Left End Edwards Part 18

"I don't see why they put me on the second," he said, "and left you on the third. I don't play half the game you do, Steve."

Steve tried hard to be gracious, but only partly succeeded. "I dare say they want guards and don't want ends," he replied. "Of course you've been doing good work, Tom, and deserve promotion and I'm awfully glad you've got it, but, just the same, I don't think I'm getting a square deal."

"I don't either! I wish they'd left me alone and taken you on. Peters says Robey will be disbanding the third squad in a week or so, too. Of course they'll put you on the second before that, though."

"I don't believe they will," replied Steve morosely. "I dare say I'll be dropped entirely. I thought I was getting on pretty well, but Marvin evidently doesn't think so. I'm getting kind of sick of it, anyway, Tom.

I wish I'd stayed at home. I could have if I'd made a good hard kick."

That was a hard week for the 'varsity, for Coach Robey had every man on the team, with the possible exceptions of Miller and Innes, guessing.

Men came in from the second squad, were tried out and usually let go again. All sorts of shifts in the line and back-field were tried. On Wednesday, Eric Sawyer, who had been looked on as a fixture at right guard, found himself ousted by Gafferty, from the second, and a member of the "bench brigade." Sawyer didn't like that at all. It was a terrific blow to his pride and self-esteem, and for many days he was like a bear with a sore head. As a matter of fact, although Sawyer didn't suspect it, his deposal was in the nature of a taste of discipline. Sawyer had been too certain of his place and had grown careless. At the end of a week he went back again, with the warning that he would have to show more than he had been showing if he was to stay there. It was while he was still decorating the bench, however, that Steve again fell foul of him.

The unseasonably warm weather held well into the middle of October, and it was one evening a day or two after Sawyer's removal from the regular line-up that Steve and Tom, rather f.a.gged from an hour's study in a close room, picked up Roy and Harry and went over to the gymnasium for a dip in the tank. The swimming tank was a favourite resort of the younger fellows between eight and ten at night, but, for some reason, the older boys seldom appeared there in the evenings. To-night, though, when the quartette, having changed into swimming trunks, reached the tank they found five upper-cla.s.s fellows swinging their bare legs from the side of the pool and amusing themselves by criticising the antics of the youngsters. There was Eric Sawyer, Jay Fowler and three others whom neither Steve nor Tom knew save by sight. The tank was well populated, for the warmth of the evening made the thought of cool water very agreeable, and there was much noise and splashing going on.

Steve and Harry went in from the spring-board at the deeper end of the pool, while Tom and Roy dived from the floor. A couple of tennis b.a.l.l.s were flying around in the tank and the newcomers were soon taking their parts in the fun. Presently the group of older fellows, having grown tired of guying the "kids," dived into the water. Getting possession of one of the b.a.l.l.s, they tried to keep it to themselves, and soon there was a merry and good-natured battle on between the five big chaps on one side and the younger occupants of the tank on the other. The echoing room rang with laughter and excited cries as the contending sides swam and floundered for the possession of the tennis ball. The big chaps had their hands full, for they were outnumbered four to one, but age and strength counted for them and not infrequently a youngster, rather than undergo a ducking at ungentle hands, yielded the ball and swam away with squeaks of terror. But there were others who fought valiantly enough, taking punishment laughingly when it came and pressing the older fellows closely. Steve was one of the more daring of the enemy and never hesitated to dispute the possession of the ball with anyone. Once when it came skipping along half the length of the tank, he went after it hand over hand, only to miss it when Eric Sawyer reached it an instant ahead of him. Sawyer, grinning, drew back the hand holding the tennis ball.

"Want it, kid?" he asked.

Steve, guessing what was coming, dived, but he was not quick enough and the ball landed with a round smack on his right ear. A wet tennis ball, thrown from the distance of a few feet, is capable of hurting considerably, and Steve, dashing the water from his face, felt very much as though he had been kicked by a mule and had difficulty in keeping the tears from his eyes.

"Get it?" laughed Sawyer.

"Yes, and so will you," gasped Steve. The ball lay bobbing about a yard away and he grabbed it. Sawyer turned and struck out across the tank, only his head above water. Steve, thoroughly angry, aimed at him, changed his mind and swam after him, to the awed delight of the others.

Sawyer, thinking he had removed himself from danger, turned at the side of the tank to look back. The next thing he knew the ball struck him fairly on the nose, and, with a howl of pain and surprise, he disappeared under the water.

"Swim, Edwards!" shrieked the youngsters. "He'll get you!"

Steve did turn away, but it seemed too much like running and so he paused, treading water there, while the angry face of Sawyer popped into view again. The ball had bounded away and been captured by one of the youngsters, but Sawyer didn't look for it. With a leap he started toward Steve. The latter realised that Sawyer meant to wreak vengeance, and that the matter had got past the stage of fun. Here, it seemed, was a time when discretion was the better part of valour, and Steve dived.

Fortunately, he was a good swimmer. Turning quickly under water, he raced toward the far end of the tank. Dimly he heard shouts and laughter above, but he didn't come to the surface until twenty long strokes had taken him far away from where Sawyer, at a loss, was casting about the middle of the tank for him. His reappearance was heralded by shouts of applause from the younger fellows, many of whom, scenting real trouble, had scrambled out of the water. Sawyer, warned of Steve's whereabouts, looked down the tank, saw him and started pell-mell after him. Again Steve went under, swam cautiously toward the side until he could see the white tiles within reach and then edged back the way he had come. He tried to reach the shallow end of the tank before taking breath, but the effort was too great, and when he stuck his head out for an instant he found that those at the edge of the tank had been following his under-water progress and were shouting and laughing down at him from above. More than that, however, their interest had appraised Sawyer of his whereabouts, and even as Steve, blinking the water from his eyes and replenishing his lungs, looked about him, his pursuer almost reached him.

Scorning concealment now, Steve made straight for the shallow end of the pool. Swimming like his was a revelation to many of those who saw it and a hearty burst of applause followed him all the way to the ladder, which he gained several yards in advance of Sawyer. Steve darted up the rungs and ran to the side of the tank, the fellows scattering out of his path.

Sawyer pulled himself out of the water and followed, puffing with anger and exertion.

"Oh, let him go, Eric," advised Fowler. "You can't catch him."

"Yes, forget it," advised others.

But Sawyer had no idea of forgetting it. "I'll break his silly head for him," he growled as he followed Steve around the edge. Then began a chase that was both exciting and amusing. Egged on by the laughing spectators the two boys raced around the pool, Steve managing to keep always one lap ahead, slowing down when Sawyer showed signs of faltering and sprinting when the older boy, gathering fresh energy, went on again.

It was a stern chase with a vengeance and might have lasted all night or until one or the other dropped in his tracks had not one of Sawyer's comrades taken a hand in the game.

Steve, breathing hard but good for many more circuits of the track, came trotting along one side of the pool where the youth in question stood with Fowler. There was a clear s.p.a.ce of three feet between him and the edge, but just as Steve drew abreast the older chap stepped forward in his path, and Steve, trying to dodge around him, slipped on the tiling and fell sidewise into the water. Sawyer, with a grunt of triumph, plunged in from the opposite edge and was on Steve in a twinkling.

"Now, you fresh kid," exclaimed Sawyer angrily, seizing Steve's neck in a big hand as soon as his head came up, "you're going to get what's coming to you!"

Steve, battling for breath, gasping and gurgling, tried to wrench away, but the clasp on his neck was too strong for his efforts and down he went, squirming and struggling, until his head was under water. He managed to reach around and get a grip of Sawyer's bathing trunks, but that was small advantage. The big fellow had him at his mercy. Steve's head was throbbing when at last he was allowed to lift it out of the water again, gasping for breath. But the grip on his neck didn't relax.

He was conscious that the laughter had died away, conscious of Sawyer's grinning face beside him, and then down he was plunged again without warning, just managing to draw a little breath into his aching lungs before the water closed over him. It seemed that his tormentor held him down longer this time, and when, at last, he found the lights in his eyes again and could breathe once more, he was ready to give up the struggle. He had long since released his hold on Sawyer's trunks, and now his hands were clasped desperately about the other boy's wrists. And yet when Sawyer's growling voice said in his ear, "Had enough, kid? Beg my pardon?" Steve managed to shake his head.

"Want more, eh?" asked Sawyer. "All right, kid!" The clasp on his neck tightened again and he felt himself being once more thrust downward. And then, suddenly, he was free, and when, fighting his way back to the surface, he looked dazedly, there was Tom clinging to Sawyer's neck, thrashing and squirming.

"You let him be, you big bully!" Tom was saying. "You let him be!"

"Let go of my neck, you silly little fool!" gasped Sawyer, striving to break the boy's hold.

"You let him be!" gurgled Tom, half-drowned but clinging like a limpet.

"You let him be, you big bully!"

Then the two went under and Steve, recovering his breath, wrenched them apart somehow and pulled poor Tom to the side of the tank. Sawyer, breathing with difficulty after Tom's choking grasp about his neck, floundered to the edge, got a sustaining grip on the rim of the tank and glared angrily at the two boys.

"I'll get you for this, you smart Alecks," he declared chokingly.

"You're too fresh, both of you. Don't you know better than to grab a fellow around the neck in the water, you fool kid?"

But Tom was too far gone to answer. "That's what you did, isn't it?"

Steve demanded. "That's a funny way to talk!"

"It is, is it?" sneered Sawyer. "I'll show you something that is funny some time, and don't you forget it!"

Still growling, he swam away toward the nearer ladder, while Steve, with Roy and Harry and others helping, lifted Tom out of the tank and then followed himself. Tom was very, very sick there for a minute and the younger fellows were properly sympathetic and indignant. Presently they half carried Tom back to the locker room and helped him into his clothes, and then, Roy and Harry in attendance, Steve conveyed him back to Billings and laid him on his bed, a very weak but now quite cheerful Tom.

"He nearly drowned me, didn't he?" he asked with a grin. "But I choked him good, you bet! Bet you his old neck will be sore for a week, fellows!"

"You want to keep away from him for awhile," said Harry with a direful shake of his head. "He's a mean chap when he's mad."

"Huh!" grunted Tom. "So'm I!"

CHAPTER XIV

A LESSON IN TACKLING

One direct result of that affair in the tank was that Steve found himself something of a school celebrity because of his swimming prowess.

Within a few days he had good-naturedly agreed to give instruction to some half-dozen acquaintances and might have taken on a half-dozen more had he had the time for it. But there was only an odd hour or two during the day for swimming and he soon found that, although he got a good deal of fun out of instructing the others, it was taking too much of his time. It was Roy's suggestion--Roy being one of the most enthusiastic pupils--that those who wanted instruction should be on hand at a given hour each day. The suggestion was adopted, and Edwards's Swimming Cla.s.s soon became a recognised inst.i.tution. Five o'clock was the hour set, at which time the tank was not much used, and Steve, having returned from football practice, donned swimming trunks and repaired to the pool where he usually found from four to a dozen boys awaiting him, since, by attending to them all at once, he could look after a dozen as easily as a few. Most of the pupils were boys of from thirteen to seventeen, although there were two older fellows in the cla.s.s, Jay Fowler and Hatherton Williams. Both were Sixth Formers and both were football men.

Mr. Conklin, the physical director, gave enthusiastic endors.e.m.e.nt and encouragement. Brimfield had never supplied instruction in swimming, something which the director had long regretted, and Mr. Conklin, could he have had his way, would have made attendance at Steve's swimming cla.s.s compulsory for the younger boys and so have inst.i.tuted a new feature in the course of physical instruction. But Steve, willing to teach a few fellows who could already swim the finer points of the science, balked at teaching the rudiments to a half-hundred water-shy youths who would have to be coaxed and coddled. Mr. Conklin tried his best to persuade him, but Steve refused firmly.

They had a whole lot of fun during that swimming hour. Fowler and a younger chap named Toll were the more accomplished performers in the cla.s.s, barring Steve himself, and every session ended with several very earnest races in which Fowler, allowing Toll a five-yard handicap, usually nosed out the younger boy in a contest of four times the length of the tank. Then there was generally a free-for-all, the fellows lining up on the edge of the pool, diving at the word from Steve and swimming to the further end, where, after touching the wall, they turned and hustled back to the start. Sometimes when football practice had been more than usually gruelling, Steve stayed out of the water and instructed from the floor, but more often he went in with the others and followed them in their practice swims. Naturally it was the fancy diving and the racing strokes that most of the fellows wanted to learn, but Steve, who had never in his life before tried to teach anyone anything, displayed a good deal of hard common-sense as an instructor and insisted that each of his pupils should master one thing thoroughly before taking up another. The result was that, barring one or two fellows who would probably in any case have failed to become expert swimmers, the cla.s.s made really remarkable progress, and there came a time, although it was considerably later in the school year, when both Jay Fowler and Hatherton Williams could equal most of Steve's feats.

Tom started with the cla.s.s, wisely deciding after his experience with Eric Sawyer that the ability to keep one's head out of water was a fine thing to have. But Tom was not cut out for a human fish and soon gave it up. Roy Draper learned fairly well. He tried to induce Harry to join the cla.s.s, but Harry preferred to stay with Tom and look on from the floor.

When winter set in, Steve's cla.s.s increased in numbers until in January he was conducting the natatory education of more than two dozen fellows.

It was Mr. Conklin who arranged for an exhibition the latter part of the winter and Steve was very proud of his pupils' work on that occasion. It was held one Sat.u.r.day afternoon and everyone attended, including even "Josh," more formally known as Mr. Joshua Fernald, the princ.i.p.al. There was fancy diving and swimming, a short game of water polo and all kinds of races, beside which Steve showed some six or eight different strokes, swam the length of the tank under water and performed other quite startling feats to the delight of his audience. Mr. Fernald shook hands with him afterwards and said several very nice things. But all this is far beyond my story, and I am only telling of it because it led the following autumn to the installation of a swimming instructor at Brimfield and the addition of swimming to the list of "required studies"

for the boys of the four lower forms. The instructor came to the school twice a week and put in two very busy hours there. So you see that fracas between Steve and Eric Sawyer that evening strangely enough resulted in important consequences and, since a knowledge of swimming is a most useful one, worked for good.

But there were other consequences of that fracas as well, and I must get back to those. Larchville Academy followed Miter Hill on Brimfield's schedule and administered the first defeat of the season to the Maroon-and-Grey. It wasn't so much that Brimfield played poorly as that Larchville played unusually well. The visitors presented an aggregation of big, well-trained youths who, most of them having been on their team the previous year, were far in advance of Brimfield in the matter of season development. Larchville's performance was what one might expect in November, but scarcely looked for in the second week of October. Her men played together all the time and her team-work stood out in strong contrast to that of Brimfield, who had scarcely begun as yet to develop such a thing. The final score was 17 to 3, and the only consolation was found in the fact that Larchville's end of it might well have been much larger. Brimfield's three points came as the result of one really brilliant advance for half the length of the field followed by a neat place-kick by Williams. The rest of the game was very much Larchville, and Brimfield was on the defence most of the time.

And, to give credit where it belongs, it was Eric Sawyer who, back in his position at right guard, held his side of the line firm on two anxious occasions when Larchville was striving to hammer out touchdowns under the shadow of her opponent's goal. On the whole, Brimfield played good football that day and no one justly came in for adverse criticism.

Captain Miller, at left end, was spectacular under punts and played his usual hard, steady game. Innes at centre was impregnable until the final period. Williams, if a trifle weaker than his opponent, made up for it by scoring the three points for his side. Benson, at right end, was less successful than Captain Miller, but was good on the defence. The back-field, although inclined to go it "every man for himself," showed up well, especially when the enemy was in possession of the ball.

Milton, the first-choice quarter-back, ran the team like a general, while Norton, the big full-back, proved the only consistent gainer through the line. In spite of the fact that she had met with defeat, Brimfield found encouragement in that contest, and, after the first few minutes of regrets, spent the rest of the day unstintedly praising her warriors.