Hitting the line

by Ralph Henry Barbour

Grafton could find no consolation in the fact that, if she had not won, neither had she lost, for an unbiased analysis of the game showed that the home team had been out-played from first to last and that had the fortunes of war dealt fairly with each team St. Philip’s would have gone off with a 3 to 0, or even possibly a 6 to 0, victory.

As Captain Bert Winslow said afterwards, no light team had ever faced Grafton with so much punch in attack and dogged resistance in defence as the late adversary. Outweighed many pounds in the line, St. Philip’s had overcome that handicap by an almost phenomenal speed. Time after time her linemen had “got the jump” on Grafton, and time after time the best efforts of Winslow and Ordway and Manson and, later, their substitutes, had gone for little or nothing. Around-the-end attempts had been early shown futile, and Grafton, after many failures to puncture the line from tackle to tackle, had had recourse to the kicking game. But even there her opponent had bested her slightly, while the longest and best placed of Captain Winslow’s or Quarterback Blake’s punts had missed effectiveness by reason of the brilliant running back of the St. Philip’s quarter and left half. St. Philip’s had earned her lone tally honestly when, after four long runs from wide formation that started in her own territory and took the ball to Grafton’s twenty-six yards, she had twice failed at an advance and had sent her drop-kicker back to the thirty-five-yard line. Although the angle was fairly difficult, and although Pete Gowen and “Hobo” Ordway had both broken through, the kick was made slowly and carefully and went directly across the center of the bar. That was in the second period. Again, in the third, St. Philip’s came near to scoring another three when a place-kick from the thirty-eight yards struck the upright and bounded back.

Grafton’s single score had been secured in the last period. With defeat staring her in the face, she had commenced and executed a creditable march up the field in which a quarterback run and a forward-pass had featured and had eventually reached St. Philip’s twelve yards. There a fumble had cost her a down and lost her four yards. Subsequently, Ordway had been thrown back for a loss. Then, on third down, a fake forward-pass had sent the ball to Fullback Manson and that able-toed young gentleman had put the pigskin across easily enough from the thirty-yard line.

Monty had failed to get into that contest for even a minute and had watched it with mingled feelings from the bench. No one asked Monty’s opinion, but he had one nevertheless. To paraphrase a celebrated quotation: “Breathes there a boy with soul so dead who never to himself hath said: Things would have been different had I led!” Perhaps Monty didn’t say just that, but he did confide to Leon and Dud and Jimmy that evening that it was his firm conviction that Coach Bonner would do well to pay less attention to the little things and more to the big. “What’s the good,” he wanted to know, “of spending a month learning half a hundred unimportant details and not knowing how to use what you learn? If our backs had forgotten a lot of slush about standing just so and having one foot ahead of the other and counting one, two, three after the signal and all that, and had just taken the ball any old way and slammed into that line we might have done something. They were so busy remembering the by-laws that they never got started until the other fellows were tackling them!”

That led to an argument, with Jimmy Logan on the other end, which continued until Leon, yawning, requested them to dry up.

“It’s all very unimportant, anyhow,” he said. “Football’s a crazy game and only wild men play it.” And, of course, Monty had to deny that and another argument began.

There was a great deal of argument between the four, and they settled, to their own satisfaction, at least, many problems that autumn. The subjects left undiscussed were few indeed, and Number 14 Lothrop and Number 32 Trow were the scenes of many earnest debates. (The quartette seldom met in Monty’s room, since there was always the chance of Alvin Standart’s making himself an unwelcome fifth. None of the others could stomach Alvin. Leon, indeed, held him in the utmost loathing.) The debates were always good-tempered. Leon was the only one of the four in danger of losing his temper in the heat of an argument, and the others saw that he didn’t. It was usually a nonsensical remark by Jimmy that saved the situation.

But football was not the only interest at Grafton just then. October had come in with frosty nights and mornings and days that held just the right amount of snap to put zest into life. The maples fluttered their red and orange and yellow leaves down and the elms laid russet carpets on sidewalks and paths. The baseball players were holding fall practice each afternoon, and Dud, already slated to lead the pitching next spring, was very busy. Jimmy and Leon played tennis a good deal. There was work, too, for the track and field candidates, and as for the fellows who slammed little white balls for miles over the yellowing turf, why, they were in their element. The river of an afternoon, especially if the afternoon happened to be Sunday, was quite crowded with canoes. Monty, impatient of delays, purchased a maroon-colored canoe from Pete Gordon and, coached by Leon, became a skilled paddler in a surprisingly short time. The fine weather lasted the month through and life at Grafton was very pleasant. It would have been much pleasanter, in Monty’s opinion, had there been no such things as German and English, for he was not doing very well with them. He tried for permission to exchange German for Greek, but was denied. Mr. Rumford, however, told him he could make the substitution with the beginning of the mid-winter term if he managed promotion to the upper middle at that time. Monty saw no prospect of it, though.