A BROKEN RIB
On the whole, Grafton was satisfied with that game. She had made larger
scores against Rotan in the past, to be sure, but on those occasions
the college team had been undoubtedly weaker than she had been today.
Even Coach Bonner, who was not easily satisfied, acknowledged to Ted
Trafford that the Scarlet-and-Gray eleven had done well to hold Rotan
to three scores. Ted wanted credit, too, for the six points his team
had won, but Mr. Bonner shrugged his shoulders then. “There was too
much luck in that touchdown, Traf,” he said. “Defensively the team did
very well. Let it go at that!”
Hugh climbed the stairs to the infirmary on the second floor of Manning
after supper that night to inquire about Bert, as to whose injury many
and various rumors were afloat. Mrs. Prouty, the matron, gave him
permission to see the patient and Hugh found the invalid in the act
of finishing a fairly substantial meal. Bert greeted the caller quite
cheerfully.
“You needn’t tiptoe,” he laughed, “and you needn’t look like an
undertaker. I’m not dead yet, Duke. It’s only a cracked rib. The Doc
says I’ll be all right in a couple of weeks and can play before that if
I’ll wear a pad. Still, it’s kind of tough luck.”
“I’m glad it’s no worse,” said Hugh. “They had all sorts of stories
about you at table tonight. You played a ripping――a corking game, old
chap.”
“Well, I played better than I’ve been playing, that’s sure. It was a
dandy game and we did mighty well to hold them to twenty, Hugh, to say
nothing of scoring on them. Have you heard yet?”
“Heard?” asked Hugh.
“About the money, I mean.”
“Oh, I say, I forgot all about it! There wasn’t anything in the box,
though. Would they put a telegram in the box?”
“They usually telephone it to you. Maybe your mother didn’t get your
message in time, though. You think she’s at either one of those places,
don’t you?”
“Why, yes. I ought to have received a letter from her today. She
almost always writes so that I get it Saturday. We’ll surely hear by
Monday, Bert.”
“Well, I hope so. If that fellow wants to make trouble for me he can do
it to the King’s taste.”
“He won’t, though, if he knows he’s going to get his money, eh? You sit
tight, old chap, and don’t worry.”
“Oh, I’m tight, all right,” answered Bert, with a grin. “They’ve got
me strapped and plastered and bandaged until I can hardly breathe! I’m
coming back Monday; Doc said I might. This isn’t so bad, though, and
Mother Prouty’s a corker.”
“You’ve got it all to yourself, haven’t you?” asked Hugh, viewing the
two empty cots. “If you get lonesome I’ll develop a mysterious illness
and get lugged over here. I dare say I’d better be toddling along now,
though. Do they let you read?”
“Why not? I don’t have to use my ribs to read, do I? By the way, I wish
you’d drop around tomorrow morning and bring my geometry and Greek
reader. And you might fetch a paper, too. Good night.”
In the corridor below Hugh encountered Pop, a rather damaged looking
Pop, with a puffy green and purple left eye and a long scratch on his
nose. When he learned that Hugh had just come from the infirmary he
turned back.
“I guess I won’t go up then,” he said. “How is he? What’s the damage?”
Hugh told him as they left the building and turned their steps toward
Trow, and Pop expressed relief. “Some fellow said he’d broken his
collar-bone. A rib isn’t so bad. Davy’ll have him bundled up and
playing in a few days. What did you think of the game?”
“A little bit of all right, Pop! And, I say, you certainly did for
Lambert, what?”
“Lambert? No.”
Hugh laughed. “Oh, no; you didn’t wallop the beggar, not half! Served
him jolly right, of course; I saw him give you that punch under the
chin, you know. I wish, though, you’d tell me what you said to him that
time you two had your heads together.”
“Do you? Well, I said, ‘Lambert, if you make me lose my temper you’ll
go home in an ambulance. Now quit it!’ He did, too. We didn’t have any
trouble after that.”
“You mean you didn’t! _He_ looked jolly well troubled when they took
him off. Hanser said you’d get him.”
“Sorry to disappoint Hanser,” replied Pop, “but as a matter of fact I
didn’t mix it up with Lambert once.”
“You didn’t? Then what happened to him?”
“He told me afterwards――I saw him in the field house――that someone
kicked him in the head. He had rather a bad bruise.”
“Oh!” murmured Hugh. “Well, I fancied――you know you said――――”
“Yes, I know I did. But I got to thinking it over. You see, I wanted to
play the game through, for one thing, and if I’d been caught slugging
I wouldn’t have. And then, too, I――well, I sort of wanted to see if I
_could_ keep my temper. After all, I guess the rough-stuff doesn’t get
you anything.”
“Rather looks as though Hanser and I misjudged you, Pop,” laughed Hugh.
Then, soberly: “I say, though, I’m rather glad you didn’t. Of course he
deserved something, but――somehow――if you know what I mean――――”
“I get you, Steve! As you’d probably say, it isn’t cricket. Coming up?”
“Thanks, no, not tonight. I’m rather keen on writing a letter to the
governor. Good night, Pop.”
The letter wasn’t written until the next day, though, for Cathcart
dropped in to inquire after Bert and remained to talk awhile, and
before he left Nick and Guy arrived on a similar mission. Nick was
in extremely high spirits, in spite of the fact that two of his
fingers were bound together with surgeon’s tape, and, after Cathcart
had removed his restraining presence, became so hilarious and playful
that Guy and Hugh were forced to improvise a straight-jacket from a
pair of Bert’s discarded football pants. Subsequently, Nick reclined,
neatly trussed, on the window-seat and proclaimed: “I am but mad
north-northwest: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a
handsaw!” Then he began on Hood’s “The Bridge of Sighs,” and, reaching
the lines,
“Mad from life’s history,
Glad to death’s mystery,
Swift to be hurled――
Anywhere, anywhere,
Out of the world!”
he rolled himself off the cushion and reached the floor with a most
terrific bump. After that they gagged him and sat on him.
Sunday turned out frosty and clear, with a blue, blue sky overhead and
scarlet and russet leaves rustling along the paths. In the afternoon
Hugh and Pop ascended Mount Grafton to the observatory on top and held
their caps while they climbed the winding stairway and looked for
miles over the world. Then they found a sunny crevice in the great
pink granite ledge beneath and sat there for a long time, looking
down on the roofs of the school buildings below them, and discussed
many weighty matters. It was not until, comfortably tired and very
hungry, they returned to school that Hugh got that letter written. When
he had finished it, however, and it lay sealed and addressed on the
table, instead of taking it downstairs and dropping it in the mail-box
he slipped it between the leaves of a book and put the book in the
table drawer. In the morning he would hand the letter directly to the
postman, a custom that puzzled Bert and moved him to sarcasm.
There was no reply to his telegram the next forenoon and Hugh was
troubled on Bert’s account. The latter moved back to Lothrop and
attended classes as usual that morning, but, perhaps because he was
uncomfortably bandaged and it hurt him when he took a deep breath,
or perhaps because he was worried over the non-arrival of that
money-order, he was in rather a cantankerous mood. Hugh dispatched
another message to his mother before he went to the field in the
afternoon, addressing it to his home on the chance that she had changed
her plans and returned to Shorefields. Fortunately, no irate creditor
put in an appearance, and Bert took hope and accompanied Hugh to the
field to watch practice.
Hugh found a surprise awaiting him. They had, it seemed, transferred
Hanser to the first team and, since that left the second long on ends
and short on half-backs, Hugh was informed that he was to substitute
Brunswick or Peet behind the line. “Never played half, have you?”
inquired Mr. Crowley brusquely. “Thought not. Well, keep your eyes open
and study the signals. You’re likely to get a chance to show what you
can do today or tomorrow.”
The chance came that afternoon, for Peet, who had taken Hanser’s place,
failed to satisfy the coach and was pulled out five minutes after the
game with the first team began. Hugh, watching Mr. Crowley anxiously,
was half inclined to hope that his choice would fall on the other
substitute, Boynton, for Hugh wasn’t at all convinced of his ability
to play half-back. Possibly, however, the coach wanted to know just
how bad Hugh would prove, for after a quick glance along the bench he
motioned to him.
“Hi, Ordway! Get in there at right half. Use your head, now, and don’t
ball up your signals. Tell Ayer to watch their guard-tackle hole on the
left. Get it? On the _left_!”
Well, on the whole, or “taking it by and large,” as Pop would have
said, Hugh didn’t do so badly that afternoon. He did get his signals
mixed once and he soon proved himself much too light for line-bucking.
But on several occasions when the play was outside of tackle he made
good gains, once reeling off fifteen yards before he was thumped to the
ground by Vail. And on defense he rather did himself proud, working
very smoothly with Forbes, who was back at right end, and Spalding,
the right tackle, when the play came that way. He made the mistakes of
ignorance and he once fumbled a two-yard pass from the quarter, saving
the situation, however, by recovering the ball for a slight loss of
ground. Mr. Crowley cornered him in the dressing room after practice
and told him of a great many things that he had done wrong and advised
him to brush up on the signals. And when the coach had taken himself
off, growling, Captain Myatt salved his wounds with a smile and a “Good
work, Ordway! Hang to it!”
There was one thing that that afternoon’s experience did for Hugh, in
any event. It convinced him that he didn’t want to play end again and
that he did want to play half-back. He would go on being an end this
year, he told himself, but next fall he would go out for a half-back
position and refuse anything else. Playing end wasn’t bad fun, but
there was something about having the ball in the crook of your elbow or
snuggled to your stomach and pitting your wits and speed and strength
against the enemy, that was ten times more exciting. Of course, as soon
as Bert got into harness again Hanser would be returned to the second
and Hugh would be back elbowing Forbes for the outpost position. But
next year!
He said all this to Bert that evening, being far too full of the
afternoon’s adventure to want to study, and Bert, while granting that
there was no comparison in his mind between playing half-back and end,
advised Hugh to stick to his trade. “You didn’t do half badly, Duke,
for you’re certainly just about as quick as they make ’em. Sort of
reminded me today of a cat, the way you jumped off and squirmed around
there. But you’re not heavy enough to keep going, you see. It’s the
foot or two feet or yard that a fellow makes after he’s tackled that
counts. If it was all around-the-end work you’d be rather a star, but
it isn’t. Down near goal you’d have to put your head down and buck the
line, old man. And someone like Ted or Musgrave would stop you so soon
you’d go backward. You stick to being a good end, at least until you’ve
put on weight and grown a bit.”
“I say, I’m not so awfully much smaller than you are,” protested Hugh.
“You’re twenty pounds lighter than I am, at least, and you’re fully
two inches shorter. You――you’ve got to have punch when you go into the
line, Hugh. See what I mean?”
“Oh, yes, I see what you mean,” responded the other slowly, “but that
chap Zanetti isn’t awfully big and heavy, is he? And he played a mighty
good game today when he was in.”
“Jack Zanetti’s been at it four years, and he knows how to use what
weight he has got. So will you when you’ve been playing that long. Now
dry up and let me bone this beastly French rot. You’re worse than a
magpie!”
“All right, old dear. But, I say, Bert, do you think that by next
year――――”
“For the love of mud, shut up! I want to get this done and hit the hay.
If you had a rib that hurt like the dickens every time you moved or
took a breath――――”
Bert subsided with mutters and silence reigned.