Meanwhile the foot-ball situation remained practically unchanged. The team was still occupied with the rudiments, and day after day the candidates were falling on the ball, tackling, blocking, breaking through, passing, kicking and catching. Had there been any system apparent Evan and some of the other dissatisfied ones might have commended such a thorough schooling in preliminary work. But as it was the work was gone through with in a perfunctory way and no one seemed to understand the reason for anything. Hopkins took a hand now and then, but for the most part was content to superintend practice from the side-lines, leaving the brunt of the instruction to his three lieutenants, Carter and Ward and Connor. The Second Team had organized and Gus Devens was captain, and Evan, after four homeless days, found himself playing substitute end on that team. It was a new position to him and truth compels me to state that so far he hadn’t covered himself with glory. It is possible that in the course of time, had he had any one to coach him, he might have developed into a good end. As it was, however, he had to teach himself by watching the other ends and reading what he could find regarding the duties of his position. The School Team’s first game was only a week away, and while it wasn’t an important one Evan, for his part, couldn’t see that the team was any nearer being a team than it had been the first day of practice. He confided as much to Jelly one afternoon when they were changing their togs after practice. Jelly was strenuously trying for a guard position on the Second and was plumb full of enthusiasm.
“Why, they don’t know a thing yet,” he replied ecstatically, referring to the members of the First Team. “You wait until they get into a scrimmage with us. I’ll bet we’ll rip them all up the back the first try!”
“What sort of a team has Cardiff got?” asked Evan.
“Oh, they don’t amount to anything. They don’t give us much more of a game than we’d get in practice. They’re a light lot; just easy pickings.”
“Well, what is the first real hard game on the schedule?”
“Mountfort High,” answered Jelly promptly. “Two weeks from Saturday. Last year the best we could do was to tie them; 10 to 10, it was; and it was a hard old game, too.”
“Do you think our team’s as good this year as it was last?” Evan inquired. Jelly studied a moment.
“I guess so,” he replied finally. “But how can any one tell when they haven’t been in action yet? Why doesn’t Hopkins get a move on and have a scrimmage? He’s daffy this year about ‘grounding the team in the rudiments of the game’; I heard him spouting to Prentiss about it yesterday.”
“It’s a fine thing,” said Evan dryly, “to know the rudiments, but it seems to me that a little squad work wouldn’t be a bad idea, to say nothing of getting the team together in a scrimmage once in a while.”