“Peter says he can’t get the lines marked out to-morrow, Mart,” he announced agitatedly. “Says he hasn’t enough lime. Says he ordered it and it hasn’t come, and – ”
“We can get on without lines,” replied Mart calmly but a trifle wearily. “Can’t you find anything better than that to bother about, Hen? You ought to leave that small stuff to your helper.”
The manager’s frown relaxed slightly. “Tod hasn’t come yet.” The furrows came back. “He promised to get here to-day. He ought to be here, too. Some one’s got to look after the weighing, and I don’t see how I can do it, Mart. I’ve got that letter to get into the five o’clock mail – ”
“Let the weighing go until to-morrow,” said Mart. “We’re all old stagers and don’t need watching yet. You attend to the letter. Tod may come on the four-twenty, for that matter. Well, let’s go, fellows! Oh, Brand! Brand Harmon! Take a bunch of the backs out and throw around, will you? You’re in that, Jimmy. Mac, you’d better come with me and we’ll try some starts. You’ve got six or eight pounds that you don’t need, and so have I. Throw out some balls, Jake, will you?”
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?”
“No, Macon played right end. Banning scored on us, too, last fall. Maybe it’s a good plan to get a couple of kicks in the shins in the early season. Wakes you up, maybe. Anyway, we came back and beat Kenly to the king’s taste!”
“Hope we do it again, but I guess it’s her turn this year.”
“That’s the wrong thought, Jimmy. Kenly ain’t got no turn. Hold that, son. Say, maybe that shower isn’t going to feel swell! Oh, boy!”
“Some fine moment, I’ll remark! By the way, where are we eating?”
“Down town. Lawrence doesn’t open until Wednesday morning. We’ll get Mart and Rowly and some of the others and go to the Plaza. You can get a pretty good steak there.”
“Yes,” agreed Jimmy as they entered the building, “but I don’t like those unclothed tables, Mac.”
“Well, you don’t have to eat ’em! Wonder what’s at the movie theater to-night. Want to go? My treat.”
“Sure! Under such unusual circumstances – ”
But Harley had hurried away to his locker.
Stanley Hassell, who roomed with Jimmy in Upton Hall, arrived early on Wednesday, registered at the office, unpacked and bestowed his belongings in their accustomed places to a running fire of comment and information from Jimmy and then accompanied the latter to the field and looked on while the now greatly augmented company of football candidates went through a long practice under a hot autumn sun and the darting eyes of Coach Cade. “Johnny,” as he was generally called – though not to his face – was a short, compactly-built man of some twenty-eight years with a countenance rather too large for the rest of him on which various small features were set; such features as a button-like nose, two extraordinarily sharp eyes, a somewhat large mouth and a very square chin. Mr. Cade had rather a fierce appearance, in spite of his lack of height, but this was largely owing to a great deal of thick black hair that stood up bristle-like and defeated all attempts to make it lie down. Add to these items an extremely mild and pleasant voice and you have the Alton Academy football coach as he appeared to the many new candidates that afternoon.
Recitations began on Thursday morning, and the four hundred and odd youths of various ages from twelve to nineteen who composed this year’s roster took up scholastic duties again. When the nine o’clock bell pealed in Academy Hall the dormitories began to discharge their quotas. Young gentlemen, armed for the first fray of the term with text-books and note-books and pencils and pens, set their faces toward the vine-clad and venerable Academy Hall, along the flagged walk on which the morning sunlight, dripping through the trees, cast golden pools amongst the cool shadows. From Haylow, on the left of the row, from Lykes, beside it, from Borden at the extreme right and from Upton that was next, the youths trickled into the two streams that flowed briskly toward their confluence, the entrance to the big brick recitation hall. There were all sorts and conditions of boys in that larger stream that eddied through the wide doorway; short boys and tall boys, stout boys and thin boys, boys who swaggered and boys who went with the diffidence of the stranger, boys with sunburned faces and boys with cheeks too pallid, boys in short trousers and boys in long trousers, boys with straw hats, boys with soft caps and boys with bare heads, high-spirited boys and home-sick boys, eager boys and boys whose feet lagged on the steps; all kinds, all descriptions of boys; just such a medley as is always found when the bell summons to the first recitation on a late September morning.
In a month, even in so short a time as a week, maybe, the sorts will be fewer, the difference between this boy and that less apparent. Already the influences that in the end mold all toward a certain pattern will have been felt, and Jack will have begun to model his conduct and speech and attire after those of Tom, who, impressed with the stamp of one or more years at the school, already tends toward the ultimate pattern. That pattern varies with different schools, yet it is much the same in essentials, and, on the whole, it is a good pattern, being founded on a wise discipline and builded of cleanliness of mind and healthfulness of body, of self-respect and self-control and, always, the love of fair-play.
To-day there was the genial warmth of a still New England early autumn morning over the scene. The elms and maples that bordered the streets still held their verdant leaves and the grass that grew between the graveled roads and paths that intersected the School Green was still unchanged. The Green extended along the west side of Academy street for two blocks and from that quiet thoroughfare arose at an easy grade for the width of another block to the line of brick and limestone buildings that spanned it. Yet, following the center path, one passed two structures ere the wide steps of Academy Hall were met: on the right, near River street, Memorial Hall, containing library and auditorium and a few class rooms, and on the left, close to Meadow street, and partly hidden by trees, the modest and attractive residence of the Principal, Doctor Maitland McPherson, known to the School more simply, yet quite respectfully as “Mac.” Behind the main row of buildings stood two others, the Carey Gymnasium, a recently built, up-to-the-minute structure, and, to its left and directly back of Academy Hall, Lawrence, where Alton boys flocked thrice a day and performed certain rites at many long, white-draped tables. Having passed Lawrence and Carey, one passed a cluster of tennis courts and saw, spread out before him, several acres