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Everybody was explaining everything, and the indefatigable coaches were hurrying from man to man, instructing, reminding, and scolding. Joel had only to look on, save when he lent a hand at removing some torn and stubborn jersey, or at finding lost shin-guards and nose masks, and so he found a seat out of the way, and, searching the room with his gaze, at length found Prince.
It assumed the appearance of the dressing room at Princeton. Football togs hung everywhere. Nose-guards, head-gears, stockings, shin-guards, jerseys, and other gridiron equipment were everywhere. Here and there the trainer or his assistants were limbering up joints that needed attention. Two big buses waited at the car platform. The team piled into them. We were off to the field.
His adversary was that kind of gladiator known technically as a secutor, a burly ruffian in complete armor, with huge shin-guards like jack-boots, a kilt of broad leather straps hanging in two overlapping rows, the upper set plated with bronze scales, a bronze corselet, and, fitting closely to his shoulders, covering head and neck together, a great, heavy helmet.
The reply to this sally was a boot launched at the center rush, for Tom Warren's middle name was in reality Saalfield, and "Stumpy" was a cognomen rather too descriptive to be relished by the quarter-back. Greer returned the missile with interest, and the fight grew warm, and boots and footballs and shin-guards filled the air.
So Miss Corner went off to get two sticks and a ball and came back to instruct Mr. Direck. She said he had a good eye. The two small boys scenting play in the air got sticks and joined them. The overnight visitor's wife appeared from the house in abbreviated skirts, and wearing formidable shin-guards.
Sid DuPree, thanks to parental affluence, was the only boy who laid claim to a complete uniform, and presently he sauntered over the tracks in shining headgear, heavy jersey, padded knee trousers, and legs encased in shin-guards far too large for him. A new collegiate ball was tucked securely under one arm.
Louise went down town with her mother, so the team was deprived of the support of its feminine rooter on the eventful afternoon. They met in front of Silvey's. John boasted the one addition made to the equipment of that first practice when he appeared with a second-hand pair of shin-guards which he had acquired from a boy at school in exchange for a dime and an agate shooter.
In the old days a catcher had to be able to catch either with bare hand or with a light glove, but the modern catcher's mitt, mask, chest-protector, and shin-guards make the position far safer, and almost any boy who is quick and has nerve can be trained to become a fairly good catcher so long as he has a good throw and is a good general.
One was a great hulking full-armored brute of a Goth, helmeted and corseleted, kilted in bronze-plated leather straps, booted, as it were, with ample shin-guards of thick hide, bronze-plated like the straps of his flapping kilt.
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