Then the nucleus of what was to become Neale hardened itself against this easy, inverted sentimentalism, and small as the nucleus was, it set itself to consider the matter in judicial, objective judgment. Neale went over his football for the last week as though it had been that of another player. "I did quit in the Penn. game. But other fellows have had a slump and pulled out of it. And since then, by God, I've played myself out in every practice. I've given all there was to give and then some!"
He held up his head at this. And yet, if he wasn't a quitter, what was the matter with him? "Biffy isn't any world-beater. Yet he must be better than I am, or Andrews wouldn't give him my place. Andrews is square." He said that with the accent of the mystic who affirms that God is good; and it was very much the same sort of corner-stone in the house he was building to live in.
Along in the second half, Atkins (the grad. who had discovered Mike), stopped his caged-tiger prowl up and down the side lines and dropped into an empty space beside Neale. "Look at that!" he cried suddenly, "Did you see that?"
Neale had noticed nothing in particular—just a general tangle of brown and blue jerseys. "I don't think they gained," he said.
"Great Scott, no! Haven't you any eyes? They lost about half-a-yard. The Brown left-half tripped over Mike's legs, but if he'd been a foot further out, he'd be going yet. McFadden was suckered."
Neale took his eyes for a moment from the field to look around wonderingly at Atkins. He had never thought of him before except with pity as an old exile, who couldn't play any more. Could he really see all that in a play, see just what every man had done? Atkins went on now, stiffening with his concentration like a pointer dog. "There it goes again—see, he's charging right on top of Mike. Just luck if he gets the man—missed him! It was Tod who stopped the play. Next time they hit the left side of our line, watch the way Rogers handles it." Atkins bit savagely on a mouthful of gum, "There!" He dug his finger nails into Neale's wrist. Neale could see Rogers rock a second, undecided, on tip-toe; side-step an interferer; and then shoot his body like a projectile into the play. "Spilled 'em for a yard-and-a-half loss: that's the stuff!"
He looked around sharply at Neale. "If you could use your head like that, you'd be worth something to the team."
Neale stared at him, his young face candid with the astonishment of feeling a brand-new idea inserting itself into his mind. Maybe that was what was the matter with his game.
He reached up, as he would have said, to the upper story, and turned back to watch the game with new eyes, eyes sharpened by intelligence. He concentrated on the back-field defense and began for the first time to understand the inwardness of it. He couldn't attain Atkins' hawk-like vision of the play and what every man in the back field had done; but he made out a great deal more than he ever had before.