It is frequently easier to promise than to perform, however, and now, in the second week of the term, Steve Gaston was learning as much. He had started, a week since, with a promising lot, many of them veterans from last year, a few old campaigners with two years of service behind them. He had gathered a scanty handful of likely youngsters from last season’s freshman and dormitory teams, youngsters, of course, who for one reason or another were not yet varsity caliber. Falls, an experienced guard, had been made captain, and the second had started off with fair prospects. The difficulty in building up a second team, however, lies in the fact that just as sure as a player shows anything resembling remarkable ability a hawk-eyed first team coach snatches him away. This is likely to happen, too, toward the end of the season, when there is scant time left in which to break in a substitute. But it may happen at any period, and Steve prayed for a team that would be composed of hard, steady workers and that would contain not a single “phenom.”
The start was like most starts. The first team, playing together better, made Steve’s aggregation look very weak and very futile. But that was to be expected. It took time--yes, and patience, too--to weld seasoned, plugging veterans and inexperienced, high-tensioned newcomers into a smoothly-working whole. After a few days the scrubs began to lose some of their rough edges and Steve relaxed a bit.
Thursday brought new frowns of perplexity to his rather rugged and very earnest countenance. The ends were not what they should be, nor did they look to Steve like fellows who could be taught. Then, too, on the other side of center from Captain Falls, the guard position worried him. On Friday he switched a full-back candidate to the guard position and tried young Williams, who had played quarter rather brilliantly on a dormitory eleven last fall, at left end. But the results were not satisfactory. The backfield man lacked the steadiness required of a lineman, and Williams’ performance showed Steve that he was sacrificing a good quarter-back in the securing of a doubtful end. Steve cudgeled his brains and, after supper that Friday night, metaphorically seized his club and set forth on his man-hunt. At a little after nine he arrived at Number 27 Upton.