CHAPTER V--IN THE PERFORMANCE OF DUTY
School began in earnest the next morning. Ned and Laurie were awakenedfrom a deep slumber by the imperative clanging of a gong. There werehurried trips to the bath-room, and finally a descent to therecreation-room and morning prayers. Breakfast followed in the pleasant,sunlit dining-hall, and at half-past eight the twins went to their firstclass. There wasn't much real work performed that morning, however.Books were bought and, being again in possession of funds, Ned purchasedlavishly of stationery and supplies. He had a veritable passion forpatent binders, scratch-pads, blank-books, and pencils, and Laurieviewed the result of a half-hour's mad career with unconcealed concern.
"You're all wrong, Ned," he said earnestly. "We aren't opening astationery emporium. Besides, we can't begin to compete with the office.They buy at wholesale, and--"
"Never mind the comedy. You'll be helping yourself to these things soonenough, and then you won't be so funny."
"That's the only way they'll ever get used up! Why, you've got enoughtruck there to last three years!"
There was one interesting annual observance that morning that the twinswitnessed inadvertently. At a little after eight the fellows began toassemble in front of School Hall. Ned and Laurie, joining the throng,supposed that it was merely awaiting the half-hour, until presentlythere appeared at the gate a solitary youth of some fourteen years, whocame up the circling drive about as joyfully as a French Royalistapproaching the guillotine. Deep silence prevailed until the embarrassedand unhappy youth had conquered half of the interminable distance. Thena loud "_Hep!_" was heard, and the throng broke into a measured refrain:
"_Hep!--Hep!--Hep!--Hep!_"
This was in time to the boy's dogged steps. A look of consternation cameinto his face and he faltered. Then, however, he set his jaw, lookedstraight ahead, and came on determinedly.
"_Hep!--Hep!_"
Up the steps he passed, a disk of color in each cheek, looking neitherto right nor left, and passed from sight. As he did so, the choruschanged to a good-humored laugh of approval. Ned made inquiry of a youthbeside him.
"Day boy," was the explanation. "There are ten of them, you know:fellows who live in town. We always give them a welcome. That chap hadspunk, but you wait and see some of them!"
Two more followed together, and, each upheld in that moment of trial bythe presence of the other, passed through the ordeal with flying colors.But the twins noted that the laughing applause was lacking. After that,the remaining seven arrived almost on each other's heels and the air wasfilled with "_Heps!_" Some looked only surprised, others angry; but mostof then grinned in a sickly, embarrassed way and went by with hangingheads.
"Sort of tough," was Ned's verdict, and Laurie agreed as they followedthe last victim inside.
"It looks as if day students weren't popular," he added.
Later, though, he found that he was wrong. The boys who lived in thevillage were accepted without reservation, but, naturally enough, seldomattained to a full degree of intimacy with those who lived in thedormitories.
By afternoon the twins had become well shaken down into the new life,had made several superficial acquaintances, and had begun to feel athome. Of Kewpie Proudtree they had caught but fleeting glimpses, forthat youth displayed a tendency to keep at a distance. As the hour offour o'clock approached, Ned became more and more worried, and hisnormally sunny countenance took on an expression of deep gloom. Lauriekept close at his side, fearing that courage would fail and Ned wouldbring disgrace to the tribe of Turner. But Laurie ought to have knownbetter, for Ned was never what his fellows would have called a"quitter." Ned meant to see it through. His mind had retained verylittle of the football lore that his brother had poured into it thenight before, but he had, at least, a somewhat clearer idea of thegeneral principles of the game. He knew, for instance, that a teamcomprised eleven players instead of the twelve he had supposed, and thatcertain restrictions governed the methods by which you might wrest theball from an opponent. Thus, you could not legally snatch it out of hisarms, nor trip him up in the hope that he would drop it. Ned thought therestrictions rather silly, but accepted them.
The athletic field, known in school parlance as the play-field, was evenlarger than it had looked from their windows. It held two gridirons andthree baseball diamonds, as well as a quarter-mile track and tentennis-courts. There was also a picturesque and well-appointedfield-house and a fairly large grand stand. To Ned's relief, most of theninety students were in attendance, though only about forty of thenumber were in playing togs. Ned's idea was that among so many he mightescape close observation.
He had, of course, handled a football more or less, and he was possessedof his full share of common sense. Besides, he had perhaps rather morethan his share of assurance. To his own surprise, if not to Laurie's, hegot through the hour and a half of practice very creditably. Seasonedcandidates and novices were on the same plane to-day. There was, firstof all, a talk by the coach. Mr. Mulford was a short, broad,good-humored man of about thirty, with a round and florid countenance,which possibly accounted for the nickname of "Pinky" that the school hadaffectionately awarded him. His real name was Stephen, and he had playedguard, and played it well, for several years with Trinity College. Thiswas his fourth season as football coach at Hillman's and his third asbaseball coach. So far he had been fairly successful in both sports.
His talk was brief and earnest, although he smiled through it all. Hewanted lots of material, but he didn't want any fellow to report forpractice who didn't mean to do his level best and stick it out. Thosewho were afraid of either hard work or hard knocks had better save theirtime and his. Those who did report would get a fair trial and no favor.He meant to see the best team this fall that Hillman's School had everturned out, one that would start with a rush and finish with a bang,like a rocket!
"And," he went on, "I want this team made up the way a rocket is. Arocket is filled with stars, fellows, but you don't realize it until thefinal burst. So we're going to put the soft pedal on individualbrilliancy this year. It almost had us licked last fall, as you'llremember. This year we're going to try hard for a well-rounded team ofhard workers, fellows who will interlock and gear together. It's themachine that wins, the machine of eleven parts that work all together inoil. We're going to find the eleven parts first, and after that we'regoing to do the oiling. All right now! Ten men to a squad. Get balls andpass in circles. Learn to hold the ball when you catch it. Glue right toit. And when you pass, put it where you want it to go. Don't think thatthe work is silly and unnecessary, because it isn't. A fellow who can'thold a ball when it comes to him is of no use on this team. So keep yourminds right on the job and your eyes right on the ball. All right,Captain Stevenson."
At least, Ned could, to quote Laurie, "stand in a circle" and pass afootball, and he did, and did it better than several others in hissquad. In the same way, he could go after a trickling pigskin and catchit up without falling over himself, though it is possible that his"form" was less graceful than that of one or two of his fellows. When,later, they were formed in a line and started off by the snapping of theball in the hands of a world-wearied youth in a faded blue sweaterbearing a white H on its breast, Ned didn't show up so well, for he wasalmost invariably one of the last to plunge forward. The blue-sweateredyouth called his attention to the fact finally in a few well-chosenwords.
"You guy in the brown bloomers!" he bellowed. (Of course they weren'tbloomers, but a pair of somewhat expansive golf breeches that Ned,lacking proper attire, had donned, not without misgivings, on Laurie'sadvice.) "Are you asleep? Put some life into it! Watch this ball, andwhen you see it roll, jump! You don't look like a cripple, but yousurely act like one!"
Toward the end a half-dozen last-year fellows took to punting, but, toNed's relief, no one suggested that he take a hand at it, and athalf-past five or thereabouts his trials came to an end. He went out ofhis way, dodging behind a group on the side-line, to escape JoeStevenson, but ran plump into Frank Brat
tle instead.
"Hello, Turner," Frank greeted. "How did it go?"
"All right," replied Ned, with elaborate carelessness. "Fine."
"Rather a nuisance having to go through the kindergarten stunts, isn'tit?" continued the other, sympathetically. "Mulford's a great hand atwhat he calls the fundamentals, though. I dare say he's right, too. It'sfunny how easy it is to get out of the hang of things during the summer.I'm as stiff as a broom!"
"So am I," answered Ned, earnestly and truthfully. Frank smiled, nodded,and wandered on, and Ned, sighting Laurie hunched up in the grand stand,joined him. "It's a bully game, football," he sighed, as he loweredhimself cautiously to a seat and listened to hear his muscles creak."Full of beneficial effects and all that." Laurie grinned in silence.Ned felt experimentally of his back, frowned, rocked himself backwardand forward twice, and looked relieved. "I guess there's nothingactually broken," he murmured, "I dare say it'll be all right soon."
"They say the first two months are the hardest," responded Laurie,comfortingly. "After that there's no sensation."
Ned nodded. "I believe it," he said feelingly. He fixed his gaze on thefarther goal-post and after a minute of silence remarked:
"I'd like to catch the man who invented football!"
He turned a challenging look on his brother. Laurie blinked and forseveral seconds his lips moved noiselessly and there was a haunted lookin his gray eyes. Then, triumphantly, he completed the couplet: "It maysuit some, but it doesn't suit all!"
"Rotten!" said Ned.
"I'd like to see you do any better," answered Laurie, aggrievedly."There isn't any proper rhyme for 'football,' anyway."
"Nor any reason for it, either. Of all--"
"Hi, you fellow!" interrupted a scandalized voice. "What are you doingup there? Have you done your two laps?"
The speaker was a lanky, red-haired man who bristled with authority andoutrage.
"Two laps?" stammered Ned. "No, sir."
"Get at it, then. And beat it in when you have. Want to catch cold, doyou? Sitting around without a blanket or anything like that!" Thetrainer shot a final disgusted look at the offender and went on.
"Gee," murmured Ned, "I thought I was done! Two laps, he said! I'llnever be able to, Laurie!"
"Oh, yes, you will," was the cheerful response. "And while you're doingthem you can think up a better rhyme for 'football' than I did!"
Ned looked back reproachfully as he limped to the ground and, havinggained the running-track, set off at a stiff-kneed jog. Laurie'sexpression relented as he watched.
"Sort of tough on the kid," he muttered sympathetically. Then his facehardened again and he shook his head. "I've got to be stern with him,though!"