Left End Edwards

"That's not much worse than your snoring," replied Steve unkindly.

The next day further search revealed a cushion which just fitted the window-seat, not surprising in view of the fact that the window-seats throughout the dormitories were fairly uniform in size. The cushion cost them two dollars. It was covered with faded green corduroy and in places was pretty well flattened out by much service. But it answered their purpose and really looked quite fine when in place. Tom cast doubts on the positive assertion of the seller that it was filled with genuine hair, but Steve said that didn't matter as long as it was comfortable. They piled their three pillows on it and stretched themselves out on it, one at a time, and voted it good enough for anyone. There was a good deal of dust in it, but, as Steve said, if they were careful about getting up and down they wouldn't disturb it! By this time Number 12 began to look quite sumptuous. They had placed several framed pictures and many photographs and trinkets against the walls and had draped the tops of the chiffoniers with towels. They had also made up a list of things to bring back with them after the Christmas holidays, a list that included all sorts of articles from a waste-basket to an electric drop-light. The latter they had not been able to find in their bargain-hunting and could not purchase in the village even if they had sufficient money. Their pocketbooks were pretty lean by the time they had been there a week, for, beside the expenditures for furnishings, they had, between them, paid two dollars for a year's subscription to the school monthly, and had made quite an outlay for stationery. Tom, in fact, was practically bankrupt and had sent an "S. O. S.," as he called it, to his father.

Meanwhile, every afternoon save Sunday they donned their togs and toiled on the gridiron. Mr. Robey was already bringing order out of chaos and the sixty-odd candidates now formed a first, second and third squad. Steve and Tom both remained in the latter for the present, nor did Tom entertain much hope of getting out of it until he was dropped for good. Steve had made something of a reputation as a player at home, and his former team-mates there firmly expected to hear that he had made the Brimfield 'varsity without difficulty and was showing the preparatory school fellows how the game ought to be played. Tom, too, expected no less for him, and perhaps, if the truth were known, Steve entertained some such expectations himself! But Tom wasn't deceived as to his own football ability and was already wondering whether, when he was dropped from the 'varsity squad, he would be so fortunate as to make his hall team.

But there was a surprise in store for both of them. The first cut came about ten days after the opening of school, and the candidates dwindled from sixty-odd to a scant fifty. Steve's surprise lay in the fact that he was not promoted to the second squad, Tom's to the even more startling circumstance that he survived the cut!

Eric Sawyer had been relieved from his superintendence of the awkward squad and had gone to his old position of right guard on the first team. The third squad was now under the care of a youth named Marvin, a substitute quarter-back on last year's second team. He was a cheerful, hardworking little chap and the "rookies" took to him at once. He was quick to find fault, but equally quick to applaud good work, and under his charge the third squad, composed now of some fourteen candidates, began to smooth out. A half-hour session with the tackling dummy was now part of the daily routine and many a fellow who had thought rather well of himself suffered humiliation in the pit. Steve was one of these. Tackling proved to be a weak point with him. Even Tom got better results than he did, and every afternoon Steve would scramble to his feet and wipe the earth from his face to hear Marvin's patient voice saying: "Not a bit like it, Edwards. Don't shut your eyes when you jump. Keep them open and see what you're doing. Once more, now; and tackle below the knees." And then, when the stuffed figure had been drawn, swaying crazily, across the square of spaded turf once more, and Steve had leaped upon it and twisted his arms desperately and convulsively about it, "That's a little better," Marvin might say, "but you'd never stop your man that way."

Steve was getting discouraged about his tackling and a little bit incensed with Marvin. "He takes it out on me every time," he confided to Tom one afternoon after practice. "Lots of the fellows don't do it a bit better and he just says 'Fair, Jones' or 'That's better, Freer,' and that's all there is to it. When it comes my turn, he just makes up his mind I'm not going to do it right and then rags me. Didn't I do it just as well as you did to-day, Tom?"

Tom, intensely loyal though he was, had to shake his head. "Maybe you did, Steve; I don't do it very well myself, but you—you don't seem to get the hang of it yet. You will, of course, in a day or two. I don't believe Marvin means to rag you, though; he's an awfully decent fellow."

But Tom's day or two stretched into a week or two, and one by one fellows disappeared from the awkward squad, some to the private walks of life and the consolation of hall football and some, fewer in number these, to the squad ahead. Brimfield played its first game of the year one Saturday afternoon with Thacher School, and came through with flying colours. But Thacher presented a line-up considerably younger and lighter than Brimfield's, and the victory brought no great glory to the Maroon-and-Grey. Steve and Tom watched that contest from the side-line, Tom with absorbed interest and Steve rather disgruntedly. His visions had not included any such situation as this!

That evening Steve made his first big mistake.

CHAPTER XI

"HOLD 'EM, THIRD!"

The term was a fortnight old when Thacher went down in defeat, 10 to 3, and by that time both Steve and Tom had made acquaintances here and there, and so when, after study hour that Saturday night, Steve announced carelessly that he was "going around to Hensey to see a fellow," Tom took it for granted that his chum was off to look up some new friend. Perhaps, since they usually made calls together, he wondered a little that Steve didn't ask him along, but he didn't mind being left out on this particular occasion since he was having a good deal of trouble just then with trigonometry and wanted to put in more time on Monday's lesson.

When Steve entered Hensey he passed into the first corridor and knocked on the door of Number 7. The card there held the names: "Andrew Loring Miller—Hatherton Williams." A voice bade him enter and Steve walked in. Andy Miller and his room-mate were both in, Andy sprawled on the window-seat, which was much too short for his long body, and Williams seated at the study table. Andy jumped up as the visitor entered.

"Glad to see you, Edwards," he said cordially. "Shake hands with Williams. Hat, this is Edwards of the fourth. Sit down, won't you?"

Williams, who was a heavy, dark-complexioned youth of eighteen with a flat nose and a broad mouth, shook hands politely, murmuring something that Steve took to mean that he was pleased to meet him, and sank back to his seat. Steve took the easy-chair that Andy pushed forward.

"Well, how are you?" asked the football captain genially. "Haven't run across any more confidence-men, I hope."

Steve smiled none too heartily and cast a glance toward Williams. But the latter's blank expression showed that the allusion meant nothing to him and proved that, as far as Williams was concerned, Miller had kept his promise of secrecy.

"No, not yet," answered Steve. "I thought I'd just drop in a minute and call."

"Of course. Glad you did. How's your friend?"

"Tom! He's fine, thanks. I—he wasn't through studying, so I didn't wait for him."

"And how's football going?" asked Andy. "Getting on pretty well?"

"I think so. Not so very well, though. I—I don't seem to please Marvin very well with tackling."

"Oh, you'll get onto that all right," said Andy cheerfully. "Fact is, I don't think a fellow ever really learns much at the dummy. It's dumping a chap in real playing that shows you what's wanted. Don't you think so, Hat?"

"Dummy practice is a good thing," answered Williams morosely.

He sat tilted back on the chair, hands in pockets, staring at the floor. He seemed a gloomy sort of fellow, Steve thought, and was relieved when Williams added: "Guess I'll run over to Johnny's for a minute," and, muttering something about being glad to have met the visitor, found a cap and wandered out.

"I suppose," said Steve, when the door had closed, "it's necessary for a fellow to learn how to tackle, but it seems to me that if you aren't awfully good at it you might get a chance to show what you can do besides that."

"I guess I don't quite understand what you mean," responded Andy.

"I mean that if I can't tackle the dummy well enough to please Marvin," answered Steve a trifle bitterly, "I do as well as lots of other fellows, and—and it doesn't seem fair to keep me back just for that. Lots of fellows have been taken on to the second squad that can't play as well as I can, Miller."

"Oh! I see." Andy's eyes narrowed a little and he looked at Steve more intently. "You mean that you aren't getting a fair show, Edwards?"

"It doesn't seem so to me. I played with my high school team for two years at left end and—and did pretty well. Of course, I don't say that I'm as good as some of the fellows here, but I do think that I'm as good as—as a lot of them; and a heap better than three or four that have gone to the second squad lately. I don't get a chance to show what I can do where I am now, Miller. Marvin doesn't even let me into signal drill more than half the time, and then he puts me at half or tackle and I've never played either of those places. And when I told him so the other day he just laughed and said that one place was as good as another on the third! And he rags me every day about my tackling and—and I don't think it's fair! If he will give me a chance I'll pick up tackling all right. You say yourself that a fellow learns it more from playing than from dummy work."

"So I did," said Andy thoughtfully. Then, after a moment: "Look here, Edwards, I think you've got a wrong idea in your head. If Marvin isn't satisfied with your tackling, it's because you don't do it right. Marvin's a good man and he knows football. Now, if you expect to play end you ought to know how to tackle, Edwards. What's the good of getting down the field, no matter how fast you may be, if you can't stop the man with the ball when you get there?"

"I can stop him! I've played for two years and–"

"What you've done before, Edwards, isn't any criterion with us. You may have been a regular wonder in—what's the place? Tannerstown–"

"Tannersville. I don't say I was a wonder, but–"

"Just a minute! You may have been a star on your high school team and yet not worth a copper cent to us, Edwards. I never saw your team play, but it's pretty likely that their brand of football and ours are different."

"I think we play as good football as you fellows played to-day," said Steve.

"Maybe. I'm not especially proud of the game we put up this afternoon. But that isn't the sort of football we play in mid-season, my friend. I'm sorry you think you aren't getting a fair deal, Edwards, but you mustn't expect me to interfere with Marvin. I couldn't do it. The most I can do is give you a little piece of advice which you won't care for probably. It's this: Do as you're told to do, Edwards, and do it as hard as you know how! Just as soon as you show Marvin that you are ready to go into the second squad, you'll get there. And don't get it into your head that Marvin has it in for you or doesn't know what he is doing. Marvin's a particularly bright young man. If he wasn't he wouldn't have the third squad to weed out, for that's a job that requires a whole lot more patience and brains than any other job I know of on a football field."

Andy paused, and Steve, who was gloomily regarding a scarred knuckle, made no reply.

"Use your head, man," continued the captain in a lighter tone. "You don't suppose, do you, that we are letting anything good get by us as long as we've got eyes to see with? Not much! You probably have an idea that Marvin is keeping you off the second. He isn't. You're keeping yourself off. Mull that over, Edwards. And don't—don't do this again."

Steve looked a question.

"I mean don't come to me or to Mr. Robey with any hard-luck stories. It isn't done. If I didn't know you a little, Edwards, I'd think you were pretty poor stuff. But I guess you didn't stop to consider how it would look. As you have done it, I'm glad you came to me instead of Mr. Robey. He wouldn't have liked it a bit." After a pause: "How's Hall getting on?"

"Pretty well, I guess," replied Steve. He stood up and frowned at the green globe of the reading lamp for a moment. Then, "I'm sorry I said anything, Miller," he remarked. "I guess it wasn't quite a fair thing to do. Only I thought—maybe–"

"You thought," said Andy cheerfully, "that perhaps I'd give you a lift. Didn't you, Edwards?"

"I suppose so."

"In other words, you wanted me to advance you over the next man on the strength of our acquaintance. Sounds as though you had rather a punk impression of me, Edwards."

"I haven't! I—I suppose, though, I didn't stop to figure it out much. It seemed to me that Marvin wasn't giving me a fair show, and here it is the last of September already, and I'm just where I started–"

"That's your fault, not Marvin's," responded Andy with a smile. He walked over and laid a hand on the younger boy's shoulder. "Brace up, Edwards," he said kindly. "Don't waste your time looking for favours. Don't want them. Buckle down and grit your teeth and just show Marvin and the rest of us that you're so good he can't keep you on the third! That's your line, old man. And now, just as a bit of encouragement, I'll tell you that Robey and I have noticed your work in the field and we've liked it. You carry yourself like a veteran and you follow the ball well, and we both expect big things from you some day. Perhaps you won't make good this year, but there's next year and the year after. Put your nose back on the grindstone, Edwards, grin hard and tell Marvin to turn faster!"

"All right," laughed Steve. "Thanks. I guess you're right. And—and I'm not sorry now I came."

"Good! Now sit down again and let's have a chin. How do you like the school? Have you met many of the fellows yet?"

"You're making the same mistake, Edwards," said Marvin the next Monday afternoon. He spoke a trifle wearily. "Get your body in front of the runner and not at one side. Bind his legs together with your arms, then block him with your body and lift him back. If you do that he's got to stop, and when he falls he will fall towards his own goal and not yours. Try it over now."