Short Stories for English Courses Part 22

"Princeton is playing all her regular men," said the sporting editor, giving Seeley his note-book. "The only Yale change is at full-back--and that's a catastrophe."

Seeley copied the lists for reference and his pencil was not steady when he came to "Full-back, Ernest T. Seeley." But he pulled his thoughts away from the eleven and began to jot down notes of the pa.s.sing incidents which might serve to weave into the fabric of his description. The unwonted stimulus aroused his talent as if it were not dead but dormant. The scene appealed to him with almost as much freshness and color as if he were observing it for the first time.

A roar of cheering rose from a far corner of the field and ran swiftly along the Yale side of the amphitheatre, which blossomed in tossing blue. The Yale eleven scampered into view like colts at pasture, the subst.i.tutes veering toward the benches behind the side-line. Without more ado the team scattered in formation for signal practice, paying no heed to the tumult which raged around and above them. Agile, clean-limbed, splendid in their disciplined young manhood, the dark blue of their stockings and the white "Y"

gleaming on their sweaters fairly trumpeted their significance to Henry Seeley. And poised behind the rush-line, wearing his hard- won university blue, was the lithe figure of the Freshman full- back, Ernest Seeley.

The youngster, whose fate it was to be called a "forlorn hope,"

looked fragile beside his comrades of the eleven. Although tall and wiry he was like a greyhound in a company of mastiffs. His father, looking down at him from so great a height that he could not read his face, muttered to himself while he dug his nails into his palms:

"He is too light for this day's work. But he carries himself like a thoroughbred."

The boy and his fellows seemed singularly remote from the shouting thousands ma.s.sed so near them. They had become the sole arbiters of their fate, and their impressive isolation struck Henry Seeley anew as the most dramatic feature of this magnificent picture. He must sit idly by and watch his only son battle through the most momentous hour of his young life, as if he were gazing down from another planet.

The staccato cheers of Princeton rocketed along the other side of the field, and the eleven from Old Na.s.sau ran briskly over the turf and wheeled into line for a last rehearsal of their machine- like tactics. Henry Seeley was finding it hard to breathe, just as it had happened in other days when he was waiting for the "kick- off" and facing a straining Princeton line. The minutes were like hours while the officials consulted with the captains in the centre of the field. Then the two elevens ranged themselves across the brown turf, there was breathless silence, and a Princeton toe lifted the ball far down toward the Yale goal. It was the young full-back who waited to receive the opening kick, while his comrades thundered toward him to form a flying screen of interference. But the twisting ball bounded from his too eager arms, and another Yale back fell on it in time to save it from the clutches of a meteoric Princeton end.

"Nervous. Hasn't steadied down yet," exclaimed a reporter behind Henry Seeley. "But he can't afford to give Princeton any more chances like that. Her ends are faster than chain lightning."

The father groaned and wiped the sweat from his eyes. If the team were afraid of this untried full-back, such a beginning would not give them confidence. Then the two lines locked and heaved in the first scrimmage, and a stocky Yale half-back was pulled down in his tracks. Again the headlong Princeton defence held firm and the Yale captain gasped, "Second down and three yards to gain." The Yale interferers sped to circle one end of the line, but they were spilled this way and that and the runner went down a yard short of the needed distance.

The Yale full-back dropped back to punt. Far and true the ball soared into the Princeton field, and the lithe Freshman had somewhat redeemed himself. But now, for their own part, the sons of Old Na.s.sau found themselves unable to make decisive gains against the Yale defence. Greek met Greek in these early clashes, and both teams were forced to punt again and again. Trick-plays were spoiled by alert end-rushers for the blue or the orange and black, fiercely launched a.s.saults at centre were torn asunder, and the longer the contest raged up and down the field the more clearly it was perceived that these ancient rivals were rarely well matched in point of strength and strategy.

The Yale coaches were dismayed at this turn of events. They had hoped to see the ball carried toward the Princeton goal by means of shrewdly devised teamwork, instead of which the burden of the game was shifted to one man, the weakest link in the chain, the Freshman at full-back. He was punting with splendid distance, getting the ball away when it seemed as if he must be overwhelmed by the hurtling Tigers. Once or twice, however, a hesitant nervousness almost wrought quick disaster, and the Yale partisans watched him with tormenting apprehension.

The first half of the game was fought into the last few minutes of play and neither eleven had been able to score. Then luck and skill combined to force the struggle far down into Yale territory.

Only ten yards more of trampled turf to gain and Princeton would cross the last white line. The indomitable spirit which had placed upon the escutcheon of Yale football the figure of a bulldog rampant, rallied to meet this crisis, and the hard-pressed line held staunch and won possession of the ball on downs. Back to the very shadow of his own goal-posts the Yale full-back ran to punt the ball out of the danger zone. It shot fairly into his grasp from a faultless pa.s.s, but his fingers juggled the slippery leather as if it were bewitched. For a frantic, awful instant he fumbled with the ball and wildly dived after it as it caromed off to one side, bounded crazily, and rolled beyond his reach.

The Princeton quarter-back had darted through the line like a bullet. Without slackening speed or veering from his course, he scooped up the ball as he fled toward the Yale goal-line. It was done and over within a twinkling, and while the Yale team stampeded helplessly in his wake the devastating hero was circling behind the goal-posts where he flopped to earth, the precious ball apparently embedded in his stomach. It was a Princeton touchdown fairly won, but made possible by the tragic blunder of one Yale man. While ten thousand Princeton throats were barking their jubilation, as many more loyal friends of Yale sat sad-eyed and sullen and glowered their unspeakable displeasure at the slim figure of the full-back as he limped into line to face the try for goal.

The goal was not scored, however, and the fateful tally stood five to nothing when the first half ended, with the blue banners drooping disconsolate.

Henry Seeley pulled his slouch hat over his eyes and sat with hunched shoulders staring at the Yale team as it left the field for the intermission. He had forgotten about his story of the game. The old spectre of failure obsessed him. It was already haunting the pathway of his boy. Was he also to be beaten by one colossal blunder? Henry Seeley felt that Ernest's whole career hung upon his behavior in the second half. How would the lad "take his medicine"? Would it break his heart or rouse him to fight more valiantly? As if the father had been thinking aloud, the sporting editor at his side observed:

"He may win the game yet. I like the looks of that boy. But he did make a hideous mess of it, didn't he? I hope he hasn't got a streak of yellow in him."

Henry Seeley turned on his neighbor with a savage scowl and could not hold back the quivering retort:

"He belongs to me, I want you to understand, and we'll say nothing about yellow streaks until he has a chance to make good next half."

"Whew-w-w, why did you hold it out on me, old man?" gasped the sporting editor. "No wonder you kicked me black and blue without knowing it. I hope he is a chip of the old block. I saw you play here in your last game."

Seeley grunted something and resumed staring at the field. He was thinking of the present moment in the training quarters, of the muddy, weary players sprawled around the head coach, of his wise, bitter, stinging rebukes and admonitions. Perhaps he would take Ernest out of the game. But Seeley was confident that the coaches would give the boy a chance to redeem himself if they believed his heart was in the right place. Presently the two teams trotted on the field, not as nimbly as at their first appearance, but with dogged resolution in their demeanor. Henry Seeley saw his son glance up at the "cheering sections," as if wondering whether their welcome was meant to include him. One cheer, at least, was intended to greet him, for Henry Seeley stood on his chair, waved his hat, and thundered:

"'Rah, 'rah, 'rah, for Yale, my boy. Eat 'em alive as your daddy used to do."

The men from Princeton had no intention of being devoured in this summary fashion. They resumed their tireless, whirlwind attack like giants refreshed, and so harried their Yale foemen that they were forced to their utmost to ward off another touchdown. This incessant battering dulled the edges of their offensive tactics, and they seemed unable to set in motion a consistent series of advances. But the joy of Princeton was tempered by the knowledge that this, her dearest enemy, was not beaten until the last play had been signalled.

And somehow the Yale machine of muscle, brains, and power began to find itself when the afternoon shadows were slanting athwart the arena. With the ball on Princeton's forty-yard line the chosen sons of Eli began a heroic advance down the field. It was as if some missing cog had been supplied. "Straight old-fashioned football" it was, eleven minds and bodies working as one and animated by a desperate resolve, which carried the Yale team along for down after down into the heart of Princeton's ground.

Perhaps because he was fresher than the other backs, perhaps because the captain knew his man, the ball was given to the Yale full-back for one swift and battering a.s.sault after another. His slim figure pelted at the rush-line, was overwhelmed in an avalanche of striped arms and legs, but somehow twisted, wriggled, dragged itself ahead as if there was no stopping him. The mult.i.tude comprehended that this despised and disgraced Freshman was working out his own salvation along with that of his comrades.

Once, when the scrimmage was untangled, he was dragged from beneath a heap of players, unable to regain his feet. He lay on the gra.s.s a huddled heap, blood smearing his forehead. A surgeon and the trainer doused and bandaged him, and presently he staggered to his feet and hobbled to his station, rubbing his hands across his eyes as if dazed.

When, at length, the stubbornly retreating Princeton line had been driven deep down into their end of the field, they, too, showed that they could hold fast in the last extremity. The Yale attack crumpled against them as if it had struck a stone wall. Young Seeley seemed to be so crippled and exhausted that he had been given a respite from the interlocked, hammering onslaught, but at the third down the panting quarter-back croaked out his signal.

His comrades managed to rip a semblance of an opening for him, he plunged through, popped clear of the line, fell to his knees, recovered his footing by a miracle of agility, and lunged onward, to be brought down within five yards of the coveted goal-posts.

He had won the right to make the last momentous charge. Swaying in his tracks, the full-back awaited the summons. Then he dived in behind the interference for a circuit of the right end. Two Princeton men broke through as if they had been shot out of mortars, but the Yale full-back had turned and was ploughing straight ahead. Pulled down, dragging the tackler who clung to his waist, he floundered to earth with most of the Princeton team piled above him. But the ball lay beyond the fateful chalk-line, the Yale touchdown was won, and the game was tied.

The captain clapped Seeley on the shoulder, nodded at the ball, and the full-back limped on to the field to kick the goal or lose a victory. There were no more signs of nervousness in his bearing.

With grave deliberation he stood waiting for the ball to be placed in front of the goal-posts. The sun had dropped behind the lofty grand-stands. The field lay in a kind of wintry twilight. Thirty thousand men and women gazed in tensest silence at the mud- stained, battered youth who had become the crowning issue of this poignant moment. Up in the press-box a thick-set, grayish man dug his fists in his eyes and could not bear to look at the lonely, reliant figure down yonder on the quiet field. The father found courage to take his hands from his face only when a mighty roar of joy boomed along the Yale side of the amphitheatre, and he saw the ball drop in a long arc behind the goal-posts. The kick had won the game for Yale.

Once clear of the crowds, Henry Seeley hurried toward the training quarters. His head was up, his shoulders squared, and he walked with the free stride of an athlete. Mr. Richard Giddings danced madly across to him:

"Afraid to see him play were you, you silly old fool? He is a chip of the old block. He didn't know when he was licked. Wow, wow, wow, blood will tell! Come along with us, Harry."

"I must shake hands with the youngster, d.i.c.k. Glad I changed my mind and came to see him do it."

"All right, see you at Mory's to-night. Tell the boy we're all proud of him."

Seeley resumed his course, saying over and over again, as if he loved the sound of the words, "chip of the old block," "blood will tell."

This verdict was like the ringing call of bugles. It made him feel young, hopeful, resolute, that life were worth having for the sake of its strife. One thing at least was certain. His son could "take his punishment" and wrest victory from disaster, and he deserved something better than a coward and a quitter for a father.

The full-back was sitting on a bench when the elder Seeley entered the crowded, steaming room of the training house. The surgeon had removed the muddy, blood-stained bandage from around his tousled head and was cleansing an ugly, ragged gash. The boy scowled and winced but made no complaint, although his bruised face was very pale.

"Must have made you feel pretty foggy," said the surgeon. "I shall have to put in a few st.i.tches. It was a deuce of a thump."

"I couldn't see very well and my legs went queer for a few minutes, but I'm all right now, thanks," replied the full-back, and then, glancing up, he espied his father standing near the door. The young hero of the game beckoned him with a grimy fist.

Henry Seeley went over to him, took the fist in his two hands, and then patted the boy's cheek with awkward and unaccustomed tenderness.

"Sit still, Ernest. I won't interfere with the doctor's job. I just wanted to let you know that I saw your bully work. It made me think of--it made me think of--"

Henry Seeley's voice broke curiously and his lip quivered. He had not meant to show any emotion.

His son replied with a smile of affectionate admiration: "It made you think of your own teams, didn't it? And I was thinking of you in that last half. It helped my nerve a whole lot to remember that my dad never knew when he was licked. Why, even the coaches told me that between the halves. It put more ginger into me than anything else. We've got to keep up the family record between us."

The father looked beyond the boy as if he were thinking of a bigger, sterner game than football. There was the light of a resurrected determination in his eyes, and a vibrant earnestness in his voice as he said:

"I'm not worrying about your keeping the family record bright, Ernest. And, however things may go with me, you will be able to hang fast to the doctrine which helped you to-day, that your father, too, doesn't know when he is whipped."

GALLEGHER

A NEWSPAPER STORY

BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS