in august hal wrote persuasively from the north, renewing his invitation to joe. joe was to come up and spend the last fortnight before school began again, insisted hal. with that hundred dollars in the bank, joe might, he reflected, allowably treat himself to that trip; but he didn’t. it would have cost him all of twenty dollars, to say nothing of two weeks’ pay at donaldson and burns’! instead, joe and philip spent a whole five days at camp peejay. that is, they went out there every evening after joe was through at the store and stayed until the next morning. then, after an early and simple breakfast, they hurried back to town awheel, philip on a borrowed bicycle scarcely more presentable than joe’s. but they had all of thursday out there and spent the day fishing, later supping on their catch of four perch and a wicked-looking hornpout.
the last of september saw joe back at holman’s school. he and hal had secured 14 routledge again and there didn’t seem to joe much more to ask for. unless, of course, it was a place on the[94] football team. but that was probably unattainable. last fall he had striven hard for some sort of recognition from the gridiron rulers and had failed. but this year he returned with unfaltering courage, reporting on the field the first day of practice and never quite losing heart. as a result of perseverance—and one or two other factors—he lasted the season through. one of the factors was gus billings, and, since the story is really gus’s, suppose we let gus tell it in his own way.
it has always seemed to me that the fellow who wrote the story of that game for the warrensburg paper missed a fine chance to spring something new. it was a pretty good story and had only about a dozen rotten mistakes, like where it said i missed a tackle the time their quarter got around our right in the first period. i wasn’t in that play at all, on account of their making the play look like it was coming at center and me piling in behind babe linder. the fellow who missed that tackle was pete swanson, i guess. anyway, it wasn’t me. maybe i did miss one or two, but not that one, and that time they got nearly fifteen yards on us, and a fellow doesn’t like to be blamed for slipping up on a play like that.
still, as i said, the story was as good as the run of them, and the paper gave us plenty of space, just as it generally does seeing that there are nearly[95] three hundred of us at holman’s and our trade’s worth quite a bit of money to the warrensburg stores. but where that reporter chap fell down was in not recognizing what you might call the outstanding features of it and playing it up. he could have put a corking headline on it, too; like “holman’s victor in one man game.” but he missed it entirely, the dumb-bell. of course i’m not pretending that i was on to it myself just at the moment. it was newt lewis who put me on. but i’m no news hound. if i was i’ll bet i’d turn out better stuff than some of these reporter guys do. it seems like some of them don’t know a football from a dutch cheese!
i suppose the story of that game really began on thursday night, when babe and i were in our room in puffer and this joe kenton mooned in on us. babe’s real name is gordon fairfield linder, but he’s always been called babe, even when he was in grammar school, on account of him being so big. babe played center on the team, and i played right tackle. this fellow joe kenton was a sort of fourth substitute half-back. he’d been hanging on to the squad all the season. he wasn’t much good, it seemed, and the only reason he was still with us was because hop maclean, who was captain that year and played left half, had a bum knee and was expected to have to give up playing any old time.[96] he’d got injured in the first game of the year, but he was still playing, and playing a mighty nice game, and i guess joe would have been dropped from the squad after last week’s game if rusty hadn’t probably forgotten about him. a coach gets sort of muddle-headed in the last two weeks of the season, and sort of absent-minded, too, and i guess he was so used to seeing joe sitting there on the bench that he didn’t think much about him: just thought he was part of the scenery.
joe was an awfully decent sort of chap, even if he was a dub at football, and fellows liked him pretty well, babe and me inclusive. he was a corking baseball player, and you might think he’d have been satisfied with that, but he wasn’t. he was dead set on being a football hero, and he’d been trying last year and this without getting very far. it wasn’t anything unusual for him to turn up at number 11, but he didn’t generally come in looking like he was rehearsing to be a pallbearer at some one’s funeral. babe, who had grabbed up a latin book, thinking it might be one of the faculty, tossed it back on the table and picked up his magazine again and grunted “’lo, joe.” and i said “’lo,” too, and asked who was dead; and joe sort of groaned and dropped into a chair.
“i’m up against it, fellows,” he said dismally.
“spill it,” said i.
[97]
he pulled a letter out of a pocket and tossed it to me. “read it,” said he.
so i pulled the thing out of the envelope and started. it was dated “central city, nov. 12.” central city is where joe lives.
my dear joseph, [it began] your last sunday’s letter, posted, i see, on tuesday, has just arrived, and both your mother and i are glad to learn that you are well and getting on finely. you neglect to answer the questions i asked in my last letter, but as you never do answer my questions i suppose i shouldn’t be surprised. i am pleased that you are doing so well at football, of course, but would like sometimes to have you make even passing mention of your studies. your mother has been suffering for several days with a slight cold, but is considerably better to-day and—
“it’s on the next page,” interrupted joe dolefully. “turn over.”
so i turned the page and read—“on top of the furnace, and it’s a wonder she wasn’t burned.”
“eh?” said babe, looking up. “joe’s mother?”
i chuckled, but joe was too depressed to even smile. “the cat,” he said. “go on. it’s further along. where it begins ‘now for our news.’”
now for our news [i went on]. your uncle preston has just bought him a new car and he called up this morning and suggested that we might run over to the school saturday in time for the football game.[98] seems to me it’s quite a ways to go, nigh eighty miles, but your uncle says we can do it in two hours and a half, and your mother’s willing and so i guess you’re likely to see us around one o’clock if preston doesn’t run us into a telegraph pole or something, like he did his old car. we are aiming to get there in time to visit with you a little before you go to play football. i hope you will do your best saturday, son, for your mother’s been telling your uncle and aunt em some pretty tall yarns about your football playing, not knowing very much about it, of course, and i guess they’ll be downright disappointed if you don’t win that game. anne walling was up to the house sunday—
“that’s all,” groaned joe, and reached for the letter.
“well,” said i, “what’s the big idea? why the forlorn countenance? don’t you want to see your folks, or what?”
“no,” said joe. “i mean yes, of course i do! only, don’t you see, you big boob, what a mess i’m in? they’re expecting me to play, aren’t they? and i won’t play, will i? how am i going to explain it to them? why, they think—”
joe stopped.
“you’ve been lying to ’em,” grunted babe.
“honest, i haven’t babe,” cried joe. “i’ve never told them a thing that wasn’t so, but—well, you know how it is! a fellow’s folks are like that. they just get it into their heads that he’s a wonder,[99] and—and jump at conclusions. of course, i did say that i was on the team—”
“that was a whopper, wasn’t it?” i asked.
“no! i am on the team. i’m one of the squad, gus. when you’re on the squad you’re on the team, aren’t you?”
“not necessarily. last month there were more than eighty fellows on the squad, old son. mean to tell me that they were all on the team?”
“different now,” growled babe. “only twenty-six. the kid’s right, gus. shut up.”
“maybe,” went on joe uncomfortably, “when i’d write home about the games i’d sort of let them think i—i had more to do with them than i had.”
“maybe,” said i, “seeing that you’ve only played in one, and then for about ten minutes!”
“two,” said joe, indignantly. “and i played all through one quarter in the glenwood game!”
“well, i guess it’s up to you to climb down, son, and tell your folks you ain’t the glaring wonder they think you are.”
“i suppose so,” agreed joe, but he didn’t sound like he meant it. “i thought of getting sick, so i could go to the infirmary, but i guess it’s too late to develop anything now. if i’d got this letter yesterday——”
“don’t be an ass,” advised babe gruffly. “spunk up and tell ’em the truth. no disgrace. lots of fellows can’t play football. look at gus.”
[100]
“huh, you big elephant,” said i, “if i couldn’t play the old game better than you ever dreamed of playing it——”
“gee, i hate to ’fess up,” groaned joe. “i’ll look such an ass, babe!”
babe looked across suspiciously, and grunted. “any one coming with your folks, kid?” he asked.
joe nodded and reddened. “they’re bringing along a girl i know.”
“huh! so that’s it, eh? thought you weren’t telling the whole of it. the girl thinks you’re a bloomin’ hero, of course. you’ve been filling her up with yarns about how you were the whole team, and how you won last year’s game with munson alone and unassisted, and—”
“oh, shut up,” begged joe. “i never did! but you know what girls are, babe. have a heart!”
babe looked flattered, and positively simpered, the big goof! you couldn’t get him within half a block of a girl if you tried! he scowled and pretended he didn’t know what i was laughing about, and said: “well, you might bandage a leg or an arm, joe, and make believe you’d busted it.”
but joe shook his head. “they’d ask about it and i’d have to lie,” he said virtuously. “i thought of that, too. i’ve thought of about everything, i guess, and nothing’s any good—except——”
he stopped and sort of choked. “’cept what?” asked babe.
[101]
“well—” joe hesitated, gulped and blurted it out finally. “i was thinking that maybe, seeing that no one cares much whether we beat mills or not, i was thinking that maybe if you fellows spoke to rusty he might let me play for a while!”
“you have some swell thinks,” said i.
babe didn’t say anything for a moment. just sat there hunched up in his chair like a heathen idol. finally he said, sort of thoughtful: “rusty won’t be here saturday.”
“you could speak to him to-morrow,” said joe eagerly.
babe went on like he hadn’t heard him. “he and hop and danny and slim are going to hawleyville to see munson play. newt lewis’ll be in charge on the side line and pete swanson or gus here will be field captain, i guess. of course, rusty will say what the line-up’s to be, but if one of the fellows was taken out, say, after the first half, it would be up to newt to pick a sub. if i was you, joe, i’d wait until saturday.”
“but i don’t believe newt would put me in,” objected joe sadly. “there’s hearn and torrey—”
“torrey’ll be playing in the first line-up, in hop’s place,” said babe calmly. “there’ll be you and hearn and jimmy sawyer. now if it happens that hop leaves gus here temporary captain, and gus says a good word for you—”
[102]
“say,” i interrupted, “what do you think i am? i’d like to help joe out of his hole, of course, but you know mighty well he can’t play half-back like bob hearn! it’s all right to say that the mills game is unimportant, but you know pesky well we want to win it, and rusty wants us to. besides, munson licked them ten to nothing two weeks back, and we don’t want to do any worse than that, do we? no, sir, you can count me out! i’ll stand by my friends, babe, but i’m not going to risk the old ball game that way!”
“no one’s asking you to risk anything,” answered babe, yawning like he was going to swallow his foot. “you know well enough we can put it all over that mills outfit. if we couldn’t we’d have a swell chance to beat munson! they’ve lost that good full-back they had when munson played ’em, gus.”
“but the guy that’s playing the position now is nearly as good,” i objected.
“don’t believe it. he couldn’t be. shut up and let your betters talk. i guess we can pull it off, joe. don’t you worry, kid. just leave it to gus and me. only, for the love of little limes, if you do get in saturday don’t mix your signals the way you did yesterday in practice!”
“i won’t,” said joe, earnest and grateful. “honest, fellows, if you’ll let me in for the second half—”
[103]
“hold on!” said babe. “that’s a big order, kid. i didn’t say anything about getting you in for a whole half. be reasonable!”
“yes, but don’t you see, babe, if i get in at the start of the last half i can explain—i mean the folks’ll think i’m being saved for the munson game the week after, but if i only play for a quarter, say, they’ll get on to the whole gag!”
“kid, you’re a wonder,” said babe admiringly. “all right, we’ll do the best we can. mind you keep this to yourself, though. no talking!”
joe agreed and was so grateful and relieved that he tried to make a speech from the doorway, but babe shut him up. just as he was closing the door, though, babe called after him. “say, joe,” he asked, “have you got a photograph of the dame?”
joe said he hadn’t, and went on out.
