CHAPTER V
THE BOXFORD GAME
The first cold snap gave way again to Indian summer with just enoughnorthwest wind to make good football weather. The practice went ondiligently. Lesser rivals came week by week to Deal and literally andmetaphorically bit the dust ere the great Boxford game drew near. Theschool was a-quiver with excitement. The form leaders marshalled theboys onto the field in the bright clear afternoons and stimulated themto cheer until they were hoarse. The _pros_ and _cons_ of winning werethe principal theme of conversation during recreation times, and hoursand minutes were counted as the great day came nearer and nearer.
The day before the game a mass meeting was held in the Gymnasium,and the Head and Mr. Stenton and such other masters as had athleticproclivities were called upon for speeches, while the boys cheeredeverything enthusiastically without discrimination. Sandy Maclaren, thedoughty captain of the eleven, mounted the rostrum amongst others, anddelivered his sentiments in a terse series of twelve stammering words,“Boys, we’ve got to win; and that’s all I have to say,” which wasgreeted with an applause that more skilled orators seldom evoke. Theform games were over, and the form teams had disbanded; all effort wasconcentrated now upon the chief game of the year.
Tony, from his place amongst the scrub players, heard it allwith tingling ears and beating heart, absorbing that intangibleenergy—school spirit—as air into his lungs. This unexpected andvehement stirring of his emotions bewildered him. He thought he wasjust beginning to understand what love of school might mean. Then theysang “Here’s to good old Deal” and “There’s a wind that blows o’er thesea-girt isle” in a fashion that brought the heart to the throat andtears of exquisite happiness to the eyes. And at last Doctor Foresterdismissed them with a few encouraging words that sounded very much likea blessing.
Jimmie Lawrence sought Tony’s side, as the boys poured out of theGymnasium. “Hey, Tony, ain’t it grand?” he exclaimed, as he twined hisarms around his friend’s neck. “Oh, say, boy, we’ve _got_ to win.”
Tony gave a little gulp and squeezed Jimmie’s hand. “Oh, Jimmie, Inever felt so great in all my life.”
The night before the game they were in Jimmie’s rooms in Standerlandand a crowd of Third Formers came trooping in. “No school to-night,”cried Kit Wilson, “there’s to be a P-rade around the campus ateight-thirty sharp. Tony, you lucky dog, don’t it feel good even to bea despised scrub?”
Tony laughed. “Say, fellows, you don’t know how it all strikes agreenhorn like me. Why, it makes me feel bully to be alive.” And ashe stood there in the center of the room, with smiling friendly facesabout him, health and excitement glowing in his cheeks and a happysmile playing on his boyish lips, there was an unconscious feelingwithin them all that it was bully for him to be alive.
Rush Merton, an irrepressible, black eyed, black haired youth, proposeda fresh song and started to bellow it forth, but the boys were keenfor talk and promptly smothered him with sofa pillows—an assault thatwas resented so violently that in much less time than it takes to tellJimmie’s attractive rooms were in that sad condition, technicallyknown as “rough-house.” In the midst of the hubbub a stentorian voicemade itself heard, “Here stop this nonsense!” And Jack Stenton, thehardy popular athletic director, came in. “Don’t make nuisances ofyourselves, children. Pick up those sofa pillows, compose yourselves,and listen to words of wisdom from an older and wiser man.”
“Hear, hear!” came in boisterous good-nature from a dozen throats.Rush gathered himself together from the pile of cushions, made anabsurd bow, and indicated Mr. Stenton with a pompous wave of thehand. “Gentlemen, I yield the center of attention (and the center ofgravity,” he added _sotto voce_) “to our beloved athletic director. Mr.Athletic Director, we are all ears.”
“Good! You are all Third Formers, eh?” said Stenton, with a smile, ashe looked them over good-naturedly. “I fancied that I might find youcongregated in this den of iniquity. Well, I have come up here to tellyou fellows how much I appreciate Kit Wilson’s spirit in cheerfullygiving his best form players to the scrub. He has set an example tothe other forms that is bound to be a fine thing for the athleticsof the school. And I want to tell you also that the form, this time,is going to get something out of it—an honor that I don’t think hasfallen to the Third Form previous to this in the history of DealSchool. After due consideration Captain Maclaren and I have decided toplay Deering at left end in to-morrow’s game.”
For a moment there was silence, due to the overwhelming surprise, forthey had hardly dared hope that Tony would be given a chance exceptas a substitute; and this meant that he had won out against Marsh whohad played on the team last year. Deering himself looked in helplessamazement, first at Stenton, then at his form mates. Jimmie broke thestillness at last by exclaiming in a shrill voice, “Come to my arms, myfrabjous boy,” and clasped Tony wildly about the waist. Then the cheersrang forth, despite Stenton’s protest, until Mr. Morris came runningout of his study to find out what the racket was.
“Come, come,” Mr. Stenton cried at last, “cut this now; and you, young‘un, get to bed and don’t celebrate any more to-night. Hello, Mr.Morris, we have decided to put Deering in the game to-morrow—hencethis bedlam.”
“That’s fine!” exclaimed Morris heartily, as he shook Tony’s hand.“But you boys had better get out now and join the procession; they aremeeting before the Chapel.”
AFTER DUE CONSIDERATION CAPTAIN MACLAREN AND I HAVEDECIDED TO PLAY DEERING AT LEFT END IN TO-MORROW’S GAME.]
At last they were gone, having wrung Tony’s hand two or three timeseach, and Deering and Lawrence were left alone. For a moment neitherboy spoke, but stood looking at each other, their eyes glistening withfriendliness that had been heightened by the excitement and the commonjoy. Jimmie was as unaffectedly glad as if the honor had come to him.Then Tony slipped into a chair by the window, and putting his head uponhis hands stared out upon the campus, which was beginning to be coveredwith groups of boys, converging toward the Chapel. “I wish old Jack hadlet me go out and help celebrate,” he said, with a little laugh. “Ican’t sleep if I do go to bed.”
Jimmie sat down on the chair, and slipped his arm about Tony’s neck.“You must, dear old boy, all the same; ‘cause you’ve got to win for us.”
Tony laughed, and clasping Jimmie’s hand, he looked up at him with asudden seriousness that in after days Jimmie was to recall as havingbeen profoundly significant. “Jim,” he said, “I know that Sandy andLarry Cummings and Chapin and the rest of ‘em can play football athousand times better than I will ever do, but just the same there’ssomething that kind of tells me that I am going to have my chanceto-morrow in a special way. I must do something to prove to Jack andSandy that they aren’t making a mistake. Oh, Jim, you don’t know how Ifeel—awfully puffed up and absurdly small. I wish it were you.”
“You’re all right, old boy; and Sandy and Jack know their business ablame sight better than we do. Now cut it for bed, and I’ll go out andhelp make the night hideous.”
In his own rooms, where Tony went as soon as Jimmie left him, he foundCarroll deep in a Morris chair and the pages of a French novel. “Hello,Reggie,” he cried, “aren’t you going to p-rade?”
“Not I, kiddo,” answered Carroll, indifferently. “I fancy I’ve reachedthat patriarchal age, in spirit if not in the flesh, when one puts awaychildish things. I am mildly moved, however, to go and tell Stenton andMaclaren that I approve of them, but I’ll content myself with sayingthat to you. It is worth while to have swift-moving pedalities, isn’tit?”
“So it seems,” Tony muttered, a little disappointed by the coolness ofhis friend’s tone. “Well, good-night,” he added, “I am going to turnin.”
Carroll had not meant to be supercilious, and for a moment after Tonyleft him, avoiding his glance as he had, he laid down his novel andstarted toward Deering’s bedroom. His hand was almost on the knob, thegenerous hearty words on his lips, but he hesitated, and at last turnedback and took up h
is book. The study door was open, and at that momentMr. Morris paused at it, evidently on his way to the campus.
“Not celebrating, Reginald?” he enquired.
“No, Mr. Morris,” answered Carroll, rising.
A momentary wave of anger swept over Morris’s strong kindly face. “Isit that your school spirit is so slack or that your French novel is soabsorbing?”
Carroll bowed with an icy politeness. “I am afraid, Mr. Morris,” hesaid at last, with compressed lips, “that whichever explanation I gavewould mean the same to you.”
“I am afraid it would, Reginald,” said Mr. Morris, as he turned away,with something like a sigh. “Good-night.”
“Good-night, sir.”
Carroll sat for a long time without reading, listening to the shoutsupon the campus. At length he picked up his novel, went into hisbedroom, and undressed. Before getting into bed, he darkened histransom, lighted a small electric night-lamp, and laid a pad and pencilon the table by his bedside. For an hour or more, long after theexcitement had ebbed without and the boys had got back and gone noisilyto bed, long after he had heard the watchman make his stealthy midnightrounds, Carroll sat there in bed, gazing dreamily out of his windowupon the moonlit sea and the misty outlines of Lovel’s Woods and at theruby intermittent glow of Deigr Light, and now and then he jotted downa line or word upon the pad. This was what he wrote:
The pure stars shine above the flowing sea, The strand is gleaming in the moon’s soft light, The south wind blows across the murky lea, The lamps of Monday glimmer in the night.
The moon sags slowly in the violet west, A yellow crescent, cloud-hung all about, As though in weariness it sinks to rest, And one by one the glowing lamps go out.
So flutter all the little weary souls In trembling dreams a moment and are still; The school is wrapped in darkness; on the shoals The tide turns; night enfolds the silent hill.
* * * * *
The day of the game turned out bright and fair, after a dull graymorning, with ozone and freshness in the nippy air of early November.Recitations of a sort were held in the morning, though to be sure mostof the masters fell into reminiscent vein and àpropos of nothing atall told their classes stories of the bygone heroes of the School—ofNifty Turner’s mighty kick and Pard’s immortal run from the enemy’sten-yard line. Mr. Roylston alone had the ability and the temerityto hold his form down to an unrelieved discussion of the sequence oftenses in _Cæsar_ and mercilessly put Kit Wilson into detention formisconstruing an obvious Imperfect with the remark, “I guess to-day itis an Historical Present.” Kit served his detention and passed intohistory.
The team, including Tony in a brand-new red sweater with a gorgeousblack “D” across the breast, were excused from school at noon, and haddinner in the Refectory with the Boxfordians, who had coached acrossthe hills in the morning. By two o’clock the teams were on the field,passing footballs, catching punts and kicking goals in regulationfashion.
The boys poured out of the Schoolhouse after two o’clock call-over,and crowded the side lines, while the faculty and their wives anddistinguished visitors from Boxford and Monday Port filled the line ofwooden bleachers which had been run up the day before.
Doctor Forester and the Head Master of Boxford walked up and downwithin the lines, repeating the same amiable courtesies and remarksabout the weather and the view and the condition of the teams thatthey had made for years, as though this were the first instead of thetwentieth struggle in which Deal and Boxford had been engaged. It was aspecially important game, as the score in games between the two schoolswas a tie.
The present scribe, who was not a football player, cannot undertake todescribe that eventful game in technical language. The intricacies offormation and mass play were beyond his humble abilities at school, ashe has no doubt they are to the majority of people who neverthelessfollow the game with as keen interest as if they knew it. That isto say, it is inconceivable to him, that anything could be quite asexciting to a Deal boy or a Kingsbridge man as to see his school orcollege team pressing nearer and nearer the coveted goal, or to watcha fleet-footed boy dodge through a broken field, sprint as though thefate of empires hung upon his fleetness, and sprawl gloriously at lastbehind the enemy’s line on top of the ball. The technically curious arereferred to Vol. LX, No. 2 of the _Deal Literary Magazine_, where theywill find a more accurate account than they certainly will find in thepages of this chronicle. They will miss there, however, an incident,which impresses the scribe as having been the most important of thegame.
Suffice it, the ball was kicked off at three o’clock by the Boxfordcenter, and went sailing down the field into the arms of Sandy Maclarenon the ten-yard line, and eleven blue-garbed Boxfordians went chasingafter it lipity-cut. Here one described a graceful parabola as hisknees encountered the hardy back of Arthur Chapin, another went flyingoff involuntarily in a reverse direction as he caught Deering’s handin his ribs, but one, surer than the rest, dived for a tackle andlaid Sandy low just as he was crossing the thirty-yard line. Cheersrang out indiscriminately from both sides of the field, until thescattered teams had run together, and, kneeling face to face, withhands clenched, faces grimly set, the muscles a-quiver, waited whileKid Drayton, Deal’s little quarter-back, gave the signals in his highshrill voice, “Forty-nine, eleven, sixteen.” Then the ball was snapped,and Chapin, the half-back, was hurled through a hole in Boxford’s linefor a gain of seven yards. Once, twice, thrice, the Deal boys madetheir distance to the indescribable joy of their supporters. Then theBoxford team, recovering from the unexpected strength of the firstonslaught, stiffened and became as a stone wall, and held Deal forthree downs, so that Thorndyke, the full-back, dropped behind for akick. The oval went spinning through the air, Tony speeding away almostunder it, dodging the player who tried to intercept him, so that asthe Boxford half leaned back to catch the ball, he downed him in histracks. For the first time Tony heard the _Sis_, _Boom_, _Ah!_ of therippling cheer ring out with his own name tacked on to the end of it.
Back and forth, now tucked tight under the arm of a red or a bluesweater, now sailing luxuriously in the air, the ball was worked overthe field; near Boxford’s goal, near Deal’s; or worried like a rat bya pack of terriers in the middle of the gridiron. The two teams werealmost equally matched, and the first half ended without a score.
“You are doing well, young ‘un,” said Stenton to Tony, as he stood inthe center of the Deal team in the locker-rooms under the Gymnasiumbetween the halves. “Give him a chance, Drayton, and send him aroundright end. I think it will work.”
“All right, sir,” the little quarter-back squeaked. “I’ve been countingon Chapin mostly, but toward the end he seemed to be completelytuckered.”
Chapin looked up from the bench where he was sitting. “You were soblame winded yourself that you could hardly give the signals,” hesnarled.
“Drop that kind of talk!” exclaimed Stenton. “You have been playinglike a tackling dummy for the last ten minutes. If you want to lose thegame for us keep that up.”
“I am playing the best game I know,” Chapin answered surlily. “If youdon’t like it,” he muttered, though Stenton did not hear him, “go getanother of your Third Form pets. You chucked Marsh, one of your bestplayers.”
The second half opened, and each team seemed to come back fresher tothe fray. With a few trifling exceptions there had been no injuries.Chapin seemed the only boy on whom the strain was telling, and Stentoncorrectly surmised that that was because he had not been keepingtraining. And as a matter of fact at a fatal moment his form told. Theball had been worked down well toward Deal’s goal line, and each timethrough Chapin. Suddenly the Boxford full-back dropped back for a kick:the center sent the ball spinning to him, and a second later he made adrop kick that sent the ball like a great bird sailing majesticallybetween the Deal goal posts. And the score was 4 to 0 in favor ofBoxford.
Pandemonium broke loose on the visitors’ side-lines,
while the homeboys were still with apprehension and disappointment. Soon the ballwas back in the center of the field in Deal’s possession, and wasbeing pushed, inevitably it appeared, toward Boxford’s goal, and thestrident cries of “Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown!” rang across thecampus from the throats of three hundred Deal boys. “How much time?”cried Sandy. “Three minutes to play!” called the time-keeper, and hisominous words were taken up and repeated by the referee. Tony felt asif his heart would break. Why, why, why, he wondered, did not Draytongive him a chance? And Jack Stenton, anxiously pacing the side-lines,wondered too. And then suddenly Tony heard Kid’s squeaky voice ringout, “Sixteen, twenty-two, one,”—his signal! And bracing nerves andsinews, he waited breathlessly as the left half received the ball,and, dodging the arms of the Boxford player who had broken through,thrust the smooth little pigskin into Tony’s arms. Away he dashed,with Chapin, Maclaren, and Thorndyke interfering, round right end. Hethrust his hand into the shoulder of the opposing tackle, successfullydodged a heavy Boxford boy who had dived to tackle, and with Chapinby his side, went tearing down the field, which was perfectly opensave for the frantic quarter-back of the Boxford team, who was dashingforward to intercept him. Thirty yards more and the game was won! butthe quarter-back was almost upon him. “Keep ahead! keep ahead!” hescreamed at Chapin, who seemed for the instant to be lagging behind.Twenty yards!—and he could see the Boxford quarter dashing diagonallyacross the field toward him, and almost feel his arms pinioning hislegs. An instantaneous glance—yes, yes, he could make it if Chapinwould only keep up with him and ward off that quarter as he made hislunge. Then, just as the Deal boys rose to a man, with a franticcheer, the supreme moment was come. The line was reached, but suddenlyDeering felt a jolt; the quarter’s arms were about his waist, as theywent sprawling toward the goal-line; but another arm clothed in a_red_ sweater had thrust itself next Tony’s body and given the ball aterrific shove. In an agony of horror, as he fell heavily to earth, hesaw the football fall out of his arms, bound to the ground in front ofthem, and Chapin and the Boxford quarter lunge together, as they allwent down in the mêlée. But the Boxford boy was on the ball and hadscored a touchback!
There was a shrill whistle, and the crowd of players were about them,the Deal boys uttering harsh cries of anger and disappointment; theBoxford boys cheering in delirious joy, and above it all a hoarse voicescreaming “Time! time!” Tony pulled himself together. “What’s that?”he exclaimed in bewildered fashion. “Deal this way,” yelled SandyMaclaren; and then to him in a contemptuous aside, “The game’s over,you fool; get up and cheer.”
Suddenly he realized the whole situation, realized much more thanany one else did at that strenuous moment, for he remembered thered-clothed arm that was responsible for the catastrophe of his losingthe ball, and he gave a long look full into Chapin’s face, but heldhis tongue. With a sudden overwhelming bitterness he realized thatChapin had had his revenge.
As soon as the cheer was over he ran across the field toward theGymnasium, passing Jack Stenton on the way, who gave him a glance ofunmitigated disgust. “Couldn’t you have kept from fumbling for onesecond when the game was in your hands?” he hissed at him, forgettinghimself in his bitter disappointment. Tony bent his head and ranon—not back to the lockers, but to his own room in Standerland, wherehe locked himself in. He refused to open even to Jimmie Lawrence, whocame knocking there presently, loyal despite his grief, anxious only tocommiserate his friend, whom he knew was suffering more keenly than anyof the rest of them.