over, Larry, will you? Well, what have you decided?”
“There wasn’t much to decide, Cap,” replied the coach. “With you out of
it――――”
“Preston or Morely.”
“Exactly. And it’s Preston, to my mind.” There was a suggestion of
challenge in Mr. Thornton’s voice. Jack glanced at the others. Logan
nodded, and so did Payson Walsh, but his brother remained non-committal.
“Ted Morely played a pretty snappy game to-day after I came out,”
suggested Jack.
“Oh, Morely’s all right,” agreed the coach, “but in my opinion
Preston’s a better man to start the game Saturday. We’ve got to get
the jump on Fairfield, Cap, and to do that we ought to start with the
best we have. Morely’s smart and fast and――and snappy, but I consider
Preston more dependable.”
“Sure,” said the manager. “Ted’s a quitter.”
Jack turned to him, but Jim Walsh was quicker. “Cut that, Pay,” he
growled. “You never saw Ted Morely quit in your life.”
“Well, you know what I mean,” his brother protested. “Maybe he isn’t a
quitter, exactly, but――he quits! Doesn’t he, now? Didn’t he lie down in
the Fielding game? Oh, I know he did something to his shoulder, but he
was all right the next morning. It couldn’t have been much. I like Ted,
but when it comes to picking a right half for Saturday――――”
“The trouble is that he’s always getting hurt,” said Logan.
“He’s all right now,” Jack said. “He has had punk luck, I’ll grant you,
but being laid up a couple of times hasn’t got anything to do with
Saturday. And you say yourselves that he played a snappy game to-day.”
“I don’t believe it matters an awful lot,” said the coach. “It isn’t
likely the chap who starts will finish, anyway. But you’re captain, and
if you say Morely――――”
“I’m not captain any longer,” returned Jack. “Larry had better take it
on, hadn’t he? As for using Ted, I haven’t anything to say. Only you’re
wrong about him. He’s played in hard luck, that’s all. I knew him back
home. He didn’t play football then, but he was always a mighty spunky
chap, and I never saw anything that looked like quitting. He is a bit
light, but he’s a fighter, and he can do more damage in a broken field
than anyone we have. I’ve heard fellows say, or intimate, just what Pay
said a minute ago; that Ted’s a quitter. It’s too bad, for it’s a rank
injustice, and I’d like to see him have a chance to prove it. But I’m
not going to insist on playing him. You’re running this show, Coach,
and after this minute I’m not going to have another word to say about
it. After this Larry’s captain. I’m out of it.”
“Field captain, of course,” said the coach. “You’re still the real
captain, Jack, and we want your advice and your help as much as ever.”
“Nothing doing!” Jack shook his head. “You won’t hear me open my mouth
again, Thornton. I’m off. Anyone going up?”
“I’ll go along, I guess,” said Jim Walsh. “You don’t need me any more,
do you, Coach?”
“No, I guess not. We don’t have to decide about Morely until the game
starts, anyway, Cap. If you still think――――”
“I’ve stopped thinking,” answered Jack, smiling, as he worked his
crutches under his arm and, aided by Jim, swung himself up. “Good-night,
everybody.”
“Hard luck,” said Payson Walsh as the departing couple passed down the
short brick walk to the street and went off through the rustling leaves
that lay thick on the sidewalk. “Poor Jack! I’ll bet he’s feeling
perfectly rotten.”
“I know he is,” said Larry Logan. “When Jack doesn’t laugh once in a
quarter of an hour――――” He shook his head eloquently.
“We’ll miss him Saturday,” mused the coach. “I don’t mean any reflection
on you, Logan.”
“I know. A team always feels lost without its captain. It’s going to
make a difference in our chances of winning, too. I still think we can
pull it out, but――we’ll have to work harder to do it.”
“Funny to have it happen in a game like to-day’s,” grumbled the
manager. “Why, it was the easiest game of the season!”
“You never can tell about that,” replied Logan. “You get hurt when you
least expect it. Remember two years ago when Tommy Winship broke his
arm in the gym? He didn’t fall three feet! Well――――” He stretched
and yawned widely. “Gee, I’m tired! It was too blamed hot to-day for
football.”
“Yes,” the coach agreed, absently. He was making meaningless marks on
the edge of the paper before him. After a moment: “I suppose it would
be a decent thing to please Jack under the circumstances and start
Morely instead of Preston,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t believe it
would matter much, anyway.”
“Pleasing Jack isn’t what we’re here for,” said Payson Walsh, frowning.
“We want to win a week from to-day, Coach. That’s our stunt. Ted
Morely’s a sort of protegé of Jack’s, and Jack thinks Ted’s been
misjudged, and he wants to give the chap a chance to prove it. He said
so himself. But we’re not staging the contest for Morely’s benefit. If
he’s got the reputation of being a quitter――and as a matter of fact
he has, as you know, Larry――it’s his own fault. It isn’t up to us to
worry. Preston’s the man for the job and I say, use him.”
The coach nodded. “You’re probably right,” he said.
Had Ted Morely known what was being said about him down in the village
he would not have sped his pen so calmly over the paper, but, as it
was, he was at peace with the world. He was writing of the afternoon’s
game at length and with, perhaps, unnecessary detail, for his father
and mother knew woefully little about football. Having reached the end
of the third page, he laid down his pen and read over his effort.
“It was rotten luck for Jack, and everyone’s awfully sorry for him.
They say he’s quite out of the Fairfield game. Isn’t that the limit?
I haven’t seen him since they lugged him off the field, but I guess
he’s beastly cut up about it. I took his place after he was hurt and
played all of the fourth quarter. You know I’ve been fighting Preston
all Fall, and now it looks like I’d won. Anyway, if Jack doesn’t play
Saturday I’m bound to get in sooner or later, for Fairfield plays a
stiff game and not many fellows last through. To-day we were 17 to
their 7 when I went in and Thornton ran in a lot of subs and we only
tried to hold the other fellow from scoring any more. You needn’t worry
about my shoulder because it’s just as good as it ever was. I wouldn’t
have said anything about it if it had been serious――――”
He scored that out heavily and wrote above it. “It was only a wrench
and nothing to bother about. I’ve been in mean luck this Fall about
getting bunged up. You remember I had tonsilitis when we played Camden
High and then there was the time I sort of fainted at practice one
day, but that was only something I’d eaten, the doctor said, and then
hurting that old shoulder took me out of the Fielding game. I’ll bet
you that if they let me play Saturday there won’t be anything the
matter with me, or if there is no one will know it! We want to win this
year pretty bad and the school’s made up its mind to do it, too. I
wish you could see some of the meetings we’ve been having. Talk about
enthusiasm, gee, no one’s got anything on us. Well, I’ll write again
after the game and you’ll know then how it comes out. If you want to
know before that you will find it in the Reading paper, I guess. Now I
must stop and go to bed. I’ve written a pretty long letter for me. Lots
of love to you both.”
He signed it “Your aff. son, Ted,” folded it away into the envelope,
wrote the address and leaned the letter against the drop-light so that
he would see it and remember to borrow a stamp from his room-mate and
post it the next morning. Then, with a comfortable yawn, he arose and
removed his jacket. In doing so he winced slightly, frowned and rubbed
his left shoulder a moment before he began to wind the old-fashioned
silver watch that had been his father’s and had descended to him on his
sixteenth birthday, nearly a year ago. When his room-mate came in Ted
was fast asleep and dreaming brave dreams.
Toward Jack Groom, Ted entertained an admiration that was closely
akin to hero worship. Jack was not quite two years older, but to Ted
he seemed more than that, and with liking went a respectful awe that
to-day, the Sunday following the next to the last game of the Staunton
schedule, kept Ted from doing what he really wanted to do, which was
cross the yard to Fenton Hall and call on the captain. He wanted to
let Jack know that he was horribly sorry about the accident and very
sympathetic, but he was very much afraid of being thought presumptuous:
only to himself Ted called it “fresh.” Ultimately he did go, but it
was because Milton, Jack’s room-mate, hailed him after dinner with: “O
Morely! Jack wants to see you. He’s over in the room. Run over now,
will you?”
Jack was propped up on the window-seat when Ted entered, his offending
foot pillowed before him. Ted’s condolences stumblingly uttered, Jack
came to the reason for the summons. “I can’t play Saturday, Ted,” he
announced, “and so I’ve dropped out of it entirely. Logan’s taken my
place. I haven’t any more say about things. I wanted you to know that
because it looks as if Preston would have the call over you. I think
Thornton will start him Saturday. I’m sorry, Ted. I think you could
play as good a game as Preston, maybe better, but Thornton thinks
you’re a bit light. Of course, you’ll get in before the game’s over.
You can’t help it, I guess. And, in any case, Thornton’ll see that
you get your letter. I just wanted you to understand that it isn’t my
doing, Ted.”
“Of course,” muttered the younger boy vaguely. “That’s all right, Jack.
I――Preston――――” He paused and swallowed. “I guess he’s better than I
am, Jack.”
“Piffle! Next year you’ll put it all over him. Don’t mind about
Saturday, old man. You’ve got another year yet.”
Which, reflected Ted, retracing his steps under the leafless maples,
was true but not very consoling at the moment. He wished he had not
written home with so much assurance. Still, if anything happened
to Preston early in the game――not that he wished Preston ill-luck,
of course. That would be pretty low-down. But accidents did happen!
However, he put that line of conjecture out of his mind presently and
strove to find comfort in the patriotic reflection that if Preston
was preferred by the coach it was with good reason and meant that
Staunton’s chances of winning would be bettered. And, after all, what
everyone wanted, Ted amongst them, was a victory over Fairfield. By
Monday afternoon he had learned to accept the disappointment with a
fair degree of philosophy.
The coach’s intentions were not apparent during practice, either that
day or on any other of the remaining work days. Ted and Preston were
used alternately at right half and no favoritism was discernible.
Preston, thought Ted, was worried and nervous. The fight for supremacy
was telling on him and Tuesday afternoon he called down the coaches’
condemnation by twice “gumming up” plays. Ted knew that he was thinking
too hard about Saturday’s contest to do justice to himself. As for Ted,
he had seldom played the position better. Certain that the struggle was
over, the consequent relief allowed him to put all his mind on his
game, with the result that he went at it in a hammer-and-tongs style
that was almost spectacular. He managed to forget very completely that
Saturday would find him on the bench instead of on the field, and got
a lot of joy and satisfaction from the moment. But after practice on
Tuesday he got to thinking about Preston, and when Fate arranged a
meeting on the gymnasium steps he yielded to an impulse. He and Preston
were always extremely polite to each other, formally friendly, as
became antagonists who thoroughly respected each other.
“I say, Preston,” began Ted, “I――there’s something you ought to know.
I heard it by――by accident, but I know it’s straight.” Preston looked
politely curious. “Thornton’s decided on you to start the game,”
blurted Ted. “I thought you’d like to know it. Now you won’t have
to――to worry, you see.”
“Why, thanks, Morely, but――you’re not stringing me, are you? Where did
you hear it?”
“I can’t tell you that, but it’s――official.”
“Oh! Well, but――it’s a bit tough on you, Morely. Maybe you’re wrong.
You’d better wait and see.”
“I don’t need to.” Ted smiled. “I know. I’m telling you so you can――can
buckle down to business, Preston. You see, I know what it is to have
the other fellow on your mind all the time! One of us had to lose out,
Preston, and it happens to be me. Thornton thinks I’m too light. I
dare say he’s right. Anyway, he’s the doctor, and as long as we beat
Fairfield I don’t mind. Much,” he added as a sop to Truth.
“Well, it’s mighty decent of you,” said Preston warmly. “You’ve
certainly given me a dandy scrap, and I don’t mind telling you that
you’ve had me worried pretty often. I hope you get your letter.”
“Thanks. Maybe I will. So long.”
The last practice was on Wednesday and was largely signal work,
although the kickers had a fairly stiff session later. On Thursday the
school marched over to the field and cheered and sang and the first
team substitutes went through a twenty-minute contest with the second
eleven. Ted didn’t see it, for he was sent back to the gymnasium
with the first squad, but he could hear the onlookers cheering the
disbanding second when the scrimmage was over. And a few minutes later,
while he was tying his shoe-laces, the marching, enthusiastic horde
grouped in front of the gymnasium entrance and cheered the players
individually, and the coaches and the trainer and everyone else. Ted
listened rather anxiously for his own name. It came presently. He was
somehow very glad of that. He would have felt horribly disappointed had
they left him out.
Fairfield descended on the scene in force Saturday noon and the Campus
and the village and the road between were gay with the flaunting blue
of the enemy. The day was an Indian summer day, still, warm and hazy in
the distances. Ted trotted with the rest to the field at a quarter to
two and went through the warming up stunts. Then he donned a blanket
and watched while the rival captains met in mid-field and a coin spun
glittering in the sunlight. Fairfield had won the toss and had elected
to give the ball to Staunton, thus upsetting Coach Thornton’s prophecy.
“All right now,” announced the latter. He referred to the little red
book he carried in a vest pocket. “Aikens, Breadwell, Boyd, Morris,
Walsh, Denton, Conley, Logan, Moore, Preston and Farnsworth. On the
run, fellows!”
Presently a whistle piped, the new brown pigskin arose high against
the blue sky and the final test of the long season’s work was begun.
The cheering had stilled on both sides of the field and some two
thousand pairs of eyes followed the long flight of the ball. Then
a Fairfield half-back had it and was dodging back up the gridiron.
Breadwell almost got him, but he slipped past. Then Larry Logan wrapped
two sturdy arms about the runner’s legs and brought him crashing to the
yellowed turf. Fairfield came hard then and Ted watched anxiously as
the Staunton line bent and buckled against the heavy assault. But the
line didn’t break much and presently the ball was in air again. Then
came the first trial of the Staunton wide-open attack, and a mighty
shout arose as Moore burst through outside right guard and reeled
past two white lines. Again Moore got through, and then the Fairfield
defense solved the play and shifted to meet it, and Farnsworth, faking
a kick and then plunging at the Fairfield left, was spilled behind his
line. A forward pass failed and again the ball flew through the air,
propelled by Farnsworth’s boot, and the teams raced down to the Blue’s
thirty-yard line. That quarter ended without anything approaching a
score, the honors even. But Thornton’s plan to “get the jump” on the
enemy and score in the first few minutes of play had failed.
The second period was a repetition of the first, save that Fairfield
had the ball once on Staunton’s twenty-two yards on a fourth down and
missed a goal from the field by a bare half-foot margin. Ted trotted
back to the gymnasium with the others and sat around in an atmosphere
of steam and liniment and excitement and listened to the babel of
voices. Jack was in uniform but had not joined the players for a
moment, and it was Larry Logan who fumed and implored and advised.
Coach Thornton looked confident and had little to say until just before
half-time was up. Then he made a quietly forceful appeal and, at the
end, called for a cheer. Thirty-two voices answered thunderously.
Fairfield scored two minutes after the third period started. The
kick-off was fumbled by Logan, and, although he fell on it, at his
eighteen yards, Fairfield blocked Farnsworth’s punt and an end broke
through and captured the trickling pigskin a foot behind the goal line.
Fairfield brought the ball out in triumph, and it was then that Ted
saw that one brown-legged player was stretched on the turf. “Tink” was
diving toward him with slopping bucket. Ted’s eyes sped from player
to player of his side. Only Preston was missing along the goal line!
Something pushed his heart into his throat, turned it over once and let
it slip slowly back again. He watched “Tink’s” sponge in fascination.
Then they were lifting Preston to his feet. For an instant it seemed
that he was as good as ever, but suddenly his head fell over sideways.
They were carrying him off now, bringing him to the bench. Someone
amongst the subs leaped forward with a blanket. The stand behind was
cheering bravely for “Preston! Preston! Preston!” Thornton met the
slowly-approaching group at the side line, looked, listened to a word
from Tinker and whirled on his heel.
“Morely! Get in there! Hurry up!” he called.
Ted squirmed from his sweater and raced. Panting, he slipped between
Breadwell and Moore under the cross-bar and waited. A hand waved
downward, the ball flew toward them, there was a moment of suspense and
a roar of relief arose from the Staunton stand. Fairfield had failed at
the goal. Six points to nothing was the score, and virtually half the
game remained to be played.
Larry Logan shot a dubious look at Ted as the latter fell into place
beside Moore when Fairfield had the ball again on her own thirty-four
yards. But he managed a cheerful: “All right, Ted! Let’s see what you
can do! Hard, now!”
But it was Fairfield’s policy to slow up now, and she halted in her
signals and wasted all the time she could without risking a penalty.
Staunton held gamely and then spoiled a forward pass and took the ball
on downs. The wide-open attack was still working, for Fairfield’s men
were a bit heavier and a bit slower and Logan was getting a lot of jump
into his plays. Ted got his chance and crashed through for a scant
three yards, got it again and was downed almost in his tracks by an
unguarded end. Then Moore slipped around right tackle and ran twelve
yards before he was forced over the side line. Staunton got to the
enemy’s twenty-three before she was held, and then Farnsworth tried a
place kick and missed the goal by five yards.
And so it went, Fairfield sparring for time, Staunton forcing the
playing, smashing desperately, running hard, aching to score. Changes
were made. Morris went out at center and young Joyce took his place.
Greenough came in for Breadwell. With three minutes of the quarter
left the ball was Staunton’s in mid-field. Loring had wasted a down
on a weird trick play that had lost four yards and now Farnsworth was
called on. It was the old fake kick and wide run, but it worked, just
as it so often does, and the big full-back galloped over three white
streaks before they stopped him. Then, with the line-up close to the
side of the field, Logan called on Ted. Moore crossed over in front of
him, Farnsworth ran with him. Larry hid the ball a moment and then, as
Ted rushed past, thumped it against his stomach. The Fairfield line
was wide open in the middle and Ted went through like a shot. After
that he had to spin and feint and dodge, but he kept going forward,
kept wresting himself from clutching hands, kept passing the lines
underfoot. The goal came closer and closer and for a wonderful moment
he thought he was going to make it. But the Fairfield quarter spoiled
that. He refused to believe in Ted’s move toward the side line and got
him firmly about the knees and wouldn’t be kicked loose. And then,
when Ted toppled to earth, clutching the ball frenziedly, a pursuing
end crashed down upon him and a million stars blazed before Ted’s
astonished eyes and he fainted.
When he came around, barely a half-minute later, they were pumping his
arms and he had to gasp with the pain of it. Then came Tinker and the
water pail and the big, dripping, smelly sponge, and Tinker’s anxious:
“Where’d they get you, boy?”
Ted did a lot of thinking in something under a second. Too often
already this season had he had to be led off the field. He dared
“Tink’s” searching eyes and gasped: “Nowhere ... Tink. I’m ... all
right!”
“You’re not! Don’t be telling lies.” Tinker’s crafty fingers went
exploring. Up one leg, down another, over the boy’s chest――Ted never
flinched. He smiled railingly.
“Let me up, you ninny,” he expostulated. “I’m all right. That fellow
knocked the breath out of me, that’s all.”
Tinker doubted and looked it. But he dropped the sponge back into the
pail and stood up. “Come on, then,” he commanded. “Let’s see.”
Ted raised himself with his right hand and sprang nimbly enough to
his feet, laughing. Tinker grunted, shot a suspicious look, saw no
evidences of injury and swooped down on his pail. “All right!” he said.
“Go to it!”
It was Moore who gained the next two yards and Moore who lost them
again. Farnsworth bucked through past guard for four. It was maddening
to be on the eleven yards with only one down left and six to go. Larry
hesitated and the enemy jeered. A forward pass was all that would
answer, and Staunton’s forwards had signally failed all the afternoon.
But what must be must be and Larry gave the signals. It was Farnsworth
who remonstrated. Larry listened to his whispers and looked doubtful
and finally shook his head. But shaking his head was only camouflage,
for the signals were changed. Ted’s heart leaped as he heard them.
Then the silence of the portentous instant before the impact, and the
signals repeated, and Ted taking the ball on a longish pass from Joyce
and springing away to the left, with Moore interfering. Then came the
frenzied cry of “_In! In!_” and, sure enough, as Moore went down, a
hole opened, and Ted, pivoting, turned toward the goal line. It was
only a few yards distant, but the Blue’s backs were flocking to its
defense and Ted was already in the midst of them. Arms settled at his
waist, but he tore away. Someone crashed into him from behind and he
was flung forward, his feet stumbling behind him. They got him then.
A hand brushed past his face and thumped down on his left shoulder and
Ted gasped and doubled up and went down, vainly, as it seemed, trying
to push the pigskin forward as the trampled turf leaped up to meet him.
And as he fell he found himself saying to himself in a darkness lurid
with whirling stars and meteors: “I won’t faint! I won’t faint!”
He didn’t, but he lay very still when they pulled the foe from him and
he had to be fairly lifted to his feet. And when he was on them he
could only lean against Farnsworth and whisper gaspingly: “Don’t let go
of me, please! Just a minute! Just a minute!” So Farnsworth, grinning
happily, for the ball was over the line by three inches, held him up
and no one paid much attention to the fact. Presently things stopped
whirling madly around in Ted’s world and he groped his way back to the
gridiron and dazedly watched while Farnsworth, after much cogitation
amidst a great silence, lifted the pigskin straight over the cross-bar!