Mr. Cade wiped his eyes. “I think it’s safe,” he answered. “I—I’ll assume responsibility, Lovell. And, Lovell.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Just so that Mr. Peghorn doesn’t follow suit and hang a glass retort about your neck, we’ll say no more about the football. I—I know when I’m beaten, Lovell!”
Bus removed the haversack with a sigh of relief. “I guess the football’s done its bit, anyway, sir,” he said earnestly. “If I fumble again, Mr. Cade, I—I’ll eat the fool thing!”
They set about preparing for the Kenly game that afternoon. Only one contest intervened, that with Alton High School next Saturday, and that was frankly only a practice engagement. From now on every minute of the daily sessions on the gridiron and of the nightly “skull-drills” in the gymnasium would be devoted to the laudable ambition of defeating Kenly Hall. There was a twenty-minute encounter with the long-suffering tackling dummy and much punting and running back of punts before the formation drill began. Bert found himself opposite Storer on the squad that followed Ted Ball up and down the field. Walsh was on Bus Lovell’s squad, where, too, at his old position at the tip of the right wing, Chick was holding forth. Chick and Shelfer were dividing that honor of late, with Chick showing far more of finished playing and Shelfer impressing the coaches by his sheer determination. I say coaches, because a former Alton player named Lake had arrived and was giving his serious attention to the linemen, the guards and tackles especially. Still later that week two other graduates showed up, but they remained only a few days and spent more time exchanging reminiscences on the side-lines than in actual coaching. However, their counsel was valuable to Mr. Cade, and they really did help in the evenings, when the blackboard was hauled out on the gymnasium floor and the plays were drawn thereon and the players, rubber-soled, walked and trotted through them. The new signals were being learned, and that alone was a very fair task, especially for two or three of the squad whose memories were not of the best. There were eleven line plays inside the ends, six outside, three forward-passes and one punt. These were numbered from 2 to 25, inclusive, omitting 10, 11, 20 and 21. Any number ending in 0 signified a punt. Two series, one of two plays and one of three, were indicated by the numbers 11 and 21. To commit these to memory was a task that called for real concentration.
This Tuesday there were many mistakes made, and Bert made his share. Twice he confused Number 8 and Number 13. The former play was left half through left tackle and the latter was left end around right end, and there was no similarity either in the numbers or the plays. Yet Bert for some, perhaps psychological, reason got mixed badly. It was well toward the end of the week before he rid himself of the haunting fear that he would forever confuse 8 and 13!
However, quarter-backs and coaches were lenient to-day; the former, perhaps, because they were none too certain themselves of the new signals. Even Ted Ball, who had won the reputation of being a shark at calling signals, faltered more than once. Mr. McFadden, who had scouted Kenly Hall several times during the season, came over at four-fifteen with a team drilled in Kenly plays, and most of the rest of the session was given over by the First to defensive work. Whether the Second had really perfected itself in the rival’s style and methods was problematical, but certain it is that the First experienced no great difficulty in stopping the Scrub, even when Mr. Cade gave the ball to the latter on the First’s ten-yard line. Bert played through one ten-minute period of the scrimmage and comported himself well enough to win a word of commendation from Mr. Lake, who, with Mr. Cade, hovered about the team like a sternly anxious hen over a brood of young chicks.
“That’s the game, What’s-your-name! Don’t start off blind, but wait till you see where the play’s coming. You stopped that nicely, fellow!”
Bert stopped more than one ambitious Scrub back during his ten minutes of service, or helped stop them, and suffered painful if honorable wounds in consequence. But he didn’t mind while he was in. Only after he had been relegated to the bench to make way for Walsh, did he fully appreciate his injuries. Then he went over to Jake and had two fingers taped together above a splint and a nice square of plaster applied to his left cheek. The Scrub in its imitation of Kenly was doing a conscientious job!
Walsh stayed in only some four minutes and then yielded to Keys. Walsh was plainly proving rather a disappointment to the coach. He had weight and was a hard fellow to stop when he got well started, but he was almost phenomenally slow and, to-day at least, mixed signals badly. Bert wasn’t afraid of Walsh nowadays, but he was afraid of Keys. It seemed to Bert that Keys was bound to have the call for right half-back position by Saturday; and it was a fair assumption that whoever played on the first-string against Alton High would start the game against Kenly. Of course Keys wouldn’t play the big game through, and sooner or later, Bert assured himself, he, Bert, would get in. But sometimes a back had the good fortune to stick it out right to the end, or to within a few minutes of it, and Bert wasn’t going to be satisfied with merely saying, “How do you do? Good-by!” to the referee. He watched rather glumly while Keys performed the duties of a half-back and credited Larry with doing considerably better than he really did.