Guarding His Goal

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“Give him the regular Yardley drink,” advised a hostile voice from further along the counter. “Just fill a glass with hot air.”

Toby was beginning to wonder when the trouble would start, but at the sound of the last voice Arnold leaned forward with a grin and, “Hello, Tony!” he called. “How’s the boy?”

“Hello, Arn! That you shooting your silly mouth off? Come down here and have something.”

“Can’t, thanks. How’s everything back in the hills?” But Tony was making his way to them and an instant later Toby and Homer were being introduced to “Mr. Spaulding, the world-famous athlete.” Tony Spaulding proved to be a fine-looking fellow of seventeen or eighteen with a remarkable breadth of shoulders and a pair of snapping black eyes. Four other Broadwood boys were haled forward and introduced, and presently, armed with glasses, they crowded around a diminutive table in the rear of the store and hobnobbed very socially. Toby gathered during the course of the ensuing conversation that Tony Spaulding was the identical left tackle who had caused so much trouble to Yardley last November, although Toby would never have recognized him in his present apparel. It also appeared that Mr. Spaulding was a prominent member of the Broadwood hockey squad and that he was looking forward with much glee to meeting Arnold on the ice a month or so later. Another member of the Broadwood contingent was dragged into the limelight with the remark: “Towle, here, is going to play goal for us this year, Arn. Johnny, you want to watch out for this shark, Deering, when we play ’em. If you see him coming, spread yourself, boy, spread yourself! And maybe you’d better yell for help, too!”

It was almost dark when they tore themselves away from their friends, the enemy, and set out for home, and quite dark by the time they climbed the hill and reached the radiance of the lighted windows, Toby bearing his new hockey stick with tender solicitude lest its immaculate surface be scratched and Homer regretting the fact that he had intended buying some peanut taffy and had forgotten it.

That was the afternoon preceding the game with St. John’s, and it wasn’t until the next morning that it became certain that the game could be played. But a sharp fall in temperature during the early hours set the ice again and by three o’clock it was in fairly good shape. That game wasn’t very exciting, for St. John’s showed a woeful lack of practice and Yardley ran away with the event in the first half and only supplied a spice of interest in the last period by throwing an entire team of substitutes in. Toby, with many a better player, watched the contest from the bench outside the barrier, sweatered and coated against the cold of the afternoon but ready at any moment to throw wraps aside and leap, like Mr. Homer’s Achilles, full-panoplied into the fray. Still Toby didn’t really expect to be called on to save the day, and he wasn’t. Flagg and Framer played point and played it quite well enough. Frank Lamson took Henry’s place at goal in the second period and it was against Frank that St. John’s was able to make its only two tallies. The first team forwards, Crowell, Crumbie, Rose and Deering, showed some fine team work that afternoon and won frequent applause, but, as Sid Creel said to Toby, most any one could have got past those St. John’s fellows. Halliday showed himself a really remarkable cover point, and he and Flagg worked together like two cog-wheels. The final score was 12 to 2, and it was very generally agreed that Captain Crowell had material for a fine team and that Yardley had made a good start on her way to the championship.

After the contest was over, willing hands swept the ice surface and the third and fourth squads staged a battle which, if not quite so skillful, had it all over the big show for excitement and suspense. As Sim Warren, who had been playing goal for the fourth squad, was not on hand, Stillwell, presiding in the absence of Loring Casement, looked about for some one to take his place. Stillwell had little data to work on and so solved the problem by moving the cover point to point and the point back to the net, and filling the vacant defense position with a substitute forward. Toby’s emotion at finding himself in charge of the fourth squad’s goal was principally that of alarm. Ever since Crowell’s remark to the effect that in his estimation Toby might make a good goal-tend, Toby had secretly longed to play that position, but this was so—well, so sort of sudden! He had watched Henry preside at the net time and time again, watched admiringly and enviously, and theoretically at least knew the duties of the office, but he was possessed by grave doubts of his ability to profit by his observations. However, he had no choice in the matter. Some one helped him strap on a pair of pads, some one else thrust a wide-bladed goal-tender’s stick into his hands and thirteen youths awaited his pleasure with ill-concealed impatience. Then Stillwell blew his whistle, dropped the puck and skated aside, and the battle was on.

There was nothing especially momentous about that half-hour’s practice of the scrubs. They hustled around and banged away and got very excited and were off-side every two minutes. And now and then they managed to give a fair imitation of team-work. Stillwell, who would have much preferred being up in the gymnasium talking over the afternoon’s game, went through with his task conscientiously enough, but he was chary with the whistle and many a foul went unpenalized. Of course, Toby let several shots get past him, especially in the first fifteen-minute half, when he was decidedly nervous every time the play approached his end of the rink. Later, he settled down and made one or two clever stops, one with his wrist. The latter was unintentional and deprived him of the use of that member for several minutes. But his team-mates applauded and so Toby didn’t mind. And after awhile the wrist stopped hurting some. On the whole, Toby put up a pretty fair game at goal that afternoon, doing better than the opposing goal-keeper by four tallies, a fact which Stillwell noted and later mentioned casually to Crowell.

“Young Tucker played goal down there this afternoon,” he remarked. “Warren was off and I didn’t know who else to put in. He wasn’t half bad, Orson.”

“Tucker? Oh, is that so? That reminds me that I meant to have Loring try him out at that very position. Glad you mentioned it. I’ll have a look at him. Lamson let two mighty easy ones get by to-day, and we could use another goal-tend if we had him.”