And that is why Hugh, or, as he was popularly known now, Hobo Ordway, again transferred his ketchup bottle and marmalade jar, this time back to Lothrop and the first-team training table, and also why he came to find himself at four-fifteen on Wednesday afternoon sitting beside Bert on the first-team bench, very much surprised and a little bit frightened at what was before him!
CHAPTER XXII
POP ELUCIDATES
Bert got back to light practice the next afternoon but not into the game with the scrubs. Siedhof and Zanetti were the halves that day, with Hugh substituting for Zanetti toward the end of the last period. If the truth must be told, Hugh did not cover himself with glory, for he fumbled once at a critical moment and lost his team a chance to score and never made a gain worth recording. But it was perhaps more due to stage fright than anything else, and Coach Bonner realized the fact and dealt out no criticism. Oddly enough, it was the released Hanser who performed the only spectacular feat of a slow and listless game when he squirmed through the left of the first team’s line, threw off Siedhof’s tackle and romped straight down the field for twenty-five or -six yards before Nick stopped him. That incident spelled the end of Kinley as regular left guard. Yetter succeeded him before the next play and held the position the balance of the season. Kinley had been a troublesome problem all the fall and with his retirement the left side of the line stiffened considerably. Mr. Crowley had his joke with Coach Bonner on the performances of the exchanged half-backs, but the latter only smiled and said “Wait.”
There was only signal work on Friday for the first-team members and most of the school attended the final class game over on the practice gridiron and saw lower middle triumph over upper middle by the score of 7 to 0.
Lawrence Textile School presented a strong team the next afternoon and started the proceedings by dropping a kick over Grafton’s goal six minutes after play began. Grafton put on her strongest line-up, Vail, whose injury had proved more stubborn than expected, being the only regular member absent. Bert showed the results of his idleness and was off his game. Hugh did not get in.
Grafton’s only score came in the second period when two forward passes took the ball from her forty yards to Textile’s eighteen and Zanetti gained around the left end and Keyes gathered enough to make it first down by a plunge on the Textile right guard. From the seven-yard line the ball went over in three plays, one a delayed pass to full-back, who got three yards through center, another a skin-tackle play by Bert that put the pigskin on the two yards, and the third a straight plunge by Keyes with the whole team behind him. Keyes kicked an easy goal.
But that was the only time Grafton was dangerous. In the last half it was all Textile, and the visitors secured a touchdown in each period and kicked a goal each time. The final score was 17 to 7.
The game proved one thing long suspected, which was that the Scarlet-and-Gray line was far from a perfect machine on defence. Time and again Textile opened holes wide enough to drive a wagon through. The power was there and the knowledge, but the fellows didn’t work together. It was the secondary defence alone that kept the opponent’s score down to anything like what it was. On the left, Yetter, while showing up superior to Kinley, was constantly fooled on plays inside his position. He worked at odds with his center and was, besides, slow at getting into plays. On his left, Franklin was another weak defender, although a brilliant tackle on offence. Pop Driver was steady and dependable, a trifle slow, perhaps, but a hard man to fool. He and Musgrave, at center, and Ted Trafford at his other shoulder, made that side of the line fairly impregnable, although Ted, like the other tackle, was a better offensive than defensive player. The ends had showed up satisfactorily, with the honors, if any, belonging to Roy Dresser. As to the back-field, it was hard to judge, since it was a patched-up affair, with Bert playing only a part of the game and Vail not getting in at all. Neither Siedhof nor Zanetti were better than average backs. Nick, at quarter, had played as he always did, hard and cleverly, handling punts in the back-field faultlessly, running back well and choosing his plays wisely. Keyes had gained as consistently as usual with the ball, had been a tower of strength on defence and had punted excellently. Leddy had proved himself a good substitute for Keyes. On the whole, there was no fault to be found with the material. Grafton possessed eleven good players and was well off for second-string men. The team simply hadn’t developed as it should have.
The Lawrence Textile School game was played just a fortnight before the date of the Mount Morris contest, and there were those a-plenty who declared that two weeks was all too short a time in which to bring the Grafton team to championship form. What Coach Bonner thought, no one knew, but on Monday it was evident that the first team was in for strenuous work and that if it was humanly possible to lick it into shape Mr. Bonner meant to do it. The second team was given the ball at the start of the scrimmage and told to put it over by line-plays. When she lost it, as she frequently did, it was promptly handed back to her. Both coaches were on the field and the playing was often stopped while they corrected and explained, scolded or commended. The second, driven to a sort of berserker rage, hammered every position in the opposing line desperately, Mr. Crowley barking and growling and urging them on.