MOUNT SAINT ANNE’S SCORES

“Reckon,” announced Jerry Saturday noon, “I’ll take in the game this afternoon.”

Tom stared. “What game?” he asked.

“The football game.”

“You’re dippy, son! The game’s over at Mount Saint Anne’s!”

“I know. I’m aiming to go there. You going?”

“Am I going! Do you think I’m clean crazy? Of course I’m not going! Why, it’s twelve miles and it takes an hour, almost, to get there, and you have to start at one o’clock! What the dickens do you want to go for?”

Jerry blinked mildly. “I’m aiming to see the game,” he said. “There ain’t anything else to do, is there?”

“Plenty of things, you wild Indian. You can play some tennis or read a book or go for a paddle or study or――or――――”

“I’d like for you to come along,” interrupted Jerry.

“Not by a long shot!”

“I’d pay your fare one way, Tom.”

“I can pay my own fare, you idiot! What would I want to――――”

“I’ll pay your fare two ways,” offered Jerry. “I’d like for you to come.”

“Can’t you say anything but that?” asked Tom disgustedly. “Look here, Jerry, I wouldn’t go across the road to see a football game. It’s just a lot of crazy doings, anyway. There’s no sense in it. A lot of fellows pushing and shoving around. And it’s too blamed hot, anyhow, to sit in the sun to-day. You must want to get sunstroke or something!”

“A right smart lot of the fellers are going,” said Jerry undisturbedly. “You ain’t knowing there ain’t shade over there, either. I’d like mightily for you――――”

“Shut up! If you say that again I’ll slay you!” Tom applied his military brushes savagely to his wet hair and grumbled unintelligibly. At last, slipping into his coat, he asked: “What time are you going?”

“The train goes at ten minutes after one.”

“That means I’ll have to rush through my dinner and streak to the station and maybe have a headache or something! Oh, all right, you crazy Hill Billy! I suppose I’ll have to go!”

“Well――――” Jerry spoke from the doorway, his pale blue eyes twinkling, “I’d surely like for you to go!”

Then he closed the door behind him very quickly and beat Tom out of the house by yards.

After all, the day wasn’t as hot as Tom had prophesied, and the journey by electric train was quite refreshing, even if, as happened, he and Jerry had to stand up all the way to their destination. Fully sixty of the fellows accompanied the team and formed a fair-sized cheering section in the stand when the game started. Tom professed to suffer agonies from the sun, but Jerry didn’t waste much sympathy on him. In fact, Jerry paid far more attention to his neighbor on the other side, Sam Partridge, than he paid to Tom, for Partridge was a football “fan” of the deepest dye and a well of information. Their seats were close to the North Bank bench and Jerry could almost have touched Coach Thorne had he wanted to. That gentleman commanded the situation from his seat, never once leaving it until the half was over, and, so far as Jerry could determine, with a minimum of exertion. A brief word now and then to right or left brought a player to him. Followed a short, crisp instruction and the player was trotting out with upraised hand to claim the attention of the referee and take the place of another. But that was in the second half. During the first two ten-minute periods the players that started held their positions.

North Bank showed her superiority right from the beginning and had her opponent on the defensive at once. The first score came four minutes after the kick-off, when Omstead, pulling down a long forward pass to the right of the line, raced twenty-six yards for a touchdown without serious challenge. For some reason the attempt at goal was left to Duveen, and the full back, while a fairly good punter, was not so successful at place kicking, and the ball flew off at a tangent, to the loudly-expressed relief of Mount Saint Anne’s. The end of the first period found the home team fighting on her ten yards, and after the ball had been transferred to the other end of the field Ashley got three yards off left tackle and Duveen four on a straight plunge at center and then two more in the same place. On fourth down, with less than two to go, Tub Keller was shot across, the whole Light Blue team behind him. This time Omstead managed a nice goal and the score stood 13 to 0.

North Bank started back again after an exchange of punts and, mingling two unsuccessful forward passes with line plunging, had worked to the home team’s twelve when time was called.

While the teams were off the field Jerry listened avidly to Sam Partridge’s words of wisdom. Sam, who was a baseball player of some ability, had failed signally last year to get placed on either the first or second elevens because of his lack of weight. He was a typical example of the short and wiry Southerner, black-haired, dark-eyed, thin-featured. His nervous temperament made him a rather good baseball player, but was against him when it came to the other game. Football demands something more than nervous energy, and that was about all Sam had had to offer. His failure, however, had not rankled and he was, in theory at least, a finished football man, and a devoted upholder of the coach.

“Thorne’s a corker,” he declared, “and it wasn’t his fault last year. A lot of the fellows resented his discipline and got to grumbling and thinking they weren’t being treated right. Towards the end of the season things did get sort of straightened out and every one tried his best, I reckon, but it was too late. They’d soldiered when they ought to have worked and when we played Cumbridge we weren’t in her class. We couldn’t tackle and we couldn’t catch punts and those things beat us. We surely fought hard enough, but whenever we’d get a chance to score some one would fumble or something. We didn’t have many chances, but if we’d taken what we had we’d have tied the game anyway. Afterwards a lot of the fellows put the blame on Mr. Thorne, but it wasn’t up to him, and the fellows on the team knew it. He was mighty patient, I think, and I know for a fact that he never lost his temper once. Some coaches would have thrown up the job about the middle of the season, I’ll bet!”

“Reckon he knows a heap about football,” mused Jerry.

“Thorne? He’s forgotten more than lots of coaches know! But what can you do when the squad doesn’t want to be told anything? Last fall he took McMeens off and put in Omstead at right half and McMeens wanted to fight him and went around for days saying that Thorne did it because he had a grouch against him, and some of the fellows believed it, or pretended they did, and practice was a regular farce. And Omstead had his troubles, too, for McMeens’ friends wouldn’t give him a fair chance to make good. But Thorne never batted an eyelash. He kept Omstead in there and after awhile Jack proved that he was fifty per cent better than McMeens. I reckon things are going to be different this year, because most of the fellows that made trouble then are gone.”

Tom, who had been listening to the talk, leaned across Jerry to say significantly: “There are two of them left, Sam.”

“Two? There’s Ashley. Who else?”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” answered Tom. “I thought there was another.”

Sam looked puzzled for an instant. Then: “I reckon you mean Mansfield,” he said thoughtfully. “Well, he was one of them last year, and that’s a fact, but he wasn’t captain then, and I reckon being captain makes a difference. I’d think it would, anyway.”

“I hope it will,” said Tom. Then he turned to converse with the neighbor on his right and Jerry asked a question that he had been aching to ask for some time. But he lowered his voice in case Tom might be listening.

“What-all do you have to do to get to playing football?” he asked.

“Do? To play on the team? Why, you have to――to make good, of course. You go out for practice and if you do well enough you get taken on with the substitutes. After that it all depends. Maybe you’re an end and there are better fellows ahead of you. That means that you get in now and then during the earlier games and spend your days hoping something will happen to one of the regulars. And when the Cumbridge game comes the coach runs you in for a couple of minutes at the end so you can have your letters. But I reckon you have a pretty good time of it. I know I’d be willing to be a sub end if I couldn’t do any better. That was the position I tried for, but I was too light. The day I got dropped with a lot of others Mr. Thorne came to me and explained why it was. Reckon he was afraid I was feeling hurt, maybe. Anyhow, he was right nice and told me I wasn’t to feel bad about it and that he had watched me play and would have kept me on if I’d had more weight. I thought that was mighty nice of him.”

“It sure was,” agreed Jerry warmly. After a moment he said: “I reckon I’d be too light, wouldn’t I?”

“You?” Sam cast a swift, appraising glance over him. “I don’t believe so, Benson. Not for end, anyway. You aren’t heavy, but you look wiry and you’ve got height. Ever played any?”

“Never have, excusing a little kicking.”

“Why don’t you go out and see what you can do? I heard Billy Conger say that they were going to make a call for more candidates Monday. You look pretty hard, Benson, anyway, and you wouldn’t have to train down any!”

Jerry chuckled. “Reckon if I trained down there wouldn’t be anything left of me! You say they’re wanting more fellers to play?”

“That’s what Billy said. But you don’t have to wait to be asked, anyway. All you need to do is go out and tell Naughton you want to try. There they come! Wake up, Tom! Let’s have a cheer!”

Mount Saint Anne’s showed more fight when the battle was resumed, and resorted to a more open style of play. In the first half she had wasted much effort in trying to break the enemy’s line and had lost the ball on downs several times when a punt would have been of more benefit to her. Now, with the start of the third period, she lengthened her line and spread her back field and, having captured North Bank’s kick-off on her twenty-two yards, mingled end runs and forward passes until she had reached the middle of the field. There she lost the ball by a fumble only to recover it a moment later when Ashley dropped it. With her full back faking a forward, she knifed a half through between Conger and Kirkham for twelve long yards, and the home team supporters howled with delight. But when she tried the same play a minute or two later the runner was thrown for a loss and she eventually had to punt.

Tub Keller got the ball near North Bank’s five-yard line and evaded the opposing left end. After that, by some miracle, he dodged and twisted his way along the farther side of the field, aided by hastily-formed interference and was on the enemy’s thirty-three when he was pulled down from behind by a long-legged Mount Saint Anne’s tackle. A plunge at the left of the line failed and Duveen, faking a drop kick, threw forward to Mansfield for the distance. Two attacks at the center put the pigskin on the sixteen yards, and from there, with Duveen and Omstead alternating, it went across squarely between the posts in six plays. Omstead kicked the goal and brought the score to 20.

That the local eleven would score seemed more than doubtful, and perhaps she would not have if, after that third touchdown, Mr. Thorne had not begun to send substitutes in. At the end of the third period five first-string players had been withdrawn, and when the last quarter began three more had followed. So it was practically a substitute team that faced Mount Saint Anne’s when the whistle blew again, and many of its members had never played in a real game. Mount Saint Anne’s had made several changes during the course of the game, but at the start of the final quarter she presented what was possibly her strongest line-up. At all events, the unexpected happened, and happened with such ease and smoothness that even North Bank had to applaud!

The period was some three minutes old when a short punt by Don Sears, at quarter, gave Mount Saint Anne’s the ball on her forty-five yards. Two end runs netted her her distance and a yard more, Browne, playing right end for North Bank, being neatly boxed each time. A risky double pass added a scant two yards and a skin-tackle play two more. Then Mount Saint Anne’s tried a forward pass that almost succeeded and, on fourth down, was forced to punt. The ball eluded Summerfield, who, with Sears, had gone back, and was finally down on North Bank’s seven yards. The Light Blue made six yards in two tries, and then Schurtman, at full back, punted. Again the kick was short and the enemy started back from North Bank’s thirty-five. A fake at the left, with the ball going to the right, gained four yards. A forward pass over the middle of the line grounded. Then came the play that was too much for the inexperience of the opponents. The full back took kicking position and as the ball went back to him from center the left end started around. Full back faked a forward to his right, but instead of throwing the ball he kept it and, just as North Bank piled through to him, tossed it behind him to the circling end. It was the end who made the throw, and he made it to his left and well down the field to where a half back who had eluded the enemy was waiting with a clear field ahead of him. That was a fine throw and a remarkable catch, and afterwards only a miracle could have prevented a score, for the half back was absolutely unguarded and he had but a dozen strides to take. The best North Bank could do was to keep him from centering the ball behind the goal, and in doing that she probably kept the six points from becoming seven, for the angle was too much for the goal kicker.

Mount Saint Anne’s went quite crazy over that score and even her opponent applauded. As Sam Partridge observed enthusiastically, that throw had been a notable one. Mount Saint Anne’s went back to the fray with redoubled ardor, but North Bank, smarting under the punishment, held her safe for the remaining few minutes of the quarter and, just before the last whistle blew, took partial revenge by adding three more points to her twenty. Standing on his twenty-five yard line, Don Sears, with, as he confided to Jerry a day or two later, his heart in his mouth, kicked the ball neatly over the bar.

A few minutes later North Bank, having cheered the defeated enemy, started joyfully homeward, well content with the day.