Wolcott’s attention wandered in the recitation that afternoon, and he went to his room after dinner in distinctly low spirits. He had dreamed of making the eleven. Indifferently as he had spoken to Jackson, he could not deny that the hope had been in his heart daily for the last six months. All the labor and training of the summer had been undergone with this prize before his eyes. If Dave was disappointed in him, he was still more disappointed in himself; but in any case he must bear his fate like a man, not whine over it like a child. After all, if he did his best, his absolute best, and did not compass his ambition, he had nothing to be ashamed of. He certainly wanted the best team put into the field, and if his greatest service to the team lay in his furnishing a “good, solid centre on the second for the first to buck against,” why should he hesitate?
No, he would think no more of the first eleven. His place was on the second. But on the second he would do something worth doing. He would play his game to the end, without shirking or shrinking, to the best of his ability in the place where he was put. And the second eleven should be a good eleven, as far as he could make it, or help others to make it!
Full of a new purpose, Wolcott seized his cap and hurried over to Durand’s room. Durand was writing names on a sheet of paper.
“Hello!” said Durand, “did you meet Dave?”
“Dave? No! Why?”
“He’s just been in here. He was going over to see you. He wants us to brace up the second.”
Wolcott uttered an exclamation. “That’s just what I was going to talk with you about.”
“Dave says we’re of no use, and we can’t deny it. He’s given me a free hand to get out the best team we can. What do you think of this combination?” And he read his list of names.
On the following day there were some new faces on the second. Kraus was put to running laps on the track, and into the centre went Scates, a burly White Mountain villager who had never touched a football until he arrived in Seaton that September. They planted him in the line, told him that the opposite centre was his personal enemy, bade him stand like a rock, put the ball back when required, and then pile into his enemy as if he were pushing a log into the Androscoggin. When the other side had the ball, he was to smash through and get it. Milliken, a big Pennsylvanian who had been vainly trying to stop Laughlin, was pulled out of his position and set to bucking the line. The practice that afternoon was lively, if nothing else.
The next day was Saturday, and the Bates College team appeared for their annual game. Wolcott lounged at the side-lines in football clothes with the rest of the big squad, on the extremely small possibility that a sufficient number of accidents would occur to bring him into the game. As the substitutes lounged, they watched and commented.