CANTERBURY ROMPS ON--AND OFF
But existence at Brimfield Academy wasn't all football, by any means,
nor all fun. There was a lot of hard work mixed up with the play, and
both Steve and Tom found that an immense amount of study was required of
them. They each had thirty recitations a week, and in both Greek and
Latin their preparation at high school had, not unnaturally, been
deficient. That meant hard sledding for a while. Tom realised the fact
before Steve would, and so spared himself some trouble. Steve resented
the extra study necessary and for the first fortnight or so trusted to
luck to get him through. And for a time luck stood by him. He had a way
of looking wise in class that imposed for a while on "Uncle Sim," as Mr.
Simkins was called, but after Steve had fallen down three or four times
the instructor scented the truth of the matter and then Steve's life
became a burden to him. Mr. Simkins took delight, it seemed, in calling
on him at the most unexpected moments until, one day, in sheer
desperation, Steve gave utterance to the answer "not prepared." That
was to Uncle Sim what a red rag is to a bull! There was a scathing
dressing-down then and there, followed by a visit that evening from Mr.
Daley. Steve was secretly uneasy, for more than one story of summary
justice on the part of the Greek and Latin instructor had reached him,
but he presented a careless front to the Hall Master. Mr. Daley was
plainly eager to help, but, as usual, he was embarrassed and nervous,
and Steve, who had taken a mild dislike to him, resented his
interference.
"The stuff's too hard," he said in answer to Mr. Daley's inquiries.
"Look at the lesson we had to-day, sir; all that and this, over to here;
sight reading, too. And two compositions so far this week! I just didn't
have time for it last night, and so when he called on me to-day I told
him I wasn't prepared. And then he--he ragged me in front of the class
and gave me a page and a half to write, beside to-morrow's lesson. I
can't do it, and that's all there is to it!"
"Er--yes, yes, I see. I'm sorry, Edwards. Now, let us have a look at
this. Yes, there's quite a lot of it. You--ah--you didn't have much
Latin before you came here, I take it?"
"Had enough," growled Steve, "but nothing like this. I've had Cæsar and
some Cicero. I never had any luck with Latin, anyway." And Steve viewed
the open book with distaste.
"It's the quantity, then, you find--ah--difficult," said Mr. Daley. "As
far as grammar is concerned, I take it you are--ah--well grounded,
Edwards?"
"I suppose so. But look at the length of the lesson we have!"
"Yes. Very true. But, of course, to complete a certain amount of work in
the year it is--ah--necessary to do quite a good deal every day. Now
maybe you--ah--haven't been really setting your mind on this. I know in
my own case that I very often find myself--ah--skimping, so to speak; I
mean going over a thing without really getting the--ah--the meat out of
it. I'm almost certain that if you really settled your mind on this,
Edwards, that you'd get along very well with it. Suppose now that you
give twice as much time to it to-night as you usually do. If some other
study must suffer, why, let it be your French and I will let you by
to-morrow if you aren't well prepared. And--ah--I wish when you've been
over this you'd come down and let me--ah--go over it with you lightly. I
think--I think that would be an excellent idea, Edwards."
"Oh, I'll try it," grumbled Steve, "but it isn't any use. And look at
what I've got to translate for him!"
"Yes, yes, I see. Well--ah--bring your book down after awhile and we'll
see what can be done. How are you getting on, Hall?"
"Pretty well, sir. I find it a bit stiff, too, but maybe after awhile
I'll get the hang of it."
"That's the way to talk!" exclaimed the instructor approvingly.
"That--ah--that is the right attitude, Hall. Make up your mind that it
will come and it _will_ come. We all have our--our problems, and the
only way to do is to--ah--face them and ride straight at them. So often,
when we reach them, we find them--ah--we find them so very much more
trivial than we had supposed. They're like--like hills seen from a
distance that look terrifically steep. When we--ah--reach them we find
them easy grades after all. You see what I mean? Yes, yes. Well, I shall
expect you in my study later, Edwards. I want you--both of you, that
is--to realise that I am very eager to be of assistance at any time.
Possibly I can't help very much,--but--ah--I am most willing, boys."
"Silly chump," growled Steve when the door had closed behind Mr. Daley.
"I wish--ah--he'd--ah--mind his own--ah--business!"
But Tom didn't smile. "I think the chap means to be awfully decent,
Steve," he said thoughtfully. "The trouble is, I guess, he's scared to
death of the fellows. You can see that in class."
"He's a regular granny," replied Steve. "Wish he had this stuff to do. I
guess he wouldn't be so light and airy about it!"
"You'll go down and let him help you, though, won't you?" asked Tom
anxiously.
"Oh, I suppose so. He can do the whole thing if he wants to. Where is my
dictionary?"
With Mr. Daley's help, freely offered and grudgingly accepted, Steve
weathered that crisis. And secretly he was grateful to the Hall Master,
though he still pretended to believe and possibly did half believe that
the latter was a sort of mollycoddle. Tom told him indignantly once that
since Mr. Daley had been so awfully decent to him he ought to stop
poking fun at him. To which Steve cheerfully made answer that even a
mollycoddle could be decent at times!
Brimfield played Canterbury High School on a Wednesday afternoon in
early October and had a good deal of a scare. Canterbury romped on to
the field like a bunch of young colts, and continued to romp for the
best part of three ten-minute periods, long after Brimfield had decided
that romping was no longer in good taste! Led by a small, wiry,
red-headed quarter-back, who was likewise captain, and directed from the
side-line by a coach who looked scarcely older than the big youth who
played centre for them, the Canterbury team took the most astounding
liberties with football precedents. They didn't transgress the rules,
but they put such original interpretations on some of them that Mr.
Conklin, who was refereeing, and Mr. Jordan, instructor in mathematics,
who was umpiring, had their heads over the rules-book nearly half the
time! Now and then they would march to the side-line and consult the
Canterbury coach. "Where do you get your authority for that play?" Mr.
Conklin would ask a trifle irritably. Thereupon, silently but with a
twinkle in his eye, the coach would gravely take the book, flip the
pages, lay a finger on a section and return it.
"Hm," Mr. Conklin would say. "Hm; but that seems to be in direct
contradiction of another rule over here!"
"Quite likely," the coach would reply indifferently. "There are quite a
few contradictions there. Of course, you may accept either rule you
like, gentlemen."
Disarmed in such wise, the officials invariably decided the play to be
legal, and Quarter-back Milton, of Brimfield, would protest volubly and
get very, very red in the face in his attempt to carry his point and, at
the same time, omit none of the respect due a faculty member! It was
hard on Milton, that game, and several times he nearly had apoplexy.
Then, too, Canterbury did the most unexpected things at the most
inopportune moments. When Brimfield expected her to rush the ball she
was just as likely to get off a kick from close formation. When the
circumstances indicated an attack on the short side of the field
Canterbury's backs swung around the other end. When a close formation
was to be looked for she swung her line half across the field, so
confusing the opponents that they acted as though hypnotised. The
forward pass was to Canterbury a play that afforded her infinite
amusement. She used it in the most unheard of locations; in midfield,
under the shadow of her own goal, anywhere, everywhere and almost always
when least expected. At the end of the second period Brimfield trotted
away to the gymnasium dazed and tired of brain, with the score 7 to 0
against her.
The surprising thing about the visitors was that they played as though
they were just having an afternoon of good fun. They romped, like boys
playing leap-frog or follow-my-leader. They romped up the field and they
romped down the field and, incidentally, over and through and around
their opponents. And the more care-free and happy Canterbury became, the
more anxious and laboured grew Brimfield. The Maroon-and-Grey reminded
one of a very staid and serious middle-aged party with a grave duty to
perform trying to restrain the spirited antics of a small boy with no
sense of decorum!
When the second half began, Canterbury added insult to injury. Instead
of booting the pigskin down the field in an honest and earnest endeavour
to obtain distance, she deliberately and with malice aforethought,
dribbled it on the bias, so to speak, toward the side-line. Benson,
right end, should certainly have got it, but he was so perplexed that he
never thought of picking it up until a Canterbury forward had performed
the task for him and had raced nearly twenty yards down the field! It
was an unprecedented thing to do, or, at least, unprecedented at
Brimfield, and the audience voiced its disapproval strongly. But as the
ball had gone the required ten yards there was nothing to do but
smile--a trifle foolishly, perhaps--and accept the situation. And the
situation was this: Canterbury had kicked off and gained over thirty
yards without losing possession of the ball! But in one way that play
was ill-advised. Brimfield had stood all sorts of jokes and pranks from
the enemy with fairly good grace, but this enormity was too much.
Brimfield was peeved! More than that, she was really angry! And, being
angry, she forgot that for twenty minutes she had been outplayed and
started in then and there to administer a licking to the obstreperous
small boy.
Even then, however, Canterbury continued to romp and enjoy herself. She
found hard sledding, but she worked down to Brimfield's eight-yard line
before she was finally halted. Then her right half romped back for a try
at goal and joyously booted the ball. But, to the enormous relief of the
onlookers, the ball went under the bar instead of over, and Canterbury
romped back again. That third period was very evenly contested,
Brimfield, smarting under a sense of wounded dignity, playing well
together and allowing Canterbury no more opportunities to attempt
scores. The visitors, still untamed, sprang strange and weird
formations and attacks. A favourite trick was to start a play without
signals, while one of her men was ostensibly tying a shoe-lace yards
away or requesting a new head-guard near a side-line. It invariably
happened, though, that the shoe-lace was tied in time to allow the youth
to get the ball on a pass and attempt a joyous romp around the
opponent's end. There was no scoring in the third period, but the
whistle blew with the pigskin down on Canterbury's twenty-five yards and
Brimfield with four to go on third down.
As there was no practice that afternoon, Steve and Tom saw the game from
the grand stand, with two cronies named Draper and Westcott. Draper's
first name was Leroy and he was called Roy. He was a tow-haired
youngster of fifteen with very bright blue eyes and a tip-tilted nose
that gave him a humorously impertinent look. He, like Steve and Tom, was
a Fourth Former. His home was in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and, while
Pittsburg was a good hundred miles from Tannersville, the fact that they
were citizens of the same glorious commonwealth had drawn he and Steve
together. Harry Westcott was a year older and came from a small town in
Connecticut. He was Roy's room-mate in Torrence. He had a slim,
small-boned body and a good-looking face with an aquiline nose and a
pair of very large soft-brown eyes. His dark hair was brushed straight
back from his forehead and was always very slick. Harry was what Roy
called "a fussy dresser" and affected knickerbockers and golf-stockings,
negligée shirts of soft and delicate hues of lavender or green or blue
and, to quote his disrespectful room-mate once more, "symphonic ties."
Harry was the embodiment of aristocratic ease and always lent a "tone"
to any gathering. He maintained an air of what he probably considered
well-bred composure and tabooed enthusiasm. Harry never declared that a
thing was "bully" or "fine and dandy"; he mildly observed that it was
"not half bad." This pose amused him, doubtless, and entertained his
friends, and underneath it all he was a very normal, likable chap. It
was Roy Draper who broke the strained silence that had endured until the
whistle put an end to the third period.
"I wouldn't give a cent for Canterbury's chances in the next period," he
said. "Look at Andy's face, fellows. It has the 'blood-lust' on it. When
Andy looks that way something has just got to happen!"
"He looks annoyed," assented Harry.
"You'd be annoyed if you had your lip cut the way his is," chuckled Roy.
"Do you think we'll beat them?" asked Tom anxiously.
"Nothing can save them," replied Roy conclusively. "Andy has his dander
up."
"It took him long enough to get it up," grumbled Steve. "He let those
fellows run rings around us in the first half."
"That's his foxy way. Now he's got them all tired out and we'll go in
and rip 'em up. You watch!"
"There's Marvin going in for Milton," announced Tom. "Say, those chaps
haven't made a change in their line-up yet."
"One," corrected Harry. "They put in a new right guard last period.
They're a funny lot, seems to me. You'd think they were having the time
of their lives."
"I like that, though," said Roy. "After all, you know, this thing of
playing football is supposed to be amusement."
"It's a heap more like hard work, though," replied Harry. "Not that I
ever played it much."
"Did you ever play at all?" asked Roy.
"Once or twice at grammar school. It was too fatiguing, though."
"I'll bet it was," chuckled Roy. "I'd like to see you playing, old
thing."
"I did, though; played right half-back. A fellow stuck his elbow into my
face and I knocked him flat. Captain said it was part of the game, you
know, and I shouldn't have done it. I said that any fellow who bumped my
nose would have to look for trouble. Then the umpire put me off and the
game lost a real star."
"Here we go," said Steve. "Now let's see if they can carry it over."
They didn't, however, just then. Canterbury held finely in the shadow of
her goal and Marvin's forward pass to Captain Miller went out at the
twelve-yards. But Canterbury was forced to punt a moment later, and
Brimfield took up the march again. On the adversary's thirty-yard line,
with six to go on the third down, Norton, full-back, attempted an
impossible drop-kick--he was standing over forty yards from the
cross-bar--and made it good.
"What did I tell you?" demanded Roy, digging Steve with his elbow.
"That's only three points, though," answered Steve doubtfully. "We
couldn't make a touchdown."
"It isn't over yet," said Roy confidently. "We're getting better all the
time."
Canterbury gave the ball to Brimfield for the kick-off and Fowler booted
it down to the opponent's fifteen yards. Andy Miller was under it all
the way and upset an ambitious Canterbury back before he was well
started. Canterbury tried two plunges and then punted from her
twenty-five-yard line to Brimfield's fifty. Marvin caught and brought
the stand to its feet by reeling off twelve yards across the field
before he was downed. Then Brimfield found herself and went down the
gridiron by steady plunges, plugging the Canterbury line for good gains
from tackle to tackle. Norton, at full-back, was the hero of that
period. Time after time he took the pigskin and landed it for a gain.
Marvin, cool and heady, ran the team beautifully, and when four minutes
of playing time remained, Brimfield was again knocking at Canterbury's
door, the pigskin on the latter's eighteen yards.
"First down!" proclaimed Roy triumphantly. "Here's where she goes over,
old thing!"
"Let her go," replied Harry. "I'm watching."
"I hope they don't try another silly field-goal," muttered Steve.
"Not on first down, they won't. Bully work, Norton! Did you see it?
Three yards easily!"
Then Marvin himself cut loose for four around left end and the
Canterbury coach hustled three substitutes on. But Brimfield was not to
be denied now. It was first down on Canterbury's seven yards, and, with
the spectators yelling like Indians, Kendall, right half, took the ball
on a delayed pass, found an opening outside right tackle and slipped
through and over the line for six more points.
Captain Miller kicked goal and the score stood 10 to 7. Another minute
of play followed, with Brimfield again pushing the high school team
before her, and then the game was over and the quartette on the stand
thumped each other elatedly--all save Harry--and ambled down to join the
throng that spread over the field on its homeward way.
"What did I tell you?" asked Roy. "You can't fool your uncle!"
"You hate yourself, don't you?" drawled Harry. "Come on over to the
room, you fellows."
Canterbury, having cheered the victor wholeheartedly, romped home.