Instead of grubbing away at this job of designing airplanes or diesel engines I might have been a famous football coach, with my name in the papers every day for two months in the fall’—and doctoring for nervous indigestion the rest of the year, no doubt.” Mr. Stark tossed in that last remark free of charge and picked up his file again.
Andy just stood there saying nothing, for as every boy in school knew, or had been told by an older boy, the best way to keep Mr. Stark talking was to keep your mouth shut and wait until he actually ordered you out of his sight.
Mr. Stark put his file away in a drawer, brushed off the bench, and then carefully wrapped up the parts for his handmade fishing reel in that piece of clean white cloth. Then, without looking at Andy, he waved to a number of framed pictures of machinery that were hung on the walls of the room. “If you haven’t anything else to do before the first bell rings, take a look at those pictures. Every one of those machines was designed by an engineer who passed through this machine shop course you’re dropping. After you’ve looked ’em over, come back and tell me how many pictures of famous football coaches who started their careers here at Riverford are hanging in the Trophy Room of the gym.”
Andy had seen most of those pictures before. But a new one—a large color photograph of a powerful diesel locomotive—had been hung since he saw them last. Across the lower right-hand corner of the photograph was written, “To the best engineer of us all, John Stark—from one of his many ardent admirers, Walter L. Cutting (Riverford ’28).”
Pasted on the lower right-hand corner of the glass over the picture was a curt warning to the world, written in crabbed, square letters: “Warning! Never believe all you read. J.S.”
The picture hung beside a window, through which could be seen the tracks of the Monon Railroad. And just as Andy had finished looking at the picture he heard the whistle of the Hoosier Limited, bound for Chicago. Then a big diesel locomotive flashed by—a duplicate of the one in the picture that he had just been looking at!
There were still five minutes left before the first bell would ring. Unaware that Mr. Stark, across the room, was watching him closely, Andy lifted his sagging shoulders and headed straight for the property room of the gym. Mr. Stark drew his hand across his bristly gray mustache and indulged in a silent chuckle of triumph.
Scarcely a minute later Andy had taken the new pair of football shoes, which Ted Hall had given him yesterday, from his locker and dropped them on the floor beside Ted, who had just finished sorting the box of old shoes for the reserve squad.
“For Pete’s sake, don’t tell me now they don’t fit,” said Ted wearily. “They just got to fit, because Coach Dorman says there isn’t another dime in the athletic department budget for more shoes. That’s why the reserves are wearing these old ones from last year’s varsity.”
“Give these to Cornstalk,” said Andy. “I noticed yesterday that he was wearing old ones that made him stumble when he tried to catch a long pass.”
Ted straightened up with a jerk. “You mean——” But he saw the answer in Andy’s nod even before he got the question out, and groaned, “No! You can’t quit football, Andy. You just can’t. Why, this is the first year we’ve had even a chance to beat Mansfield. But it is going to take manpower, and plenty of it, to do it.” He grabbed Andy’s arm and shook it. “Look—it’s the fourth quarter, with just six minutes left. We’ve just come from behind to score a touchdown, but we miss the try for the extra point. Mansfield leads us 7 to 6——”
Carried away by his imagination, Ted pointed with his free hand at the row of shower bath stalls as though they were the gridiron. “Ken has just carried the ball down to Mansfield’s thirty-yard line. But he doesn’t get up after he’s tackled. You know what that means when Ken isn’t the first one up. He’s hurt is why! Wants to stay in but can’t.”
Ted gave Andy’s arm a frantic shake. “This is no spot to send in a green sophomore substitute. It has to be you. Now get in there and win this game for us!”
“Take it easy,” said Andy, nodding in the direction of the shower stalls. “That isn’t a football field, and the game with Mansfield is almost two months from now.”
“Oh, rats!” said Ted Hall, picking up Andy’s new football shoes and cramming them back into the cardboard box in which they had come. “If you can’t feel yourself playing in a football game before it happens you’re hopeless. Go ahead; quit football then.”
Andy’s experiences with these occasional outbursts of disgust from his friend dated back to before they were old enough to go to school—back to the days even before Ted’s parents realized that their son was seriously handicapped with nearsightedness. In fact, most of Andy’s fights with other boys had been in defense of his clumsy but impetuous friend.
However—though he could not have said it in so many words—Andy did know that Ted never ranted at him for any selfish reason—never because Ted wanted something for himself. Ted’s proddings and scoldings were always for the purpose of “firing up,” as he put it, some other boy—principally Andy—who showed signs of giving up too easily. In other words, quitting was almost as disgraceful as lying or stealing, in Ted’s eyes.
Andy gave Ted a steady look and said, “Now get this through your head, wild man. I’m not quitting football: football is quitting me. You know what Coach Dorman said about reporting for practice immediately after the sixth period. In practically so many words he said that you might just as well turn in your equipment if you reported late.”
“Now let me tell you something,” said Ted, and gave Andy a poke on the chest with his finger. “My father is a lawyer, and I’ve heard enough talk about ‘loopholes’ and ‘interpretations’ of even laws passed by Congress to know that neither you nor anybody else knows exactly what Coach Dorman meant when he said that.”
Andy got another hard poke on the chest, by way of added emphasis, and Ted went on, “As my father says, the only way to find out is to take the case to trial. Then if you put up a stiff enough front, my father says, seven times out of ten the other side will offer a compromise.”
Andy got the shoe box jammed back into his hands. “Stick ’em back in your locker. Come out to practice after machine shop, and make Coach Dorman throw you off the squad, if he is that sort of a coach!”
Just then the bell for the first class hour rang. Andy snatched his advanced algebra book from the bench and dashed for the classroom clear at the other corner of the main building and up two flights of stairs.
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