“In kicking the ball,” Renwood went on, “you must hit it squarely with the toe the very instant that it rises off the ground. Now let me see you try it.”
Sterndale took the ball from the panting youngster who brought it up, held it with both hands as directed, and dropped it. In kicking he was a trifle too quick, and the result was anything but satisfactory.
“No, no!” exclaimed Renwood, impatiently. “Don’t kick it after it hits the ground. Can’t you understand that? Your toe must hit it just the instant it rises from the ground. Try to fix that in your head.”
“Is that Sterndale?” Don Scott asked himself, in amazement. “Can it be that he’ll let anybody talk to him in that tone of voice?”
Dick was the acknowledged leader of the village boys and their accepted commander in all things. As captain of the baseball nine, he had seemed to know everything worth knowing about the game, and he had been skillful in imparting his knowledge to others and in handling his men to the very best advantage. When the Rockspur lads decided to organize a regular football team for the first time, Sterndale was unanimously chosen captain, although he confessed that he was almost unfamiliar with the game.
The boys regarded it as a piece of good fortune when Redwood offered to coach them, claiming to have been a member of the Hyde Park A. A. C. and to have played in a large number of football games in and around Boston; but Scott and Bentley were not the only ones who had been annoyed by the city lad’s supercilious ways and condescending airs, although the others held their resentment in check, feeling that they could not afford to antagonize Dolph as long as he was instructing them in the arts of the game they wished to learn.
Again Sterndale tried the drop-kick, and this time he was successful, sending the pigskin sailing through the air in handsome style, so that Renwood declared:
“That was good. Try it again.”
When the ball was returned, the captain made a still better kick, and again received an expression of approval from the coach.
“Now,” said Dolph, “all the members of the team seem to be here, so I think we’d better get them together and put in some practice on signals. They bungled things terribly last night. I think you’ll find some of them are no earthly good.”