Mother had never seemed half as young to Neale as now. She must have been an awfully nice girl, he thought, going soberly to recover his ball. CHAPTER XXVIII Although he had of late seen very little of home, and had occasionally felt irked to know that his parents expected him to make a semi-regular appearance there, Neale found New York rather queer and empty at first with no background whatever but the football house. He encountered something of the same queer, gone feeling as he lined up in the first game of the season, with all of the trusted Old Guard disappeared, with no Tod McAlpine beside him, on whom to leave the responsibility for the outcome of events. Of all the old supermen in whom he had put his trust, only Marshall the Captain was still there, at right guard. Things looked black to Neale. Such raw beginners could never hold together against any seasoned team. And yet they did. Week after week of the early season, they registered victory after victory; never with sensational scores, but with steady defense that kept their goal line uncrossed, with drive enough to punch out a touch-down of their own. It came to Neale slowly that this was no kid team after all. It had about the usual proportion of seasoned players and recruits; only now he was one of the old timers. It came to him also that Bunny Edwards the Soph quarter was obviously trusting in him as he used to trust in Tod McAlpine. At first it was horrifying to Neale to have some one depending on _him_! He had all he could do to stand up under his own responsibility, heavy on his own shoulders for the first time. Presently he realized that possibly Tod McAlpine had had his own secret misgivings too, in the days when Neale depended on him. It was by no means wholly physical and muscular, the hardening and maturing that went on in Neale, those first weeks of his last football season. This deepening of his sense of responsibility deepened his capacity for emotion along with the rest of his personality. The other Seniors, even good old Gregg theorizing and spinning talk about things he'd read in books, seemed off in another world to Neale, a light, bright, boyish, somewhat foolishly unreal, although very care-free world. But although he sometimes groaned at the fierce, stark suffering which was the inevitable penalty of caring so fiercely and starkly about anything as he cared about football, he did not envy Gregg and the other outsiders. Envy them? Heavens, no! They were playing at life; he was living! Yes, he was living and at a higher emotional pitch than he had ever known. He did not think of himself as an individual. He was flesh of one flesh, bone of one bone with his teammates. Once in the Amherst game a smash into the line had piled up without gain. The heaped mass of legs and bodies squirmed itself apart, friends and enemies crawled to their position. All but one, and that was the big Slav tackle, who lay limp and white as if dead. "Time out!"