Part 5 (1/2)
Now comes another uproar, and this time from the opposite side of the field. The Yale eleven have arrived and are stripping off their jerseys. They career over the arena in dirt color and dark blue, while the dark blue benches surge tumultuously. There is no more delay. The umpire calls the game, and the two sides line up for action. I feel Josephine, who is on my other side, clutch my arm and sigh. There is only one object for her on the field, as I well know. She has been trying to learn the rules from Sam for the last half hour (she doubts my knowledge on such subjects nowadays), and I can see that she is seeking in vain to concentrate her mind on her new-found information and to shut out the vision of little Fred being borne off the field on a litter. I confess that Horace Plympton's letter recurs to me for a moment, but I shake myself and utter an inward ”Pooh!” and haughtily determine to view the contest dispa.s.sionately and from the standpoint of a third person and a philosopher.
Harvard has won the toss and is to have the ball. In my day we had to kick it; now it is manipulated with the hands, and not forward, but backward. The players form a phalanx, and one of their number snaps, as it is called, the ball between his legs to someone behind him, who in turn pa.s.ses it to another, who is expected to make a forward dash with it. Before I can quite realize what is being done the Harvard men are speeding toward the Yale goal in a V-shaped body. Little Fred has the ball. Or rather he had it. All I can see now is an indiscriminate ma.s.s of bodies, legs, and arms. A great pile of men are struggling on the ground, and I have reason to believe that little Fred is at the bottom of the pile.
”A scrimmage,” says Sam, looking round at Josephine.
”Oh, yes,” she answers, with apparent calm, but I can feel her tremble.
”This is nothing; it's like this most of the time,” says Sam. ”You see he's all right, and----”
A yell cuts him short.
”Good enough! Harvard still has the ball,” he continues, at its close.
”Can you see him?” whispers Josephine in my ear.
”He's all right,” I murmur, a.s.suringly.
See him! I can see him distinctly. He has lost his cap already; his hair is in wild confusion; he is covered with dirt from head to foot; he limps a little. But Harvard still has the ball. And Sam says it is nothing and like this most of the time. Sam must know.
”Rah! rah! rah! Harvard!” I cry with the rest unflinchingly.
There is a second yell, this time from our enemies. Harvard has lost the ball and Yale has it. And now before my bewildered eyes scrimmage follows scrimmage with fierce iteration, and one pile of bodies, arms, and legs succeeds another. The player, fortunate enough to carry or force the ball a yard or more toward the rival goal by a frantic rush before he is overwhelmed and squashed, reaps a whirlwind of applause from the absorbed mult.i.tude. Every inch of ground is disputed. Once in a long interval when the ball gets dangerously near a goal, someone on the imperiled side kicks it half the length of the field, and the scrimmages are renewed. But it is rarely kicked at all except at such junctures. Foot-ball! I say to myself that it is a gladiatorial combat with an occasional punt thrown in by way of identification. But every one around me is declaring that the play of both sides is magnificent, that the team work is perfection, and the head qualities displayed unique in the annals of the game. Sam tells me again and again that Fred is doing sheer wonders and is the backbone of the Harvard side, and I wonder how he can distinguish so easily which is Fred and whether he has any backbone left. I can no longer make out much of anything except that one ruffian closely resembles every other ruffian, and that one poor boy is lying on the ground perfectly still, as though he were dead. There is just a little lull on the benches.
People are interested.
”Who is it?” gasps Josephine. ”Is it he, dear?”
”Butchered to make a Roman holiday,” I mutter between my teeth, with my heart in my mouth.
They are pulling and rubbing the victim, and a doctor, retained for such emergencies, is bending over him. After a few moments more he rises slowly, looks round him in a dazed fas.h.i.+on, and resumes his position with a painful limp, to a round of applause.
”It isn't Fred,” says Josephine.
”But he has a mother, though,” I answer.
”He'll be all right in a minute or two,” says Sam. ”They stamped the wind out of him, that's all.”
To have the wind stamped out of one is a mere bagatelle, of course, and I have forgotten it in another moment under the spur of excitement. A Harvard player has the ball, and no one seems to be able to stop him.
He throws off his antagonist and dodges two others, and races down the field like a deer, while the wearers of the crimson scream his name with transport and flourish their banners like madmen. It is Fred, it is Fred, it is Fred! I know his figure now. He has the ball and is flying like the wind with two great brutes at his heels. Will they catch him? Will they kill him? They are gaining on him.
”Run--run--run,” I shout, in spite of myself, while all the people on our benches rise in their excitement, and Josephine covers her eyes with her hands, unwilling to look. On, on my boy runs, until at last he falls with his two pursuers on top of him full across the Yale line.
”A touch-down, a touch-down!” bursts out Sam, as he grasps my hand in his wild enthusiasm. I do not know exactly what has occurred except that there is pandemonium on the Harvard side of the field unequalled as yet by anything that has happened, and a deathly tranquility along the benches opposite. After making sure that Fred is still alive, I listen to the explanation that a touch-down counts a certain number of points, and gives the right to the side which wins it to try to kick a goal. This attempt is presently made. A player lies on the ground and holds the ball between his hands for another to kick. Presto! the ball sails through the air; for an instant there is agonized suspense, and then a shout from Yale. It has failed to go between the goal-posts, and consequently has missed.
”Four to nothing, anyway,” says Sam. ”That was a magnificent run.
Rah! rah! rah! Harvard.”
Josephine is wiping her eyes and everybody in our neighborhood is nudging each other in consequence of the news that we are blood relations of the hero of the hour. Mrs. Sloane nods her congratulations, and Mrs. Walton signals with a crimson flag from the adjoining section, and our beloved pastor smiles at Josephine in his delightful way.
And what follows? What follows is fierce and harrowing. What follows continues to hold that great audience spellbound to the close. The score is four to nothing in favor of Harvard; but the Yale team, smarting from defeat, throw themselves into the ever-recurring scrimmages with set faces. It is not my purpose to follow the contest in detail. I am writing as a father and philosopher, and not as a chronicler of athletic struggles. Suffice it to state that the scrimmages grow still more savage and earnest, and that a player from each side is obliged by the referee to retire from the field, because he has slugged an opponent. Suffice it to state that presently a rusher is obliged to retire from the field by reason of a sprained ankle. It is not little Fred, but might it not have been? Suffice it to state that by the end of the first three-quarters of an hour--let the uninitiated here learn that a match is divided into two bouts of that length each, with an interim of fifteen minutes--the Yale team, by the most magnificent work (according to Sam Bangs), has forced the ball steadily and surely toward the Harvard line, and won a touch-down and kicked a goal, leaving the score for the first half six to four in favor of the blue. Just after the ball has flown between the goal-posts, amid thunders of triumph from our enemies, the umpire calls time.
Suffice it to state that the second three-quarters of an hour is largely a repet.i.tion of the first--short, furious rushes, everlasting scrimmages, and here and there a punt. The ruffians look still more ruffianly from frequent contact with mother-earth and the clutches of one another. Ominous gloom and depressing silence take possession of the friends of Harvard; their very cheers are anxious, and with good reason. Yale has kicked another goal from the field in the first twenty minutes and the crimson is being gradually and steadily outplayed. My heart bleeds for my son; he will be so disappointed if he loses. And I shall be so happy when the game is over and I am sure that he is not maimed for life. He is doing wonders still, dear boy.