Hitting the line

by Ralph Henry Barbour

CHAPTER XXIV
THE “BLUE”

So Grafton took home a battered football and a 13 to 7 victory, and was vastly pleased, because Lawrence Textile was no mean antagonist and had won her previous games with Grafton with discouraging monotony. Monty was bruised but happy. Although none of the players had given him more than a slap on the back and a word of grinning approval, he nevertheless knew that he had in those four plunges established himself on the team. As Mr. Bonner would have phrased it, and as a fact did phrase it, to Captain Winslow, he had proved himself of first-team caliber. He didn’t have to be told that he had at last drawn ahead of Caner in the race. He knew it, and knew that next Saturday he would start the game as fullback for the Scarlet-and-Gray.

And yet, as pleased as Monty was, it is doubtful if he was any happier than Leon. Leon could talk of little else all that evening, and I think Jimmy was a bit bored by the conversation, even if he was too polite or, perhaps, sympathetic to show it. They had another concert in the common-room after supper, with first Monty and then Forbes officiating at the piano. In the end the concert turned itself into a tumultuous, wildly enthusiastic cheer-meeting, and the room was too small to hold all those who wanted to get in.

There was another assemblage in School Hall Monday night, but Monty didn’t attend. Nor did any of the players. There was a blackboard drill in the gymnasium that evening, and when it was over the cheer-meeting had adjourned to the campus, where, in spite of a twenty-mile wind out of the northeast, some hundred and fifty hilarious youths marched and snake-danced and sang and shouted until authority in the shape of several regretful but determined proctors put an end to the demonstration.

Monty thought, ate and slept football from Saturday to Thursday. Coach Bonner had put a stop to the morning practice at forward-passing, on the score that Monty would be overworked, but Manson still guarded and tutored Monty in his every spare moment. Manson was walking as well as ever now, but it had been decided that he was not to go back to work. Brunswick, too, was out of it, according to rumor, although it was more than likely that he would be run in toward the end of the game as a reward for his services and that he might be awarded his G. The daily papers that contained accounts of Mount Morris’s condition and that supplied prophecies as to the outcome of Saturday’s contest were eagerly awaited and perused. Mount Morris had played Corbin in her semi-final game and had had an easy time of it, winning about as she liked and with a patched-up team in the second half. But Corbin was not much of an opponent for a team of Mount Morris’s power, and so the victory was not viewed at Grafton with much awe.

There was a hard practice on Tuesday and another on Wednesday, and Monty was driven inexorably during most of each scrimmage. It was evident to the coaches that his forte was working the line between tackles rather than end rushing. He was now able to start quickly and get well under way before reaching the line, and when he got to it he usually went through. And once through he was remarkably hard to stop, for Manson had dinned “fight” into him for two weeks. “You’re not stopped until you’re pulled down or thrown back,” Manson would say. “Just as long as you can put one foot ahead of the other, Crail, keep going. Every inch counts in the long run. Put your head down, stick your shoulder out and keep on boring. You’ve got the weight and you’re as strong as an ox.” And Monty profited by the advice, and time after time, when opposed to the second team, made a foot or a yard or two yards after the enemy thought him stopped. He really enjoyed plowing along with two or three second team fellows clinging to his legs, waist and neck, it seemed. Of course, he was not yet a finished player. It would take more years than one to make him that. But he did the very best he knew, played every moment and could stand a heap of punishment. And, thanks to Manson perhaps, “died fighting.”

And so matters stood when, on Wednesday afternoon, almost on the verge of the big battle of the year, that blue envelope met his sight. It lay innocently enough on the marble-topped table in the hall of Morris House when he returned from practice. He had never received a “blue,” as the fellows called it, and scarcely took the trouble to read the name on it. But he did read it, and having read it bore it upstairs and ripped open the envelope with only mild curiosity. Alvin was absent at the time, perhaps intentionally. The single sheet of azure-hued paper inside bore printed lines, and Monty had to switch on the light before he could read them.

“The Principal requests the presence of Mr. Crail at the School Office at 4 p.m. Wednesday.”

His name and the hour and day had been filled in by typewriter. Monty frowned a moment. Then the meaning of the summons came to him and he turned involuntarily in search of Standart. But Alvin was not there. Monty folded the paper up and placed it back in the envelope. Well, it would have to be faced, he told himself. After all, it wasn’t likely that they’d make much trouble now. It had been so long ago that the importance of it had faded in his mind. For the last few days he had almost forgotten the prank and Alvin’s threats. Even now he was inclined to doubt that Alvin had really told. Perhaps it was only a summons to explain why he had not done better in his studies of late. If Alvin had meant to tell about those keys he would surely have done so long ago. Unless——