BEFORE THE GAME
Events rushed headlong past. Ira played a round twenty minutes at
centre in the Day and Robins' game and proved himself steady and
dependable. He made mistakes, certainly, more than he liked to remember
afterwards, but he never messed a pass and he held his position
impregnable against the attack of a not very strong enemy. His sins
were those of omission and were due to inexperience. On the whole,
he put up a satisfactory game, and Coach Driscoll and the rest were
secretly very pleased even if they didn't say so. The contest was not
interesting from the point of view of the spectators except in that
it showed the home team to have developed well during the last week.
There were ragged moments and some loose handling of the ball by the
backs, but the team showed fifty per cent more team play than it had
shown before. The new plays, not all of which were used, went smoothly
and gained ground. There was a noticeable improvement in kicking,
also. Wirt and Captain Lyons made some punts that brought applause
and Walter Cole missed but one goal in six tries. Two were drop-kicks
from the field and the rest followed touchdowns. Parkinson had no
trouble running up twenty-three points in the first half and ten in the
second, while her opponent failed to score until the last quarter when
a field-goal saved her from whitewash.
Practice was hard on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the next
week, but Monday was an easy day and Friday held only a blackboard
instruction in the gymnasium for the first team. The school was quite
football-crazy by this time and meetings were held almost nightly. The
old songs were sung and new ones tried and the cheer leaders went into
training. Twice a week the Musical Clubs supplied music, and always
earnest, enthusiastic youths waved their arms and predicted victory for
Parkinson to a wild and approving chorus of cheers.
Ira no longer sought the field for strenuous half-hours of coaching. He
practised with the first team substitutes and got as much and no more
work than they did. Sometimes, when he allowed himself to visualise
the mighty Beadle, he had qualms of stage fright and heartily wished
himself back in private life. It wasn't that he was afraid of anything
Beadle might do to him in the way of punishment, for he didn't mind
taking blows or giving them, but he was certain that Beadle would, in
the language of the gridiron, "put it all over him." And Ira didn't
like to come out second-best, even if it was only in playing centre
rush in a football game!
Ernest Hicks came again shortly after that second call and spent the
better part of an hour bolt upright in one of the more uncomfortable
chairs and talked far over Ira's head, eventually arising and taking
his departure as abruptly and noisily as usual. Ira returned the
visit and in the course of the next month a rather odd friendship
sprang up between the two. "Old Earnest," while grateful to Ira for
the restoration of his encyclopedia, sympathised with his benefactor
because of the latter's regrettable ignorance on so many important
subjects, and Ira was very sorry for Hicks because that youth had
stowed his brain so full of impractical knowledge! But they got on very
well together, and Ira had to acknowledge that "Old Earnest's" erudite
conversation was an excellent antidote for an hour of Mart Johnston's
persiflage.
Ira ordered himself a suit about this time from the tailor recommended
by Gene, and Humphrey, not to be outshone, followed his example.
Humphrey had a little money in the keeping of his "financial agent"
and it worried him until it was spent. Ira's suit fitted him perfectly
and was becoming, but Gene, cordially commending it, was forced to the
mental reservation that Ira had somehow looked more like Ira in his old
duds!
The St. Luke's Academy game aroused the school to new heights of
football ardour, for it proved to be a see-saw, nerve-racking affair
from kick-off to last whistle. St. Luke's was theoretically an easy
aggregation to subdue and had been given her location in the season's
schedule for that reason, but something had happened since last year at
St. Luke's, and the big, rangy team that trotted onto Parkinson Field
that Saturday afternoon was quite a different proposition to that of
last Fall. Coach, captain and players scented trouble at first sight of
the purple-legged team and even the spectators had an inkling that the
home team's "easy game" was to prove less simple than had been expected.
Parkinson received a bad fright in the first minute of play, when
Cole dropped St. Luke's kick-off and recovered it on his six-yard.
Two attempts at the purple line netted but four yards and, amidst a
tense and uneasy silence, Wirt dropped well back of his goal line to
punt. Even after that Parkinson was still in danger, for Wirt's kick,
purposely sent high to avoid blocking, was caught in a current of air
and came down but thirty-odd yards from goal. St. Luke's sprang a
lateral pass from a wide formation and got seven yards, but when she
attempted to repeat the play on the other side of the line Brad managed
to pierce the running interference and bring down the man with the ball
for a three-yard loss. In the end St. Luke's tried a goal from the
thirty-four yards and kicked short.
There was no scoring until the second quarter was almost over. Then
Parkinson electrified the watchers by pulling off a forward-pass,
Wirt to Price, that covered nearly thirty-five yards. From St. Luke's
twenty-six to her twelve, Parkinson advanced by line plunging, Wirt and
Wells alternating. Then St. Luke's braced and two tries availed little.
Wirt went back to kicking position and Dannis broke through centre
for five. On the fourth down, with four to go, Wirt again dropped
back, but again the play was a fake, for, after an interminable moment
of suspense during which the Parkinson backfield became seemingly
inextricably mixed-up, Cole was discovered sneaking around the enemy's
left flank. When he was down the tape had to be used. Parkinson had
got her distance, though, by half the length of the ball, and from the
two-yard line Cole went over on the second attempt. Lyons kicked an
easy goal.
St. Luke's evened the score soon after the beginning of the second
half. Her big backs were fast and heavy, and got away quickly from a
three-abreast formation close up to the line. Parkinson failed to stop
them after a lucky fumble had given the ball to the enemy near the
centre of the field. St. Luke's had to fight hard to win, but win she
did, finally pushing her left half across the Brown's goal line near
a corner of the gridiron. A good punt-out put her in position to kick
goal and a moment later the score stood at 7--7. In that advance both
Conlon and Donovan were severely battered, and the latter was taken
out then and Conlon a few minutes later. Conlon's withdrawal called
on Ira, and Ira held the centre of the line fairly intact for a good
twenty minutes. It was a far stiffer trial than he had had, and just at
first the desperate plunges of the hard-fighting enemy quite took him
off his feet, physically and mentally. But when he once discovered that
no quarter was given or taken today he promptly revised his ideas and
held his own on most occasions.
Parkinson dropped a field-goal over from the twenty-six-yard line just
before the third quarter ended and St. Luke's came back with a second
touchdown soon after the beginning of the fourth. As she failed to kick
goal, the score stood 13 to 10 when the last period was half gone.
Parkinson was showing her quality and no one was surprised, although
many were vastly relieved, when, after a punting battle, Dannis got
away and eluded the enemy as far as its seventeen-yards. Two tries at
the tackles resulted in short gains and then Wirt went back to kick.
Ira followed advice and took so much time that the impatient St. Luke's
players began to rage. But when the pass shot away it was straight and
true and Wirt would have had plenty of time to get the ball out had
he tried. But he didn't try. He trotted out to the left, and, just as
the enemy leaped at him, threw diagonally to Ray White, and Ray went
over the line without challenge. Lyons made the Parkinson total 17 by
kicking a clever goal, and the remaining three or four minutes failed
to change it.
The school was highly elated over that contest, and the elation was
expressed in a monster meeting that night in the Auditorium at which
the team and first substitutes sat sheepishly on the stage and heard
themselves cheered and praised. Ira was glad he had managed to beat
Brackett to the last chair in the back row, for the whole proceeding
seemed much too emotional. Ira always rather resented having his
emotions disturbed, and tonight the singing and the cheering had their
effect.
There was only light practice Monday, but on Tuesday they went back to
the grind. There had been several mix-ups in signals on Saturday and
Coach Driscoll was after them today hot and heavy. More new plays were
experimented with. Eventually all but two were discarded and Parkinson
went into the Kenwood game with fewer plays in her repertoire than any
brown team in years. Evening sessions began in the gymnasium at which
the plays were diagrammed on the blackboard and afterwards walked
through on the floor. Each man had to know what to do in every play,
and the coach was not satisfied until the lot were gone through with in
perfect precision and smoothness. And that didn't happen until Thursday
evening. In the scrimmages, and there were hard ones on Wednesday and
Thursday, Ira found himself starting at centre each time, for Conlon
had been fairly badly used up in the St. Luke's game and too much work
might have put him stale. He got in for a few minutes, however, each
afternoon, and Ira couldn't see that he was any the worse for wear.
During the final fortnight of the season the players were supposed to
be in bed before ten o'clock and unnecessary noise in the dormitories
was frowned on. Ira obeyed the rule, but as his neighbour across the
corridor had evidently not heard the request for silence, he didn't
always get to sleep promptly. The stout youth knew more different ways
to make a racket than a cage full of monkeys, Ira decided!
On Friday there was a half-hour of signal work and some practice later
for the kickers. Then the regulars trotted off and the third-string men
and the second team pushed each other around for fifteen minutes for
the benefit of the school which had marched to the field with banners
and songs and cheers. That contest ended the second team's activities
for the year. The regulars were dressed and waiting for them on the
gymnasium steps when they came back and there was a fine and heartening
exchange of cheers. Then the marchers arrived and cheered first and
second, coach, trainer, rubbers, manager and school, and went off
again, singing, to parade twice around the yard and once through the
town. The final mass meeting came off that evening, but neither Ira nor
any other member of the team was there. They walked or trotted through
the plays in the gymnasium, listened to a few words of final advice
from Mr. Driscoll and then went home to bed and, in most cases, sleep.
Anyone who has lived through a night before the Big Game knows that one
or two, at the least, didn't find slumber very speedily.
Saturday was cold, raw and cheerless at dawn, but in the middle of a
long forenoon the sun peeped out for a few minutes. The wind peeped
out too, however, and, unlike the sun, it stayed out. The football men
had been excused from recitations and at ten o'clock they were taken
in four big automobiles on a long ride that ate up most of the time
remaining until the early lunch hour. When they returned they found
town and campus in the hands of the enemy, for blue pennants were to be
seen on every side. Kenwood ate her dinner at The Inn, just outside of
town on the Sturgis road, and came rolling up to the field at a little
before two. At two-thirty to the second, Captain Lyons having won the
toss and chosen the up-wind goal, Kenwood kicked off.