"Oh, I told you just to leave it to Hicks!" he declared, grinning happily.
"I promised to round up an unstoppable fullback, a Gargantuan Hercules, and
I did! Just think of what he will do to Hamilton and Ballard in the big
games! As I have often told you, always—leave It to Hicks!"
"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL"
"Oh, what we'll do to Ballard
Will surely be a shame!
We'll push their team clear off the field
And win the football game!"
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., one night three days after the first big game, that
with Hamilton, a week following Thor's great awakening in the Latham game,
sat in his cozy room, having assumed his favorite position—chair tilted
back at a perilous angle and feet thrust atop of the radiator. The
versatile youth, having just composed a song with which to encourage
Bannister elevens in the future, was reading it aloud, when his mind was
torpedoed by a most startling thought.
"Land o' Goshen!" reflected the sunny-souled Senior, aghast. "I haven't
twanged my ole banjo and held forth with a saengerfest for a coon's age! I
surely can do so now without arousing Butch to wrath. Thor has awakened,
Hamilton is walloped, and Bannister will surely win the Championship!
Everything is happy, an' de goose hangs high, so here goes!"
Holding his banjo à la troubadour, the blithesome Hicks, who as a Senior
was harassed by no study-hours or inspections, strode from his room and out
into the corridor, up and down which he majestically paced, like a sentinel
on his beat, twanging his beloved banjo with abandon, and roaring in his
foghorn, subterranean voice:
"Oh, the way we walloped Hamilton
Surely was a shame!
And we're going to win the Championship—
For we'll do Ballard the same!
"And Bannister shall flaunt the flag
For at least three seasons more;
Because—no team can win a game
While the Gold and Green has Thor!"
On Bannister Field, three days before, the Gold and Green had crushed the
strong team from "old Ham" to the tune of 20 to 0; Thor's magnificent
ground-gaining, in which he smashed through the supposedly impregnable
defense of the enemy, was a surprise to his comrades and a shock to
Hamilton. Time and again, on the fourth down, the ball was given to
Thorwald, and the blond Colossus, with several of old Ham's players
clinging to him, plunged ahead for big gains. So now with a monster
mass-meeting in half an hour, the exultant Bannister youths pretended to
study, but prepared to parade on the campus, cheer the eleven and Thor,
and arouse excitement for the winning of the biggest game, a victory over
Ballard, a week later.