The High School Left End; or, Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football GridironHancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving)
General
The High School Left End; or, Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron
Hancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving)
Football -- Juvenile fiction; High school students -- Juvenile fiction
Hard work? Yes. But discipline, above all. And discipline is
priceless to the young man who really hopes to get ahead in life!
"You're not playing fair," Dave cried reproachfully to his chum
one day.
"Why not?" Prescott questioned mildly.
"You're using hair tonic!" Darrin asserted, with mock seriousness,
as he gazed at Dick's bushy mop of football hair. "You're growing
a regular chrysanthemum for a top piece to your head."
"Oh, my hair, eh?" smiled Dick. "Why, you can have as fine a
lot of hair if you want to take the trouble."
"Don't I want it, though?" retorted Darrin. "What kind of tonic
do you use?"
"Grease," smiled Prescott.
"Nothing but grease?"
"Nothing much."
"What kind of grease?"
"Elbow!"
"Now, stop your joshing," ordered Dave promptly. "No kind of
muscular work is going to bring out a fuzzy rug like that on anyone's
skypiece."
"But that's just how I do it," Dick insisted. "Not a bit hard,
either. See here! Just use your finger tips, briskly, like this,
and stir your whole scalp up with a brisk massage."
"How long do you keep it up?" demanded Dave, after following suit
for some time.
"Oh, about ninety seconds, I guess," nodded Prescott. "You want
to do it eight times a day, and wash your head weekly, though
with bland soap and not too much of it."
"Is that honestly all you do to get a Siberian fur wig such as
you're wearing?"
"That's all I do," replied Dick. "Except---yes; there's one
thing more. Go out of doors all you can without a hat."
"The active curry-comb and the vanished hat for mine, then," muttered
Dave, with another envious look at Dick's bushy hair.
Nor did Dave rest until the other chums all had the secret. By
the time that the football season opened Dick & Co. were the envy
of the school for their heavy heads of hair.
With all the hard work of training, Coach Morton did not intend
that the young men should be so busy as to have no time for recreation.
He understood thoroughly the value of the lighter, happier moments
in keeping an athlete's nervous system up to concert pitch.
Though the baseball training of the preceding spring had been
"stiff" enough, Dick & Co. soon found that the football training
was altogether more rugged.
In fact, Coach Morton, with the aid of Dr. Bentley as medical
director, weeded out a few of the young men after training had
been going on for a fortnight. Some failed to show sufficient
reserve "wind" after running. A few other defectives proved not
to have hearts strong enough for the grilling work of the gridiron.
All the members of Dick & Co., however, managed to keep in the
squad. In fact, hints soon began to go around, mysteriously,
that Dick & Co. were having the benefit of some outside training.
Purcell came to young Prescott and asked him frankly about this
report.
"Nothing in it," Dick replied promptly. "We're having just the
same training as the rest of the boys. But I'll tell you a secret."
"Go on!" begged Purcell eagerly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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