Probation didn’t weigh as heavily on Kendall as he had thought it was going to. It was hard at first to reconcile himself to giving up the football career he had dreamed of for two years, or, rather, since he meant to try again as soon as he might, to postponing it. But after a week or so the first sting of disappointment passed. At least, he was not barred from watching practice, even if he couldn’t take part in it. As for the Saturday afternoon games, he missed none of them. And when, on the thirteenth of October, St. John’s Academy played Yardley to no score game Kendall was as bitterly disgruntled as anyone. The plain truth of the matter was that Yardley should have won that contest by two scores. That she didn’t was due to two things: Wallace Hammel’s inability to kick a field goal from the twenty-five yard line and Simms’s headless generalship when, in the third period, Yardley had the ball on St. John’s twelve yards on a first down. Dan was not playing. If[109] he had been Simms’s signal for a forward pass would have been countermanded. The quarter-back got the throw off in good style, but Norton, who was to have taken it, ran too far across the field and the ball went into the eager arms of a St. John’s player who romped half the length of the field with it before Simms, striving heroically to avert the consequences of his error of judgment, brought him down from behind. After that Holmes was sent in at quarter with instructions to pound at the opponent’s line for a touchdown. But St. John’s managed to stave off defeat until the final whistle came to her rescue, and went home proud and elated. Yes, even Kendall, who had had scant opportunity to study the strategy of the game, saw where the trouble lay and groaned impotently more than once as Yardley’s chances of victory were thrown away. What especially surprised him was Hammel’s failure to kick that goal. The pass from Fogg, who played center, was perfect, the dark blue line held like a wall and he had all the time in the world. And yet the ball missed the left upright by a good six feet. Why, Kendall was almost certain that he could have done better than that himself, although he had never tried to drop-kick a goal! He wondered on the way up the hill if anyone would object if he brought his[110] football down there some morning between recitations and tried a few goals. He didn’t believe they would. He made up his mind to do it.
And so on Monday morning, after mathematics, he hurried to his room, got his old stained and frayed pigskin and went down to the gridiron. There was not a soul in sight at that time of day. It had rained in the night and the ground was soft and slippery. Kendall started at the fifteen yards and missed the crossbar by five feet or so. At twenty yards he got over once and missed twice. It wasn’t as easy as it had looked. At twenty-five yards, however, he had less difficulty. Ten tries netted him six goals, which wasn’t so bad considering that Kendall hadn’t kicked a football for a month or more.
After that he took the ball to the side of the field and tried angles. Naturally, he wasn’t overly successful at this, but he managed several times to get the pigskin across the bar, and he became so interested that he quite lost track of time and the hour bell found him far from Oxford and he had to hide the football in a corner of the tennis shed and sprint all the way up the hill.
He was back again the next morning, and several other mornings that followed and, although there was none to watch or applaud, he didn’t get[111] tired of conquering the crossbar with the dirty old brown ball. When, one day he managed to put it over from placement squarely on the thirty-five yard line he was very well pleased indeed. Place-kicking was something he had known nothing of before coming to Yardley, and he had to solve its problems unaided. But solve them he did. He learned to judge the strength of the wind and allow for it, to point the ball according to distance and direction, to keep his eye on the spot to be kicked. Doubtless he would have progressed more rapidly with someone to teach him, but he got along remarkably well alone. An expert would have instructed him to have the laced side of the ball toward him so as to use the lacings as a guide in sighting, and Kendall had to discover the advisability of that unaided. And so the morning’s half hour of goal-kicking became quite a regular event for Kendall, and almost every day—always when the weather allowed—he was down on the field after mathematics recitation swinging that long right leg of his and rapidly wearing the leather off the toe of his shoe. And then one forenoon when he was trudging up the hill with the pigskin tucked under his arm it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps for almost a fortnight he had been unintentionally disobeying rules. That afternoon he sacrificed a quarter[112] of an hour of watching practice and found Mr. Collins in the office.
“You know, sir,” explained Kendall, “you told me I mustn’t take part in athletics, and I’ve been practicing goal-kicking. Was that wrong, sir?”
“Hm,” said Mr. Collins, placing the tips of his fingers together and frowning intently for a moment. “Er—on your own hook, so to speak, Burtis?”
“Oh, yes, sir. I just wanted to see if I could do it.”
“Well, no, I don’t think you are guilty of any wrong, my boy, for you say you didn’t think about it. In fact, I’m not sure that what you’ve been doing is an infringement of the rules. Still, I think that, in order to be on the safe side, you had better drop it. I’m sorry, but rules are rules, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Kendall with a sigh. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, “Could you tell me, Mr. Collins, how much longer probation is going to last?” he asked.
Mr. Collins shook his head gently. “No, I can’t. I don’t know, and it would be wrong to tell you if I did. But I will say that you have been doing very good work, Burtis, and I think I may assure you that if you keep it up your term of probation will terminate before very long.”
[113]
“Yes, sir, thank you.”
“You’re very welcome. By the way, you haven’t been to see me yet, have you? Or was I out when you called?”
“No, sir, I haven’t.”
“I wish you would. What are you doing this evening after supper? Couldn’t you drop down and see me for a while? There’ll be one or two other fellows there, probably. We have a sort of a club on Friday nights. Just to talk things over, you know, and exchange ideas. Perhaps you may know the others; if not you’ll want to. Better drop in for a while, Burtis.”
“Thank you, sir, I’d like to very much,” replied Kendall gratefully.
And yet when the time came he felt rather shy about it and it was nearly eight when he finally descended the stairs and knocked at the door of Mr. Collins’s study. It was the Assistant Principal’s voice that bade him enter. The room was very comfortable and homelike. The walls were lined with bookshelves, there were many easy-chairs, most of them turned toward the hearth where the tiniest of soft coal fires was burning, and the light was supplied by a squatty lamp on the big table so shaded that the upper part of the room was left in a mellow twilight. Mr. Collins’s “one or two other fellows” were in reality[114] five. As Kendall was introduced to them they stood up and their faces were blurred in the pleasant gloom. ............