Hitting the line

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“I wonder if he—” But he didn’t go any further. Instead, he shook his head impatiently, banishing the unwelcome suspicion, and watched Monty approach the coach, speak to him, shake hands and engage in conversation for a minute before Mr. Bonner, pointing into the field, dispatched the new candidate to join one of the squads. Starling Meyer smiled. He wished he could have heard that conversation.

A half-hour later, when the squads had been cleared from the gridiron, and a first and second eleven were trotting out for the initial scrimmage of the year, Meyer, consigned with many others to a rôle of watchful waiting, approached Mr. Bonner, who was at the moment alone, near the side line. “Did that new fellow get the position he wanted, Mr. Bonner?” he asked with a chuckle.

The coach turned. “Hello, Meyer. What was it you asked?” Meyer repeated the question, and the coach looked puzzled. “What fellow was that?” he asked.

“Crail, or some such name. He wanted to be third or fourth halfback. Asked me if you were going to use more than two this year. I told him he had better see you before some other fellow got ahead of him,” laughed Meyer.

The coach frowned, and shrugged his shoulders. “The only Crail I know of is a candidate for guard. I’m afraid,” he added, as he turned away, “someone’s been stringing you, Meyer.”

And Meyer, his self-conceit horribly jolted, was afraid so, too!

Nothing especially notable occurred that afternoon, either to the new guard candidate or to anyone else. A tentative first squad went through two ten-minute periods against an equally tentative second, and neither scored. Substitutions were frequent, but neither Monty nor Meyer left the bench again until the practice was over. Monty had given his name and other particulars to a youth named Burgess, the manager, and later on, in the field house, he had stepped on the scales and tipped up a hundred and forty-one pounds. A little Welshman who went by the name of Davy, and whose official capacity was still a mystery to Monty, informed him that he was several pounds over weight. Monty refused to argue the matter, although Davy had the aggressive look of one who would have liked an argument better than his supper! Subsequently, Monty discovered that Davy Richards was the trainer. And subsequently, too, he made the acquaintance of Mr. Sargent, the physical director, and of Mr. “Dinny” Crowley, his assistant. These gentlemen controlled the physical, and, in a way, moral welfare of the football candidates, while Coach Bonner confined himself wholly to implanting in them as much knowledge of the game as his ability to teach and their ability to learn made possible. Football at Grafton School was taken seriously, and pursued systematically and efficiently. Compared to the happy-go-lucky methods in vogue at Dunning Military Academy, the Grafton system impressed Monty immensely. The only feature of it that he couldn’t quite approve of was the apparent disposition to lose sight of the individual. As Monty put it to Leon on one occasion, they threw every fellow into the same pot and boiled them all together! But that criticism came later. During the first fortnight of his stay at Grafton Monty formulated no criticisms. He was, perhaps, too busy getting shaken down into his new existence.

In those two weeks his preconceived ideas of boarding school life were much altered. He had unconsciously expected to hang up his hat, say “Howdy,” and instantly take his place in the school world. Rather to his surprise, he had discovered that there was no place awaiting him, that if he wanted a place he would have to make it. As far as he could see, no one bothered the least bit about him, neither principal, faculty nor students. If he didn’t want to study there was no one to insist on his doing so. He merely flunked, and nothing happened. At least, nothing happened for a considerable while. Eventually, though, something did happen. He went on probation, and was given a ridiculously brief space of time in which to recover his standing. If he didn’t he packed his trunk and disappeared. Many fellows did just that during the year. That Monty wasn’t among them was mainly because he asked questions, and reasoned things out and had the sense to see that the broad and easy path of idleness led eventually to the gulf of disaster. Besides, he wanted to study, anyhow. He wanted to know things. He wanted especially to get out of the lower middle class into the upper middle, for Alvin Standart’s jeer still rankled. As to making a place for himself, well, Monty meant to do that, too, and was only wondering how to go about it. The end of that first fortnight found him wiser, somewhat disillusioned, and quite resolved to make good.

On the football field he was still an unknown candidate for a guard position, working hard when he was given the chance, and making no spectacular success of it. But he learned a good deal. At Grafton they were extremely particular about the little things. Details that were scarcely considered at Dunning were held here of great importance. Mr. Bonner seemed to have a perfect passion for drilling the candidates in the rudiments. Monty sometimes wondered how the fellows had the courage and perseverance necessary to survive that first three weeks. For that matter, some of them didn’t. The eternal grind killed their ambitions, and they disappeared. Usually such defections passed unmourned, for it was the coach’s belief that those who couldn’t survive the grind and hard labor of that preliminary season were not of the quality he wanted. Gradually the number of candidates dwindled from some sixty-odd to around fifty, and this in spite of the fact that a call for more candidates had brought out a handful of late arrivals. The first cut in the squad came ten days after the beginning of the school year, and reduced the total to about forty. Monty survived that cut, but he had fears of the next, for it seemed to him that there was no place for his services. For the two guard positions there were to his certain knowledge six candidates besides himself, and each of the six were fellows who had played last year on either the first or second teams. Kinley and Gowen were the first-choice men, with Hersum, Bowen, Little and Williams struggling hard for substitute positions. Monty couldn’t see where he came in, and he began to consider his chances of finding a place on the second team which was due to be chosen in another week.

Grafton played her first game the second Saturday of the term, and defeated the Grafton High School eleven with no difficulty by the score of 21 to 0. The Scarlet and Gray played pretty raggedly, in spite of a team composed very largely of experienced players, and the four ten-minute periods provided scant interest for the audience. Leon declared that it was a sin to adjourn the tennis tournament for such a silly proceeding, and Jimmy Logan agreed with him. The tournament was three days old, and had reached the semi-final stage, and Leon was among the survivors. He had won two matches, one by default, and was looked on as certain to fight it out with the present champion in the last round. Jimmy, entered in the doubles with Brooks, had pulled out a victory that morning, and was due to play again Monday afternoon. But Jimmy had no expectation of surviving the next match. Jimmy’s particular chum, Dud Baker, had met his Waterloo in the first encounter, and was now rooting hard for Leon to come through.