Ann Arbor Tales Part 35

The shouting continued so vigorously that it shook the windows of the narrow, low-ceiled, suffocating room where other youths--the vanquished--were peeling the garments of the battle, and silently rubbing their smooth, pink bodies with wide, coa.r.s.e towels.

The eyes of every girl above were turned down the field and all were alight; each soft cheek glowed with ruddy color, every nerve was tense.

Among these now subdued spectators was one who had not cheered, but whose excitement had been none the less great, as testified to by the eagerness with which she leaned over the veranda rail, her cheeks white from the pressure of her slim fingers against them.

Now, apparently oblivious to her immediate surroundings, her att.i.tude unchanged, she watched every swerve of the throng as little by little, and unsteadily, it approached. As the human maelstrom swept on and the stuffed shapes outlined so ridiculously against the sky became distinguishable, one from another, the girl smiled and leaned further over the rail. Another instant and she saw but one figure among the many--Adams'. He sat higher than the others; was more conspicuous among them. Again and again, that afternoon, she had seen him seize the ball and, plunging, forge down the field, clasping it closely to his breast.

Once she had seen him flung heavily to the ground by a low tackle and had held her breath when a little ring formed where he lay. She took in her faint breath quiveringly when the ring broke and she saw him get upon his feet unsteadily. Then the lines formed again--two slanting walls of fine young brawn. But none of these things that she had seen had set alight her eyes as they were lighted now.

With a yell of almost demoniacal joy, the mob surged beneath the veranda, the warriors crouching on their unsteady pedestals to avoid the timbers overhead. As he was borne beneath, and out of her delighted sight, Adams cast one glance up at the girl leaning eagerly across the rail. Her eyes had been awaiting his and the light that flared in both their eyes as they met told her that he had fought for her; told him that she had known he'd win.

She rose, then, folded her little flag and thrust it into the pocket of her coat. With the others she descended to the club room below and waited for him there.

She withdrew to one side and watched with curious interest the great crowd in the street, fretting impatiently for a nearer glimpse of the victors.

The four horses had been taken from a high tally-ho and a score of youths were running ropes from the front axle of the vehicle away down the street. The girl perceived it was the intention of the crowd to drag the tally-ho to the city in the good old way of joyous, eager crowds.

And as she watched she saw a man in the blue overalls of a laborer, his face and hands smoke-blackened, break through the throng on the walk and approach the club house. She saw a policeman step in front of him and bar the way. The laborer and the officer seemed to argue. The former, his face toward her, she saw gesticulate angrily and stamp his foot, and then she saw a look of dumb pain in his blackened face as the officer, without more ado, seized him by the shoulders, roughly, and turning him about, pushed him into the crowd which parted to make way for his broad, squat figure.

The girl felt a hand upon her arm. She turned quickly and looked up into Adams' face.

The little light of fright fled from her eyes and a mist gathered in its place as she murmured eagerly: "Oh, John, John, how glorious it was!"

He smiled down at her gladly.

"And see," she said, "look--they are going to drag the team down town in the tally-ho."

Through the window he saw the throng. His face at the pane was recognized and a cheer rose that prompted the girl to draw back, blushing. From where she stood at one side she could see a broken line of the crowd.

"Oh, look, John!" she cried, "there's that dirty old man again. He's been drinking--the police drove him away before."

He turned in the direction of her gaze, then drew away instantly from the window.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

His face was pale and his mouth was set in a straight line.

"Nothing," he replied quickly. "Come----" and started toward the door opening upon the now deserted field.

She followed him unquestioningly.

On the porch she said:

"Aren't you going on the tally-ho with the team?"

"No," he replied, "I don't like being made a fool of. There's a gate over there on Ca.s.s Avenue. We'll go out that way and they won't see us."

"But, John----"

"I don't want to ride down town in state," he complained, testily. "I'd rather be with you. I shall have to be with them until train time. Now, I'd rather be with _you_." And he looked down at her and smiled.

By a devious route they finally reached the Campus Martius and at the little door of a big Woodward Avenue hotel he left her, for she had told him there would be friends awaiting her there with whom she would take dinner later.

"At the train, dear?" she said, as he opened the door for her.

"Yes. Good-bye till then."

She followed his great figure with her eyes and saw it disappear in the crowd below. Then she turned and pa.s.sed down the narrow corridor from the "ladies' entrance."

II

It had been a glorious day.

The first touch of winter was in the air, clear, crisp, and set the blood a-tingling.

"Ideal football weather," the sporting writer of the _Journal_ had called it in the early afternoon edition where, with the wisdom of his species, he had sought to forecast the game's result.

In honor of the occasion a gracious citizenry had swathed Jefferson and Woodward Avenues in bandages of maize and blue, and all day long the small boy had been as active as though it were the fourth of July rather than the fifth of November.

And now in the evening, the older portion of the citizenry withdrew, and the theatres, the lobbies of the prominent hotels, the clubs, and all the places of public meeting, were turned over, unconditionally, to youth.

A kindly disposed commissioner of police had instructed his men to be lenient.

"Boys will be boys," he said to the captain on night duty at the Central Station, as he left the office.

"But what about the _girls_?" inquired the captain with a twinkle in his own eyes that was almost youthful.

"Well--they will be, too--sometimes," the commissioner replied.

In the lobby of the Russell House, where the team was installed, the mayor of Detroit--who himself had been an undergraduate once and remembered it--addressed the throng below him, from the first broad landing of the wide marble stairway.

His rounded periods were cheered to the echo; and when he drily observed that all the policemen had been taken off duty the roof fairly lifted and guests came pouring into the corridors, their faces clearly indicating their alarm.

"You know," the mayor observed, his eyes twinkling,--"we've what they call a slow town here. Well, it rests with you boys, for this night at least, to make it fast. Moreover, it's an old town, a _very_ old town, and wherever you find an absence of paint you have my permission and the permission of the commissioner of police to redecorate. I suppose red would be the proper tint. I have had a fondness for the color ever since I was one of you--an undergrad. at old Ann Arbor----"

In the pandemonium that ensued the mayor judiciously withdrew. The crowd "rushed" the lobby, and staid old men, in town over the day, sought places of greater security on landings, behind pillars, and in corners whence might be had a view of the proceedings without, necessarily, partic.i.p.ation.

One by one various members of the team appeared at the head of the stairway and at each appearance a welcome of ringing cheers was sounded.

The director of athletics, a little man with a wiry mustache and a square chin addressed the crowd from the top step after prolonged cries of "Speech! Speech!"

The trainer, a huge man with a face like a fist, a c.o.c.kney accent, and the shoulders of an ox, shouted a few phrases above the din. Each time he uttered the word, "Michigan," which he insisted upon p.r.o.nouncing "Mitch-ti-gan," he was cheered wildly.

When Adams appeared on the upper landing and hesitated there the commotion became deafening.

A section of the throng swept up to him, seized him and carried him further down where he was made to blurt a few incoherent sentences in which one caught, above the noise, a constant repet.i.tion of the words--"fellows"--"great"--"wiped 'em up"--"knew it"--"right stuff"--and others from the campus jargon, generally as unintelligible as Ute gutterals.

Then he, too, descended and became an atom of the matter below as eager to cry "Speech!" to the others when they should appear, as the mob about him now had been to demand a word from him.

It all combined to const.i.tute a riot of triumph, a veritable debauch in the sensation of triumph--a triumph well won, and fairly; honestly accepted, and as honestly celebrated by nearly three thousand as irresponsible young spirits as ever took possession of a town.