He's the King Gink!
He's the King Gink!
He's the King Gink!
K-I-N-G, King! KING!
Honor sat down again, her fists clenched, her lower lip between her teeth. If only it were time to begin ... time for the kick-off! This was always the worse part, just before.... It was L. A.'s kick-off. The whistle sounded, mercifully, and with the solid, satisfying impact of leather against leather she relaxed. It was on. It had started. All the weeks of waiting for the championship game were over. This was the game, and it was just like any other game; Jimsy was there—here, there, everywhere, and they would fight, fight. And you couldn't beat L. A. High. The mud was horrible. It took grace and fleetness and made a mock of them; both teams were playing raggedly. Well, of course they would, at first; it was so frightfully important. They would shake down into form in a moment.
"I don't believe," cut in the fresh, crisp voice of Miss Bruce-Drummond, "that I quite understand what a 'down' is. Would you mind explaining it to me?"
"Why," said Honor, without turning her head, "they have three downs in which to make——" she was on her feet again, screaming, "Come on! Come on! Come—oh——"
Jimsy King, with the mud-smeared ball under his arm, had made fifteen precious yards before he was tackled. He was up in a flash, wiping the mud off his face, grinning. The rooters split the soft air asunder.
Stephen Lorimer looked at Honor and at Carter Van Meter. He always felt sorry for the boy at a game; he looked paler and frailer than ever in contrast with the hearty young savages on the field, and he was never able really to give himself to the agony and wild joy of it.
Honor forced herself to sit still, her elbows on her knees, her hot face propped on her clenched hands. They were playing better now, all of them, but it wasn't brilliant football; it couldn't be. It would be a battle of dogged endurance.