the ball up on the run, wasn't I pitiful?
But that's what an end's got to be able to do and yours truly isn't
going to make a bad muff in a game if he can help it!"

Being a friend of "Rus's" and practically a next door neighbor as well
as a team-mate, I can't really turn the serious-minded bird down.
Besides, I have to admit to myself that it's darn interesting watching
the vim that "Rus" puts into this secret practice. Some nights it's
mighty chilly and with the grass wet down it's enough to make your
spinal column wriggle, but "Rus" never seems to mind.

"The most annoying part of this thing for me," says "Rus," "is 'Mom's'
objection to my draping these wet togs over her radiators. She claims
the house smells like a Chinese laundry every night. I tell her she
must be a good sport and put up with it for the good of the team!"

Say, you'd be surprised, after a couple of weeks, to see how "Rus"
improves! It gets to be marvelous the way he can tear across the lawn,
reach down with those long fingers, scoop that slippery pigskin up and
keep right on going toward what he imagines is the enemy's goal!

"Preparedness!" he'd smile at me. "That's one of the greatest words in
the English language! I want to be ready when the fumble comes!"

Sometimes "Rus" would hit the lawn like an India rubber ball and almost
seem to wrap his lean, lanky frame around the pigskin, bouncing up on
his feet on the roll and untangling his legs from the knot to be
streaking away almost before you could tell what was happening. Once
he put so much steam behind it that he couldn't stop in time and plowed
into the back fence, busting two boards loose and bruising his shoulder.

"Zowie! I ran into some real opposition that time!" he grinned.

It isn't long before all this extra practicing that "Rus" is doing
begins to show up on the football field. In scrimmage he gets the
reputation of being "sure-fingered" because he drags down passes,
recovers fumbles and handles the ball so smoothly that it seems like he
can't miss getting hold of it no matter how wild it goes. In
comparison the rest of us look pretty sick, all excepting me ... and
I'm a little better than average because of my experience with "Rus."
Several times, while I'm playing my position at left half, there's a
poor pass back from center and I have to drop on the ball. Believe me,
I'm mighty thankful then for the special training I've picked up!

"This game of football is j