Left Guard Gilbert

by Ralph Henry Barbour

CHAPTER XIII

SOUTHBY YIELDS

The game with Southby Academy that week was played away from home. As a general thing Southby was not a formidable opponent and last year's contest had resulted in a 17 to 3 win for Brimfield. But this Fall Southby had been piling up larger scores against her opponents and her stock had risen. Consequently Brimfield, being deprived of Tom Hall's services at right guard and of Rollins's at full-back, journeyed off that morning more than a little doubtful of the result of the coming conflict. Most of the school went along, since Southby was easily reached by trolley and at a small outlay for fares, and Brimfield was pretty well deserted by one o'clock. Out of some one hundred and eighty students a scant forty remained behind, and of that two-score we can guess who nine were!

The game started with Edwards at left end for Brimfield, Thayer at left tackle, Gilbert at left guard, Peters at centre, Pryme at right guard, Sturges at right tackle, Holt at right end, Carmine at quarter, St. Clair at left half, Otis at right half and Martin at full-back. Later on, toward the end of the second quarter, Thursby went in at centre, and in the fourth period several substitutes had their chances, amongst them Harry Walton.

Walton had begun to realise that he was playing a losing game. Since Pryme had been shifted back to the right side of the line Don Gilbert had come more than ever to the fore and Harry had spent a deal more time with the substitute squad in practice and on the bench during scrimmage than he approved of. Harry had a very special reason for wanting to win that left guard position and to play in it during the Claflin game, and this afternoon, sitting on the side line with a dozen other blanketed substitutes and enviously watching Don in the coveted place, his brain evolved a plan that promised so well that by the time the second period had started he was looking almost cheerful. And that is saying a good deal, since Harry Walton's countenance very seldom expressed cheer.

Southby showed her mettle within five minutes of the kick-off, when, getting the ball on a fumble on her forty-five yard line, she tore off thirty-three yards on a complicated double-pass play and then, ripped another down from the astonished adversary. On the Maroon-and-Grey's nine yards, however, her advance was halted, and after two downs had resulted in a loss, she sent her kicker back and placed a neat drop over the cross-bars, scoring three points before the stop-watch had ticked off six minutes of playing time.

That score was apparently just what Brimfield needed to bring her to her senses, for the rest of the period was marked by brilliant defensive work on her part, followed toward the end of the twelve minutes by some equally good attacks. When the teams changed places Brimfield had the pigskin on Southby's thirty-eight yards with four to go on third down. A forward pass, Carmine to St. Clair, produced three of the required four and Martin slipped through between left guard and tackle for the rest. After that ten well-selected plays took the ball to the sixteen yards. But there Southby rallied, and Steve Edwards, dropping back as if to kick, tore off five more around the left end. A touchdown seemed imminent now, and the hundred or so Brimfield rooters shouted and cheered madly enough. But two plunges at the right of the Southby line were stopped for scant gain and, with Martin back, a forward pass to Holt missed that youth and fell plump into the hands of a Southby end, and it was Southby's ball on her eight yards when the dust of battle had cleared away.

That was Brimfield's last chance to score in that half and when the whistle sounded Southby had the pigskin once more in her adversary's territory.

So far the teams had proved evenly matched in all departments, with a possible slight superiority in punting belonging to the visitors. St. Clair and Martin divided the punting between them and together they managed to outmatch the efforts of the Southby kicker. In the line both teams were excellent on defence, and both showed similar weakness in attack. In Tom Hall's place Pryme had worked hard and had, on the whole, done all that was expected of him. But he wasn't Tom Hall, and no amount of coaching would make him Tom's equal that Fall. Pryme lacked two factors: weight and, more especially, experience. Southby had made some good gains through him in the first half and would have made more had not Peters and Sturges helped him valiantly. As to the backfields, a disinterested spectator would have liked the Brimfield players a bit the better, less perhaps for what they actually accomplished that day than for what they promised. Even with Rollins out, the Maroon-and-Grey backs showed a fine and consistent solidarity that was lacking in the opponents. Coach Robey was a believer in team-play as opposed to the exploitation of stars, while Southby, with a remarkable half-back in the person of a blonde-haired youth named Elliston, had built her backfield about one man. As a consequence, when Elliston was smothered, as was frequently the case, since Southby's opponents naturally played for him all the time, the play was stopped. Today Captain Edwards had displayed an almost uncanny ability to "get" Elliston when the play was in his direction, and so far the blonde-haired star had failed to distinguish himself save in that one thirty-three-yard gambol at the beginning of the contest. What might happen later was problematical, but so far Brimfield had solved Elliston fairly well.

A guard seldom has an opportunity to pose in the limelight, and so you are not to hear that Don pulled off any brilliant feats that afternoon. What he did do was to very thoroughly vindicate Mr. Robey's selection of him for Gafferty's position by giving an excellent impersonation of a concrete block on defence and by doing rather better than he had ever done before when his side had the ball. Don had actually speeded up considerably, much as Tim had assured him he could, and while he was still by no means the snappiest man in the line, nor was ever likely to be, he was seldom far behind his fellows. For that matter the whole line of forwards was still much slower than Mr. Robey wanted them at that time of year, and Don showed up not badly in comparison. After all, what is needed in a guard is, first and foremost, fighting spirit, and Don had that. If he was a bit slower to sense a play, a little later in getting into it, at least when he did start he started hard and tackled hard and always played it safe. In the old days when a guard had only his small territory between centre and tackle to cover, Don would have been an ideal player for the position, but now, when a guard's duties are to free-lance, so to speak, from one end of the line to the other and to get into the play no matter where it comes, Don's qualifications were more limited. A guard in these amazing times is "soldier and sailor too," and Don, who liked to deal with one idea at a time, found it a bit confusing to have to grapple with a half-dozen!