substitutes with discrimination and, he believed, hold the enemy at bay. But the safe lead didn’t materialize according to his program. Gains through the Lorimer line were few and difficult to make, and before the game was ten minutes old it was apparent that, with the few plays Alton had at present, she was going to be hard put to score unless the breaks came her way. In the first period the only break came when Lorimer blocked Steve Whittier’s try at a field goal on her thirty-three yards and a Lorimer tackle scooped up the trickling ball and sped to Alton’s twenty-seven yards before he was brought down from behind by Billy Frost. It looked very much like a Lorimer score just then, and when the enemy had tossed a forward pass across the center of the line for six yards more it looked vastly more like it. It took Lorimer the next three downs to get the rest of her distance and fetch up just inside the seventeen. Doubtless the pessimists were gloomily happy then. But Lorimer didn’t have the punch to score, for, after one smash at left tackle had been stopped, an end run had lost half a yard and a forward pass had grounded near the side-line, her try for a goal from near the twenty-five-yard line failed.

Alton had some success with a full-back run from kick-formation, Crumb carrying the ball, and got off one forward-pass of twenty yards, Crumb to Kinsey, and worked the pigskin back to mid-field and then into Lorimer territory. But the invasion petered out in a punt that the Lorimer quarter-back took on his five-yard-line and laid down finally on his thirty-one. The Lorimer rooters thought well of that incident and let the fact be known. Alton displayed scarcely any signs of delight. That ended the first ten-minute quarter.

As if to play even, Fortune favored the home team soon after the second period began by giving her a chance to score when Billy Frost poked his way outside tackle and got free for a thirty-eight-yard scamper that put the ball down on the adversary’s twenty-six. Crumb hit the right of center for two and got three more outside tackle. Billy Frost tried the left end, was thrown for no gain, and Steve Whittier dropped back to the thirty while Quarter-back Kinsey knelt on the turf in front of him and held his hands out for the ball. Alton was all ready to burst into triumphant cheers, for Steve was a good place-kicker, and the ball was directly in front of the goal. But Alton was reckoning without Mr. Loring Cheswick, center. Loring set himself firmly and carefully, measured distance and noted direction and then sped the ball a foot above Pep’s reach!

So that ended that incident, except that Steve did all that was humanly possible by chasing the bounding pigskin back to the forty-yard line, gathering it up expeditiously and doubling back toward the Lorimer goal. But the best he could do was to reach the thirty-four, close to the side-line, where he was pulled to earth by no fewer than three of the enemy. Alton seemed discouraged and Pep’s choice of plays was not of the best. A plunge on the short side of the field netted but a scant yard and didn’t take the runner over the side-line. Pep’s own run to the left almost centered the ball but lost the first gain and two yards more. A fake kick from placement, which fooled nobody, gave Crumb four yards through center, and after a conference that was rudely interrupted by the referee, Whittier punted to Lorimer’s three yards.

Lorimer kicked promptly and got distance, and Pep was downed where he caught. On the first play Levering, at left end, was caught off-side, and Alton was set back to the forty-seven yards. Two downs failed to gain, and Alton punted again. This time Pep got height but not much more and the ball was Lorimer’s on her thirty-one when the catcher was stopped. It was there and then that the visitor began a march up the field that would not be denied. Three first downs brought her to Alton’s thirty-seven. Coach Cade sent in fresh linemen to the number of three and for a moment the advance faltered. Then a forward-pass gathered in eight yards and a plunge at center brought another first down. Progress was slower but still apparently sure, and Lorimer reached the sixteen in four plays. There, however, with the time-keeper hovering fatefully near, Alton dug her cleats and spoiled two attempts at her line. From the fourteen yards Lorimer brought off a tricky forward-pass that was shot across the goal-line from behind a wall of moving interference. That pass failed badly, though, for the receiver was not in position, and after the ball had been juggled by two Alton backs it grounded. Had Lorimer fulfilled the expectations of the audience she might have ended the first half with a three-point lead, for it was only reasonable to suppose that a try-at-goal from the twenty-four yards would succeed. But Lorimer, perhaps reasoning that her opponent was certain to score before the game was over, in which case three points would not be sufficient for a victory, decided on all or nothing. With eight yards needed for a first down she set the stage for a drop-kick and then shot her quarter-back on a wide run behind good interference. For a moment it looked as if she was going to get what she was after, for when the quarter turned in he went romping straight for the goal-line, threw off two tacklers and seemed safe for a touch-down. But Hick Powers saved the day for the Gray-and-Gold, plunging into the runner and lifting him back into a fighting mêlée. The referee whistled and dug his heel into the five-yard line, and then, after a look at the rods, waved his hand up the field. Alton shouted relief and triumph. After Whittier had punted from behind his line the half ended.

Jim went back to the gymnasium with the rest of the squad, feeling for almost the first time that perhaps football did, after all, hold compensations for all the drudgery and hard knocks entailed; that is, if you were on the field instead of the bench! He began to wonder what his chances were of ever taking a hand in a real contest, and what he could do to better them.

Mr. Cade’s talk before the players took the field again was brief and energetic. Jim, listening attentively from the outer edge of the circle, had lost his unsympathetic attitude. There was sense in what Johnny was telling them, and reason. After all, it did seem necessary to lick Lorimer, and, if you granted that, then there was excuse enough for all this intensity of purpose. Jim added his own voice to the cheer that followed the coach’s final grim, “Let’s go get ’em!”

There were changes in the line-up of each team when the ball was kicked off again, but Alton presented more new faces than did her opponent. There were new men in the line and two new men behind it. One of these was Latham at quarter-back. Latham proved good medicine while he stayed in, for Alton worked faster and with more vim than in the first half. Yet for seven minutes of the ten neither team threatened. Then a fumbled punt was recovered by Levering on Lorimer’s thirty-three yards and suddenly the Gray-and-Gold visioned success and went after it hard. Crumb, who had borne a great deal of the work in the first two periods and had been taken out to rest, was hurried back and celebrated his return with a fine off-tackle charge that took the ball to the twenty-six. Latham gained a yard straight through center and Crumb made it first down on the enemy’s twenty-two.

An end run put away a scant two, and Frost was stopped trying to get inside right tackle. Steve Whittier went back to the thirty-three yards as though to try a goal, but the ball went to Crumb and the full-back got another two through right guard. With six to go on fourth down a field-goal seemed the only hope, for Alton’s passing game was still undeveloped, and when Steve again went back the eyes of the Lorimer sympathizers sought the cross-bar. But Steve didn’t kick the ball when he got it. He lifted it in his right hand and stepped back and out to the left. Then he shot it diagonally across toward the right-hand corner of the field, where Levering was speeding toward the goal-line. The right end looked over his shoulder, stopped abruptly, letting a Lorimer back go past, and pulled the pass out of the air on the seven yards. He made the four before he was forced over the side-line. When the ball had been brought in and a winded Lorimer man had been administered to, Crumb tried the right of center and made a scant yard. Pandemonium reigned in the stands. Latham tried to knife himself through center and added part of a second yard. Crumb again went straight at center. It seemed that Alton was determined to make that score there or not at all. The linesman’s little iron stick moved forward another two feet. Fourth down and still about two to go. This time Crumb went back a little farther from his line, and when, once more, he took the pass from center he was going hard when he reached the swaying lines. Playing desperately but playing low, Lorimer might have withstood this final attack by the heavy full-back had he stayed on his feet, but he didn’t. He went up and over, and although he was soon borne back again, he had reached the last white line first, and that long-deferred score had been won at last!

When the last quarter started, a minute and a half after Captain Fingal had missed the try-for-point by inches only, Coach Cade put back most of his first-string players, and for the succeeding ten minutes of playing time the Gray-and-Gold punted on first down as often as the ball became hers inside her forty-yard line. She was frankly on the defensive now and sought delay by all fair means. Twice, early in the period, Lorimer started an advance by forward-passes that got no farther than the thirty-five. The second one ended when Levering intercepted a long heave and ran it back into enemy territory. On the whole, that final quarter was all Alton’s, for the ball reached her territory only three times and never stayed long. Lorimer’s passing game failing her, she had little left to offer, for while her backs could still gain through the opposing line the gains were too short to score with.