The Secret Play

by Ralph Henry Barbour

[“‘Here are some plays I’ve been working on.’”]

There were some criticisms, Lanny pointing out that there might be danger from the enemy’s right wing coming through. This was discussed and finally the play was set aside for trial. Dick next presented a delayed pass from kick formation with left end coming around and taking the ball from quarter. This promised a good variation of an old play and Chester was enthusiastic over it. Three other plays followed: a delayed pass with fullback taking the ball for a plunge at center, a rather complicated lateral pass in which the entire backfield participated, and a simple tackle-around play with an end participating. All were decided to be worth trying out against the Scrubs. Finally Saturday’s game came up for discussion and criticism, and, after that had been thoroughly threshed out, the subject of injuries was brought up. Only Nelson Beaton had suffered more than superficially. He was pretty well bruised, Lanny reported. It was decided to excuse all players who had gone through three periods on Saturday from to-morrow’s practice. It was almost eleven o’clock when the conference broke up, and after the others had gone Dick remained until nearly midnight at the parlor table. Once he took up a blue-book, fourteen of whose thirty-two pages were decorated with weird plans from the brain of Fudge Shaw, and examined the contents attentively. But in the end he laid it down with a sigh. Fudge’s plays were all old, true and tried. He had utterly failed to show any of that ingenuity which he lavished on his stories, Dick reflected. After that he took up his own plays and studied them frowningly, seeking to discover the weak points in each. Later still, he put his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair and gazed tiredly and discouragedly at the green-shaded lamp. In spite of his hopeful attitude before the others, he was in reality pretty low in spirits to-night. It was, he told himself ruefully, all very well to talk glibly of changing the plan of battle at the eleventh hour, but would any new plan work out? As matters stood now Springdale possessed a stronger and much heavier line, an equally fast and slightly heavier backfield and an equally good punting department. She was trained by an experienced coach who had been with the team for several years and who had previously shown himself remarkably clever at devising new plays for his men. On the whole, Clearfield’s outlook was rather depressing to-night, and Clearfield’s coach, when, finally, he put out the lamp, locked up the house and went to bed, was far from hopeful.

But morning always brings new courage, and Monday morning made no exception in Dick’s case. The sun shone radiantly, there was a pleasant crispness in the breeze which blew through his window and things looked a heap better to him, although, actually, conditions had not changed a bit since midnight! At breakfast he neglected his eggs while he searched anxiously through the Springdale paper for its account of the Clearfield and Lesterville game. And when he had read it he sighed his satisfaction. Not a word was said about Morris’s injury. That incident had gone unnoticed, or so it appeared.

Lesterville, Nov. 4: [he read] Clearfield High School won an interesting and closely contested game from the home team here this afternoon, 3–0. The visitors showed more team-play and were better able to gain outside of tackles. Neither team had enough punch to put the ball over the line, Clearfield making the only score by a field-goal in the first period, Brent kicking from the twenty-yard line. Nothing new in plays was shown by either team. For Lesterville, Norris, fullback, played a fine game and Purdy, at quarter, ran the team well. Lesterville’s line was slow and the opponent owed many of her gains to the fact. For Clearfield, Captain White played his usually brilliant game and was well assisted by Hansard and N. Beaton, and, later, by Brent, who went in for Beaton. Many substitutes were used on both sides.

The local paper, which gave nearly a half column to the event, mentioned the injury to Morris, but gave no hint of its seriousness. Dick was well satisfied and returned to his breakfast with a good appetite.

Morris’s absence from school that day went unnoticed. On Tuesday he appeared, a little gloomy, but showing no sign of anything wrong save a slight limp when off his guard. All that week he reported at practice and no one outside of the field guessed that he spent the time sitting disconsolately on the bench, wrapped in a blanket, or in coaching Tupper and Nelson Beaton at kicking goals! On Friday the public was admitted to the enclosure, but there was no scrimmage by the Varsity and the fact that Morris didn’t even participate in signal work or give an exhibition of his booting ability caused no comment, since it had been understood all the Fall that Morris was being taken care of and given only enough work to keep him in condition. On Saturday, when Weston faced Clearfield, there was no good reason for kicking field-goals since the Purple found no trouble in doing pretty much as she pleased with her opponent, and so again Morris’s absence occasioned no surprise. He was much in evidence along the side lines, dressed for play, and if he wasn’t used it was plainly because Coach Lovering chose to score by rushing rather than by the aërial route.

Cotner assured himself that no Springdale scouts had gained admission to the field that day and passed the news to Dick. Consequently, in the third and fourth periods, the team tried out some of the new plays on Weston and saw with much satisfaction that they puzzled the adversary and gained ground. Although a light team, Weston was quick to size-up plays, and that the new ones succeeded against her argued particularly well for them. Dick put in what was practically an entirely substitute line-up in the fourth quarter and the subs gave an excellent account of themselves. When the final whistle blew the score was Clearfield 26, Weston 0. There still remained much to be accomplished in the remaining four days of practice before the Springdale contest, but, on the whole, Dick was satisfied with the work of his charges. The attack was not yet as smooth as he wanted it, but on the defense the team had shown up finely, and against a team which, if not powerful, was more than ordinarily versatile and resourceful. Dick’s defense against forward passes worked well, and Gordon Merrick at left end and Felker at right covered themselves with glory. Clearfield’s own attempts at forward passing were not very successful, but Weston had been coached to guard against such plays and was consequently hard to deceive. The Number 8 Play did, however, catch her napping on two occasions. The school at large went away highly pleased with the showing of their team and predicting rout and disaster for Springdale the following Saturday.

Springdale, too, overwhelmed a weak opponent that afternoon, as Dick learned by stopping at the Square on his way home with Gordon in Eli. In fact, Springdale had scored seven more points than had Clearfield. But, since it was a question whether Springdale’s adversary was not an even weaker team than Weston, Dick refused to be troubled.

On Sunday Fudge called for his blue-book and was at first plainly disappointed at Dick’s verdict. When, however, Dick had explained that what the team wanted was a play that was deceptive rather than merely involved Fudge took heart again. Fudge was a born optimist, anyway, and it took more than one disappointment to discourage him.