After the ball was brought out Brill tried to make those six points into seven, but he missed the goal worse than Pete Swanson had. No one cared much for 6 to 2 was good enough, and after Mills had kicked off again and we had piled into their line a couple of times the game was over.
I happened to be in front of Routledge about half an hour later, when Joe’s folks were getting ready to go home, and I could see that Joe had made an awful hit with the whole bunch. Old man Morris was as proud as anything, and so was Joe’s mother, while that uncle of his, with his trick mustaches, was so haughty that he bumped his head getting into the car. I guess the girl was tickled, too, but you couldn’t tell by her looks. Joe was mighty modest, too, I’ll say that for him. You wouldn’t have guessed he was a hero, just by looking at him. I helped Aunty into the car, and she smiled and thanked me and said, as she shook hands: “I think you did just beautifully, Mr. Billings, but wasn’t Joseph wonderful?”
“Wonderful,” I said without cracking a smile, “isn’t the word for it!”
When Rusty got back and heard about the game he looked sort of disgusted, and then he laughed and finally he looked surprised. “Kenton?” he said, frowning. “How come, Newt? We dropped Kenton two weeks ago!”
“No, you didn’t, Coach,” said Newt. “Maybe you meant to, but you didn’t.”
“That so? Must have forgot it then. H-m. Well, it looks like it was a fortunate thing I did forget it, seeing Kenton was the only one of you with enough pep to make a score!”
That evening we were talking it over in Number 11, four or five of us. Joe didn’t show up, being so modest, I suppose. Finally Newt said: “Well, we can laugh all we want to, but we’ve got to hand it to Joe Kenton for one thing. He’s the only fellow I ever heard of who played in a football game, in which both sides scored, and made all the points!”
When the Munson game was over, all but forty seconds of it, and we had them beaten, 19 to 7, Rusty beckoned Joe from the bench. “Kenton,” he said, “I’m going to put you in so you can get your letter. Go on in at right half, son, but—listen here—no matter what happens don’t you touch that ball!”