Left Half Harmon

“Are there many of last season’s fellows left?” asked Willard.

“Six first-string chaps,” answered Bob. “Joe, Stacey Ross, Jack Macon, Gil Tarver, Arn Lake and myself. There is quite a bunch of good last year subs and second team fellows, though. And then there’s Mart!”

“Yes, and Mart’s going to try for something besides guard position this year,” remarked that youth. “With you and Joe holding down each side of center there’s no hope for me. Last season I lived in hope that Joe would get killed or that you’d be fired, but nothing happened. This thing of waiting around for dead men’s shoes is dull work!”

“What are you going after?” laughed Bob.

“I don’t know,” replied Martin discouragedly. “How’d I do as a full-back?”

“Great! Say, Mart, do something for me, will you? Go and tell Johnny to let you play full-back!”

“Oh, dry up, you big ape! I could play full-back as well as Steve Browne can.”

“Steve hasn’t a chance!”

“Who, then?”

“Search me! We’ve got to find someone. Steve’s a good chap, but he hasn’t the weight, speed, or fight for full-back. If we could buy Brand’s brother out of the Navy, now – ”

“Well, you did your best,” laughed Martin. “You got the right bag, but the wrong boy! Look here, Brand – ”

“I refuse to answer to that name,” said Willard haughtily.

“What’s the matter with it? It’s a perfectly good name. What I was about to say when so rudely interrupted – ”

“What I was about to say,” interjected Bob, “is that it would be a good plan to hurry up a bit and get ahead of some of this mob. If we don’t we’ll be waiting around until supper time for a shower!”

“Come on, then: stir your stumps, slow poke! I was going to say, Brand, that it’s your duty to either fill the full-back position yourself or find someone to fill it. You were – admitted to Alton on your representation that you were a full-back – ”

“‘Admitted’ is good!” jeered Willard.

“And you aren’t,” Martin proceeded, unheeding the interruption. “Fellows are asking Joe where Gordon Harmon is and Joe’s having an awful time explaining how the deal fell through. He’s told four quite different stories so far and is working on a fifth! You could save Joe a lot of mental worry, Brand, if you turned yourself into a star full-back.”

“I’m afraid I’m a bit light,” laughed Willard. “Maybe I could find a full-back for you, though, if the reward was big enough.”

“You’ll receive the undying gratitude of Joe and the key of the city.”

“Huh, I’ve seen the city!” said Willard.

The “city,” though, in spite of Willard’s sarcasm, was really a very nice one. Not, of course, that it was more than a town, and a small one at that, but it was clean and well laid out, with plenty of trees, lots of modestly attractive residences and a sufficiency of wide-awake stores. When Willard said he had seen it he was enlarging on the truth, for it was not until the day succeeding the remark that he really had a thorough look at it. Then Martin took him in tow and, since there were few recitations on Saturdays, they spent an hour or more roaming about it. There were two distinct shopping centers in Alton. One lay along Main Street a good half-mile from the Academy, and on the side streets adjacent, and one occupied two blocks on West Street, scarcely more than a long stone-throw from the school. The latter catered almost exclusively to the students, and the latter found few excuses for going further afield to make their purchases. Martin told Willard which of the nearby ice cream parlors had the best soda fountain, showed him which of the stationery stores was most popular, where he could buy haberdashery at fair prices, where to get his shoes shined if such an extravagant proceeding appealed to him, where the best barber shop was – even cautioning him against “the wop at the third chair who would shave your neck if you didn’t watch him” – and, in short, thoroughly initiated him into the mysteries of West Street buying. In school parlance, the locality was “Bagdad,” although the shops were never referred to as “bazaars.”

“You can get tick at any of them,” Martin explained, “but they’ll make it mighty uncomfortable for you if you don’t pay up every half-year, and faculty sort of frowns on running up bills. It’s better to pay cash if you can, Brand. Besides, you can usually jew ’em down if you have the money in your hand. Last spring Stacey Ross bought a suit over there at Girtle’s and they charged it to him at sixty dollars, and a fellow called ‘Poke’ Little went and paid cash for one just like it and got off for forty-seven-fifty. Stacey had a fit and went back and read the riot act. But the old geezer told him that ‘time was money’!” Martin chuckled. “In his case two months’ time was twelve dollars and a half! Stacey got even, though.”

“How?” asked Willard.

“Got a thin fellow named Patterson, a sophomore, to put the suit on and walk up and down the block for an hour one Saturday afternoon. The clothes hung all over Patterson and he looked like a scarecrow, and he carried a placard around his neck that said: ‘This suit was bought at Girtle’s.’ Old Girtle was furious and tried to get Patterson to go away. Offered him ten dollars, Patterson said, but it didn’t sound like Girtle! Anyhow, Patterson kept on walking up and down and about two dozen kids went with him and a lot of the fellows stood around and cheered and we had quite a fine moment! ‘Mac’ had Stacey on the carpet about it, but when Stacey explained Mac only smiled and let him go.”

“Is ‘Mac’ what you call the Principal?” asked Willard.

“Yes, it’s short for ‘Doctor Maitland McPherson.’ Have you met him yet? He’s a good sort, Mac is. There’s a story that some years back there was a wild westerner here from Wyoming or Arkansas or some of those places and he was talking one day in the corridor in Academy and Mac was in one of the classrooms right near, and this fellow – I forget his name; Smith, maybe – called him ‘the old Prince,’ and Mac overheard him and came out. ‘Were you referring to me, Smith?’ he asked. ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘And what was the name you gave me?’ ‘Prince, sir; that’s short for Principal.’ ‘Ah,’ said Mac. ‘Most ingenious! You may go on Hall Restriction one week for “int.”’ ‘Int’ is short for interest.”

Football affairs got straightened out that afternoon and Willard found himself in C Squad with some twenty or so other candidates whose knowledge of football ranged from fair to middling. Only the simpler exercises were indulged in and the hour-and-a-half period stretched out interminably. The day was unseasonably warm and the bored youth who had C Squad in charge was unable to work up much enthusiasm. Willard was heartily glad when the session was over. He presumed that a certain amount of catching and passing was beneficial to him, but he mildly resented spending an hour and a half at it. Joe Myers showed every indication of acceding to Willard’s request that he be allowed to stand on his own feet, for so far Joe had paid no attention to the newcomer during practice. There were times this afternoon when Willard rather wished that he hadn’t been so independent. He would not have resented it a bit had Joe yanked him out of that beginner’s squad and put him where he could have worked with something besides his hands! By five o’clock, when the end came, Willard was sick of the sight and the feel of a football!

That evening, however, when he accompanied Joe and Martin and Bob to the Broadway Theater, the moving picture house patronized by the school, Joe inquired most solicitously about Willard’s progress in practice. He did not, though, seem much concerned when Willard hinted that he was wasting his time learning how to pass a football. “It is dreary work, isn’t it?” said Joe cheerfully. “Well, there won’t be much more of it, Brand. You’ll get into formations next week. By the way, you want to try for half-back, don’t you? Hm. That’s so. Hm. Too bad you’re so light. Ever try playing end?”

Willard answered that he never had, whereupon Joe remarked: “’S ’at so?” in an absent way and said he hoped there’d be a good comedy at the theater!

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.