CHAPTER V
DON GOES TO THE SECOND
LIFE at Brimfield Academy settled down for Don into the accustomedroutine. The loss of one day made no difference in the matter oflessons, for with Tim's assistance--they were both in the Fifth Form--heeasily made up what had been missed. They were taking up German thatyear for the first time and Don found it hard going, but he managed tosatisfy Mr. Daley after a fashion. Don was a fellow who studied hardbecause he had to. Tim could skim his lessons, make a good showing inclass and remember enough of what he had gone over to appear quiteerudite. Don had to get right down and grapple with things. He once saidenviously, and with as near an approach to an epigram as he was capableof, that whereas Tim got his lessons by inhaling them, he, Don, had tochew them up and swallow them! But when examination time came Don'smethod of assimilation showed better results.
The injured hand healed with incredible slowness, but heal it did, andat last the day came when the doctor consented to let his impatientpupil put on the padded arrangement that the ingenious Danny Moore hadfashioned of a discarded fielder's glove and some curled hair, and Dontriumphantly reported for practice. His triumph was, however,short-lived, for Coach Robey viewed him dubiously and relegated him tothe second squad, from which Mr. Boutelle was then forming his secondteam. "Boots" was a graduate who turned up every Fall and took charge ofthe second or scrub team. It was an open secret that he received noremuneration. Patriotism and sheer love of the game were the inducementsthat caused Mr. Boutelle to donate some two months of time and labour tothe cause of turning out a second team strong enough to give the firstthe practice it needed. And he always succeeded. "Boutelle's Babies," assomeone had facetiously termed them, could invariably be depended on togive the school eleven as hard a tussle as it wanted--and sometimes adeal harder. Boots was a bit of a driver and believed in strenuous work,but his charges liked him immensely and performed miracles of labour athis command. His greeting of Don was almost as dubious as had been CoachRobey's.
"Of course I'm glad to have you, Gilbert, but the trouble is that assoon as we've got you nicely working Mr. Robey will take you away.That's a great trick of his. He seems to think the purpose of the secondteam is to train players for the first. It isn't, though. He gives mewhat he doesn't want every year and I do my best to make a team from it,and I ought to be allowed to keep what I make. Well, never mind. You dothe best you can while you're with us, Gilbert."
"Maybe he won't have me this year," said Don dejectedly. "He seems tothink that being out for a couple of weeks has queered me."
"Well, you don't feel that way about it, do you?"
"No, sir, I'm perfectly all right. I've watched practice every afternoonand I've been doing a quarter to a half on the track."
"Hm. Well, you've got a little flesh that will have to come off, but itwon't take long to lose it this weather. Sit down a minute." They werein front of the stand and Mr. Boutelle seated himself on the lower tierand Don followed his example. "Let me see, Gilbert. Last year you playedleft guard, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"And if I remember aright your chief difficulty was in the matter ofweight."
"I'm twelve pounds heavier this fall, air."
"Yes, but some of that'll come off, I guess. However, that doesn'tmatter. You were getting along pretty well at the last of the season, Iremember. Who's ahead of you on the first?"
"Well, Gafferty's got the first choice, I guess. And then there's HarryWalton."
"You can beat Walton," said Boots decisively. "Walton lacks head. Hecan't think things out for himself. You can. What you'll have to do thisyear, my boy, is speed up a little. It took you until about the middleof the season to find your pace. Remember?"
"Yes, sir, I know."
"Well, you won't stay with us long, as I've said, and so I'm not goingto build you into the line, Gilbert. I've got some good-looking guardmaterial and I can't afford to work over you and get dependent on youand then have Robey snatch you away about the middle of the fall. Thatwon't do. But I'll tell you what we will do, Gilbert. We'll use youenough to bring you around in form slowly. You'll play left guard forawhile every day. But what I want you to really do is to help with theothers. You've been at it two years now and you know how the positionought to be played and you've got hard common-sense. I'll put the guardcandidates in your hands. See what you can do with them. There's acouple of likely chaps in Kirkwell and Merton, and there are two orthree more after positions. You take them in charge, Gilbert, and showme what you know about coaching. What do you say?"
"Why, Mr. Boutelle, I--I don't know that I can show anyone else what todo. I can play the position myself after a fashion, but--well, I guessit's another thing to teach, isn't it?"
"Oh, I don't know. It is if you go into it with the idea that it is, butdon't do that. Play the position as it ought to be played, tell theothers why, call them down when they make mistakes, pat them on the backwhen they do right. Just forget that you're trying to teach. If a fellowcame to you and said: 'Gilbert, I want to play guard but I don't knowhow, and I wish you'd tell me how you do it,' why, you wouldn't have anytrouble, would you?"
"N-no, sir, I guess not," replied Don a trifle doubtfully.
"Well, there you are. Try it, anyway. You'll get on all right. I'll beright on hand to dig the spurs in when your courage fails." Mr.Boutelle smiled. "We're going to have a dandy second team this fall, myboy. We've got nothing to build on, only a lot of green material, andthat's the best part of it. I don't care how inexperienced the materialis if it's willing to learn and has the usual number of arms and legsand such things and a few ounces of grey matter in the cranium. Well,here we go. Nothing today but passing and punting, I guess. Sure yourhand's all right?"
"Yes, sir, thanks. I don't really need this contrivance; it's awfullyclumsy; but Doc said I'd better wear it for a few days."
"Best to be on the safe side. I'll have you take one squad of thesechaps, I guess, and I'll give the other to Lewis. You know the usualstuff, Gilbert. Rest 'em up now and then; they're soft and the weather'swarm. But work 'em when they're working. Any fellow who soldiers getsbounced. All out, second squad!"
There wasn't anything that afternoon but the sort of drudgery that triesthe enthusiasm of the tyro: passing the ball in circles, falling on it,catching it on the bound and starting. Don was surprised to discover howsoft he was in spite of his daily exercise on the cinders. When thehour's practice was over he was just about as thankful as any of thepuffing, perspiring youths around him. Considering it afterward, Don wasunable to view the material with the enthusiasm Mr. Boutelle haddisplayed. To him the thirty-odd boys who had reported for the secondteam were a hopeless lot, barring, of course, a few, not more than fourin all, who had had experience last season. In another week Mr. Robeywould make a cut in the first squad and the second would find itselfaugmented by some ten or twelve cast-offs. But just now the second squadlooked to Don to be a most unlikely lot. When he confided all this toTim that evening the latter said:
"Don't you worry, old man. Boots will make a team out of them. Why, hecould make a football team out of eleven clothing store dummies!Sometimes I think that Boots ought to be head coach instead of Robey.I've got nothing against Robey, either. He's a bit of a 'miracle man'himself, _but_ for building a team out of nothing Boutelle has him bothshoulders to the mat!"
"I don't believe Boots would want to coach the first," replied Don.
"Why not?"
"I don't know. He's sort of--well, he kind of likes to--Oh, I don'tknow."
"Very clearly explained, Donald."
"Well, Boots, if he was a soldier, would be the sort that would want tolead a charge where the odds were against him. See what I mean?"
"You mean he has a hankering for the forlorn chance business? Maybe so.That's not a bad name for the second, is it? The Forlorn Chances! Iguess you've got him dead to rights, though. Boots is for the under dogevery time. I guess coaching the first and having his pick of theplayers wouldn't make a
ny sort of a hit with Boots. It would be tootame. Boots likes to take three discarded veterans, two crips and ahandful of green youngsters and whittle them into a bunch that will makeus sweat and toil to score on. And, what's more, he does it! Bet youanything, Don, this year's second will be every bit as good as lastyear's."
"I won't take it, because I think so myself," laughed Don. "I can't seehow he's going to do it, Tim, but something tells me he will!"
"Oh, with you to coach the guards it will be no trick at all," said Tim,grinning.
Don smiled thinly. "I'll make an awful mess of it, I guess," hemuttered.
"Not you, boy!" and Tim slapped him encouragingly on the back. "You'llblunder right ahead to glory, same as you always do. You'll make hardwork of it and all that, but you'll get there. Don, you're exactly likethe porpoise--no, the tortoise in the fable. You don't look fast, oldman, but you keep on moving ahead and saying nothing and when the haresarrive you're curled up on the finish line fast asleep. Tortoises can'tcurl up, though, can they? And, say, what the dickens _is_ a tortoise,anyway? I always get tortoises and porpoises mixed."
"A porpoise is a fish," replied Don gravely. "And a tortoise is a landturtle. But they're both anthropoids."
"Are they?" asked Tim vaguely. "All right. Here, what are you grinningat? Anthropoids nothing! An anthropoid is a monkey or--or something."
"You're an anthropoid yourself, Timmy."
"Meaning I'm a monkey?"
"Not at all. Here, look it up." And Don shoved a dictionary across thetable. Tim accepted it suspiciously.
"All right," he said, "but if it's what I think it is you'll have tofight. Anthesis, anthropocosmic----Say, I'm glad you didn't call methat! Here it is. Now let's see. 'Anthropoid, somewhat like a humanbeing in form or other characteristics'! Something like---- You waittill I get you in the tank again! 'Something like a human being'! Fortwo cents I'd lay you on the bed and spank you with that tennis racket!"
"I've got two cents that say you can't do it," replied Don.
"Well, I could if there wasn't so much of you," grumbled Tim. "Now shutup and let me stuff awhile. Horace has been eyeing me in a way I don'tlike lately. How's your German going?"
"Not very well. It's a silly language, I think. But I guess I'll get thehang of it after awhile. What I want to know is why they can't maketheir letters the way we do."
"Because they're afraid someone might be able to read the plaguy stuff.Tell you what we'll do, Don."
"What'll we do?"
"We'll go for a swim in the tank after study. Will you?"
Don winked slowly. "Not after that threat, thanks."
"I won't touch you, honest to goodness, Don! Did you learn to swim anybetter this Summer?"
"Where would I learn?" asked the other. "There's no place to swim out myway, unless it's the river."
"Well, don't the rivers in Kansas contain water?"
"Yes, sometimes! Winter, usually. If you'll promise not to grab me whenI'm not looking I'll go. I hate the taste of that tank water, Tim."
"You ought to know how to swim, old man. Never mind, Mr. Conklin willget hold of you this Winter and beat it into you."
"I can swim now," replied Don indignantly.
"Oh, yes, you can swim like a hunk of lead! The last time I saw you tryit you did five strokes and then got so elated that you nearly drownedyourself trying to cheer! I could teach you in three lessons if you'dlet me."
"Much obliged, but nothing doing, Timmy. I'd as lief drown by myself ashave you hold my head under water."
"That was just a joke, Don. I won't ever do it again. I wanted you toget used to the water, you see."
"I don't mind getting used to it outside, but I hate to fill up with it,Tim. It tastes very nasty. You may be a good teacher, but I don't likeyour methods."
"Well, we'll go and have a dip, anyway," laughed Tim. "It'll set us upand refresh us after our arduous stuffing."
"If you don't cut out the chatter there won't be any stuffing," warnedDon. "It's almost half-past now. And I've got three solid pages of thisrot to do. Dry up, like a good pal."