Jakin, the trainer, opened the mouth of the big canvas bag and trickled three scarred and battered footballs across the turf. Ned Richards, quarter-back candidate, pounced on one and slammed it hard at Paul Nichols, last season’s center, and Nichols caught it against his stomach, doubled his heavy body over it and gave a high-stepping imitation of a back getting under way.
“Mawson off on a one-yard dash,” he laughed.
“Shut up, Paul! Show respect to your betters!” And Mawson quickly knocked the ball from his grasp, caught it as it bounded and hurled it smartly against the back of the center rush’s head.
“You’re likely to break the ball if you do that,” warned Ned Richards. “Hit him in the tummy instead.”
There was an hour and a half of rather easy work, which, because the September afternoon was warm and still, reduced most of the candidates, veterans though most of them were, to perspiring, panting wrecks of former jauntiness. Two laps about the track at a slow jog did nothing to restore their freshness!
Harley McLeod and Jimmy Austen plodded back to the gymnasium together, Harley wiping his streaked face with one gray-clad arm. “I didn’t know I was so soft,” he sighed. “Bet you I dropped four pounds this afternoon, Jimmy.”
“Soft living plays the dickens with a fellow,” granted Jimmy. “I feel like a pulp myself. I guess if we weighed in this afternoon I’d be six pounds over. Gee, but it’s good to be back again, Mac. The old field felt mighty fine underfoot, what? What’s on for a week from Saturday? High School, I suppose.”
“Yes. They scored on us last year, too. Remember?”
“Yes, Gil Tarver missed an easy tackle that day. I didn’t get into the game. Did you?”