Rookie

“ The quick eyes of the Bishop had perceived a drift of rooks when on their evening flight to the rookery were passing along the very line which divided the hawk from the heron. A rook is a hard temptation for a hawk to resist. In an instant the inconstant bird had forgotten all about the great heron above her and was circling over the rooks, flying westward with them as she singled out the plumpest for her stoop. ”

“ As one grows old one looks back at one’s career in sport as a thing completed. Yet I have at least held on to it as long as I could, for I played a hard match of Association football at forty-four, and I played cricket for ten years more. I have never specialized, and have therefore been a second-rater in all things. I have made up for it by being an all-rounder, and have had, I dare say, as much fun out of sport as many an adept. ”

“ The American school-boy of this generation will as freshly taste the pleasure of the school life at Rugby as the American school-boys of the two generations past, and he can hardly fail to rise from it with the noble intentions, the magnanimous ambitions which only good books can inspire. ”

“ Here the rooks meet every evening to drink, smoke, and to try their skill upon each other, or, in other words, to endeavour to trick one another out of the winnings of the day. These rooks are, properly speaking, what we call capons or piqueurs, in France; men who always carry money about them, to enable them to lend to losing gamesters, for which they receive a gratification, which is nothing for such as play deep, as it is only two per cent., and the money to be repaid the next day. ”

“ Thunder of wheels and immense weight in motion, the open furnace and glaring light, the faces at the long tier of windows—all these terrors do not ruffle a feather. A little boy with a wooden clapper can set a flock in retreat immediately. Now the rooks could not have acquired this confidence in the course of innumerable generations; it is not hereditary; it is purely what we understand by intelligence. Why are the rooks afraid of the little boy with the clapper? Because they have noticed his hostile intent. Why is the basking jack off the instant he hears the light step of a man? ”

“ Do not be too much afraid of losing a rook for an inferior piece; though a rook is better than any other, except the queen, yet it seldom comes into play, so as to operate, until the end of the game; and it is generally better to have a worse piece in play than a superior out.
28. When you have moved a piece, which your adversary drives away with a pawn, that is a bad move, your enemy gaining a double advantage. At this nice game no move can be indifferent. ”

“ They lose nothing of the boy that is worth keeping, but build up the man upon it. This is their differentia as Rugby boys; and if they never had it, or have lost it, it must be, not because they were at Rugby, but in spite of their having been there; the stronger it is in them, the more deeply you may be sure have they drunk of the spirit of their school. ”

“ Every evening the black, rushing wings come in love and seem to kiss the dark branches, every morning they kiss and part, and, between whiles, the poor longing grove stands lifeless, dreams and waits. But how different would it seem if the rooks were a crowd of men—nice, cheery, jovial, picturesque, civilised men! Thank heaven, they are a crowd of rooks! ”

“ I yield to no one in enjoyment of the sight of those splendid specimens of our race, trained to perfection, and playing faultlessly; but my heart sickens at the reverse of the medal—thousands of boys and young men, pale, narrow-chested, hunched-up, miserable specimens, smoking endless cigarettes, numbers of them betting, all of them learning to be hysterical as they groan or cheer in panic unison with their neighbours—the worst sound of all being the hysterical scream of laughter that greets any little trip or fall of a player. ”

“ Every boy enjoys sport stories. Here we present three crackerjack stories of baseball, football, and basketball, written in the vernacular of the boy of to-day, full of action, suspense and thrills, in language every boy will understand, and which we know will be enthusiastically endorsed by all boys. ”

“ Without being in any enthusiastic sense a sport fan in college I had been sufficiently interested in athletics to go in moderately for wrestling and boxing and in my senior year the college had been blessed with an under coach who knew ring fighting from the bottom up and was willing to impart his knowledge to any of the men who cared to stand up to him on the chalked canvas. ”

“ When a player gives the odds of a rook, he does not relinquish the right of castling on the side from which the rook has been taken, all other conditions being lawful, as if the rook were in its place. ”

“ I cannot imagine a more melancholy sight than that of half a dozen healthy boys, who should be at cricket or lawn-tennis, solemnly and slowly knocking the balls through the hoops and stolidly going through the operations of “peeling,” “laying up,” “wiring,” and the like.
II.—THE PLAYERS But even croquet has its lighter moments. I witnessed a match some time ago between a well-set-up cavalry officer (retired with the rank of Major-General) and a cub of a lad—a slouching, hulking fellow whose gait showed that he had never had a day's athletic training. ”

“ ROOKS.—An Anecdote.
Amongst the deliramenta of the learned, which have amused mankind, the following instance merits a conspicuous rank. Some years ago, there were several large elm trees in the college garden, behind the ecclesiastical court, Doctors Commons, in which a number of rooks had taken up their abode, forming in appearance a sort of convocation of aërial ecclesiastics. A young gentleman, who lodged in an attic, and was their close neighbour, frequently entertained himself with thinning this covey of black game, by means of a cross-bow. ”

“ In Rook-land the rowdy-dowdy, randy-dandy, rollicky-ranky boys get up very early in the morning and go to bed in the afternoon. Towards dawn, the older, more orderly members drop in for reasonable talk, and the Club becomes more respectable. The tree closes about six. For the first two hours, however, the goings-on are disgraceful. The proceedings, as often as not, open with a fight. If no two gentlemen can be found to oblige with a fight, the next noisiest thing to fall back upon is held to be a song. It is no satisfaction to me to be told that rooks cannot sing. ”

“ Then he has been forward into the mysterious boy-future, speculating as to what sort of a place Rugby is, and what they do there, and calling up all the stories of public schools which he has heard from big boys in the holidays. He is chock full of hope and life, notwithstanding the cold, and kicks his heels against the backboard, and would like to sing, only he doesn't know how his friend the silent guard might take it. ”

“ We took the five young rooks home with us, and had great amusement in rearing and feeding them, and as soon as they were old enough, we took them out into their native fields, and let them fly directly under the tree where they were born. ”

“ The close quarters in struggling for the ball, the contests of strength and agility, will bring out dormant energies in boys, develop their pluck and manliness, give them self-confidence, and, like Nelson when a boy, they will forget or never know the meaning of fear. ”

“ An enthusiastic determination also to excel in the practice of this perfectly national sport animates the score or so of professors in both sexes who have hitherto borne away the palm of merit and struggled for the champion-medal, the first flight, the crême de la crême, of England’s modern bowmen and bowwomen. To win and wear for more than a very brief period this prized distinction of archery merit, is a stroke of good fortune not likely to fall to any single competitor. ”

“ Adventures follow each other in rapid succession in a manner that only our author, Mr. Young, can describe.
The Racer Boys At Boarding School
or Striving for the Championship
When the Racer Boys arrived at the school they found everything at a stand-still. The school was going down rapidly and the students lacked ambition and leadership. The Racers took hold with a will, and got their father to aid the head of the school financially, and then reorganized the football team. ”

“ It is in every sense an out-and-out boys' book, simple and manly in tone, hearty and healthy in its sports, and full of that enthusiasm, life, and fondness for games which characterizes the wide-awake, active schoolboy. ”

“ Before the prospective college man has finished his preparatory course necessary to an entrance into the higher scholastic field, the college athlete, the football player, the nearest approach to the all-round man, is the central figure in his ambitious dreams. ”

“ For I am sure that every one who has had anything like large or continuous knowledge of boys brought up at Rugby from the times of which this book treats down to this day will bear me out in saying that the mark by which you may know them is their genial and hearty freshness and youthfulness of character. ”

“ When one rook makes his spring into the air at another, this one will sometimes duck down instead of also springing. The springer, then, like 'vaulting ambition,' 'o'erleaps himself and falls on the other side.' I have just seen this. ”

“ Blessed with a strong, symmetrical frame, a quick eye, a sure hand, a perfect constitution, and abundant courage, he came easily by a mastery of the different sports he entered into, and had few equals, and fewer superiors, at cricket, football, lacrosse, baseball, swimming, rowing, and the other amusements of the day. ”

“ In such case, the wounded adventurer will sometimes have just strength enough to bring himself home, and, giving up the ghost at the rookery, will hang dangling “all abroad” on a bough, like a thief on a gibbet—an awful warning to his friends, and an object of great commiseration to the Squire.
But, maugre all these untoward incidents, the rooks have, upon the whole, a happy holiday life of it. When their young are reared and fairly launched upon their native element, the air, the cares of the old folks seem over, and they resume all their aristocratical dignity and idleness. ”

“ Pushing a match across a slippery floor with one’s nose looked so easy and proved so difficult that both ghosts and freshmen, as they cheered on the eager contestants, longed to take part in the enticing sport. ”

“ The young hero, tiring of his factory grind, starts out to win feme and fortune as a professional ball player. His hard knocks at the start are followed by such success as clean sportsmanship, courage and honesty ought to win. ”

“ How glad we were when the coachman, as he climbed up into his lofty seat, and gathered up the reins in his capacious hand, gave the signal, ‘Let ’em go!’ How beautiful it was to us lads to see the coach bound off like a thing of life, while the guard blew a farewell flourish on his horn, and the horses settled down steadily to their work after a playful flourish or two! ”

“ After all, contemplation involved having to contemplate something and what else was there but this ball, this planet of movement? A racket ball player was called such because she played racket ball and a rebel because she rebelled—all people had self-worth by defining themselves in words of action. ”

“ One boy above the rest seeming about ten or twelve years of age, who is the leader in their sports—strong, active, merry, and boisterous, with big head, matted dark hair, large plain features, broad shoulders, well-proportioned, but brawny limbs, his laugh always loudest, and his figure always foremost at foot-ball and the other games in which they were contending.—Thomas Chalmers, a Biographical Study, by James Dodge. ”

“ Narrow-minded Pharisee as is your father, nothing will gall him more than that a son of his should become known in the world of sport—and if you accept my offer you will have to steep yourself in racing. ”

“ As almost the only self-made Racquet player and Tennis player who knows every single step of his own slow journey out of a hopelessly dark jungle of hampering errors into a comparatively clear and light country, a journey elaborated during a very busy life of reading, writing, and teaching, I can speak with weight. I can honestly say that all my thousands of Racquet and Tennis foot-exercises, shoulder-jerks, body-swings, and so on, in bedrooms and elsewhere, have been well worth while ”

“ Three years of baseball and football, and nearly two years of army life with all its hardships, had thickened up the once rather slender figure and had given to the face a more mature appearance, different from the youthful, almost callow look he had worn when his diploma had been handed him at the end of his college course. ”

“ I would like to ask you young gentlemen if you can take a beating? If you cannot, I would like to add that you are not yet fitted to go out into life. A good beating, occasionally, is a wholesome thing.
“Well, to come to the point now: I find, after studying the situation, that the old varsity players and undergraduates of this university have been lacking in—let us be generous and say, college spirit. I do not need to go into detail; suffice it to say that I know. I will admit, however, that I attended the game between the old varsity and the new candidates. ”

“ Rooks would seem to believe that while there is life there is hope. A dead rook displayed before other rooks for the first time attracts no particular attention beyond a casual inspection. But if a rook is wounded, and especially if it hops about with a broken wing, other rooks will swoop about it, and hover above with wonderful perseverance, squawking all the time excitedly, even in spite of a man with a gun. ”