Left End Edwards Part 28

Steve laughed. Then he said severely: "You ought to know better than take chances like that, Tom. Suppose faculty got on to it. Besides, fighting's pretty kiddish for a Fourth Former!"

Tom viewed Steve amusedly over the wet towel. "Coming from you, Steve, that sounds great!" he said.

"Never mind about me. What I do doesn't affect you. What were you fighting about?"

Tom looked vacant and shook his head. "I don't know. Nothing special, I guess."

"Don't be a chump! You didn't black his eye and get that beautiful nose for nothing, I suppose. What was it?"

"Well, Telford said--he said----"

"You're a wonder!" declared Steve. "Don't you know what he said?"

"I forget. It was something--something I didn't like. So I slapped his face. That was on the gym steps. He said 'Come on back here.' I said 'All right.' Then we--we had it. Then he said he was wrong about it--whatever it was, you know--and we sort of apologised and sneaked off." Tom felt of his nose carefully. "I saw about a million stars when he landed here!"

"That's the craziest stunt I ever heard of!" said Steve disgustedly.

"And you want to hope hard that no one saw it. If faculty hears of it, you'll get probation, you chump."

"I know. It won't, though. No one saw us."

"Who's Telford, anyway?" Steve demanded.

"Telford? Oh, he's a Fifth Form fellow."

"What does he look like?"

"Look like?" repeated Tom vaguely. "Oh, he's a couple of inches taller than I am and has light brown hair and--and a black eye!"

"Is he the fellow who goes around with Eric Sawyer?" demanded Steve suspiciously. "Wear a brown plaid Norfolk? The fellow who shoved me into the pool the night we had that fracas with Sawyer?"

"Did he? I don't remember. I didn't see who did that. I--I guess maybe he's the chap, though. I've seen him with Sawyer, I think."

"What did he say?" asked Steve quietly.

"Who say?"

"Telford."

"When?"

"To-day! When you had the row! For the love of Mike, Tom, don't be a fool!"

"I don't remember what he said."

"Was it about--me?"

"You? Why would it be about you?" Tom attempted a laugh.

"Was it?" Steve persisted.

Tom shook his head, but his gaze wandered. Steve grunted.

"It was, then," he muttered.

"I didn't say so," protested Tom.

"I say so, though." Steve was silent a moment. Then, "Look here, Tom, there's no use your fighting every fellow who says things about me," he said. "If you try that, you'll have your hands full. I--I don't care what they say, anyway. Just you keep out of it. Understand?"

"Sure," answered the other untroubledly.

"Of course"--Steve hesitated in some embarra.s.sment--"of course I appreciate your standing up for me and all that, but--but I'll fight my own battles, thanks, Tom."

"You're welcome," murmured Tom through the folds of the towel. "Keep the change. I'll fight if I want to, though."

"Not on my account, you won't," said Steve sternly.

Tom grinned. "All right. I'll do it on my own account. Say, I'll bet Telford's nose is worse than mine, Steve. I gave him a bully swat!"

CHAPTER XXI

FRIENDS FALL OUT

On the eleventh of November Brimfield played her last game away from home. Chambers Technological Inst.i.tute was her opponent. About every fellow in school went over to Long Island and witnessed a very sad performance by their team. The slump had arrived. That was evident from the first moment of play. Brimfield was outpunted, outrushed and outgeneraled. Chambers ran up 17 points in the first half and 13 more in the last, while all Brimfield could do was to make one solitary touchdown and a field-goal, the latter with less than thirty seconds of playing time left. Williams missed the goal after the touchdown by some ten yards. Not only was Brimfield outplayed, but she showed up wretchedly as to physical condition. It was a warm day and the Maroon-and-Grey warriors seemed to feel the heat much more than their opponents and were a sorry-looking lot by the end of the third period.

The second team attended the game in a body, "Boots" for once relenting, and looked on in stupefied sorrow while their doughty foe was humiliated and defeated.

"Gee, I wish Robey would put us in in the next half," sighed Gafferty to Steve after the second period had reached its sad conclusion. "I'll bet you we'd put up twice the game the 'varsity has."

"I don't see what ails them," responded Steve quite affably. The calamitous drama unfolding before him had for the moment made him forget his role of aloofness and cynical indifference. "Why, even Andy Miller is up in the air! He hasn't caught a pa.s.s once, and he's had four chances, and he's missed enough tackles to fill a book!"

"One grand slump," said Gafferty. "That's what it is, Edwards, one wonderful, spectacular, iridescent slump! And the only person who is pleased is Danny, I guess. He's been begging the 'varsity fellows to get stale and be done with it. And now they've obliged him. Too bad, though, they couldn't have slumped the first of the week. It's fierce to be beaten by a tech school!"

In the third period Coach Robey hustled the best of his subst.i.tutes on in the hope of stemming the tide of defeat, and, while the new men showed more dash and go, they couldn't stop the triumphant advance of the black-and-orange enemy. To make matters worse, when it was all over, Benson, who played right end, had a strained ligament in his ankle, Williams was limping with a bad knee and Quarter-back Milton had to be helped on and off the cars like a confirmed invalid. There wasn't a regular member of the 'varsity who could have stood up against a hard gust of wind five minutes after the final whistle had blown!

The school returned to Brimfield disgruntled, disappointed and critical.

There was scarcely a fellow on the train who didn't have a perfectly good theory as to the trouble with the eleven and who wasn't willing and eager to explain it. As for the game with Claflin, now just a fortnight distant, why, it was already as good as lost! Anyone would have told you that. The only point of disagreement was the size of the score. That ran, according to various estimates, from 6 to 0 to 50 to 3. It was a wonder they allowed Brimfield that 3! But all this was on the way home.

Gradually the reaction set in and hope crept back. After all, a slump was something you had to contend with. It happened to every team some time in the season. Perhaps it was lucky it had come now instead of later. Of course, Chambers Tech was only a fair-to-middling team and Brimfield ought to have beaten her hands down, but since she hadn't, there was no use in worrying about it. By the time supper was over that evening, the stock of the Brimfield Football Team had risen to close to par, and anyone who had had the temerity to even suggest the possibility of a victory for Claflin would have been promptly and efficaciously squelched!

The Chambers game resulted in a shake-up. That it was coming was hinted on Monday when only a few of the subst.i.tutes on the first were given any work and four of the second team fellows were lifted from their places and s.h.i.+fted over to what represented the 'varsity that day. These four were Trow and Saunders, tackles; Thursby, centre, and Freer, half-back.

On Tuesday the first-string 'varsity men were back at work, with the exception of Benson, whose ankle was in pretty bad condition. Thursby was given a try-out at centre and Saunders at left tackle in the short scrimmage that followed practice. Thursby showed up so brilliantly that many predicted the retirement of Innes to the bench. Saunders failed to impress Coach Robey very greatly and he and Freer and Trow went back to the second the next day. The slump was still in evidence and the work was light until Thursday. Benson was still on crutches and his place was being taken by Roberts. Thursby ran Innes such a good race for the position of centre-rush that a subst.i.tute centre named Coolidge suddenly found his nose out of joint and faced the prospect of viewing the Claflin game from the bench.

The school held its first ma.s.s meeting on Wednesday evening of that week and cheered and sang and whooped things up with a fine frenzy. The discouragement of the Chambers game was quite forgotten. Andy Miller, in a short speech, soberly predicted a victory over Claflin, and the audience yelled until the roof seemed to shake. Coach Robey gave a resume of the season, thanked the school for its support of the team, pledged the best efforts of everyone concerned and, while refusing to say so in so many words, hinted that Brimfield would have the long end of the score on the twenty-fifth. After that the football excitement grew and spread and took possession of the school like an epidemic.

Recitations became farces, faculty fumed and threatened--and bore it, and some one hundred and fifty boys fixed their gaze on the twenty-fifth of November and lived breathlessly in the future.

There was a second ma.s.s meeting on Sat.u.r.day, a meeting that ended in a parade up and down the Row, much noise and a vast enthusiasm. Brimfield had met Southby Academy in the afternoon and had torn the visitors to tatters, scoring almost at will and sending the hopes of her adherents soaring into the zenith. To be sure, Southby had presented a rather weak team, but, as an offset to that, Brimfield had played without the services of the regular right end, without her captain and with a back-field largely subst.i.tute during most of the game. There was nothing wrong with Andy Miller, but it was thought best to save him for the final conflict. The last fortnight of a football season is a hard period for the captain, no matter how smoothly things have progressed; and Brimfield had had a particularly fortunate six weeks. Andy Miller was not the extremely nervous type, but, nevertheless, he had lost some fourteen pounds during the month and was far "finer" than Danny Moore wanted to see him. So Andy, dressed in "store clothes," saw the Southby game from the side-line, hobn.o.bbing with the coaches and Joe Benson, still on crutches, and with Norton, who, after smas.h.i.+ng out two touchdowns in the first period, was also taken out to be saved.