The play that won

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“I don’t need to.” Ted smiled. “I know. I’m telling you so you can—can buckle down to business, Preston. You see, I know what it is to have the other fellow on your mind all the time! One of us had to lose out, Preston, and it happens to be me. Thornton thinks I’m too light. I dare say he’s right. Anyway, he’s the doctor, and as long as we beat Fairfield I don’t mind. Much,” he added as a sop to Truth.

“Well, it’s mighty decent of you,” said Preston warmly. “You’ve certainly given me a dandy scrap, and I don’t mind telling you that you’ve had me worried pretty often. I hope you get your letter.”

“Thanks. Maybe I will. So long.”

The last practice was on Wednesday and was largely signal work, although the kickers had a fairly stiff session later. On Thursday the school marched over to the field and cheered and sang and the first team substitutes went through a twenty-minute contest with the second eleven. Ted didn’t see it, for he was sent back to the gymnasium with the first squad, but he could hear the onlookers cheering the disbanding second when the scrimmage was over. And a few minutes later, while he was tying his shoe-laces, the marching, enthusiastic horde grouped in front of the gymnasium entrance and cheered the players individually, and the coaches and the trainer and everyone else. Ted listened rather anxiously for his own name. It came presently. He was somehow very glad of that. He would have felt horribly disappointed had they left him out.

Fairfield descended on the scene in force Saturday noon and the Campus and the village and the road between were gay with the flaunting blue of the enemy. The day was an Indian summer day, still, warm and hazy in the distances. Ted trotted with the rest to the field at a quarter to two and went through the warming up stunts. Then he donned a blanket and watched while the rival captains met in mid-field and a coin spun glittering in the sunlight. Fairfield had won the toss and had elected to give the ball to Staunton, thus upsetting Coach Thornton’s prophecy.

“All right now,” announced the latter. He referred to the little red book he carried in a vest pocket. “Aikens, Breadwell, Boyd, Morris, Walsh, Denton, Conley, Logan, Moore, Preston and Farnsworth. On the run, fellows!”

Presently a whistle piped, the new brown pigskin arose high against the blue sky and the final test of the long season’s work was begun. The cheering had stilled on both sides of the field and some two thousand pairs of eyes followed the long flight of the ball. Then a Fairfield half-back had it and was dodging back up the gridiron. Breadwell almost got him, but he slipped past. Then Larry Logan wrapped two sturdy arms about the runner’s legs and brought him crashing to the yellowed turf. Fairfield came hard then and Ted watched anxiously as the Staunton line bent and buckled against the heavy assault. But the line didn’t break much and presently the ball was in air again. Then came the first trial of the Staunton wide-open attack, and a mighty shout arose as Moore burst through outside right guard and reeled past two white lines. Again Moore got through, and then the Fairfield defense solved the play and shifted to meet it, and Farnsworth, faking a kick and then plunging at the Fairfield left, was spilled behind his line. A forward pass failed and again the ball flew through the air, propelled by Farnsworth’s boot, and the teams raced down to the Blue’s thirty-yard line. That quarter ended without anything approaching a score, the honors even. But Thornton’s plan to “get the jump” on the enemy and score in the first few minutes of play had failed.

The second period was a repetition of the first, save that Fairfield had the ball once on Staunton’s twenty-two yards on a fourth down and missed a goal from the field by a bare half-foot margin. Ted trotted back to the gymnasium with the others and sat around in an atmosphere of steam and liniment and excitement and listened to the babel of voices. Jack was in uniform but had not joined the players for a moment, and [it was Larry Logan who fumed and implored] and advised. Coach Thornton looked confident and had little to say until just before half-time was up. Then he made a quietly forceful appeal and, at the end, called for a cheer. Thirty-two voices answered thunderously.

Fairfield scored two minutes after the third period started. The kick-off was fumbled by Logan, and, although he fell on it, at his eighteen yards, Fairfield blocked Farnsworth’s punt and an end broke through and captured the trickling pigskin a foot behind the goal line. Fairfield brought the ball out in triumph, and it was then that Ted saw that one brown-legged player was stretched on the turf. “Tink” was diving toward him with slopping bucket. Ted’s eyes sped from player to player of his side. Only Preston was missing along the goal line! Something pushed his heart into his throat, turned it over once and let it slip slowly back again. He watched “Tink’s” sponge in fascination. Then they were lifting Preston to his feet. For an instant it seemed that he was as good as ever, but suddenly his head fell over sideways. They were carrying him off now, bringing him to the bench. Someone amongst the subs leaped forward with a blanket. The stand behind was cheering bravely for “Preston! Preston! Preston!” Thornton met the slowly-approaching group at the side line, looked, listened to a word from Tinker and whirled on his heel.