CHAPTER XIX
DOCTOR LANE INTERVENES
Chas Cummins proved a good prophet. On the following day Myron slippedinto a niche in the first team, one of many hopeful, hard-working youthsknown as "first team subs." For a few days, indeed, until after thePhillipsburg game, he was dazed by the sudden leap from obscurity toconspicuity, from what he termed neglect to what was extremely likesolicitude. Not that his arrival at the field for practice was theoccasion for shouts of acclaim and a fanfare of trumpets, for those atthe helm did not show their interest in promising candidates in anysuch manner, but at last he was quite certain that coach and captain,managers and trainer, were aware of his existence. There were times whenhe heartily wished that they knew less of it. Some one was forever athis elbow, criticising, explaining, exhorting. Coach Driscoll and NedGarrison oversaw his punting practice, Snow lugged him to remote cornersof the playfield to make him catch passes, Katie drilled him in signals,every one, it seemed to Myron, was having a finger in his pie. And whenhe was not being privately coached, as it were, he was legging it aroundthe gridiron with the substitutes or tumbling about the dummy pit witha bundle of stuffed and dirty canvas clasped to his bosom. Those werebusy, confusing days. And yet no one outside the football "inner ring"appeared to be aware of the fact that a new light had arisen in theParkinson firmament. Not unnaturally, perhaps, Myron looked for signsof interest, even of awe, from his acquaintances, but he found none. Attable in dining hall Eldredge still glowered at him, Rogers cringed andthe pestiferous Tinkham poked sly fun. Only Joe and Andrew and Chas,among his friends, showed him honour; and Joe as a strewer of blossomsin his path was not an overwhelming success. Joe seemed to think thathis chum's leap to incipient fame was pleasing but not remarkable, whileMyron was absolutely certain that it was stupendous and unparalleledin the annals of preparatory school football. When you are watched andguided as Myron was by those in command you are likely to think that.He wondered whether Joe was not just a little bit envious. Of course,Joe's position was quite as assured as his own, but Joe had not engagedthe time and attention and solicitude of the entire coaching force. Hehoped Joe wasn't going to be disagreeable about it.
Phillipsburg came and went, defeated easily enough, 12 points to 3, andWarne High School followed a week later. High School always put up agood fight against Parkinson, and she made no exception this year. CoachDriscoll used many substitutes that afternoon and so High School foundher work easier. Myron had his baptism by fire in the second period andlasted until the end of the third. He was taken out then because HighSchool had tied the score and it was necessary to add another touchdownor field-goal to the home team's side of the ledger. So Kearns, who wasstill the most dependable full-back in sight, took Myron's place. Kearnsgained and lost in his usual way, and had no great part in the securingof the third Parkinson score. Katie was mainly responsible for that,for he sneaked away from the opponent's thirty-two yards and landed theball on her eight, from whence it was carried over on the fourth down byBrounker. That made the figures 20 to 14, and there they remained forthe rest of the contest.
Myron was huffy about being removed and every one who spoke to himdiscovered the fact. Of course, he was huffy in a perfectly gentlemanlyway. He didn't scold and he didn't sneer, but he indulged in irony andintimated that if football affairs continued to be managed as they hadbeen that afternoon he would refuse to be held responsible if the seasonended in defeat. Oddly enough, no one appeared panic-stricken at theveiled threat. Joe grinned, until Myron looked haughty and insulted, andthen became grave and spoke his mind. He had an annoying way of doingthat, to Myron's way of thinking.
"Kiddo," said Joe, on this occasion, "if I was you I'd let Driscoll andMellen run things their own way. Maybe their way don't always look goodto you, but you aren't in possession of all the--the facts, so to speak.When they put in Kearns today they had a reason, believe me, Brother.You attend to your knitting and let theirs alone. If they drop a stitch,it's their funeral, not yours. You've got just about all you can do tobeat Kearns and Williams for full-back's position----"
"I'm ahead of Williams right now," said Myron with asperity.
"All right, kiddo; you stay there. Don't get highfaluting andswell-headed. Just as soon as you do you'll quit playing your best andWilliams'll slip past you. Take an old man's advice, Brother."
"I wish you'd stop that 'Brother,'" said Myron pettishly. "I'm notyour brother. And I'm not swell-headed, either. And I don't try totell Driscoll how to run the team. Only, when I know my own--my owncapabilities I naturally think something's sort of funny when thingshappen like what happened today!"
"Lots of funny things happen that we can't account for in this world,"remarked Joe philosophically as he bent over his book again. "Best thingto do is let 'em happen."
"Oh, rats!" muttered the other.
It was about this time that Myron began to have fallings-out withOld Addie. Old Addie--he wasn't phenomenally old, by any means, buthe seemed old in a faculty composed of young or youngish men--waswell-liked, and kindly and just to a fault. But he had views on theimportance of Greek and Latin not held by all members of his classes. Hebelieved that Herodotus was the greatest man who ever lived and Horacethe greatest poet, and held that an acquaintance with the writings ofthese and other departed masters was an essential part of every person'seducation. Many disagreed with him. Those who disagreed and kept thefact to themselves got on very nicely. Those who were so misguided as todisagree and say so earned his pitying contempt; although contempt isperhaps too strong a word. Myron in a rash moment confessed that Latindidn't interest him. He had to think up on the spur of the moment someplausible excuse for being illy prepared, and that excuse seemed handy.The result was unfortunate. There was a meeting in Mr. Addicks' studyin the evening, a meeting that lasted for an hour and a quarter andthat included readings from the Latin poets, essayists and historians,sometimes in translation, more often in the original. Myron, bored totears, at last capitulated. He owned that Latin was indeed a beautifullanguage, that Livy was a wonder, Cicero a peach and Horace a corker.He didn't use just those terms, but that's a detail. Mr. Addicks,suspicious of the sudden conversion, pledged him to a reformation in thematter of study and freed him.
But the conversion was not real and Old Addie soon developed amost embarrassing habit of calling on Myron in class. Myron calledit "picking on me." Whatever it was called, it usually resulteddisastrously to Myron's pretences of having studied in the manner agreedon. Old Addie waxed sarcastic, Myron assumed a haughty, contemptuousair. They became antagonistic and trouble brewed. Myron didn't haveenough time to do justice to all his courses, he declared to Joe, andsince Latin was the least liked and the most troublesome it was Latinthat suffered. There is no doubt that two and a half hours--oftenmore--of football leaves a chap more inclined for bed than study. Notinfrequently Myron went to sleep with his head on a book and had to beforcibly wrested from slumber by Joe at ten o'clock or thereabouts.So matters stood at the end of Myron's first fortnight of what mightbe called intensive football training. So, in fact, they continued tostand, with slight changes, to the morning of the day on which Parkinsonplayed Day and Robins School.
The team was to travel away from home for that contest and Myron was togo with it, not as a spectator, but as a useful member of the force. Hedid not go, however. At chapel his name was among a list of seven othersrecited by the Principal, and at eleven he was admitted to the innersanctum, behind the room in which he had, a month and a half ago, heldconverse with Mr. Morgan. This time it was "Jud" himself who receivedhim. The Principal's real name was Judson, but at some earlier time inhis incumbency of the office he had been dubbed Jud, and in spite ofthe possible likelihood of getting him confused with the captain of thefootball team, he was still so called. Doctor Lane taught English, buthis courses were advanced and Myron had not reached them. In consequencehe knew very little of Jud; much less than Jud knew of him; and he felta certain amount of awe as he took the indicated chair at the left ofthe
big mahogany desk. The Doctor didn't beat about the bush any tospeak of. He advanced at once to the matter in hand, which appeared tobe: Why wasn't Myron keeping up in Latin?
Myron said he thought it must be because he didn't have time enough tostudy it. He said it was his firm belief that he was taking too manycourses. He thought that it would be better if he was allowed to dropone course, preferably Latin, until the next term. Doctor Lane smiledwanly and wanted to know if Myron was quite sure that he was makingthe most of what time he had. Myron said he thought he was. He didn'tsay it very convincedly, however. Doctor Lane inquired how much timeeach day was devoted to Latin. Myron didn't seem to have a very clearimpression; perhaps, though, an hour. Jud delved into the boy's dailylife and elicited the fact that something like two and a half hours weredevoted to learning to play full-back and something less than three tolearning his lessons. Presented as Jud presented it, the fact didn'tlook attractive even to Myron. He felt dimly that something was wrong.He attempted to better his statement by explaining that very often hestudied between hours--a little. Doctor Lane was not impressed. Hetwiddled a card that appeared to hold a record of Myron's scholasticcareer for a moment and then pronounced a verdict.
"Foster, as I diagnose your case, you are too much interested infootball and not sufficiently in your studies. Also, football isclaiming too much of your time. Football is a splendid game and abeneficent form of exercise, but it is not the--what I may call thechief industry here, Foster. We try to do other things besides playfootball. Perhaps you have lost sight of that fact."
Jud let that sink in for a moment and returned the card to its place inan indexed cabinet, closing the drawer with a decisive _bang_ that madeMyron jump.
"So," continued the Principal drily, "I think it will be best if youdetach yourself from football interests for--for awhile, Foster."
Silence ensued. Myron gulped. Then he asked in a small voice: "How long,sir?"
"Oh, we won't decide that now." Jud's voice and manner struck Myron asbeing far too bright and flippant. "We'll see how it works out. I'veknown it to work very nicely in many cases. I shall expect to hearbetter--much better--accounts of you from Mr. Addicks, Foster. Goodmorning."
And that is why Myron didn't go bowling off to the station with therest of the team, and why Kearns and Houghton played the full-backposition that afternoon, and why, after a miserable six hours spentin mooning about a deserted campus and a lonely room, Myron packed asuit-case with a few of his yellow-hued shirts and similar necessitiesand unobtrusively made his way to Maple Street in the early gloom of theOctober evening.