Neil was sitting in an armchair in Coach Haynes’ front room, his crutches against his knees. The coach sat near by, close to one of the long front windows, completely surrounded by a Sunday paper. Beyond him, through the casement that reached to the floor, Neil saw the little park, fenceless, deep in yellow and red maple leaves, and the abandoned iron fountain in the center, its basin long dry and filled with the litter of many seasons. But, against the trees, some of them still retaining their gaudy foliage, and bathed in the sunlight of a wonderful early November morning, it looked rather pretty. Mr. Haynes was smoking an after-breakfast pipe, and the clouds of gray-blue smoke writhed and billowed in the shaft of sunlight that fell athwart the worn carpet and almost restored the ancient hues of its floral garlands.
“There never has been a moment since Harven resigned,” the coach was saying, “when I wouldn’t have been mighty glad to have him back in his old position, Orr, but no good would have come of my taking any steps to get him. I think you realize that. I believed that he would come around himself in time, but I thought it would be before this. Now that he has decided to return, I’m very glad of it.”
“Yes, sir, but he hasn’t,” said Neil, smiling ruefully. “I mean, he’d like to, but he thinks you don’t want him.”
“He hasn’t any right to think so,” commented Mr. Haynes. “I suppose he thinks I was instrumental in ousting him, which I wasn’t, but even so he should know that the success of the team means too much to me for me to allow personal likes or dislikes to interfere. Well, what’s your idea, Orr? Do you want me to see him and ask him to come back?”
“No, sir, I wouldn’t expect you to do that!” exclaimed Neil.
“Oh, I’ll do it if it’s necessary,” replied the coach surprisingly. “But I fancy the less I appear personally in the matter the more chance we have of success, Orr. You know Harven, and you know he’s a chap to be handled with gloves—and mighty smooth ones at that! For instance, if he learned you’d been here this morning, and I asked him to come back to the team, he would naturally connect the two, jump to the conclusion that you’d worked on my sympathies and we never would get him. There’s a better way if we can only think of it.”
The coach puffed hard on his pipe and stared through the window for a space. Finally: “You say he doesn’t know you’re here?” he asked.
“Not from me, sir. And I shan’t tell him.”
The coach nodded and a second silence followed. At last he turned and rapped the ashes from his pipe into the ash tray on the arm of his chair. “I’ve got it, Orr,” he said. “The Laird’s the one to do it. I’ll see him this afternoon.”
Neil’s face brightened. “That’s so, Mr. Haynes! They’ve always been great pals! Stuart will listen to The Laird.”
“I’m sure he will. Don’t hurry away, though. I’m mighty grateful to you for doing this, Orr. I wish you didn’t have to use those things.” He pointed smilingly to the crutches. “I’d like you on the team, old man!”
Neil flushed, not at the allusion to the crutches but in real pleasure. You see, he sometimes thought that if he had been like other chaps he could have done rather well in sports, and it was fine to have the coach confirm the thought. He made his way back to school very happy.
Stuart was inclined to be a bit resentful because Neil had left him alone, but he didn’t insist on knowing where the other had been and Neil at once began to bustle around in preparation for church. His prayer book and hymnal had, it appeared, been misplaced, and in aiding in the search Stuart forgot his resentment and any curiosity he may have had. The missing articles were eventually discovered by Neil just where he had left them a week before. It was almost dusk when there came a knock on the door of Number 12 and The Laird came in. Stuart had been humped up on the window seat earnestly wrestling with his English, and Neil was in the middle of a delayed Sunday letter. The Laird explained carelessly that he’d been out for a bit of a walk and thought he’d drop in and pass the time of day. Stuart was glad to see him and equally glad of an excuse to close his books, and he made The Laird comfortable in the biggest of the two easy chairs and was quite merry. Neil ended his letter hurriedly during the first minutes of the trainer’s visit, inclosed it, and, excusing himself, took it down to the letter box in front of Manning Hall. He made the trip very leisurely and, on the way back, stopped in a few minutes with Tom Hanson who lived on the first floor. He was careful not to make his absence suspiciously prolonged, however, and got back to Number 12 some fifteen minutes after his departure. The trainer was still there and neither he nor Stuart appeared to have been aware of Neil’s absence. They were talking football, the pair of them; discussing the chances of Yale coming back in time for the Princeton game next Saturday, and the overthrow of the big colleges in their games yesterday. It was evident to Neil, however, that The Laird had performed his mission, and performed it well since Stuart was unmistakably in an excited and exalted frame of mind. Presently the trainer took his leave, and Neil, after waiting a moment for Stuart to explode the news, asked idly:
“What did The Laird have to say? Anything new in the world?”
“N-no.” Stuart was elaborately careless. Whatever he had to tell, Neil saw, wasn’t going to be exploded! “We were talking about the game Saturday and one thing and another. Where’d you go?”
“Out to post my letter. Then I stopped in at Tom Hanson’s for a minute. It’s getting colder.”
“Yes.” Stuart absently fingered the pages of a book. “I guess we’re in for a cold snap. Glad of it. You need zippy weather for football. That reminds me. I’ve decided to go back on the team to-morrow.”
“Honest?” exclaimed Neil, in surprised and pleased tones. “I’m awfully glad!”
Stuart laughed ironically. “The Laird says Haynes was talking to him to-day. What do you think he asked him?”
“I don’t know. What?”
“Asked him if he thought I meant to come back! Looks as if he wasn’t so mighty independent, after all, eh? The Laird says he guesses Haynes would be tickled to death if I showed up again. And The Laird sort of wants me to, too.”
“That’s fine,” commented Neil. “Only, if he happened to be wrong about Mr. Haynes you wouldn’t want to do it, of course.”
“He isn’t wrong,” replied Stuart decisively. “He’s dead right. I—I’ve sort of suspected—just lately, I mean—that Haynes wouldn’t be heartbroken if I reported again.”
“Oh! But you said—”
“I know,” answered the other impatiently. “I didn’t have anything to go on, you see; it was just a—just a feeling. Anyway, I’ve decided to risk it. I’m going out to-morrow afternoon. Gee, it’ll be good to get back into togs again! Of course, I may not get my place back, but I don’t care so much. I’ll have the fun of playing. And—and The Laird says they need me. There’s only one more game before Pearsall, but he thinks we’re going to come back all right. Golly, Neil, we’ve got to! When you come right down to it, Pearsall hasn’t done so remarkably well herself this fall. Yesterday’s win wasn’t anything to brag about. Eleven to three against Lyons was pretty punk, I’ll say. They’ll have to do a great sight better playing two weeks from now if they expect to beat this outfit!”
Stuart, once well started on the subject of football, gave no signs of tiring. In fact, he kept it up until supper and, after supper, until bedtime. Neil listened patiently if not always interestedly, too pleased with the result of the conspiracy to begrudge attention, even though it left him ill-prepared for to-morrow’s recitations. Stuart was too absorbed to notice that his roommate sometimes hid a yawn behind a polite hand.
The next afternoon Manager Locker, early on the field and uninterestedly watching two second-string backs kicking a ball about, beheld with surprise the approach of a youth in togs who had, at the distance of a hundred yards, a remarkable resemblance to Stuart Harven. Nor did his surprise decrease as the youth drew nearer and the resemblance increased. Locker drew in a long breath and ejaculated: “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” Then he stepped eagerly forward. “Stuart!” he exclaimed. “Gee, this is great! Say—”
But Stuart interrupted gravely. “Hello, Fred,” he said. “I’d like to report for practice.”
Locker opened his mouth for a good laugh, but something in the other’s face caused him to change his mind. Instead: “Oh!” he faltered. “That’s fine! Well, I guess we need——”
“Might take my name if you don’t mind.” Stuart’s gaze traveled to the breast of Locker’s jacket and came to rest significantly over an inside pocket.
“What? Oh, sure!” The manager hurriedly produced his red book and plucked a pen from a pocket of his vest. There was no harm in humoring the other!
“Stuart Harven, seventeen, Upper Middle Class, 12 Lacey,” announced the applicant soberly. Locker wrote it down.
“Experience?” he asked.
“Two years. Maybe you’d better say three. I played part of this season.”
Locker nodded, as grave now as Stuart. “What position?” he inquired.
“Quarterback.”
“Thanks.” Locker closed his book and slipped it back into his pocket. “I suppose you know about your physical examination? But I forget; you’ve played this season already, you said. Report to the trainer after practice, please. Now, you big chump, come off your high horse and talk sense! Are you really going to play?”
Stuart nodded. “If they’ll let me, Fred.”
“Let you? Let—Say, where do you get that stuff? You watch ’em! I guess the only chap who won’t be tickled pink is Wheaton. And, at that, I fancy he won’t be awfully cut up, for Wheat’s bitten off more than he can Fletcherize, and he knows it! Here they come now!”
The squad was beginning to dribble across the field from the gymnasium. Once past the tennis courts, the balls began to soar. Stuart saw Coach Haynes well back in the second group, talking to Jack. Stuart kept his place beside Fred Locker, waiting, a trifle woodenly, for his presence to be discovered. It was Tom Muirgart who first recognized him and spread the news with a shout. Then Tom, followed by Billy Littlefield and Wallace Towne, hiked across the corner of the gridiron and assaulted him joyfully. It was hard to keep up that expression and manner of unconcern when Tom was banging him between the shoulders and Billy was ruffling his hair with jovial but ungentle hand. Stuart donned his headgear in protection and dodged Tom’s enthusiastic palm.
“Cut it out, fellows,” he growled, embarrassed, and darting an apprehensive look toward the approaching coach. “Don’t make a—a silly scene!” But in avoiding Tom’s blows he backed squarely into the stout arms of Joe Cutts, and Joe seized on him as though he were an opposing center and lifted him, struggling and wriggling, off his feet. After that there was no use in attempting to carry the affair off with dignity and decorum, and Stuart realized it and subsided in weak and futile remonstrances. “Thirsty” and “Howdy” and “Bee” and half a dozen others closed about him and pummeled him joyously or pumped his arms, or, unable to get close enough to lay violent hands on him, shouted their welcome. Stuart alternately grinned and scowled; grinned because grinning seemed to ease the sort of choky feeling in his throat, and scowled to prove that he hadn’t grinned!
And then, the group thinning, he found himself looking straight at the coach. Mr. Haynes smiled and held out his hand. “Glad to see you, Harven,” he said cordially.
Foes may clasp hands and still remain foes. Stuart returned the coach’s firm grip and said: “Thanks, sir.”
Then practice began.
Stuart discovered that a fortnight or so of idleness had told on his muscles surprisingly, but he didn’t allow any one else to suspect it. He went through formation drill in a squad of substitutes, playing his old position. He felt that the atmosphere here was not so sympathetic as it had been among that group of older players, but he didn’t resent it. Nor did he resent being left on the bench when, after an hour’s practice, the second team trailed across from the further gridiron and the scrimmage began. He couldn’t expect to get his place back without a struggle. That wouldn’t be fair to Wheat, who, no matter what might be said of his shortcomings, had tried loyally and hard. For that matter, Stuart reflected, he might get no better than first substitute’s place for the rest of the season. To-day he didn’t care very much. It was so jolly good to get back at all! He had been an idiot to stay out so long, he told himself. Haynes had acted pretty decently. Shown good form, too. Some men would have been sloppy and hypocritical and some would have been sneering or sarcastic. Haynes had hit just the right note, and Stuart was grateful. “You might dislike Haynes,” he said to himself, “but you have to respect the guy!”
Stuart’s relegation to the bench during scrimmage was, perhaps, made more endurable by the presence near by of Steve Le Gette. It wasn’t that Le Gette’s mere proximity gave comfort to Stuart, but it was some satisfaction to know that if Stuart wasn’t good enough for a place in the line-up, neither was Le Gette!
Stuart didn’t spend the whole period on the bench, however, after all, for toward the end of the game Wheaton was banished and Stuart slipped back to his old position for a wonderful five minutes.