Full-Back Foster

“It is a mess, isn’t it?” Captain Mellen turned and viewed the scene puzzledly. “The worst of it is that there probably aren’t a dozen in the whole lot worth troubling with.”

“True, but we’ve got to find the dozen,” answered Mr. Driscoll. “We can’t afford to miss any bets this year, Cap. We’ll call the first-choice backs together at four. That’ll give us half an hour for kindergarten stuff. But I want a couple more fellows to take hold. Who are they?”

“Search me! Why not double them up, sir?”

“They’ve been doubled up – or pretty nearly. Cummins has about thirty to look after and Cater twenty-four or five. That’s too many. Sixteen’s enough for a squad. How about Garrison?”

“He isn’t here. I don’t know what – ”

“He’s cut,” interposed Farnsworth. “Got a conference at four.”

“Conference! Gee, why couldn’t he have that some other time?” asked Jud Mellen.

“Time to start, sir,” said Farnsworth, looking at his watch.

“All right, let’s get at it. But I wish I could think – Who’s that fellow there, Mellen?” Mr. Driscoll dropped his voice. Mellen turned and looked at Myron and shook his head.

“I don’t know him, Coach. Who is he, Ken?”

“I think” – Farnsworth turned the pages of his book until he had found the F’s – “I think his name is Forrest. No, Foster. High school fellow. Two years playing. Passed a corking physical exam.”

“Foster!”

Myron, who had been aware that he was under discussion, joined the group. “Yes, sir?” he asked.

“Think you could take about twenty fellows over to the next field and show them how to handle the ball? You know the sort of stuff, don’t you? Passing, falling, starting and so on. Want to try it?”

“Yes, sir, I can do it all right.”

“Good! We’ve got such a mob here today that we’re short-handed. Stick to me a minute and I’ll round you up a bunch.”

“You can’t call him exactly modest, can you?” asked the manager of Billy Goode when the others had walked away. “‘I can do it all right,’ says he.”

“How do you know he can’t?” asked Billy. “And if he can there ain’t any harm in his saying so, is there? Say, if I was starting my life over again, my friend, I’d say yes to everything like that any one asked me. I missed a lot of good chances by being too modest.”

“And truthful?” laughed Kenneth.

“Let it go at modest,” said Billy smiling.

Myron received eighteen boys as his portion and led them across to the second team gridiron and set to work. Four other awkward squads adorned the field, the nearer one being under the care of Charles Cummins. Myron smiled secretly when he saw the surprised stare with which Cummins regarded him. When their glances met Cummins nodded shortly. To put his class through the third lesson was no trick for Myron, but it was dreary and tiresome work. It seemed to him that Coach Driscoll must have deliberately apportioned to him the stupidest boys on the field, for of all the awkward squads Myron had ever had anything to do with his was the awkwardest. But some few presently began to respond to treatment and by the time they were jumping out of the line and digging knees and elbows and shoulders into the turf in the effort to land on the trickling pigskin he felt that he hadn’t done so badly with them. He didn’t say much to them, for his own experience had shown him that too much instruction and criticism only confused the pupil, and neither did he try to impress them with their stupidity. As a result, most of them eventually forgot to be self-conscious and tried to follow instructions. Watching, Myron heard a voice at his elbow and looked around into the face of Cummins, who, giving his own charges a moment of rest, had walked across unnoticed.

“How do you like it?” Cummins inquired shortly.

“There are other things I’d rather be doing,” replied Myron. He didn’t feel particularly friendly toward this chap who had badgered him so a day or two before, and his tone showed it. A smile flickered around the corners of Cummins’ mouth.

“Main thing,” he said gravely, “is to be patient with them. I find that pays best.”

Myron turned and looked at him wonderingly. “That sounds well,” he replied sarcastically. Cummins grinned.

“Got it in for me, haven’t you?” he said. “Don’t blame you – er – Whatever Your Name Is. I was never cut out for a teacher. Besides, I want to get to work myself. What’s your line? Tackle?”

“I don’t know. Whatever I get, I suppose. Try that again, you chap. Get started quicker. I played half-back last year.”

“Guard’s my game. Well, I guess I’d better go back and hound those fellows some more. See you again, Foster, if I live.”

Myron wondered why Cummins had pretended not to recall his name at first. “Just to be as disagreeable as possible, I guess,” he concluded. Cummins’ hectoring voice floated across the field just then: “All right, my hearties! Line up again and, for the love of limes, look intelligent if you can’t act so!”

Ten minutes later the awkward squads were called to the bench and Myron went to work on Squad D or E, he didn’t know which it was, and trotted around the field behind a shrill-voiced quarterback, practising a handful of elementary plays that he already knew by heart. He wondered how long it would be before some one in authority discovered that they were wasting the time of a first-class half-back!

CHAPTER VIII

JOE TALKS SENSE

Parkinson played Mapleton the first Saturday after the opening of school and had no difficulty in scoring as she pleased, confining herself mainly to old-style line-bucking attack. Mapleton was not, however, a strong opponent, and the final score of 18 to 0 was not particularly complimentary to the home team. There was much ragged playing on both sides, for neither team had had more than a week of preparation. Parkinson started with four of last year’s players in the line and two behind it. The substitutes, of whom many were used before the contest was over, were not notably brilliant, with the possible exception of a lad named Keene, who went in as left end in the final five minutes, and of Joe Dobbins who played a steady game at right tackle for the entire fourth period. Myron, watching from the bench with half a hundred others, viewed Joe’s success with mingled emotions. He was rather surprised at Joe’s skill, but he was not a little disgruntled at the ease with which that raw youth had attained his success. Here was he, Myron, still kicking his heels with the fourth or fifth squad, while Joe, who played no better and knew no more football, was already chosen as possible school team material. Myron secretly thought it a “raw deal.” He had become fairly reconciled to remaining at Parkinson, but this afternoon he again began to suspect that his talents and merits were not to receive the consideration they deserved and to wish that he had been able to go elsewhere. They had worked him off on the kindergarten class as instructor two afternoons and he had received no thanks for his labours. Aside from that, he had received no sort of recognition. He might just as well be one of the raw recruits! He suspected that it might pay him to push himself forward a little: he believed that Joe had done that. But then Joe was just the sort of chap who would see nothing out of the way in self-advertisement. Although Myron held a very good opinion of himself as a football player he considered it beneath his dignity to beg for favours. If Coach Driscoll couldn’t discover talent for himself then he could do without it. “I’ll give them another week or so,” decided Myron, “and then if they haven’t given me a show I’ll quit.”

He was rather chilly toward Joe that evening.

The Latin was progressing well. Merriman saw that it did. He arrived like clockwork every evening save Sunday at exactly ten minutes past seven, spread his books and papers without the loss of a minute and had no breath for extraneous matters. “Good evening” was the extent of his small-talk. After that it was business with him. When, on the occasion of his first appearance in 17 Sohmer, Myron asked him how the puppies were getting along, Merriman frowned and said: “You aren’t paying me to talk puppies, Foster. Have you found the page?” Having finished the two-hour session, Merriman dropped his books into a green-cloth bag, took up his hat, said “Good-night, Foster,” and went. That, at least, was the usual procedure, but this Saturday night he varied it. When he had pulled the string of that green bag close he laid it beside his hat and asked: “Doing anything?”

“Doing – oh, no, not a thing,” answered Myron.

“Then I’ll stick around a few minutes.” Merriman pulled a chair toward him and settled his feet on it and sighed luxuriously. “I suppose you saw the game this afternoon. You told me you were out for the team, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Myron’s voice may have sounded disgruntled, for Merriman smiled faintly and asked:

“What’s the matter? Working you too hard?”

“No, they aren’t working me at all,” replied Myron bitterly. “I mean, all I’m doing is going through a lot of stunts I learned two years ago. I guess things are sort of balled up this year. They’ve got so many candidates out there that they can’t begin to handle them all, and I dare say I’ll be just where I am in November – if I stay.”

“Cheer up,” said the other. “They’ll let you go before that.”

“But, hang it, Merriman, I’ve played the game for two years: more than that, counting when I was a kid: and I was captain of my team last year. That may not mean much to these fellows here, but at least it ought to secure me a chance to show what I can do.”

“Seems so. Doesn’t it? I mean, aren’t you getting a chance?”

“No, I’m not,” answered Myron warmly. “I’m fuddling around with about fifteen or sixteen other fellows, most of whom never saw a football until a week ago, and getting nowhere. No one pays any attention to you here. They just say ‘Report to Jones or Smith or some one’ and forget all about you.”

“Hm. Why not tell Driscoll you want a real try-out?”

“Why can’t he see that I deserve one? It isn’t my place to select his players for him!”

“N-no, but if there are so many candidates that he’s likely to overlook you – ”

Merriman was interrupted by the entrance of Joe Dobbins. It was well after nine and Joe thought he was privileged to return home. Finding Merriman still there, however, he hesitated at the door. “Hello! I thought you were through, Foster. I’ll beat it.”

“We are through,” said Merriman. “I’m going myself in a minute.”

“Oh, all right. Don’t let me scare you away, though.”