“What do you think about when you are running with the ball as you were yesterday?” asked Hugh.
“Think about?” repeated Nick. “Why, I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. There isn’t time. You just—just run like the dickens and watch for the opponents and get ready to straight-arm them or side-step them or something, you know, and keep on going until they nab you. Then you hold on to the ball hard and try to drop easy and get your head out of the way. I suppose you really do do a whole lot of thinking, ’Ighness, but it’s sort of like a dream. That is, you can’t remember afterwards. I’ve heard fellows who have made long runs, maybe the length of the field, or pretty near, tell afterwards just what they thought and planned, but I don’t believe them. They made that up afterwards. You don’t do much planning. You couldn’t, anyway. You get the ball and look for a place to turn in. Then a fellow smashes at you and you dodge him if you can or you put your hand out and let him have it hard. And then two or three others are coming at you and you swing in, maybe, or you swing out, and you get by them somehow—you never know quite how—and you beat it as hard as you can for the goal line. And about that time the quarter or a half makes for you and you try to get past him, and you do or you don’t. Mostly you don’t!”
“It must be jolly exciting,” mused Hugh. “I thought they had you two or three times yesterday before they had.”
“So did I. I missed my guess with that quarter of theirs. I thought that if I kept near the side line he would think I meant to turn in and then I’d keep on straight. But he didn’t fall for it.”
“Why, then you did think, after all, didn’t you?”
Nick looked puzzled. “I guess I must have,” he acknowledged. “I guess you’d call it unconscious cerebration. Here we are!”
It was afternoon of Sunday, the day succeeding the St. James game, and Nick and Hugh were going canoeing. A backwater of the river formed a little cove in the southwest corner of the playing field and save when the water was very high there was a slope of coarse sand and gravel there which was facetiously called the Beach, just as the cove was known as the Pool. It provided a fairly good place for swimming, since the water was not deep, although the mud was somewhat of a drawback; and it made a convenient haven for canoes. They were drawn up on the grass under the well-nigh leafless branches of a grove of maple and ash trees, a flotilla of some twenty brightly hued craft. Nick’s canoe, which he owned in partnership with Bert, was easily located, for it was the only white one in the lot. It had a neat stripe of gold along its side and the name in gilt letters at the bow: Omeomi. Hugh had been fooled by that name, to Nick’s delight, pronouncing it Om-e-om-e, believing the statement that it was an Indian word. Nick, however, pronounced it “O me! O my!”
Hugh took a paddle and seated himself in the bow and Nick pushed off and guided the gleaming craft out of the cove and around a point of alders to the river. There he headed up stream, against a barely perceptible current.
“Now dig if you like,” he called, and Hugh dipped his paddle very awkwardly and tried his best to perform as he had seen Nick and others perform. But this was his first attempt and he wasn’t very successful. Nick let him toil for several minutes. Then:
“’Ighness,” he said, “if you want to learn to paddle you’ll have to start right. Put your left hand further down and—— Hold on! Don’t lean over like that or we’ll have to walk home! Put your hand just above the end of the blade. That’s it. Now, instead of reaching out close to the bow, start your stroke farther off and sort of pull it in. If you don’t you’re pushing the bow to the right every stroke, don’t you see? Personally, I don’t mind, but the next chap might not like to have to keep straightening out every time. That’s better, but your stroke’s too long, ’Ighness. Shorten it up. Shorter still. That’s more like it. Don’t try to push when the blade’s behind you, because it doesn’t do any good. It rather slows the canoe up, in fact. Forces the stern down and makes it drag more water. Get your drive at the beginning of the stroke, then let up as the paddle passes you and finish the stroke quickly. Try it.”
Hugh tried it, at first with amusing results, and Nick had to dig hard at times to keep the craft in its course. But after a while the bow paddler became more adept. Then Nick tried to teach him to turn his blade as it left the water, but that trick was for the present beyond the novice. Once Hugh lost his paddle entirely and they had to float downstream after it. They went some two miles in the direction of Needham Falls, by which time the neighboring town was in sight across the fields, and then pulled the nose of the canoe up on the bank and rested. The afternoon was still and the October sunlight warm, and Hugh, for one, was ready for the respite. They laid themselves full length on a bed of yellowing marsh grass, pillowing their heads in their clasped hands, and pulled their caps over their eyes.
“Paddling a canoe’s harder work than I fancied,” mused Hugh, conscious of lame muscles.
“You’ll soon get onto it. The next time you’d better try the stern.”
“I suppose that’s more difficult.”
“A little. You’ve got to steer, too, you see. But it isn’t hard once you’ve got the hang of it. Funny you’ve never done any canoeing.”
“Yes, I dare say. I’ve punted a bit, and I’ve rowed some, but you don’t find many canoes on the other side except on the Thames. And mother was always rather shy about letting me go on the water.”
“It must be dandy on that Thames of yours,” said Nick. “I’ve read about the races, you know, and all that; houseboats lined up along the shore and Johnnies in flannels paddling about and colored lanterns and so on. Must be great!”
“I dare say. I never saw but one boat race. That was the time you—we—the American crew beat us—them.”
“You’re getting mixed, ’Ighness!” laughed Nick. “You don’t know whether you’re United States or English.”
“It’s a bit confusing,” agreed Hugh. “Of course, I really am English, because my father is English and I was born over there. But sometimes it seems awfully much as though I weren’t, you know! Since I’ve been here I feel as if I really belonged, if you know——”
“If I know what you mean; I do, old man. Just the same, Hugh, you’d be in an awful mess if we ever went to war with England, wouldn’t you? What would you do then?”
Hugh shook his head soberly. “I don’t know, really. I fancy, though, I’d stick with dad. I couldn’t do anything else, could I?”
“I don’t see how you could. Wouldn’t it be touching when you and I met on the trampled field of battle? ‘Why, hello, ’Ighness!’ I’d say. ‘How’s the boy? Take that!’ And I’d biff you one on the side of the head. And you’d say, smiling pleasantly: ‘Well, well, if it isn’t me old friend Nick! I’m chawmed to meet you, Nick. Pardon me, but I’ve got to hand you this!’ And then you’d stick a bayonet into my ribs. Or, no, you wouldn’t, either, because you’d be an officer, I guess; maybe Field Marshal Ordway; and so you’d let me have it with a sword! And then you’d get the Victoria Cross for bravery.”
“Maybe you’d be an officer, too,” Hugh suggested, smiling.
“Oh, I should! I’d be General Blake, Commander of the United States Expeditionary Forces; and so, instead of beating you over the bean with the butt end of my rusty trifle—er, trusty rifle, I’d slash off your head with my bejeweled sword. There’d be some style to that, eh?”
“Don’t see what good the V. C. would do me under the circumstances,” objected Hugh. “I’m not keen for that programme, Nick. I say, isn’t it getting late? Hadn’t we better nip it?”
“Almost half-past four, by ginger! Never mind, we’ve got the current with us going back, and you can rest up. How are the shoulders and sturdy biceps, Duke?”
“Rather lame, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Chawmed, I’m sure. Tumble in and I’ll shove her off.”
The next day the second team became an official fact. Mr. Crowley, the assistant athletic director, took charge of the coaching and the squad of nineteen started in at training table in Manning that noon. Ben Myatt was chosen captain. As usual, Hugh went over to the field after school in the afternoon and looked on. He had secretly hoped to make an end position on the second, but there were Bellows and Forbes in the coveted places, and no word had come from Hanrihan. He began to believe, with Bert, that his chances for this year were at an end.
The first was going through signal drill, Nick driving one squad and Weston the other. Behind each line-up a few sweatered substitutes followed. Neil Ayer was at quarter for the second, further down the field, and Mr. Crowley, familiarly known as “Dinny,” with a half-dozen unplaced candidates, looked on. There was just a suspicion of frost in the air today, and the fact told on the players. There was more vim in their movements as, in response to the voices of the quarter-backs, they trotted up and down with the balls. Coach Bonner and Jim Quinn, the manager, were conversing in front of the bench, and Davy Richards, the trainer, was mending a head-guard discarded by one of the players a few minutes before. Hugh wondered what Mr. Bonner would say if he broached the subject of reinstatement. At the worst he could only scowl and say no. And he might say yes! But—well, Coach Bonner wasn’t the sort of man one felt like making suggestions to! Besides, Hanrihan had told Hugh to wait.
There were few onlookers about the first team gridiron today, for the upper and lower middlers were playing the first of the class games on the further field and the crowd was over there. Hugh was debating whether to follow or to remain here in the hope of getting some word from Hanrihan when that youth came to the bench. In front of him the second team squad, players and followers, came to a breathless pause after a forward pass and Mr. Crowley, short, square, red-faced, criticized gruffly. At that moment Hugh became conscious of someone at his shoulder and heard Mr. Smiley’s deep and pleasant voice.
“What do you think of them, Ordway?” asked the Latin instructor.
“Smiles” was a fine, upstanding man well under forty, clean-shaven, tanned, gray-eyed. Although he lived in the master’s suite on the third floor of Lothrop, Hugh had never had more than a nod or a “Good morning” from him and was rather surprised that Smiles knew his name.
“They look rather fit, sir,” replied the boy.
“Yes. I hope Mr. Crowley will turn us out a good second. A lot depends on the scrubs. I understand they’ve chosen Myatt for captain. A fine fellow and a good player. Too bad he’s never made the varsity team. When he was a lower middler we all looked to see him captain this year. He lacks something, though.”
“I heard a fellow say Myatt was too good-natured, sir.”
“I wonder! Meaning easy-going, I suppose. Perhaps. Well, he may be able to do more for us where he is than if he were on the first. Ah, we’re to have a scrimmage I see. I suppose you don’t play our kind of football, Ordway.”
“I was trying, sir. I went out for the team, but——”
“Couldn’t quite get the hang of it?”
“I had to stop, sir. I’m on probation.”
“To be sure. I remember now. Too bad. Well, you’ll have your class team to try for when you get squared again.”
“Y-yes, sir,” agreed Hugh dubiously, “but—but I was hoping to get back with the second. Hanrihan said he thought I might. Do you—do you think so, sir?”
“Hm. I’m afraid the second will be rather far along then. When do you expect to get off?”
“This week, sir, I hope.”
“Well, in that case—have you spoken to Mr. Crowley?”
“No, sir, I didn’t quite like to, if you know what I mean.”
The master smiled. “I think I do, Ordway. But I don’t see how you expect to get back unless you ask.”
“Hanrihan told me he would try to—to arrange it.”
“But Tom Hanrihan hasn’t anything to do with the second team, I’m afraid, Ordway.”
“I fancy not, sir. I thought perhaps I’d speak to Mr. Bonner.”
“Mr. Bonner has no more to do with it than Hanrihan. See Mr. Crowley. He will hear what you have to say. You know him, I suppose.”
Hugh shook his head. “No, sir, I don’t.”
“Well, wait until he comes off and we’ll speak to him. He’s coming now, I think. We’ll take the bull by the horns.” Mr. Smiley chuckled, and Hugh had to smile, too, for the simile was unflatteringly apt. Mr. Crowley did remind one remarkably of a bull! “‘Audentes fortuna iuvat,’ Ordway, if you haven’t forgotten your Latin.”
Hugh followed the master to where the second team coach was approaching the bench in company with Ben Myatt. Hugh lagged a little, for, while it might be true that fortune favored the brave, it was equally true that Mr. Crowley didn’t know him from Adam and might think him decidedly fresh. There was a word or two of greeting between the men, during which Myatt slipped away, and then Mr. Smiley turned to Hugh.
“This is Ordway, Mr. Crowley. He’s looking for a job and thinks you may have an opening for a bright young man.”
“Looking for a job?” said the coach, shaking hands. “What sort of a job, my boy?”
Hugh reddened. “I’d like to get back on the second, sir,” he explained embarrassedly. “You see, I was getting on fairly well until I went on probation, and——”
“Oh, yes, Hanrihan mentioned you, I think. Ordway, is it?”
“Yes, sir. I thought maybe you might let me have another try, Mr. Crowley, if you know what——”
“Are you square with the office now?” demanded the other.
“Not today, sir, but I shall be by Friday, I fancy.”
“Then you come and see me Friday, Ordway.”
“Thank you.”
“But don’t come unless you can play. And if you do come”—and here Mr. Crowley scowled fearsomely—“see that you stay. We haven’t any room for cut-ups on the team, Ordway. You won’t be of any use to me unless you can stay straight with the faculty.” Mr. Crowley dismissed Hugh and his affairs with a nod and turned back to Mr. Smiley. Hugh dropped out of hearing and presently the master rejoined him.
“Are you going to watch the scrimmage?” asked the latter. “If so, suppose we sit down over there. Your friend at court seems to have provided for you, after all. I’m glad you’re to get back.”
“Thank you, sir. It was good of you to—to——”
“Not at all, Ordway, but I shall expect you to make the most of your chance and become a distinguished member of the team.” The master smiled. “When you slam the ball across the line I shall proudly recall the slight assistance I rendered and partake of the credit. Now then, first kicks off to the second. ‘The trumpet hoarse rings out the bloody signal for the war!’ Well kicked, Trafford!”