When they went out Bob leaned carelessly across the counter and instructed the young lady with the enormous puffs over her ears to “put that down to me, please.” Willard, following the others out, reflected that, while trading on a cash basis might be wiser, one missed many fine moments by not having a charge account! (This, perhaps, is a good place to explain that the expression “fine moments” was widely current at Alton that term. Like many other expressions, its origin was a mystery, and, like them, its vogue grew by leaps and bounds until even the freshmen were having their “fine moments” and Mr. Fowler, in English 7, prohibited its use in themes.)
Near the end of State Street, with the lights on the Green gleaming through the trees ahead, Mr. Cade proposed that the boys pay him a visit, and Willard found himself turning in at a little white gate. The old green-shuttered Colonial mansion on the corner was one of several houses standing across from the Green that had at one time or another, sometimes as a gift, sometimes by purchase, become Academy property. This particular mansion was occupied by three of the married faculty members and, in turn, by the football and baseball coaches. Mr. Cade’s apartment was on the lower floor, at the right, two huge, high-ceilinged rooms separated by what had once been a pantry but was now a dressing and bathroom. The furnishings were comfortable but plain, and in the front room a generous grate eked out the efforts of a discouraged furnace. Tonight, however, the sight of the fireplace brought no pleasurable thrill. Instead, it was the four big, wide-open windows that attracted the visitors. Those in front opened on a narrow veranda set with tall white pillars, those on the side shed the light of the room onto a maze of shrubbery and trees beyond which the illumined windows of the dormitories twinkled. There was a big table in the center of the living-room littered with books and writing materials, smoking paraphernalia, gloves, a riding crop, a camera, a blue sweater and many other things, a fine and interesting hodgepodge that Willard, pausing beside it, viewed curiously. The object that engaged his closest attention, though, was a board about thirty inches square. It was covered with green felt on which at intervals of an inch white lines crossed. On the margins were figures: “5,” “10,” “15,” and so on up to “50.” Stuck at random into the board were queer little colored thumb-tacks, twenty-two in all. Half of them were gray and half of them were red, and each held letters: “L. H.,” “R. G.,” “L. E.,” and so on. Willard was still studying the board, its purpose slowly dawning on him, when Mr. Cade spoke.
“Looking at my ‘parlor gridiron,’ Harmon?” he asked. “Nice little plaything, isn’t it?” He came to Willard’s side and lifted the board from the table. “I made it myself, and I’m sort of proud of it, for I’m all thumbs when it comes to doing anything with my hands. Each of the inch lines represents five yards, do you see? And I use these thumb-tacks for the players. It’s rather a help when it comes to studying out a play; although I acknowledge that I can get on faster with the back of an envelope and a pencil stub!”
“I think it’s awfully clever,” said Willard admiringly. “It’s just half a field, though, isn’t it, sir?”
“That’s all; from the goal-line to the fifty-yard-line. That’s all that’s needed, you see. Want to play with it?” The coach laughed and wheeled a deep-seated rep-covered armchair to the table. “Sit down and be comfortable,” he added. Willard subsided embarrassedly into the chair, still holding the miniature gridiron. Joe and Bob were seated by one of the side windows—what breeze there was came from the west this evening—and Martin and the coach shared an old-fashioned sofa nearby. Willard, listening to the talk, began to set the thumb-tacks in place along the thirty-yard-line. Presently he had become so interested in arranging a forward-pass defense for the gray tacks that he had forgotten all about the others. He wasn’t quite certain that the Gray’s ends should play all the way up into the line, and he set them back half the distance to the next white mark. Then he concluded that the pass would be made by that suspicious-looking red tack labeled “L. H.” and that it would go to one of the red ends. Consequently, he advanced the gray ends up to the line once more, but a trifle further out, so that they might cut in quickly and spoil the throw. After that he pulled the Gray’s quarter-back in another yard or two, chancing that the ball would not go more than fifteen yards. Then there was nothing to do but wait for the play, and, since it didn’t materialize, he set the board back on the table and gave his attention again to the others.
“Two years ago,” Mr. Cade was saying, “there were five of us in here for almost a week: Levington and Sproule and Jack Tanner— Who was the chap helped coach the tackles that year, Myers? Do you remember? Tall fellow who wore spectacles and—”
“Clarke, sir? No, I know! Salters!”
“That’s right! Salters! He was a good hand and I’d like to get him back again this fall. Well, there were five of us, I remember, and we were bunked all over the place; three of us in the bedroom and two of us in here. We had rather a good time, but no one got much sleep. I remember the night before the Kenly game we sat up until nearly three o’clock. Our left tackle, Gadsden, had sprained his ankle that day; someone pushed him coming out of Academy; and we had to make over the whole plan of battle. Gadsden, you’ll remember, was our long punter and we’d mapped out a kicking game. To make things worse, it began to rain and sleet that evening, and we’d looked for a dry field. We certainly had our hands full that night. It was Levington who suggested pulling the guards out and using them on end runs, and we won on those plays. You see our backfield was pretty light and the wet field slowed them up. You played awhile in that game, didn’t you, Myers, toward the end?”
“Yes, for three or four minutes. I was in when we made our second score. We dumped their end and Morgan shot around for four yards and the touchdown.”
“That’s right. It looked like a tie game until near the end. Kenly had a man who could boot a wet ball forty yards every time and we had no one to meet him with. But we certainly wore her ends to a frazzle. She used three pairs before she got through! It was nothing but fight and determination that won that game, fellows. On paper we figured about seventy per cent to their one hundred before the start. They had us licked, but they didn’t know it, and we never told them!”