Left Half Harmon

“Hello, Brand,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

“More than is on yours, I guess,” answered Willard meaningly.

Joe laughed. “Think so? Well, that’s the first paper I’ve seen in a week. I was looking over the Saturday games. Yale’s coming back all right, isn’t she? That fellow Loughlin who played left tackle for awhile is an Alton fellow. Wasn’t considered much good here, though, as I remember.”

“Say, Joe, suppose a fellow played football this year and then didn’t play for two years more. Would he be any good?”

“Good for what?”

“Football. I mean, could he – could he come back?”

“Oh! I don’t know, Brand. I guess it would depend on the fellow. Aren’t thinking of giving up the game, are you?”

“No. Look here, Joe, suppose a fellow was a corking good full-back three years ago and then didn’t play any more. Suppose he was to go back to the game tomorrow. How long would it take him to – to remember what he’d forgotten and – and find himself again?”

“Brand, it’s too early in the day for hypothetical questions,” replied Joe, stretching and yawning. “It would depend on so many things, boy: on how well the chap had kept himself in condition, principally. Got any fellow in mind, or are you just doing this for exercise?”

“I’ve got someone in mind,” answered Willard earnestly. “There’s a chap here who used to play football three years ago, and from what he says he must have been pretty good. Anyway, he was regular full-back on the team. Then he was taken sick and had to quit, and he never went back.”

“Who’s that?” demanded Joe, sitting up.

“McNatt,” answered Willard.

“McNatt! Oh, I thought you’d discovered someone, Brand. I guess McNatt’s a joke.”

“He did play, though, didn’t he?” Willard persisted.

Joe nodded. “Yes, he did, and that’s a fact.” He paused and kicked thoughtfully at the paper on the floor. “He played all one year, I think, either on the second or on the first as substitute. The first year I was here he played for awhile. That was his second year. Seems to me he stopped about the middle of the season. I don’t remember much about him, though. But, great gosh, the fellow’s no football man! Just – just look at him!”

“He’s out of training, of course,” agreed Willard, “but seems to me if he was good enough to be regular full-back three years ago he might be worth trying now.”

“That’s so, Brand! Look here, you tell him to come on out and we’ll give him a fair show, as late as it is. It would be worth a dollar of any fellow’s money to see McNutt playing football!”

Willard shook his head. “I’m not sure he’d do it, Joe.”

“Why not? What’s the idea?”

“Well, I don’t believe he cares for it any more. He’s a funny duck, McNatt. I guess it would take a lot of persuasion to get him back.”

“But I thought from what you said that he wanted to try it,” said Joe, puzzled. “What does he want?”

“To be let alone, I think,” answered Willard, smiling. “No, the idea was mine, Joe. McNatt hasn’t any more ambition to play football than I have to – to collect mushrooms! But when he told me about having played full-back I remembered that we are hard up for a fellow for that position, and so I came over here to speak to you about it.”

“Well, dog my cats,” exploded Joe, “if the fellow can play football it’s his duty to do it! Doesn’t he know that? Where is he? I’ll have a talk with him. I don’t suppose he’s worth bothering with, but there’s always a chance! And we can’t afford to miss it!”

“What are you going to say to him?” asked Willard.

“Say to him? Why, that we need his services, of course. I’ll tell him that if he shows up decently he will stand a good chance of playing against Kenly. I guess that ought to fetch him.”

“That might fetch some fellows, Joe, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t fetch McNatt.” Willard shook his head gently. “I may be wrong, but I guess he’s about as stubborn as they make them. You know you can tell a lot about a fellow’s – er – character by his physical formation, Joe, and McNatt’s got long legs and – and everything.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” answered the other impatiently, “but, stubborn or not, he will play football if I get after him!”

“All right.” Willard shrugged his shoulders. “If I were you, though, I’d go at him sort of easy.”

“Oh, I’ll be easy enough,” said Joe untroubledly. “He’s in Upton, isn’t he? What’s the number? Forty-nine?” Joe looked at his watch and got to his feet. “I’ve got twenty minutes before French. I’ll run over and see him. Of course nothing will come of it, though. A fellow who’s been out of training as long as he has can’t come back in three or four weeks. Besides, I dare say he’s forgotten all the football he ever knew.”

Willard parted with Joe at the entrance. “Good luck,” he called as Joe went off. “Try diplomacy first, Joe!”

Joe smiled back confidently and waved a careless hand.

It was not until he reached the gymnasium in the afternoon that Willard learned the result of Joe’s visit to Number 49 Upton. Joe was still angry. “The fellow’s a perfect fool,” he snapped in reply to Willard’s polite inquiry. “And he’s as stubborn as a mule! Sat there and talked for ten minutes about how the full-back position ought to be played and then calmly told me he wouldn’t try for the team for a thousand dollars!”

“And then you bullied him,” laughed Willard.

“I told him what I thought of him,” answered Joe grimly. “He made me so blamed mad I could have punched his head. Just sat there and blinked and shook his silly bean! And when I’d flayed him alive he wanted to know if I wouldn’t like to see his mineral collection. Oh, the chap’s plain nutty!”

“He is sort of peculiar,” agreed Willard soberly.

“Peculiar!” Joe laughed mirthlessly. “He’s crazy in the head. Know what I think? Well, he showed me a lot of mushrooms he had there; nasty, smelly things they were, too; and I’ll bet he eats ’em and they’ve affected his mind. I don’t know what to do with him!”

“Guess you’ll have to forget it and just let him alone,” said Willard soothingly.

“I can’t afford to let him alone,” protested Joe impatiently. “Why, gosh, if that fellow can play full-back the way he can talk it he’d be a wonder! Look here, Brand, you see what you can do. I talked my head off and it didn’t have any effect on the poor fish. You – you have a go at him, will you? And do it today. Honest, that fellow ought to show whether he’s any good or not. It’s his duty! Of course we can’t make him play, but you’d think he’d want to!”

“All right,” agreed Willard, “I’ll see what I can do, Joe, but I haven’t much hope. If your diplomacy failed, why, I’m not likely to succeed.”

Joe looked at Willard suspiciously. “Hang it, I was diplomatic,” he protested. “I was as sweet as sugar to him until he shut his mouth tight and said he wouldn’t do it.”

“If he had his mouth shut,” said Willard, “I don’t see how he could say anything, Joe. Maybe he hummed it, though?”

“Oh, go to the dickens!” growled the other.

There was an unusually hard and protracted practice game that afternoon, and Willard played at left half through fifteen strenuous minutes during which the second, given the ball over and over to test the first team’s defense, hammered and banged until she finally got across the line for a score. Willard, like most of the others, got some hard knocks and when he was released he felt very little ambition for the task that Joe had set him. But supper helped a lot, and at half-past seven he set out for McNatt’s room. Even when he knocked at the door of Number 49 he hadn’t decided what he was to say.

Not only McNatt was in this evening, but his roommate, Winfred Fuller. Fuller was a sophomore, a smallish, anemic-appearing youth who, or so Willard fancied, wore a harried, apprehensive look, as though life with McNatt’s toads and beetles and strange messes was gradually affecting his mind. Fuller sat, straightly uncompromising, on the edge of a chair and gazed at Willard with owlish fixity during the first ten minutes of the latter’s visit, and Willard was heartily glad when, muttering some excuse, the boy took himself off. McNatt was most hospitable and offered to cook a few choice mushrooms that he had picked that afternoon under someone’s stable if Willard fancied them. But Willard explained that, being on a diet, mushrooms were a forbidden luxury, and McNatt was not offended. After that the talk turned to the subject of football “situations” and McNatt was reminded that he had found the memorandum of which he had spoken on the occasion of Willard’s last visit, and stretched a hand toward the littered table. But unfortunately the paper had again disappeared, and although McNatt searched long and determinedly, making the confusion more confused, it refused to be discovered. Finally, giving up the quest, McNatt sat down again, stretching his long legs across the floor and thrusting a pair of large, very chapped hands into his pockets.

“Myers came to see me this morning,” he remarked placidly. “He’s captain of the football team this year. But you know him, of course. I forgot you were on the team, Harmon. Queer fellow, Myers: awfully obstinate and opinionated, don’t you think?”

“Well, he’s likely to have rather pronounced views on any subject that he’s very much interested in,” replied Willard cautiously. “Football for instance.”

McNatt chuckled. “It was football he came to see me about. He wanted me to play full-back. It seems the fellow they’ve got isn’t very satisfactory. You told me that, too, I think.”

“Yes, I did,” said Willard, “and I’m mighty glad you’re going to help us out, McNatt!”

McNatt frowned and shook his head. “Oh, but I’m not. I told Myers I couldn’t, you know. He – I don’t think he liked it.”

“You’re not!” exclaimed Willard incredulously. “But – but why?”

McNatt stared a moment as though a trifle surprised. “Why, I’m out of football, Harmon! I thought I told you that. I haven’t played since my second year here. I’ve given it up completely. You see, I hadn’t any patience with the fuddling way they taught it. Everything’s so hit-or-miss. No science at all. You acknowledged that yourself, Harmon.”

Willard nodded. “Yes, that’s true. But, look here, McNatt, it seems to me the game of football needs fellows like you; fellows, I mean, who – er – who realize what’s wrong with it and have the – the courage and brains to remedy it.”

McNatt tilted back and shook his head slowly. “They won’t listen, Harmon,” he said. “I tried Myers today. He couldn’t see what I meant at all. Just got very impatient and told me I was a slacker. I’m afraid Myers has a one-track mind, Harmon.”

“Joe is awfully anxious to beat Kenly,” replied Willard, “and he takes it for granted that every other fellow is just like he is. He loses sight of the fact that there are fellows here in school like you, McNatt, who don’t give a whoop whether Alton wins or doesn’t.”

McNatt shook his head almost violently. “You mustn’t say that,” he protested. “Although not actively participating in football any longer, Harmon, I am still vastly interested in it and follow it very carefully. And, naturally, I want Alton to defeat Kenly. Yes, indeed, decidedly! You mustn’t – ah – consider me unpatriotic.”

“Oh,” murmured Willard. “I didn’t understand. I thought – ”

“Yes?” encouraged McNatt.

“Why, only that, not being willing to help the School out by going back to the team, you didn’t – didn’t care very much!”

McNatt smiled gently. “I’m afraid you’re rather like Myers,” he chided. “You can only see what’s directly in front of your eyes. Myers couldn’t understand that I might find other things more important than football. I explained that my scientific pursuits meant more to me than playing full-back on the eleven.”

“Then I’m not like Joe,” responded Willard, smiling, “for I can understand it. I suppose what does puzzle me, McNatt, is your not being willing to apply your science to the bettering of the game and the defeat of the enemy. Seems to me you’ve got a big chance to demonstrate your theories and to help the School at the same time.”

McNatt looked surprised. “But I’ve explained that they won’t listen!” he said.

“Don’t ask them to listen,” replied Willard smilingly, yet very earnestly. “Show them!”

“Show them? You mean – ”

“Exactly! Go out and play full-back as it should be played. Scientifically. According to your ideas. Prove there’s something in it, McNatt. Afterwards you can talk and they’ll listen.”

McNatt drew his hands from his trousers pockets and rubbed them thoughtfully together. “I wonder if it could be done,” he muttered. “You see, Harmon, it isn’t the playing of one position that counts, but the conduct of the whole game, the – the modus operandi. And yet – ” He relapsed into silence again.

“Being there, though, right on hand, would help, wouldn’t it?” Willard asked. “I mean, you’d be in a better position to offer your advice and aid. And maybe you might play full-back so well that they’d realize that – that science has its place in football.”

“Do you know,” exclaimed McNatt quite excitedly, “you almost persuade me to try it, Harmon! By golly, you do! This man that is coaching this year – I forget his name – ; is he the sort you can talk to? You know some of these coaches are so – so set! You can’t get them to listen to anything at all!”

“I don’t think Mr. Cade is that sort,” replied Willard reassuringly. “I’d say he was quite open to conviction, McNatt. In fact – ” and here Willard smiled to himself – “in fact, I think I can promise that he will listen to anything that promises success for the team. There’s one thing, though, that might bother you, old chap. You’ve been out of training a good while and of course condition’s got a heap to do with playing football well.”

McNatt shook his head impatiently. “My condition’s all right,” he answered. “I’ll have to read up on the new rules, though. They’ve made several changes since I played before. I suppose I ought to see Myers and tell him I’ve changed my mind.”

“I’ve got a rules book,” said Willard, “and I’ll bring it over to you the first thing in the morning. As for telling Myers, I wouldn’t trouble. I’m quite likely to run across him myself this evening and I’ll pass the good word to him if you like.”

“I’d be very much obliged,” answered McNatt gratefully, “but don’t go out of your way, please. Funny you should turn up here tonight, Harmon. I’m glad you did, though, I really am. I wouldn’t have realized what an opportunity this thing affords me if you hadn’t!”

CHAPTER XVII

M’NATT JOINS THE TEAM

A great many years before the period of this story Alton Academy manufactured its own illuminating gas from gasoline by means of a machine in the basement of Academy Hall. The machine was connected by pipe with a gasoline tank set in a covered pit some sixty feet from the building. One fine day there was trouble with the gasoline supply and one of the faculty members known as Old Grubby descended into the pit to investigate matters. Just what occurred down there was never known, but shortly after Old Grubby disappeared from sight he reappeared with vastly more celerity, and his reappearance was accompanied by a violent concussion that brought everyone rushing to the scene or to the dormitory windows. A fortunate few gained points of vantage in time to see the teacher’s ascent interrupted by the force of gravitation and to watch his return to earth. This happened at a point many feet distant from the crater that had once been a brick-lined pit, and was quite spectacular. Fortunately, aside from a severe shaking up, some contusions and a nervous shock, Old Grubby was uninjured, although just at first it seemed to the horrified spectators that he had suffered a direful fate, since he had gone into the pit with a luxuriant growth of dark hair on his head and had subsequently descended from his flight with his scalp as bare and polished as a pale-pink billiard ball! None was more horror-stricken than the unfortunate gentleman himself, however, when he realized his plight. Clapping both hands to his head, he broke loose from the solicitous rescuers and ran agitatedly around in circles. Such extraordinary behavior on the part of an ordinarily sane gentleman was naturally adjudged to be the result of temporary dementia produced by the accident, and so, of course, all those who had arrived on the scene took up the chase. Old Grubby dodged and eluded, giving vent to inarticulate ejaculations of dismay, and the chase might have continued for quite a while had he not finally, with a cry of relief and triumph, snatched a brown object from a lower branch of a tree, clapped it on his shining head and dashed for his room.

The incident created a remarkable sensation; not so much that portion concerned with the interesting explosion of the gasoline tank as the resultant revelation. For many years Old Grubby had managed to deceive the sharpest eyes in his classes and never had there been the faintest of doubts expressed as to the naturalness of his beautiful dark brown locks. And then before the eyes of the whole school he had been exposed! After the first shock of incredulous surprise, Alton Academy roared and rocked with laughter. Students and faculty gasped and gurgled fraternally, and you may well believe that the spectacle of the Principal seated on the lower step of Academy Hall, swaying rhythmically from side to side and holding his head in his hands, did nothing to quell the contagion. History has it that at the end of that term Old Grubby resigned and took himself to distant fields where his precious secret was not known.

Now this has no place in the present narrative save as a prelude to the statement that not since its occurrence had the School known such a sensation as was caused by the appearance of Felix Adelbert McNatt as a member of the football squad!

McNatt reported on Friday afternoon, clad in ancient regalia that included the disreputable green sweater, and the news spread like wildfire. Society rooms, studies, tennis courts were deserted, and the stands beside the gridiron were so filled that you would have thought the Big Game was in progress. Disbelief vanished as the unmistakable form of McNatt was descried on the field and amused conviction took its place. “Hooray for McNutt!” shrilled an irrepressible freshman, and the audience cheered loudly. “Regular cheer, fellows!” bawled a junior, “with nine ‘McNatts’!” The response was thrilling, even if the “McNatts” became “McNutts” in the performance, and after that the new candidate had only to move a hand or a long leg to be greeted by uproarious applause!

Whether McNatt realized the sensation he was producing, or the nature of it, I can’t say. At least, he gave no sign. Perhaps he thought that every practice witnessed a similar loyal attendance and that the applause that fell to him was no more than was generally accorded. McNatt, fortunately, was not self-conscious nor sensitive. If he had been he might have found it difficult to perform the duties set him. As it was, he worked hard and faithfully and with surprising ability, proving at once that he had neither forgotten what he had formerly known of football nor had allowed his long absence from the game to put him out of condition. He tackled the dummy with the rest of the squad and showed how it should be tackled, he swung a clever foot against the ball and got thirty-five yards at a punt and he caught the returning pigskin with ease and certainty. In short, McNatt that Friday afternoon caused Coach Cade to stare and shake his head and almost rub his eyes and the audience along the sidelines to change their laughter to enthusiastic, ungrudging applause before the practice session was ended.

A mere five minutes with a squad in formation drill taught McNatt the signals sufficiently for his purpose, and later, when the second team came across, filled with ambition and an overwhelming desire to see what all the laughing and cheering was about, and McNatt was put in at full-back on the first, why, he made good from the first moment. He clung doggedly to that green sweater, though others were down to canvas, and it shone resplendent in every play. Kruger, whose wont it was to take the ball for the second and go rearing through inside or outside of tackle, saw his glory fade. The first time he tried it he ran straight into a green sweater. Those nearest heard an amazed “Whoof!” from Kruger, and then he was borne back and placed expeditiously on the turf, and a chuckling referee added another yard to the distance to be gained. But the best came when the first team, having wrested the ball from a surprised second, sprang to the assault. Cochran gained three past left guard and then Tarver called on McNatt. Gil said afterwards that the full-back got to him so quick that he almost missed the pass. Bob and Stacey did their part, and then a green streak passed between them, smashed into a luckless second team guard, caromed off a tackle and proceeded down the field, spurning the backs much as a cannon ball might treat the attentions of so many toy terriers, and, with an easy if ungraceful stride, ate up the intervening sixty-seven yards and deposited the pigskin squarely behind the goal. After which McNatt seated himself on the ball and waited for the others to come along.

Not for seasons of football on Alton Field had there been such a wild paean of delight as arose to the blue October sky just then! Reversing the usual order, McNatt had arisen from the ridiculous to the sublime, and Alton loved him for it! Joy and laughter were mingled in that long-continued outburst, continued since the sight of the elongated McNatt seated unconcernedly on the football down there moved the onlookers to new merriment. Cochran kicked a goal and the game went on, and the audience breathlessly awaited another enlivening spectacle. But another such incident would have been too much for the Law of Probabilities. McNatt smashed and wormed and twisted his way through the second team’s astonished line time after time for good gains, but when eleven outraged and argus-eyed youths are watching for the appearance of one green-sweatered enemy that enemy hasn’t much chance of escaping detection and detention, and for that reason McNatt didn’t again get free that afternoon. But he did gain every time he was given the ball, which is glory enough, while the fact that the opponents played for McNatt every time the lines heaved afforded Cochran and Mawson – or, later, Willard – an absence of attention that enabled them to do wonders.

Before the end of the game McNatt was taken out, not, it appeared, because he was exhausted or had lost any of his enthusiasm, but probably because Jake, the trainer, willed it so. After that he sat on the bench, surrounded by admirers, and explained gravely his views on Science as a Foundation for Football.

Yes, the advent of Felix Adelbert McNatt was certainly a sensation, and as such it served as a topic of conversation for not only the rest of that day but for many days following. After the first flush of delight occasioned by the finding of such a wonder, captious ones asked why McNatt hadn’t been discovered before, dwelling on the fact that he had been there right along and could have been discovered as long ago as the season before last if those in charge of football had known their business! But on the whole the School was much too well pleased to indulge in criticism. The one weak position on the team had been strengthened and a victory over Kenly loomed large. Willard received almost tearful thanks from Joe and warm commendations from the coach. The latter’s evident gratitude gave Willard the courage to offer advice. “You see, sir,” he confided, “McNatt’s got a lot of queer ideas about how football ought to be played, and he really agreed to join the team because he hopes to – to sort of reform things. He asked me if you were the sort of man he could explain his theories to and I said you were. So, if you don’t mind, I guess it would be a pretty good plan to sort of – sort of humor him, Mr. Cade, and let him tell you about Science.”

“He can tell me about Science and Art, too, if he will play the way he played yesterday!” replied the coach emphatically. “And if he can talk the way he tackles I’ll listen to him all night. And you may tell him so!”

But McNatt was biding his time. He didn’t mean to spoil his chances to put the game of football on a proper scientific basis by introducing his ideas too early. He meant to erect a firm basis first, to show by the scientific playing of a single position the plausibility of his theory that all positions were capable of like treatment, both individually and collectively in the form of the team. Also, he wanted to establish cordial relations with the powers, the coach and captain, before beginning his proselytism. Meanwhile, as Willard learned later, he devoted much time to further study of the subject, collecting much data and drawing interesting if not altogether convincing conclusions from it. As it turned out, McNatt was far too busy playing his position as it should be played to do much more that season than drive the entering wedge of reform into the football situation. He spent all one evening in Mr. Cade’s rooms on one occasion and expounded to his heart’s content, referring at intervals to a wealth of memoranda, and was listened to courteously and patiently. And on numerous other occasions he held forth to such as would listen, and, while his audience was secretly amused, outwardly his remarks met sober and reverent attention. Perhaps some day – even when you are reading this story for all I know – McNatt will be hailed as the Prophet of Scientific Football and the game will be played according to his ideas. In which case, all I can say is that I shan’t care to see it!