Danforth Plays the Game: Stories for Boys Little and Big

by Ralph Henry Barbour

Such a befuddled-looking backfield as that was for an instant! Bert, expecting the pigskin, clasped empty air to his stomach and hove himself at the line. The other backs stood and stared; all, that is, save Tommy. Tommy was very busy. Already, with the ball snuggled in the bend of his arm, he had crossed two white lines and he was very intent on crossing the rest of them. That he didn’t was only because the opposing quarterback outguessed him and brought him to earth.

But twenty-five yards was not to be sneezed at, especially when theretofore the most that Hillside had made in one try was a scant six! George Marquis stopped scolding Harold and hugged Tommy instead. Harold, too, thumped him delightedly on the back, but the quarter had a dazed look on his face. He could have sworn that he had tossed the ball toward Bert Jones!

Slightly demoralized, Meadowville lined up again in front of her foe. This time she watched Tommy as a cat watches a mouse, but when Tommy, disregarding the play, scuttled yards across the field, the rival backs decided that he was faking an end run and paid scant attention to him. A moment after they saw their mistake, for the ball went to Tommy on one of the prettiest passes ever seen, and Tommy, almost unopposed, streaked straight for the Meadowville goal line! Only an end came near him and Tommy eluded the end deftly. Tommy was really a clever runner, say what you like. The opposing quarter tried desperately to intercept Tommy before he reached the goal line, but he failed and the best he could do was to tackle him behind and prevent him from centering the ball.

You can imagine how Hillside cheered then! It was deafening, terrific! Even staid and serious-minded elderly gentlemen shouted and thumped the stand with their gold-headed sticks. Girls screamed their pretty throats hoarse and boys—well, boys threw their hats in air and behaved like joyous lunatics! As for the Hillside players, they turned handsprings and tripped each other up and behaved quite ridiculously. All save Tommy. Tommy, a little breathless, but wearing his honors modestly, yielded the ball and trotted back up the field amid a shower of congratulations. And not until Bert Jones was directing the pointing of the pigskin did it occur to George Marquis to demand of Harold why he had signaled one thing and done another! And poor Harold, looking very white and worried, could only shake his head and gaze fascinatedly at Tommy!

But why go into further details of that last half? At the end of the third quarter Hillside was two points ahead of Meadowville, and Tommy Piper had only to turn his head or lift his hand to have the Hillside stand rise to its feet and cheer itself hoarse! Such runs as Tommy made! Ten yards, twenty, even once a full thirty-five! Never was such brilliant running and dodging seen before! Tommy could have played that whole game alone had he wished it, but he didn’t. With the assurance that his team would emerge victor in the end, Tommy let the other backs have their chances. And when they were stopped in their tracks or pushed back for a loss, then the ball went to the infallible Thomas Piper and said Thomas reeled off a dozen yards, or two dozen, perchance; and everything was lovely.

When the last quarter began Meadowville was showing the strain. So was the Hillside quarterback! Poor Harold was beginning to think that he had gone crazy. Time after time when he tried to pass the ball to one of the other backs or even carry it himself, he found that, for some strange reason, without wanting to do it, he had thrown it to Tommy. Of course, Tommy always gained and that made it all right. Only—well, Harold was certainly worried!

A run the entire length of the field, barring ten yards, was Tommy’s heart-stirring contribution at the beginning of the final period, and from that time on until, within only a minute to spare and the ball on Hillside’s thirty-two yards, he ended the game in a final blaze of glory, Tommy performed like a—well, like a magician. I can think of no better word!

But the last feat of all was the most astounding. It went down in history, I can tell you! Even yet no other player has ever come within at the least twenty yards of duplicating Tommy’s performance. The score was 36 to 17 when the final sixty seconds began to tick themselves away. Hillside had the game safe, and it didn’t matter very much what happened then. So when Tommy said to Harold: “Let me try a field goal from here, Harold,” the quarterback only stared and didn’t tell him he was crazy. He only grinned. And then, since they all owed the victory to Tommy, he consented. What did it matter how the contest ended? As well one way as another. And he’d be pleasing the redoubtable Tommy. So Tommy walked back to near the twenty-five-yard line and held out his hands, and everyone stared in surprise. For why, with everything her own way, should Hillside punt and lose possession of the ball?

Tommy was ambitious to outdo all his previous feats, and he could think of but one way to gain that end, and that was to make a wonderful field goal. But when, with poised arms, he awaited the ball and looked far down the field at the distant goal posts he began to have doubts. Perhaps the magic football couldn’t go so far. It was an appalling distance. But just then the ball was snapped and Tommy said, “Come!” Straight and true it sped into his hands. [Tommy] measured distance and direction again, dropped the ball and, as it bounded, [hit it smartly with his instep. And] as he did so he [said, “Og!”] very loudly, and then, to make very certain, he said, “Og!” again and again and many times, and kept on saying it until the enemy came swarming down on him and sent him sprawling on his back.

But he was up again in a second, watching the flight of the ball, and, lest it might falter on its journey, he said, “Og!” once more, or, perhaps, the fifteenth time.