style, anyhow.”
Andy tossed a reassuring grin over his shoulder. “Cheer up, Cornstalk, I’ll save your life as soon as I can get my hands on a football.”
Andy kept his rescue plans to himself until after Coach Dorman had emptied a bag of practice footballs on the ground, saying, “I want to see what you backs and ends can do with these things.”
Andy pounced on one of the better-conditioned balls and fitted it into his throwing hand. He nodded to Cornstalk. “Get going!”
Downfield sped Cornstalk in that lumbering gallop of his. Andy waited with the ball cocked back of his ear until a split second before Cornstalk made his sharp break to the left. Then he let go with a long, high pass.
It was not a particularly accurate pass; and it looked—for a moment, at least—as though it were going to soar far over Cornstalk’s head and out of his reach. But suddenly the lanky end put on a fresh burst of speed. Up—up he went into the air. The ball smacked into Cornstalk’s hands and he came down, running, with it.
Out of the corner of his eye Andy watched to see how Coach Dorman liked that circus catch by Cornstalk. But although the coach was facing in that direction at the time he seemed to be concentrating on showing a lineman how to use his hands on defense. At any rate, he did not give Cornstalk as much as a side glance as the lanky end came lumbering back up the field.
Other candidates for end positions were lined up, one back of the other, and yelling “Pass! Pass!” at Andy.
He threw five more long ones, but they all sailed wide of vainly lunging receivers and went out of bounds.
Suddenly Coach Dorman turned away from the linemen he had been instructing and walked toward Andy, whose attention, right then, was concentrated on hitting Cornstalk—up for his second turn at pass catching.
This one was straight down the middle again. It was the longest pass Andy had made that day. But the moment the ball left his hand he was sure that it would be far out of Cornstalk’s reach, because he had thrown it to his receiver’s blind side!
Cornstalk kept looking over his right shoulder for the ball; then, like a stepladder caught in a cyclone, he whirled and leaped high into the air—higher than Andy had even seen him go before.
The fact that Cornstalk came down with the ball in his hands did not seem to give him any pleasure whatsoever. He threw the ball back at Andy and yelled, “What are you trying to do—twist my head off?”
Just then Coach Dorman tapped Andy on the shoulder, saying, “Son, your long passes remind me of a cannon in my battery during the war. That thing could pitch a shell farther than any other gun we had. But the sight was bent and we couldn’t hit a flock of barns with it from here to the goal line. When we pulled out the next morning to chase the enemy we left that poor-shooting gun behind.”
Coach Dorman walked away from Andy and over to where Ken Blair was throwing passes to another group of ends. Andy heard him say, “Blair, you’re leading them nicely with those short passes, but throw them a little higher. Make your receiver leave his feet to catch the ball. A defensive back who gets between you and your receiver can’t intercept high ones.”
While Andy watched, Ken Blair threw several short but high passes. His receivers made awkward lunges with their hands for the ball—and missed.
After his fifth unsuccessful attempt Ken Blair turned to Coach Dorman and said, “What am I doing wrong now, Coach?”
“Keep throwing ’em just as you are,” said Coach Dorman curtly. “Ends who expect to make the first team will have to learn to leave their feet for a pass, or they will warm the substitute bench and watch other boys play who will go up after ’em.”
Shortly after that Coach Dorman blew his whistle and called the squad to him. “That’s all for today,” he told them. “Tomorrow afternoon we’ll get down to hard work. I’ll be giving out the first plays, so I want every one of you here promptly after the end of the sixth class period. Practice starts at two forty-five sharp. No excuses for being late will be accepted.”
Andy did not join the others in a free-for-all race to see who could get under the showers before all the hot water was gone. Instead he walked slowly, kicking at the cinders of the running track with his cleats. You might just as well turn in your suit tonight, he told himself, because tomorrow afternoon, when you report late, after seventh- and eighth-period machine shop class——
Suddenly Andy felt a friendly hand on his shoulder and heard Coach Dorman saying to him pleasantly, “I like to see a fellow put everything he’s got into practice the way you did today. Cheer up! By the end of the week you’ll be taking it in a breeze.”
But before Andy could start on the subject of machine shop, Coach Dorman had turned off the path to the door leading into his small private office.
Chapter 2
As a rule, Mrs. Carter called her family to the dinner table at six o’clock, almost to the minute, every evening. But on the evening of the first day of the fall term of school she came into the living room and peered through the side window. Andy was looking over his new algebra textbook, and his sixteen-year-old sister, Susie, sat with one foot tucked under her while she listened to a radio program. That is, Susie was giving part of her attention to the radio program. But at least six times since six o’clock she had looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and had sighed hungrily.
There was a hint of worry in their mother’s tone as she said, “I don’t know what is keeping your father. If he doesn’t come in five minutes, you children can have your supper.”
Susie stole a quick look out the window and up the street, then said with her usual confidence, “Something has happened to Papa’s old car. That’s why he’s late.”
“I hope not,” said Mrs. Carter with a little catch in her voice.
“I don’t mean an accident,” said Susie quickly. “I just meant that the old car broke down someplace and he is walking home.”
“It may not be the newest car on this street,” said Andy, unconsciously frowning at his sister, “but it runs better than some I could name. And if anybody should know, it ought to be me. I spent all last Saturday morning cleaning the spark plugs and draining the water from the fuel pump trap. And I even put in a new bolt that holds the battery, because the battery acid had eaten it almost through. If you want to know, our car gets better attention than almost anybody’s you can name.”
Susie paused to wink at her mother and make quick poking gestures toward the window before saying to Andy, “It may be just a woman’s intuition, but I still think Papa’s car broke down.”
“Suppose you give your woman’s intuition another crank,” suggested Andy, “and tell me exactly what broke down. Was it the condenser in the ignition distributor or just some minor detail like the crankshaft breaking?”
Susie ignored these highly technical questions and said, “All I know is that Papa had to try several times to get the car started this morning.”
Mrs. Carter lifted both hands in a pretending gesture of despair and said, “The only way to stop you two from arguing is to fill your mouths with food. We won’t wait any longer for your father. Come!”
Susie
