Hugh pulled off his sweater and legged it across with upraised hand, and the stand cheered him. Bert saw him coming and began to tug at his head harness. Then he stopped and waited.
[“You’re off,” said Hugh. “May I have that, please?”]
[“‘You’re off,’ said Hugh. ‘May I have that, please?’”]
Bert handed over the leather guard silently, but his expression wasn’t pleasant and Hugh heartily wished that the coach had chosen Zanetti instead of him. But there was no time for regrets then. He whispered his instructions to the quarter-back, repeated them in reply to Captain Ted’s anxious question, pulled the head guard on and sprang into place.
It was third down and about fifteen to go. Weston called the signals, Trafford crossed to the other side of Parker, and Keyes stepped farther back and held his hands out, the halves crouched wide apart, and Weston, stooping behind Musgrave, repeated the signals. Then the ball came back, straight and fast, and Hugh snuggled it in the crook of his arm, started quickly, and, running low and hard, swept past his line on the heels of Siedhof, while Weston and Keyes sped toward the other end. For a moment, a critical length of time just then, Southlake lost sight of the ball. When she had solved the play Siedhof had spun a Southlake tackle from the path, and Hugh had responded to the frantic cry of “In! In!” and was through. Siedhof met the charge of a half, but went down in the encounter, and Hugh, twisting aside, circled out, passed the twenty-yard line, dodged another back and, with the hue and cry close behind, raced over the remaining four trampled white marks and was only stopped when a despairing quarter, wrapping tenacious arms about his legs, brought him to earth well back of the goal line!
Grafton shouted herself hoarse, only letting up for a minute while Keyes directed the ball and subsequently booted it deftly over the bar. After that Grafton played on the defensive for the rest of that period and the next, and, although there were some anxious moments, kept what she had earned. While 13 to 0 didn’t sound as well as 19 to 0, it perhaps stood for quite as much if we consider the fact that Southlake was a stronger team today than when she had met Mount Morris.
Being a hero is a trying business, as Hugh soon discovered. Naturally somewhat retiring, he disliked the sudden publicity that enveloped him, and, being modest, he felt uncomfortable under the praise bestowed on him. Fellows took, he thought, a ridiculous amount of pains to go out of their way to shake his hand or even slap him familiarly on the shoulder and tell him what a wonder he was. He knew very well that he wasn’t a wonder and he didn’t like being called one. He belonged, in part at least, to a people who abhor being conspicuous and who view askance anything savoring of hysteria, and, in spite of his American experiences, he had not lost those feelings. No, on the whole the succeeding week was not a very comfortable one for Hugh. He hoped that after a day or two the school would cease its “bally nonsense,” but he was reckoning without the fact that it was wrought up to a fine state of tension and that the tension increased every hour as the Mount Morris game approached. Consequently the “bally nonsense” continued and Hobo Ordway was never allowed to get out of the lime-light for a minute.
But what troubled Hugh far more than fame and its consequences was Bert’s attitude. After the Southlake game no one, and surely not Bert, doubted for an instant that Hugh had won his position. Another fellow might have swallowed the lump in his throat and smiled, or, being resentful, might have hidden the fact. But not so Bert. He made no secret to Hugh or anyone else that he thought he had been badly treated. Or perhaps, which is more likely, he pretended to think so. At all events, life in Number 29 was difficult and increasingly unpleasant. Bert seldom spoke unless addressed by Hugh and then answered coldly and sneeringly. By the middle of the next week Hugh kept away from the study as much as he could and gave up trying to bridge the chasm. On one occasion, driven out of his usual patience by a surly response, he got thoroughly angry and wanted to fight on the spot. Bert, though, refused to afford him that much satisfaction, telling him sarcastically that if he (Hugh) got hurt and couldn’t play they’d surely lose the game!
Nick and Pop each told Bert that he was making an utter ass of himself, but beyond such satisfaction as they got from airing their opinion, nothing came of it.