HOLD ’EM, WYNDHAM!
By RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
_Yardley Hall Series_
FOURTH DOWN
FORWARD PASS
DOUBLE PLAY
WINNING HIS Y
GUARDING THE GOAL
FOR YARDLEY
AROUND THE END
CHANGE SIGNALS
_Purple Pennant Series_
THE LUCKY SEVENTH
THE SECRET PLAY
THE PURPLE PENNANT
_Hilton Series_
THE HALF-BACK
FOR THE HONOR OF THE SCHOOL
CAPTAIN OF THE CREW
_Erskine Series_
BEHIND THE LINE
WEATHERBY’S INNING
ON YOUR MARK
_The “Big Four” Series_
FOUR IN CAMP
FOUR AFOOT
FOUR AFLOAT
_The Grafton Series_
RIVALS FOR THE TEAM
HITTING THE LINE
WINNING HIS GAME
_North Bank Series_
THREE BASE BENSON
KICK FORMATION
COXSWAIN OF THE EIGHT
_Wyndham Series_
THE FIGHTING SCRUB
BASES FULL
HOLD ’EM, WYNDHAM!
_Books Not In Series_
THE LOST DIRIGIBLE
FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
KEEPING HIS COURSE
THE BROTHER OF A HERO
FINKLER’S FIELD
DANFORTH PLAYS THE GAME
THE ARRIVAL OF JIMPSON
FOR THE GOOD OF THE TEAM
UNDER THE YANKEE ENSIGN
BENTON’S VENTURE
THE JUNIOR TROPHY
THE NEW BOY AT HILLTOP
THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOL
THE PLAY THAT WON
INFIELD RIVALS
FOLLOW THE BALL
[Illustration: TOM RAN THE RACE OF HIS LIFE]
HOLD ’EM, WYNDHAM!
BY
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
AUTHOR OF “BASES FULL!”, “THE FIGHTING SCRUB,” ETC.
[Illustration]
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK :: 1925 :: LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
THE MEMORY OF
PERCY DUNCAN HAUGHTON
SKILLFUL PLAYER, INSPIRING LEADER,
BRILLIANT COACH AND GALLANT GENTLEMAN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. COACH AND PLAYER 1
II. NEW QUARTERS 11
III. WATTLES IS WELL 25
IV. THE FIRST GAME 36
V. CLIF MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE 51
VI. THE “HOUSEWARMING” 61
VII. OVER THE CROSSBAR 75
VIII. SLOGANS 89
IX. “NO DEFEATS!” 101
X. JUST KITTENS 115
XI. LEMUEL JOHN 127
XII. A NEW MAN JOINS UP 139
XIII. THE BOY WITH THE FUNNY CHIN 150
XIV. WATTLES ON THE TRAIL 167
XV. THE TRIUMVIRATE CONSPIRES 179
XVI. RUN TO EARTH 189
XVII. MR. BINGHAM IS STERN 202
XVIII. TOM HAS NERVES 212
XIX. DEFEAT BY TELEPHONE 222
XX. THE CAMEL EXPLAINS 232
XXI. LORING TAKES A WALK 248
XXII. “HOLD ’EM, WYNDHAM!” 261
HOLD ’EM, WYNDHAM!
CHAPTER I
COACH AND PLAYER
Clif Bingham paused in the doorway, clicked his heels together and gave
a military salute.
“Reporting by order, sir.”
“No, Bingham, by request.” The football coach arose and strode across
the floor, hand outstretched. “I can’t issue orders until the term
starts. Well, how are you?”
“Fine and dandy, Mr. Otis. Don’t I look so?”
“Mm, a bit pudgy, I’d say. But we’ll work that off you. Sit here.
Except Hanbury you’re the first of the gang to report. Couldn’t keep
away any longer, I presume.”
“Something of the sort, sir,” answered the boy, smiling. “But the whole
truth is that it was so plaguey hot in Providence yesterday that I
made up my mind to take the first train I could get this morning and
reach here without sizzling. How have you been, sir?”
“Oh, pretty fit, thanks. As you remarked, don’t I look so?”
He did, and Clif said so. The coach was tanned to the color of saddle
leather and the hair on the top――well, more properly on the back and
sides――of his round head looked more faded than ever in comparison
with his skin. Mr. George Gray Otis, popularly known as “G. G.” wasn’t
handsome. In fact he was fairly homely, for his sturdy body lacked
proportionate height and his somewhat bulletlike head seemed a size or
so too large. He had keen brown eyes, a fighting chin, a mouth that
could close to a thin straight line on occasion and a nose that was
far too short and broad for beauty. In age he was a year or so under
thirty, and while it is doubtless possible to experience much trouble
in thirty years, “G. G.” didn’t look like one who had carried a burden
of it sufficient to account for the pronounced bow of his legs. (There
was a legend to the effect that Mr. Babcock, Physical Director at
Wyndham, had once enticed Mr. Otis to the links to play golf and that
there, casting one horrified look at the coach in knickerbockers,
he had fled the scene!) You are not, however, to picture “G. G.” as
a ludicrous figure, nor even an unattractive one, for in spite of
such physical incongruities as I have mentioned he compelled respect
and liking. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that he was
distinctly popular at Wyndham, and this in spite of a hard hand and a
harsh tongue. On the field “G. G.” was pretty much the despot. Off it
he was a kindly chap with a deep, hearty voice and a ready chuckle for
a joke. Tradition had it that while at Wyndham School he had not won
distinction at football although he had played on two of the teams.
His only bid for fame had been made throwing the hammer, and at that
feat he had excelled. However, at college he had come into his own as
a brilliant plunging half-back, and the team he had captained in his
senior year was still being used as a standard by which to measure all
subsequent elevens.
“You’ve got a corking tan,” Clif added in envious tones.
“Good Lord, I’m fairly black!” protested the coach. “I had to appear
in dinner clothes a couple of evenings ago, and when I had a look at
myself in the mirror I almost got cold feet and stayed away from the
party. The white shirt made me look like an Indian! You see, it wasn’t
so apparent as long as I was in sea togs, but once ashore――” He shook
his head ruefully.
“That’s a sea tan, then,” said Clif.
“Yes, a Long Island Sound tan, Bingham. I spent two whole months in
dungaree, and particularly disreputable dungaree, too. We slipped into
Providence once to get out of a blow, and I’d have looked you up if I’d
known where you lived. Well, I could have found that out, I guess. The
real reason I didn’t look in on you was that I was too lazy to shave
and clean up!”
“When was that, sir?”
“Oh, about ten days ago; maybe the nineteenth or twentieth.”
“You wouldn’t have found me, Mr. Otis. We didn’t get back from the
other side until the twenty-second.”
“Oh, abroad, eh? Lucky dog!”
“Father and I went over in July. We had a sort of reunion in Paris in
August. You remember Loring Deane, sir?”
“Deane? Yes, indeed. You met him over there?”
“Yes, sir, he and his folks; and Wattles, of course! We all went to
Switzerland together and found Tom Kemble and his father at Neuchatel.
It was a sort of a date we’d made in the spring. We were all over the
shop together, sir, and had a grand time. Tom was more fun than a goat.
It was his first trip across, and, of course, he’d never seen the Alps.
But you simply couldn’t get him to enthuse. Oh, he was all tied up in a
knot with it, but he wouldn’t let on once! The best you could get out
of him was that the Jungfrau reminded him of Orange Mountain, whatever
that is, and that Lake Lucerne wasn’t in it with Hopatcong, or some
such place. I forgot to say that Tom comes from New Jersey!”
“It wasn’t necessary,” chuckled the coach. “Did Kemble come up with
you?”
“This morning? No, sir, he didn’t, and he’ll probably be fit to
be tied, when he gets to the junction and doesn’t find me there
according to agreement. He’s coming up on the train that gets here at
one-something. I just couldn’t face the trip in such heat as we had
yesterday. It was fairly cold in England when we left, and cool coming
back, and this weather is awful!”
“Yes, it is hot. Guess we won’t do more than limber up this afternoon.
You’d better go pretty slow, my boy, if you’re feeling the heat so.
By the way, that reminds me of something I want to talk to you about,
Bingham.” Mr. Otis took a leather-covered memorandum book from the
table beside him, opened and glanced at it briefly and then gently
ruffled the leaves while he went on. “You’ve put on several pounds
since last fall, haven’t you? Seven? Is that so? Well, you’ll lose some
of it, and――”
“I was seven pounds heavier in July, sir,” explained Clif. “I’m a lot
more than that now, of course, for I haven’t done anything for a month
but sleep and eat. I guess those seven will stick by me.”
“All the better. Fact is, Bingham, I’ve been wondering how you’d shape
as a tackle.”
“Tackle!” exclaimed Clif.
“Yes. You see, we’re going to need tackles more than ends this fall.
I was counting on Raiford, but he’s quit school, I hear. So there’s
only Weldon, Cotter, Coles and Longwell to start with. Well, there’s
McMurtry, too, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the backfield.”
“I guess ‘Blondy’ would make a good back,” said Clif reflectively.
“Gosh, I’m willing to try, of course, if you want me to, sir, but I
don’t know much about the position. It’s a lot different from end, I
suppose.”
“Yes, but you can learn it, Bingham. Anyhow, I’d like to try you out
at tackle. Of course, if you don’t take to it, all right. I certainly
don’t intend to lose a good end to secure a second-rate tackle.
We’re sort of long on end material: Drayton, Couch, Adams, Williams,
two or three others besides. None of them except Drayton what you’d
call top-notchers, maybe, but Couch did well last fall. This is only
tentative, you understand. I wanted to hear what you thought of it.”
“Why, I’m willing enough, sir. It’s up to you, of course. If you think
I can make good I’ll have a shot at it. Funny, though, that I’d been
thinking of myself as a fellow who could never be anything but an end.”
“Well, we’ll see. You’ve got the general build and weight for a tackle,
Bingham, and you’re fast and you use your head. Hang it, give me a chap
who knows his business and has two feet and a pair of hands and I’ll
chance him anywhere in the line or back of it! Do you know what makes a
good tackle or a good center or a good anything, Bingham?”
“I don’t know any _one_ thing, Mr. Otis.”
“I’ll tell you, then.” The coach’s lips set themselves straight and
tight for an instant. “Practice, my boy! Hard practice and plenty of
it. I’ll guarantee to take any fellow in school and, if he is willing
to work and do as I tell him, make a football player of him――_if_ I can
have enough time! It’s lack of time, Bingham, that makes hard sledding
for a football coach. Think of it! I get hold of you chaps two months,
almost to a day, before I have to trot you into the big game! It’s not
so bad when you’ve played a couple of years, but when you haven’t,
when it’s all practically new stuff to you, why, man alive, it’s work!
That’s what puts white hairs in a coach’s locks. Or――” he ran a brown
hand over his head and grinned――“takes ’em out altogether!”
“It isn’t much time, is it?” reflected Clif.
“It isn’t half enough. And that’s why college coaches get their
men together a month beforehand――six weeks, sometimes――and get the
preliminary stuff out of the way before the term starts. But that will
be done away with before long, I guess. There’s a growing sentiment in
favor of starting all teams off the mark together. Fair enough, too.
Well, two months is all I have, Bingham, and I’ve got to make the most
of it. That’s one reason I wrote and asked all you chaps to be on hand
to-day. Even one day counts when there’s only about fifty of them in
all! I’ve been looking over the schedule. Where’d I put it? Here it is.
We’re down for a hard game two weeks from Saturday, I guess.”
“Jordan, sir?”
“Highland. Jordan comes the week after. Here, look it over.”
Clif took the typewritten sheet and read:
Oct. 4, Freeburg High School, at Home
Oct. 11, Highland School, at Highland
Oct. 18, Jordan Academy, at Home
Oct. 25, Cupples Institute, at Cupples
Nov. 1, Minster High School, at Home
Nov. 8, Horner Academy, at Horner
Nov. 15, Toll’s Academy, at Home
Nov. 22, Wolcott Academy, at Home
“What’s this Jordan Academy, sir?” Clif asked, returning the schedule.
“Is she supposed to be good?”
“I don’t know much about those fellows yet. We dropped High Point to
make room for them because, as I understand it, one of the instructors
at Jordan used to teach here and he’s been after Dr. Wyndham for two or
three seasons to get a date with us. There’s politics, you see, even
in football schedules! Highland, though, held us to nine points last
year, Bingham, and I have an idea that they’re out to win this time. Of
course the loss of an early-season game isn’t important; no loss is if
you learn by it; but every coach has a sort of secret longing to get
through a season with a clean score, even if he knows that the thing’s
quite impossible, and losing an early game shatters his dream right off
the bat. So I’d rather like to come through safe with Highland.”
“I hope we do, sir. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we did get through
this season with a clean slate? You say it’s impossible, Mr. Otis, but
you don’t really mean it, do you? That is, it _could_ be done if――well,
if we proved good enough!”
“Why, no, it isn’t impossible, Bingham. Let’s say extremely improbable,
instead. We did about as well last season as we can hope to do this.
We won seven out of eight games. Of course, it’s an easy matter to
say that we should have won all eight, that if we had prepared a bit
more for Horner, scouted her and got a line on some of those tricky
plays she used, we’d have beaten her; tied her at the least. But
somewhere in your schedule, at some moment during your season, you let
up just a little. It’s natural. It’s like target shooting. You make
nine bull’s-eyes and then at the tenth, when one more good shot will
give you a perfect score, you miss. You don’t know any reason for it,
either. You held just as steadily, aimed as before, but you missed.
I guess it’s the old law of probability getting in its fine work,
Bingham. Well, maybe we shouldn’t kick if we come through this season
as well as we did last. And, after all, the big prize is the Wolcott
game.”
“Yes, sir, of course. But――gosh, Mr. Otis, it would be a wonderful
stunt to get through without a defeat! Maybe we can, too. We’ve got
a pretty good start, don’t you think? We’ve got six or seven fellows
who started the Wolcott game last year back again, and a raft of
second-string players; and Jeff Ogden will make a corking captain, sir.”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Otis, “it looks promising. There’s not a bit of
harm in setting out with a good big ambition, Bingham, either. The more
you ask for, the more you generally get! So you and I, at least, can
treasure the hope of an undefeated team. Going?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll have to beat it, I guess. I’ve got some stuff to get in
the village. Then I’ll have to be at the station when Tom arrives or
he’ll never speak to me again!”
Mr. Otis smiled. “Are you together in dormitory?” he asked.
“Yes, we are this year. We’ve got Number 40 in West. It’s a corking
room. Tom was with Billy Desmond last year and I roomed with a chap
named Treat, but we thought we’d like to get together for this year and
next.”
“I hope Kemble is going to show up finely this season,” said the
coach. “He looked promising last fall. Well, three-thirty, Bingham. By
the way, if you run across Owens send him to me, will you? He’s here
somewhere, for he called me up from the school half an hour ago.”
“Yes, I will. Well, see you at the field, sir.”
Clif descended the stairway and passed through the empty lobby of the
Freeburg Inn. On the wide veranda, well above the elm-shaded sidewalk,
he paused and searched for the list he had made an hour ago. A locust
in a near-by tree gave an imitation of a mowing machine, reminding Clif
of the heat, and he tilted his straw hat back from his forehead and
sighed as he found the scrap of paper. A green-painted rocking chair
spread inviting arms toward him, but, after an instant of hesitation,
he shook his head virtuously and proceeded on his mission.