And a mighty response swept across the field from where a bank of blue rose from the green of the field to the lighter blue of the sky. It was a martial air, with a prophecy of victory:
“Shout aloud the battle-cry
Of Yale, Yale, Yale!
Wave her standard far and high
For Yale, Yale, Yale!
See the foe retreat before us,
Sons of Eli, shout the chorus,
Yale, Yale, Yale, Yale, Yale!”
Harvard and Yale were doing battle once more, and twenty thousand people were looking on. The score-board announced: Harvard, 4; Yale, 0. Yale’s ball. 15 minutes to play.
The story of twenty minutes of the first half is soon told. It had been Yale’s kick-off. Haag had sent the ball down the field to Harvard’s 20-yard line, and Van Brandt had gathered it in his long arms, and, with Meredith ahead, had landed it back in the middle of the field. But the fourth down gave it to their opponents after a loss of two yards, and the pigskin went down again to Harvard’s territory, coming to a stop at the white line that marked thirty-five yards. Here Harvard’s new half-back kick had been tried, and the ball went high in air, and the field went after it; and when the Yale full-back got his hands on it, he was content with a bare five yards, and it was Yale’s ball on her 40-yard line. Then happened a piece of ill luck for the wearers of the blue. On the second down, Kurtz fumbled the pass, the ball rolled toward Yale’s goal, and Brattle broke through the opposing left tackle and fell on it.
And while a thunderous roar of joy floated across the field from the followers of the Crimson, the teams lined up on Yale’s thirty yards. Twice Meredith tried to go through between center and left guard, and a bare yard was the reward. Then Van Brandt had run back as for a kick; the ball was snapped, passed to Sills, Harvard’s right half-back, and, with it safely under his arm, he had skirted the Yale left, and fallen and wriggled and squirmed across the goal-line for the first touch-down.
Then ensued five minutes of bedlam, and after the victorious seats had settled into excited complacency, Van Brandt had tried for goal. But success was too much to hope for, and the two teams trotted back to the middle of the field, with the score 4 to 0. Then had the sons of Eli shown of what they were made, and in the next ten minutes the ball had progressed with fatal steadiness from the center of the field to the region of the Crimson’s twenty yards. And now it was Yale’s ball on the second down, and the silence was so intense that the signal was heard as plainly by the watchers at the far end of the field as by the twenty-two stern-faced warriors who faced each other almost under the shadow of the goal-posts.
“Twelve, six, twelve, fifty-two!”
And the backs, led by the guards, hurled their weight against Harvard’s right tackle; and when the ball was found, Baker held it within a few inches of the 10-yard line.
The cheers of Yale had now grown continuous; section after section passed the slogan along. The stand across the field looked to Jimpson like a field of waving blue gentians. On the Harvard seats the uproar was less intense, and seemed a trifle forced; and the men near by were breathing heavily, and restively creeping down the line.
Again the lines were formed. Jimpson could see the tall form of the gallant Gates settle down into a hunchback, toad-like position to receive the coming onslaught. Billings, the right tackle, was evidently expecting another experience like the last. He looked nervous, and Gates turned his head and spoke to him under cover of the first numbers of the signal.