Give a boy the name of being a hero and it will stick. Joel was still pointed out by admiring Hillton graduates to their friends at Harwell as "March, the fellow who kicked the winning goal-from-field in the St. Eustace game two years ago." And while Joel had performed of late no doughty deed to sustain his reputation for valor, the freshman class accepted him in all faith as a sort of class hero, off duty for the moment, perchance, but ever ready to shed glory upon the class by some soul-stirring act.
Consequently when it was told through college that Joel March had been taken on to the Varsity Eleven as substitute left half-back no one was surprised, unless it was Joel himself. The freshman class wagged its head knowingly and said: "I told you they couldn't get on without March," and held its head higher for that one of its members was a Varsity player. It is not a frequent thing to find a freshman on the Varsity team, even as substitute, and Joel's fame grew apace and many congratulations were extended to him, in classroom and out. Blair was one of the first to climb the stairs of Mayer and express pleasure at the event. He found Joel seated in the window, propped up with half a dozen crimson pillows, attempting to sketch the view across the yard to send home to his sister. West was splicing a golf shaft and whistling blithely over the task.
"Hello, Sophy," cried that youth, "have you come to initiate us into the Sacred Order of Hullabalooloo? Dump those books off the chair and be seated. March is such a beastly untidy chap," he sighed; "he will leave his books around that way despite all I can say!"
"These books, Out," replied Blair, "bear the name of one West on their title pages, and, in fact, on a good many other pages, too. What say you?" A look of intense surprise overspread the face of Outfield.
"How passing strange," he muttered. "And is there a chemistry note-book among them?"
"I think so. Here is one that contains mention of C2H6O, H2SO4, and other mystic emblems which appear very tiresome; it also contains several pages filled with diagrams of the yard and plans of Pompeii before the devastation."
"Yes," answered West, "that's my chem. note-book. It's been missing ever since Tuesday. But those are not diagrams of the yard, my sophomoric friend; they're plans of the golf course."
"Well, just as you say. Catch! Say, March, I've just heard that you've made the Varsity. I'm most splendidly glad, my young friend. You make three Hillton fellows on the team. There's Selkirk, and you, and yours tenderly; and we'll show them what's what when Yates faces us. And I'll tell you a little fact that may interest you. Prince won't last until the Yates game, my lad. He's going silly in his ankle. But don't say I told you, for of course it's a dead secret. And if he gives out you'll get the posish. And then if you can make another one of those touch-downs in the Yates game--"
"Shut up, please, Blair!" groaned Joel.
"Nonsense, you're all right. I heard Button saying last week that nothing short of a ten-story house could have stopped you that day."
"He must think me an awful fool," responded Joel. "The idea of not remembering that I was off-side!"
"Pshaw; why, the first time I played against Eustace at Hillton I tackled the referee in mistake for the man with the ball! And threw him, too! And sat on his head!" West grinned.
"And they did say, Blair, that you were feeling aggrieved against that referee because he had called you down for holding. And I have heard that you weren't such a fool as you looked."
"Nothing in it, my boy," answered Wesley Blair airily. "Mere calumny. Am I one to entertain feelings of anger and resentment against my fellow men? Verily, very much not. But he put me off, did that referee chap. He was incapable of accepting the joke. What is more depressing than a fellow who can't see a joke, March?"
"Two fellows who can't see--et cetera," answered Joel promptly.
"Wrong, very wrong. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm quite certain it isn't that. Well, I must be going. I have studies. I don't waste the golden moments in idleness. I grind, my young and thoughtless friends, I grind. Well, I only came up to congratulate you, Mr. March, of Maine. I have done so. I now depart. Farewell! Never allow the mere fact of being off-side interfere with--"
Blair slammed the door just in front of a whizzing golf ball and clattered downstairs. Presently he appeared on the walk beneath the window and wiggled his fingers derisively with the thumb against a prominent feature of his face. But at the first squeak of the window being pushed up he disappeared around the corner.
Joel's days were now become very busy ones. Every morning he was awakened at seven, and at eight was required to be on hand at the training table for breakfast. The quarters were at Old's, a boarding house opposite the college yard, and here in a big, sunny front room the two long tables were laid with numerous great dishes of oatmeal or hominy, platters of smoking steak, chops or crisp bacon, plates of toast, while potatoes, usually baked, flanked the meat. The beverage was always milk, and tall pitchers of it were constantly filled and emptied during this as well as the other meals. And then there were eggs--eggs hard boiled, eggs soft boiled, eggs medium, eggs poached--until, at the end of the season, the mere mention of eggs caused Joel's stomach to writhe in disgust.
During breakfast disabilities were inquired after, men who were known to have nerves were questioned as to their night's rest, and orders for the day were given out. This man was instructed to see the doctor, another to interview the trainer, a third to report to the head coach. The meal over, save for a half hour of practice for the backs behind the gymnasium the men were free to give all their energies to lessons, and so hurried away to recitation hall or room.
At one o'clock the team assembled again for lunch, with books in hand, and at break-neck speed devoured the somewhat elaborate repast, each man rushing in, eating, and rushing out, with no attempt at sociability or heed to the laws of digestion.
Afternoon practice was at four o'clock. Individual practice was followed by team practice against an imaginary foe, and this in turn gave place to a line-up against the second eleven. Two stiff twenty-minute halves were played. Then again individuals were seized on by captain and coaches and put through paces to remedy some fault or other. And then the last player trots off the field, and the coaches, conversing earnestly among themselves, follow, and the day's work is done. There are still the bath and the rub-down and the weighing; but these are gone through with leisurely while the day's work is discussed and the coaches, circulating among the fellows, inflict an epilogue of criticism and instruction.
There remained usually the better part of an hour before dinner, and this period Joel spent in his room, where with the lamp throwing its glow over his shoulder, he strove to take his mind from the subject of tackling and starting, of punting and passing, and fix it upon his studies for the morrow.
For life was far from being all play that fall--if hard practice and strict training can be called play!--and Joel found it necessary to occupy every moment not taken up by eating, sleeping, and practicing on the gridiron with hard study. It can scarcely be truthfully asserted that Joel's lessons suffered by reason of his adherence to athletics, though a lecture now and then was slighted that he might use the time in pursuing some study that lack of leisure had necessitated his neglecting.
But a clear head, a good digestion, and racing blood render studying a pleasure rather than a task, and Joel found that, while giving less time than before to lessons, he learned them fully as well. One thing is certain: his standing in class did not suffer, even when the coaches were more than usually severe. Joel's experience that fall, and many a time later, led him to conclude that the amount of outdoor athletics indulged in and the capability for study are in direct ratio.
West, too, was a most studious young gentleman that term, and began to pride himself on his recently discovered ability to learn. To be sure, golf was a hard taskmaster, but with commendable self-denial he did not allow it to interfere with his progress in class. Both he and Joel had earned the name of being studious ere the end of the fall term, and neither of them resented it.
Unlike the preceding meal, dinner at the training table was a sociable and cheerful affair, when every man at the board tried his best to be entertaining, and when "shop," either study or football, was usually tabooed. The menu was elaborate. There were soup, two or three kinds of meat, a half dozen vegetables, sauces, the ever-present toast, pudding or cream, and plenty of fruit; and for drinkables, why, there was the milk, and sometimes light ale in lesser quantities. At one end of the table--whether head or foot is yet undecided--sat the captain, at the other end the head coach. Other coaches were present as well, and the trainer sat at the captain's left.
There was always lots of noise, for weighty things were seldom touched upon in the conversation, and jokes were given and taken in good part. When all other means of amusement failed there were still the potatoes to throw; and a butter chip, well laden, can be tossed upward in such a manner that it will remain stuck more or less securely to the ceiling. This is a trick that comes only with long practice, but any one may try it; and the ceiling above the training table that year was always well studded with suspended disks of crockery. Bread fights--so named because the ammunition is more likely to be potatoes--were extremely popular, and the dinner often came to an end with a pitched battle, in which coats were decorated from collar to hem with particles of that clinging vegetable.
His evenings usually belonged to Joel to spend as he wished, though not unfrequently a blackboard talk by the head coach or a lecture by some visiting authority curtailed them considerably. He had always to be in bed by ten o'clock.
But sleep sometimes, especially after a day of hard practice, did not readily come, and he often laid awake until midnight had sounded out on the deep-toned bell in the old church tower thinking over the events of the day, and wondering what fate, in the person of the head coach, held in view for him. And one night he awoke to find Outfield shaking him violently by the shoulder.
"Wh-what's the row?" he asked sleepily.
"You," answered Outfield. "You've been yelling '4, 9; 5, 7; 8, 6' for half an hour. What's the matter with you, anyhow?"
"The signals," muttered Joel, turning sleepily over, "that's a run around left end by left half-back. And don't forget to start when the ball's snapped. And jump high if you're blocked. And--don't--forget--to--" Snore--snore! "Well," muttered West as he stumbled against an armchair and climbed into bed, "of all crazy games--"
But West was not in training and so possessed the faculty of going to sleep when his head struck the pillow. As a consequence the rest of his remark was never heard.