Ralph Henry Barbour

“ In the old days when a guard had only his small territory between centre and tackle to cover, Don would have been an ideal player for the position, but now, when a guard's duties are to free-lance, so to speak, from one end of the line to the other and to get into the play no matter where it comes, Don's qualifications were more limited. A guard in these amazing times is "soldier and sailor too," and Don, who liked to deal with one idea at a time, found it a bit confusing to have to grapple with a half-dozen! ”

“ He had lost his position with the team and had been publicly branded a quitter. The fact that his conscience was not only clear but even approving didn't help much. Being thought a quitter, a coward, hurt badly. If he could have got at Harry Walton any time during the ensuing half-hour it would have gone hard with that youth. After a time, though, he got command of his feelings again and, since there was nothing better to do, he seated himself at the window and watched as much of the football game as was visible from there. ”

“ Don sat on the bench and watched the game with Thacher School. With him were nearly a dozen other substitutes, but they, unlike Don, were in football togs and might, in fact probably would, get into the game sooner or later. There was no such luck for Don so long as his hand remained swathed in bandages, and he was silently bewailing his luck. At his right sat Danny Moore, chin in hand and elbow in palm, viewing the contest from half-closed eyes. The trainer was small and red of hair and very freckled, and he was thoroughly Irish and, in the manner of his race, mightily proud of it. ”

“ Robey.
"Pessimist!" laughed the other. "But never mind; ashes or grass, something's there, and you can't see it and yet you've got to acknowledge the existence of it. Now haven't you?"
"I suppose so, but"—Mr. Robey laughed—"I'd rather see it!"
"Climb the fence and have a look then! But you'll try my plan with the boy, won't you?"
"Yes, I will. If only to satisfy my curiosity, Gus. Hang it, the chap can't be a quitter!"
"He isn't. I'll stake my reputation as—as a romanticist on that! I'd like mighty well to stay and solve the mystery with you, but I'll have to jump for that early train. ”

“ Chambers yielded half the gridiron and Coach Robey approached the bench. "All right, first and second squads," he said cheerfully. "Try your signals out, but take it easy. Rollins, you'd better try a half-dozen goals. Martin, too. How about you, Gilbert? You feeling all right?"
Don felt the colour seeping out of his cheeks as the coach turned toward him, and there was an instant of silence before he replied with lowered eyes.
"N-no, sir, I'm not feeling very—very fit. I'm sorry."
"You're not?" Mr. Robey's voice had an edge. "Danny says you're perfectly fit. What's wrong?" ”

“ And now there's one other thing I want to say before I make way for someone who can really talk. It's this, fellows. Don't forget the team that has helped us all season, the team that doesn't get into the limelight. And don't forget the coach, who has worked just as hard, perhaps a good deal harder, to develop that team than I've worked. I'm going to ask you to show your appreciation of the unselfish devotion of Coach Boutelle and one of the finest second teams Brimfield has ever had! ”

“ You're acting like a baby, that's what you're doing! It's all fine enough to say that you don't care what fellows say as long as you don't hear it, but you don't mean it, Don. You would care. And so would I. If you don't want them to think you a quitter, for the love of mud don't run away like—like one!"
"I've thought of all that, Tim, but it's the only thing to do."
"The only thing to do, your grandmother! The thing to do is to stick around and show folks that you're not a quitter. Don't you see that getting out is the one thing that'll make them believe Robey was right?" ”

“ If Josh wants to let us all off, all right, but I'm not going to ask for a—a special dispensation!"
"You don't need to," said Tim. "Let the fellows do it. That has nothing to do with you. What's to keep us from going ahead and getting up a petition?"
"Because I ask you not to," replied Tom simply. "It's only fair that we should all be punished alike."
"But you're not," said Don. [237]
"We're not? Why aren't we?" asked Tom in surprise.
"Because you're getting it harder than Amy and Harry Westcott and the others," answered Don quietly. "They aren't barred from any sport, and you are." ”

“ I don't care about the others. It's Tom I'm sorry for. And the team, too. Pryme can't fill Tom's shoes, and we'll get everlastingly walloped, and it'll be my fault, and——"
"Piffle! Tom's a good player, one of the best, but he isn't the whole team. Pryme will play the position nearly as well. I'm sorry for Tom, too, but he's the one who will have to do the worrying, I guess. Now you buck up and quit looking like a kicked cur."
"If only the fellows didn't have it in for him the way they have," mourned Amy. "Everyone's down on him and he knows it and he's worried to death about it. ”

“ Tom scowled intently for a moment. "Look here. It's this way. Josh put a bunch of us on pro, didn't he? Well, what right have I to go and ask to be let off just because I happen to be a football man? You don't suppose those other fellows like it any better than I do, do you?"
"Oh, forget that! I'm one of them, and I'm having the time of my life. It's been the making of me, Tom. I'm getting so blamed full of learning that I'll be able to loaf all the rest of the year; live on my income, so to say." And Amy beamed proudly. ”

“ What's done is done, and we've got to make the best of it, and a laugh never hurt anyone yet."
"Well, then, let's make the best of it," answered Tom peevishly. "Talking doesn't do any good."
"Neither does grouching," said Tim sweetly. "You leave it all to Clint and me, Tom. We're a swell pair of fixers. If we can get to Brady before Josh does we're all right. And it's a safe wager Josh hasn't asked Brady yet, for if he had he'd be on to us. There's the nine o'clock bell, fellows, and I've got a recit. See you later. Hope for the best, Tom, and fear the worst!" ”

“ There's no denying that Mr. Moller knew how to dress or that the effect was pleasing. But Brimfield wasn't educated to such magnificence and Brimfield gasped loudly the first time Mr. Moller burst on its sight. Afterward it laughed until the novelty began to wear off. Mr. Moller was a capable instructor and a likeable man, although it took Brimfield all of the first term to discover the latter fact owing to the master's dignified aloofness. Being but a scant eight years the senior of some of his pupils, he perhaps felt it necessary to emphasise his dignity a little. ”

“ I don't say that the Claflin eleven is any better than ours. I don't think so, not for a moment. Our team this Fall is as good as last year's team. We've had our little upsets; we always do; but we've come down to practically the eve of the game in good shape. Every fellow has done his best and, I am firmly convinced, is going to do a little better than his best on Saturday afternoon. And that little better is what will decide the game, fellows. After the coaches have done their part and the players have toiled hard and earnestly and enthusiastically, why then it all comes down to fight! ”

“ So interested was the audience in this startling feat that the presence of the new arrivals passed unnoted until the juggler, suddenly stepping back, allowed the law of gravity to have its way for an instant. Then his right hand caught the falling bat, the two books crashed unheeded to the floor and his left hand seized the descending tumbler. Simultaneously there was a disgruntled yelp from Jim Morton and a howl of laughter from the rest of the audience. ”

“ Look here, George, you're a good coach and all that, but you're a mighty poor judge of human nature."
"Piffle!"
"It's so, though. You've only got to study that chap Gilbert to see that he isn't the quitting kind. His looks show it, his manner shows it, the way he talks shows it. He's the sort that might want to quit; we all do sometimes; but he couldn't because he's got stuff in him that wouldn't let him!"
"That's all well enough, Gus, but facts are facts. Gilbert did quit, and quit cold on me. So theories don't count for much. ”

“ Boots is for the under dog every time. I guess coaching the first and having his pick of the players wouldn't make any sort of a hit with Boots. It would be too tame. Boots likes to take three discarded veterans, two crips and a handful of green youngsters and whittle them into a bunch that will make us sweat and toil to score on. And, what's more, he does it! Bet you anything, Don, this year's second will be every bit as good as last year's."
"I won't take it, because I think so myself," laughed Don. "I can't see how he's going to do it, Tim, but something tells me he will!" ”

“ Say, I'm tickled to death to see your ugly mug again, Don. You aren't a bit handsomer, are you?"
"I've been told I was. Trouble with you is, you don't recognise manly beauty when you see it."
"Oh, don't I?" Tim twirled an imaginary moustache. "I recognise it every time I look in the glass! Well, how are you aside from the bum fist?"
"Great! I've just had a séance with Josh. I tried to register and sneak by, but Brooke wouldn't have it that way. 'Er, quite so, Gilbert, quite so, but I—er—think you had better see Mr. Fernald.' So I did, and Josh read me the riot act. ”

“ Now, as a matter of fact, every one of you knows that we've got the average material and that we'll go ahead and turn out an average team and beat Claflin as per usual. The only chance for argument is what the score will be. You fellows like to grouse and pretend every fall that the team's shot full of holes and that the world is a dark, dreary, dismal place and that winning from Claflin is only a hectic dream. ”

“ You'll make hard work of it and all that, but you'll get there. Don, you're exactly like the porpoise—no, the tortoise in the fable. You don't look fast, old man, but you keep on moving ahead and saying nothing and when the hares arrive you're curled up on the finish line fast asleep. Tortoises can't curl up, though, can they? And, say, what the dickens is a tortoise, anyway? I always get tortoises and porpoises mixed."
"A porpoise is a fish," replied Don gravely. "And a tortoise is a land turtle. But they're both anthropoids."
"Are they?" asked Tim vaguely. ”

“ Amy surveyed him coldly. He didn't like Harry Walton and never attempted to disguise the fact. "Why, Harry, old dear, you'll just keep right on squandering your money as usual, I suppose. But I don't want you to waste any on me. This is a one-man wager."
"No, it isn't," said Leroy Draper, "I'm in on it, Amy. I'll take half of it."
"All right, Roy. But our money's safe as safe! This bunch of grousers won't get fat off us, old chap!"
"Say," said Walton, who had been trying to get Amy's attention for a minute, "what's the story about my squandering my money? ”

“ But just now the second squad looked to Don to be a most unlikely lot. When he confided all this to Tim that evening the latter said:
"Don't you worry, old man. Boots will make a team out of them. Why, he could make a football team out of eleven clothing store dummies! Sometimes I think that Boots ought to be head coach instead of Robey. I've got nothing against Robey, either. He's a bit of a 'miracle man' himself, but for building a team out of nothing Boutelle has him both shoulders to the mat!" ”

“ A guard seldom has an opportunity to pose in the limelight, and so you are not to hear that Don pulled off any brilliant feats that afternoon. What he did do was to very thoroughly vindicate Mr. Robey's selection of him for Gafferty's position by giving an excellent impersonation of a concrete block on defence and by doing rather better than he had ever done before when his side had the ball. ”

“ In the final five minutes Cherry Valley managed to fool the visitors and get a forward pass off for a gain that placed the ball on Brimfield's fourteen yards, and from there her drop-kicker put the pigskin over the cross-bar and tallied three points. The game was uninteresting unless one was a partisan, and even then there were few thrills. Brimfield played considerably better than in the Morgan's game and emerged with no more important damages than a wrenched ankle, which fell to the share of Martin, who had taken Rollins's place in the last period. ”

“ Tim [135] Otis had a remarkably good day and was undeniably the best man in the backfield for the home team. Carmine played a heady, snappy game, and Don, who played the most of three quarters at left guard, conducted himself very well. Don's work was never of the spectacular sort, but at his best he was a steady and thoroughly reliable lineman and very effective on defence. He was still slow in getting into plays, a fact which made him of less value than Joe Gafferty on attack. Even Harry Walton showed up better than Don when Brimfield had the ball. ”

“ The showing of the team naturally had an effect on the spirit of the mass meeting that evening. Ever since the Southby game the school had been holding meetings and "getting up steam" for the Claflin contest, but they had been tame affairs in contrast with tonight's. Brimfield was football-crazy now, for the Big Game loomed enormous but four days away. Fellows read football in the papers, talked football and, some of them, dreamed football. The news from Claflin was read and discussed eagerly. The fortunes of the rival eleven were watched just as closely as those of the home team. ”