In the Line

by Albertus T. Dudley

“I know it,” replied Wolcott, humbly. “I’m afraid I lost my head.”

“I wish you’d do what I told you the other night,” continued the captain: “make sure of the rudiments whether you know anything else or not. If you’re good at those, there’ll always be a place for a fellow of your size on the second; but if you take to making neck tackles and shutting your eyes in a scrimmage, you won’t be of any use anywhere.”

“I won’t do so any more,” said Wolcott. And then he added, with an accent of discouragement, “You think I can make the second, don’t you?”

Laughlin understood the tone quite as well as the words. “Of course you can if you try, and I don’t mean that you can’t make the first either. You’ve got to make the first by way of the second. The second is just the place for you, or for any one else who wants to learn; it’s the regular training-school for the first. You’re on the field every day, you play against a better man who can’t help giving you points, and you’re right where you can be watched. Don’t you worry about the first. Just play your hardest all the time, make the man opposite you work to keep you under, learn his game and improve on it, and then, if you beat him out, you’ll be taken on to the first in his place. But don’t ask now whether you’re going to land in the first or the second. You’ve got a chance during the next six weeks to learn the game and show what you can do. That’s all any one can ask.”

Wolcott was silent, but he was not at all convinced that the mere opportunity to play on the second was in itself all he could ask for, and his later experiences rather confirmed his doubts. To begin with, he got but little personal coaching, for the coachers devoted themselves especially to the first, helping the second, for the most part, only incidentally. Then he was pitted against Butler, an experienced man, fifteen pounds heavier, who had the support of the best line in school and the best secondary defence. Bullard, who played centre on the first, was not counted a great player, but he was certainly better than thick-headed, heavy-limbed Kraus, who usually occupied the corresponding position on the second, and who was likely either to topple over on Lindsay’s back, or fall in his way, or in some other inexplicable fashion deprive the new guard of the fruit of his efforts. Durand was captain of the second, as clever and quick and “scrappy” a quarter as one could desire. But what could the cleverest quarter do with a centre who couldn’t get the ball back, and a line which wouldn’t hold long enough to allow the backs to get started? At the end of a week of play, Wolcott began to suspect that the second had no other reason for existence than to be tossed and mauled about for the good of the first, as the punching-bag suffers to harden the boxer’s muscle.

Another week went by, and the new player’s ambition began to wane. He didn’t mind the hard knocks and the hard words; he was willing to work and wait and play with all his might; but it did seem an unfair handicap to pit him against a veteran player, a stronger and better-trained line, the head coach and the captain, and still expect him to distinguish himself. Laughlin had paid him but little attention during the last week. The captain still made occasional suggestions, mostly in the form of frank and unadorned condemnation of methods that were wrong, with now and then a word of praise as a relish; but the old intimate relation in which they had discussed the football campaign as a thing in which the two had a similar interest, no longer existed. Was Laughlin too much absorbed to notice him? Or had he already made up his mind that Lindsay was of no use?

“Why didn’t you try for tackle, Lindsay?” asked Jackson, the quarter-back, that afternoon, as the two stood briskly rubbing themselves in the corner of the shower-bath drying room. “There isn’t much show at guard against a man like Butler.”

“Because Dave wanted me to play guard,” answered Wolcott, sharply. He had been puzzling over that very question himself.

“Did he?” answered Jackson, in a tone of surprise. “I wonder why.” And then, after considering a few seconds, he added: “I guess he thought ’twould be better to have a good solid centre on the second to buck against than another green tackle for the first. I guess he’s right, too. It’s rather hard on you, though, isn’t it?”

Wolcott forced a laugh. “It makes no difference to me where I play. I never expect to get beyond the second, anyway.”