CHAPTER XVIII.
TROUBLE ON THE TEAM.
“I did not see you practicing after school to-night with the other boys, Don,” said Dr. Scott, two evenings later. “I happened to be driving past the ground, and so I stopped at the gate and looked on a few moments. I expected to see you in the midst of it. Where were you, my son?”
“I—I was not feeling very well,” declared Don, as smoothly as he could, although he knew his face had flushed, “and so I did not practice to-night.”
“There!” exclaimed his aunt; “what did I tell you, Lyman! I knew there was something the matter with him, as he hasn’t been acting at all natural for the past few days. I’m afraid, brother, you will have cause to regret permitting him to indulge indiscriminately in that rough and dangerous game.”
“I hardly think there is any cause for alarm,” smiled the doctor. “Any boy may have a turn at feeling indisposed in the midst of apple-time, when every orchard is inviting him to gorge himself. You have not been hurt in practice, have you, Don?”
“Oh, no, sir! not at all,” was the hasty answer.
“And you’re feeling all right now?”
“Yes, sir.”
Don shamefacedly showed his tongue.
“Slight coat on it,” commented his father. “Stomach a trifle disturbed. I’ll give you something for that before you go to bed. You’ll be all right in the morning. It wouldn’t do for you to fall ill now, with the great game against Highland only four days ahead, would it, my boy?”
“Hardly,” said Don, intensely disgusted with himself.
“Let me see, what position are you to play?” asked the doctor, pursuing the conversation, to the boy’s increasing discomfiture.
“Half-back,” answered Don.
“Then you must have considerable running and kicking to do, for I believe that is one of the most important positions on the team. They must think pretty well of you, Don, to give you such a prominent place on the eleven.”
“Oh, yes, they think well of me!” murmured the uneasy youth, with hidden bitterness.
“How is the team coming on in a general way?” persisted the man. “Do you think it is improving with practice?”
“I hope so.”
“But you do not speak in a confident manner. You how, those Highlanders make a hard crowd to beat.”
Don was silent.
“I presume this young Renwood, who is instructing the team, knows all about the game?” said the doctor, causing his son to writhe inwardly.
“He thinks he does,” laughed Don, shortly and harshly.
“Well, he has played it some, and so he must be able to give you many valuable points. Is he an agreeable sort of fellow?”
“Not much.”
“Don’t you like him?”
“No,” answered Don, speaking the truth this time, at least; “I do not like him.”
“That’s unpleasant,” said Dr. Scott, noting with regret the dark look on the boy’s face, “but you must not permit that to keep you from doing your level best in practice and in the game. At times it is necessary for us to put aside all personal likes and dislikes and join heartily with friends or foes in working together for a result. The boy who permits his personal feelings to rule his conduct in baseball or football will never make the highest type of player, and there is danger that he will not be very successful when he leaves school and enters on a business or professional career, for he will be ruled by prejudices and likings and not by sound common sense and reason. My boy, I want you to promise me that, for all you may dislike one or more of your associates on the eleven, you will join with the others in doing your level best under every condition to win from your opponents. Promise me this, Don.”
The youth choked a little and turned his eyes away. It was too late now, he fancied, to reveal to his father the exact condition of affairs, and so the deception must be continued at any cost of torture to his outraged conscience. Far better would it have been had he nerved himself to speak the truth without further subterfuge and falsehood.
“I’m sure you are the kind of a boy to think first of winning, regardless of your personal feelings,” asserted the doctor, not, however, without a shade of anxiety in his voice. “That being the case, it is your express duty to do everything you can honestly and squarely do to assist toward the desired result, even though it is necessary to sacrifice yourself in order to aid an enemy on your own side to make a successful play. I want you to promise that you will do so if the occasion arises.”
“That’s easy,” thought Don, “for I shall not play, and so the occasion will not arise.” And he gave the desired promise.
He took the medicine which his father gave him, as he could not easily avoid doing so, and then retired to his own room, relieved and thankful to escape. In the seclusion of his room, he seemed to turn in anger and disgust on himself.
“Oh, you’re a pretty cheap creature, Don Scott!” he muttered, fiercely. “You’re getting to be a slick liar! How long will you be able to keep it up? What will he think of you when he finds out the whole truth?”
The following night, he remained away from home during the time the eleven was practicing on the field, being forced to accept Bentley for a companion. But Don found that by association he was learning to tolerate Leon far easier than at first, for all that some traits and actions of the fellow still jarred on his nerves. Misery loves company, it is said, and both boys had once been members of the eleven, so they sought a secluded spot where they could smoke and talk and pass the time away till Don dared venture home.
Scott did not stop at one cigarette now; he smoked three, and would have smoked more but that a certain unpleasant sensation warned him to desist.
“You’re taking to ’em as a duck takes to water,” declared Leon, encouragingly. “I rather guess you’ve found they’re good for what ails yer.”
“Oh, they give a fellow something to do to pass away the time,” said Don; “but I don’t care about them.”
“You will some time,” averred the other. “You’ll want them with you all the time. But, say, they ain’t having such a slick old time since you and I left the eleven.”
“What do you mean?” asked Don, quickly.
“Oh, they’re not getting along as well as they might. They’ve put Smith in your place and Linton in mine, with Boland as right tackle. Murphy couldn’t get along with Old Lightning near him.”
“Why, I thought Carter was going to take your place.”
“They found it wouldn’t work, for Old Lightning was too slow for end work. Carter is filling Smith’s place on the end, but Renwood kicks like a steer about Boland. Thad is getting sick of it, too, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he got out. Anyhow, all these changes have made the right wing of the line awfully weak.”
“If Boland gets out, they’re up a tree!” exclaimed Don, with a feeling of unjust triumph. “They haven’t a good substitute now, and it will break them all up to lose Thad.”
“That’s right!” cried Bentley, gleefully. “They will be in the soup! What will they do?”
“Give it up. What could they do now if a man should be hurt in a game?”
“They’ve been talking of taking one of the mill fellows along as a substitute, but they don’t like to do it. There are a dozen fellows who go to the academy and who might play, but they won’t have anything to do with the game. They’ve got a scrub team from Lobsterville playing with them for practice to-night. Perhaps they’ll get somebody out of that.”
“Perhaps so, but I doubt it. Sterndale can blame himself for letting Renwood boss things, if they do happen to get into a box.”
“One thing is certain,” said Leon, wagging his head; “they won’t get us to help them out.”
“It isn’t likely they’ll want us,” muttered Don, bitterly.
And so they passed the time in talking of these things till the doctor’s son dared venture homeward. On his way, he dropped into a tobacco store and, in a very self-conscious, guilty manner, bought a package of cigarettes, which he slipped into an inner pocket.
Bentley had spoken the truth in saying the eleven was not progressing in a satisfactory manner. Renwood had worked hard to teach them, and they had received instructions in punting, drop-kicking, place-kicking, passing, tackling and interference; but when it came to working out the various plays, Thad Boland could not be aroused to the absolute necessity of quick and decisive action, and he bothered and hindered the others in a provoking manner. Thad was large enough and heavy enough to become a good man in the line, but it seemed doubtful if he would get into action and make himself of the least consequence in the game. Renwood scolded him and Sterndale coaxed him, but neither scolding nor soft words brought the desired result.
That night in the game against the scrub team, which was made up of all sorts and conditions of boys, there being sixteen in all, instead of eleven, Thad utterly refused to earnestly exert himself, declaring it was no use to “slash and tear ’round” in a fooling game of that sort, nor could any kind of talk or influence affect him. As the regulars failed to make an entirely satisfactory showing against the scrub, this was most annoying and not a little disheartening.
After the game, Sterndale, Renwood, Smith and Murphy drew aside to talk matters over.
“Of course we gave the scrub the advantage of numbers and the wind,” said the coach, somewhat ruefully; “but that is no excuse for our failure to score oftener.”
“The right end of the line is terribly weak,” confessed Sterndale, who looked troubled. “Carter is a new man on the end, Boland is too lazy at tackle, and Sprout is too fat as guard. We must make a change, Renwood.”
“It’s pretty late in the day to make a change now, but we may have to do it. The team was far better as it stood originally, with Smith on the end and Linton next to him; but you had to pull Smith back to half to fill Scott’s place.”
“Perhaps I don’t fill it,” said the tall boy; “but you bet I’ll do my level best.”
“You’re all right, John,” declared the captain of the eleven, laying an arm across Smith’s shoulders with something like affectionate familiarity. “You’re just as good a man as Scott was at half, but it has weakened the line taking you off the end.”
And this was the same John Smith who had once been called the hoodoo of the baseball nine, derisively nicknamed “Jonah,” and treated with inconsideration or positive contempt by Richard Sterndale. Having proved his worth, he was now held in esteem by the very ones who had entertained nothing but scorn for him, and no more was the opprobrious nickname applied to him.
Dennis Murphy beamed with satisfaction and pleasure. In the days of Smith’s disgrace the Irish lad had been the only one of the village boys to side with him and stand by him.
“Thot b’y’s all roight wheriver ye put him, Misthur Sterndale,” he declared, loyally.
“Yes, Smith’s all right,” agreed Dolph, promptly; “but we weakened the line by taking him off. If the Highlanders ever discovered just how easy our right end is, they could raise hob with us by hammering at it all the time—and they will discover it, sure as fate.”
Renwood appeared worried, and his manner impressed the others.
“What can we do?” asked the captain. “What would you advise, Dolph?”
“Bentley is a better man than Boland, if he will do his best. If we could get him back into his old position as left tackle and put Linton into Boland’s place, it would strengthen the right end some.”
Sterndale nodded. “Bentley is not a first-class man,” he said, “but he would be an improvement on Boland. Then, if we could put Smith on the end again, with Carter in Bubble’s position, we’d be all right as far as the line is concerned.”
“But without a right half,” said Renwood. “Now, if Scott——”
“It’s no use to talk of him!” exclaimed Dick, quickly. “We don’t want that kind of a fellow on the team. Isn’t that your opinion, Dolph?”
Renwood did not answer at once. He was aware that the others were watching him closely and waiting with interest for him to express himself on that point. At last, he slowly said:
“It would be better to play with almost anybody than to be badly beaten just because there was one weak point in the team, you know. If Scott didn’t have such a beastly temper——”
“That’s not the worst thing,” the captain grimly asserted. “A fellow who will do what he did is too nasty to be on the team. And you seem to forget that he tried to lay it on to you, Dolph.”
“No, I don’t forget; but I was thinking of the eleven, not of myself.”
“You’re altogether too generous, old man. But we won’t talk about Scott; he’s out of the question. However, I’ll see Bentley and tell him he can come back into his old place. That will set Linton over to right tackle, which will strengthen that end of the line some. If it had not been for Dummy and Murphy, who could not get along with Boland, I should not have shifted Linton into Bentley’s place.”
“Are you sure Leon will come back?” asked John Smith. “You know he’s friendly with Scott now, and he’s been saying all kinds of hard things about you and the rest of us. Won’t he stick by Scott?”
“Stick by nothing!” exclaimed Dick, with a laugh. “I’ll get him back on to the team easy enough. He isn’t the kind of a chap to stick by anybody.”
“I’d think more of him if he was,” declared Renwood; “but I guess it’s the best you can do, Captain Sterndale. Better get him back in a hurry, if you’re going to get him at all, so he will have the advantage of what little practice we get before Saturday.”
“I’ll have him up here for practice to-morrow morning,” promised Dick, confidently.
And he kept his word.