Hitting the line

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“That’ll do, Crail,” said Mr. Bonner. “Trot in and don’t hang around. Fenton! Fullback, here!”

Monty trotted obediently to the field house, although he would much rather have walked, and subsided, panting on a bench. It had been for him a strenuous quarter of an hour. Playing in the line, and back of it were two vastly different things, he decided. As he got out of his togs he went over his performance in memory, and wondered just how bad he had been. If criticism was a criterion, he had played perfectly rotten, he thought, but he knew enough of football practice by now to realize that even the best players on a team are sometimes “bawled out” by the coaches. On the whole, he guessed, he had done no worse than might have been expected of an inexperienced fullback, and he took heart and dragged himself wearily to the shower, one hand rubbing a set of very lame ribs where the too intimate knee of a tackler had settled.

The rest of the players trooped in before he had completed a very leisurely dressing. To his surprise, Gus Weston, who had twice looked as if he could have choked him with much pleasure, came across and sat down beside him. “You did pretty well, Crail,” he said, as he began to unloose his shoes. “It’s always hard for a fellow who has played in the line to come back of it. He’s got to be a heap more active. You’ll get the hang of it in a few days, though.”

“I’m sorry about getting that signal wrong,” said Monty humbly.

“What signal was that? Oh, yes, I’d forgotten. Oh, we all do that. Say, you mustn’t mind what I do when a play goes wrong, Crail. I’m likely to call you all sorts of things. It’s part of the day’s work. A fellow gets sort of nutty when he’s running the team.” Weston kicked his shoes off, picked them up with a groan, and nodded encouragingly. “Speed up a little, Crail, and put more pep into it and you’ll come along fine.”

Monty looked gratefully after Weston as the latter went back to his locker. He had minded what Weston had said—and looked—but after this he wouldn’t. He put his things away, slammed the locker door and started out. On the steps he encountered Coach Bonner and Burgess, the manager. They were busy with their heads over the afternoon’s report, but the coach glanced up, smiled and nodded.

“Not bad, Crail,” he said. “A little more punch tomorrow, though.”

Monty went across to the tennis courts to find Leon, but that youth had finished his game and departed. On the way back to Morris, Monty puzzled over the recent criticisms. Weston had advised him to speed up and get more pep into his playing, and Coach Bonner had spoken of more punch. Pep and punch were undoubtedly synonymous, and since both critics had observed a lack of those qualities he had probably been deficient in them. But he couldn’t see how it was possible to play any harder than he had played, nor any faster. It seemed to him that, while he had undoubtedly blundered, he had been a marvel of speed and grim determination. If they expected him to play faster or hit the line harder tomorrow they were, he feared, doomed to disappointment. He shook his head over the problem as he skirted the house. “I guess,” he muttered, “I’m not cut out for a fullback!”

Collins, the colored factotum, who tended the furnaces in Morris and Fuller, emerged from the cellar as Monty passed the bulkhead. Collins was lazy and undependable, and forever in hot water around the place, but everyone liked him, Monty especially. Collins touched his hat and scraped.