It is frequently easier to promise than to perform, however, and now, in the second week of the term, Steve Gaston was learning as much. He had started, a week since, with a promising lot, many of them veterans from last year, a few old campaigners with two years of service behind them. He had gathered a scanty handful of likely youngsters from last season’s freshman and dormitory teams, youngsters, of course, who for one reason or another were not yet varsity caliber. Falls, an experienced guard, had been made captain, and the second had started off with fair prospects. The difficulty in building up a second team, however, lies in the fact that just as sure as a player shows anything resembling remarkable ability a hawk-eyed first team coach snatches him away. This is likely to happen, too, toward the end of the season, when there is scant time left in which to break in a substitute. But it may happen at any period, and Steve prayed for a team that would be composed of hard, steady workers and that would contain not a single “phenom.”
The start was like most starts. The first team, playing together better, made Steve’s aggregation look very weak and very futile. But that was to be expected. It took time—yes, and patience, too—to weld seasoned, plugging veterans and inexperienced, high-tensioned newcomers into a smoothly-working whole. After a few days the scrubs began to lose some of their rough edges and Steve relaxed a bit.
Thursday brought new frowns of perplexity to his rather rugged and very earnest countenance. The ends were not what they should be, nor did they look to Steve like fellows who could be taught. Then, too, on the other side of center from Captain Falls, the guard position worried him. On Friday he switched a full-back candidate to the guard position and tried young Williams, who had played quarter rather brilliantly on a dormitory eleven last fall, at left end. But the results were not satisfactory. The backfield man lacked the steadiness required of a lineman, and Williams’ performance showed Steve that he was sacrificing a good quarter-back in the securing of a doubtful end. Steve cudgeled his brains and, after supper that Friday night, metaphorically seized his club and set forth on his man-hunt. At a little after nine he arrived at Number 27 Upton.
His prey, attired in a stained and faded old blue flannel dressing gown, his stockinged but slipperless feet supported on his bed, his chair tipped precariously back so that the light from the green-shaded lamp fell over his shoulder, was deep in study. On the other side of the table Stick Patterson sat with head in hands and nose close to his own book. Stick was down to trousers and shirt, for the night was warm. Visitors were infrequent at Number 27, and so when the somewhat imperative knock sounded both occupants looked up startledly. It was Stick who called “Come in!” in a decidedly ungracious tone of voice. Then Steve Gaston entered, big and broad-shouldered and, somehow, momentous looking, and Russell’s chair came down with a crash of its front legs and his dressing-gown was ineffectually drawn together.
“Hello, Gaston,” said Russell, surprised. “What—I mean— Do you know Patterson?”
Steve didn’t and shook hands rather perfunctorily and took the chair that Russell yielded. Russell perched himself on the bed and gathered his scantily covered knees within his arms. He thought now that he knew Gaston’s mission, for he had suddenly recalled the forgotten fact that Gaston had become second team coach. Steve smiled, but it was plainly only a sop to etiquette, or whatever law it is that decrees that a guest must show pleasurable emotion on arrival. So, perhaps, did the Cave Man smile ere he raised his club and smote, subsequent to dragging off his victim. Although Steve didn’t smite, having got that brief smile out of his system he approached his errand with as little delay as his distant progenitor.
“How does it happen you’re not with us this fall, Emerson?” he asked severely.
Russell, who had determined to put on a bold front and be as adamant to all pleas and protestations, secretly quailed a little. There was that about this big, serious-faced youth that made him wish he had not been discovered in dressing-gown and “undies”; his attire, or lack of it, put him at a disadvantage, for it is difficult to do battle, even moral battle, when your unclothed ankles stare up at you from under the frayed hem of a dressing-gown and you are distressingly aware of a large hole in your left sock! Russell had to blink once or twice before he answered, and blinking took time and looked like hesitation and so weakened his cause right at the outset.
“I haven’t time for football this year, Gaston,” he answered finally. “You see, Patterson and I have started a small store—”
“Yes, I know that,” interrupted Steve impatiently. “I hope you do well, Emerson. But that store won’t take all your time, I guess. We’re up against it for good men this fall and I’d take it as a real favor if you’d give us a hand, old man.”