CHAPTER III.
THE FOOTBALL FIELD.
The Rockspur baseball ground, leveled and fenced through the energies of Dick Sterndale, captain of the village nine, was also to serve as a football field. Already Sterndale and Renwood, assisted by others who were interested and enthusiastic, had measured and lined off the field and erected the goal-posts at each end.
The marked-off field was three hundred and thirty feet long and one hundred and sixty feet in width. The measurements had been obtained by the aid of a tape, and then lime-lines had been drawn with a marker to indicate the actual field of play. Outside this field and inside the fence was a varying amount of room. At one point the fence was only eight feet from the boundary of the playing field, and this was the smallest permissible amount of space.
Having obtained the outer boundaries of the playing field, the tape was run down the side-lines and wooden pegs were driven into the ground exactly five yards apart. When the pegs were all down, the tape was stretched across the field from a peg on one side to a corresponding peg on the opposite side, and the lime marker was run over the tape, so the field was marked off with twenty-one lines between the ends, or twenty-three lines if the end lines were included.
Then the fifth line out from the end, or the twenty-five yard line, the point of kick-out, was made broader than the others, so it could be plainly distinguished. This was done at both ends of the field, and then the exact centre of the field, on the eleventh five-yard line, was marked with a large round spot to indicate the place of kick-off.
With this accomplished, the field was fully laid out, and the setting of the goal-posts, the most difficult task of all, followed. Sterndale selected four cedar posts which were long and straight and obtained two cross-bars which satisfied him in every particular. The posts were cut to a length of twenty-three feet, which gave an allowance of three feet to be sunk into the ground, and the cross-bars were somewhat more than nineteen feet long, as the posts were to be set exactly eighteen feet and six inches apart, it being necessary for the cross-bars to over lap, so that they might be securely spiked to the posts.
In setting the posts, the tape was stretched across the end of the field and the middle of the line marked, which was a distance of eighty feet from either side. This done, with the middle mark as a starting point, nine feet and three inches were measured off in opposite direction along the line, the two points for the posts being thus determined. Holes nearly three feet in depth were excavated at these points and the posts erected in them, the ground being packed solidly about them, causing them to stand securely without braces, which are needless and dangerous, as a player might trip over them or be forced upon them and injured.
When Scott and Bentley reached the field they found all the members of the newly-organized Rockspur Eleven were present, besides a number of youthful spectators and a few who were anxious to be classed as substitutes.
A little at one side from the others, Dick Sterndale, the handsome, manly-looking captain of the team, was essaying the drop-kick, coached by the boy Don Scott disliked, Dolph Renwood. Renwood was rather slender, although just now, in his padded football suit, he did not look so, and he had sharp, blue eyes, which to the village boys often seemed full of laughing scorn and contempt even while he spoke to them in a most serious or friendly manner. It was those eyes which caused the Rockspur lads to distrust Dolph for all of his apparent sincerity and interest in their sports and pleasures; and those eyes had done not a little to arouse the resentment of quick-tempered Don Scott, who bore half-hidden ridicule with less grace than open contempt.
The players’ bench used by the baseball team had been moved aside to make room for the football field, but it stood back by the rail in front of the bleachers, and Don walked toward it, passing close to Sterndale and Renwood. Having seated himself on the bench beside two small boys, he was able to overhear Renwood’s instructions to the captain of the team, although he pretended to be giving them no attention whatever.
“There are three ways to make a drop-kick,” Dolph was explaining. “You can’t do it any old way, Sterndale. In the first place, you must take hold of the ball right.”
“How’s that?” the big captain meekly asked.
“You may hold it with one hand, like this, with the point toward the goal, and drop it that way, taking a somewhat side-swinging kick; or you may hold it precisely the same with both hands and drop it; or, finally, you may hold it with both hands in this manner, pointing it away from the goal. It must never be dropped flat or directly upon the end. Now watch.”
The “coach” dropped the ball and kicked it handsomely, sending it sailing through the air in a long, graceful arc. It was pursued and captured by some small boys, who had a scrimmage over it, out of which one broke with it hugged under his arm and came running back toward Dick and Dolph.
“In kicking the ball,” Renwood went on, “you must hit it squarely with the toe the very instant that it rises off the ground. Now let me see you try it.”
Sterndale took the ball from the panting youngster who brought it up, held it with both hands as directed, and dropped it. In kicking he was a trifle too quick, and the result was anything but satisfactory.
“No, no!” exclaimed Renwood, impatiently. “Don’t kick it after it hits the ground. Can’t you understand that? Your toe must hit it just the instant it rises from the ground. Try to fix that in your head.”
“Is that Sterndale?” Don Scott asked himself, in amazement. “Can it be that he’ll let anybody talk to him in that tone of voice?”
Dick was the acknowledged leader of the village boys and their accepted commander in all things. As captain of the baseball nine, he had seemed to know everything worth knowing about the game, and he had been skillful in imparting his knowledge to others and in handling his men to the very best advantage. When the Rockspur lads decided to organize a regular football team for the first time, Sterndale was unanimously chosen captain, although he confessed that he was almost unfamiliar with the game.
The boys regarded it as a piece of good fortune when Redwood offered to coach them, claiming to have been a member of the Hyde Park A. A. C. and to have played in a large number of football games in and around Boston; but Scott and Bentley were not the only ones who had been annoyed by the city lad’s supercilious ways and condescending airs, although the others held their resentment in check, feeling that they could not afford to antagonize Dolph as long as he was instructing them in the arts of the game they wished to learn.
Again Sterndale tried the drop-kick, and this time he was successful, sending the pigskin sailing through the air in handsome style, so that Renwood declared:
“That was good. Try it again.”
When the ball was returned, the captain made a still better kick, and again received an expression of approval from the coach.
“Now,” said Dolph, “all the members of the team seem to be here, so I think we’d better get them together and put in some practice on signals. They bungled things terribly last night. I think you’ll find some of them are no earthly good.”
As he said this, he turned and looked at Don Scott, who felt on the instant that the words were meant for him, and a pang of anger shot through his heart, causing his hands to clench savagely and his jaws to harden.
“We have the best fellows in the village on the eleven,” asserted Sterndale, loyally.
“Good fellows do not always make good football players,” said Dolph, knowingly. “But get them together, and we’ll see if they can do any better than they did last night.”
Observing Don, Dick called:
“Come on, Scott. Where’s your suit?”
“Don’t need it,” returned the boy on the bench. “I’m not going to practice.”
“What?” exclaimed Dick, walking over. “Oh, come, that’s nonsense! You aren’t sick, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s different,” said the captain, quickly. “If you’re sick, I don’t expect you to practice.”
Don rose to his feet.
“Yes, I’m sick,” he hoarsely declared. “I’m sick of that fellow Renwood and his airs and insults. I’ve stood them just as long as I can. I know he meant me when he said some of the men on the team were no earthly good, and——”
“I know you’re mistaken,” cut in Dick, quickly. “Now, wait a minute, Don. It was only a short time ago that we thought of getting the team together for practice, and he observed that you were not here, and that Bentley had not arrived. He said we’d better wait, for, while we might get along without Bent, we needed you in your position as half-back. That was not all. He said that, whatever changes were made on the team, he believed you had been given the right position and should be kept there.”
For a moment Don found himself at a loss for words, but he finally muttered:
“He didn’t mean it. It was just some of his sarcasm.”
“I am sure it was nothing of the sort. He was in earnest.”
“Then why did he make such talk to me last night? And why did he look at me in such a way just now when he said some fellows on the team were no earthly good?”
“He didn’t talk to you any plainer than he does to any of the fellows. They say professional coaches sometimes swear at the men they are training and are as bad as slave-drivers. You must remember that he has been coached by a professional on the team he played with in Boston, and I suppose he considers that the proper way to talk to men. Now, Don, old man, you know we can’t get along without you on the eleven any more than we could have made the record we did if you hadn’t been on the nine. I know you’re loyal to Rockspur, and you’re going to help us down those Highlanders. Don’t mind the way Renwood gives his instructions, but just get right into gear and show what you can do. I’m depending on you, Scott.”
Dick had a hand resting on Don’s shoulder while speaking, and there was deep persuasion in his manner and the inflection of his voice. It was this quality of inducing others to do as he desired that had made Sterndale a leader.
Don wavered a moment, the thought coming to him once more that he must do his best to conquer his temper and that this was another occasion for him to prove his self-control, whereupon he said:
“All right, Sterndale; I’ll do it for you. But I can’t stand everything from Renwood. I’ll get into a suit in a hurry.”
Then he trotted off toward the dressing-room beneath the grand-stand, while Dick, following him with his eyes, muttered:
“Confound your surly temper! I’d like to tell you just what I think of you, but it isn’t policy now, for we need you on the team.”