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the screen had been perched precariously to begin with.
    “I threw it. All the way from the apple tree.”
    “Well, now. Well.” He looked out over the yard scattered with apples. “Looks like we need to work a bit on accuracy, but you just might have yourself an arm.”
    Ned opened the door and picked up the screen. The mesh was dented where the apple had popped it. He pressed it back into its casing in the door.
    “There,” he said. “Good as new. Guess I better pick some more apples.”
    “How about we get these others cleaned up first. Looks like a tornado went through my yard.”
    “If that were a real football, it would have gone clear through your house and out the front door,” said Ned as he untucked his shirtfront and gathered apples into it.
    “Sure,” said Granddaddy. “Sure it would. The boys must like having you on their team over at the school, then.”
    “I wasn’t picked. Burton and Clyde called the teams, because Burton has Lester’s genuine football. Franklin and Mel asked me, but it’s all the rest of us, the scrawny kids, with a paper ball. Football is not about throwing, Granddaddy. It’s tackling. Getting the other fellows down before they get to the end zone.”
    Ned went back to the apple tree and started picking a new batch. Granddaddy had a fact about everything, usually made up. Flush with his screen-popping throw, Ned was feeling like the expert today.
    “True enough,” said Granddaddy. “That’s defense. But what about getting the ball into the end zone yourself?”
    He turned to look at Granddaddy. He was soft like a scarecrow whose stuffing had all settled to the middle. His mustache grew out wide and white in all directions, and his fingers were knobby twigs. How did Ned’s great-granddaddy, the grandfather of his own father, know words like
defense
and
end zone
?
    “You want to play with those fellows?” Granddaddy said. “I got some tips could help you.”
    “I don’t know, Granddaddy. You’re older than football, aren’t you?” said Ned.
    “I didn’t stop learning when I was eleven, if that’s what you’re proposing. Haven’t I watched Coach Baldwin whip those Goodhue boys into shape? I’ve thunk on it and I’ve determined that football is about strategy. Plays. I’m too old for football, so I play checkers. You have to look a step ahead. Always try to anticipate what the other fellow is going to do and outsmart him.
    “You don’t have to be the biggest player if you know strategy. That’s something your buddies probably don’t have. That’s something Lester Ward knows, or the Hawkeyes wouldn’t have picked him up. Notice, he’s not the biggest fellow.”
    “Oh, he’s big all right.”
    “You saw the Goodhue boys wipe out Mount Vernon last season. Butch Winthrop could put Lester Ward between two slices of bread and eat him for lunch. But who scored the winning touchdown?”
    “Lester,” said Ned. “But he . . .”
    “I’m just telling you what I know. Makes me no never mind if you don’t want to learn the real game.”
    Ned threw a few more apples in the barrel. He was going to have to stand out here anyhow. He might as well hear what Granddaddy had to say.
    “OK. What’s strategy?”

“Rake out a rectangle here,” Granddaddy directed. “About four swipes should do it.”
    Ned hesitated. Raking was not football.
    “Well?” said Granddaddy.
    Ned yanked the rake across a small patch of yard, clearing it of apples and grass and leaf fragments.
    “Pull harder than that,” Granddaddy commanded. “That sorry grass isn’t worth saving. We need us some straight-on dirt.”
    Ned pulled the teeth across the dry grass again and again until it was heaped in a pile. He looked at his work. It was like he was a giant, looking down on a miniature . . .
    “It’s a field!” he exclaimed. “Look, Granddaddy!” He grabbed a stick and knelt down, drawing a line all around the edge, then dividing the field with stripes. He grabbed the basket