Wednesday found Toby learning A Team signals, his allegiance transferred to that squad by order of the coach. In the scrimmage Rawson led B Team and Toby adorned the bench until near the end of the second half. Then Frick came out and Toby went in and received an evil and portentous wink from Sid Creel. That wink said very plainly: “You wait till I get at you, you renegade!” Just at first it was a bit disconcerting to find himself slamming into his former teammates and to realize that they not only no longer loved him but were eager to grind his face in the earth and otherwise degrade him! Before the game was over, though, he had very effectually forgotten the old ties and was glorying in every foot of territory conquered by A Team. It was remarkable what a healthy antagonism existed between the two squads. Before the scrimmage they were all Second Team fellows, and afterwards, in the locker-room, they fraternized nicely, but while the game lasted they were enemies and aliens, and neither side asked quarter. Toby, during a busy six or seven minutes of play that afternoon, was rather rudely handled by his former comrades, and made his way up the hill with a ruddy nose and several assorted contusions. But he had the satisfaction of a touchdown and a brief word of commendation from Coach Burtis; and nothing else much mattered.
Thursday they went against the First again and, while they were once more decisively trimmed, they made a far better showing. Toby got in for the whole of the second half and, after recovering from a bad attack of stage fright, gave a fairly good account of himself. Toby wasn’t one to seek personal glory, and there were times when he might have taken the ball himself and didn’t. He did get off one good twenty-yard sprint with the pigskin clasped in the cradle of his elbow, and got a hearty thump on his back from Arnold as he trotted by that member of the enemy forces and a rousing acclaim from the stands. But for the rest Toby stayed modestly in position, letting Nelson and White and, less frequently, Stover, perform the back-field stunts—or try to. First Team was fast rounding into a hard-working, aggressive, snappy organization, and facing her was no child’s play. That the Second held her to four scores that day, and credited herself with a field-goal, speaks well for Coach Burtis’ charges. Second didn’t consider that she had actually wiped out the stigma of Tuesday’s overwhelming defeat, but she derived a lot of comfort from her showing, and White, whose capable foot had secured that goal from the field, was a twenty-four hour hero. It was even whispered that Coach Lyle had been seen looking hard at White and that the latter’s transfer to the First Team was inevitable. Which, while it may have brought pleasant anticipations to the Second Team while full-back, filled the rest of the fellows with gloomy forebodings.
“That’s the way they do,” lamented Farquhar, the rangy left tackle. “Just as soon as we get a fellow so’s he’s some use to us they nab him for the First. What’s the use of that? If they want us to give ’em good practice they ought to let us have some decent players. But they don’t. Last year they swiped three of our fellows two weeks before the Broadwood game. They make me very weary!”
However, it seemed that Second’s fears might be groundless, for Friday found White still with them, and he was still with them the following day when the First went up against Forest Hill School.
CHAPTER XIII
TEAM-MATES FALL OUT
It was a brute of a day, with a chilling, drizzling rain and a sodden, sloppy field. Toby had been out of sorts since the moment of his awakening to a dimly-lighted room and the sound of dripping eaves. He had pecked at his breakfast, more than usually averse to the ruddiness of his steak and willing to exchange a whole pitcher of milk for one heartening cup of hot coffee. Recitations went badly. There was an evident listlessness on the part of the students and a consequent lack of sympathy on the part of the instructors. In Latin Toby made a horrid mess of things, his brain having apparently forgotten to function, and “Chawles,” as Mr. Coburn was known among the boys, became quite testy and rendered a lengthy oration on the shortcomings of the class, which, while intended for the entire assemblage, was aimed directly at Toby. I mention these incidents that you may better understand what happened in the afternoon when the Second Team stood rather morosely around in the drizzle and waited for practice to start and Toby, hands rolled in his sweater, glowered across to where the First Team was warming up for the Forest Hill contest and damp but enthusiastic cheers arose from the stands. It seemed to Toby that a whole lot of fellows, including T. Tucker, were wasting the golden moments of life in vain pursuits. Could Toby have chosen an occupation just then he would have been a bearded and brawny pirate afloat on a tropic sea, a cutlass between his teeth and an assortment of pistols thrust in his blood-red sash. Which shows that Toby’s normally gentle and sane disposition had a bad kink in it to-day.
And at such an inopportune moment Roy Frick, whose disposition, unlike Toby’s, was never worthy of being termed gentle, saw fit to make himself obnoxious. In justice to Frick it should be explained that he had an inherent dislike for the sensation of raindrops trickling down the back of his neck, which sensation he was now having. Frick was a sturdily-made, hard-muscled fellow of seventeen with a broad, not ill-favored face. He was vain, arrogant and pugnacious, although there were those who said that he liked to talk fight better than he liked to fight. Perhaps in an effort to forget his misery, Frick had taken a ball from the canvas sack in which they were brought to the field and was passing with Lippman. Frick was behind Toby, but the latter was dimly aware of what was going on, just as he was aware of the late-comers, George Tubb among them, who were dawdling down from the gymnasium. Once the pigskin, made slippery by the rain, escaped from Frick and bobbed across the wet turf to where Toby stood, and Toby sent it trickling back with a touch of his foot. Perhaps there was something antagonistic in the brief, careless glance exchanged with Frick, for Toby felt antagonistic to everything at the moment. In any case, Frick doubtless resented that look, and a minute later the football collided with a dull, damp thump against the back of Toby’s head.
“Sorry!” called Frick grinning. “The ball’s slippery, Tucker.”