BEFORE THE BATTLE.
"Harwell, Harwell, Harwell! Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah,
Harwell!"
The lobby grew empty on the instant, and outside on the steps and on the
sidewalk the crowd spread itself. The procession had just turned the
corner, the college band leading.
"The freshmen won!" cried a voice on the edge of the throng, and the
news was passed along from man to man until it swept up the steps,
through the lobby and to the dining room upstairs where the football men
of the Varsity team were impatiently awaiting lunch. "A good omen," said
the head coach.
Below in the street admonitory thumps upon the great drum, with its
college coat-of-arms on the head, were heard, and a moment later the
shouts of the exuberant freshmen and their allies were drowned in the
first strains of the college song. Off came the silk hats of the
frock-coated graduates and the plaided golf caps of the students, and
side by side there in the sun-swept street they lifted their voices in
the sweet, measured strains of the dear familiar hymn. And stout,
placid-faced men of fifty, with comfortable bank accounts and incipient
twinges of gout, felt the unaccustomed dimming of the sight that
presages tears, and boyish, carefree students, to whom the song was as
much an everyday affair as D marks and unpaid bills, felt strange
stirrings in their breasts, and with voices that stumbled strangely over
the top notes sang louder and louder. And upstairs in the dining room
many a throat grew hard and "lumpy" as the refrain came in at the
open windows.
But, as the trainer muttered presently, it was only the freshmen who had
won, and the real battle of the day was yet to come. And soon the band
and the shouting parade wheeled away from beneath the windows and swung
off up the street to make known far and wide the greatness of Harwell,
her freshmen, and the grandeur of their victory over the youngsters of
Yates. And, as the last cheer floated up from the procession as it
disappeared around a far corner, lunch was served, and player and coach,
trainer and rubber, substitute and mascot, drew up to the last meal
before--what? Victory or defeat?
It was not a merry repast, that lunch before the fray. Some men could
not bring themselves to eat at all until the coaches commanded with dire
threats. Others, as though nothing out of the ordinary was about to take
place, ate heartily, hungrily, of everything set before them. At the far
end of the room Joel March played with his steak and tried to delude
himself into thinking he was eating. He felt rather upset, and weak in
the joints, and as for the lad's stomach it had revolted at sight of the
very first egg. But luckily the last meal before a game has little
effect one way or the other upon the partaker, since he is already keyed
up, mentally and physically, to a certain pitch, and nothing short of
cold poison can alter it.
In the streets below, for blocks in all directions, the crowds surged up
and down, and shouts for Harwell and yells for Yates arose like
challenges in the afternoon air. Friends met who had not done so for
years, enemies accorded enemies bows of recognition ere they remembered
their enmity. The deep blue and the deeper crimson passed and
counterpassed, brushed and fluttered side by side, and lighted up the
little college city till it looked like a garden of roses and violets.
And everywhere, over all, was the tensity that ever reigns before a
battle.
The voices of the ticket speculator and of the merchant of "Offish'l
Score Cards" were heard upon every side. The street cars poked their
blunt noses through the crowd which closed in again behind them like
water about the stern of a ship. Violets blossomed or crimson
chrysanthemums bloomed upon every coat and wrap, or hung pendant from
the handle of cane and umbrella. The flags of Harwell and Yates, the
white H and white Y, were everywhere. Shop windows were partisan to the
blue, but held dashes of crimson as a sop to the demands of hospitality
and welcome.
At one o'clock the exodus from town began. Along the road that leads to
the football field hurried the sellers of rush cushions and badges, of
score cards and pencils, of blue and crimson flags and cheap canes, of
peanuts and sandwiches, of soda water and sarsaparilla, bent upon
securing advantageous stands about the entrance. A quarter of an hour
later the spectators were on the way. The cars, filled in and out with
shouting humanity, crept slowly along, a bare half block separating
them. Roystering students swung arm in arm in eccentric dance from side
to side across the street. Ladies with their escorts hurried along the
sidewalks. Carriages, bright with fluttering flags, rolled by. Bicycles
darted in and out, their riders throwing words of salutation over their
shoulders to friends by the way. In the windows along the route was
displayed the bravery of blue banners. A window in a college hall was
piled high with great comfortable-looking pillows, each bearing a great
challenging Y in white ribbon or embroidery. And overhead the sky arched
a broad blue expanse from horizon to horizon.
In this manner on some fair morning, centuries ago, did all Greece wend
its way to the Stadium and the Games of Olympia.
In the hotel the lunch was over and that terrible age between it and the
arrival of the coaches was dragging its weary length along. Joel and
Blair were standing by the window talking in voices that tried to be
calm, cool and indifferent, but which were neither.
"They're offering bets of ten to nine downstairs that Yates wins,"
remarked Blair with elaborate composure.
"Are they?" responded Joel absent-mindedly, thinking the while of the
signal for the second sequence. "I thought the odds were even."
"They were until the news about Chesney's shoulder got about."
"But there isn't really anything the matter with his shoulder, is
there?"
"No. No one knows how the story got out. Whipple was taking all he could
get a while ago."
"Some one wants to see you at the door, March," called the trainer, and
Joel found Outfield West, smiling and happy, waiting there.
"How are you?" he whispered. "All right? How are the rest? Great Gobble,
Joel, but these Yates Johnnies are so sure of winning that they can't
keep still! There's a rumor here in the lobby that Yates's center is
sick. Know anything about it?" Joel shook his head. "Well, I'll see you
out at the field. We're going out now; Cooke, and Caldwell, and some of
the others. So long, my valiant lad. Keep a stiff upper lip and never
say die, and all that, you know. Adios!"
There was a cheer below, and Blair, at the window, announced the
arrival of the conveyances. Instantly the lethargy of a minute before
was turned to excited bustle and confusion. Pads and nose-guards,
jerseys and coats, balls and satchels were seized and laid aside and
grabbed up again. Cries for missing apparel and paraphernalia were heard
on every side, and only a loud, peremptory command to "Shut up!" from
the head coach restored order and quietude. Then the door was thrown
open and down the narrow stairs they trooped, through the crowded lobby
where friends hemmed them about, patting the broad backs, shouting words
of cheer into their ears, and delaying them in their passage.
Into the coaches they hurried, and as the crowd about the hotel burst
into loud, ringing cheers, the whips were cracked and the journey to the
field began. The route lay along quiet, unfrequented streets where only
an occasional cheer from a college window met their advent. Restraint
had worn off now, and the fellows were chatting fast and furiously. Joel
looked out at the handsome homes and sunny street, and was aware only of
a longing to be in the fray, an impatient desire to be doing. Briscom,
the substitute centre, a youth of twenty-one summers and one hundred and
ninety-eight pounds, sat beside him.
"I was here two years ago with the freshman team," he was saying. "We
didn't do a thing to them, we youngsters, although the Varsity was
licked badly. And all during the afternoon game we sat together and
cheered, until at five o'clock I couldn't speak above a whisper. That
was a great game, that freshman contest! It took three hours and a half
to settle it. At the beginning of the second half there were only three
men on our team who had played in the first. I was one of them. I was
playing left guard. Story there was another. He gave up before the game
was through, though. I held out and when the whistle sounded, down I
went on the grass and didn't stir for ten minutes. We had two referees
that day. The first chap got hurt in a rush, and it took us half an hour
to find a fellow brave enough to take his place. That _was_ a game.
Football's tame nowadays."
Across the coach Rutland, the right guard, a big bronze-haired chap of
one hundred and ninety-six, was deep in a discussion with "Judge" Chase,
right end, on an obscure point of ruling.
"If you're making a fair catch and a player on the other side runs
against you intentionally or otherwise, you're interfered with, and the
rules give your side fifteen yards," declared Rutland.
"Not if the interference is accidental and doesn't hurt your catch,"
replied Chase. "If the other fellow is running and can't stop in time--"
"Shut up, you fellows," growled Captain Button. "You play the game, and
the referee will look after the rules for you."
"If you go on," said Briscom, "you must be careful about holding. De
Farge (the referee) is awfully down on holding and off-side plays. Last
year he penalized us eight times during the game. But he's all right,
just the same. He's the finest little ref that ever tossed a coin."
"I fear I won't get a show," mourned Joel.
"You can't tell," answered Briscom knowingly. "Last year there were two
fellows ahead of me and I got on for twenty minutes of the last half.
Trueland bent his ankle, Chesney hurt his knee, and Condon got whacked
on the head. Watch the game every minute of the time, March, and learn
how the Yates halves play the game. Then if you do go on you won't be in
the dark."
The coaches rolled up to the players' entrance to the field, and the
fellows hopped out and disappeared into the quarters.
The time was two o'clock. The gates were still thronged, although to the
people already on the stands it was a puzzle where the newcomers were
going to find seats. On the east side of the field Yates held open
house. From end to end, and overflowing half way around both north and
south stands, the blue of Yates fluttered in the little afternoon breeze
till that portion of the field looked like a bank of violets.
On the west stand tier after tier of crimson arose until it waved
against the limitless blue of the sky. Countless flags dipped and
circled, crimson bonnets gleamed everywhere, and great bunches of
swaying chrysanthemums nodded and becked to each other. All collegedom
with its friends and relations was here; all collegedom, that is, within
traveling distance; beyond that, eager eyes were watching the bulletin
boards from Maine to Mojave.
The cheering had begun. Starting at one end of the west stand the slogan
sped, section by section, growing in volume as it went, and causing the
crimson flags and banners to dance and leap in the sunlight. Across the
field answering cheers thundered out and the bank of violets trembled as
though a wind ruffled it. In front of the north stand the Yates college
band added the martial strains of The Stars and Stripes Forever to the
general pandemonium of enthusiasm.
Then along the west stand a ripple of laughter which grew into a loud
cheer traveled, as a bent and decrepit figure attired in a long black
frock coat and high silk hat, the latter banded with crimson ribbon,
came into sight down the field. It was the old fruit seller of Harwell,
whose years are beyond reckoning, and who is remembered by the oldest
graduates. On he came, his old, wrinkled face grimacing in toothless
smiles, his ribboned cane waving in his trembling hand, and his
well-nigh bald head bowing a welcome to the watchers. For it was not he
who was the guest, for from time almost immemorial the old fruit seller
has presided at the contests of Harwell, rejoicing in her victories,
lamenting over her defeats. Down the line he limped, while gray-haired
graduates and downy-lipped undergrads cheered him loyally, calling his
name over and over, and so back to a seat in the middle of the stand,
from where all through the battle his crimson-bedecked cane waved
unceasingly.
He was not the only one welcomed by the throng. A great jurist,
chrysanthemumed from collar to waist, bowed jovial acknowledgment of the
applause his appearance summoned. The governor of a State came too to
see once more the crimson of his alma mater clashing with the blue of
her old enemy. Professors, who had put aside their books, beamed
benevolently through their glasses as they walked somewhat embarrassedly
past the grinning faces of their pupils. Old football players, former
captains, bygone masters of rowing, commanders of olden baseball teams,
all these and many more were there and were welcomed heartily,
tumultuously, by the wearers of the red. And through it all the cheers
went on, the college songs were sung, and the hearts of youth and age
were happy and glad together.
Then the cry of "Here they come!" traveled along the field, and the
blue-clad warriors leaped into the arena at the far end, and the east
stand went delirious, and flags waved, and a tempest shook the bank
of violets.
"Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Yates!"
And almost simultaneously the west stand arose and its voice arose to
the sky in wild, frenzied shouts of:
"Har-well, Har-well, Har-well, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah,
Har-well! Har-well! Har-well!"
For over the fence came the head coach, and big Chesney, and Captain
Dutton, Story, the little quarter-back, and all the others, a long line
of crimson-stockinged warriors, with Joel March, Briscom, Bedford, and
the other substitutes flocking along in the tag end of the procession.
Over the field the two Elevens spread, while cheer after cheer met in
mid-field, clashed, and rolled upward to the blue. Then came a bare five
minutes of punting, dropping, passing, snapping, ere the officials
appeared from somewhere and gathered the opposing captains to them. A
coin flashed in the sunlight, spun aloft, descended, and was caught in
the referee's palm. "Heads!" cried Ferguson, the Yates captain. "Heads
it is!" announced the referee.
The substitutes retreated unwillingly to the side lines, the Harwell men
spread themselves over the north end of the gridiron, Elton, the Yates
full-back, ground his heel into the turf and pointed the ball, the
cheering ceased, the whistle piped merrily, the bright new ball soared
aloft on its arching flight, and the game of the year was on.