Fred went out then, Hodsdon taking his place, and James went in for Hodges. High School kicked off to Basker and the substitute quarter was run back for a loss of four yards. A fumble a minute later was recovered by Mason, at left half, on Parkinson’s twelve yards. Two attempts at the line gained but six and Basker punted to midfield. A smash at the Parkinson right side went through for five yards and Ira, who had been mowed down in the proceeding, felt so comfortable on the ground that it didn’t occur to him to get up until someone swashed a wet sponge over his face. When he did find his feet under him he was extremely glad of the support of the trainer, and when he found himself walking toward the bench he didn’t even protest. There was, he felt subconsciously, something radically wrong with a game that allowed the other fellow to “rough” you at pleasure and forbade you to “rough” him back. Someone lowered him to a bench and draped a blanket around his shoulders, and someone administered to his half-closed eye and added another piece of plaster to his already picturesque countenance. And after that he was sent off to the gymnasium, receiving as he went a scattered applause from the friendly stands.
Coach Driscoll used twenty-four players that afternoon, and the score of the game in the next morning’s Warne Independent looked a good deal like a section of a city directory. But in spite of putting two whole teams into the field the coach failed to capture the game, for, in the last three or four minutes of play, High School performed a miracle with a sadly patched-up eleven and worked the ball down to Parkinson’s twenty-two yards and from there, plunging once, grounding a forward-pass once and trying an end run that was stopped, she lifted the pigskin across the bar and tied the score at 10 to 10! And Fred Lyons, dragging tired feet up the gymnasium steps, remarked sadly to De Wolf Lowell: “Father was right!” Lowell, himself downcast and disappointed, not knowing that Fred had Coach Driscoll in mind, found the remark frivolous and senseless and only grunted.
“Well, what in the name of common sense has happened to you?” demanded Humphrey Nead as Ira trailed into the room about five. Ira smiled tiredly and gingerly lowered himself onto the erratic window seat.
“I’ve been playing football,” he answered. “Didn’t you see the game?”
Humphrey shook his head. “I did not,” he answered. “But if they all look like you it must have been a fine one! Who won?”
“Nobody. It was a tie. Ten to ten.”
“Great Scott! Do you mean that you tore your face into fragments and ended where you began?”
“Something like that. Only, of course, we all had a pleasant time, Nead, and got a lot of nice exercise. It’s a remarkable game, football.”
“Are you sure you’ve been playing football?” asked Humphrey, grinning. “Sure you haven’t been in a train wreck, Rowly?”