over, Davies had sat in frenzied study. It had been years since he had
given serious thought to the brief, tragic romance of his college days.
He had suffered keenly for a time, but his father's counsel had held
weight with him, held weight even though he could never forget the
girl, nor that day of days when she had plighted her faith in him with
the dainty crimson bow and he had gone out on the field of battle
feeling like a gladiator. A silly, lovesick fool he had been, perhaps,
on that glorious day; but no incident in his entire life thereafter
quite came up to this.
When he had become older and more mature, when he had reached an age at
which he could better judge the sort of woman he should marry, Davies,
as his father said he would, had come upon the discovery that all
feminine creatures were hopeless bores. Thus his unattached state grew
to be recognized as perennial, and whatever romance he enjoyed came to
him through the cultivated channels of his memory.
How angry his father had been when he had found that Davies had
secretly married! The boy had written home for the family blessing and
had received, by return mail, the family curse. Carrington Davies came
of too good and wealthy a stock to have been inveigled into marrying a
nobody, his proud parents told him. Why, the girl was an orphan, her
parents had been dead some years, and she was employed at serving in a
quaint little tea room under the brow of the university.
It was quite natural that a girl of her circumstances should have roped
Davies in. Any girl who had really cared would have insisted that he
wait until after graduation. Should this marriage become known to
college authorities, Davies would be expelled. And then where would he
be? Disgraced! His career ruined! And ruined by a girl who had
cleaved to him only for the money that he represented!
Martin S. Davies made a special, hurried trip to Cambridge to make his
son see all these points. And the elder man brought plenty of money to
make any others concerned see as he wanted them to see. The affair was
successfully hushed up. Carrington Davies, threatened with being
disowned if he did not do exactly as his father dictated, had stood by
powerless.
He reflected now that this had been the biggest mistake of his life.
But years of strict obedience to his parent had awed him, awed him into
letting his father approach Hazel Nubbins, the girl who had so shortly
before become his wife. What the elder Davies said to her or what
proposition he made, the son never knew. But he recalled the satisfied
expression his father wore on returning from the interview, when he
said:
"It's all right, son. I've fixed everything. Now, for God's sake
don't ever get into a jam like this again!"
And the next day Carrington Davies heard that the girl had left the
place of her employ, pleading ill health. Weeks later, when he had
come out of the daze occasioned by these happenings, Davies had been
unable to obtain any information as to Hazel's whereabouts. And
gradually, as the weeks stretched out into months, the whole affair
shaped itself into the memory of a vaguely pleasant dream which had
turned out a blundering nightmare.
Now, as he sped over the rails on the football special bound for
Cambridge, his thoughts came racing back to the present at the dash of
something against his window, a something that left a running streak.
"Rain!" exclaimed Davies disappointedly. "Drizzling, cold rain! The
devil hang the weather man, anyhow!"
As the trip progressed the rain did likewise, true to forecast. At
twelve fifteen, when the special arrived at Brighton, a stop one mile
from the stadium, Davies stepped into a sullen, sweeping downpour.
There was little hilarity among the detraining football followers, and
crimson colors gave way to the somber black of umbrellas. Davies
raised his coat collar and pulled down his hat brim, making a dash for
a store front that carried a light-lunch sign.
It seemed that almost every one else made a dash for the same place at
the same time, and the race proved a dead heat with the first fifty.
These just managed to squeeze inside, Davies being about the
forty-seventh by half an elbow and several sore toes. It made him feel
as if he was bucking the line again; only there was little relish to it
this time, with the general pell-mell and every one calling out his
order in place of the familiar, "Rah, rahs!"
Just how Davies at last came by a Swiss-cheese sandwich and a cup of
pleasantly hot and fragrant coffee he never quite knew. He just found
himself jostled along, automatically holding out his hands when he came
up against the counter, taking what was thrust into them, putting it
out of sight as quickly as possible, while some one behind him was
fighting for his place, and then following the path of least
resistance, which led to the cashier's perch where the extent of his
hasty appetite was checked up in so many cents.
After that Davies discovered himself once more in the rain, feeling
strangely alone and just a little bit dazed. It was early yet. He had
half a notion to go up to the locker room and see the boys. He had
done this in other years, had even sat in the dugout with them and had
thrilled at the imagining that his presence had inspired them; but
somehow, this day, Davies felt his inadequacy. It was a sort of
left-out feeling; more than that, a sensing that his sun had set, that
perhaps he had worn the halo of gridiron hero too long, and that his
friends might have been humoring him.
It was such dampening, disconsolate thoughts as these that prompted
Davies to hail a taxicab and go directly to the stadium. He would
refrain from his usual haunts this year and, through this refraining,
see if he was missed. It was quite possible, did he not remind
Harvard, year by year, as to just who he was, that the old college
would forget him. He must remember that the world lived largely in the
present while he had been living largely in the past.
The rain had abated somewhat when Carrington emerged from the taxi and
joined the wet line of Harvard and Yale enthusiasts crowding through
the main entrance. There was life here; the atmosphere of expectancy
that was bred by the very outline of the stadium, the concrete sides of
which had rocked with throat-tearing sounds, time on time. How could
one's blood help but warm, even under the pelting of rain, at the
memories intrusted to the historic amphitheater of sport in which so
many athletic classics had been staged? Davies' heart leaped as he
came inside the stadium and got his first glimpse of the green-sodded
gridiron, now spotted with pools of water, the goal posts looking sleek.
Already the stands were alive with huddled humanity and bobbing
umbrellas. Yellow slickers, dotted through the field of black, made
Davies think of a checkered taxicab. He cursed himself for not having
brought his own raincoat along. In years gone by he could have been
wet to the skin and not minded it, but now he was conscious of a desire
for dry comfort. Certainly he couldn't be getting old!
By game time the stadium was a howling, wet mass. The rain had
subsided to a spraylike drizzle, and Carrington, after a minute study
of the sky line, decided that this improvement was the best which could
be hoped for.
The conditions underfoot were bad. The sod was soggy and slippery.
Punters, in practice, stationed themselves with great care before
getting off their kicks. Even then the punting experts were observed
to retain their footing, at times, with difficulty. Davies shook his
head forebodingly. There was nothing encouraging to the Crimson in the
outlook.
The sons of Old Eli were cheering their steam-roller eleven to the
echo. As Davies compared the heavy Yale line with the noticeably
thinner Harvard wall, he shuddered instinctively as he thought of these
men taking the impact of what was due to come. He was seized with a
sense of futility at the very outset, and a ready sympathy for the
Harvard back field. He had been in just such a position years before
when it seemed as though he was battering his head against the side of
a brick building, and all for naught, it seemed, too--only that he knew
he should keep on battering, battering, just for the Crimson, the dear
old Crimson.
Plunk! The hollow, wet sound of toe meeting pigskin and a
mud-spattered object turning end over end, with beneath it--jerseyed
figures charging! Harvard had kicked off!
Davies rose spontaneously from his seat and added his puny voice to the
maelstrom of noise. On the Yale ten-yard line a blue-clad man pulled
down the mud-spattered object and, clutching it firmly against his
chest, took a few slipping side-steps to dodge an eager tackler. The
Eli succeeded in this, only to crash directly into the arms of a second
Harvard tackler, who bore him to the sodden earth on the Blue's
fifteen-yard stripe. Davies sank back into his seat with a sigh of
relief. The first prickling moment of the game was over.
There were, though, further prickling moments to come. On the first
play Yale launched a line-smashing offensive, aiming her backfield men
at different points on the Harvard forward wall. It was
slip-slosh-bang, slip-slosh-bang! There were slow, heavy shiftings,
then a mud-smeared man with the ball diving through a hole for one,
two, three, or five yards--sometimes ten. Yielding, always stubbornly,
but always yielding, the slender Harvard line bent back and back under
the savage, relentless onslaught of unmuzzled Yale Bulldogs thirsting
for the blood of victory. Davies wore his voice to shreds trying to
stop Yale's advance.
It was no use. This was one of those days when all the cheering that
could be martialed, and all the resistance that could be offered
against the foe, availed but little. Thwarted from a touchdown by the
Crimson's grim stand on their very goal line, Nixon, Yale's star
kicker, dropped back and booted the dripping-wet ball between the
uprights for a spectacular field goal which shot the Elis into a
three-point lead.
In the second quarter, facing the same bitter opposition and impeded by
the slow, heavy conditions underfoot, Yale satisfied herself with
battering the Crimson eleven back until, clawing at one another on the
Harvard twenty-yard mark, Nixon mechanically duplicated his first field
goal to bring his team's score for the half up to six points. Yale
supporters shrieked their joy. The Harvard stands roared loyal
encouragement, then lapsed into mournful silence.
During the intermission, Davies confessed to himself that he had never
seen a "fightinger" team except, perhaps, the eleven that had fought
that memorable battle back in 1905. Here were Crimson gridiron
gladiators who made the heart burst with pride; who, though being
slowly ground into defeat, were displaying Spartanlike valor; who, by
the inspired nature of their resistance, were putting gnawing lumps in
the throats of their ardent followers. Ah, this was a contest worth
watching, a combat which would go down in history, a story of how a
slight Harvard eleven, struggling against tremendous odds, had all but
wrested victory from one of the most powerful Yale machines of all time!
When the teams reappeared on the field for the second half, Davies felt
the years fall away as in a strange dream. He began to wax exultant
about the weather, remembering with what grim satisfaction he had
rubbed his nose in the wet dirt behind Yale's goal line after his
sensational dash the length of the gridiron twenty years
ago--yesterday? No, twenty years----
A frenzied cheer brought Davies back to the present. Yale had kicked
off, and Harvard, receiving, had run the ball back fifteen yards.
First down on their twenty-one yard line! Broadhurst, slim-figured
Harvard quarterback, seemed a dynamo of pep from the way he was barking
out signals and urging the utmost from his men. Another cheer, more
frenzied than the first, burst out as a Crimson back slid around right
end for a four-yard gain. The next play netted seven yards around the
same end and a first down. Harvard rooters went crazy and Davies went
with them.
Given cause for hope in the first worth-while ground gained against the
powerful Yale eleven, the Harvard team threw its whole remaining force
into the drive. For seven pulsating minutes it seemed as though the
Crimson could not be denied a touchdown. Yard after yard was torn off
on slipping end runs and slashing plunges through the line. Davies
forgot some of the sympathy he had felt for the team of his Alma Mater.
It was now risen to the heights of David against Goliath.
Alas, though, with the ball on Yale's five-yard mark and the Harvard,
stands wildly intreating a touchdown, Broadhurst, trying to carry the
ball himself, fumbled! The pigskin was seen to strike the ground and
then to be swallowed up by a cloud of flying forms. When the referee
had dug through the confused mass of arms and legs, he found the ball
in Yale's possession, and Harvard's big glimmer of hope immediately
vanished. Broadhurst, who but a second before had been credited with
putting the driving force into Harvard's great attack, was now roundly
censured as the blunderer who had blown the golden opportunity. The
quarterback was a sophomore, Davies learned from the talk of some of
the more recent Harvard graduates near by.
Overjoyed at having brought a stop to the one serious threat of the
enemy, the Yale team lined up on their four-yard mark and held like a
stonewall while the great Nixon got off a forty-yard punt from behind
his own goal line.
With the punch gone from Harvard's attack, the Crimson made but a scant
yard in two downs; then the little Broadhurst threw a long forward
pass. The play was well screened; but an alert son of Yale, keenly on
the job, managed to intercept the ball. He was thrown in his tracks.
It was growing dark, with the lowering clouds threatening a genuine
deluge. A chilling gust of wind whistled through the stadium. Some of
the less hardened "rooters" got up and began forcing their way toward
the exits. A gloomy silence hung over the field.
Once more in swing, the Yale steam roller got under way. It took up
its old battering tactics--slip-slosh-bang, slip-slosh-bang. There was
nothing sensational in its movement, just methodical. And back--ever
back--though courageously resisting, went the Crimson line. A flock of
substitutes came running out now. The ball was on Harvard's
twenty-three yard line, four minutes more to play. The substitutes
brought a new, if hopeless touch of spirit to the Harvard eleven. They
were ambitious, almost pathetically so in the circumstances, to make a
good showing in their fleeting chance for glory.
"Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown!" the Yale supporters began to chant
in monotonous fashion. It was not a question now of who would win, but
could Yale go over the goal line in the time that was left? Harvard
had put up a surprising battle against an eleven which had been favored
to defeat her by at least twenty points. And Yale was a bit miffed at
this, sternly desirous of adding to the score by hammering through for
a touch down. A victory won solely through the talented toe of the
great Nixon was hardly sufficient tribute to the supposed offensive
power of the team itself.
There were two minutes left to play when Yale brought up on Harvard's
three-yard line for a first down. Behind the battered and tottering
Crimson wall a figure raved and ranted and roared, entreating his
teammates to stave off the Bulldog's advance. He stamped from end to
end in the churned up sod, prodding each player in a vicious manner.
But there was no visible stiffening of the Harvard defense at the
savage barking of its quarterback. The team was crushed after having
done its best to no avail.
"Look at that bird begging his line to hold and he the one who made
that costly fumble!" cried a Yale supporter, who somehow had obtained a
seat in the Harvard sections. It was next to that of Davies'. "Wonder
if he thinks they'll pay any attention to him now?"
Davies felt like making some hot retort to this, but he didn't. He
decided to salve his feelings in a cigar and to escape the agony of
watching Old Eli crush the Crimson under the added weight of a
touchdown. As Davies lighted up, the lowering clouds spread wide
apart, letting down sheets of driving rain.
"A good thing it's almost over," he told himself. "About time for one
more play. Well, I don't suppose we could have expected anything
different, with the odds against us, and the weather, but if Broadhurst
had only----"
Settling back in his seat, Davies was gloomily conscious of the hosts
of Yale rising to their feet with a stupendous din. His view was
blotted from the gridiron by flashing arms and wildly lurching forms.
But Davies was no longer interested. There was no use, he thought, in
getting excited over a Yale touchdown.
While all was confusion about him, Davies sat still, puffing on his
cigar.
But the cheering kept up! There was a different note in it now, a
great, heart-rending groan that was drowned out by an ear-bursting,
joyous roar.
Davies looked up wonderingly. "Say, what's happening?"
Just how Davies got to a standing position on his seat he never knew.
But he was suddenly and overwhelmingly conscious of a most unusual
sight. Crossing the Harvard thirty-yard line, running toward the
distant Yale goal with head down, straight into the driving rain, was
the slim-lined figure of the Harvard quarterback--the ball tucked under
his right arm.
Behind the speeding man with the ball, trailed three desperate Yale
players, while another was cutting across the gridiron in the hope of
intercepting the Crimson runner from in front. Back near the Harvard
goal line, teammates on both sides, now completely out of play, yelled
encouragement to pursuers and the one pursued.
Davies, eyes glued on Broadhurst, jabbed out an arm and grabbed the
Yale supporter by the shoulder. "Yea! How'd we get the ball?" the
hero of twenty years before demanded.
"Let go my collar bone!" The Yale fan winced, trying to jerk away.
"All right; but how'd we get the ball?" persisted Davies.
"Nixon fumbled on your goal line. What's the matter, you poor fish!
Why don't you watch the game?"
Davies _was_ watching it now for dear life. The slender Harvard
quarterback was being pressed from front and back. He had been forced
close to the side line in an effort to evade the tackler who was
lumbering at him across water-soaked sod. But, it was now evident that
Broadhurst must face this peril. The soggy condition underfoot had
made it impossible for him to evade the Eli even by keeping close to
the side line. There was no turning outward. To do so would carry the
ball out of bounds. And any hesitancy or slowing up would close the
distance between the Crimson runner and the three Yale men who kept
doggedly pounding along after him.
Instinctively Davies stiffened his right arm and pushed it out
violently. For one heart-quaking second it seemed to him that the
years had rolled back and that he was carrying the ball. He sensed
acutely the sensation that must be Broadhurst's, and he suddenly found
himself shrieking: "Give him the straight arm! Give him the straight
arm! Give him the----!"
And as if, from out that mad pandemonium of sound, Broadhurst had heard
and heeded, the Harvard quarterback ran directly at the oncoming
tackler; then, when it appeared as though Broadhurst must go down with
arms reaching out to encircle him, he jabbed a mud-stained hand
straight from the shoulder, catching the Yale man in the face.
The impact almost threw Broadhurst from his feet, but he saved himself
by a quick jump to the side and, a slipping lurch which shook a foot
loose from the last frantic grab of the tackler as he dived head
foremost into a muddy sheet of water.
"Atta boy! Atta boy!" cried Davies, no longer accountable for what he
might say or do.
The man with the ball now had a clear field and was crossing the
fifty-yard line. The going was difficult, each step uncertain.
Several times he all but fell, the ground was so heavy and sodden that
it seemed almost as if Broadhurst were running in one spot, his feet
slipping under him. And with the tread-mill effect it looked as though
the three frenzied pursuers were gaining.
In Yale territory now, the bleak goal posts looming up in front of him,
Broadhurst chanced a glance back over his shoulder. What he saw was
none too reassuring. The Yale stands broke into a roar of insane
entreaty. A Yale man was at Broadhurst's very heels, and Broadhurst
was crossing Old Eli's ten-yard line with a touchdown in sight! It was
but a matter of seconds. If the Crimson runner could be overtaken,
Harvard's last bubble of hope would be punctured.
"Yea! He's got him!" yelled the Yale supporter, crashing Davies over
the head.
"He hasn't, either!" the Harvard grad shouted, with a shove which all
but upset the rival rooter. "Look at that, will you?"
At the four-yard line the Yale tackler left his feet in a frantic dive.
He struck the man with the ball just below the knees, and Broadhurst
crumpled forward, giving a tugging leap. It may have been due to the
fact that he was soaked to the skin and that the tackler's hands were
wet and chilled; at any rate, the Eli's grip slipped to one leg, and,
instead of going down, Broadhurst strained along, dragging his tackler
after him. As he reached the goal line the two other Yale men sailed
through the air and hit him. All four went down in a splashing fall.
Then every one in the stands went wild.
With the strength of a team gone delirious with joy, the Crimson
players took their positions in front of the Yale goal and prepared for
the play which would give them a try at the extra point after
touchdown. The stands rocked with tributes of noise, bestowing upon
Broadhurst one of the most deafening ovations ever accorded a gridiron
hero. He had fittingly redeemed himself. His blood-tingling
length-of-the-field run in the last minute of play had tied the score
at six to six.
Davies waited only long enough to see the water-soaked ball sail
between the uprights for the winning point. Then he clambered over the
seats and cut across the outraged gridiron in the direction of the
clubhouse, unmindful of the fact that the mud had sucked off both his
rubbers.
At the clubhouse, Carrington Davies encountered unexpected opposition
in gaining admittance. It seemed that no one had known who he was and,
what was more, no one seemed to care after being informed. Such crass
ignorance irritated Davies greatly, but he held his patience. The
disregard shown him was only due to the prevailing excitement. If any
one of them had only stopped to think!
At last Davies rushed to the door and slid past, picking a hole between
the burly door-tender and a rather uppish young substitute who C. R. D.
ardently hoped would never become a regular.
Once inside, the going was easier. Players in different stages of
dressing, and others still under the showers, glanced at him curiously
as his eyes sought out but one individual--the Harvard quarterback.
"Where's Broadhurst?" Davies asked of the Crimson man nearest him.
"Other side of the lockers," the individual addressed answered gruffly.
Then, as Davies followed the direction, he mumbled: "Who let that bird
in?"
The latest Harvard hero was lacing a shoe when the former All-American
quarterback came upon him. Davies paused a moment, looking down at the
slim-lined figure sitting on the bench. He watched the slender fingers
as they plucked feverishly at the shoe strings.
Evidently the boy was in a great hurry, Davies thought. He probably
wanted to get out--to meet his sweetheart and to hear her tell him how
wonderful she thought he was. Davies felt a gripping pang. He knew
all about it. He had been there--exactly in Broadhurst's shoes--twenty
years before.
After what seemed a dragging century, the young fellow finished lacing
the shoe, looked up, and started. "Oh! I--I beg your pardon. Did you
want to see me?"
Now that his opportunity for congratulation had come, Davies for some
unknown reason, felt suddenly small and insignificant. He felt the
clear blue eyes of the new Harvard star boring into his with kindly
inquiry, and for once in his life old C. R. D. found himself stammering.
He did manage to extend his hand.