Clif and Tom had tried to stick together, but somehow in the confusion of departure they had got into different busses. Clif had Joe Whitemill and Phil Cotter for immediate neighbors. Phil was in rather hectic spirits and, claiming to have founded Cotterville, related many humorous and hitherto unpublished incidents connected with the early history of the town. He flatly refused, however, to accept responsibility for Wolcott Academy. That misfortune, he stoutly averred, had taken place during one of his absences from the old home.
The sun shone brightly, but there was a cold northwest wind blowing and much speculation was indulged in as to the effect of that wind on the kicking game. There was a good deal of discussion about Wyndham’s chances, and what sort of a line Wolcott had and whether its ends were any better than last year’s. And now and then they sang a little. But the singing soon petered out. Every fellow in the bus at one time or another fell into silent abstraction. Clif didn’t say a great deal. His remarks were spasmodic and his laughter somewhat tuneless. Away down inside somewhere he was scared, and, while he assured himself countless times that there wasn’t the ghost of a chance of his getting into the game, unless for a moment at the end that he might get his letter, at the back of his mind the thought persisted that he might be called on. He tried to remember the play numbers and discovered to his horror that he had forgotten nearly all! He finally got hold of the straight buck sequence, 2 to 5, but couldn’t remember what 6 was. Nor 7. Nor 8—hold on, though, 8 was a cross-buck with left half carrying. Gradually memory returned, although to the end of the journey six plays eluded him. He might have asked Whitemill or Cotter, but he was ashamed to. Besides, there would be time enough on the bench in which to refresh his memory.
When the busses passed through a village there was loud cheering, not only for Wyndham but for anything else that captured interest. At Peyton a much bewhiskered citizen leaning against a post in front of the general store made an instant hit. Three royal cheers were given for “Ostermoor”—though how the fellows knew his name must remain a mystery—and the surprised gentleman was the recipient of many compliments. Between the villages opportunities for “razzing” were fewer but never neglected. A faster car, passing a bus, was pursued by indignant cries of “Speedhound!” “Oooh, wait till I tell the Constabule!” “Hey, Mister! You’re hittin’ twenty!” “Oh, you Dare-devil!” “You pesky city folks, you!” All this, Clif found, helped you to forget that your luncheon, as light as it had been, had become a leaden lump and that there was a spot somewhere between the nape of your neck and the top of your head that felt like a small lump of ice!
At Cotterville they pulled up in front of a small yellow frame building at the edge of the athletic field. Across a wide stretch of still green turf the school buildings peered back at them from behind nearly leafless trees. It was twenty minutes past one then, and the game was to start at two-fifteen, but already there was a trickling stream of folks crossing the far side of the field in the direction of the iron stands. Many automobiles, too, were in place beyond the ropes, and the occupants were having picnic lunches there. Above the grandstand a big brown flag bearing a white W waved and whipped in the wind. The sun was doing its best for the occasion. It made the freshly drawn lines of the gridiron gleam, gave the dying grass a real semblance of summer verdancy, found a clump of birches on the nearby hillside that still held their leaves and made a golden splendor of them and, flashing against the varnished surfaces of the parked cars, created blobs of light that dazzled the eyes. And over there, too, it discovered a fluttering blue pennant bearing a white W and illumined it gloriously.
In the field house Dan Farrell, the trainer, laid out the contents of his bags and the haunting odor of his own special liniment permeated the quarters. The call to change into togs came at half-past one and at a quarter to two they were all ready. Mr. Babcock and Mr. Hilliard and Mr. Connover ended their low-voiced conference in a corner and herded the players outside to the sunlit porch. It wasn’t one of the coaches, though, who spoke to them then. It was Captain Dave Lothrop, and partly because Dave never did say much and even now couldn’t find the right words, although he tried hard enough, his little speech got under their skins. He didn’t say anything new. Indeed, what is there new that may be said at such times? It has all been said over and over again, hundreds, thousands of times, since the first football team was formed. But Dave, floundering, seeking desperately for words, his eyes fixed on the barred field over yonder, managed to endow old sounds with a fresh meaning.
“Coach says we can do it, fellows,” said Dave. “He’s not lying to us. Besides, I know, too. I know that if we think—if we just say we can lick ’em—go out there and fight every minute, every second, just forgetting everything but beating Wolcott—why, I know we can, fellows! We’ve got to fight, fight hard. Well, we can do it. We’ve got to fight harder than they fight. We can do that, too. I—I wouldn’t want to lead you fellows out there if I wasn’t certain right down to my boots that you meant to lick those guys. Think what it would be like to go back to Wyndham to-night beaten. We couldn’t face the School! Why, hang it, we’ve got to win! That’s all there is to it. We’ve got to win! And when you’ve got to do a thing, you—you”—Dave’s gaze came back from the gridiron and challenged them—“you do it, if you’re not yellow! Well, that’s all. Only”—Dave shot out a big fist—“tell me this. Are you going to fight? Are you going to win?”
“Yes!” The reply was an explosion of pent-up emotions, a determined, defiant, exalted burst of sound that carried far across the sunlit field.
“Come on, then!” said Dave.
Twenty minutes later the gridiron was empty again. A silver half-dollar had spun into the sunlight and dropped to the turf. Captains and officials were back on the side-lines. The raucous blaring of the Wolcott Student Band was stilled, the cheering had momentarily hushed and the throng that filled every seat in the stand and overflowed along the ropes drew coats and wraps higher, resettled in their places and braced themselves for the fray. Then eleven brown-stockinged youths ran out from one side of the barred battlefield and eleven blue-stockinged youths from the other, and the cheers began again and the Wolcott bass-drummer thumped mightily and several thousand persons, many of them normally unemotional, experienced a sudden shortness of breath accompanied by a fluttery sensation of the heart. And at about that moment, on the east side of the field, a man in a black derby confided to a man in a chauffeur’s livery that, “That’s the captain of our side, Henry. Lothrop his name is. He’s to kick the ball away.”
“With them long legs, and the powerful looks of him,” responded his companion with relish, “I’m thinkin’ them other laddies’ll be chasin’ it back to the hills yonder!”