VIIITHE FIRST HOCKEY GAME
On the following Saturday afternoon House and Day met in the first game of the series to settle the school hockey supremacy. The Day Team was credited with being better than the House. Last winter it had won two straight games without much trouble and borne off the pewter mug which Mr. Crane and Mr. Folsom had donated as a trophy two years before. The mug was to go finally to the team winning two out of three series, and so far both Day Team and House Team had one win to its credit and the present series would settle the ownership of the trophy.
There were three star performers on the Day Team: White, who played center; Grimshaw, who played cover-point, and Morgan, who was the goal-tend. Billy Spooner, the captain, was an excellent skater, but was not a very certain performer with the stick. The rest of the Day Team were only fair players. For the House, Ben Holden was the star performer. Ben played center and was truly anadept with the hockey stick. Dick Gardner, at goal, was another brilliant player, and Pierce, rover, and Lovell, point, were capable of good work. Cupples, at right wing, was rather weak, and the same may be said of Waters, on the other end of the line, and of Perkins at cover-point.
On the whole, the day pupils had rather the better of it as regards material, and if they failed to carry off the coveted trophy it would be largely because of lack of practice. They had as much right to use the school rinks as the house students, and Spooner tried his level best to get his team to remain after school and practice. But it was hard work. Every day one or more of the day pupils deserted for some reason or other, leaving the team short. Sometimes Spooner conducted practice with only four players out of seven!
It was right there that Ben and his House Team had the advantage. His fellows didn’t have to run home after lessons were over and he almost always had enough players at hand to make a full team. Crandall, who was a poor skater but a hard worker, was usually on hand as a substitute, while Lanny looked on enviously from the side of the rink and almost daily petitioned Ben to let him play.
Mr. Folsom and Mr. Crane acted respectivelyas referee and timekeeper. The audience consisted of a handful of boys from the village, several of them day students, the four juniors and Nan. Kid, first indicating Small and then himself, declared that the gathering was “small, but select.” Lanny, dressed for play, but at the moment impersonating a spectator, deftly introduced some particles of ice down Kid’s neck and warned him against punning. During the subsequent confusion Mr. Folsom tossed the puck onto the ice and blew his whistle and the game began.
“Which side do you want to win?” asked Nan of Bert.
“Our side, of course.”
“Yes, I suppose you do,” she sighed. “But I’m in a very difficult position because, you see, both teams are made up of Mt. Pleasant boys, and I ought to be—be strictly impartial.”
“I don’t see how you can be,” replied Bert, leaning over the boards to watch Waters try a shot at goal. “Besides, I don’t see what difference it makes.”
Waters made a miserable shot and the puck skimmed over the barrier and into the snow, and Small dug it out with a spare hockey stick.
“It’s the principle of it, I think,” respondedNan. “In some ways I’d like our side—I mean House to win, but it wouldn’t be quite fair to the Day boys, would it?”
“Wouldn’t it?” Nan’s ethics was too deep for Bert, and he was glad that Ben shot a neat goal at that moment so that he could abandon the subject. “Fine, Ben!” he shouted. “That’s the stuff!” He clapped Lanny on the back and was in turn pummelled by the enthusiastic Kid, who yelled, “Hooray for the House! Kill them, Ben!” at the top of his lungs. Nan maintained a discreet silence, her only evidence of emotion being the raising and lowering of herself on her toes. As it was a very cold afternoon, however, she may have done it only to keep her feet warm.
After that the tide of battle turned deplorably and Day made three goals, one right after another. Perkins was almost useless at cover-point and Lovell was eluded without much difficulty. Gardner made several good stops, but the Day Team hammered at him savagely and thrice the puck got by him into the net. House scored again two or three minutes later when Ben, capturing the disk in front of his own goal, skated with it the length of the ice and passed to Pierce in front of the enemy’s net. Pierce fooled Turner, point, and banged thepuck between Morgan’s feet. The half ended a minute or so after, the score 3 to 2 in favor of the Day Team. It was still anybody’s game, and Nan said she hoped it would end in a tie so that both sides would be satisfied. Lanny hooted at that.
“Satisfied nothing! Gee, that would be as bad as being beaten! Besides, it wouldn’t do any good; we’d have to play the game over again.”
“If it’s a tie,” said Kid, “they’ll play another period. They did last winter, Stanley says.”
As it turned out, however, a third period was not necessary. Day started the next half with a rush that for a moment almost swept House off their feet. Two tallies were scored before House could settle down and break up the attack. Waters had an unfortunate mix-up with White, of the opposing side, and retired with a gashed lip. Crandall took his place, much to Lanny’s disgust, and from thence on to the end the game was extremely one-sided. The only time when Fortune smiled on the House Team was when, after Morgan had stopped a shot from Pierce’s stick, the puck was pushed into the net by Turner quite by accident. The disk didn’t get far in before Morgan swept it out again, but Mr. Folsom blew his whistle and declared it a goal, and the House supporters howledtheir glee. Even Nan emitted a shrill cry of delight and blushed rosily when Bert turned to laugh at her.
“I don’t care!” she said. “They’re so far behind that I’m glad they scored.”
Kid jeered scathingly. “Oh, sloppy work! Scored against yourselves! You’re a nice lot of hockey players, you are!” Kid danced up and down in the snow and hurled insults until Lanny threatened to roll him in the snow. But that lucky goal was the final tally for House, and when the game came to an end Day’s victory was a decisive one, the score 7 to 3. Ben was disgusted and chagrined and when Kid, thinking to console him, enumerated a few of the things they would do to the day pupils in the next game Ben spanked him with the flat of his hockey stick and told him to shut up and not get fresh. Kid, surprised and hurt, consoled himself by shying a snowball at the retreating forms of the Day Team players and, as he boasted later with much elation, scoring against the back of White’s head.
The contest was discussed before the big fire in the hall before supper, and Ben announced that beginning Monday there would be morning as well as afternoon practice for the House Team. “Wehave almost an hour between school and dinner,” he said, “and we might as well put in the time practicing. Those fellows don’t get more than half the practice that we do, and they played all around us to-day. So we’ve got to take a brace, fellows. Lanny, I’m going to try you Monday. You think you can play. Go ahead and show me.”
Lanny, tongue-tied by much joy, grinned. Kid, who was trying to roast some chestnuts he had been treasuring since autumn, gurgled with delight. “They won’t do a thing to Lanny, will they? He’s so small they’ll just pick him up and—” He paused and fixed Lanny with a rapturous gaze. “Say, Lanny, wouldn’t it be funny if they mistook you for the puck?” he cried.
Lanny pounced on him and there was noise and confusion until the older fellows parted them. Then everyone trooped into supper, deliciously hungry, and fell upon the repast like a flight of devastating locusts. Luckily defeat doesn’t spoil appetites.
In spite of Ben’s plans, there was no morning practice on Monday, for a mantle of snow hid the ice and the time that was to have been devoted to skating and stick work was spent with snow-shovels in hand. There was practice in the afternoon, butthat night it again snowed and Ben viewed the rink the next day with deep disgust. The only consoling thought was that the Day Team was no better off. Again shovels were brought into play and by the time the ice was cleared the barriers about the rinks were surrounded by deep banks of snow. Bert learned to be an expert with the wooden shovel, for he, like the rest of the under-class fellows, had to work hard those days. But it was all in a good cause and he didn’t mind it a bit. The spirit of mutiny was quite quelled now. The snow made the tobogganing better and there were some rare times on the slide. Having won the right to the use of the slide the juniors were no longer debarred from it, but it must be acknowledged that they were somewhat restricted and often had to wait a good while for a chance to go down. Kid alone, however, voiced rebellion. It seemed as if, having once tasted the joys of independence, he could not reconcile himself to slavery. But he found no encouragement from the other members of the Junior Four and his protests were wasted on the winter air.
“You just wait until I’m an upper middler,” he threatened. “Maybe I won’t bully the juniors! Wow!”