[CHAPTER XIX]
FOOTBALL WITH BREWER
Dan didn’t have to ask Payson’s permission to accompany the team to Brewer on the ninth, for when the list was posted his name was on it. Williams was still on the injured list and it was thought advisable to take a full set of substitute ends along. Minturn was to take Williams’ place, Dickenson was to play at right end as usual and Vinton and Norton, of the Second, were to substitute. When the carriages left the gymnasium at half-past twelve on Saturday afternoon there were eighteen players and substitutes aboard. Then there was Payson, Andy Ryan, Paddy Forbes, the rubber, and Stevie. Stevie was Mr. Stephen Parke Austin, A.B., instructor in chemistry, a man of twenty-four so recently off his college football field that he was still an enthusiastic follower of the game. The school rules required that when the team played away from home it should be accompanied by one of the faculty, and to Mr. Austin this office usually fell. The fellows all liked Stevie, and were always pleased when he occupied the position of “chaperone.”
In the Square at Greenburg the expedition alighted and cooled their heels until the special car made its appearance. There were plenty of stores handy and so the fellows spent money riotously for sweet chocolate and chewing gum. There was a popular demand for peanuts but Andy wouldn’t allow its gratification. The special car finally put in its appearance and they fought their way inside. There were plenty of seats for all, but that didn’t prevent them from indulging in a small-sized riot. Andy smiled approvingly. He liked to see the team cut up a bit; it proved that they had plenty of spirit. Dan found himself between big Hadlock, the left guard, and Clapp, the substitute quarter-back who was to start to-day’s game. Clapp was a First Class youth of about eighteen years of age, short and sturdy and a trifle too stout for an ideal quarter. He had been a substitute for three years, never having attained a proficiency entitling him to first place. To-day he looked worried and nervous, and Dan wished that Payson would change his mind and let Loring start the game.
Their route lay through a picturesque chain of little villages, the approach to each one of them being the signal for frantic cheering from the car. At a few minutes before two o’clock they drew up in the center of Brewer, a manufacturing town of some fifteen thousand inhabitants, and changed to a big coach in which they finished their journey, arriving at the athletic field at twenty minutes after two. The game was scheduled for three o’clock, and so there was plenty of time in which to change their clothes in the little draughty shed that did duty for dressing room and to limber up afterwards. When they went out on the field at a quarter to three the small, tumble-down stand was packed and the gridiron was surrounded two or three deep. Near the center of the field a parcel of some thirty or forty Yardley Hall boys, who had journeyed over by train, broke into the “long cheer.” A chorus of hoots and jeers answered it.
There was ten minutes of practice, in the midst of which the Brewer team trotted out and were wildly acclaimed by the spectators. They were a heavy, husky lot of fellows, their ages ranging from seventeen to twenty-five. Dan, who had retired to the side-line with Loring, Hill, Gerard, Capes, Smith and Norton, saw Payson approach and shake hands with a big, raw-boned, red-cheeked Irishman who was evidently McMannis, the Brewer coach and trainer. Then the officials, one a Brewer man and one from a neighboring city, walked onto the field. Mr. Austin was to combine, by mutual consent, the duties of field judge and lineman. A Yardley boy named Pearson held one end of the chain and a big, stupid-looking Brewer mill-hand held the other. Colton won the toss and selected the north goal and the kick-off fell to Brewer. At a minute or two after three the game began.
There was a slow, steady wind blowing from the north-east and overhead was a dull gray sky that threatened snow. The thermometer was hovering around thirty-four and the big gray blankets in which Dan and the other substitutes had enveloped themselves felt very grateful. Payson wore a long frieze ulster of tobacco brown, a loose and generous garment that made him look like a giant. Andy, in his loudly-striped trousers and blue sweater, his legs well apart, stood guard over the water pail and his canvas bag. There was a moment of nervous tension, while the Brewer punter teed the ball, that even the substitutes felt. At the other end of the field Yardley had spread out for the kick-off and Colton’s voice came cheerily through the frosty air. Then the whistle blew and up soared the ball. Down the field charged the Brewer men in their red-and-white shirts and stockings. The ball settled after a high, short flight into the arms of Hadlock and he made the best of ten yards before he was downed.
Yardley’s line up at the beginning of the game was this: Left End, Minturn; Left Tackle, Folwell; Left Guard, Hadlock; Center, Berwick; Right Guard, Colton; Right Tackle, Mitchell; Right End, Dickenson; Quarter-back, Clapp; Left Half-back, Capes; Right Half-back, Connor; Full-back, Kapenhysen. There were four second-string men in the line-up, although there were many who believed that Connor, who had taken Capes’ place at left half-back, was the better man of the two and would secure the position before the season was over. At left end there was not much to choose between the absent Williams and the present Minturn; neither of them was equal to Dickenson. Berwick at center was distinctly inferior to Hill, while Clapp was not at all in the same class with Loring.