THE FOOTBALL GAME
During those fast flying weeks which tread on one another's heels so
rapidly between Thanksgiving and Christmas, came one of the most
important events of the season.
It was announced on the bulletin board as the "Harboard-Snail Football
Game," and was, in fact, a grand burlesque on a game played not long
before between two university teams.
Quite half of the Wellington students took part in the affair and those
who were not actively engaged were placed in the cheer sections to yell
themselves hoarse. There were a dozen doctors, an ambulance, stretcher
bearers, trained nurses and the two teams in proper football attire.
Everybody in college turned out one Saturday afternoon to witness this
elaborate parody. A coach drove over from Exmoor fairly alive with
students, and the fields outside the Wellington athletic grounds were
black with people.
Judy was a member of the corps of physicians who were all dressed alike
in frock coats reaching well below the knees, gray trousers and silk
hats. They had imposing mustaches, carried bags of instruments and were
the most ludicrous of all the actors that day.
But it was the stretcher bearers who seemed to excite the greatest
merriment in the grand parade which took place before the game began.
They were dressed something like "Slivers," the famous clown, in full
white pantaloons and long white coats cut in at the waist with wide
skirts. The members of the cheering sections which headed the grand
column were dressed in every sort of absurd burlesque of a college boy's
clothes that could be devised.
"How they ever collected all those ridiculous costumes is a marvel to
me," exclaimed President Walker to Dr. McLean, whose face had turned an
apoplectic purple from laughter and who occasionally let out a roar of
joy that could be heard all the way across the field.
Following the cheering sections in the parade were the two teams, hardly
recognizable at all as human beings. Their wigs of tousled hair stood
out all over their heads like the petals of enormous chrysanthemums.
Most of them wore nose guards or their faces were made up in a savage
and barbaric fashion. In their wadded football suits, stuffed out of all
human recognition, they resembled trussed fowls. In the vanguard of this
strange and ludicrous procession stalked a gigantic figure of Liberty.
She was about fifteen feet high, and her draperies reached to the
ground. Her long red hair blew in the breezes and she carried a
Wellington banner, which she majestically waved over the heads of the
multitude. By her side ran a dwarf. They were the mascots of the two
sides.
"Why, if that isn't our little friend, Miss Molly Brown," exclaimed
Dr. McLean, pointing to Liberty. "She's a bonnie lass and a sweet one.
Think now, of her being able to walk on those sticks without losing
her balance. It's a verra great achievement, I'm thinking, for a
giddy-headed young woman. For they're all giddy-headed at seventeen or
thereabouts."
It was indeed Molly, the only girl in all Wellington who could walk on
stilts. The seniors had advertised in _The Commune_ for a first-class
"stiltswoman," and Molly had promptly offered her services. Jessie had
been selected as the dwarf.
"I hope the child won't fall and break her neck," said Mrs. McLean on
the other side of the doctor. "It's verra dangerous. Suppose she should
become suddenly faint----"
"Don't suppose anything of the sort, mither. You've no grounds for
thinkin' the lass will tumble. She seems to be at home in the air."
Professor Green, just beyond Mrs. McLean, frowned, and put his hands
in his pockets. He wondered if Dr. McLean had forgotten that he had
been sent for just three weeks before when Molly had fainted in the
gymnasium, and the Professor breathed a sigh of relief when Liberty
presently descended to the earth and the game began.
It was one of the bloodiest and roughest games in the history of
football. The ambulance bell rang constantly. Every time a victim fell,
the cheering section on the other side set up a wild yell. Doctors and
nurses were scattered all about the edges of the field attending to the
wounded and the stretchers were busy every minute. As fast as one man
tumbled another jumped into his place, and at last when there came a
touchdown the players seemed to have fallen on top of each other in a
mad squirming mass.
People laughed that day who were rarely seen to smile. Even Miss Steel's
severe expression relaxed into a cold, steely smile.
Molly had gathered up her long cheesecloth robe and was sitting with
Jessie on a bench at the side of the field.
"Isn't it perfect, Jessie?" she was saying. "I don't think I ever
enjoyed anything so much in all my life. It will make a wonderful letter
home."
Jessie smiled absently. With a pair of field glasses, she was searching
the faces of the spectators for two friends (men, of course), who had
motored over to see the sport. At her belt was pinned the most enormous
bunch of violets ever seen. In fact, they were two bunches worn as one,
from her two admirers. Presently Judith joined them on the bench. Ever
since the Thanksgiving spread she had endeavored to be very nice to
Molly.
"Hello, Ju-ju!" called Jessie; "you are a sight."
"I know it," she said. "I feel that I am a disgrace to the sex. I only
hope I'm not recognizable."
"Your shiny black eye is the only familiar thing about you. The rest is
entirely disguised."
"I think I'd recognize that ring, Miss Blount," put in Molly. "Almost
everybody knows that emerald by sight now, who knows you at all."
Judith glanced quickly at her finger.
"Do you know," she exclaimed, "I forgot I was wearing it? How stupid of
me! I am booked to take Rosamond's place in a minute. Will one of you
girls take care of it for me? I shall be much obliged."
"You'd better take it, Jessie," said Molly, looking rather doubtfully at
the ring. She had only one piece of jewelry to her name, a string of
sapphires, which had belonged to her mother when she was a girl.
But the ring was too big for Jessie's slender, pretty little fingers.
"I can't," she said, "unless I wear it on my thumb, and it might slip
off, you know. You'll have to take it, Molly."
Molly slipped it on her finger and held it up for admiration.
"It's the most beautiful ring I ever saw," she exclaimed. "It's the
color of deep green sea water. Not that I ever saw any, but I've heard
tell of it," she added, laughing.
"You don't mean to say you have never seen the ocean!" cried Judith in
a pleasant tone of voice.
Molly had never seen her so amiable before.
"No," replied the freshman, "this is the nearest I have ever been to
it."
"Well, thanks for taking care of my ring," went on Judith. "I'll see you
after the game," and she departed to take up her duties on the field,
just as Rosamond, at the appointed time, with a gash across her face,
made with finger-nail salve, was borne from the field on a stretcher.
After the game came another grand procession in which all the wounded
took part, Molly on stilts, with Jessie running beside her, as before.
All that morning Molly had felt buoyed up by the fun and excitement of
the great burlesque. But, now that the game was over, as she strode
along on the giant stilts, she began to feel the same overpowering
fatigue she had experienced that night at the living picture show. For
a week she had been living on her nerves. Often at night she had not
slept, but had tossed about on her bed trying to recall her lessons or
make mental notes of things she intended to do. On cold mornings, her
feet and hands were numb and dead and Judy often made her run across the
campus and back to start her circulation. And now that numbness began to
climb from her toes straight up her body. Molly turned unsteadily and
with shaky strides at least six feet long, hastened across the field.
Her feeling that she must get out of the noise and turmoil, away from
everybody in the world, carried her back of a row of sheds under which
the players sat during the intermissions. Once in this quiet place she
let herself down from the stilts. She was conscious of being very cold.
There was a deep red light in the western sky from the setting sun, then
the numbness reached her brain and she remembered nothing more until she
opened her eyes and saw Dr. McLean at one side of her and Professor
Green at the other.
"Here she comes back at last," exclaimed the doctor. "Aye, lass, it's a
good thing this young man has an observant eye. Otherwise ye might have
been lying out here in the cold all night. You feel better now, don't
you?"
"Yes, doctor," answered Molly weakly.
"I don't like these fainting spells, my lass. You're not made of iron,
child. You'll have to give up one thing or t'other--study or play."
But there were other things Molly did beside studying and playing. Of
course the doctor did not know about the "cloud-bursts" and the
shoe-blacking and the tutoring.
"Aye, here comes one of my associates with a carriage," he went on,
chuckling to himself. "Shall we have a consultation now, Dr. Kean?"
Judy, still in her absurd burlesque costume, had driven up in one of the
village surreys.
As the two men lifted Molly into the back seat, she noticed for the
first time that she was wearing a man's overcoat. It was dark blue and
felt warm and comfortable. She slipped her hands into the deep pockets
and snuggled down into its folds. Certainly she felt shivery about the
spine, and her hands and feet, which were never known to be warm, were
now like lumps of ice. As the doctor was still wearing his great coat of
Scotch tweed, it was evidently the coat of the Professor of English
Literature she had appropriated.
"It's awfully good of you to lend me your coat," she said to Professor
Green, who was standing at the side of the carriage while the doctor
climbed in beside her. "I'm afraid you'll take cold without it."
"Nonsense," he said, almost gruffly, "I'm not dressed in cheesecloth."
"But I have on a white sweater under all this," said Molly timidly.
The carriage drove away, however, without his saying another word, and
later that afternoon, after Molly had taken a nap and felt rested and
refreshed, she engaged one of the maids at Queen's cottage to return
Professor Green's overcoat with a message of thanks. Then, with a sigh
of relief, because when she had borrowed anything it always weighed
heavily on her mind, and because she felt somehow that the Professor
was provoked with her, she turned over and went to sleep again.
Just as the clock in the chapel tower sounded midnight she sat up in
bed.
"What is it, Molly, dear?" asked Nance, who was wakeful and uneasy about
her friend.
Molly was looking at her right hand wildly.
"The ring!" she cried. "Judith's emerald ring--it's gone!"
The ring was indeed gone. Neither of her friends had seen it on her
finger since she had been in her room.
It was gone--lost!
"It must have slipped off my finger when I fainted," sobbed the poor
girl.
Nance had summoned Judy at this trying crisis, and the two girls
endeavored to comfort their friend, who seemed to be working herself
into a state of feverish excitement.
"Never mind, we'll find it in the morning, Molly," cried Nance. "You
know exactly where it was you fell, don't you? Somewhere behind the
sheds. It's sure to be there. Judy and I promise to go there first
thing, don't we, Judy?"
"Yes, indeed," acquiesced Judy, who loved her morning sleep better than
anything in life. But Judy was learning unselfishness since she had been
associating with Molly and Nance.
There was no more sleep for poor Molly that night, however, and she lay
through the dragging hours with strained nerves and throbbing temples
wondering what would happen if she did not find the ring.