GUS BILLINGS CONCLUDES
The Coach and Captain Hop MacLean and Danny Lord, who was first-string
quarterback, and Slim Porter went off to Hawleyville early Saturday
morning to see Munson play Kernwood and maybe get a line on her. Before
he went Rusty told me I was to captain the team that afternoon.
“The manager will look after things off the field, Gus,” he said, “and
Thompson will play quarter. He knows what plays to use, so you’d better
let him run things as much as possible. Munson will have some scouts
here and we can’t afford to show our hand much. We’ll win if we can,
but I’d rather we took a licking than show too much of our game. Do the
best you can, Gus, and make your tackles good.”
Joe’s folks arrived just after dinner in a shiny new car. Babe and I
saw them from our window. That is, Babe saw them and I got a couple
of peeks over his shoulder. He’d been sitting at the window for half
an hour. The car stopped almost underneath and he nearly fell out,
rubbering. Joe had made me promise to meet them, and so I went down.
Babe wouldn’t, of course. You can’t steer him against a girl to save
your life. Well, I haven’t much use for them either, but a chap’s got
to be courteous. Joe introduced me all around and we set out to see
the buildings, me walking with Aunt Emily and the girl. She was a
right pretty girl, but sort of shy, and didn’t have much to say. Sort
of small-town, you know. Wore her hair old-fashioned so you could see
her ears plain. The aunt was a pleasant old dame and she and I got on
swimming. Once she said:
“Joseph tells me that you play on the football team, too, Mr.
Billings,” and I said, “Yes’m, I get to play now and then.” “Well,” she
said, smiling pleasantly, “we shall expect great things from you both
to-day.”
We steered them up to Joe’s room in Routledge after a bit, and pretty
soon Joe’s roommate, Hal Norwin, came in and I beat it. Mr. Morris
seemed to think that Joe ought to go and get ready to play, too, but I
explained that he didn’t have to hurry because he wouldn’t get in until
the second half. “You see,” I said, “we’re sort of saving him, Mr.
Morris. If anything happened to Joe to-day we’d be in a pretty bad way
next Saturday, wouldn’t we?” Then I winked at Hal, who was looking sort
of surprised, and pulled my freight.
It didn’t take us long to find that Munson wasn’t losing any tricks.
Tom Meadows pointed out three of her fellows in the visitors’ stand
just before the game started. “That biggest guy is Townsend, their left
guard, and――”
“You don’t have to tell me,” said I. “I’ve played against him. And the
little fellow in the striped shirt is Quinn, the quarter, and the other
goof is Taylor, the only back that made any gains against us last year.
Well, I guess they won’t learn much here to-day, Tom.”
We don’t charge for any of the games except the big game with Munson,
and so we usually draw pretty fair-sized crowds. Warrensburg folks
are mighty keen for anything they don’t have to pay for. So we had
the stands pretty well filled that afternoon by the time Mills kicked
off, and the other fellows had fetched along maybe a hundred and fifty
rooters who made an awful lot of noise when young Thompson juggled the
ball almost under our goal and gave me heart failure for a moment.
He managed to hold on to it finally, though, and we soon kicked out
of there, and the old game settled down to a see-saw that didn’t get
either team anything but hard knocks.
We weren’t looking for a very good game, even with three of our
first-string players out of the line-up, for Mills wasn’t very heavy
and had lost more than half her games that year, but I’m here to say
that she sprung a surprise on us for fair that afternoon. For one
thing, she was so blamed quick that she found us napping time and
again; and she had a new variation of a fake forward pass that fooled
us finely until we got on to it. By the time we were hep to it she
had thrown a full-sized scare into us and worked the ball down into
our twenty-five yard line. But that was in the second quarter. The
first quarter didn’t show either team up much. We both punted a good
bit and tried the other fellow out and looked for a lucky break that
didn’t come. It wasn’t until that second period began that Mills got
down to work and had us worried for a while. She got two short runs
away around our left end, where Slim Porter’s absence was sorely felt,
as they say, and then pulled a lucky forward that made it first down
on our thirty-four. Then she stabbed at Babe and lost a yard. Then
that bean-pole of a full-back of hers worked that fake forward for the
second time, and made it go for ten yards, coming right through between
me and Conly when we weren’t looking for anything of the sort. I got a
nice wallop in the face in that play and had to call for time and get
patched up.
After that, Mills got a yard outside Means, who was playing in Slim’s
place at left tackle, and made it first down on our twenty-five. I read
the riot act then, though not being able to talk very well on account
of having one side of my mouth pasted up with plaster, and we held her
for two downs. I guess she might have scored if she had tried a field
goal, but she was set on a touchdown and went after it with a short
heave over the center of the line that Thompson couldn’t have missed if
he had tried. I felt a lot better after that, and in two plays we had
the old pigskin back near the middle of the field. Then Pete Swanson
gummed things up by falling over his big feet and we had to punt. Just
before half-time we worked down to Mills’ twenty-seven and after Brill
had been stopped on a skin tackle play Pete went back and tried a drop
kick. He missed the goal by not less than six yards, the big Swede!
That about ended the half, and when we got over to the locker room in
the gymnasium we knew we’d been playing football! We were a sore crowd,
and Newt Lewis didn’t make us feel any better by telling us how rotten
we’d been. He kept it up until Babe told him to shut up or he’d bust
him and I said “Hear! Hear!” out of one side of my mouth. Everybody
was sore at everybody else. Thompson had the nerve to tell me I’d
interfered with his business of running the team and I told him where
he got off. Brill was mad because Thompson hadn’t let him try that goal
instead of Pete Swanson, and Pete was sore because he had failed. I
guess about the only fellows there who weren’t nursing grouches were
the subs who hadn’t got in, and amongst them was Joe in nice clean
togs, looking anxious and making signs to me and Babe.
Well, we’d fixed it all right for him before the game. Babe was so
blamed stubborn and insistent that I had to agree to his frame-up in
self-defense and so I told Newt about Joe’s folks being there and how
he wanted to bask in the spot-light on account of them and that girl
and how it was my opinion that he hadn’t ever been given a fair chance
and was every bit as good as Hearn or Sawyer. It seemed that Rusty had
instructed Newt to use all the subs he could in the last half and so
Newt didn’t put up any holler about Joe. And when we went back again
there was our young hero at left half, in place of Torrey, looking
nervous but determined. I could see his folks in the school stand, the
girl in a blue dress, and his Uncle Preston’s black mustaches standing
out six inches on each side of his face.
We had six second- or third-string fellows in our line-up when the
third quarter began, and I was plumb certain we had our work cut out
for us if we were going to win the old ball game. Mills came back at
us mighty savage after the kick-off and had things her own way until
we took a brace and made her punt. We sort of got together then and
worked the ends and a long forward pass and made her thirty-one. Then
we got penalized for holding and finally had to punt and Brill sent
the ball over the line. Play sort of see-sawed again for a while, with
Mills having slightly the better of the kicking game, and then the
first score came, and came unexpected.
Joe had been holding his end up pretty well, partly because I’d tipped
Thompson off to go light on him, and he’d made a couple of yards for
us once or twice. Well, pretty soon Mills had to punt from around her
forty-five and Thompson went back up the field, taking Joe with him.
Torrey had been taking punts and Joe had taken Torrey’s place and so
Thompson calls him back without thinking much about it. The punt went
sort of askew and landed in the corner of the field. Joe didn’t judge
it for beans and it hit about on the fifteen yards and went up again
with him grabbing for it. He missed it but got it near the five-yard
line, and by that time a red-headed end named Brennan was right on top
of him. I don’t know how Brennan got there so quick but there he was.
Of course, if Joe had thought he’d have let the old ball alone, but
he didn’t. He grabbed it, juggled it a bit and froze on to it just as
this red-headed Mills right end came up. Then he started to run. By
that time there was a mob on the scene and I couldn’t see just what
happened. But when it was all over there was Joe a yard behind our goal
line with the ball still hugged tight and Bert Naylor was putting a big
white 2 on the score board where it said “Opponent.” Joe had scored a
safety!
I started to bust into the poor boob, but he looked so unhappy I didn’t
have the heart to say much. I just told him he had probably lost the
game for us and a few things like that, and let it go. He certainly did
look sick over it.
The Mills rooters went crazy and howled like a lot of red Indians and
we went back to the job, pretty well determined now to make the fur fly
and get a score. The quarter ended pretty soon after Joe had scored for
the enemy and we changed goals. Newt threw in a couple more subs, the
silly jay, and I expected he’d sink Joe, but he didn’t. If we could
have opened up on those fresh Mills guys and used a few of our scoring
plays we could have licked them quick enough, I guess, but Thompson
had his orders from Rusty not to show anything and nothing I could
say would move him. Just the same, we got going pretty well in that
last period and ate our way down to the enemy’s nineteen yards only
to have a sub that Newt had stuck in for Pete Swanson boot the game
away by a perfectly inexcusable fumble that Mills captured. Newt had a
brain storm then and sent Bentley in to take my place, and although I
offered to punch him full of holes if he didn’t get off the field and
told him I was captain the umpire butted in and I had to beat it. So I
saw the rest of the game from the bench, and didn’t mind it much after
Newt pulled Babe out two plays later. Babe was so mad that I felt a lot
better.
Mills was just playing for time now, willing to quit any moment seeing
she was two points to the good and had us beat if only the whistle
would blow. But there was still one kick left in the old team, even
if it was mostly subs by now, and when there was something like four
minutes left Thompson got off a corking forward pass to left end that
landed the ball on Mills’ forty-two yards. Another attempt at the
same stunt grounded, and Brill, pretty near the only first-string man
left, snaked through for four yards and made it third down on the
thirty-eight. The stands had sort of quieted down now and I could hear
Thompson’s signals plain. They called for a cross-buck by right half,
and when the starting number came I saw Thompson grab the ball, swing
around half a turn and hold it forward. Then everything went wrong.
That idiot Joe Kenton had got his signals twisted again! He beat the
other half to the ball by inches, grabbed it from Thompson and shot
through outside guard. I guess there’s a special luck for fools, for
Joe found a hole as wide as the Mississippi River, and the first
thing I knew he was side-stepping one back, giving the straight arm to
another and twisting right through the whole outfit!
Well, there’s no use making a long story any longer. Joe had speed, if
he didn’t know much football. Baseball had taught him that; and it had
taught him to be quick on the getaway, too, and it was quickness on the
getaway that got him through the Mills’ lines. After that the quarter
was the only thing between him and the goal. I guess there wasn’t one
of the Mills bunch that could have run him down from behind. That
quarter tried to get Joe near the twenty-yard line, but it looked to me
like he was too certain, for Joe sort of skidded on one foot, twisted
his body and was off on the other foot, and I don’t believe the quarter
even touched him. Two long-legged Mills guys chased him over the line,
squarely between the posts, but it wasn’t until Joe was lying on the
ball that they reached him.
After the ball was brought out Brill tried to make those six points
into seven, but he missed the goal worse than Pete Swanson had. No one
cared much for 6 to 2 was good enough, and after Mills had kicked off
again and we had piled into their line a couple of times the game was
over.
I happened to be in front of Routledge about half an hour later, when
Joe’s folks were getting ready to go home, and I could see that Joe had
made an awful hit with the whole bunch. Old man Morris was as proud
as anything, and so was Joe’s mother, while that uncle of his, with
his trick mustaches, was so haughty that he bumped his head getting
into the car. I guess the girl was tickled, too, but you couldn’t
tell by her looks. Joe was mighty modest, too, I’ll say that for him.
You wouldn’t have guessed he was a hero, just by looking at him. I
helped Aunty into the car, and she smiled and thanked me and said, as
she shook hands: “I think you did just beautifully, Mr. Billings, but
wasn’t Joseph wonderful?”
“Wonderful,” I said without cracking a smile, “isn’t the word for it!”
When Rusty got back and heard about the game he looked sort of
disgusted, and then he laughed and finally he looked surprised.
“Kenton?” he said, frowning. “How come, Newt? We dropped Kenton two
weeks ago!”
“No, you didn’t, Coach,” said Newt. “Maybe you meant to, but you
didn’t.”
“That so? Must have forgot it then. H-m. Well, it looks like it was a
fortunate thing I did forget it, seeing Kenton was the only one of you
with enough pep to make a score!”
That evening we were talking it over in Number 11, four or five of
us. Joe didn’t show up, being so modest, I suppose. Finally Newt said:
“Well, we can laugh all we want to, but we’ve got to hand it to Joe
Kenton for one thing. He’s the only fellow I ever heard of who played
in a football game, in which both sides scored, and made all the
points!”
When the Munson game was over, all but forty seconds of it, and we had
them beaten, 19 to 7, Rusty beckoned Joe from the bench. “Kenton,” he
said, “I’m going to put you in so you can get your letter. Go on in at
right half, son, but――listen here――no matter what happens _don’t you
touch that ball_!”