“But this paper,” said Gerald, kicking the offending sheet from the window seat to the floor, “says Nordham outplayed us. I don’t think that’s fair. Do you, sir?” “Well, didn’t they outplay us, Pennimore?” asked Mr. Payson who had dropped into Number 28 for a visit after church. “They won, and there were no flukes that I saw.”
“But if we’d kicked the goals after our touchdowns—”
“But we didn’t, and they outplayed us right there. There’s no use being disgruntled and trying to deceive yourselves into thinking that it was a case of hard luck, for it wasn’t. What do you say, Vinton?”
“Oh, I suppose they outplayed us,” answered Dan wearily. “We were away ahead of them at straight football, but—”
“‘Straight football,’” repeated the coach with a smile. “By that you mean bucking the line, I suppose. But that isn’t any ‘straighter’ than[245] any other sort of football nowadays, Vinton. No, sir, Nordham has a remarkable team, a team built around two fast backs and weak in the line, to be sure, but I take my hat off to that coach over there. And to that quarter of theirs, too. He’s a little marvel, Vinton.”
“Wish we had him,” muttered Dan.
“Um; if we had we’d have to make our team over. Of course Nordham had this advantage over us yesterday; they could play to their limit, since their big game is two weeks off, while we were obliged to hold back our best plays on account of Broadwood. She had at least four assistant coaches and players there yesterday, but I don’t think they learned much.”
“They’ll eat us up next Saturday,” sighed Dan moodily.
“Perhaps, but I don’t think so. If they played the sort of game Nordham plays they might beat us, for we haven’t learned a defense against a running game. But Broadwood must play about the sort of game we played yesterday. Her backs are heavy, line-smashing fellows and Saturday’s game will be pretty much all what you just called ‘straight football.’ On the whole, Vinton, we didn’t do so badly to hold Nordham to three scores yesterday. She might have run us off our feet with that tricky game of hers.”
[246]
“Has Broadwood some good kickers this year?” asked Gerald.
“She’s still got Rhodes,” said Dan. “You remember him last year, don’t you?”
“I don’t believe,” said the coach, “that we need fear goals from field. They’ve only scored two all season.”
“One of those was a fluke,” added Dan.
“What we’ve got to watch out for are forward passes. They’ve been getting off some fine ones lately. They gained eighty yards in the Forest Hill game by forward passes. How is Stearns this morning?”
“A bit lame,” replied Dan. “He will be all right to-morrow, I guess.”
“We’ll let him lay off to-morrow. It will be light work for all unless this weather changes. It’s almost like summer to-day. Well, I must be getting back. How are you feeling, Vinton?”
“All right,” was the reply.
“How’s the ankle?”
“Oh, it was just a twist. It feels pretty good to-day.”
“Well, go easy on it and give it a good rubbing to-night. We got through yesterday very well as far as injuries go. Going to lick Broadwood cross-country Saturday, Pennimore?”
“Yes, sir, hard,” answered Gerald with conviction.[247] “We’ve got a dandy team this year. Ryan picked the fellows last week.”
“Glad to hear it. That will mean two defeats for the Green on Saturday. Well, I’ll see you to-morrow, Vinton. Good morning.”
The next afternoon, as the weather still held warm, all those who had played for more than a period in the Nordham game were sent around the track a few times and then discharged for the day. But there was a hard battle between the First Team substitutes and the Second Team, and Kendall got into it for a whole ten-minute period. I can’t say that he especially distinguished himself, although he worked as hard as he knew how. But there were a great many fine points about the duties of a half-back that Kendall had never heard of, and it seemed to him that he came in for more than his share of criticism. The two teams battled through three ten-minute periods without a score on either side.
On Tuesday hard work began again and Mr. Payson sought to correct some of the faults shown in the Nordham contest. The two-day rest had brought the players around in fine shape and the spirit shown argued well for the team’s success. Only Dan was disappointing that day. He was badly off his game and seemed in a very low frame of mind. Mr. Payson watched him closely,[248] and so did Andy Ryan, the trainer. The coach trusted that he would pull around by the morrow, but on Wednesday, the final day of real work, Dan was still listless and dumpy. After supper that evening Mr. Payson dropped into Number 28 Clarke again.
“Hello!” said Dan, who was half-heartedly going over his Greek, “I was just going down to see you.”
“I thought I’d save you the trouble. Good evening, Pennimore. How are you?”
“Very well, thank you, sir. I wish Dan felt as well.”
Dan frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with me, Gerald, so please cut it out.”
“You don’t look terribly bright and cheerful,” said Mr. Payson smilingly. “Sleeping all right?”
“Pretty fair,” answered Dan.
“He’s fibbing, sir,” said Gerald. “He was awake about half of last night. Twice I woke up and found him reading.”
“For goodness’ sake, Gerald, mind your own business,” said Dan crossly. “I’m no baby. What if I did read a while? I wasn’t sleepy.”
“Well, but that won’t do, Vinton, and you know it as well as I do,” said Mr. Payson quietly. “We can’t have you getting nervous now. Too much depends on your being in good shape Saturday.”
[249]
“Oh, I’ll be all right, sir,” answered Dan impatiently.
“Of course. Well, let’s talk about to-morrow if you have time. I suppose we’ll have to go through the motions of practice for the sake of the school, eh?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” said Dan. “They’re going to march down to the field as usual and shout themselves hoarse. There was some talk of having the band up.”
“Well, we’ll call practice for four o’clock then. That’ll give us fifteen or twenty minutes of it. And that reminds me.” He took out a memorandum book and made a note in it. “I’m going to have Fogg and Girard go down early and practice passing to Simms and Holmes. Fogg was a bit ragged Saturday.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Dan. “And Norton ought to have a good half hour at goal practice.”
“We’ll have him try a few kicks, Vinton, but I don’t want to shove him too hard. We’ve got the fellows just about on ed............