Right Tackle Todd

“Yes, sir.” Lowell accepted the folded sheet and dropped it in an inside pocket. “I’ll see him in math class. That all? Then I’ll beat it.”

Jim went out for practice that afternoon determined to make good. He had thought a great deal about what Mr. Cade had said the evening before and as a result the task ahead of him seemed now vastly more important and much more worth-while. He had taken the coach’s praise with a generous pinch of salt, but it had encouraged him nevertheless. To-day he showed up a great deal better than he had at any time since his misunderstanding with Clem, and those who played opposite him on the second team had their hands more than full. Both he and Sam Tennyson were relieved before the last period of the scrimmage game was over and sent off behind the north stand by Mr. Cade.

“I want you fellows to take a ball,” said the coach, “and practice some long passes. Start in at about twenty yards and increase the distance gradually. I want you, Tennyson, to get the overhand spiral throw down pat. You know how it should be made. Go ahead and learn to make it. Take plenty of time and try for accuracy and precision first. Speed and distance can come later. You, Todd, practice catching. I’ve seen you make several very good catches of a passed ball. See if you can’t do still better. Learn to take them high and make them sure. Put in about twenty minutes of it, but quit before that if your arms get tired. Go ahead.”

Sam Tennyson, who was a tall and fairly heavy youth with light-brown hair and a pair of sharp dark eyes, accompanied Jim in silence after he had obtained a ball. The full-back was a quiet chap at best, and just now he had less to say than usual. About all he did say as they made their way around the empty stand was: “Something up, Slim. Johnny’s got a hunch.”

Wednesday again the pair went through the passing practice and spent nearly a half-hour at it this time. Tennyson, who had not been called on before for the trick, progressed more slowly than did Jim. He got along well enough until he tried to speed the throw. Then the ball’s flight became erratic and Jim had to run three, four or five yards out of position to get it. But Tennyson had a long arm and plenty of strength and, throwing slowly, could make the oval travel a remarkable distance. The work went on each day, sometimes before scrimmage, sometimes after. On Friday, since there was only one scrimmage period, and the first-string players were dismissed a half-hour earlier than usual, Mr. Cade himself took Jim and Sam Tennyson in charge, leaving the argument between the substitutes and the second to Mr. Lake and Mr. Myers. When he had watched two throws he stopped the performance and coached Sam in holding the ball and in spinning it as it was shot away. “Now,” he said, “go back another five yards, Todd. What do you make that distance?”

“About forty, sir.”

“Or forty-five. All right. Now, Tennyson, elbow close to your side, and don’t forget to whip your fingers under. Just think that you’re pegging a baseball from the plate to second. It’s the same sort of a motion: a throw from the ear, as the catchers call it. That’s not bad, but you went three yards at least to the left. That’s another thing, by the way. If you must shoot to one side of the receiver, shoot to the right – your right, not his. But try to land the ball in his hand.”

Presently he walked over and joined Jim. “I think you’d better put your hand up and signal,” he said. “Better get used to doing it. Don’t signal, though, until you know that the thrower has the ball and is looking for you. If you do you advertise to the other team. That’s it, only stretch your hand just as high as you can. You’ve got a long arm, Todd, and you might as well make use of it. Remember that the thrower has to find his target quick. By the way, I see you’ve taken the bandage off your fingers. Did it bother you in catching?”

“No, sir, but the fingers are all right now.”

“Think you could catch if you had your four fingers bandaged?”

Jim observed the coach doubtfully. It sounded like a joke, but Mr. Cade’s face was quite serious. “I don’t know, sir,” answered Jim, “but I guess I could.”

“We’ll try it Monday. That’s the way. Take them high and pull them down quick. And freeze onto them hard, Todd. Never mind about being too particular on the throw. I don’t believe you’ll be on that end of it much. I want you to specialize on catching. You see, I’ve had you in view all the season as the man who might work in nicely at the other end of a long pass. You might drop around this evening after nine and I’ll tell you how I mean to use you a week from to-morrow.”

Saturday’s game with Oak Grove went about as predicted. The opponent was never dangerous, and this year, while the visitors put up rather a sterner defense than usual, Alton had no difficulty in scoring two touchdowns in the first period and one in the third and in keeping her own goal-line uncrossed. In fact, Oak Grove never had the ball inside the Gray-and-Gold’s thirty-yard line save in the last quarter when the Alton team was composed almost entirely of first and second substitutes. Pep Kinsey, who acted as quarter-back during three periods, was the individual star for the home team, making some dazzling run-backs of punted balls and twice scampering around the Oak Grove end for long gains. Besides that he ran the team smoothly and fast, getting plays off with a celerity that more than once found the opponents completely unprepared. Frost made two touchdowns and Sam Tennyson one, and Steve Whittier kicked two goals. Steve had rather an off-day in the backfield and yielded his place to Larry Adams when the last half began. It was in Steve’s absence that Kinsey missed the try-for-point after that third touchdown. The final score was consequently 20 to 0.

Nothing new was shown by Alton, although Oak Grove opened her bag of tricks wide and tried some weird plays in an effort to score in the fourth period. There was a good deal of punting, with honors fairly even, and each team tried the passing game, Alton making good four out of seven attempts and Oak Grove succeeding five times out of fourteen. Two of Alton’s passes were pulled down by Jim, and only a watchful defense prevented him from getting away on long runs. He showed an almost uncanny ability to get into position unnoticed and on each occasion that the ball was thrown to him he caught unchallenged. Only alertness and speed on the part of the Oak Grove backs spoiled his chances of long gains. Jim put himself back on the football map that afternoon and finally and conclusively ousted Willard Sawyer from the position of right tackle. This fact was not known to Jim then, but he may have guessed it. Others did. Jim was a terror on offense and as solid as a stone wall on defense. He raced his end nip-and-tuck down the field under punts and was into every play it was possible for him to reach. In brief, Jim had a big day, and if half a dozen other Alton men hadn’t played far better than they had played before that season he might easily have shared the honors with Pep Kinsey. But the Gray-and-Gold eleven had found its stride and Jim’s work was no better than that of several others.

In the last period there was a brief scare when Oak Grove, fighting valiantly and desperately against what was almost a third-string Alton team, hurling forward-passes of all sorts to all directions, faking passes to hide off-tackle plays, using criss-crosses of every conceivable variety, worked her way to Alton’s twenty-seven yards, where, meeting at last with denial, she was forced to a well-nigh hopeless try-at-goal from the thirty-six yards. The attempt failed widely and she had shot her bolt.

That game added more enthusiasm at Alton, and the mass meeting in the auditorium that evening attained unprecedented heights of emotion. There were speeches and songs and cheers, and noise and confusion enough to gladden the heart of the most irrepressible freshman. And after the adjournment the whole affair was reënacted with only slightly less enthusiasm in front of Academy Hall, the evening’s program ending with a large and certainly hilarious parade around the campus and, finally, to Coach Cade’s residence. Learning at last, after repeated demands for a speech, that the coach had gone home over Sunday, the parade disintegrated, its component parts returning to their various domiciles in small, but far from silent, groups.

On Monday the final week of preparation for the great battle started with a hard practice for all hands. No one was spared and no one, it seemed, desired to be. The second earned a broad niche in the local Hall of Fame that afternoon if only for emerging from the two periods of fighting without casualties. The first team had found itself and was there to show the world!

CHAPTER XX

CLEM DELIVERS A LETTER

Tuesday and Wednesday rushed by. Thursday lagged. Friday stood still, quite as though Time had stopped doing business. Saturday —

Practice had been secret since the Tuesday following the New Falmouth game. That is to say, patriotic lower class fellows had daily, between the hours of three and five, patrolled the outskirts of Alton Field, warning away inquisitive townsfolk and intrusive small boys. Since it was quite possible to stand on Meadow street and see from a distance the players moving about on the gridiron, the word secret in relation to practice was an exaggeration. Also, any resident of senior or freshman dormitory whose window looked westward could, had he wished, have solved the most puzzling of the plays in which the Gray-and-Gold team was seeking to perfect itself. However, protracted occupancy of dormitory windows overlooking the field was frowned upon during the latter part of the season, and, on the whole, Coach Cade was well enough satisfied with the concealment allowed him and his works. Since the same conditions had prevailed so long as football had been played at Alton and no precious secret had ever reached the enemy the coach’s confidence seemed well founded.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw long sessions for the squad, the emphasis being laid on precision and smoothness. Tuesday evening it was rumored that the first team had scored four times on the scrub, and the school found new cause for enthusiasm. Thursday witnessed a let-up in the work. Individual instruction occupied much of the time. Later there was a period of formation drill, a long practice for the kickers and, finally, a short tussle with the second team in which no effort was made to run up the score. There was, so report had it, much aerial football that day. Practice was over early and some thirty youths, unaccustomed to finding themselves foot-loose at half-past four, wondered what to do with themselves. Of course the usual evening sessions – “bean-tests” the players called them – were continued right up to and including Friday.

Friday was, from the football man’s point of view, a day without rime or reason. Save that the players reported in togs at four o’clock and trotted around a while in signal drill, what time the rest of the school looked on and practiced cheers and songs, there was nothing to do and too much time to do it. The second team made its final appearance and staged a ten-minute scrimmage with an eleven composed of its own substitutes and a few first team third-stringers. Then it performed the sacred rites incident to disbanding, cheered and was cheered, marched in solemn file around a pile of discarded – and incidentally worthless – apparel and at last, followed by the audience, still noisy, cavorted back to the gymnasium.

With nothing to do save await the morrow and what it might bring, Jim, like most of the other players, felt suddenly let-down. Although not of a nervous temperament, he found it extremely difficult to sit still and even more difficult to fix his thoughts on any one subject for more than a half-minute at a time. Supper was hectic, marked by sudden outbursts of laughter and equally sudden lapses to silence. Every one made a great pretense of hunger, but only a few of the veterans ate normally. Coach Cade seemed more quiet and thoughtful than usual. At Jim’s end of the long table Lowell Woodruff, ably aided by Billy Frost, managed to keep things enlivened, but even so Jim was relieved when he could push back his chair and return to Number 15. Pending the “bean-test,” he tried to study and failed, tried to write a letter to Webb Todd and again failed. Perhaps had he been able to find the letter that Webb had written to him, enclosing the two-dollar bill, he might have obtained sufficient inspiration, but that letter had mysteriously disappeared. At seven-thirty he went around to the gymnasium, but even Coach Cade failed him to some extent, for the Coach had little to say about plays and a good deal about playing and sent them away at eight with instructions to keep their minds off football and go to bed promptly at ten o’clock; advice far easier to give than to act on.

Jim, realizing how futile was the effort to think of anything save football, got his rules book and began to turn the well-thumbed leaves. If there was anything contained therein that he didn’t know by heart and couldn’t have recited almost word for word he failed to find it, and he was very glad when Clem’s hurried steps sounded in the corridor and the door flew open before him. Any sort of companionship, even unharmonious, was welcome to-night.

Clem closed the door behind him and gave a triumphant grunt that sounded like “Huh!” Jim, looking up inquiringly, thought that his room-mate looked awfully funny. By funny, Jim, of course, meant strange. Still keeping what amounted to an accusing glare on Jim, Clem advanced in a peculiarly remorseless manner to his side of the table, threw one leg over his chair, lowered himself into place and folded his elbows on the table edge. Then:

“You’re a fine piece of cheese, aren’t you?” he demanded.

There was no insult in the words as Clem said them. On the contrary they seemed to have an undertone of affection, and Jim was more puzzled than ever, and found the other’s gaze increasingly disconcerting. The fact must have shown on his countenance, for Clem went on triumphantly: “No wonder you look guilty, you – you blamed old fraud!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” grumbled Jim, uncomfortable from the fact that he knew he was looking guilty in spite of a clear conscience.

“I’ll soon tell you,” announced Clem. “I went over to Art’s after supper; Art Landorf, you know. Woodie was there. When I was coming away he asked me to give you a piece of paper. Said Johnny Cade had given it to him a week ago to hand to you. Something you’d left at Johnny’s one night. I asked him what it was and he said he didn’t know, but he pulled it out of a mess of other truck in a pocket and handed it to me.”

Jim flushed a little. “What was it?” he asked uneasily.

“I guess you know what it was, you poor prune. It was a letter from that yegg friend of yours, Webb Todd.”

“Oh!” murmured Jim.

“Yes, ‘oh’!” mimicked Clem unfeelingly. “It had some sort of a crazy cubist drawing on one side and I naturally opened it. Of course when I saw it was a letter I tried not to read it, but I had to read some of it because my eyes lighted right on it.” Clem looked so defiant as to appear almost threatening. Jim nodded.

“That’s all right,” he muttered.

“You bet it’s all right!” Clem was getting truculent. “And now I’m going to read the whole of it, and you’re going to sit still and listen to it!” He drew the somewhat soiled rectangular object from his pocket and shook it challengingly at the other.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” objected Jim weakly.

Clem’s laugh was derisive. “You go to thunder! Anyway, I read the part that matters, so – ” He hesitated and tossed the letter across the table. Jim picked it up without more than a glance and buried it under a blue book. “He says there ‘I wasn’t meaning to swipe that money, like I told you, kid, and I’m sorry I done it. I ain’t a thief – ’ and a lot more guff. Now, then, what about it?”

“Well, what about it?” asked Jim with returning spirit. “I told you, but you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Yes, I know,” acknowledged Clem somewhat shamefacedly. “Gosh, I wanted to, Jim, but it looked awfully fishy. And I asked Old Tarbox if a stranger had been up here that afternoon and he didn’t remember one. He said he might have got by without his noticing, but it didn’t seem to me that any one could fail to notice that queer-looking guy! But, hang it, why didn’t you show me that letter when you got it? Think I’ve had a jolly time with you treating me like dirt? Why – ”

“Isn’t that the way you treated me?” asked Jim, smiling faintly.

“No, sir, I treated you decently! Anyway, I tried to, but you wouldn’t let me, confound you. Didn’t you intend to show me that letter at all, Jim?”

Jim shook his head.

“Well,” exclaimed Clem in outraged tones, “then all I can say is that you’re the doggonedest, meanest, false-pridest – ”

“You’re another!” Jim was grinning now, suddenly feeling very warm and happy, and somewhat foolish. Clem grinned back. Then he laughed uncertainly.

“You blamed old idiot!” he said affectionately.

Jim blinked. “Guess I was to blame, Clem,” he said reflectively. “Maybe I’d ought to have made you believe me; licked you until you did or – or something. But it didn’t seem right you should think I was a thief, even if it did look like I was, and so I – I got sort of uppity and – and – ”

“Don’t blame you,” growled Clem. “Ought to have punched my head. Wish you had. I don’t know what made me so rotten mean. Anyhow, I’m mighty sorry and – and I beg your pardon, old son.”

“Aw, shut up,” said Jim. “Guess we both acted loony. Let’s forget it.”

Clem nodded. “Hope you will. I wouldn’t care to think that you were holding it in for me, Jim. Funny thing is,” he went on in tones that held embarrassment, “I don’t know whether I got to thinking you didn’t – didn’t do it or whether I got to not caring whether you did or didn’t, but I’d have called quits long ago, two or three days after, I guess, if you’d given me a chance.”

“Well, as long as you were thinking me a thief – ”

“But I could see how most any fellow might make a foozle like that,” interrupted Clem eagerly. “I said that here was that fellow you’d known and been fond of nagging you for money, and you not having any, and there was that money in the suit-case which you knew mighty well I’d give you if you asked for it – ”

“I suppose you’d do it yourself?” inquired Jim innocently.

“Sure! That is – ” Then Clem found Jim grinning broadly. “Well, I might. How do I know? How does any one know what he will do when faced by – er – by sudden temptation and all that sort of thing?”

“No, you wouldn’t,” answered Jim. “Neither would I. Webb could have starved. But, just the same, and I think it’s sort of funny, too, I didn’t think anything about lying! Seems like stealing and lying aren’t much different, don’t it?”

“Well, yes, but, gosh, a fellow’s got to tell a whopper sometimes to protect a friend, hasn’t he? And that’s what you did.”

“I guess a lie’s a lie, just the same,” responded Jim regretfully, “and I didn’t feel right about telling that one to the police captain that time. Only, I didn’t want Webb to go to jail. Gee, I don’t know!”

“You needn’t have told him you gave the money to Webb, as far as that goes. They couldn’t have proved it on him if I hadn’t said I’d lost it.”

“Gee, I never thought of that, Clem! But it was all so sort of sudden that I didn’t have much time to think. Lying comes mighty easy, don’t it?”

Well, it was just like old times in Number 15 that evening. There was a lot to be said, things that ought to have been said days and days ago and things that had been unthought of before, and almost before Jim knew that it was as late as nine the ten o’clock bell rang. Even after they were in bed the talk kept on, as:

“Say, Jim, it’s a shame to keep you awake, but – ”

“Gee, I ain’t sleepy. I’d rather talk than not.”

“Well, about Janus. You know we were speaking of it a while back. You’ll join, eh?”

“I don’t know, Clem. I ain’t – I’m not much for society doings. Gee, I don’t even own a dress-suit!”

“You don’t need a dress-suit, you gump! I’m going to put you through next week, and there’s an end to it.”

“Well, if you want me to, all right. Father got rid of some timberland the other day that he’s been trying to sell for three or four years. He didn’t get quite all he wanted, but he did pretty well. So I guess I can afford this Janus thing.”

Still later: “Jim, you asleep?”

“Yes. What’ll you have?”

“Listen. About Mart coming back – ”

“I know. That’s all right.”

“How do you mean, all right?”

“Why, you fellows can have this room or I’ll find some one else to come in here. Just as long as I don’t have to pay the whole rent – ”

“You make me sick! I never had any notion of going in with Mart. He doesn’t expect me to. I just said that because you made me mad, you silly ass!”

“Oh! Well, I didn’t – understand. Still, you mustn’t feel like you’ve got to turn Mart down, Clem.”

“I don’t. I’m not turning him down because he hasn’t even suggested it. If you can’t talk sense you’d better go to sleep.”

“All right,” chuckled Jim. “Good night.”

Some time later Clem awoke in the darkness to find groans and heart-breaking gasps coming from Jim’s bed. After a moment of sleepy concern Clem went across and shook his chum into consciousness. “Hey, wake up! What’s the matter, old son? Got the nightmare?”

“Gee!” muttered Jim. “That you, Clem? Was I making a row?”

“Were you! Well, rather! What – ”

“Gee, it was awful! Sam threw the ball to me and I was all set for it when the crazy thing began running around my head in circles and making a noise like – like an automobile and I couldn’t catch it! Every time I’d make a grab it would dodge out of the way! And about a hundred fellows with big white mittens on stood and laughed at me. Gee, it was fierce!”

“White mittens?” chuckled Clem. “Well, you did have the Willies for fair! Calm yourself, old son, and nuzzle down again. It must be mighty close to daylight.”

CHAPTER XXI

ALTON VS. KENLY HALL

The players trundled away from school that Saturday morning at ten o’clock, cheered to the echo by some three hundred and fifty football-mad adherents. The rest of the student body left on the twelve-eight train, to which an extra day-coach had been added. Clem, sharing a seat with Landorf and Imbrie – Imbrie sat on the arm – beguiled the first part of the journey with the morning papers. Both the Alton paper and that published in the near-by city gave a flattering amount of space to the Alton-Kenly Hall game. Not unnaturally, the home journal predicted a victory for the Gray-and-Gold. The other favored Kenly. Some writer signing himself “Sporticus” told his city readers that he had seen both Alton and Kenly Hall in action and that it would take a much better prophet than he pretended to be to pick certainly the winner of to-day’s contest.

“Alton,” he continued, “has a fine-looking team that is well grounded in the rudiments, plays with unusual speed and has been developed steadily since the first of the season with the single purpose of reaching the apex of its power at two o’clock this afternoon. Starting with a practically green team, Coach ‘Johnny’ Cade has built around a nucleus of four veterans an aggregation that has shown a lot of football gumption and a good deal of strength during the last three games. The Gray-and-Gold looks to be better on attack than on defense, but the last week may have brought about an improvement in the latter department, and her line may prove strong enough to stop the efforts of the Kenly backs. If it can Alton will stand a good chance to cop the contest, for I like her attack. Rumor credits her with having developed a nice bunch of running and passing plays that have not, so far, been shown. Whether she has anything that will prevail against a defense as experienced and steady as Kenly’s, only developments can prove. Alton’s center-trio is quite as good as Kenly’s. Cheswick, at center, combines weight with speed and has shown himself a master at diagnosing the opponent’s plays. Captain Gus Fingal, right guard, is playing an even better game than last season when he was a large, sharp thorn in the side of the enemy. Powers, the other guard, lacks Fingal’s weight but is remarkably steady. He also has speed. Speed, in fact, is the outstanding feature of the Gray-and-Gold line from end to end. At tackles Alton will play Roice and either Sawyer or Todd. Sawyer has seen more service, but Todd has been coming fast for the last fortnight and, in spite of lack of weight, looks to have the call for the right side position. Levering and Borden, ends, have not shown anything spectacular so far except an ability to move fast, and they sure do that. In the backfield Alton will start ‘Pep’ Kinsey at quarter. Kinsey doesn’t look like a quarter-back, but he has held down the job satisfactorily most of the season and seems to get more out of his team than his alternate, Latham. Whittier and Frost are two good half-backs who will have quite a lot to say for themselves. Whittier is rather more of the defensive back than ‘Billy’ Frost, but he, too, is capable of gaining if given the ball. Frost is the lad for Kenly to keep an eye on, for he can hit the line like a five-ton truck and is a wonder at running. He will also be on the receiving end of some of the forward heaves that Alton is expected to pull off. The remaining back, Tennyson, is something of an unknown quantity, since he took the place of Crumb late in the season when the latter was injured.”