THE GAME
“This is to certify that Robin Sidney Drake is above in all his studies
at Marston High School, and qualified to enter the football game on
Saturday, November 16, 1907.”
* * * * *
Those were the words on the paper which Bobs fluttered in Jacquette’s
face when he met her in the hall between bells, on Friday afternoon.
The document was signed by all his teachers, and, at the foot, appeared
the principal’s name, preceded by the mystic letters, “O. K.”
“Hurrah!” she cried, her face pink with gladness, in spite of an
uncomfortable thought of Marquis. “You did it yourself, that’s the best
of it! Now, you may decide to write sonnets for a living, after all.”
“Not much!” he denied, so fervently that Jacquette laughed.
“How perfectly funny it looks to see your name written, ‘Robin Sidney
Drake’!” she went on, still admiring the paper.
“Why? Isn’t it a nice name?” he asked, anxiously. Bobs had always
cherished a haunting doubt about the propriety of naming a boy after a
bird.
“Oh, yes, beautiful--only nothing seems quite right for you but Bobs.”
“All right, say it then. By the way, ‘Miss Willard’ seems perfectly
funny to me.”
“Why? Isn’t it a nice name?” she mocked.
“Oh, yes, beautiful--only not quite right for you.”
“What is right for me?”
Bobs hesitated, but he knew what he wanted. “Quis calls you, ‘Jack,’”
it came out at last.
“All right, say it, then!”
They were still laughing over this little skirmish when Mademoiselle
passed them on the way to one of her French classes.
“Coming to the game, to-morrow, Mademoiselle?” Bobs asked her.
“No, lambkin, I shall not come,” she answered, sweetly. “I dearly love
the little boys who play football, but I would so much rather go to see
them in the hospital, afterward!”
Bobs laughed, and before he could speak, Mademoiselle hurried along,
adding over her shoulder:
“Honey, I know just one thing about the little children who play
football. Sometimes--once in a long while--they pass my examinations!”
The big fellow sent a smile of genuine liking after her. “Can’t get
ahead of Mademoiselle,” he said, but, to his surprise, as he turned
back to Jacquette, she met him with a serious, almost rebuking gaze.
“Bobs,” she said, “Quis thinks there’s no excuse for a football man’s
having the reputation Mademoiselle gave you just now. He says a fellow
can play football and keep up his studies, too, if he tries hard
enough. He does it. He stands well in everything, and you know he’s a
good football player.”
“Oh, yes,” Bobs assented, carelessly. “Quis never has to work on his
lessons, though. He just looks at ’em. Most of us have to peg.”
“Bobs,” said Jacquette, with a sudden little tremble in her voice,
“can’t you--couldn’t you, possibly--Bobs, won’t you please manage,
somehow, to put Quis on for the game, to-morrow?”
Bobs’s face was blank with astonishment. “What can I do?” he exclaimed.
“He’s my sub, you know. You wouldn’t have me deliberately get smashed
to give him a chance?”
“Of course not! But Quis is as good as any of the team. You know that.
Why couldn’t you put him on instead of one of the others? The rest have
all played enough to win their emblems, haven’t they?”
“Yes, but see here! I can’t pick a fellow off the team and put another
in his place, as if they were so many ninepins. They have feelings--and
rights, too. A girl can’t understand!”
“I understand this much,” she insisted, her eyes filling with tears,
“you’re the captain, and the boys think whatever you do is right,
anyway, and you could manage it, somehow! I stood up for you to Quis,
Bobs, but if you really did keep him off the team just because he was
a Beta Sig, and now won’t even let him win his emblem, I can’t help
thinking you haven’t been square!”
“It wasn’t all because he was a Beta Sig,” Bobs protested, warmly.
“But, other things being equal, any fellow’d give the preference to his
own fraternity. Quis would, himself. Why, the Beta Sigs ran the team
like tyrants, last year, and this time we thought the Elks might have a
turn. ’Tisn’t right, though. I’ve been sorry, ever since, that I didn’t
put Quis on, but I can’t help it, now. It’s too late.”
Jacquette listened unmoved. “You could do it if you wanted to. I know
you could,” was all she said, as she hurried off to her class.
They had been standing by the door of an apparently empty recitation
room, but, as they turned away, the small, dark face of Clarence Mullen
peered at them curiously from the doorway. He had been putting some
work on the blackboard, just inside the room, and had heard every word.
Long before two o’clock, the next afternoon, twenty Sigma Pi girls,
in gala attire, were seated in the front row of the grand stand,
waiting for the championship game to begin. Just behind them sat their
rivals, the Kappa Deltas, while less important sororities--each a clan
by itself--were scattered through the crowd as near to the front as
they could find places. It was Marston against the Daniel Webster High
School, and the contest would be the closest of the season.
Gradually the seats filled until the stand where the Marston pupils
sat, and the other on the opposite side of the field, which was
reserved for students from Webster High, were both packed.
At last a gate at the end of the field swung open, and the Webster team
came trotting out. Like one body, every person on the Webster grand
stand was on his feet, and black and red banners fluttered out from end
to end of that mass of people, while boys and girls together yelled:
“Webster! High!
Hi! Yi.
Sky! High!
Webster!”
Flutter--flutter--flutter--said the black and red, and the roaring from
the Webster side waxed louder and louder, as the Daniel Webster team
began its signal practice on the field, but all this time the Marston
stand remained a model of dignified silence.
A little longer. Then watches began to be pulled out. What was the
matter? It was past time for the game to begin. Where were the Marstons?
At last, just as everyone was asking this question, the other gate
opened--another team was in the field! Presto! The Marston grand
stand was on its feet. Blue and white!--blue and white!--blue and
white!--rippling, waving, flapping in the November sunshine, while the
new cry that rent the air was:
“Osky! Wow! Wow!
Skinny! Wow! Wow!
Marston! Wow!”
“Skin Marston!
Wow! Wow! Wow!”
came back from the Websters in a deafening screech, and of all the
voices on both sides, no two were used more vigorously than those of
Jacquette and Louise, who stood in the front row of the Marston stand,
and “osky-wow-wowed” with all their girlish might for the glory of
their school.
“I don’t see Bobs anywhere,” Jacquette whispered, as she rested her
lungs for a minute. “I can usually pick him out first, because he
doesn’t wear any head guard, and by his white sweater, too. Does he
wear a different colour from the rest because he’s captain? It’s lots
more effective than the blue ones the other boys have.”
“I know,” Louise assented, with her eyes on the field. “The blue ‘M.
H.’ is pretty on the white, isn’t it? Sh!--look!”
The whistle had blown and the teams were lining up for the game. People
had settled down into their seats, and were watching eagerly. “There’s
Reddy!” “Go it, Reddy!” “That’s Shorty!” “Look at Ned!” “Come on,
Chub!” were the explosive cries that had taken the place of continuous
yelling as the game began. Then--attention!
Jacquette clutched Louise’s hand. “Bobs isn’t there! Who’s
quarter-back? It’s Quis!”
Quis it was, running the team in Bobs’s place. What did it mean? Where
was Bobs? But the game had started.
Forward--and back! Forward--and back! Forward--and back!--struggled the
two teams, now on Marston territory, now almost to the Daniel Webster
goal. Two more evenly matched schools it would have been hard to find.
Each had behind it that season an unbroken series of triumphs; to both
of them this game meant more than the mere winning of the championship
banner--it meant the overcoming of a hated rival.
Where was Bobs Drake? That question was the undercurrent of all the
perfunctory cheering on the Marston stand, and with Jacquette, it swept
away every other thought.
“It’s my fault!” she kept repeating in a horrified tone, to Louise.
“It’s all my fault! Look! We’re losing ground! We are! Louise, I made
him let Quis play. If Marston’s beaten, it’s all my fault!”
“Nonsense!” Louise insisted. “Do you think Bobs Drake would desert the
team because a girl told him to? There’s some other reason. But look!
Oh----”
No one ever knew just what happened. Two minutes of play were left.
There was a weak spot somewhere in the Marston line; a trick play; a
wildly struggling mass. Then a red-clad form, the Webster quarter-back,
pursued in vain by the best men on the Marston team, shot across the
field, and fell exhausted, with the ball in his arms, just over the
Marston line!
An attempt to kick goal failed; time was called; the first half was
done; the score stood five to nothing in favor of Webster High!
The Webster yelling was terrific, as the tangle of human beings began
to resolve itself into individuals, and clear the field, but among the
Marstons arose a great buzz of anxious questioning. Where was Bobs?
What had become of their captain?
Louise was trying to keep Jacquette in her place until they could
get some news. “But I can’t sit here and wait!” Jacquette refused,
excitedly. “I must find somebody and do something!”
“Well, I’m going with you, then,” Louise gave up at last. “Keep our
places, girls,” she called to the rest of the Sigma Pi crowd, as she
followed Jacquette.
“Now, what can you do?” she demanded, as she overtook her. “A girl
can’t go to training quarters.”
“I don’t know! Can’t I send a message to Bobs, some way?”
“There goes Bud Banister! He’s manager of the team,” cried Louise.
“Bud! Bud! Tell us what’s the matter!”
“Matter enough!” the tall, lanky fellow flung back angrily, as he ran
past. “Bobs went off down-town on the two o’clock train and sent us
word to go on with the game without him!”
“I told you, Louise!” Jacquette gasped. “Bud, wait!” she called.
“Miss Willard! Look here!” put in a breathless voice at Jacquette’s
elbow, and, turning, she saw Clarence Mullen, his small, dark face
the sickly colour of fear. “What shall I do?” he demanded, as if
consulting a confidante. “I told ’em he went down-town, but it wasn’t
so. I’ve got him locked in the gymnasium, over at school, but I can’t
let him out for the next half, even if I want to, because the janitor
came out of the building when I did, and he locked the outside door,
and I haven’t got a key to that!”
Jacquette whirled around, and towered above the boy’s shrinking figure.
“What are you saying?” she cried out, seizing him by both shoulders in
her excitement. “You locked Bobs in the gymnasium?”
“Yes!” He faltered under her wrathful glance. “I--I heard you talking
to him yesterday, and I--I knew the Beta Sigs all thought it was dirty
work that Granville couldn’t win his emblem, and--I had the chance!
He was late, and he ran down to the gym alone to change his clothes,
and left the key in the outside of the door, and while he was at his
locker, I shut it and turned the key, and then the janitor came away
when I did, so there was no one to hear him and I told----”
“I believe it’s true!” Louise broke in. “There goes Mr. Branch, now,
with Bud Banister! We must tell them--quick!”
The grey-haired principal of Marston turned in surprise, as the girls,
followed by Clarence, dashed up behind him, but, before their jumble of
explanation was done, he started for the school, racing like a boy with
Bud Banister. Mr. Branch had a key to the building, and, as they came
near, they heard shouting and pounding, and saw Bobs’s flushed face
looking out through the iron-barred basement windows of the gymnasium.
“Everybody in the block has gone to the game,” Bud panted, “or someone
would have heard him, sure!”
It was the work of one excited moment to set Bobs free, and no time
was wasted in words. The case of Clarence Mullen could wait; the game
would not. All Bobs asked was how the score stood, and whether the
second half had begun, and even this information he took on the run.
Not one of them could keep up with him on the way back to the field.
Bud Banister was at his heels; Jacquette and Louise trailed after, and,
last of all, came Mr. Branch, with a stern hand on the shoulder of
Clarence Mullen, questioning him sharply, as they hurried along.
The Sigma Pi girls on the grand stand received Louise and Jacquette in
a flutter of curiosity, for only stray rumours of Bobs’s desertion had
been passed along to them, but, before there was time for explanation,
the whistle blew, and all eyes turned to the field.
Then a shout went up--bigger and wilder than any shout that had gone
before. Bobs Drake was there! Marston was safe!
As the teams faced each other, just before he took his place as
quarterback, Bobs had passed along the line, murmuring a personal word
of encouragement to each of the boys. Up to that instant, they had been
parts of a well-oiled machine; now they crouched there, every man of
them ready to play that game with his head, his heart, and his whole
soul.
On the grand stand where the Sigma Pi girls were sitting, a quick
glance of intelligence ran along. “Webster never would have made that
touchdown if Bobs had been here!” was whispered from one to the other.
“That’s not fair!” Louise murmured to Jacquette. “I’m not saying
anything against Bobs, but my brother says there isn’t a better
quarterback on a high school team anywhere than Quis.”
Meanwhile, down in the field, the struggle of the first half was being
repeated. Marston was reinforced by Bobs’s presence, but Webster played
with the confidence born of success, and, again, each fought an
obstinate foe.
If systematic cheering could have won the game, Marston would have had
it. Over and over, the grand stand rose to its feet and shouted as one
man such heartening yells as,
“Harum! Scarum! Wah Whoo!
Hear us! Cheer us! White and blue!
We play football! That’s no joke!
Marston High School! Hic! Haec! Hoc!”
Down below, Captain Bobs Drake, dimly conscious of the support the
school was giving him, seemed, by sheer force of will, to be driving
his team toward the far white goal line which meant victory. The score
still remained as at the end of the first half. As the close of the
game approached, he realised, almost with desperation, that no combined
effort on the part of the team could break down the defence which
confronted it. He, Bobs Drake, must win that game.
“Seven rahs for the team!” roared the man who was directing the
cheering from the Marston stand, and, “Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!
Rah! Bobs!” was exploded on the air.
But Bobs heard none of it. At that moment, a fumble on the part of one
of his men, had placed the ball at his feet, and like a flash, with the
pig-skin in his arms, he had broken loose, hurdled a crouching player,
flung two more out of his path--and gained the line.
Five to five--said the score! Marston’s one chance of winning depended,
now, on Bobs’s ability to gain an extra point by kicking the ball
over the cross-bar between the goal-posts. There was a moment of
breathless suspense. Then the ball sailed proudly over the bar--time
was called--and the Marston crowd went wild!
The game was won. The Marston stand emptied itself like an avalanche
into the narrow space between it and the fenced-in field. The wonder
was that everyone got down alive, for the leaping and scrambling and
pushing were terrific. Everyone wanted to be first at the gate where
the team was coming out on its way back to training-quarters.
From their seat in the front row, the Sigma Pi girls had best chance,
and Jacquette and Louise stood close to the entrance as the triumphal
procession appeared.
First came Bobs, proudly borne aloft by four of his team. There was mud
on his forehead, mud on one cheek, and a long scratch on the other--but
he was a hero, every inch, in the hearts of his comrades, and the
ovation they gave him proved it.
Close behind him rode Quis Granville, and after him the rest of the
eleven, each lifted on the shoulders of three or four fellows.
When they had all tramped by, the crowd of schoolboys that always
straggles after the team fell into line behind them, and the Sigma Pi
girls began to chatter.
“What will they do to that wicked little Clarence Mullen?” Blanche
Gross demanded. She had been gleaning the facts from Louise and passing
them on. “He’ll surely be expelled!”
“I don’t know! But I could forgive him, after that victory!” put in
Mamie Coolidge, who had been screaming, and jumping up and down until
her new red velvet hat was flopping wildly over one ear. “Jacquette
Willard, you tell your cousin for me that I never saw such a tackle as
that in all my life!”
“Yes, but think of Bobs’s kick!” Etta Brainerd put in, soulfully.
“Didn’t he look happy when they carried him by? He saw us--don’t you
think so?”
“He looked straight at you, Jacquette,” Louise whispered.
“I know it,” she whispered back, “and I was so busy waving to him that
I never even saw Quis until he was away past!”