won the choice? How were we off
behind the scrimmage?

"Is Adams to be trusted?" I heard one voice ask.

Two or three small boys promptly replied, "Yes"; but the seniors said
nothing, except Wright, who took the opportunity of giving me a little
good advice in private.

"Look here, Adams; you are to play half-back, you know. All you've got
to take care of is to keep cool, and never let your eyes go off the
ball. You know all the rest."

A lecture half an hour long could not have made more impression. I
remembered those two hints, "Keep cool, and watch the ball," as long as
I played football, and I would advise every half-back to take them to
heart in like manner.

At noon the Craven team came down in an omnibus, and had lunch in hall
with us, and half an hour later found us all in a straggling procession,
making for the scene of conflict in the Great Close. There stood the
goals and the boundary-posts, and there was Granger, the ground-keeper,
with a brand-new lemon-shaped ball under his arm.

"Look sharp and peel!" cried our captain.

So we hurried to the tent, and promptly divested ourselves of our outer
garments, turned up the sleeves of our jerseys, and tied an extra knot
in our bootlaces. As we emerged, the Craven men were making their
appearance on the ground in battle array. I felt so nervous myself that
I could not, for the life of me, imagine how some of them could look so
unconcerned, whistling, and actually playing leapfrog to keep themselves
warm!

An officer in the Crimean War once described his sensation in some of
the battles there as precisely similar to those he had experienced when
a boy on the football field at Rugby. I can appreciate the comparison,
for one. Certainly never soldier went into action with a more solemn
do-or-die feeling than that with which I took my place on the field that
afternoon.

"They've won the choice of sides," said somebody, "and are going to play
with the wind."

"Take your places, Parkhurst!" shouted our captain.

The ball lies in the centre of the ground, and Wright stands ten yards
or so behind it, ready for the kick-off. Of our fifteen the ten
forwards are extended in a line with the ball across the field, ready to
charge after it the moment it goes flying. The two best runners of our
team are stationed quarter-back, where they can skirmish on the
outskirts of the scrimmage. I am posted a little in rear of them at
half-back--an unusual post fo