Ralph Henry Barbour

“ Then a silver coin gleamed for a moment in the sunlight which since noon had been shining half-heartedly through the sullen clouds, three heads bent over it as it fell, Torrey’s hand waved toward the east goal and the little group broke up.
“All right, fellows!” called Lanny cheerfully as he came back to the bench. “We kick off from the west goal. On the run now!”
Blankets and sweaters were dropped and eleven [302] purple-stockinged youths raced out to spread themselves across the field. Springdale arranged herself for the kick. A last cheer came from the stand and silence fell. ”

“ That’s to get together a team that will beat Springdale. If we can win other battles, well and good. If we can’t, well and good. In order to beat Springdale we’ve got to play regular football, fellows, and in order to do that we’ve got to learn how. Some of you know more football than others, but I’m not going to take your words for it. To-day you are all on the same level and we are going to start all over, just as if this was the first day of practice and you hadn’t already played one contest. There’s no First Squad, no Scrub Team, no Third Squad yet. ”

“ To that end Dick read up on all the sports until, theoretically at least, he knew more about them by half than most of the fellows who participated. No one followed the baseball and football and track teams more closely than Dick. He seldom missed a contest. And, while others were content to observe results, Dick had to know the reasons for them. Many were the football problems he had worked out at home with a checkerboard and checkers, or with matches on a table-top, and many the imaginary games he had captained. Dick, in short, was a self-taught athlete, a book-learning one. ”

“ Lanny played a magnificent defensive game, sensing the point of attack and jumping to meet it. More than once he was literally awaiting the runner when the latter shot through. Springdale was showing a powerful offense and her linemen were playing like veterans, which, with three exceptions they were not. Back past the center of the field the Blue progressed, using old-fashioned football all the time but using it so well that the brunt of the defense was falling to the lot of the Clearfield backs. ”

“ The North Side supporters were all for rushing onto the field and carrying the heroic Larue around on their shoulders, and it was all that Will Scott and the officials, aided by most of the visiting team, could do to persuade them to postpone that ceremony. When order had been restored and the delighted and noisily appreciative supporters had been cajoled back of the side line again, Danny essayed to kick the goal. But North Side’s chance to win the game there and then was lost, for the ball went well under the cross-bar, and High School shouted its relief. ”

“ You’ve got to for the rest of the game, though, if you want to win. Some one’s going to score this half. It might as well be us. But if it is to be us we’ve got to play better football. We’ve got to watch the ball, play like lightning and fight like bear-cats! ”

“ Highland earned her touchdown, all right. Profiting by the other fellow’s mistakes is more than half the game.”
“But I thought our boys played a very good game,” objected Louise loyally.
“Far be it from me to dispute you,” replied Dick, with a smile.
“But didn’t they?” she insisted. “Of course, Dick, I don’t know very much about such things, but I want to learn. Didn’t they play well?”
“Clearfield,” answered Dick, “was at least twenty-four points better than Highland Hall, Louise. She won by the score of sixteen to seven. As Mr. Grayson says, I invite your consideration.” ”

“ But Brimmer never had a chance to get the ball away, for the whole right side of High School’s line crumpled before the savage attack of the enemy, and the fullback was downed with the pigskin in his hands.
Then Fortune appeared to desert the home team utterly. Larue got clear through, eluding the secondary defense as though he was greased, and put forty yards behind him before Farrar, running desperately, brought him down from behind. From midfield to High School’s fifteen-yard line plunged the triumphant North Siders. High School was weakening every minute now. ”

“ That alone was sufficient to excite comment, for Nostrand had never shown any particular ability as a player. He had, however, a full set of brains, as Dick pointed out to Lanny when the latter showed surprise at the selection.
“Nostrand won’t make a first-class player in a hundred years,” said Dick with conviction, “but, unless I’m away off my track, he’s just the fellow to run the Scrubs. He’s smart, thinks like lightning, can handle fellows and knows the way things ought to be done even if he can’t do them. I expect him to work out a mighty good team of what he’s got to work on.” ”

“ Lanny can’t run the First Team and the Scrub and look after the new fellows too. No one could. Besides, who ever heard of a football team without a coach?”
“It seems to me,” said Pete Robey, “that there ought to be some grad who could do it.”
“That’s what I say,” agreed Sears. “There must be, too, if we’d look for him. Of course he might not know a lot of football, but he’d be better than nothing, I dare say.”
“It’s Grayson’s fault,” said Bingham, a tall, bespectacled sophomore. And Bingham, as unpopular a boy as there was in school, for once found support. ”

“ Nostrand returned Gage to the line when play began again and put Burns in for Sawin at right half. Getting the pigskin on the kick-off, North Side, with one or two substitutes in her line, returned to her line-bucking tactics, evidently resolved to tire out and wear down the High School defense. Wightson was the marvel of that contest. How he could perform the work that was given to him and keep on his feet, no one understood. He was always good for a short gain and seldom failed to get clear of the first defense. ”

“ Clearfield tried to take revenge in the remaining sixty-odd seconds and fought desperately, but the time was too short and the last whistle blew with the ball in Highland’s possession near her thirty yards.
“I’m glad they scored,” said Louise a trifle defiantly as Dick put his crutches under his arms preparatory [56] to descending the stand. “They deserved to, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” Dick agreed doubtfully. Then he repeated the word ungrudgingly. “Yes, they did deserve to, Louise. Any team deserves to win who is smart enough to take advantage of its opponents’ mistakes. ”

“ High School gathered herself compactly, concentrating her whole strength behind the center of her line. For North Side had tried no end of plays and seemed not to have included them in her education. But Danny Shores was red-headed, and so is a fox. A try at the center yielded a scant two feet and took the ball to the nine yards. Then the pigskin was shot back to Larue and that swarthy-faced little Canuck shot around Grover’s end like a weasel and planted the ball just behind the left goal-post! ”

“ Dick nodded to Lanny and swung himself toward the door, but paused there, for Lanny was talking.
“That’s good straight talk, fellows,” Lanny was saying earnestly, “and I second it. But Coach Lovering mustn’t think he can frighten us by talking hard work to us, for he can’t. We expect to work hard and we want to work hard. We want to get back at Springdale this year and wipe out what happened last, fellows, and we aren’t going to mind anything that happens so long as we can face Springdale in November with an even chance to win!” ”

“ It’ll do them good.”
“All they want,” said Chester Cottrell, who had joined them, “is a chance to make some speeches and roast some one. Then they’ll forget all about it, Dick.”
“Maybe, but they’re dissatisfied with the way I’m running things, Chester, and I don’t want their antagonism toward me to spread to the team. There’s nothing worse than for a school to go back on the team. Every player feels it and it takes the heart out of him. ”

“ I have no wish to antagonize a single fellow, a single person, in this hall to-night, but I tell you quite frankly that I shall continue to go my own way as long as I am coach, that I shall not resign and that I shall resist to the utmost any attempt to oust me. ”

“ Lanny agreed, “only—when you’re captain you sort of like to do the best you can; make a good showing for the season, you know.”
“A good showing isn’t possible unless we beat Springdale,” replied Dick emphatically, “and that’s what we’re working for. I don’t much care if we lose every game from now till then, if we win that one. Now let’s get at those plays. This No. 3 won’t work out, I guess. We’re taking too many men from the right of the line and we’re giving the play away from the start. ”

“ Springdale is going to tire before long, but she’s got a lot of fight in her yet, and you’ve got to work hard to keep her from winning. I want you fellows to go back there now and start in and everlastingly play football! Wake up and show something! You’ve got it, fellows, so show it! When you get the ball at the kick-off, hang on to it and take it right down the field and put it over! You can do it if you’ll only think so. That’s all. Play hard, Clearfield, and fast—fast—FAST! Now then: Merrick, Partridge, Cable, Haley, A. Beaton, Scott, Felker, Cottrell, White, Tupper and N. Beaton. ”

“ A team doesn’t show its real stuff until its big game. I think we could get on without it.”
“I’m perfectly willing to try,” said Dick. “Somehow, now that you mention it, it doesn’t seem quite—well, gentlemanly. But that raises the question, Lanny, of how far we can go and act like gentlemen. Is it fair, for instance, to read about the other team’s progress in the newspapers?” ”

“ A few fellows who had journeyed to Corwin and witnessed the game declared that hard luck and not poor work had been to blame for the defeat; that on merit Clearfield should have conquered by at least one score. The school at large listened but was unconvinced. “Beaten again!” it said. “Three games lost out of five played! What sort of a team have we got, anyway? What’s Dick Lovering think he’s doing? Playing ‘give-away’?” ”

“ Louise regarded him indignantly. “Indeed you’ll not, Gordon Merrick! Every one has got to help. Some of the things will be frightfully heavy.”
“The janitor is going to help us,” said Morris.
“As near as I can make out,” remarked Dick, with a smile, “almost every one in town has been taken into the secret except Mr. Grayson. If he doesn’t know of it already it’s a miracle!”
“We had to tell the janitor,” said Morris. “And Miss Turner. She’s going to borrow his key for us.” ”

“ But good as it is, it’s got to play hard, play for all it’s worth, play like—like thunder! The Springdale line is a strong one. Few teams have made much impression on it [290] this Fall. The Springdale backs are a fast and clever lot and have scoring power. The team has been finely coached and knows a lot of football. They have good punters over there, too; no better than ours, I think, but not to be despised. There’s one thing they haven’t got, fellows, and that’s a man to kick field-goals! ”

“ Let’s be fair. He hasn’t been down on athletics, Gordie. He merely thinks that we fellows pay too much attention to it. He’s not—not awfully sympathetic, but it isn’t fair to say that he’s against it. Now go on, and pardon the slight digression.”
“All right; he’s not what I said. Anyhow, I think most fellows like Grayson pretty well. They ought to. He’s awfully fair and—and decent, even when he gives you fits about something.”
“I trust he has never had occasion to give you fits,” said Dick gravely.
Gordon grinned. ”

“ We never will win a game with the sort of things he gives us!”
“Well, that comes of putting a fellow who doesn’t know football in as coach,” declared Burns. “It’s up to Lanny White, all right.”
[194]
“What’s the good of knocking every time we get licked?” demanded Nostrand. “It doesn’t do any good. Wait till you hear what the trouble was before you begin criticising.”
“Everyone knows what the trouble is,” responded McCoy gloomily. “Lovering doesn’t care whether we win or lose. All he cares about is Springdale.” ”

“ On one occasion they had seen Clearfield beaten by Corwin and on the other had watched the Purple capture the Benton contest by the use of the most elemental plays.
Springdale herself had come through a successful season, meeting with but one defeat and one tie. She was due for a hard game next Saturday, but, after that, like Clearfield, she was opposed to a team which was likely to afford her only a good stiff practice. One point there was on which Dick had finally satisfied himself. Springdale was without [252] the services of a player who could be relied on to score by goals from the field. ”

“ In the second quarter the Blue met the adversary’s attacks better, and, securing the ball, began a march down the field that ultimately took the pigskin to the ten-yard line. There, however, an attack on center was stopped and a skin-tackle play fared no better, and Kelly, the Springdale quarter, tossed a forward pass to the tall end whom Chester had recognized. But that youth, having made a perfect catch, fumbled the instant he was tackled and one of the brown-stockinged visitors fell on the ball. ”

“ Tom Nostrand’s warriors showed up remarkably well that afternoon and gave the Varsity a first-class argument. The best the latter could do was make a touchdown in each half of twenty minutes and hold the enemy scoreless. The Scrubs trotted from the field not a little proud of themselves and with Dick’s commendation, “Good work, Scrub!” ringing in their ears. Tom Nostrand had already announced to them that they were to play the North Side [132] team on the twenty-first, and they were more than pleased. ”

“ We all know that White tried his best to find a man to take Farrell’s place, and that he couldn’t do it. Then the Athletic Committee decided not to pay a salary this year, and that settled all chance of getting anyone with experience. As a last resort Captain White and some of the players went to Dick Lovering and asked him to coach the team. Lovering didn’t ask for the place and didn’t want it. He refused at first, I am told, and finally consented because White and the others wouldn’t take No. Lovering has made no claims to be an experienced football coach. The fellows didn’t think he was. ”

“ I’m willing to do my level best, but I can’t be captain and coach and everything else. We’ve got a poor lot of new men this Fall, too. And then there’s Morris’s leg to worry about. The doctor says he can play and Morris says his leg’s all right, but if we go to work and build up the team around his kicking and then he has another injury to it or his father says he can’t play we’ll be in a nice fix! We’ve got to develop a couple of punters somehow, but I’m sure I don’t know where to look for them. Wayland isn’t so poor, but he doesn’t seem to get the hang of it. Well, good night, Gordon. ”