CHAPTER VII

Picking the Team

Sandy Podder and Lent Stewart scowled savagely at Garry's retort. They tried to reply, but their snarling response was drowned in the laughter of the bystanders.

"Attaboy, Garry!"

"Poor old Lenox with Sandy Podder on the team!" chortled Bill Sherwood.

"You, Lent," called a tormentor, as the two cronies, chagrined and furious, hurried away, "going to answer the football call? Better let us break the news gently to Mr. Phillips so that he won't die of joy."

For some time after Sandy and Lent had disappeared the campus rang with jests at their expense. But the sound of the gong put an end to the merriment, and the students of Lenox High filed into its corridors for another year of work and play.

As Garry and his chums reached their classroom they were still discussing the run-in with their enemies.

"You made a wise crack there, Garry," Nick Danter chuckled. "It sure got under their skin. But I didn't like the looks in the eyes of those fellows as they passed you. They'll plan some dirty trick to get even with you."

Then began the round of lessons and the getting acquainted with new classes and new teachers.

Garry Grayson and his chums had Mr. Phillips in English again, and were heartily glad of that. The latter gave them a cordial greeting when they entered his class, and at the close of the period detained them for a moment.

"Feeling fit?" he asked with a smile, as he looked at their sturdy figures and bronzed cheeks.

"Fine as silk," answered Garry, and the others nodded assent.

"I'm going to post the bulletin in a day or two," said Mr. Phillips. "I want to get you football boys out on the field early. We've got some heavy work before us."

The boys were not so favorably impressed by their Latin teacher. This was a tall, severe looking gentleman, who answered to the name of Blythe.

"Though where he got that handle is a mystery," Rooster whispered to Garry at a moment when the teacher's eye was off him. "I never saw any one who looked less blithe in my life."

Two days went by before the eagerly anticipated football call was posted on the board. That afternoon, as soon as the boys were released from their studies, they flocked to the gymnasium to learn their fate.

For Garry and his chums the ban of the first year was now removed. They were no longer freshmen and as such tacitly barred from eligibility to the first team. Tradition, as Ted inelegantly put it, was "nix" for them now. The bars were down. Merit was the only thing that counted, and Garry and his chums had as good a chance of making the team as any boys in school.

Now the great, the all-important question was, what choice would Mr. Phillips make? Who among the scrubs of last year would be selected to fill those vacancies on the first team?

"Remember how Ralph Wynn talked to us last year?" asked Bill.

"Do we remember?" repeated Rooster. "How he told us that we had no chance to make the first team because we were freshmen, mere worms of the dust, so to speak."

"Look at the bunch of youngsters coming," said Nick, as a noisy crowd poured into the gymnasium. "Looks as though Mr. Phillips would have plenty to choose from."

"Most all of them are freshmen," remarked Bill condescendingly. "I suppose each one expects to be made captain of the regulars the first crack out of the box."

Then they all laughed, remembering their own great ambitions the preceding year.

"It isn't so long ago that we were freshmen ourselves," observed Ted Dillingham. "But to hear us talk, you'd think we were seniors, at the very least."

"Here comes Coach Phillips!" some one cried, and the boys turned to see the teacher of English entering the gymnasium.

There was an excited murmur from the boys. All braced instinctively, trying to look very stalwart and determined, so that when the coach's eyes turned upon them he would know at once that he had found a treasure, and they scanned his face as though they hoped to find in its expression some key to their fate.

Mr. Phillips looked them over smilingly.

"I see you've turned out in fine style," he said. "Plenty of beef among you, too; and that's good. I'll need a bunch of huskies this year."

He paused for a moment, scanning them collectively and individually before proceeding.

"As you all know," he continued, "the June commencement crippled our first team quite seriously. The man we shall miss most is, of course, Ralph Wynn, our former captain and quarterback."

There was a stir among the boys, and many of the upper classmen nodded acquiescence.

"We'll have a hard time replacing him, sir," said McCarty, right guard of the regulars.

"I grant that," replied Mr. Phillips. "But we will do it. There is as good material now at Lenox as the school ever had. Our job is to develop it and mold it into a good fighting team that we'll be proud of.

"Now," he went on briskly, "I'm not going to make any change in the lineup at present, as far as the old players are concerned. They did so well last year in the positions they occupied that I think to shift them would weaken the team. That doesn't mean, of course, that they will continue to be fixtures if they fall down on the job. But for the present they keep their places.

"I will name them now, and as I do so I want them to stand to one side so that we may see clearly the members of our reorganized team."

There was an increased tension in the air as Mr. Phillips took a notebook from his pocket and opened it. The critical moment was approaching.

Mr. Phillips began to read.

"Walker, center. Painter, left guard."

The boys named stood apart, and the freshmen looked on them with envious eyes, so great and awesome did these veterans of the gridiron appear to them.

"Benny Knapp, you will play left half again," Mr. Phillips continued. "McCarty will be at right guard and Aleck Anderson will take his old position at right tackle. Ollie Scarsdale, you will take left end. Dick Thomas, right end. There we have our seven, all that are left of last year's eleven."

Again Mr. Phillips paused and looked the aspirants over with a quizzical smile.

"That leaves still four positions to fill," he said. "From the looks of you boys I imagine you are pretty anxious to know who is going to have them. Am I right?"

Laughter greeted the question, followed by a dead and tense silence. Mr. Phillips smiled and hurried to the point.

"All right. I won't keep you in suspense any longer," he said. "The positions still to be filled are those of fullback, right halfback, left tackle and last, but decidedly not least, quarterback, with which in this case will go the title of captain."

A murmur ran through the crowd of boys. The coveted position of captain and quarter! Who among their number was to be the lucky one?

Garry exchanged excited glances with his chums, and then riveted his attention upon the czar of their destinies as the latter again spoke.

"Because of the splendid record Long made last year, I am going to put him in as fullback."

Over Rooster's face spread a beatific look blended with incredulity. Pushed forward by less fortunate comrades, he stammered:

"Th-thanks, Mr. Phillips," and stepped over proudly to the lineup of regulars.

"Don't thank me yet," warned the coach. "There will be half a dozen good fellows fighting for your job and crowding close on your heels. You will have to fight to hold that position."

"Next," he said, and fixed his eyes on Tom Allison, "I'm putting you in, Allison, at left tackle. Think you can make good there?"

"Gee, Mr. Phillips, I'll try!" Tom promised and, face shining, moved over to the regulars.

Only two positions left!

The boys exchanged glances and shifted about uneasily. The suspense was becoming unbearable.

"Some one's got to be left out," Bill whispered in Garry's ear. "I've got a hunch this is my unlucky day."

Mr. Phillips was speaking again.

"That leaves only two positions to be filled," he said. "But they are the extremely important ones of right half and quarter. There are two or three players on the scrubs of last year whom I have considered for right halfback, but my choice has finally been made. I have decided--" He paused, and the gymnasium was so silent that one might have heard a pin drop. "I have decided," he repeated, "to give Nick Danter a chance to show what he can do in that position."

Nick was popular with the boys, and a murmur of satisfaction came from the crowd.

"Rah, Nick. Show them what you're made of, boy," called out Pete Maddern.

"He'll have to show us," remarked Mr. Phillips gravely. "And so will all the rest of you that are chosen. These positions that I have given you are only temporary--remember that--and to hold them you've got to make good.

"Now for quarterback and captain," he went on, "I have chosen a boy who did some brilliant work for the team last year. At that time he was captain and quarterback of the scrubs. This year he will be captain and quarterback of the regulars. Stand up, Garry Grayson!"