Russell, startled, shook his head miserably. “I—I don’t know, sir,” he said.
“And you never will if you don’t listen! Kindly give me your attention now.”
After that Russell managed to concentrate his gaze and his mind and began to understand. Presently they were up, eleven of them, walking slowly through a play. Twice this was done. Then: “All right,” said the coach. “Now speed it!” A confused mingling of bodies and a rush half-way down the long floor followed. Then eleven more players went through the same antics, and, finally, eleven more. Then back to the benches, and the coach went on. The shadows deepened under the balcony and the white light from the windows and skylight no longer reflected from the shiny floor. Manager Johnson switched the electricity on. The clock at the end of the hall indicated twenty minutes to six. Mr. Cade tossed down the fragment of chalk and dusted his hands.
“That’s all,” he said. “Eight o’clock promptly, please.”
They filed out and down the stairs to showers and street clothes. At six they began to assemble again at the table for supper. To-night Mr. Cade was in his place at the end of the board and conversation was general and cheerful and laughter frequent. Some of the sixteen fellows who lined both sides of the long table didn’t laugh; some scarcely talked; and Russell was of the latter number. He was feeling strangely apprehensive. To-morrow he might—indeed, if he was to believe some, undoubtedly would—be called on to play against Kenly Hall, and the realization was decidedly unnerving. Going up against the first team was one thing; that held no terrors; but facing the school enemy, the redoubtable wearers of the Cherry-and-Black, gave him a sort of sick feeling in his stomach. There were periods when he longed for his erstwhile obscurity with all his heart!
There was an hour or longer of respite after supper, but it didn’t help Russell much to regain his courage and peace of mind. The school talked football incessantly. No other subject was for the moment acknowledged to exist. Long before it was time for him to accompany Jimmy to the gymnasium the fellows were flocking to the Assembly Hall for the final cheer meeting. Football songs sounded on all sides. Fellows who couldn’t sing them, whistled. They just wouldn’t let you forget for a minute, thought Russell resentfully.
Back in the gymnasium, Mr. Cade and the blackboard came again into action, but now there was a veritable “quiz,” and the players were called on to answer questions that, as it seemed to the new member of the team, might have floored the inventor of football himself! Signal practice once more followed, several plays were again run through and then “Johnny” put aside his pedagogic manner, pushed the blackboard aside and talked to them very quietly for ten minutes during which time a dropping pin would have caused a stampede of alarm. What he said doesn’t matter. Coaches all say pretty much the same thing all over this broad land on the eve of the big battle. But “Johnny” got it across, and grave faces looked back at him and told him things that tongues couldn’t have put in words. And then there was a sudden silence broken at last by Captain Mart.
“Three cheers for Mr. Cade, fellows!” cried Mart passionately. “Come on! Come on!” Then there was a cheer for Alton, and they went out rather silently and sought their rooms. Overhead a star-pricked sky promised a fair day for the supreme test. Russell fell asleep at last just after midnight had sounded.
Russell was not late for chapel the next morning only because Stick, in spite of all protests and pleas, pulled him bodily from bed. The bell was ringing as they went tumbling down the stairs and they reached the goal just as the final stroke sounded. Doctor McPherson, as was his yearly custom, added to the prayer an intercession for the football team. “For those of us who do contend this day in manly sport we pray thy countenance. If in thy sight they be deserving, give them, O Lord, strength of soul and of body that they may attain their goal.”