The Half-Back Part 21

"h.e.l.lo, Sophy," cried that youth, "have you come to initiate us into the Sacred Order of Hullabalooloo? Dump those books off the chair and be seated. March is such a beastly untidy chap," he sighed; "he _will_ leave his books around that way despite all I can say!"

"These books, Out," replied Blair, "bear the name of one West on their t.i.tle pages, and, in fact, on a good many other pages, too. What say you?" A look of intense surprise overspread the face of Outfield.

"How pa.s.sing strange," he muttered. "And is there a chemistry note-book among them?"

"I think so. Here is one that contains mention of C2H6O, H2SO4, and other mystic emblems which appear very tiresome; it also contains several pages filled with diagrams of the yard and plans of Pompeii before the devastation."

"Yes," answered West, "that's my chem. note-book. It's been missing ever since Tuesday. But those are not diagrams of the yard, my soph.o.m.oric friend; they're plans of the golf course."

"Well, just as you say. Catch! Say, March, I've just heard that you've made the Varsity. I'm most splendidly glad, my young friend. You make three Hillton fellows on the team. There's Selkirk, and you, and yours tenderly; and we'll show them what's what when Yates faces us. And I'll tell you a little fact that may interest you. Prince won't last until the Yates game, my lad. He's going silly in his ankle. But don't say I told you, for of course it's a dead secret. And if he gives out you'll get the posish. And then if you can make another one of those touch-downs in the Yates game--"

"Shut up, please, Blair!" groaned Joel.

"Nonsense, you're all right. I heard b.u.t.ton saying last week that nothing short of a ten-story house could have stopped you that day."

"He must think me an awful fool," responded Joel. "The idea of not remembering that I was off-side!"

"Pshaw; why, the first time I played against Eustace at Hillton I tackled the referee in mistake for the man with the ball! And threw him, too! And sat on his head!" West grinned.

"And they _did_ say, Blair, that you were feeling aggrieved against that referee because he had called you down for holding. And I _have_ heard that you weren't such a fool as you looked."

"Nothing in it, my boy," answered Wesley Blair airily. "Mere calumny. Am I one to entertain feelings of anger and resentment against my fellow men? Verily, very much not. But he put me off, did that referee chap.

He was incapable of accepting the joke. What is more depressing than a fellow who can't see a joke, March?"

"Two fellows who can't see--et cetera," answered Joel promptly.

"Wrong, very wrong. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm quite certain it isn't that. Well, I must be going. _I_ have studies. _I_ don't waste the golden moments in idleness. I grind, my young and thoughtless friends, I grind. Well, I only came up to congratulate you, Mr. March, of Maine. I have done so. I now depart. Farewell! Never allow the mere fact of being off-side interfere with--"

Blair slammed the door just in front of a whizzing golf ball and clattered downstairs. Presently he appeared on the walk beneath the window and wiggled his fingers derisively with the thumb against a prominent feature of his face. But at the first squeak of the window being pushed up he disappeared around the corner.

Joel's days were now become very busy ones. Every morning he was awakened at seven, and at eight was required to be on hand at the training table for breakfast. The quarters were at Old's, a boarding house opposite the college yard, and here in a big, sunny front room the two long tables were laid with numerous great dishes of oatmeal or hominy, platters of smoking steak, chops or crisp bacon, plates of toast, while potatoes, usually baked, flanked the meat. The beverage was always milk, and tall pitchers of it were constantly filled and emptied during this as well as the other meals. And then there were eggs--eggs hard boiled, eggs soft boiled, eggs medium, eggs poached--until, at the end of the season, the mere mention of eggs caused Joel's stomach to writhe in disgust.

During breakfast disabilities were inquired after, men who were known to have nerves were questioned as to their night's rest, and orders for the day were given out. This man was instructed to see the doctor, another to interview the trainer, a third to report to the head coach. The meal over, save for a half hour of practice for the backs behind the gymnasium the men were free to give all their energies to lessons, and so hurried away to recitation hall or room.

At one o'clock the team a.s.sembled again for lunch, with books in hand, and at break-neck speed devoured the somewhat elaborate repast, each man rus.h.i.+ng in, eating, and rus.h.i.+ng out, with no attempt at sociability or heed to the laws of digestion.

Afternoon practice was at four o'clock. Individual practice was followed by team practice against an imaginary foe, and this in turn gave place to a line-up against the second eleven. Two stiff twenty-minute halves were played. Then again individuals were seized on by captain and coaches and put through paces to remedy some fault or other. And then the last player trots off the field, and the coaches, conversing earnestly among themselves, follow, and the day's work is done. There are still the bath and the rub-down and the weighing; but these are gone through with leisurely while the day's work is discussed and the coaches, circulating among the fellows, inflict an epilogue of criticism and instruction.

There remained usually the better part of an hour before dinner, and this period Joel spent in his room, where with the lamp throwing its glow over his shoulder, he strove to take his mind from the subject of tackling and starting, of punting and pa.s.sing, and fix it upon his studies for the morrow.

For life was far from being all play that fall--if hard practice and strict training can be called play!--and Joel found it necessary to occupy every moment not taken up by eating, sleeping, and practicing on the gridiron with hard study. It can scarcely be truthfully a.s.serted that Joel's lessons suffered by reason of his adherence to athletics, though a lecture now and then was slighted that he might use the time in pursuing some study that lack of leisure had necessitated his neglecting.

But a clear head, a good digestion, and racing blood render studying a pleasure rather than a task, and Joel found that, while giving less time than before to lessons, he learned them fully as well. One thing is certain: his standing in cla.s.s did not suffer, even when the coaches were more than usually severe. Joel's experience that fall, and many a time later, led him to conclude that the amount of outdoor athletics indulged in and the capability for study are in direct ratio.

West, too, was a most studious young gentleman that term, and began to pride himself on his recently discovered ability to learn. To be sure, golf was a hard taskmaster, but with commendable self-denial he did not allow it to interfere with his progress in cla.s.s. Both he and Joel had earned the name of being studious ere the end of the fall term, and neither of them resented it.

Unlike the preceding meal, dinner at the training table was a sociable and cheerful affair, when every man at the board tried his best to be entertaining, and when "shop," either study or football, was usually tabooed. The menu was elaborate. There were soup, two or three kinds of meat, a half dozen vegetables, sauces, the ever-present toast, pudding or cream, and plenty of fruit; and for drinkables, why, there was the milk, and sometimes light ale in lesser quant.i.ties. At one end of the table--whether head or foot is yet undecided--sat the captain, at the other end the head coach. Other coaches were present as well, and the trainer sat at the captain's left.

There was always lots of noise, for weighty things were seldom touched upon in the conversation, and jokes were given and taken in good part.

When all other means of amus.e.m.e.nt failed there were still the potatoes to throw; and a b.u.t.ter chip, well laden, can be tossed upward in such a manner that it will remain stuck more or less securely to the ceiling.

This is a trick that comes only with long practice, but any one may try it; and the ceiling above the training table that year was always well studded with suspended disks of crockery. Bread fights--so named because the ammunition is more likely to be potatoes--were extremely popular, and the dinner often came to an end with a pitched battle, in which coats were decorated from collar to hem with particles of that clinging vegetable.

His evenings usually belonged to Joel to spend as he wished, though not unfrequently a blackboard talk by the head coach or a lecture by some visiting authority curtailed them considerably. He had always to be in bed by ten o'clock.

But sleep sometimes, especially after a day of hard practice, did not readily come, and he often laid awake until midnight had sounded out on the deep-toned bell in the old church tower thinking over the events of the day, and wondering what fate, in the person of the head coach, held in view for him. And one night he awoke to find Outfield shaking him violently by the shoulder.

"Wh-what's the row?" he asked sleepily.

"You," answered Outfield. "You've been yelling '4, 9; 5, 7; 8, 6' for half an hour. What's the matter with you, anyhow?"

"The signals," muttered Joel, turning sleepily over, "that's a run around left end by left half-back. And don't forget to start when the ball's snapped. And jump high if you're blocked.

And--don't--forget--to--" Snore--snore! "Well," muttered West as he stumbled against an armchair and climbed into bed, "of all crazy games--"

But West was not in training and so possessed the faculty of going to sleep when his head struck the pillow. As a consequence the rest of his remark was never heard.

CHAPTER XX.

AN OLD FRIEND.

"MARCH! Joel March!"

Joel was striding along under the shadow of the chapel on his way from a recitation to Mayer and his room. The familiar tones came from the direction of the library, and turning he saw Stephen Remsen trotting toward him with no regard for the gra.s.s. Joel hurdled the knee-high wire barrier and strode to meet him. The two shook hands warmly, almost affectionately, in the manner of those who are glad to meet.

"March, I'm delighted to see you again! I was just going to look you up.

Which way were you going?"

"Up to the room. Can't you come up for a while? When'd you arrive? Are you going to stay now?"

"Third down!" laughed Remsen. "No gain! What a fellow you are for questions, March! I got in this morning, and I'm going to stay until after the Yates game. They telegraphed me to come and coach the tackles.

Instead of going to your room let's go to mine. I've taken a suite of one room and a closet at Dixon's on the avenue. I haven't unpacked my toothbrush yet. Come over with me and take lunch, and we'll talk it all over."

So Joel stuck his books under his arm and the two crossed the yard, traversing the quadrangle in front of University and debouching on to the avenue near where the tall shaft of the Soldiers' Monument gleams in the sunlight. But they did not wait until Remsen's room was gained to "talk it all over." Joel had lots to tell about the Hillton fellows whom he had not lost sight of: of how Clausen was captain of the freshman Eleven and was displaying a wonderful faculty for generals.h.i.+p; how West was still golfing and had at last met foemen worthy of his steel; how d.i.c.ky Sproule was in college taking a special course, and struggling along under popular dislike; how Whipple and Cooke were rooming together in Peck, the former playing on the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s team and going in for rowing, and the latter still the same idle, good-natured ignoramus, and liked by every fellow who knew him; how Digbee was grinding in Lanter with Somers; how Cartwright had joined the Glee Club; and how Christie had left college and gone into business with his father.

"And Cloud?" asked Remsen. "Have you seen him?"

"Yes, once or twice. I've heard that he was very well liked when he left St. Eustace last year. I dare say he has turned over a new leaf since his father died."

"Indeed? I hadn't heard of that."

"West heard it. He died last spring, and left Cloud pretty near penniless, they say. I have an idea that he has taken a brace and is studying more than he used to."

"The chap has plenty of good qualities, I suppose. We all have our bad ones, you know. Perhaps it only needed some misfortune to wake up the lad's better nature. They say virtue thrives best on homely fare, and, like lots of other proverbs, I guess it's sometimes true."

Then Remsen told of his visit to Hillton a few weeks previous. The Eleven this year was in pretty good shape, he thought; Greene, an upper middle man, was captain; they expected to have an easy time with St.

Eustace, who was popularly supposed to be in a bad way for veteran players. That same Greene was winning the golf tournament when he was there, Remsen continued, and the golf club was in better shape than ever before, thanks to the hard work of West, Whipple, Blair, and a few others in building it up.