Ralph Henry Barbour

“ Ira tested the bed and shuddered inwardly. It was like a board. There was a green plush rocking-chair, a battered walnut table with an ink-stained top, a bureau of similar material and condition, two straight-backed chairs and an ornate black walnut bookcase with one glass door missing. A faded, brown ingrain carpet covered the centre of the floor, the wide expanse of boards surrounding it having at some far distant time been painted slate-grey.
Johnston expatiated warmly, even with enthusiasm, on the room’s attractions. “How’s that for a fireplace, old man?” he asked. “It’s real, mind you. ”

“ High School was already at work when the brown-stockinged players reached the field and the stands were filling with an audience that threatened to test their capacity, for High School had plenty of friends and admirers, many of them of the gentler sex. The light dresses of the girls, together with a multitude of red-and-blue pennants and arm-bands, made the scene unusually bright and colourful, and for the first time Ira felt something very much like stage fright. ”

“ Don’t you know you’re up against the best centre there is today on a school team? ‘Do the best you can!’ Great Scott, man, you’ve got to do better than you can! Better than you ever dreamed of doing! You’ve got to fight! This isn’t any Sunday-school picnic. This is football. We’re out to win. I was afraid all along you had a yellow streak, and now I know it. But you’ll stay in there until you have to be carried off, like Conlon. Want to know what your trouble is?”
Ira was still too amazed to answer. ”

“ They drew off by common consent, panting a little, but more from their circling than their sparring, and viewed each other. Goodloe shook his head discouragedly. “You’ll have to do better than you’ve been doing, Rowland,” he complained. “Can’t you hand me one on the face? I can’t do it all, you know.”
“I don’t see that you’ve done any of it yet,” said Ira indignantly. “If you want to fight go ahead and fight. I’m not stopping you.”
“Well, but—hang it, Rowland, I can’t smash a fellow unless he does something to get me worked up! Why don’t you start something?” ”

“ Where’s Wells? Look here, what sort of football have you been taught? Can’t you do anything but throw your head back and paw the air? You weren’t much better, Cole. Someone’s got to get through that line if we expect to win this game. Slow starting and slow running! It’s been awful! Dannis, you’ve got to speed them up next half. They’ll fall asleep in their tracks! Lyons, for the love of Mike, let Billy get that bandage on you! What is it, Lowell? Oh, I don’t know. Yes, let them have it. Well, Rowland!” The coach paused in front of Ira and looked down at him with a sneer. ”

“ With the end of the football season only about a fortnight away, Parkinson School became rampantly patriotic, and no one could have sanely found fault with its attitude toward the team. It was now as enthusiastically supporting the eleven as even Fred Lyons could wish. There were cheer meetings about every other night and the one principal subject of conversation whenever two or more fellows met was: “Will We Beat ’Em?” “’Em,” of course, were the Kenwood team, for no one particularly cared what happened to Day and Robins’ or St. Luke’s. ”

“ Parkinson Hall as he made his way up the steps and entered the rotunda. It still lacked ten minutes of first hour, which was nine o’clock, and the entrance and the big, glass-domed hall were filled with groups of waiting fellows. He found a place out of the way and looked about him interestedly. The rotunda was a chamber of spaciousness and soft, white light. The stone walls held, here and there, Latin inscriptions—Ira tried his hand at one of them and floundered ingloriously—and there were several statues placed at intervals. ”

“ Falling on a dribbling ball is not the easiest thing in the world for a novice, for the ball does the most unexpected things, such as bounding to the right when you think it is going to jump to the left, or stopping short when you think it will come on. On the whole, Ira comforted himself with the reflection that he met with more success than many of the squad even if he didn’t do as well as a select few. ”

“ Humphrey was “breaking into Society,” to use his own half-contemptuous phrase. That is to say, he had made two visits with Ira, had renewed acquaintances with Fred Lyons and Gene Goodloe and Mart Johnston and Dwight Bradford, and had shaken hands with perhaps a half-dozen others. He pretended to make fun of the proceedings, but was secretly very pleased. He was received politely by new acquaintances, more on Ira’s account than his own, for Ira had become a person of prominence now, and with a fair degree of cordiality by those he had met before. ”

“ You can’t expect a man who is getting started in business to throw it up for two months to coach a football team. And you can’t expect a man who is getting twenty-five hundred or three thousand coaching some other team to leave his job and come here for a thousand. Unfortunately, Rowland, the fellows who would come for a thousand aren’t worth it. Good football players are plentiful, but good football coaches are as scarce as hens’ teeth. ”

“ The first game took place Saturday afternoon and Ira paid his quarter and went to see it. It wasn’t much of a contest, and even he, as ignorant of the game as he was, could discern that neither team covered itself with glory during those two twenty-minute halves. It seemed to him that had all the Parkinson players done as well as Captain Lyons or the fellow who played full-back or the one who was at quarter during the first half the story might have been different. But those three stood out as bright, particular stars, and the rest didn’t average up to them by a long shot. ”

“ When Ira handed the waiter fifteen cents, which was the change from the dollar he had placed on his check, Nead looked even more disgusted than the waiter and ostentatiously tossed a fifty-cent piece on the cloth.
“Did you see his look when you slipped him that tip?” he asked as they passed out. “It was a study. It doesn’t do to be a piker in a place like that, Rowland. They remember it, and the next time you go there you don’t get any sort of attention. It pays to loosen up sometimes.” ”

“ This is an age of efficiency, gentlemen, and when something is proven inefficient it is discarded. Seems to me this football team has proved itself about as inefficient as anything could be. Seems to me a football team’s excuse for existence is—er—is winning games. If that’s so, this football team of ours stopped being efficient three years ago. ”

“ The wind tipped the scales in the home team’s favour, and when but a scant three minutes [293] remained it was Parkinson’s ball on her own forty-eight yards. The stand was cheering hopefully now. Coach Driscoll, hands in pockets, uncoated, walked slowly back and forth, his gaze always on the play, his expression always undisturbed.
“If we can get to their thirty-five, Walt can put it over the bar,” said Brad tensely. “Wouldn’t you think ‘The’ would try that split-line play, Rowland? Look where Kenwood’s playing her ends! Man alive, we could get around that left easy! I believe he’s going to. ”

“ He is the man that the team lines up about, and his spirit is, more frequently than is realised, the spirit of the whole eleven. In these days, instead of merely learning two passes, one to the quarter and another to the kicker, a centre must become accomplished in anywhere from six to a dozen, for each of the new formations requires its special sort of pass. ”

“ Consequently, an ideal centre must combine a good many qualities, as many if not more than any other man on the team. He must be steady, fast, intuitive and high-spirited. If he has weight besides, so much the better but some of the weight should be inside his head and not all below the neck.
Ira had not been used in the Musket Hill game, but the following Saturday, after a week of longer and harder practice than had fallen to the lot of the team all season, he found himself at right guard when the third quarter of the game with Chancellor School began. ”

“ Rowland’s a regular Little Sunbeam,” laughed Gene. “I’ll bet you never thought of it in that way, Fred.”
“I never did.” Lyons smiled and shook his head. “But there’s something in it, Rowland. There’s a lot in it, by Jove! Only thing is, you know, you’ve got to keep that in mind. If you don’t you’re likely to consider yourself in hard luck. I’ll try to see the bright side of it, Rowland.”
“I suppose that sounded cheeky,” said Ira. “I didn’t mean it to.”
“Not a bit! And I wasn’t sarcastic. I really do mean that I’ll try to keep in mind that it is a big job and that it’s worth doing. ”

“ Instead of being guardian only of the little piece of territory on which he stands, the centre today must be “all over the lot.” He goes down the field with the ends under a punt, plunges into the interference on mass plays or end runs and must do his part when a forward-pass is tried. Nor is he less busy on the defensive, for he shares the responsibility for end runs and forward-passes and must help in blocking off the opponents going down the field under kicks. ”

“ What class are you going into, Rowland?”
“Third, unless I trip up. What’s yours?”
“Second. Wish we were in the same. It makes it easier if you’re with a fellow who’s taking the same stuff. There’s another thing, too; that bed’s fierce. See if she hasn’t got a better mattress.”
“I was going to buy one,” said Ira. “I guess hers are all about the same, don’t you?”
“Well, make a stab,” said Nead. “She may have one that hasn’t been slept on twenty years. What are the other fellows here like?” ”

“ Ira asked.
“The Kenwood centre. He’s a peach of a player, isn’t he, Bill?”
“Beadle,” replied Almy slowly, “is about as good a centre rush as you’ll find on a prep school team today. That’s saying something, too. He’s as pretty a player to watch as I ever saw. I’m sorry I’m not to try him again. I’ve been thinking I’d give him a better fight this time. Last year he put it all over me, and I don’t mind owning up to it. The man’s as quick as greased lightning.”
“He’s as strong as an elephant, too,” added Basker. “And he plays hard. ”

“ Now the pigskin lay almost on the twenty-five-yard line. The timekeeper was edging nearer and nearer. Ira viewed him anxiously and chewed harder on that straw. A sudden lull in the wind allowed Dannis’ voice to reach them:
“Come on now, Parkinson! Let’s have it! Signals! Lyons back!”
“It’s a place kick!” exclaimed Brad. “Go to it, Fred! Hold that line, Parkinson!”
Dannis was on one knee and patting the turf. Fred was walking back slowly. Then he stopped, studied the distance and shortened it a stride. ”

“ Fred smiled as he crossed the field with Ira in tow. “We worked hard, all right,” he said, “but we worked rotten, too! Did you see Saturday’s game, Rowland?”
“Yes. I suppose you wouldn’t call it a very good one, would you?”
“Punk! Here we are. Oh, Cheap! Will you take Rowland in your squad, please? He’s new at it, but willing to learn. How’s it going?”
“Fair,” replied the boy addressed. “Some of these fellows think that thing’s an egg, though. They hate to be rough with it for fear it’ll break. Fall in there beyond Webster, Rowland, will you? Hug the ball when it comes to you. ”

“ There had been several mix-ups in signals on Saturday and Coach Driscoll was after them today hot and heavy. More new plays were experimented with. Eventually all but two were discarded and Parkinson went into the Kenwood game with fewer plays in her repertoire than any brown team in years. Evening sessions began in the gymnasium at which the plays were diagrammed on the blackboard and afterwards walked through on the floor. Each man had to know what to do in every play, and the coach was not satisfied until the lot were gone through with in perfect precision and smoothness. ”

“ There’s no harm in a cigarette now and then. Half the fellows in school smoke on the sly.”
[130]
“I don’t believe it,” denied Ira stoutly. “I don’t know one who does it.”
“Huh! You don’t know very many, anyhow, do you? And you’re such a nice, proper sort of chump that they wouldn’t do it when you were around, I guess.”
“Never mind that, Nead. This is as much my room as it is yours, and I don’t like cigarettes and won’t stand for them. We might as well understand each other now. Then there won’t be any further rowing.”
“Suppose I choose to smoke?” drawled Humphrey. ”