“Yes, sir.”
“Hang it, Rowland!” laughed the coach. “Don’t you ever get enthusiastic about anything? Most fellows would be tickled to death at the idea of playing against Kenwood.”
“I suppose I’d like it very much,” replied Ira in a slightly puzzled tone. “I hope I’ll be good enough.”
“If you’re not, you won’t get a chance,” said the coach drily. “All right now. Join your squad. When you get through signal work report to me again.”
Work like the very dickens Ira did, not only that day but every practice day following during the next fortnight. He was taught his duties in the line and he was taught to pass the ball in all of seven different styles and angles. It was Basker who did most of the coaching as to passing, although on one or two occasions Dannis took him in charge. Then Bill Almy, his shoulder and arm confined in a cast and a hundred yards of bandage—I’m accepting Almy’s estimate—appeared and went at Ira unmercifully. There were half-hour sessions at odd times during the day and every afternoon he stayed on the field with the goal-kickers and, always with two, and frequently with three or even four, busy coaches about him, passed and passed and passed! Or he stood up and was pushed about by Coach Driscoll or he hurled his weight against the charging machine to a chorus of “Low, Rowland, low! Now! Push up! Harder, man! You’re not working!”
Not working! Ira decided that he had never even suspected before what the word meant! And what haunted him most of the time was the bothering conviction that a whole lot of persons, including himself, were wearing souls and bodies out for no important result! Surely, if it came to all this bother it would be much more reasonable to let Kenwood win the game. Of course he realised that a victory for Parkinson would be very nice and would please everyone around him, especially Fred Lyons and Coach Driscoll, but it didn’t seem to him that the game was worth the candle. Still, he kept his nose to the grindstone without a murmur, remained good-tempered in the face of many temptations to be otherwise and worked like a dray-horse. And, at last—it was the Tuesday following the game with Day and Robins’s School—he was told that he had made good. “You’ll do, Rowland,” was what Coach Driscoll said briefly that day. “Rest up tomorrow. Thursday we’ll give you a good try-out against the second.”
If he expected signs of delight, he was disappointed. For all that Ira said was: “Thank you, sir.”