CHAPTER XVII.
THE TACKLING MACHINE.
Even without a football, Renwood succeeded in getting some profitable practice out of the eleven. Early on Monday morning he went to a certain carpenter’s shop in the village and placed before the proprietor the plan of a somewhat novel arrangement, consisting of two upright timbers, with guy-ropes and pullies and running lines.
“It’s rather out of my line to make anything of the sort,” said the carpenter; “but I guess I can do it if I can git Enos Berry, the sail-maker, to help me. He knows more about splicin’ ropes and riggin’ up tackle than anybody round here. If I had anything else to do, I wouldn’t touch it, but I’ll see what can be done.”
“I want it all done by to-night,” said Dolph. “We must have it to-night, and it must be set up on the field.”
“Well, I don’t agree to have anything to do with your dummy and weight.”
“I have those over home, and I’ll send for father to have them brought here. I’ll come in at noon and see how you’re getting along. By that time I ought to be able to show you just how to fix it so it will work.”
At noon he visited the shop and found the two men had progressed in a most satisfactory way with the work, although they were a trifle foggy in regard to the manner in which the machine was operated. Dolph carefully and fully explained this to them, and gave them some final instructions, departing in high spirits.
But, to his disappointment, when school was over that afternoon, instead of finding the arrangement set up on the football field, as he had hoped it would be, it was not completed, another complication having arisen. So Renwood was not on hand when the boys gathered after supper for such practice as they could obtain without a ball, and Sterndale was obliged to do what he could unaided by the coach. This sort of work was very unsatisfactory, and after a time the boys gave it up and left the field, all of them wondering what had become of Dolph.
The field had not been deserted long when Renwood appeared upon it, accompanied by the men he had employed, and there they labored till nearly dark.
Almost all the members of the eleven were in the club-rooms when Renwood appeared there.
“Come on, fellows!” he cried. “I have something to show you.”
“Where?” demanded several.
“What is it?” asked others.
“You’ll all find out if you follow me,” answered the coach, mysteriously.
“Is it fur?” yawned Thad Boland, wearily.
“No, it isn’t fur that I’m going to show you,” laughed Renwood. “What are you looking for—a bearskin coat?”
“I mean is it fur off,” explained Old Lightning. “’Cause I’m too tired to walk fur.”
“You’re alwus tired,” asserted Jotham Sprout. “You was born that way.”
“Don’t try to be funny, Bubble,” advised Thad; “for when you try to be, you ain’t funny at all. Sometimes, when you don’t mean to be, you’re really funny.”
“Well, are you coming?” demanded Renwood. “If you want to see it to-night you’ll have to hustle, or it will be too dark.”
“What is it?” was again asked.
“Something worth seeing,” was his mysterious assertion, which aroused their curiosity, and he soon had them following him down the stairs, even Old Lightning lumbering along grumblingly and wearily in the rear.
Straight to the field he led them, persistently refusing to enlighten them on the way.
“You’ll find out what it is when you see it,” he said.
On the way they picked up Danny Chatterton, who had been talking with Leon Bentley.
“Bent is sore as bub-bub-blazes,” declared Danny. “He says Sus-Sterndale’s gettin’ to be an old wo-woman, for he lets somebub-bub-body else ru-run the eleven and ch-changes his mind about mum-making Scott’s father pup-pup-pup-pay for the fuf-football and suits. He sus-says he’d ha-ha-had to pay if he’d done it, and he thinks Sus-Sterndale ought to bub-bub-back up his threat to gug-go to Scott’s fuf-father.”
“I wouldn’t have too much to say to that fellow, Chat,” advised Dick. “You’ll be just as well off if you keep away from him.”
When the football field was reached, Renwood led them through the gate. It was already quite dark, and rapidly getting darker.
“Look there!” he said, with an outward fling of his arm.
They looked, and what they saw caused some of them to utter exclamations of astonishment, not unmingled with alarm. Before their eyes, dimly seen through the gloom, something dangled in the air. And that something very much resembled a human being, hung by the neck, with its feet lifted just clear of the ground!
“Jupiter!” exclaimed Rob Linton.
“Pwhat is it, Oi dunno?” gasped Dennis Murphy.
“A mum-mum-mum-man!” fluttered Chatterton. “Hu-hung up by the nun-neck! Oh, gug-ginger!” His teeth began to chatter and he backed away.
“It does look like a man,” admitted Water Mayfair.
Renwood burst out laughing, then suddenly ran forward, flung himself at the dangling object, clutched it with his arms and came down to the ground with it immediately.
“Fair tackle!” laughed Sterndale. “Boys, I know what it is. I’ve heard of them. It’s a tackling machine.”
“You’ve hit it,” acknowledged Renwood, getting up, whereupon the human-looking object that he had dragged down rose like a thing of life and once more dangled upright in the air, bobbing slightly, as if dancing on nothing. “I’ve had this put up so that I may teach you fellows how to tackle correctly without getting you all bruised and battered and sore in the last few days before the game.”
“Oi breathe again!” murmured Murphy, in great relief. “Oi wur about to take to me heels an’ run fer it.”
“Run for it!” gurgled Jotham Sprout. “By smoke! I was just getting ready to run the other way.”
The boys went forward and examined the tackling machine with great interest. They found two upright timbers had been erected about twenty feet apart, being connected by a strong rope from the top of one timber to the top of the other, and held in place by guy-ropes attached to stout pins that were driven into the ground. On the connecting rope ran a pulley-truck with an iron hook that held another and smaller block-pulley, through which passed the rope that suspended at one end the dummy to be tackled and at the other end the weight that lifted the dummy clear of the ground. This weight was arranged to drop just low enough to lift the dummy to the proper distance and then stop. When the dummy was tackled and brought down, the weight went up, the rope running through the lower and smaller block. To the upper block a second rope was made fast, running to small pulleys attached to the upright timbers a few inches from the top, so that by pulling on either end of this rope the dummy could be set in motion, drawn along swiftly, stopped suddenly, and caused to retreat in opposite direction. The dummy was a stout, heavy figure, made to represent a man dressed in a padded football suit, but having neither arms nor feet.
All this was very interesting, and the boys poured out their questions in single shots, scattering fires and volleys, so that it was not possible for Dolph to immediately answer them; but he explained that the dummy was one he had brought with him from Boston, having been purchased for him by his father, and the machine in a general way resembled the one invented by Captain Garret Cochran, of the Princeton University Football Team.
Then they were eager to try it.
“Clear the road!” bellowed Jotham Sprout, bracing himself at a distance of about twenty feet and pulling his cap down over his fat head. “I’m going to show ye how to tackle the old thing. Just watch me do it.”
Renwood immediately caught hold of one end of the rope that drew the dummy along, while the boys stood aside to witness the fat lad’s tackle. Jotham charged furiously and flung himself at the dummy with outstretched arms, but Dolph gave a sharp pull on the rope, and the figure moved aside, so that Sprout clutched nothing but empty air, and crashed to the ground like a fallen elephant, his breath being driven from his body in a great grunt of astonishment.
The boys shouted with laughter, while Jotham sat up and stared in disgust at the swaying dummy, wheezing:
“The blamed thing dodged!”
“Oh, Bubble!” shouted Mayfair. “It’s a wonder you didn’t burst when you struck the ground. Ha! ha! ha!”
“He! he! he!” mocked Jotham, sourly. “What made the hanged old thing do that?”
“That’s what it’s for,” asserted Renwood. “What would it be good for if it always hung still and let you tackle? A running man will dodge you if he can, and the dummy is made to do the same thing. That is so you’ll tackle quick and sure, and be on the watch for any move the other fellow may try to make.”
“Well, it wasn’t fair that time, for I warn’t ready for it to jump like that,” said Bubble, heavily rising to his feet.
“Try it again,” urged several.
“Excuse me!” Jotham protested. “I guess I’ll look on and see some of the rest of ye try it.”
“Hurroo!” cried Dennis Murphy, prancing off and spitting on his hands. “Oi’ll be afther havin’ a go at it, an’ let’s see thot bag av sawdust dodge me.”
“All right,” said Renwood. “Go ahead, Murphy.”
Dennis made a dash at the dummy, expecting Dolph would give it another pull in the same direction as before, but Sterndale had slipped up and taken hold of the other end of the rope, and, at the critical moment, the figure seemed to spring the other way. The result was that the Irish youth miscalculated entirely and went down, but he came up from the ground as if he had been thrown erect by springs.
“Howld on!” he ejaculated, whirling about and glaring at the object, while the amused lads shouted again. “Is it backward ye dodge, Oi dunno? Sure, ye’re a shlick crayther, av Oi ivver saw wan, but Oi’ll down yez av it takes me all noight, so Ol will.”
He sprang at the dummy again, caught it waist high, and brought it down immediately.
After this the boys took turns at it, having it drawn swiftly along and running at an angle to head it off, pursuing it, meeting it, and coming at it in various ways. Dolph showed them just how to tackle low and effectively, and they would not stop till it was too dark for them to practice on the machine with any success.
“Let every fellow get up here by seven o’clock to-morrow morning,” said Sterndale, “and we’ll put in an hour on this machine. We ought to get our new ball by to-morrow night, and so we’re not going to be hurt much, as far as practice is concerned, by the destruction of the other one.”
In high spirits, they left the field, laughing, joking and singing, and the sentiment universally expressed was that a fellow who took so much trouble and interest in coaching them was the right person for the position.