That game added more enthusiasm at Alton, and the mass meeting in the auditorium that evening attained unprecedented heights of emotion. There were speeches and songs and cheers, and noise and confusion enough to gladden the heart of the most irrepressible freshman. And after the adjournment the whole affair was reënacted with only slightly less enthusiasm in front of Academy Hall, the evening’s program ending with a large and certainly hilarious parade around the campus and, finally, to Coach Cade’s residence. Learning at last, after repeated demands for a speech, that the coach had gone home over Sunday, the parade disintegrated, its component parts returning to their various domiciles in small, but far from silent, groups.
On Monday the final week of preparation for the great battle started with a hard practice for all hands. No one was spared and no one, it seemed, desired to be. The second earned a broad niche in the local Hall of Fame that afternoon if only for emerging from the two periods of fighting without casualties. The first team had found itself and was there to show the world!
[CHAPTER XX]
CLEM DELIVERS A LETTER
Tuesday and Wednesday rushed by. Thursday lagged. Friday stood still, quite as though Time had stopped doing business. Saturday—
Practice had been secret since the Tuesday following the New Falmouth game. That is to say, patriotic lower class fellows had daily, between the hours of three and five, patrolled the outskirts of Alton Field, warning away inquisitive townsfolk and intrusive small boys. Since it was quite possible to stand on Meadow street and see from a distance the players moving about on the gridiron, the word secret in relation to practice was an exaggeration. Also, any resident of senior or freshman dormitory whose window looked westward could, had he wished, have solved the most puzzling of the plays in which the Gray-and-Gold team was seeking to perfect itself. However, protracted occupancy of dormitory windows overlooking the field was frowned upon during the latter part of the season, and, on the whole, Coach Cade was well enough satisfied with the concealment allowed him and his works. Since the same conditions had prevailed so long as football had been played at Alton and no precious secret had ever reached the enemy the coach’s confidence seemed well founded.
Tuesday and Wednesday saw long sessions for the squad, the emphasis being laid on precision and smoothness. Tuesday evening it was rumored that the first team had scored four times on the scrub, and the school found new cause for enthusiasm. Thursday witnessed a let-up in the work. Individual instruction occupied much of the time. Later there was a period of formation drill, a long practice for the kickers and, finally, a short tussle with the second team in which no effort was made to run up the score. There was, so report had it, much aerial football that day. Practice was over early and some thirty youths, unaccustomed to finding themselves foot-loose at half-past four, wondered what to do with themselves. Of course the usual evening sessions—“bean-tests” the players called them—were continued right up to and including Friday.
Friday was, from the football man’s point of view, a day without rime or reason. Save that the players reported in togs at four o’clock and trotted around a while in signal drill, what time the rest of the school looked on and practiced cheers and songs, there was nothing to do and too much time to do it. The second team made its final appearance and staged a ten-minute scrimmage with an eleven composed of its own substitutes and a few first team third-stringers. Then it performed the sacred rites incident to disbanding, cheered and was cheered, marched in solemn file around a pile of discarded—and incidentally worthless—apparel and at last, followed by the audience, still noisy, cavorted back to the gymnasium.
With nothing to do save await the morrow and what it might bring, Jim, like most of the other players, felt suddenly let-down. Although not of a nervous temperament, he found it extremely difficult to sit still and even more difficult to fix his thoughts on any one subject for more than a half-minute at a time. Supper was hectic, marked by sudden outbursts of laughter and equally sudden lapses to silence. Every one made a great pretense of hunger, but only a few of the veterans ate normally. Coach Cade seemed more quiet and thoughtful than usual. At Jim’s end of the long table Lowell Woodruff, ably aided by Billy Frost, managed to keep things enlivened, but even so Jim was relieved when he could push back his chair and return to Number 15. Pending the “bean-test,” he tried to study and failed, tried to write a letter to Webb Todd and again failed. Perhaps had he been able to find the letter that Webb had written to him, enclosing the two-dollar bill, he might have obtained sufficient inspiration, but that letter had mysteriously disappeared. At seven-thirty he went around to the gymnasium, but even Coach Cade failed him to some extent, for the Coach had little to say about plays and a good deal about playing and sent them away at eight with instructions to keep their minds off football and go to bed promptly at ten o’clock; advice far easier to give than to act on.