“That’s something new, isn’t it?” asked a boy on the other side of Arnold. “We never used to have any trouble with the town fellows.”
“They’re chaps from the new mill they built last year, I believe. Rather a tough lot, I guess. They’ll get all they want, though, if they keep on. Wouldn’t be a bad thing for some of them to turn up now and try to start something,” Arnold chuckled. “They won’t, though, when they see the size of our party.” And, although their progress out of Greenburg was anything but quiet, none disputed their way.
CHAPTER XII
FIRST TEAM VS. SECOND
The Second Team started its training table Monday. The First had done so a week earlier. The tables, each accommodating eighteen persons, occupied the two farther corners of the dining-hall. That of the First Team was given a certain degree of privacy by two oak screens similar to the one that stood before the door leading to the pantry, but the Second Team consumed its meals in full view of the world. Joining the training table, Toby discovered, added no luxuries to your menu. Rather, it did quite otherwise, for pastry and puddings, save for one or two very simple concoctions, were sternly barred. You got rather more beef and lamb—too underdone to please Toby—and eggs were a drug on the market. Potatoes were served sparingly and only in the baked condition. On the whole, there was a notable monotony to the training table fare, but as the fellows were generally extremely hungry that didn’t trouble them greatly.
Toby’s presence at the Second Team board was somewhat of a surprise to Toby, since, as there were places for only seventeen players,—Coach Burtis sat at the head of the table,—it seemed to him that he was displacing more deserving talent. Why he should be there and Stair and Bird not there, was a conundrum, a conundrum that was partly answered for him that Monday afternoon.
“You’re on B Team, Tucker,” announced Mr. Burtis when, at four o’clock, the players were called back to the bench. “Show me what you’ve learned the last week. You’ll have Lippman at half and I want you to use him whenever you can. Play him hard. He will stand it. And don’t neglect your kicking game just because your punters aren’t the best. The only way for them to learn is to have it to do. Keep to simple plays; B Team doesn’t know anything complicated; and speed it up all you know how.”
“Y-yes, sir,” agreed Toby. Then he shed his blanket and wondered whether he had learned anything the last week, and if he had what it was! However, it wouldn’t do to let either the coach or the players guess the trepidation he felt, and so he pulled on his head-guard quite snappily and limbered up his legs, as, he judged, was the approved thing to do, and looked as smiling and care-free as possible. Then the two teams trotted out, A with the ball, and Gyp blew a whistle and his troubles had begun.
But, after all, the troubles weren’t so many, nor so formidable. He made mistakes, and he shared in a perfectly ghastly fumble on A’s twenty-six yards, and twice he got his signals so badly mixed that the whole team howled at him. But, on the other hand, he put vim into his fellows and followed the coach’s directions regarding Lippman and the kicking game and the use of simple plays, and before the period had ended he had the exquisite pleasure of watching the pigskin skin the enemy’s cross-bar for a three-point tally. He could have wept tears of joy on Crawford’s neck for that thirty-yard drop-kick, and A Team’s sullen resentment was an added delight. But B had to pay for her cheekiness. Already A had scored a touchdown, and now, bitterly resentful, she set to work to wreak vengeance. And she did it finally, for three long runs by Nelson and White took the ball back to B’s thirty-five yards and White plugged along for another down through a crumbling right side in spite of Toby’s shrill exhortations, and Stover banged into Sid Creel, at center, and piled through to the eighteen. Toby was very glad when time was called for Sid’s recovery, for B was on the run and becoming more disorganized each moment. He spent a precious two minutes ranging the line and “talking Dutch,” and when Sid, looking vague and dizzy, shuffled into his position again there was a perceptible stiffening of the defense. But it couldn’t last against A’s battering-ram tactics, and presently it was crumbling again. Short gains but steady, and B was on her last white line, and it was second down and every one was shouting or grunting. Toby gritted his teeth and danced about and hurled defiance across the bent backs before him, all the time trying with the intensity of despair to guess the play that was coming. He did guess, but he guessed wrong, and Nelson shot unexpectedly outside right tackle, straight for the center of the goal, and the only satisfaction Toby got was in sitting on Nelson’s head after he had been pulled down by Crawford. Bowen grinned miserably, and every B Team fellow was very, very careful not so much as to look at him; for Bowen was right tackle and had been most ingloriously eliminated. After that the horn squawked and the half was over.