[CHAPTER XVI]
ALTON SQUEEZES THROUGH
It was after the Hillsport game that the slump began. The first team seemed to fairly droop under the shock of that unexpected reverse; for to be played to a tie by that opponent was virtually no less than a defeat. Last year, even on Hillsport’s own field, Alton had easily beaten the other by 14 to 0, and for years past Hillsport had gone down in defeat, often ingloriously. On this regrettable occasion, however, the enemy had honestly earned her touchdown by outrushing Alton all through the first two periods and, finally, by old-fashioned smashing tactics, pushing across for a score. Had Hillsport possessed a more adept goal-kicker she might have departed with a victory. Ned Richards’ scurry down the field for Alton’s touchdown in the last moments of the third period had been a splendid piece of individual brilliancy, and it had, in a measure, saved the day for the Gray-and-Gold, but there was no blinking the fact that all of Alton’s efforts to gain through the Hillsport line had failed and that against a heavy, fast-working, clever team the Gray-and-Gold had showed up rather miserably. All this, realized by the onlookers, had not been lost on the players themselves, and the effect of the knowledge seemed to be paralyzing. The team promptly passed into what Captain Mart feelingly termed a “forty below” slump. Coach Cade sweated and scolded and planned and pleaded, and all through the following week the second pushed and tossed the big team about the gridiron with an amazing lack of respect. The second, awaking to the evident fact that the opponent was not, after all, invulnerable, took revenge for past abuse and aspersion and bullied and maltreated the first eleven brutally. In this reprehensible course they were aided and abetted, nay, even encouraged, by one Steve Gaston. Steve had no mercy, or, at least, showed none. The second jestingly referred to the daily scrimmage as the “massacre.” “Come on,” Captain Falls would blithely call. “Let’s go over and finish ’em up, second!” Now all this was fine for the morale of the second, as was speedily proved. Success, instead of spoiling them, improved them. It welded them more firmly together just as, doubtless, a successful sortie by the Robber Barons of the Rhine in the old days produced an increased esprit de corps. Probably a career of crime, such as the second was now following, is like that. Anyhow, Steve Gaston secretly rejoiced as he incited his desperadoes to greater atrocities.
The first didn’t take their drubbings meekly, you may be sure, but they took them. They took them three times that week. They almost cried at some of the indignities put upon them by an awakened and merciless scrub, and they fought back desperately and staged many “come backs” that never developed, and the School, attracted by the novel, well-nigh incredible spectacle of a first team being baited and beaten by a second, flocked to the field of an afternoon as for a Roman holiday. They didn’t always see the helpless victim devoured by the ravening lion, for twice the victim forgot his rôle and held the lion at bay, and once—that was Friday—even sent him cringing back to his lair, defeated! But in any case the spectators got their money’s worth in thrills.
It would be nice to be able to say that Russell was the bright particular star of the second, but he wasn’t anything of the sort. Russell didn’t aspire to be a star, and maybe he couldn’t have been, anyway. Besides, Steve Gaston didn’t hold with stars. He discouraged them as soon as they lifted their heads into sight. His idea of a good football team was one in which eleven men acted as one man and in which none stood out above his fellows. Steve’s slogan was “Fight!”
“I don’t care,” he would say, “how much football a fellow knows if he won’t fight. He’s no use on this team. Football’s fighting, from first to last. Keep that in mind. The fellow who fights hardest wins. Fight fair, but fight. Some of you chaps act as if you thought you were in this to let the first slap your face and get away with it. You’re not, by gumbo! You want to forget that the first team fellows are members of the same frat! They’re your enemies from the moment the whistle blows, and your business is to everlastingly whale ’em. Beat the tar out of ’em! Knock the spots off ’em! That’s football. That’s the game. The harder you use those fellows, the harder they’ll use Kenly. Paste that in your helmet!”
Russell took Steve’s earnest commands with a grain of salt; wherein he was wrong, for Steve meant all he said. Russell liked football and liked to play it hard, just as he liked to do anything else he attempted, but he retained all through that unprecedented week a sneaking sympathy for the first. Probably others of his mates did also, even if they dissembled the fact most successfully. Russell made his mistake in not thoroughly dissembling, which is why there was a knock on his door that Friday evening and Coach Gaston entered.
As was his way, Steve got to business at once. “I’ve been watching you playing pretty closely this last week, Emerson,” he began, settling into a chair, “and I’m curious. Thought I’d come around and have a little talk with you. Now, suppose you tell me, first off, just what you think the matter is.”