CHAPTER VIIIMR. BINGHAM PAYS A VISIT
That first feeling of exaltation didn’t last long, but it had served its purpose. The Wyndham Scrub members had shared it together and, since the experience of a common emotion creates a bond, had become imbued with a solidarity that was to prove the foundation of greater unity and cohesion. Which was all that Mr. Babcock had expected.
On Tuesday the Scrub had its first line-up and ran through a few formations. Adams was at left end, Ames at left tackle, Greene at left guard, Ridgway at center, Henning at right guard, Coles at right tackle, Bingham at right end, Jackson at quarter, Kemble at left half, Stiles at right half and Thayer at fullback. But as “Cocky” explicitly stated that no one could be sure of his position until he had definitely earned it, and as none save Henning and “Wink” Coles kept his place throughout the whole half-hour, neither Clif nor Tom indulged in self-congratulation. Clif had Patch and Gosman to fight for the right end position, and Tom was always aware that Gillespie and Heard were following close behind, awaiting their turns. Mr. Babcock made them work hard, but they had plenty of enthusiasm and liked working. Now and then aword, or perhaps a brief halt while the coach stared silently toward the First Team players, kept the incentive in mind. They were there to mold themselves into a first-class fighting unit so that they might meet the friendly enemy on fairly even terms, and so serve as the whetstone against which the latter was to be shaped and edged into a conquering weapon. But—and they dwelt relishingly on this—if the whetstone sometimes proved too hard for the steel, why, so much the better for every one! In other words, duty demanded that they prove themselves a worthy foe, and inclination kept a full jump ahead of duty! There were no personal grudges being nursed: no player on the Scrub had a bone to pick with any member of the other team; but there was, nevertheless, the conviction, shared by all, that the wisdom of the Head Coach’s selections had yet to be proved, and it was up to them to show that proof didn’t exist! In such a spirit, then, the Wyndham Scrub Team—or “Mr. Babcock’s Team,” as theLanterncalled it—started forth.
The first meeting of the Scrub and the First took place in a drizzle of rain and, partly for that reason, but more especially because Mr. Otis’s charges had a game the next day, the encounter was slow and tame. There were two scrimmages of some ten minutes each, the first with the first-string line-up, and the second with the substitutes. Play was continually stopped by the Head Coach for criticism and instruction, the ball was brought back half a dozen times because something had not gone just right, and, finally, when thepigskin had been slapped down on the soggy ground close to the Scrub’s fifteen-yard line by Captain Lothrop after a savage romp through the enemy’s left wing, “G.G.” ordered a dropkick, and Houston, playing quarter, mishandled the wet ball so that it banged into the crowd, and was chased to the side-line and downed by Clif. It was only in the second period, however, when faced by the First Team substitutes that the Scrub could show any offense. Then, with fewer interruptions, the Second’s backs got to working and made the most of the opponents’ right side, slamming through a dozen times before they were finally stopped. But the First Team’s twelve yards was the nearest the Scrubs could approach to the goal, and from there, when two tries had been smeared, Sim Jackson booted for a miss. A few minutes later a First Team substitute, and a third-string man at that, scooped up a trickling ball and galloped for some forty yards to the Scrub’s goal-line, making the only score of the day, and registering the Scrub’s first defeat. On the whole, Mr. Babcock’s warriors didn’t cover themselves with glory during their première. The coach, patiently and cheerfully explaining their shortcomings afterwards, was, it seemed, far less depressed than the players.
“What was wrong to-day can be corrected to-morrow,” he ended. “I’m not expecting you fellows to play perfect football yet. I’m satisfied if you realize your mistakes when you make them, and I think you do. You won’t make me mad until you make the samemistakes the second time—or the third. When a player knows he’s wrong there’s hope for him: when he can’t see it, he’s useless. Some of you fellows showed real stuff to-day. You, Jackson, for one. You mixed only one signal, and you kept your team on the jump. And Ridgway held the center nicely. And two or three others of you deserve a good word; Bingham, for instance. There was no one within two yards of him when he got that ball after the blocked kick. Remember, fellows, that every loose ball has ‘Touchdown’ written on it in big red letters! Patch, you’d better let Farrell see that hand. Looks rather like a dislocation from the swelling. We’ll try to get started at two to-morrow, fellows, so that we can see some of the game. I want every one of you to watch the First Team players carefully every chance you get. Keep your eye on the men you’ll play against and see where they’re weak. And try to guess the plays before they start. Watch the backs and see what you can learn from the way they stand. Some players will give away the play time and again if you know the language of signs!”
Clif wasn’t nearly as excited over his father’s visit on the morrow as he had expected to be. Of course he was awfully glad he was coming, and he wanted to see him a whole lot and there were loads of things he had saved up to tell him, but he went to sleep that Friday night as soon as his head touched the pillow and awoke the next morning to only the mildest thrill. Mr. Bingham rolled up the drive in the blue car aboutone o’clock, and Clif, who had hurried through his dinner, was awaiting him at the steps. Mr. Bingham said “Hello, son,” very casually, and Clif grinned, and said “Hello, dad” in much the same tone. But they shook hands very hard and, after the car had been parked at the end of the drive, they made their way to Number 17 with the older man’s arm about the boy’s shoulder. Clif was a little bit conscious of that arm as they passed the recreation room and Office, but he carried off the situation gracefully. If any of the fellows they met felt any inclination toward ridicule Clif’s sharp eyes failed to detect the fact. Generally what he read on their passing countenances was admiration for that well-built, handsome, smiling father of his, and Clif forgot his momentary embarrassment and was proud and pleased.
Oddly enough—or so it seemed to Clif—his father and Walter Treat took to each other instantly, and Clif was a trifle annoyed to discover that Walter’s acceptance of his father seemed more important to him than his father’s approval of Walter! Just as though, he reflected later as he hurried away to the field, it mattered a bit what Walter thought! But he was glad that his roommate had offered to look after the visitor during practice. They didn’t meet again until the Scrub Team, released after an hour’s strenuous work, invaded the grand stand to witness the last half of the contest with Highland School. Walter had somehow managed to occupy the better part of two seats and Clif squeezed himself down beside his father.The Dark Blue had scored a field-goal in the second period, but had not been able to cross the enemy’s goal-line. Highland, playing a far better defensive than offensive game, had failed to score. In the third quarter Fargo and Jenkins between them took the ball to the enemy’s eleven yards from where a forward-pass grounded, and from where, on fourth down, Fargo’s end run was stopped on the eight yards. It was not until late in the last period that Wyndham got her second score. Then, after a long run by Whitemill had brought the battle to Highland’s thirty-yard line, Fargo dashed past tackle for eight, threw across center to Archer for nine more, and then took the ball on the thirteen yards and, with the other backs faking a tandem on the right of center, tore through on the left, shook off three tackles and crossed the goal-line standing up!
Stoddard was hurried in the try-for-point, but the ball shot off to the right, and Wyndham had to be satisfied with nine points as her share of the afternoon’s diversion. Highland had nothing left to offer in the way of attack, and the rest of the final period passed with the ball see-sawing back and forth about the center of the field, Coach Otis sending in substitutes lavishly, and the stand gradually emptying.
There was just time to ride into the village with dad and see him safely settled at the Inn before six o’clock. Then Clif hurried back to supper, secured permission to spend the evening outside, and, feeling a wee bit important, strode down the drive at seven, dressedin his best. Mr. Bingham had discovered a billiard table at the Inn, and was knocking the balls around when Clif found him. “Get your cue, son,” he said. “You’ll find one there with a tip if you look hard. I haven’t whaled you for a long time!”
Clif, who didn’t care much for billiards, consented to humor the other, but he had no idea of spending the evening in such unexciting fashion, and when eight o’clock arrived he hauled an unenthusiastic parent across the street to Freeburg’s one palace of amusement, the Coliseum. The Coliseum was about the size of the library back home in Providence, but it was clean and it offered good, if not recent, pictures. Mr. Bingham professed to be greatly awed by the red, white and blue splendor of the exterior and embarrassed Clif somewhat by insisting on viewing the gaudy and startling pictures in the small lobby painstakingly before purchasing tickets from the interested young lady who chewed her gum so rhythmically inside the glass cage. Aware of the curious stares of theater-going Freeburg, Clif tugged at his father’s arm.
“Oh, come on, dad!” he begged.
But Mr. Bingham was not to be hurried. “I want to be sure,” he declared sedately, “that everything is quite proper, Clif. You know there’s a good deal being said these days about the influence of moving pictures on the young, and I’d very much dislike to have you tell me in later years that you traced your downfall to the night I took you to see—now what the dickens—ah, here it is—to see ‘Outlawed byHonor’! To me, Clif, this man, Johnny Rick, looks rather a desperate character. Isn’t he killing the gentleman with the drooping, black mustache in that picture?”
“Aw, dad!” whispered Clif.
“All right, but I’ll ask for seats well away from the stage, son. Pistol shooting always makes me jump.”
In spite of the fun Mr. Bingham poked at the entertainment provided by the Coliseum that evening, it would have been apparent to any one that he got more pleasure from it than the more blasé Clif. He became visibly excited when, in the fourth reel, the redoubtable hero, the aforementioned Mr. Rick, dashed into the deserted cabin, seized the heroine in his elastic-banded arms, with not even a glance at the sizzling fuse that led to the enormous can of dynamite, dashed out again and spurred his faithful horse to safety. Of course Clif knew perfectly well that the cabin wouldn’t blow up until the hero was well out of the way, but apparently the idea hadn’t occurred to his father, for the latter relapsed, exhausted by emotion, against Clif’s shoulder. Fathers are sometimes very trying.
On Sunday there was a banquet for four at the Inn. Clif had all along intended to invite Tom to dinner on this occasion, but the inclusion of Walter in the party had been Mr. Bingham’s idea. Not that Clif really minded. It merely hadn’t and wouldn’t have occurred to him. Walter was rather an addition, as it turned out, for “the beggar could talk about anything,”as Tom put it, and Tom didn’t care a great deal who talked so long as he was able to devote himself undisturbedly to the chief matter in hand, which on this occasion was putting away a very considerable amount of broiled chicken and appropriate trimmings. Walter and Mr. Bingham became involved in an earnest, though friendly, argument over the coffee, as to the relative values of classical and practical educations, a discussion that rather bored the others. After the question had been settled to the satisfaction of both contenders, following the yielding of much ground by each, the car was brought forth from a nearby garage, and, with Clif at the wheel and Tom beside him, they set forth to see as much of the world as was practicable in the two hours left at Mr. Bingham’s disposal.
They got back to West Hall at a quarter past four and Mr. Bingham said good-by and swung the car toward Providence. Saying good-by this time hadn’t been hard at all, Clif thought as he followed Walter and Tom into the Hall. He felt a little guilty about it.
On Monday the Scrub had an easy session when it went over to the enemy’s lair, for many of the latter, all those who had taken any considerable part in the Highland game, had been excused. The Scrub showed up better, under these circumstances, and scored twice to the First Team’s once. Although the honor of making the first score of the season fell to Sim Jackson when he booted an easy field-goal, to Thomas Ackerman Kemble was credited the first crossing of the enemy’s goal-line. That historic event occurred in thelast period when, held for three downs by a horde of substitutes writhing under “G.G.’s” caustic comments, Sim slipped the pigskin to Tom on a delayed pass, and Tom flashed around the right and wormed through in some remarkable way, reaching the goal-line without much opposition until a frantic back tackled and accompanied him across the last two yards. Being unable to shake off the enemy, Tom just took him along.
Although the Scrub’s victory had been secured from a much weakened First, it held some glory, and the Scrub made the most of it. It gave them confidence, and the next afternoon, when the first-string men were back on the job, Mr. Babcock’s disciples showed quite a nice brand of football. Of course the First had its way in the end, but it had to fight for it, and fight hard. Ike Patch started at left end for the Scrub, but Clif displaced him after five minutes, and was allowed to play through. Ever since Clif had chased down that loose ball on Friday “Cocky” had seemed to hold him in deep respect, and Tom, not at all certain of his own position, declared that Clif had “vamped” the coach, and was settled for the season. Clif began to believe it himself by Wednesday.
On that afternoon the audience, looking on from a windswept stand and shivering under sweaters, saw a very pretty practice game. The Scrubs romped in from the suburbs armed with three brand-new plays meticulously designed by Mr. Babcock to take advantage of the enemy’s weaknesses. The principal weaknessjust then was the lack of a good defense against forward-passes, and although the Scrub had yet to show any startling proficiency in passing, “Cocky” had provided two plays that might benefit his team. These plays, together with a third that didn’t rely on tossing the ball into the teeth of an October gale for success, had been hastily and not too thoroughly taught that afternoon, and Sim Jackson’s brain was still roiled by his attempt to add this fresh matter to all the other stored there. The Scrub Team to-day was on its toes from the start. Somehow it had become inbued with the notion that it wasgood! And when a team gets that idea in its head, and is willing to work like the dickens to prove that it is correct, why, that team is hard to stop.
To-day was no sort of day to slow up play for instruction, and so Mr. Otis swallowed many remarks that almost choked him and let the battle surge. And it surely surged. The very appearance of the Scrub players had been an affront, with their cocksure swaggering as they took the field, and now, with the war on, their behavior was preposterously insulting. The poor weaklings, culls from the First Team orchard, so to speak, acted as if they thought themselves real timber! It was well-nigh sickening to First Team sensibilities, and so the First Team set itself to inflict disciplinary punishment. For a while it seemed that the Scrub was due to emerge from the engagement with a chastened spirit, but that was only for a while, and a brief while at that. Having allowed the Firstto reach the fourteen yards, though far from willingly, the Scrub dug its cleats, and gave an excellent imitation of a stone wall. Against that wall Quarterback Stoddard dashed Fargo and Jensen and Fargo again, and when the three attempts had been made the wall was scarcely dented. The First was plainly puzzled; puzzled and angry too. But that any Scrub—at least any Scrub so recently born—could actually hold the first for four downs was unthinkable, and so, scorning to be satisfied with the three points a field-goal would have given, Stoddard unwisely pulled Captain Lothrop out of the line and instructed him, by means of signals, to bust through and put the ball down not short of the four yards. Unfortunately, Stoddard lost track of the fact that Dave’s place at left guard was being handed over to Sproule, playing half instead of Whitemill. When the ball was snapped, Clem Henning drew Sproule forward on his nose, strode over him and stopped Captain Dave neatly and expeditiously for a gain of some eighteen inches. Dazed, First yielded the pigskin.
Any one knows that the only thing to do when the ball comes into your possession close to your goal is to punt it away from there. So Sim did something else! He called “Kemble back!” the ball was shot to Tom from center, and Tom took three steps back and to his left, and swept the pigskin down the field with an overhand spiral throw. Clif had let the opposing end by outside, evaded a back and was clear. Not far behind him ran Sim. Toward them both came the ball.Sim turned, looked and panted: “Take it!” Clif whirled, stood and held his hands out. Never before in a contest had he ever attempted a long catch of a forward-pass, and he wished devoutly that the ball had gone to Sim. Without seeing he knew that the whole field of players was converging on him. Then the ball struck his hands, and by some miracle, as it seemed to him, stuck! Turning quickly, he had a blurred vision of Sim crashing into an opponent. The background of the brief picture was a confusion of moving bodies, looming larger with each instant.
Then he dug out, the ball tucked firmly between arm and body, his right hand outstretched for action. He could run, could Clif, and he ran now, but there was the First Team quarter bearing diagonally across to intercept him, and the fleet Jensen was close behind. It seemed to Clif that he had taken but a dozen strides when Jensen shot for him, and, despite his plunge to the right, caught him, and brought him crashing down, and yet when he was pulled, breathless, to his feet a moment later, there was the fifty-yard line behind the ball! Somehow he had successfully caught a thirty-yard pass, and carried it seventeen yards further! The Scrub assailed him as one man, and did him painful honor!
The First was disgruntled, and Mr. Otis’s disgusted observations did little to soothe it. Tom, smiting Clif mightily between his shoulders and depriving him momentarily of what little breath he had left after being thumped to earth by Stoddard, and sat on by Jensen,grinned expansively and shouted “Good stuff, old son! That’s the way to treat ’em!”
Sim called on Thayer for a fullback buck and Johnny was piled up with a sickening thud. The First was through with nonsense! Stiles tried to slip off tackle, and was thrown for a loss, but a too-eager First Team end had been off-side and the ball went to the forty-four, and it was still second down. Stiles tried the same play again and got a yard. Kemble went back and Sim cut through for three. Kemble punted to the five-yard line, and Jensen ran the ball back to the seventeen.
Fargo made two and then four through Greene. Sproule, on an end run, added two more and Fargo punted short to the Scrub’s forty-six, where the ball went out. Adams lost three yards on an end-round play. Kemble went back to punting position, and, with a widespread formation, hurled to the left for twelve yards, where Stiles pulled it down, only to lose it. Thayer took Kemble’s place up-field, but the ball went to Kemble instead, and he raced back behind Thayer and again threw forward, this time far down the field. The throw was hurried, for the First piled through desperately, and were all around Tom when the ball got away. Thayer, however, did good work as defense, and the pass reached its destination. The destination was Jeff Adams, right end. Jeff had crossed behind the enemy, and was uncovered. The rest is history.