"ALL READY, BRIMFIELD?"
THOSE who braved a chill east wind and went out that afternoon to watch
practice enjoyed a sensation, for when the first team came trotting over
from the gymnasium, a half-hour later because of a rigorous signal quiz,
amongst them, dressed to play, was Don Gilbert! A buzz of surprise and
conjecture travelled through the ranks of the shivering onlookers, that
speedily gave place to satisfaction, and as Don, tossing aside his
blanket, followed the first-string players into the field a small and
enthusiastic First Form youth clapped approvingly, others took it up and
in a moment the applause crackled along the side line.
"That's for you," whispered Tim to Don. "Lift off your head-guard!"
But Don glanced alarmedly toward the fringe of spectators and hid as
best he could behind Thursby! Practice went with a new vim today.
Doubtless the return of Don heartened the team, for one thing, and then
there was a snap of winter in the air that urged to action. The second
was as nearly torn to tatters this afternoon as it had ever been, and
the first scored twice in each of the two fifteen-minute periods.
"Boutelle's Babies" were a lame and tired aggregation when the final
whistle blew!
Later it became known that Walton was out of it, had emptied his locker
and retired from football affairs for the year. All sorts of stories
circulated. One had it that he had quarrelled with Coach Robey and been
incontinently "fired." Another that he had become huffy over Gilbert's
reinstatement and had resigned. None save Don and Coach Robey and Walton
himself knew the truth of the matter for a long time. Don did tell Tim
eventually, but that was two years later, when his vow of secrecy had
lapsed. Just now he was about as communicative as a sphinx, and Tim's
eager curiosity had to go unsatisfied.
"But what did he _say_?" Tim demanded after practice that afternoon. "He
must have said _something_!"
Don considered leisurely. "No, nothing special. He said I was to report
for work."
"Well, what did _you_ say?"
"I said I would!"
"Well, what about Walton? Where does he get off?"
"I don't know."
Tim gestured despairingly. "Gee, you're certainly a chatty party! Don't
tell me any more, please! You may say something you'll be sorry for!"
"I'll tell you some day all about it, Tim. I can't now. I said I
wouldn't."
"Then there is something to tell, eh? I knew it! You can't fool your
Uncle Dudley like that, Donald! Tell me just one thing and I'll shut up.
Did you and Walton have a row the time you went to see him in his room?"
Don shook his head. "No, we didn't."
"Well, then, why----"
"You said you'd shut up," reminded the other.
"Oh, all right," grumbled Tim. "Anyway, I'm mighty glad. Every fellow on
the team is as pleased as Punch. I guess the whole school is, too. It
was mighty decent of Robey, wasn't it? Do you know, Don, Robey's got a
lot of sense for a football coach?"
Don often wondered what had occurred and been said at the interview
between Mr. Robey and Harry Walton. The coach had sworn Don to silence
at the termination of their interview. "If Walton asks you whether you
told me about the business you can say you did, if you like. Or tell
him I wormed it out of you, which is just about what I did do. But don't
say anything to anyone else about it; at all events, not as long as
Walton's here. I'm going to find him now and have a talk with him. I
don't think you need be at all afraid of anything he may do after I get
through with him. You fellows clearly did wrong in outstaying leave that
night, but you had a fairly good excuse and if you'd had enough sense to
go to faculty the next morning and explain you'd have all got off with
only a lecture, I guess. Your mistake was in not confessing. However, I
don't consider it my place to say anything. It's an old story now,
anyhow. Be at the gym at three with your togs, Gilbert, and do your best
for us from now on. I'm glad to have you back again. What I said that
afternoon you'd better forget. I'll show the school that I've changed my
mind about you. I suppose I ought to make some sort of an apology,
but----"
"Please don't say anything more about it, sir," begged Don.
"Well, I'll say this, Gilbert: You acted like a white man in taking your
medicine and keeping the others out of trouble. You certainly deserve
credit for that."
"I don't see it," replied the boy. "I don't see what else I _could_ have
done, Mr. Robey!"
The coach pondered a moment. Then he laughed. "I guess you're right, at
that! Just the same, you did what was square, Gilbert. All right, then.
Three o'clock." He held out his hand and Don put his in it, and the two
gripped firmly.
Hurrying back to Main Hall, Don regretted only one thing, which was that
he had in a way broken his agreement with Walton to say nothing about
their bargain. Coach Robey, though, had pointed out that the agreement
had been terminable by either party to it, and that in confessing to him
Don had been within his rights. "Walton can now go ahead and take the
matter to faculty, as he threatened to do," said the coach. "Only, when
I get through talking to him I don't think he will care to!"
And apparently he hadn't, for no dire summons reached Don from the
office that day or the next, nor did he ever hear more of the matter.
Walton displayed a retiring disposition that was new and novel. On such
infrequent occasions as Don ran across him Walton failed to see him. The
day of the game the latter was in evidence with his father, mother and
younger brother; Don saw him making the rounds of the buildings with
them and he wondered in what manner Walton had accounted to his folks
for his absence from the football team. Walton stayed on at school, very
little in evidence, until Christmas vacation, but when the fellows
reassembled after the recess he was not amongst them. Rumour had it that
he had been taken ill and would not be back. Rumour was proved partly
right, at all events, for Brimfield knew him no more.
* * * * *
The first and second teams held final practice on Thursday. The first
only ran through signals for awhile, did some punting and catching and
then disappeared, leaving the second to play two fifteen-minute periods
with a team composed of their own second-string and the first team's
third-string players. After that was over, the second winning without
much effort, the audience, which had cheered and sung for the better
part of an hour, marched back to the gymnasium and did it some more, and
the second team, cheering most enthusiastically for themselves and the
first and the school and, last but by no means least, for Mr. Boutelle,
joyously disbanded for the season.
There was another mass-meeting that evening, an intensely fervid one,
followed by a parade about the campus and a good deal of noise that was
finally quelled by Mr. Fernald when, in response to demands, he appeared
on the porch of the Cottage and made a five-minute speech which ended
with the excellent advice to return to hall and go to bed.
The players didn't attend the meeting that night, nor were they on hand
at the one that took place the night following. Instead, they trotted
and slithered around the gymnasium floor in rubber-soled shoes and went
through their entire repertoire of plays under the sharp eyes of Coaches
Robey and Boutelle. There was a blackboard lecture, too, on each
evening, and when, at nine-thirty on Friday, they were dismissed, with
practice all over for the year, most of them were very glad to slide
into bed as quickly as possible. If any of them had "the jumps" that
night it was after they were asleep, for the coach had tired them out
sufficiently to make them forget that such things as nerves were a part
of their system!
But the next morning was a different matter. Those who had never gone
through a Claflin contest were inclined to be finicky of appetite and to
go off into trances with a piece of toast or a fork-full of potato
poised between plate and mouth. Even the more experienced fellows
showed some indication of strain. Thursby, for instance, who had been
three years on the first team as substitute or first-choice centre, who
had already taken some part in two Claflin games, and who was apparently
far too big and calm to be affected by nerves, showed a disposition to
talk more than was natural.
Don never really remembered at all clearly how that Saturday morning
passed. Afterward he had vague recollections of sitting in Clint
Thayer's room and hearing Amy Byrd rattle off a great deal of
nonsensical advice to him and Clint and Tim as to how to conduct
themselves before the sacrifice (Amy had insisted that they should line
up and face the grand-stand before the game commenced, salute and recite
the immortal line of Claudius's gladiators: "_Morituri te salutant!_");
of seeing Manager Jim Morton dashing about hither and thither, scowling
blackly under the weight of his duties; of wandering across to the woods
beyond the baseball field with Tim Otis and Larry Jones and some others
and sitting on the stone wall there and watching Larry take acorns out
of Tim's ears and nose; and, finally, of going through a perfectly
farcical early dinner in a dining hall empty save for the members of
the training-table. After that events stood out more clearly in his
memory.
Claflin's hosts began to appear at about half-past one. They wore blue
neckties and arm-bands or carried blue pennants which they had the good
taste to keep furled while they wandered around the campus and poked
inquisitive heads into the buildings. Then the Claflin team, twenty-six
strong, rolled up in two barges just before two, having taken their
dinner at the village inn, disembarked in front of Wendell and meandered
around to the gymnasium laden with suit-cases and things looking
insultingly care-free and happy, and, as it couldn't be denied,
particularly husky!
Don, observing from the steps of Torrence, wondered how they managed to
appear so easy and careless. No one, as he confided to Tom Hall and Tim,
would ever suspect that they were about to do battle for the
Brimfield-Claflin championship!
"Huh," said Tom, "that's nothing. That's the way we all do when we go
away to play. It's this sticking at home and having nothing to do but
_think_ that takes the starch out of you. When you go off you feel as if
you were on a lark. Things take your mind off your troubles. But, just
the same, a lot of those grinning dubs are doing a heap of worrying
about now. They aren't nearly as happy as they look!"
"They're a lot happier than they're going to be about three hours from
now," said Tim darkly. That struck the right note, and Tom and Don
laughed, and Tim laughed with them, and they all three put their
shoulders back and perked up a lot!
And then it was two o'clock and they were pulling on their togs in the
locker-room; and Danny Moore was circulating about in very high spirits,
cracking jokes and making them laugh, and Coach Robey was dispatching
Jim Morton and Jim's assistant on mysterious errands and referring every
little while to his red-covered memorandum book and looking very
untroubled and serene. And then there was a clamping of feet on the
stairs above and past the windows some two dozen pairs of
blue-stockinged legs moved briskly as the visitors went across to the
field for practice. And suddenly the noise was stilled and Coach Robey
was telling them that it was up to them now, and that they hadn't a
thing in the world to do for the next two hours but knock the tar out of
those blue-clad fellows, and that they had a fine day for it! And then,
laughing hard and cheering a little, they piled out and across the
warm, sunlit grass, past the line of fellow-students and home-folks and
towners, with here and there a pretty girl to glance shyly and
admiringly at them as they trotted by, and so to the bench. Nerves were
gone now. They were only eager and impatient. "Squads out!" sang Mr.
Robey. Off came sweaters and faded blankets and they were out on the
gridiron, with Carmine and McPhee cheerily piping the signals, with
their canvas legs rasping together as they trotted about, and with the
Brimfield cheer sounding in their ears, making them feel a little
chokey, perhaps, but wonderfully strong and determined and proud!
And presently they were back in front of the bench, laughing at and
pummelling one another, and the rival captains and the referee were
watching a silver coin turn over and over in the sunlight out there by
the tee in midfield. Behind them the stand was packed and colourful.
Beyond, Brimfield was cheering lustily again. Across the faded green, at
the end of the newly-brushed white lines, nearly a hundred Claflin
youths were waving their banners and cheering back confidently.
"Claflin kicks off," sang Captain Edwards. "We take the west goal. Come
on, fellows! Everyone on the jump now!"
A long-legged Claflin guard piled the dirt up into a six-inch cone, laid
the ball tenderly upon it, viewed the result, altered it, backed off and
waited.
"All ready, Claflin? All ready, Brimfield?"
The whistle blew.