Full-Back Foster

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“I wish you’d stop that ‘Brother,’” said Myron pettishly. “I’m not your brother. And I’m not swell-headed, either. And I don’t try to tell Driscoll how to run the team. Only, when I know my own—my own capabilities I naturally think something’s sort of funny when things happen like what happened today!”

“Lots of funny things happen that we can’t account for in this world,” remarked Joe philosophically as he bent over his book again. “Best thing to do is let ’em happen.”

“Oh, rats!” muttered the other.

It was about this time that Myron began to have fallings-out with Old Addie. Old Addie—he wasn’t phenomenally old, by any means, but he seemed old in a faculty composed of young or youngish men—was well-liked, and kindly and just to a fault. But he had views on the importance of Greek and Latin not held by all members of his classes. He believed that Herodotus was the greatest man who ever lived and Horace the greatest poet, and held that an acquaintance with the writings of these and other departed masters was an essential part of every person’s education. Many disagreed with him. Those who disagreed and kept the fact to themselves got on very nicely. Those who were so misguided as to disagree and say so earned his pitying contempt; although contempt is perhaps too strong a word. Myron in a rash moment confessed that Latin didn’t interest him. He had to think up on the spur of the moment some plausible excuse for being illy prepared, and that excuse seemed handy. The result was unfortunate. There was a meeting in Mr. Addicks’ study in the evening, a meeting that lasted for an hour and a quarter and that included readings from the Latin poets, essayists and historians, sometimes in translation, more often in the original. Myron, bored to tears, at last capitulated. He owned that Latin was indeed a beautiful language, that Livy was a wonder, Cicero a peach and Horace a corker. He didn’t use just those terms, but that’s a detail. Mr. Addicks, suspicious of the sudden conversion, pledged him to a reformation in the matter of study and freed him.

But the conversion was not real and Old Addie soon developed a most embarrassing habit of calling on Myron in class. Myron called it “picking on me.” Whatever it was called, it usually resulted disastrously to Myron’s pretences of having studied in the manner agreed on. Old Addie waxed sarcastic, Myron assumed a haughty, contemptuous air. They became antagonistic and trouble brewed. Myron didn’t have enough time to do justice to all his courses, he declared to Joe, and since Latin was the least liked and the most troublesome it was Latin that suffered. There is no doubt that two and a half hours—often more—of football leaves a chap more inclined for bed than study. Not infrequently Myron went to sleep with his head on a book and had to be forcibly wrested from slumber by Joe at ten o’clock or thereabouts. So matters stood at the end of Myron’s first fortnight of what might be called intensive football training. So, in fact, they continued to stand, with slight changes, to the morning of the day on which Parkinson played Day and Robins School.

The team was to travel away from home for that contest and Myron was to go with it, not as a spectator, but as a useful member of the force. He did not go, however. At chapel his name was among a list of seven others recited by the Principal, and at eleven he was admitted to the inner sanctum, behind the room in which he had, a month and a half ago, held converse with Mr. Morgan. This time it was “Jud” himself who received him. The Principal’s real name was Judson, but at some earlier time in his incumbency of the office he had been dubbed Jud, and in spite of the possible likelihood of getting him confused with the captain of the football team, he was still so called. Doctor Lane taught English, but his courses were advanced and Myron had not reached them. In consequence he knew very little of Jud; much less than Jud knew of him; and he felt a certain amount of awe as he took the indicated chair at the left of the big mahogany desk. The Doctor didn’t beat about the bush any to speak of. He advanced at once to the matter in hand, which appeared to be: Why wasn’t Myron keeping up in Latin?

Myron said he thought it must be because he didn’t have time enough to study it. He said it was his firm belief that he was taking too many courses. He thought that it would be better if he was allowed to drop one course, preferably Latin, until the next term. Doctor Lane smiled wanly and wanted to know if Myron was quite sure that he was making the most of what time he had. Myron said he thought he was. He didn’t say it very convincedly, however. Doctor Lane inquired how much time each day was devoted to Latin. Myron didn’t seem to have a very clear impression; perhaps, though, an hour. Jud delved into the boy’s daily life and elicited the fact that something like two and a half hours were devoted to learning to play full-back and something less than three to learning his lessons. Presented as Jud presented it, the fact didn’t look attractive even to Myron. He felt dimly that something was wrong. He attempted to better his statement by explaining that very often he studied between hours—a little. Doctor Lane was not impressed. He twiddled a card that appeared to hold a record of Myron’s scholastic career for a moment and then pronounced a verdict.

“Foster, as I diagnose your case, you are too much interested in football and not sufficiently in your studies. Also, football is claiming too much of your time. Football is a splendid game and a beneficent form of exercise, but it is not the—what I may call the chief industry here, Foster. We try to do other things besides play football. Perhaps you have lost sight of that fact.”

Jud let that sink in for a moment and returned the card to its place in an indexed cabinet, closing the drawer with a decisive bang that made Myron jump.