VIRGINIA VERSUS CAROLINA.
What a day that Thanksgiving was! Could anything be more fun than to be
sixteen ('most seventeen); to have devoted friends; good health; to be
allowed to sleep until mid-day; to get up to a good breakfast luncheon;
and by one o'clock to be on the streets of Richmond en route for the
great event of the year: the football match between Virginia and
Carolina?
We were in such a gale that Zebedee threatened to lock us up for the
day.
"I am afraid you will disgrace me before night," he declared.
The best thing of all that happened was a sharp ringing of the bell
while we were having the luncheon Zebedee had brought from the cafe and
served in the apartment, and who should come in but Father? Zebedee had
long-distanced him to Bracken and in spite of the sickly condition of
the neighbourhood and Sally Winn's having him up in the night, he had
caught the train to Richmond and was like a boy off on a holiday.
Instead of the snug little Henry Ford that we had expected to go to the
game in, Zebedee had rented for the day a great seven-seated car that
held us all quite comfortably. It was a rusty old thing but was
decorated from end to end with blue and yellow, the University of
Virginia colours. Our host had ready for us a dozen huge yellow
chrysanthemums, two for each girl and one for each man. We looked like a
float in a parade and as we chugged out Monument Avenue, every one
turned to look at the gay car. Everybody had a horn and everybody blew
like Gabriel on the last day.
Of course Zebedee had found out the very best place on the grounds to
park the car and of course he got that place. He was a man of great
resources and always seemed to know exactly where to apply for what he
wanted. For instance, his getting permission for us to leave Gresham
for Thanksgiving holidays was simply unprecedented. As he said, he had
pulled every wire in sight, and where there wasn't a wire, he found a
leg. Anyhow, there we were.
"How on earth did you get such a grand place for the car?" asked Dee. A
policeman seemed to be saving it for us, as the parking privileges were
not very extensive at the ball grounds.
"Oh, newspaper men get there somehow. We have what one might call
'press-tige'."
We were wedged in between two cars, one decorated with the Virginia
colours and one with the Carolina, white and light blue. Both were
filled to overflowing with enthusiastic rooters for their respective
states.
The crowd was immense. I never saw so many people together. All of them
seemed gay and happy, and good nature was the order of the day. There
was much pushing and crowding, but no one seemed to mind in the least.
The grandstand was creaking and groaning with people, and every inch of
space within six feet of the fence that enclosed the gridiron was
packed and jammed with one solid mass of enthusiasm.
Zebedee seemed to know about half of the people who passed us. He had
his hat off more than he had it on and usually called out some greeting
to his acquaintances, who one and all addressed him as: "Jeff."
Father saw many old cronies, schoolmates of by-gone years, members of
his fraternity and learned doctors and surgeons, who, I noticed, greeted
him with great respect and affection. Our car was the center of
attraction seemingly. Young men and old stopped to speak to Father and
Zebedee, were introduced to us and stayed to chat. Our old car gave
several ominous squeaks as the visitors climbed on the steps or perched
on the sides. It took it out in squeaking and did not go to pieces as I
for a moment feared it would, but settled down into submission.
"If there isn't old Judge Grayson!" shouted Dee. "I wish he would look
this way." There he was, our friend of Willoughby Beach. His old pink
face was beaming with enthusiasm as he wedged his way through the crowd.
"Grayson! Grayson! Rah, rah, rah!" and then Zebedee blew such a blast
from his beribboned horn that the crowd trembled and turned as one man,
and Judge Grayson, of course, turning with them, saw us. He waved his
large soft felt hat and in a moment was up in the car greeting us with
his old-fashioned courtesy.
"'Ah! happy years! Once more, who would not be a boy?'" Of course the
dear old man had to greet us with a quotation. "Gad, Tucker, it is good
to see you and your young ladies once more! Are you sure I won't crowd
you, getting up in your car this way?"
"Crowd us, indeed! We've got room for a dozen friends if they were as
welcome as you, eh, girls?" We agreed, but the rented car gave another
groan.
Then the teams came trotting in, twenty-two stalwart giants.
"I can't tell one from the other," I said.
"There's George Massie, there, standing by himself to the left! Sleepy!
Sleepy! Massie! Massie!" yelled Zebedee like a Comanche Indian. We all
took it up until the object of our excitement heard his name above the
roar of the crowd and looked our way. We were not so very far from him
and he saw us and he said afterwards that the sun shone on Annie's hair
so that he just knew who we were.
"Hello, peoples!" Who but Wink White and Harvie Price should come
clambering in our car from the back? Some good-natured passerby had
given them a leg-up over the lowered top. The car gave another moan of
agony. She was built to seat seven not to stand twenty, but stand at
least twenty she had to.
I was still dignified with Wink and Harvie for the position they had put
us in at Gresham, but they were so contrite and so jolly that I had to
cave in and be pleasant. It was too bright a day to have a grouch with
any one, and besides, they had not really got us into trouble after all.
Zebedee thought as I did, that they were certainly selfish and
thoughtless to place us where sure expulsion would have been the
outcome had the authorities discovered that boys had come to the dance,
and we had been in a measure party to the crime.
Harvie and Wink had not heard of how the escapade had turned out, as we
had had no opportunity of informing them. We had been very careful in
speaking of the matter at all and had only divulged our part in the
affair to a chosen few who had sworn never to tell a soul. It was too
good a story to keep indefinitely, however, and now Dum and Dee together
told the whole thing while the teams were trotting around, making
senseless looking passes (senseless to the uninitiated, at least). The
automobile rocked with laughter at their description of Wink's tan
shoes, No. 8, that were much in evidence under the drapery, and Harvie's
falsetto giggle that at one time turned into a baritone guffaw.
"What's the joke? What's the joke?" A strident voice broke into our
gaiety. It could belong to only one person of my acquaintance. Sure
enough, there stood Mabel Binks with all the glory of a grown-up
society beau in her wake and all the manner a month of debutanting could
give her. "Let me introduce Mr. Parker, girls. You just adore girls,
don't you, Mr. Parker?"
Mr. Parker, who was in a measure the Beau Brummel of Richmond, assured
us he did and immediately took stock of our charms, at least that was
his air, as Mabel, with many flourishes, presented us. She was quite
impressive in her manner of introducing Tweedles and Annie Pore, and I
heard her whisper behind her hand that Annie was a "descendant of
nobilities." She almost ignored me altogether, but finally brought me in
as "little Miss Allison from the country," and pretended to have
entirely forgotten Mary's name.
Mr. Parker was a type I had never met before. He was good looking and
clever in a way, always knowing the latest joke and the last bit of
gossip and retailing his knowledge to his greatest advantage, that is,
never getting it off to one person but saving himself for an audience
worthy of his wit. He was older than Zebedee, in his forties I should
say, but his countenance was as rosy as a boy's. Dee declared she knew
for a fact that he had his face massaged every day. His attire was as
carefully thought out as any belle's: socks and tie to match, shoes and
gloves also to match, and scarf pin and jewelled wrist watch in harmony
with his general get-up.
He was a man, I was told, not of the F.F.V.'s, but from his earliest
youth Society with a big S had been his object and he had made good. He
was invited everywhere but went only to those places that he felt would
help him in his great object, that of being Dictator, as it were, to
Society. He controlled the vote as to whether or not a debutante was a
success. If he said she was to be the rage, she was the rage, and if her
charms did not appeal to him, it was a very wonderful thing for her to
get by with them. He was a man of no wealth, having held for many years
the same position in a bank at a comfortable salary. It was no more than
enough to enable him to belong to all clubs, to live in bachelor
apartments, to support thirty pairs of trousers and a suitable number
of coats and various grades of waistcoats, fancy and otherwise, and
shoes and shoe-trees that mighty forests must have been denuded to
obtain.
Mr. Parker had smiled on the effulgent beauty of Mabel Binks, and her
social fortune was made. Any girl with social ambition would rather be
seen at the ball game with Hiram G. Parker than any other man in
Richmond, although he was never known to have seats in the grandstand or
to take a girl in an automobile. The honour of being with him was
sufficient, and the prestige gained by his favour was greater than all
the boxes in the grandstand could give or the delight of riding in a
year-after-next model of the finest car built.
Mr. Parker made no excuses, they say he never did, but just handed his
lady fair up into our car and stepped in after her as though they had
received written invitations. The car was already full to overflowing
and so overflow it did. Father and Wink spilled out and were soon
walking arm-and-arm, evidently striking up quite a friendship. Mabel
made her usual set at Zebedee, who was willy-nilly engrossed by her
favour.
Mr. Parker eyed all of us with the air of an appraiser and Dum said
afterwards she felt as a little puppy in a large litter must feel when
the hard-hearted owner is trying to decide which ones must be drowned.
Before he could decide which ones of us, if any, would make successful
debutantes, the game was in full swing and even Mr. Parker had to let
the social game give way to that of football.
My, how we yelled! We yelled when Virginia came near making a point, and
we yelled when she came near losing one. When we could yell no longer we
blew our horns until throats were rested enough to take up the burden of
yelling once more. Zebedee, standing out on the engine to make room for
his many guests, invited and otherwise, behaved like a windmill in a
cyclone. He waved his arms and legs and shouted encouragement to our
side until they could not have had the heart to be beaten.
Father's behaviour was really not much more dignified than Zebedee's.
Love for his Alma Mater was as strong as ever and he rooted with as much
fervor as any one on the grounds.
Sleepy's playing was wonderful. I could hardly believe he was the same
man we had known at Willoughby. There was nothing sleepy about him now;
on the contrary, he was about as wide awake a young man as one could
find. He seemed to have the faculty of being in many places at one time,
and if he once got the ball in those mighty hands, it took eleven men to
stop him. When he would drop, great would be the fall thereof. Sorry,
indeed, did I feel for the one who was under him when he fell. He must
have weighed a good two hundred pounds and over. He certainly did the
best playing on the Virginia team, so we thought, and when he made a
touch-down that Zebedee said should go down in history, we were very
proud of being friends with the great Massie.
We won! Everybody in our car was wild with delight, but I must say my
pleasure was somewhat dampened when I saw the people in the car next to
us, the one decorated in light blue and white, in such deep dejection. A
middle-aged man was openly weeping and his nice, pleasant-looking wife
was trying to console him and at the same time wiping her own eyes.
Their son was on the Carolina team. It seems strange for non-combatants
to take defeat so much to heart, but it is just this kind of enthusiasm
that makes the annual game between Virginia and Carolina what it is:
something to live for from year to year in the minds of a great many
persons. If Father, with no son to root for, could have tears of joy in
his eyes because Virginia won, why should not the father of the Carolina
player weep copiously when his state lost?
The victorious team were picked up bodaciously by the shouting crowd and
borne on their shoulders to the waiting cars. The great Massie, begrimed
almost beyond recognition, passed us in a broad grin. Zebedee leaped
over the fence and shook the young giant's dirty hand.
"Come to dinner with us! Got a table reserved at the Jefferson! Dinner
at six! Dance after!" Of course Sleepy was pleased to come, having
espied the sun glinting on Annie's hair.
"Of all sights the rarest
And surely the fairest
Was the shine of her yellow hair;
In the sunlight gleaming,
Each gold curl seeming
A thing beyond compare.
Oh, were it the fashion
For love to be passion,
And knights still to joust for the fair,
There'd be tender glances
And couching of lances
At the shine of her golden hair."
I know Sleepy felt like a knight of old, way down in his shy heart, as
he grabbed that football and turned over all his doughty opponents
making for the goal. In his heart he wore Annie's colours and in his
mind he kissed her little hand. Annie had been receiving Harvie's
devotion with much politeness, but now that Sleepy was the hero of the
hour, she turned from her more dapper admirer and waved her hand to the
delighted and blushing George. Girls all love a football player. They
are simply made that way. I think perhaps it is some old medieval
spirit stirring within us, and we, too, fancy ourselves to be the ladyes
faire and idealize the tumbling, rolling, sweating, swearing boys into
our own true knights.
After the Virginia team, borne by in triumph, came the poor Carolina
men. They had put up a splendid fight and there had been moments when
their success seemed possible. They took their defeat like the gentlemen
they were, but I saw their mouths were trembling and one enormous blond
with a shock of hair resembling our big yellow chrysanthemums, had his
great hands up before his mud-caked face and his mighty shoulders were
shaking with sobs, sobs that came from a real broken heart. I hope a hot
bath and a cold shower and a good Thanksgiving dinner helped to mend
that heart, but it was certainly broken for the time being if ever heart
was.
Now we all of us yelled for Carolina, yelled even harder than we had for
our own team, and they gave us a sickly smile of gratitude.
During the game Mr. Parker had been very busy in his polite attentions
to all of us, and from his generally agreeable manner it looked as
though he thought we were all worth saving and none of the litter was to
be drowned. Mabel had renewed her attack on Zebedee and had crawled out
on the engine by him, where she stood clutching his arm for support and
generally behaving as though he were her own private property.
"She makes me sick!" declared Dum. "And Zebedee acting just as though he
liked it!"
"Well, what must he do? Let her fall off?" I asked.
"Yes, let her fall off and stay off!"
All was over at last and the automobiles were busy backing out of their
places. Mr. Parker gathered in the pushing Mabel, who had done
everything in her power to be asked to dinner with us at the Jefferson,
but Zebedee had had so many quiet digs from Tweedles that even had he
considered her an addition to the party, he would have been afraid to
include her.
Our car was the last one out of the grounds because Mabel took so long
to make up her mind to get off the engine and accept an invitation from
some acquaintances who passed and asked her to let them take her home.
"See you to-night!" she called affectionately to Tweedles as she finally
took advantage of the offer.
"Not if we see you first!" they tweedled, in an aside.