“Well, I guess I’m doing as well as Connell; and he’s been playing two years at it. But this business doesn’t get a fellow anywhere. What’s it amount to, anyway? They say we’ll play a couple of dozen games with the First and run up against two or three bum teams around here, and then it’s all over, and the First Team gets the glory. Maybe I’ll stick it out awhile longer, but life’s too short to spend a month and a half at this sort of stuff.”
He glanced sidewise at Toby as he finished, and Toby caught the glance and understood. George had no intention of quitting, and never had had since the first day! What he wanted was Toby to ask him not to! Toby suppressed a smile.
“I wouldn’t do that, Tubb,” he said earnestly. “I—I wish you wouldn’t. You see, I have a hunch that you’ve got in you to make a pretty good player, and—well, I wish you’d give yourself a fair chance. As a favor to me, Tubb, I wish you’d try to stick it out.”
George growled and scowled, but Toby didn’t miss the look of satisfaction that flickered for an instant in his eyes. After a moment of weighty hesitation George sighed wearily. “Well, I guess another week or two won’t hurt me,” he said ungraciously. “I’ll stick around until I get Connell’s number, anyway. You got me into this, Tucker, and——” George stopped abruptly, leaped to his feet and dropped his blanket. “I’ve got to go in! See you later!”
Then he legged it to where Coach Burtis was beckoning, leaving Toby grinning broadly. “He’s just the biggest kind of a kid,” thought Toby. “Wants friendship and hasn’t the slightest idea how to get it!”
But if Toby was allowed no opportunity to achieve glory that week, at least none begrudged him hard work. He was allowed to labor to his heart’s content. Nay, he was urged to! Coach Burtis seemed to be distinctly unhappy if Toby happened on a moment’s idleness during practice time, and he or Captain Beech was forever at hand to suggest a new activity. Toby got to hate the tackling dummy with a deep and bitter hatred. He told Arnold he couldn’t enjoy his meals any longer because his mouth was always filled with dirt. Arnold advised him to close his mouth when he did his tackling.
For the First Team, on which Arnold was alternating with Bates at right half-back, life had become real and earnest. Coach Lyle had made a wholesale cut in the squad and fellows who were “up” in football affairs professed themselves already able to tell you what the line-up would be in the final game of the season with Broadwood. And a good many did tell—if you’d listen. Frank Lamson was also trying for a half-back position, but Frank’s chances were not considered brilliant. At least, though, he survived the cut, and when, on Saturday, the team played its second game, with Tyron School, Frank displaced Roover in the last quarter and sent his stock up tremendously by a slashing fourteen-yard run that netted Yardley’s last score. Toby saw the final half of the game from the bleachers and yelled like a Comanche when Frank fairly smashed his way through the Tyron backs and went over the line near the corner of the field with two of the enemy clinging to him like limpets. Yardley’s work showed the effect of a week’s hard practice and some indication of promise. Teamwork was totally lacking, however, and it was individual brilliancy that ran the score up to 29 points. Curran, at quarter-back, and Noyes, who substituted for him, handled the team well. On the whole, although Tyron had managed to secure 6 points by two easy field-goals, Yardley Hall was satisfied with her team’s showing, and felt that there was reason to expect a successful season. As, however, October was still but a few days old, the conclusion may have been a trifle premature.
Captain Fanning, naturally optimistic, viewed the future very cheerfully indeed that evening. He was a tall, fine-looking chap, was Tom, and immensely popular. If he had any discernible fault it was that popularity meant a little too much to him, that he was a bit too dependent on the goodwill of his fellows. Criticism didn’t agree with Tom. It didn’t make him angry, but it hurt his feelings. On the other hand, praise was meat and drink to him, and if you wanted to hear him purr you had only to stroke him. But every one liked him, the juniors in Merle Hall, the First Class fellows in Dudley and the faculty members as well. And he was a really remarkable football player, as he had proved last season. His more ardent admirers went so far as to believe that so long as Tom Fanning played left tackle it didn’t matter much who else was on that side of center. Like most brilliant players, though, he was better offensively than defensively. As a captain Tom had yet to be proved, for neither personal popularity nor individual ability necessarily insures leadership. Tom believed very thoroughly in himself, however, and if any one held doubts as to his fitness for the captaincy that person was not Tom.
To-night, tilted back in a chair against Toby’s bed, his long legs stretched before him, his hands in his trousers pockets, and a contented smile on his good-looking countenance, Tom was doing his own stroking. “Really, Arnold,” he was saying, “we’ve got a ripping lot of fellows this year, now haven’t we? Take the line from end to end, you can’t beat it! I don’t care whether Candee or Orlie Simpson plays center or whether Jim Rose or Twining plays left guard. Any way you look at it it’s a corking line. That’s the beauty of having really good substitutes. As for the back-field, why, with you and Larry and Roover and Curran—or Noyes, for that matter—there won’t be a better one in this corner of the world this fall!”