That evening Joe sought out Rusty in his room in the village. “I guess I might as well quit,” he said. “I’m no good at it, Rusty, and there’s no sense in my taking the place of some fellow who can play better. You and Gus have been mighty decent, but I said when I started that I didn’t want the job if I couldn’t earn it, and I haven’t. I’ve heard more or less talk, too. Some fellows say I’m on just because I’m rooming with Gus, or because I’m baseball captain. Well, I’d rather they didn’t think that.” “What are you trying to do?” asked Rusty. “Resign?”
“Yes.” Joe smiled and added: “Before I’m fired.”
“Well, your resignation isn’t accepted, Kenton.”
Joe observed the coach doubtfully. “But—but I’m in earnest,” he protested. “It’s fine of you to be willing to put up with me, Rusty, but I—I don’t want you to think that you’ve got to—that is, that you’re under any obligation to find a place for me on the eleven.”
[238]
“Obligation be blowed,” said Rusty. “What are you talking about, anyway? I don’t get you, Kenton.”
“Why, what I mean is—look here, Rusty. You know that if I wasn’t baseball captain I’d have been let out two weeks ago. Well, I don’t want to play football enough to keep my place by favor, and so—”
“Oh, that’s it,” interrupted Rusty. “I get you now. So you think I’m nursing you along because you’re baseball captain, eh?”
“Well,” answered Joe, smiling, but uneasy because of a sudden setting of Rusty’s face, “it’s done, isn’t it?”
Rusty shook his head, his mouth drawn to a grim line.
“Not this fall, Kenton,” he said.
Joe stared back a moment, and then, as Rusty said no more, laughed perplexedly. “Well—” he began vaguely.
“When you aren’t any more use to the team, Kenton,” announced the coach quietly, “I’ll tell you. But you wait until I do. If every one of that bunch who played ragged this afternoon came to me and resigned I wouldn’t have any team to-morrow. Good night.”
Joe, still perplexed although greatly relieved, went back and reported the conversation to Gus. Gus called him a moron.
[239]
A week later Holman’s came back and played a very decent game against the State Aggies team of husky, rangy veterans. She was beaten, but only by a matter of two inches. Which is to say that if Brill’s second attempt at a goal after touchdown had sent the pigskin two inches higher it would have bounded over the bar instead of under. As it was, the final score was 14 to 13, and as Holman’s had never hoped for better than a tied score the result was accepted philosophically. Joe played fairly well during the twenty-odd minutes that he was in; rather better on defense than on attack, although he did get away once for a twelve-yard run that for the moment made him look almost like a real football player. One thing he did to the King’s taste—and Gus’s—was to follow the ball, which accounted for the fact that he had several fine tackles to his credit. Joe was not a little set up that evening, although he tried not to let the fact be known. Gus, who was in a jovial and expansive mood as a result of having more than outplayed his opponent, insisted that Joe was every bit as good as Hearn and “a blamed sight better than all the other subs!” Joe was pleased, but sprinkled quite a quantity of salt on the avowal.
There was a week of extremely hard work before the Wagnalls game. Rusty called always for speed and more speed. You simply couldn’t satisfy him, it seemed, and when practice was over the walk to[240] the gymnasium was ten miles long! But the Light Green certainly showed improvement by the end of that week. Plays went off more smoothly and a lot faster, and it did seem as though the team had at last really found itself. In the Wagnalls game Joe made his first touchdown, slipping around his own right end behind the entire backfield and getting free when Sawyer, playing right half, dumped the opposing end. Joe started his run from the enemy’s twenty-seven and had no opposition, once past the line, save from the Wagnalls quarter. Joe outguessed that youth very neatly and eluded a desperate tackle, taking the ball over for the second score of the game to the plaudits of the Holman’s rooters. The game was one-sided from the start and the home team hung up five touchdowns for a grand total of 34 points while Wagnalls was scoring 7. Joe stayed in a full half and, save that he once got his signals twisted, comported himself very well. Even his one lapse went unpenalized since, more by luck than skill, he got enough ground to make it first down again.
Then, almost before any one realized it, it was Thursday and the last practice was over and nothing was left to do save sit tight and wait for the big adventure.
Of course there were drills on Friday, both in the afternoon and evening, but they were designed more[241] to keep the fellows from getting “edgy” than to impart instruction. Friday evening Rusty turned from the blackboard, dusted the chalk from his hands and spoke for ten minutes very earnestly. What he said was about what all coaches have said on the eve of big games since coaches and big games have been. Followed some rather hysterical cheering and then twenty-six lads went back to the dormitories and wooed slumber. Needless to say, a good many of the number found slumber not easily won. Rather to his surprise, however, Joe fell asleep soon after his head touched the pillow, beating Gus by a good half-hour.
Munson came in numbers, waving blue-and-gold pennants and cheering lustily as they took possession of the village. The invaders appeared very certain of themselves, Joe thought, and his own confidence lessened appreciably. Even when Gus, viewing the enemy from the steps of Puffer, scathingly disposed of them as “a bunch of morons” Joe couldn’t quite get back his last night’s serenity.
Munson kicked off promptly at two o’clock and Sanford fumbled the ball on Holman’s sixteen yards, where an enemy end fell on it. It took Munson just seven plays to put the pigskin over and hang up six points to her credit. Holman’s was so overcome by the initial disaster that her efforts to stop the enemy’s charges were almost pathetic. Munson[242] missed the goal by inches, and Holman’s, taking what comfort she could, cheered long and loud. Joe watched that first half of the game from the bench, Dave Hearn playing left half, and Leary right. After that first score neither goal line was seriously threatened until the second period was well along. Holman’s, recovering from her shock, beat back two invasions of her territory short of the thirty-yard line and finally started one of her own. It looked good until it approached the opposite thirty. Then it slowed and faltered and, after Brill had failed to get the ball to Ted Lord on a forward pass, Sanford sacrificed two yards to get the pigskin in front of the Munson goal. Brill tried a placement from the thirty-three, but the ball went far short. Munson didn’t force the playing after that, but kicked on second down and was content to let the score stay as it was until half-time. Twice, however, Holman’s started off for the enemy goal and made good going until well past midfield. There the attack invariably petered out, for the Munson line was strong and steady. Barring that first misadventure and its result, the opposing teams played very evenly. If Munson’s backfield was as slow as Gus had predicted—and hoped—the fact was not very evident in that half of the contest. Nor was the Light Green backfield at all dazzling in its movements. An unbiased observer would probably have said that neither team[243] was playing within thirty per cent of its best, and he would have been close to the facts. The second quarter ended with the ball in Munson’s possession on her own forty-four yards.
In the locker room at the gymnasium, above the slap-slap of the rubbers, Rusty’s voice dominated everything, save, perhaps, the pungent odor of rubbing alcohol and linament, during the last three minutes of half-time. Rusty had finished with criticism and instruction. Now he was talking straight from the shoulder. It was old stuff, but it sounded new and wonderful, and some of the younger fellows choked while they listened and clenched their hands and set their young mouths sternly. Rusty didn’t get “sloppy,” but he certainly had them swallowing hard toward the end and sent them back fighting hot.
As I’ve said before, there was more in it for Rusty than a mere victory over the hereditary enemy, and any man who won’t fight hard for his job doesn’t deserve to hold it!
Joe took Hearn’s place at left half and Sawyer went in at right end instead of Leary. Slim Porter, who had been removed in the first period after some one had stepped ungently on his nose, was reinstated, well taped of countenance. Otherwise the line-up was the same as had ended the first half. It took[244] four minutes for Holman’s to recover the pigskin after the kick-off. Then Sawyer pulled down a punt and was toppled over on his twenty-one yards after a six-yard dash. Holman’s played better ball then and played it faster. Sanford abandoned his safety first policy and called for plays that were ordinarily held back for desperate moments. For a time they went well, for Munson found it hard to realize that the enemy had really cut loose from the former old-style “hit-the-wall” plays. When she awoke Holman’s was on her thirty-five-yards and still coming. But nothing came of that advance in the end. Some one was caught off-side and the invader was set back five yards. Then Hap Ferris made a low pass to Sawyer and the best Sawyer could do was make it safe for an eight-yard loss. In the end Brill again tried a place-kick and again failed, and the ball was Munson’s on her............