NEW PLAYS

We’ll cheer for Old North Bank! She’s got the right team, She’s got the right spirit, She’s got the right steam, She’s got the right captain, She’s got the right men, She’s got to make good for Old North Bank again!

So rip up the Cumbridge team! Tear up the Cumbridge team! Smash up the Cumbridge team! Fight, fellows, fight!

Thus sang Joe Kirkham in a throaty tenor as he linked an arm in Jerry’s and pulled him down the gymnasium steps Thursday afternoon. Before them went others of the players, togged and, in some cases, plastered and bandaged. Practice had been hard and rivalry keen this week and many minor injuries had resulted. Joe boasted a rubber kneecap and an ankle guard and two fingers of his left hand were still bound together as though for mutual support.

“That’s a good snorting sort of a song,” he observed, “but we had to swipe it from the Navy. Don’t know what’s become of our lyricists this year!”

Jerry blinked. “I ain’t got them,” he said mildly.

“Companion of my tender years, a lyricist is not what you think,” responded Joe gently. “A lyricist――well, never mind; you probably wouldn’t understand. Anyhow, it remains a lamentable fact that this year’s crop of football songs is very much on the blink. Pardon my reversion to Elizabethan English.”

“Who writes them?” asked Jerry.

“They’re generally written and composed by third or fourth class fellows whose patriotism is ardent and fresh. You see, they can’t express it by punching Cumbridge in the eye, so they go over to the Hall and punch the piano, instead, usually with one finger! I refer, confidant of my youthful dreams, to the original dirges, of which the number is extremely few. The best of our songs we swipe from other schools and colleges, a not uncommon custom, by the way. The one I just sang so melodiously is stolen bodily from the Naval Academy. So is another good one, the ‘Rush them, crush them’ one.”

“Reckon I haven’t heard that,” said Jerry. “Could you sing that malodorously, too?”

Joe frowned. “You mistook the word, sharer of my secret sorrows. It was ‘melodiously’; from the Greek _melos_, signifying a sweet sound, a song. Do I make myself plain?”

“You don’t have to,” chuckled Jerry. “Some one got ahead of you. What’s the reason we-all ain’t allowed to go to the cheer meetings they’re having?”

“I guess that’s because we might get vain hearing ourselves praised; might get swelled heads and not play so well. It’s a fine thing to be a member of the football team in good standing just before the big game, Jerry. You’re a little bit of all right then. You’re just smothered with respect and affection. Put your head out of your window and an admiring populace cheers wildly. Stand a minute on the Hall steps and the entire fourth class gathers around and adores you. When your name is spoken at a cheer meeting the student body arises as one man and howls. It’s great! The day after the game you put your head out your window and all you get is a rain-drop down your neck, and if you stood all day on the Hall steps no one would notice you except the janitor when he came to sweep. To-day it’s ‘_Digito monstrari_,’ to-morrow it’s ‘_Pax vobiscum!_’ As Kingsley or some one so truly says, ‘So fleet the works of men! Back to the earth again, ancient and holy things fade like a dream!’”

Jerry observed him anxiously. “Ain’t you feeling well?” he asked.

“Better than I shall when Jim Lee gets through with me this afternoon,” replied Joe cheerfully. “Lee has an idea that he’s a human battering-ram, and he comes at you headfirst, and he’s got a mighty solid head. I’ve tried all sorts of things to cure him of that trick, but he’s still at it. It’s a great relief to me when Jump puts Harvey in there instead. Want me to tell you something, sympathetic schoolmate? Well, there’s going to be real work for us to-day. All that has went before will seem like the happy, care-free frolic of an idle hour. To-day we are to learn four nice new plays lately sprung from the seething brain of our loving coach. Believe me, Jerry, they are some plays, carefully designed to produce consternation in the stoutest breast! After going through them twice you’ll be cross-eyed and bandy-legged and ready to feed the hand that bites you!”

“What sort of plays are they?” asked Jerry, undismayed.

“Well, one’s a forward-pass contraption that looks pretty good on the board, just as they all do until you try ’em. Thorne calls it a five-man forward pass. I don’t know why unless it’s because only four men can take it! The worst I know of it is that the quarter has to get back at an angle and risk being trampled to death by three reckless backs. There’s no use in my trying to explain it to you, favorite friend of my immature years, without a yard or two of paper and a package of pencils. Besides, you’ll know all about it soon enough. You’ll know it by its dread appellation, which is Play Number 19. When you hear it coming, Jerry, be took very ill!”

Jerry grinned. “You can talk more nonsense than any feller I ever heard,” he said. “Trouble is, you don’t hardly ever say anything.”

“You’ll regret them words,” replied Joe sternly. “When Thorne puts you in I’ll get Tub to call ‘19’ until they pick you up and remove you on a stretcher. There’s Norris shyly trying to attract your attention by shouting himself purple in the face. Don’t take any notice of him, and we’ll see if he’ll bust!”

But Jerry hurried across to where Fat was apoplectically shouting and waving. “Come on, Jerry, we’ve got orders to do some passing. Let’s get over on the other side. We’ve never practiced together, have we? I don’t know what the game is, but Thorne told me to get you and show you something about football.”

“Reckon I ain’t wanted for signal drill?”

“Search me! Get ten yards back, son. Further! That’s better. Get it now!”

Jerry got it many times and missed it a few, and while he was doing so he wondered why he had been set to work with Norris. Norris was first-choice center, while Jerry could not flatter himself that he was more than a second-choice back. It began to look, Jerry told himself, as if he was expected to take a real part in the Cumbridge game! Of course, he had hoped before this to be called on when a punting contest was imminent, perhaps allowed to play through ten minutes of the battle, but this proceeding promised still greater glory! However, he didn’t let his hopes rise too high.

Some twenty minutes later they were summoned back to the bench and a slightly breathless Norris informed Jerry that he was “all right, by jingo!” Tackling practice followed, and then, with all hands out on the field, Mr. Thorne took up the new plays that, it was hoped, would bring confusion and despair to Cumbridge. There were four of them, and they were taken up in order, beginning with Number 19, a forward pass from quarter back to any one of four men going around right end. Number 20 was the same play with the receivers bunched. Number 21 was a play that began as the others but developed into a forward to left end. Number 22 took right end from his position, gave him the ball from quarter back and placed him five yards behind center, from where, the backs causing a diversion by running laterally to the right and then turning in, he threw to left end.

The plays were first carefully explained by the coach and then were tried out at a walk. When they had been performed smoothly in that manner they were speeded up. All this took time and so it was late when the second team was summoned. Against the latter only one of the new plays proved very successful. That was Number 22. Of the others, 20 was dropped forthwith, 19 showed promise and 21 worked well when it followed 19. Like most of the others who had taken part in practice that afternoon, Jerry was pretty well tuckered when Coach Thorne called a halt and sent them trailing off to the gymnasium.

When he reached Number 7 Baldwin he was surprised to find the room in possession of Ted Ingraham. Ted greeted him eagerly, jumping from his chair and meeting him midway between it and the door. “Where have you been?” he demanded impatiently. “I’ve been waiting hours for you!”

“Why didn’t you come over to the gym?” asked Jerry. “What’s up?”

“Purves and Mansfield and two or three others are going out to the Cabin! I thought you ought to know, Jerry.”

“Going out to the Cabin!” Jerry seated himself and regarded Ted wonderingly. “When? How come?”

“This evening. Now. They asked me to go along, but I said I couldn’t.”

“Must be some mistake,” answered Jerry, frowning. “I told Jordan he couldn’t have the Cabin. Maybe you misunderstood, Ted.”

“Misunderstood nothing! Purves didn’t tell me they were going there; said they were just going to have a picnic in the woods; but Mansfield let the cat out of the bag. They think you won’t know anything about it.”

“But it’s locked!” protested Jerry.

“What of it? Can’t they pry a hasp off? Purves wouldn’t let a little thing like breaking and entering keep him from a lark! Well, I’ve told you. You don’t need to believe it if you don’t want to!”

Ted sounded slightly aggrieved, for there still remained a suggestion of incredulity on Jerry’s puzzled countenance.

“I’m right much obliged,” replied Jerry. “Reckon they mean to have supper out there?”

“Of course! That’s what they’re going for. I came right over to put you wise, but you stayed out so long――――”

“Yes, Mr. Thorne kept us sort of late. You could have come down to the field or over to――――”

“I didn’t like to. I’m not a student here, and I don’t like to shove in places like I was. Well, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Jerry. “Reckon there ain’t much of anything I can do. It’s pretty late, and I reckon Jordan and the rest of them are there by now. I might go out and tell them to go away, but maybe they wouldn’t.”

Ted grinned. “I’ll bet they wouldn’t! More likely they’d invite you to supper!”

Jerry nodded. “Yes, and I’d likely be fool enough to tell them it was all right,” he answered sheepishly. “Just the same, he ain’t got any right to do it, Ted, and――and I don’t like it.”

“Of course he hasn’t,” agreed Ted. “It’s just like the cheeky beggar, too. Look here, I thought that maybe we could get a crowd and catch them right in the middle of it and pitch ’em all out. What do you say?”

Jerry shook his head. “That would mean a fight, and faculty might hear of it and not let me go there any more. Besides, I don’t know where we could get a crowd. Tom couldn’t come, nor Joke, neither, and――――”

“Oh, all right!” Ted jumped up impatiently. “I told you, anyway. Of course, if you want those yaps using your things and breaking ’em and all that it’s not my funeral! I’ll beat it over, I reckon. Must be five and after.”

“Wait a minute,” said Jerry. “There ain’t any hurry. Let me think, Ted.” Presently, as Jerry’s thinking evidently didn’t lead to anything, Ted asked:

“Where’s Tom?”

“He and Joke have gone to Annapolis,” muttered Jerry. Silence fell again. Ted waited another period and then:

“Well?” he demanded.

“I was just pondering,” said Jerry. “Reckon if you and I went out there now we’d just about catch them at supper, eh?”

“You and I?” ejaculated Ted. “What could we do against that crowd? There are five of them at least, Jerry.”

“I know. Were they going to take food out with them?”

“Sure! Steak and onions. Reckon they mean to use your coffee, though.”

Jerry chuckled. “I’m right fond of steak and onions,” he reflected. “How about you?”

“I like them, yes, but if you think I’m going out there and eat with those yaps――――”

“I ain’t suggesting anything like that,” laughed Jerry. “But you wouldn’t mind eating steak and onions if those fellows weren’t there, would you?” He jumped up and made for the door. “You wait here while I get leave of absence, Ted. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

A quarter of an hour later they left Baldwin in a slightly surreptitious fashion and made their way across to the stable. There Ted remained outside, custodian of a bundle that showed palely in the dusk. From the stable came vague sounds, and then, at the end of five or six minutes, Jerry emerged and the two passed around the tennis courts and made their way to the road, a dim ribbon of gray in the deepening twilight.

“Did you find everything?” asked Ted hoarsely, in the manner of a conspirator.

Jerry nodded and patted a bulging pocket. “Yes,” he answered. “We’ve got to get along right smart, though, if we aim to be there in time.”

There wasn’t much conversation on the way. The road got darker and more uncertain, for the sky was clouded and there was no moon. Once Ted, his thoughts straying, wandered off into a ditch and came a cropper, but fortunately there was no water where he lighted and save for hurt feelings and some clay stains he was no worse. Where the path to the Cabin branched off Jerry debated silently a moment on the advisability of making use of the lantern that was concealed there. Finally they went on without it, Jerry leading the way and following the little path with remarkable certainty. Crossing the brook was doubtful work, for it was as dark as pitch by then, but they did cross, and that without misadventure, and halted in silence on the farther side. Between the trees ahead they could see the light in the Cabin and they could hear voices plainly. Jerry sighed his relief.

“They ain’t begun to eat yet,” he whispered. “If they had they wouldn’t be so noisy. Reckon they’re just getting through with cooking. Don’t make any noise, Ted.”

He started off beside the brook for a way and then turned and approached the Cabin from the rear. When they were some sixty or seventy feet distant he stopped and Ted laid down his bundle. Then in the darkness followed a peculiar proceeding. Between two saplings some four yards apart Jerry stretched a cord, drawing it taut until, when he picked it, it twanged resonantly. A tin can, in the bottom of which Jerry had made a small round hole just big enough to force the cord through, completed the instrument. Jerry pulled the can a fraction of an inch away from where it depended, and as the string, which had been carefully coated with resin, scraped its way through the hole a deep, vibrant sound brought a startled “_Gosh!_” from Ted. Jerry chuckled noiselessly.

“Sounds all right,” he whispered. “You wait until I get over there where the light shines from that back window, Ted. Then you take the can in one hand and walk along the cord with it slowly. Don’t pull it fast, because if you do it don’t sound so creepy. Sort of make it moan. You’ll get the hang of it. If they run toward you you’d better have your knife ready and cut it, so they won’t find it and know what’s up. But I don’t reckon they will!” Jerry was already fumbling at the bundle in the darkness. “Here’s yours,” he said. “Don’t put it on yet, though. Wait till I hoot like an owl. Then pull it around you and sort of wave your arms and move down the slope toward the brook. If they try to catch you, drop it and double back and then fall flat. They’ll never find you. All right. I’m off. Wait till you see me over there in the light.”

Jerry went so silently that, after the first moment, Ted heard not so much as a rustle. He doubted if all their precautions toward silence were quite necessary, however, for there was considerable noise inside the Cabin; laughter and some singing and the occasional rattle of cooking utensils. The single window that gave onto the woods in the back afforded him no view of the occupants, though, for the stove and the table were out of range. Now and then a shadow dimmed the yellow glow of the casement slightly, but no figure appeared. Sparks floated upwards from the little chimney at intervals as the fire was stirred or replenished and floated high in the still air to die among the tree tops. Ted watched the little path of light from the window until, where it fell against the slope of the next knoll, there suddenly appeared in its dim radiance a white-sheeted figure, uncertain of outline, ghostly, that made even Ted shudder a bit as he looked. Then, recalling his duty, he found the can and drew it along the cord.

The sound that resulted almost stood his hair on end! It was a moaning wail of anguish that, had he heard it in the forest at night, would, he assured himself, have made him take to his heels instantly! It was so startling that he involuntarily dropped his hand from the can, and in the succeeding moment he became aware of an unwonted silence inside the hut. Not a sound broke the stillness and Ted could hear his own heart thumping as he found the can again and drew forth another shuddering groan of anguish. As he did so he looked to the right. At the end of the path of light something pallid and seemingly supernatural writhed and gestured, fading and reappearing mysteriously. At times it looked slim and wraithlike, stretching upwards into the gloom of the woods, and then, strangely, it broadened and shortened grotesquely; but at all times it was a thing to strike terror to any save the stoutest of hearts!

The square of yellow light was cut off. Ted saw, dimly, heads at the window. With a fine sense of effect, he slowed the can in its progress along the cord and the dismal moaning ended in a shuddery sob. Instantly the casement at the rear of the Cabin was vacated. The light flooded forth again. There came, even above the sound of the tin can and the resined cord, the hearty crash of an overturned table! At the same moment the cry of a hoot owl broke on the air and Ted abandoning his instrument of mental torture, seized the sheet that Jerry had left him and hastily drew it around him. As he did so the unmistakable crash of the Cabin door came to him, followed by the sound of footsteps in flight down the farther side of the knoll! He ran swiftly off in the direction that Jerry had indicated, but it is very doubtful if his performance as a ghost was appreciated, for, save when one of the fleeing youths tripped and fell, to roll most of the way down the slope, and gave voice to a shrill shriek of mingled dismay and despair, the marauders fled silently and with never a backward look! The crashing of underbrush gave way to agonized flounderings as the quintet reached the brook and went into and through it, there was one faint gurgle, much choking and coughing, the snapping of distant branches and then silence fell over the scene!