CHAPTER V
ON THE GRIDIRON
Myron’s connection with Parkinson School began inauspiciously. After an eleventh-hour effort to get his studies scheduled, and the discovery that he was required to take two courses he didn’t want to take and to omit one that he did, a summons came to him to visit the Office. There Mr. Morgan, assistant to the Principal, reminded him that attendance at chapel was compulsory and then announced that there appeared to be some doubt that he could enter the second class owing to the fact that his Latin was not up to the requirements. That was disheartening, for Myron had coached on Latin during the summer and been pronounced fit for the third-year class at Parkinson or any other preparatory school. Yesterday he would have received the announcement with unconcern, but today, since the arrival of that disappointing telegram, he found cause in it for real alarm. At well past seventeen one doesn’t like to be put in with fellows who average sixteen, Myron held. As a matter of fact, the third class contained more students of his age than it did of fellows younger, and he would not have found himself out of place there. But he didn’t know that, and as a result he pleaded very hard to be allowed to enter the class above. In the end, after much hesitation, and with no very good grace, Mr. Morgan consented.
“But you’ll have to do some hard work, Foster, if you’re to stay there. Unless you’re willing to, I’d advise you to go into the third.”
“I’ll work, sir. Maybe I could coach in Latin.”
“Yes, you could do that. If you like, I’ll give you the address of a fellow who does a good deal of tutoring and gets excellent results.” He wrote the address on a slip and Myron tucked it in his pocket. “Well, that’s all, I think. I hope you will get on nicely, Foster. Let me see, your adviser is – ”
“Mr. Cooper, sir.”
“Good. Don’t hesitate to consult him. He’s a fine man and you’ll like him immensely, I think. Good morning.”
Myron had a spare hour after dinner and spent it unpacking. When some of his things had been distributed around the study the place really looked fairly homelike and attractive, and he began to look forward to a year at Parkinson with more equanimity. If only he wasn’t handicapped with his Latin, he thought, things wouldn’t be so bad. With Dobbins out of the way and the study and bedroom to himself, he guessed he could get along fairly comfortably. There was a half-hour of physics at three, and after that he was through for the day. He returned to Sohmer and changed into his football togs, which, unlike the nondescript garments worn by Joe Dobbins, were fairly new and of the best materials. When he had examined himself critically and appreciatively in the glass he sauntered downstairs, skirted the end of the gymnasium building and had his first real look at the playfield.
Nearly twelve acres of still green turf stretched before him, his view uninterrupted save by the grandstand directly before him. To his left were the tennis courts, both clay and grass, and about them white-clad figures darted. Nearer at hand, the blue-grey running track inclosed the first team gridiron. Beyond that two more pairs of goal-posts met his sight, and then the baseball diamonds filled the balance of the field. Track and gridirons and diamonds were already occupied, and the nearer grandstand held a handful of boys who had gathered in the warm sunlight to watch the activities. Football practice was called for three-thirty, and it was nearly four when Myron reached the field. He was in no hurry to join the panting and perspiring squads that trotted around over the turf, and so he perched himself on one of the lower seats of the stand and looked the situation over.
Not far away the manager and assistant manager, both earnest-looking youths, talked to a stout man in a faded brown sweater who later turned out to be the trainer, Billy Goode. Myron wondered where the coach might be, but he couldn’t find any one who much resembled his idea of what that gentleman should look like. However, with more than a hundred fellows at work out there it was easy enough to overlook him. A squad of advanced players trotted near, going through elementary signal work. Rather to Myron’s surprise, Joe Dobbins was amongst them, sandwiched between two capable-looking youths in togs quite as disreputable as his. Joe was acting as right guard, it seemed. Myron’s opinion of Joe as a football player went up a peg, for it was fairly evident that this squad was made up of last-year fellows and probably contained the nucleus of what in a few days would be known as the first squad. About this time Myron became aware that some of the fellows about him on the grandstand were viewing him curiously. Doubtless they were wondering why, being in playing togs, he didn’t get down there and go to work. Of course it was none of their business, but maybe it was time he found the coach and reported.
He made inquiry of the manager, a slim, very alert youth armed with a formidable notebook in which he was making entries when Myron approached. “Mr. Driscoll? He’s around here somewhere.” The manager, whose name was Farnsworth, looked frowningly about the field. “Yes, there he is down there, the man with the blue sweater. Are you just reporting for practice?”
“Yes,” answered Myron. “I wasn’t out yesterday.”
“What’s the name?” asked Farnsworth briskly.
“Foster.”
“Foster?” The manager fluttered the leaves of the big notebook until he found the F’s. Then: “What are the initials, Foster?”
“M. W.”
“Class?”
“Third.”
“Ever played before?”
“Naturally.” Farnsworth shot a quick glance.
“Where?” he asked.
“Port Foster High School Team, Port Foster, Delaware. I played two years there.”
“Line or backfield?”
“Backfield: before that at end.”
“Had your physical exam yet?”
“No, I didn’t know about it. Where do I take it?”
“See Mr. Tasser, in the gym. Any time between ten and twelve and four and six. Better do it today. Rules are rather strict, Foster. All right. Report to Cummins. He’s handling the new men. You’ll find him down there by the east goal: ask any one.”
“I though I’d tell the coach – ”
“Not necessary. Cummins’ll look after you.”
Myron shrugged mentally and turned his steps toward the indicated location. “One of those smart Alecks,” he thought. “Thinks he’s the whole push. All right, it’s not my business to tell him his. If they want me to waste my time with the beginners it’s their funeral.”
Cummins wasn’t difficult to find. Myron heard his bark long before he reached him. Nearly thirty youths, most of them youngsters of fourteen and fifteen, although here and there an older boy was to be noticed, were learning to handle the ball. Cummins appeared to be about eighteen, a heavily-built chap with a shock of reddish-brown hair and a round face liberally spattered with freckles. Just now the face was scowling ferociously and Cummins was sneering stridently at his charges. Myron took an instant dislike to Mr. Charles Cummins, and, or so it appeared, Mr. Charles Cummins took an equal dislike to Myron.
“Well, well, well, WELL!!” barked Cummins as Myron came up. “What do you fellows think this is? A lawn party or a sewing circle or what? Maybe you’re waiting for the ice-cream to be served? Listen just one minute, will you? Stop that ball, you long-legged fellow! Now then, let’s understand each other. This is football practice. Get that? The idea is to learn to hold that ball without having it get away from you, and to catch it and to pass it. We aren’t doing aesthetic dancing or – or acting in a pageant. This is work, W-O-R-K, work! Any of you who are out here just to get the air or to tan your necks can quit right now. I’m here to show you hopeless ninnies how to handle a football, and I propose to do it if it takes from now to Christmas, and the sooner you put your minds on what you’re doing and try a little, the sooner you’ll get through. Now start that ball around again and, for the love of limes, remember some of the things I’ve told you. When you catch it, grab it with both hands and hug it. It isn’t an egg. It won’t break. That’s the idea, Judson, or whatever your name is. Go ahead, go ahead! Get some ginger into it! Pass it along! Don’t go to sleep. I said hug it, not fondle it, Whittier! When you – Hello, more trouble?”
“The manager fellow told me to report to you,” said Myron as Cummins turned a baleful gaze on him.
“Oh, the ‘manager fellow’ told you that, did he? What does the ‘coach fellow’ say?”
“I haven’t seen the coach yet,” answered Myron coldly.
“Haven’t you? Why, say, maybe you won’t like him! Don’t you think you ought to look him over first? It would be fierce if you didn’t happen to approve of him. What’s your name?”
“Foster.”
“All right, Foster, you push right in there and show me how you catch a football. Something tells me that my troubles are all over now that you’ve joined this aggregation of stars!”
Myron suppressed the angry retort that sprang to his lips and took his place in the big circle. “Bounder!” he muttered as he did so. The boy next to him on the left heard and snickered, and Cummins guessed the reason. Unseen of Myron, he grinned. “When you can get ’em mad,” he said to himself, “there’s hope for ’em.”
When the ball was passed to Myron he caught it deftly, bending his body over it, and then promptly sped it on to the youth who had snickered. The latter was unaccustomed to such speed and was not ready, and the ball bounded away. He lumbered after it and scooped it up, returning to his place with an accusing scowl for Myron.
“Think you’re smart, I suppose,” he grumbled.
“Sorry,” said Myron, “but you ought to be ready for it.”
“Is that so? Well – ”
“Cut out that talking!” barked Cummins. “Speed it up, fellows!”
There was ten minutes more of the dreary work, during which Myron mechanically received the pigskin and sent it on to the next in the circle without a hitch. If he expected to win commendation from Cummins, however, he was disappointed. Cummins was eloquent with criticism, but never once did he utter a word of approval. At last:
“That’ll do for that, fellows,” he called. “You may rest a minute. Maybe some of you’ll get your strength back.” He approached Myron with an accusing scowl. “What are you doing in this bunch?” he demanded. “You don’t belong here.”
“I was sent here,” replied Myron warmly.
“Didn’t you have sense enough to tell Farnsworth you weren’t a greenie? Think I’ve got nothing to do but waste my time?”
“Well, you’re not the only one who’s doing it, are you? What about my time?”
“That’s your affair. I didn’t want you, believe me! You ought to have told him you knew something about a football. He’s no mind-reader, you know.”
“I told him I’d played two years on a high school team – ”
“Oh! That explains it. You high school ginks usually don’t know enough football to make the first year team. Guess Farnsworth thought you were like the run of ’em.”
“Maybe,” replied Myron indifferently, “but it’s not my business to teach you fellows how to run your affairs.”
“Hard luck for us, isn’t it? Well, say, Mr. ’Igh and ’Aughty, you trek across there and tell Farnsworth I say you’re graduated from my bunch. Get it? Tell him to put you somewhere else, and tell him I don’t care where it is!”
“Thanks,” returned Myron with deep sarcasm. “I’m horribly sorry to leave you, though. It’s a real pleasure working under such a gentlemanly instructor, Mr. Cummins.”
Cummins watched him for a long moment with his mouth open. “Well, what do you know about that?” he murmured at last. “The cheeky beggar!” Then he grinned again and, surprising amused and delighted expressions on the countenances of those of his squad who had been near enough to overhear the conversation, quickly changed the grin for a scowl. “All right now!” he barked. “Line up along there. Who’s got the ball? Let’s see what you pin-heads know about starting.”
Myron’s message to Farnsworth resulted in his finishing the practice with a group of fellows whose education had progressed beyond the rudimentary stage. Toward the last of the period he was put to catching punts with a half-dozen other backfield candidates and performed to his own satisfaction at least. There was no scrimmage today, nor was there any for several days following, and at five o’clock Coach Driscoll sent them off to the showers. Later Myron went upstairs and found the physical director and underwent his examination, obtaining a chart filled with perplexing lines and puzzling figures and official permission to engage in “any form of athletics approved by the Committee.” After which he returned rather wearily to Number 17 Sohmer and Joe Dobbins.
CHAPTER VI
“A. T. MERRIMAN”
The next forenoon Myron set off in a spare hour to find the tutor whose address Mr. Morgan had given him. If he had cherished the notion of possibly getting along without coaching in Latin his experiences that morning had banished it. Mr. Addicks, or Old Addie, as he was called, was a likable sort and popular with the students, but he was capable of a gentle sarcasm that was horribly effective with any one whose skin was less thick than that of a rhinoceros, and an hour or so ago he had caused Myron to heartily wish himself small enough to creep into a floor crack and pull some dust over him! No use talking, Myron told himself as he set forth for Mill Street, he’d have to find this chap and get right to work. He wouldn’t face that horrible Addicks again until he had put in a solid week of being tutored. It would get him in bad at the Office, maybe, if the instructor called on him very often in that week, for he would just say “Not prepared,” but anything was to be preferred to standing up there like a jay and letting Addicks make fun of him!
When he reached the head of School Street he pulled the slip of paper again from his pocket and made sure of the address. “A. T. Merriman, 109 Mill Street,” was what was written there. He asked his way at the next corner and was directed across the railroad. “Mill Street runs at right angles to the track,” said the citizen who was directing him. “You’ll see a granite building after you pass the crossing. That’s Whitwell’s Mill. The street you want runs along the farther side of it.” Myron thanked him and went on down School Street. The obliging citizen gazed after him in mingled surprise and admiration.
“Well, he’s certainly a dressy boy,” he murmured. “Must be Old John W. Croesus’s son!”
Mill Street wasn’t far and 109 was soon found, but the character of the district wasn’t at all to Myron’s liking. Ragged and dirty children overflowed the sidewalks and played in the cobbled roadway, slatternly women gossiped from open windows, dejected-looking men lounged at the corners, stray cats rummaged the gutters. The houses, frame structures whose dingy clapboards were flush with the street, had apparently seen far better days. Now dust and grime lay thick on them and many a window was wanting a pane of glass. The prospect of penetrating to such a place every day was revolting, and, having found the numerals “109” above a sagging porch, Myron was strongly inclined to turn back. But he didn’t, and a tinkle that followed his pull at the rusty knob beside the door brought a stout and frowsy woman who wiped her hands on her apron as she pulled the portal open.
“Mr. Merriman?” inquired Myron.
“I don’t know is he in, sir. One flight up and you’ll see his name on the door. If you come again, sir, just you step right in. The door ain’t never locked in the daytime.”
Myron mounted a creaky stairway guiltless of carpet and found himself in a narrow hall from which four doors opened. In spite of dinginess and want of repairs, the interior of 109 was, he had to acknowledge, astonishingly clean. One of the doors did present a card to the inquiring gaze, but in the gloom its inscription was not decipherable and so Myron chanced it and knocked. A voice answered from beyond the portal and nearly simultaneously a dog barked sharply. Myron entered.
The room was large and well lighted from two sides. It was also particularly devoid of furniture, or so it looked to the visitor. A large deal table strewn with papers and piled with books stood near the centre of the apartment where the cross light from the two pairs of windows fell on it. The floor was carpetless, but two scraps of straw matting saved it from utter bareness. There was a bench under the windows on one side and a flattened cushion and two faded pillows adorned it. What seemed to Myron the narrowest bed in the whole wide world, an unlovely thing of black iron rails, was pushed into a corner, and beside it was a box from which overflowed a grey blanket. Three chairs, one a decrepit armchair from whose leather covering the horsehair stuffing protruded in many places, stood about. There was also a bureau and a washstand. On the end of the former stood a small gas-stove and various pans and cooking utensils. Books, mostly sober-sided, dry-looking volumes, lay everywhere, on table, bureau, window-seat, chair and even on the floor. Between the several articles of furniture lay broad and arid expanses of unpainted flooring.
At first glance the room appeared to be inhabited only by a tall, thin but prepossessing youth of perhaps twenty years and a Scottish terrier whose age was a matter for conjecture since her countenance was fairly well hidden by sandy hair. The youth was seated at the deal table and the terrier was halfway between box and door, growling inquiringly at the intruder. At Myron’s entry Merriman tilted back in his chair, thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and said “Good morning” in a deep, pleasant voice. Then he added mildly: “Shut up, Tess, or I’ll murder you.” The terrier gave a last growl and retired to the box. As she settled down in it a series of astonishing squeaks emerged. Myron looked across startledly and Merriman laughed.
“Puppies,” he explained. “Six of them. That’s why she’s so ferocious. Seems to think every one who comes upstairs is a kidnapper. I tell her the silly things are too ugly to tempt any one, but she doesn’t believe me.”
“Will she let me see them?” asked Myron eagerly.
“Oh, yes.” Merriman drew his long length from the chair and led the way to the box. “Now then, old lady, pile out of here and let the gentleman have a look at your ugly ducklings.”
The terrier made no objection to being removed, but the puppies cried dismally at the parting. Myron chuckled. “Funny things!” he exclaimed. “Why, they haven’t got their eyes open yet!”
“No, they’re only six days old. How’s this one for a butter-ball? Isn’t he a fat rascal? All right, Tess, we won’t hurt them. I vouch for the gentleman. He never stole a puppy in all his innocent young life.”
“I never did,” Myron corroborated, “but I’d like to start right now!”
“Like dogs, eh?” asked the host.
“Yes, indeed. Funny thing is, though, that I’ve never owned one.”
“No? How does that happen?”
“I don’t know. My mother thinks they’re rather a nuisance around the house. Still, I dare say she’d have let me kept one if I’d insisted. I don’t suppose you – you’d care to sell one of those?”
“Oh, yes, I would. I’ll have to either sell them or give them: unless I send them off to the happy hunting ground.”
“Really? How much would they be?”
“The lot?” asked Merriman, a twinkle in his eye.
“Gee, no! One!”
“Five dollars. Tess is good stock, and the father is a thoroughbred belonging to Terrill, the stableman on Centre Street. Got a place to keep him?”
“I’d forgot about that,” owned Myron. “I’m afraid not. They wouldn’t let me have him in Sohmer, would they?”
“Scarcely!” laughed the other. “All right, old lady, back you go. Sit down – ah – What’s the name, please?”
“Foster. Mr. Morgan gave me your address. I want some tutoring in Latin, and he said he thought you could take me on.”
“Possibly. Just dump those books on the seat there. What hours do you have free, Foster?”
“This hour in the morning and any time in the evening.”
“What about afternoon?”
“I’m trying for the football team and that doesn’t leave me much time afternoons. Still, I guess we’re usually through by five.”
Merriman shook his head. “I’d rather not waste my time and yours, Foster. Football practice doesn’t leave a fellow in very good trim for tutoring. Better say the evening, I guess. How would seven to nine do?”
“Two hours?” asked Myron startledly.
“Yes, you can’t accomplish much in less. I can’t, anyhow.”
“Very well. Seven to nine. Shall I come here or – ”
“I’ll come to you. What’s the number in Sohmer? Seventeen? All right. We’ll begin tomorrow. My terms are a dollar an hour. You pay for the time it takes me to get to you, usually about ten minutes. Can you arrange with your room-mate to let us have the place to ourselves at that time?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Myron confidently.
“Good. Now pull your chair over here, please, and we’ll see what the job is.”
Merriman had a lean face from which two dark brown eyes looked keenly forth. His mouth was broad and his nose straight and long. A high forehead, a deep upper lip and a firmly pointed chin added to the general effect of length. You couldn’t have called him handsome, by any stretch of the imagination, but there was something attractive in his homeliness. Perhaps it was the expression of the eyes or perhaps the smile that hovered continuously about the wide mouth. He dressed, Myron reflected, as wretchedly as Joe Dobbins: more wretchedly, in fact, for Joe’s clothes were at least new and good of their kind, whereas Merriman’s things were old, frayed, ill-fitting. His trousers, which bagged so at the knees that they made Merriman look crooked, had been a positive shock to the visitor. But in spite of attire and surroundings, Myron liked this new acquaintance. Above all, he liked his voice. It was deep without being gruff and had a kind of – of pleasant kindliness in it, he thought. After all, it was no fault to be poor if you couldn’t help it, he supposed; and he had known fellows back home – not intimately, of course, but well enough to talk to – who, while poor, were really splendid chaps.
Presently Merriman finished his questions and finished jotting down little lines and twirls and pot-hooks on a scrap of paper. Myron rather wished he knew shorthand too. It looked ridiculously easy the way Merriman did it. “All right, thanks,” said the latter as he laid his pencil down. “I think I know what we’ve got ahead of us. Frankly, I don’t see how they let you into the third with so little Latin, Foster. But we’ll correct that. How are you at learning, by the way? Does it come easy or do you have to grind hard?”
“Why, I think I learn things fairly easily,” replied Myron doubtfully. “Of course, Latin looks hard to me because I’ve never had much of it, but I think – I hope you won’t find me too stupid.” Afterwards, recalling the visit, it struck him as odd that he should have said that. Usually he didn’t trouble greatly about whether folks found him one way or another. He was Myron Foster, take him or leave him!
“I shan’t,” answered Merriman. “I’ve had all sorts and I always manage to get results.”
“Do you do much tutoring?” Myron asked.
“A good deal. Not so much now as later. Spring’s my busy time.”
“I shouldn’t think you’d have time for your own studies.”
“I’m not taking much this year. Only four courses. I could have finished last spring, but I wasn’t quite ready for college then. By the way, if you hear of any one wanting a nice puppy I wish you’d send them to me. I can’t keep all that litter and I’d hate to kill the poor little tykes.”
“I will,” Myron assured him. “And – and I’m not sure I shan’t buy one myself. I suppose I could find some one to keep him for me.”
“I think so. Well, good morning. Say good-bye to the gentleman, Tess.”
The terrier barked twice as Myron closed the door behind him.