Barry Locke, half-back

It wasn’t until Friday that Barry had further speech with Major Loring. For three afternoons he had been drilled in the rudiments and had not got into signal work save for a brief ten minutes on Thursday. He was getting a little impatient. If they were ever going to discover his worthlessness they would have to give him a chance to show it. Clyde was viewing him with increasing suspicion. Once in a scrimmage, Barry told himself, he was certain to make a mess of things and get his walking papers, but they wouldn’t let him into a scrimmage! Each day he sat on the bench and just looked on.

On Friday there was only a short practice for the first- and second-string players, since the next day’s game with Peebles was expected to be difficult, and they were sent from the field early. Those who remained were set against one another in a scrimmage, and Barry, while he was still on the bench when the fracas started, was pretty certain of getting into action before it was finished. He was worried, however, by the fact that there was so much ragged playing going on that any misdeeds of his were likely to pass unnoted!

“Locke! Oh, Locke!”

Barry started to attention. Major Loring was calling to him from the farther end of the long bench. He got to his feet, dropping his blanket.

“Get a ball and come along,” called the coach.

Barry rooted in the canvas bag and found a ball which still showed some of its original surface, then joined the Major.

“We’ll go down to the other end,” said the latter, leading the way. “I want to see what you know about punting, Locke. Ever done much of it?”

“No, sir. I haven’t played a whole lot, anyway.”

“What position did you play when you did play?”

“I was tried at several places,” answered the boy, ruefully. “End, first. And last year at quarter and half. I—I don’t think I’m any good, sir. Not worth bothering with—much.”

Major Loring turned and surveyed Barry with a puzzled smile.

“You’re not stuck up about your playing, are you?” he asked. “What are you trying to do, Locke? Get me to let you go?”

Barry flushed.

“Well, I’m not very particular about playing, Major. Not this year.”

“I believe you,” said the other, dryly. “Still, I think you’d better stick it out for a few days longer. Here we are. Now punt one back of goal. Don’t try for distance. Swing easy. Take your time.”

Barry realized that here was an excellent opportunity to prove his case. All he had to do, doubtless, was to mess up a few punts. He had told the coach that the kick of Monday was largely an accident, and if he failed a few times now the Major was bound to believe it. But, as he turned the pigskin in his hands, he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to pretend. Probably he would perform poorly enough, in any case, but at least he would just have to do his best.

His best wasn’t so bad, as was proved an instant later. He had failed to strike the ball squarely and it went off to the left, but it covered most of forty yards before it landed. The Major started away after the pigskin and Barry followed him. After a moment the Major said:

“Not bad, Locke. In fact, I don’t see why we can’t make a punter of you in time. Let’s try it again. Kick down the field this time, so that one of those fellows can send it back.”

This time, by being more careful about dropping the ball, Barry did better as to direction, slightly better as to distance. He made five other tries in the course of the next ten minutes. None of the punts were remarkable, none were, under the circumstances, really bad. Major Loring stopped him several times and corrected the boy’s methods. Barry did not, he said, swing his kicking leg wide enough; nor did he carry his foot up sufficiently after meeting the ball. Trying to remedy these defects, Barry did not quite so well as at first. Major Loring called a halt finally, tucked the ball under his arm, and went back to the bench.

“It looks to me,” he said shrewdly, “as if you’d done more punting than you tell about, Locke. You’re very far from perfect, but you show evidences of a good deal of practice. What’s the answer?”

“I guess that’s because I kicked the ball around a good bit summer before last. I had sort of an idea I might get a place on the high-school team; just as a substitute, of course. I used to practise on the beach, up in Maine. There was a slope, a kind of cliff, back of the beach, and when it was low tide I could kick toward the cliff and the ball would roll pretty well back to me. Sometimes Clyde Allen and one or two other fellows up there would take a hand.”

“I see. Well, I think you’d better make up your mind to stick with us this fall. For a month anyway. If you come along well, I may give you a chance in a game before the season’s over. Anyhow, Locke, you ought to be in line for a back-field position next year. That would give you two seasons on the team here and send you up to college pretty well prepared to grab off a place there.

“Now, you’ll work along with the backs, Locke,” the Major went on, “and learn all the football you can. Punting is a good thing to know, but it won’t get you anywhere unless you’re an all-around player. For a while I want you to put in fifteen or twenty minutes—fifteen is enough for now—practising punts. You can do it during scrimmage. Get one of the fellows to catch for you. All right?”

“Yes, sir, only—”

“Only what?” asked the Major, a trifle sharply.

Barry blinked. He couldn’t tell the Major about Clyde’s not approving of his playing football! He fell back on his former plea.

“I don’t believe I’ll ever make a player, sir,” he said desperately.

“You won’t if you insist on keeping that idea in your head,” observed the Major. “Get rid of it, Locke. You do your best: that’s all I’m expecting. If your best isn’t good enough, I’ll let you know, all right.”

He nodded, arose, and walked out on the field, leaving Barry with the rueful suspicion that, as a start for his football career, he had displeased the coach!

Only twenty-six players made the trip to Clear Lake the next day, and Barry was not one of them. Nor did he make one of the hundred or so fellows who followed the team by train. He put in a quarter of an hour punting to Peaches and then played four sets of tennis with that youth, meeting defeat in three of them. At five o’clock they learned the result of the football game, by calling up the telegraph office in the village. Peebles had won by the score of 21 to 31.

“That,” said Peaches, as they left the booth in Croft Hall, “is worse than I expected. What’ll we do between now and supper-time? Let’s go to the village.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know,” acknowledged Peaches, in a discouraged voice. “I’ll tell you: we’ll go and make Zo play the fiddle to us!”

So they did, and Mill came across from his room presently and invited them to hear his radio and they sat in front of a horn for a quarter of an hour while Mill turned dials and frowned deeply, and heard a faint, far-off voice say, “You have just listened to the Hotel Pyramid Dance Orchestra play....”

The faint voice died into silence and Peaches shook his fist at the horn and hissed, “Liar!” Mill wagged his head despondently. “It was going fine a little while ago,” he said. “I don’t understand it!”

“Where,” murmured Peaches, “have I heard that before?”

Mill viewed him almost insultingly and Zo created a diversion by drawing the bow across the strings of his violin and starting a football song. In the middle of it Peaches, who had been staring fixedly at the radio set, interrupted with a shout.

“I’ve got an idea!” he proclaimed.

The football team arrived in time for supper, bearing indications of having spent a strenuous afternoon. Pete Zosker appeared to have taken a leading part in a train wreck, and both Goof Ellingham and Ira Haviland looked as if they might have been dropped from an airplane. Some of the others showed minor abrasions. A fat boy at Barry’s table, after viewing the returned heroes as they passed, remarked in an awed tone:

“Gee! it must have been some party!”

No one felt capable of improving on that and it was tacitly accepted as an expression of general opinion.

It was plainly evident that Major Loring wasn’t pleased with the team’s performance, for on Tuesday there were several shifts in the first line-up. Sinclair yielded right guard’s post to Rusty Waterman and went to the subs. Kirkland replaced Leary at right tackle, and several other changes were effected in line and back field. By the end of the week some of the ejected ones were back, however, Sinclair among them, and the line-up that faced the Greenville Academy wasn’t very different from that of the previous week. But the Greenville game was not yet.

Barry was making progress, both with his punting and in his general playing. He was aware of the fact, himself, after a few days, and the knowledge was disquieting. Clyde’s disapproval was increasingly evident and Barry’s excuses failed to satisfy. Clyde refused to perceive any improvement in the other, or any signs of promise.

“You’re letting Loring make a fool of you,” he declared darkly. “Lots of fellows have asked me about it. They’re laughing at you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, when Loring lets you out some fine day and you’re trying to explain how it happened!”

“I don’t see,” said Barry, mildly, “why it’ll be necessary for me to explain. If I don’t make good, that’s all there is to it. I can’t see any—any disgrace in it, Clyde.”

“It’s always a disgrace to try something impossible and come a cropper,” Clyde stated. “Fellows hate failures, as you’ll find!”

After a moment’s consideration Barry nodded.

“Well,” he said, “maybe something will happen—or something. I’ll do my best, Clyde.”

Nevertheless, he departed from that interview far from convinced. He knew that Clyde had always been extremely sensitive to ridicule; he could recall several instances in proof; but now he seemed—Barry searched for a word and presently found it—supersensitive. Broadmoor had changed Clyde, Barry reflected, and not altogether for the better, in the latter’s judgment. There were moments, these days, when Barry almost regretted the obligation which bound him to the other boy.

It was on Wednesday evening that Walter Millington gave his radio party, an affair that remained a topic of conversation for many days. Although Mill acted as host, much of the credit for the party must be given to Peaches, since the original idea was his. Then, too, it was Peaches who after great effort persuaded Toby Nott to attend; and there’s no denying that minus Toby the party wouldn’t have been a success at all.

Toby didn’t know much about radio and cared a great deal less. He stated the fact plainly and repeatedly, and even the news that, by rare good fortune, Professor Brown of Onondaga University had been secured to speak on “The Care and Feeding of Batrachians,” that evening, left him at first unmoved. It wasn’t until Peaches had anxiously reminded him that Batrachians were frogs and toads and such that Toby became interested, staring thoughtfully at the other.

“Maybe I ought to hear him,” he admitted. “I’ve never had much luck keeping frogs. Antonio doesn’t seem to like what I give him; and it’s getting awfully hard to find flies and ants, now the weather is colder. Can you understand what he says, Peaches?”

“Just as clearly as if he was in the same room with you,” Peaches assured him.

“What did you say his name was?” Peaches repeated the information and Toby shook his head. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“Well, I guess he’s all right,” said the other. “They wouldn’t be sending out his stuff if he weren’t a top-notcher.”

“Where’s this Oniondig—where’s this college, Peaches?”

“Onondaga? Why, at Onondaga, New York, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so. All right, I’ll be over. What time did you say? Half-past seven? Yell to me when you go, will you? I might forget. Say, you know those snails I got last week? Let me show you ’em now.”

“Never! Listen, Toby; I’ve seen—I mean I’ve smelled all I want to of those snails. Too much is plenty!”

“They don’t smell now; honest!” declared Toby, earnestly, as he proffered a flat box for inspection. Well, they didn’t—much. Peaches looked and poked them about gingerly.

“What’s become of their little insides?” he inquired.

“Why, I cleaned them. You boil them and then you take a little hook and—”

“Toby! Don’t tell me any more!” Peaches shivered violently. “I didn’t know you were French, Toby!”

“French? How do you mean, French? What’s eating you?”

“I thought only the French—er—ate snails.”

“Who said anything about eating them?” demanded Toby, indignantly. “Of course I didn’t eat them! I just cleaned them out and polished the shells. Look at the markings on some of them, Peaches. Aren’t they pretty?”

Peaches acknowledged that they weren’t unattractive and asked, “What are you going to do with them now?”

Toby stared.

“Do with them?” he echoed.

“Do with them,” assented Peaches.

“Why, keep them, of course.”

“Keep them.” It occurred to Peaches that the conversation was becoming rather idiotic. “Oh,” he murmured comprehendingly.

Toby nodded, evidently relieved that the idea had at last been grasped.

“Just keep them,” he said gently in the tone of one speaking to a mental deficient. Peaches nodded now.

“I see,” he remarked approvingly. “Just—er—keep them.”

“Yes,” said Toby, patiently.

“Splendid! Well—” Peaches reached the other side of the door before he was obliged to apply a handkerchief to his eyes. He hoped that Toby wouldn’t think he was choking and come to his aid.