Albertus T. Dudley

“ A burst of spontaneous applause smote the timbers of the roof.
“Wasn’t that great!” cried Poole, turning with glowing face to Lindsay. “Why, if Durand had smashed him on the floor out there, he’d have broken every bone in the fellow’s body. That’s the bully thing about Durand: he always knows what he’s about. What a quarter-back he’d make if he were only big enough for the game! Just think what he’d be if he were as big as you are!”
“A second Nowell,” said Tompkins.
“Such a fellow would have a reputation in school, wouldn’t he?” asked Wolcott. ”

“ Lindsay’s was one of those temperaments which kindle slowly from within; the internal fire must burn fiercely before the blaze appears. The captain’s words appealed to him and stirred him; and yet as his eye rested on the gray flannel shirt, neat and fresh though it looked with the harmonious black tie, and eminently appropriate as it really was to the work that Laughlin was on his way to do, Marchmont’s sneers at the “coal-heaver captain,” and sweeping condemnation of all attempts to tie up 40socially “such fellows and fellows of our class,” came instantly to his mind. ”

“ Later in the day Wolcott had a practice hour with Marchmont.
“I see you’re getting thick with Laughlin,” observed Marchmont, as he adjusted the strings of his mandolin. “Going in for football?”
“He wants me to try,” answered Lindsay, non-committal.
“I hope you may like it,” returned Marchmont. “The idea of lying in the mud with two or three foul, sweaty porkers clutching me by the neck doesn’t appeal to me. There’s one good thing about athletics for such fellows.”
“What’s that?”
“They get a bath a good deal more often than they otherwise would. Shall we try something new to-day?” ”

“ Red-legs said something, the referee nodded, the captains hurried to their men, sweaters came off, headguards went on, the players scattered to their places. When the field cleared itself of sweater bearers, sponge holders, and water-pail carriers, the Hillbury side was singing its well-learned song of defiance which Seaton was straining its vocal chords to drown. The Hillbury tackle was propping the ball with a bunch of moist earth for the kick-off, and the Seaton eleven was sprinkled over the field with their backs to wind and sun. ”

“ Instantly Laughlin’s words came back to him, “It is a great thing to win a Hillbury game; it’s fine just to play in one!” The gymnasium suddenly stretched to the dimensions of a football field; the circle of good-natured spectators swelled to a mighty crowd, filling the benches, tier on tier all about the great rectangle, enthusiastic, wild, hoarse with cheering; and in the centre, watched by thousands of eyes, he stood, Wolcott Lindsay, holding his place in the line of red. ”

“ It amounts to an offer to get me into college, keep me there, and find me a job when I get out. All I have to do is to play football.”
“Going?” asked Wolcott, laughing.
“Going!” repeated Laughlin, as he snapped himself up into a sitting position on the sofa and stared reproachfully at his questioner. “Not if I know myself! There isn’t money enough in the whole institution to buy me. And what’s more, I’m not going to a place where they do business in that way. I’d rather not go to college at all than hire myself out to play football.” ”

“ Then slowly the athlete gathered headway again for the new descent and the new rise to another balance. It was no less the accuracy in calculating the momentum to be gained in the downward rush and spent in the upward rise than the grace and strength and deliberateness of the motions that gave the performance its perfect finish.
“That was just right!” Tompkins was saying, as the applause died away. ”

“ He knew exactly the place for Wolcott Junior, democratic, cosmopolitan, of high standard of scholarship, with a system of government tending to develop moral independence, and boasting a history rich in names of men of action and service. It happened that the merits which the loyal alumnus ascribed to Seaton were precisely those which Mr. Lindsay thought it most important that a school should possess. ”

“ But Wolcott kept both his temper and his wits. When a new trick was used against him, he devised a way of meeting it. He learned to hold his head up long enough to detect the course of the play, and safely down when he went for the ball; to start like a flash without false moves; to strike his opponent, with his feet not one behind the other or in each other’s way, but well apart and strongly braced; to fall, when a heavy man tried to flatten him, not helpless with legs and arms outstretched, but on his hands and knees in a crawling position ”

“ And while Wolcott trotted slowly away toward the Hillbury gymnasium, the trainer continued, as if his interruption needed excuse: “It’s risky for ’em to be hanging round in sweaty clothes after a game like that; but they will do it. You have to watch ’em all the time, if you want to keep ’em up to the mark. They’re boys, not men, and it’s sometimes pretty hard to make ’em take proper care of themselves.” ”

“ Brayton began to speak, and the formal phrase on Wolcott’s lips took flight.
“Yes, as players they may not—I say may not—have been the equals of the football heroes of to-day; but your heroes of to-day will have to be something more than football players to match the work some of these little fellows are doing now.” ”

“ At first Dave counted, afterward Wolcott. Each time, however, the old player, in spite of his weight, got off first and was the first to strike the wall.
“I beat you,” said Laughlin, reproachfully, “and they call me slow.”
“I’ll learn it,” declared Wolcott, resolutely.
“I don’t doubt you will,” Laughlin said, as they resumed their seats, “for you’re naturally quick. It isn’t all the game by a long shot, but it’s much better to start right. The same holds true about tackling. You don’t want to make a single bad tackle the whole season through. ”

“ You really must see them together. They’re the pride of the menagerie.”
At this moment Poole brought up the fugitive again, and standing him beside his brother, asked Mr. Lindsay to tell which he had first met. And while Mr. Lindsay stood in puzzled amusement, there was a scream from a near-by locomotive, and the cheer leaders began shouting through their megaphones again: “Keep off the track! This is not our train! This is the train for Boston! Keep off the track!”
“That’s my train,” said Mr. Lindsay.
“Come back with us and see the celebration!” cried Wolcott. ”

“ We have been fortunate here for many years in having no serious accidents. The most incapacitating accidents this season have been muscle bruises, generally called ‘Charley Horse,’ which, while in no sense permanent and, as the surgeons would put it, with a distinctly favorable prognosis, cripple a man’s speed so much as to make it almost impossible to use him if he is a player in the backfield. For this reason Yale’s backs in the Harvard game were different from those who faced Princeton a week before. ”

“ Milliken was the sledge hammer most successfully used to smash the Harvard line, though Buist also proved no slouch in pushing the pigskin forward. Laughlin was as invincible as usual, while Lindsay, Seaton’s new left guard, put up an especially lively, scrappy game, until he was carried off the field near the end of the second half, with the blood streaming down his face. It is to be hoped that his injuries won’t keep him permanently off the gridiron, as he seems to be the great find of the season. ”

“ Laughlin went whistling on to his room and his lessons.
“Snow shovellers and furnace cleaners!” thought Lindsay, bitterly. “Those are the fellows who make football players. I guess March isn’t so far out when he calls them brutes and bullies. It can’t be a gentleman’s game.” ”

“ Hillbury tried a single quick dash outside Bent, gaining three yards with apparent ease, then unexpectedly kicked. It was a long sailing punt, that seemed to float on and on with the help of the wind as if it were never to drop. Durand, who was playing well back, whirled suddenly and ran, then turned and gathered the ball in. ”

“ The only good thing he sees about football is that the players are capable of getting up so good a brief for a bad cause.”
“Does that mean that he’s laughing at us?” demanded Poole.
“No, he was in earnest. He’ll give the arguments a fair hearing, and then decide against me.”
“It won’t be a fair hearing,” said Ware, “if his mind is already made up.”
Wolcott turned sharply. “He’ll do what he thinks is right, anyway—that I’m sure of.”
Laughlin gave his manager’s arm a tug that pulled him half across the room. “Come home, Dan, and let Wolcott alone. You can’t gain anything now by arguing. ”

“ If we had put him on the first as soon as he began to show what was in him, he wouldn’t be half so good.”
“Give me that man for two years, and I’d make him the greatest guard that ever played!” cried Lauder, who had the true trainer’s enthusiasm for his pet athlete. “Light as he is, he’s a match for ’most any man twenty pounds heavier, and he’s growing all the time. Why, he’s all you can handle now, and just think how green he is!”
“That’s the trouble with Wolcott,” said Laughlin, thoughtfully, “he’s had so little experience. The Hillbury game is a pretty hard strain on a green man. ”

“ So strong was this faith that Mrs. Lindsay, who favored a private school, and Aunt Emmeline, who adored St. Susan’s, had each abandoned her own pet scheme for “little Wolcott,” in the conviction that the public school was inevitable. When, therefore, the head of the family returned one day with the news that Junior, on account of the irregularity of his previous training, and the inflexible system which the public schools maintained, could not prepare at the Latin School without great loss of time, the discussion of schools over Junior’s head, or rather under his nose, became serious. ”

“ It won’t, if we take hold of it right and get every man out ready to do his best and help the school on, whether he makes the team or not. If you don’t make the first, you can play on the second and learn football all the time and help a lot. A good second goes far toward making a good first. Take hold with us and try, try as Nowell did, and Melvin did, and big Curtis and all those fellows who used to be here. It doesn’t so much matter whether you make the team or not; if you don’t make it, a better man than you will, and the better you are the better he’ll have to be to beat you out. ”

“ I’ve heard that kind of thing so many times that I can repeat it word for word,” he added with a melancholy smile. “Most athletes, according to his idea, are an inferior lot who never are heard of after they leave college. And then, as you say, he reads all the stories of injuries in the papers and takes them all for gospel truth.”
“Does he refuse to let you go out in a sailboat with a proper skipper, because so many greenhorns try to sail boats and are upset; or to go driving, because horses run away?” demanded Poole, addressing himself vigorously to the argument implied in Wolcott’s words. ”

“ When one man’s got enough of me, they turn me over to another. Well, here goes! My work’s cut out for me this time all right.” 223And he went to his place with the spirit of battle burning like a fire within him.
There was fierce struggling that day between right guard on the first and left guard on the second. Wolcott early found that the methods used with success against Butler would not all serve against Laughlin. Sometimes the captain lifted him up and threw him over; sometimes he simply swept him back by his immense strength and weight. ”