Part 13 (1/2)
THEOPHILUS BETRAYS HICKS
Big Butch Brewster, a life-sized picture of despair, roosted dejectedly on the Senior Fence, between the Gym and the Administration Building. It was quite cold, and also the beginning of the last study-period before Butch's final and most difficult recitation of the day, Chemistry. Yet instead of boning in his warm room, the behemoth Senior perched on the fence and stared gloomily into s.p.a.ce.
As he sat, enveloped in a penumbra of gloom, the campus entrance door of Bannister Hall, the Senior dorm., opened suddenly, and T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., that happy-go-lucky youth, came out cautiously, after the fas.h.i.+on of a second-story artist, emerging from his crib with a bundle of swag, the last item being represented by a football tucked under Hicks' left arm.
Beholding Butch Brewster on the Senior Fence, the sunny-souled Senior exhibited a perturbation of spirit seeming undecided whether to beat a retreat or to advance.
”Now what's ailin' ?” demanded Butch wrathily, believing the pestersome Hicks to be acting in that burglarious manner for effect. ”Why shouldsneak out of a dorm., bearing a football like it was an auk's egg? Why, you resemble a n.i.g.g.e.r, making his get-away after robbing a hen-roost! Don't torment me, you accident-somewhere-on-its-way-to-happen. I feel about as joyous as a traveling salesman who has made a town and gotten nary a order!”
”It's !” soliloquized T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., perching beside the despondent Butch on the Senior Fence. ”I am not a fatalist, old man, but itseem that fate hasn't destined Thor to play football for old Bannister this season! Here, after he won the Ham game, and we expected him to waltz off with Ballard's scalp and the Champions.h.i.+p, he has to tumble downstairs! Oh, it's tough luck!”
It was two days before the biggest game, with Ballard--the contest that would decide the State Intercollegiate Football Champions.h.i.+p. Ballard, the present champions, discounting even Hamilton's stories of Thor's prowess, were coming to Bannister with an eleven more mighty than the one that had crushed the Gold and Green the year before, with a heavy, stonewall line, fast ends, and a powerful, s.h.i.+fty backfield. The Ballard team was confident of victory and the pennant. Bannister, building on the awakened Thorwald, superbly sure of his phenomenal strength and power, of his unstoppable rushes, serenely practiced the doctrine of preparedness, and awaited the day.
And then John Thorwald, the Prodigious Prodigy, whose gigantic frame seemed unbattered by the terrific daily scrimmage, whom it was impossible to hurt on the gridiron, the day before, going downstairs in Creighton Hall, hurrying to a cla.s.s, had caught his heel on the top step, and crashed to the bottom! And now, with a broken ankle, the blond Colossus, heartbroken at not being able to win the Champions.h.i.+p for old Bannister, hobbled about on crutches. Without Thor, the Gold and Green must meet the invincible Ballard team! It was a solar-plexus blow, both to the Bannister youths, confident in Thor's prowess, building on his Herculean bulk, and to the big Freshman. Thorwald, awakened, striving to grasp campus tradition, to understand college life, was eager to fling himself into the scrimmage, to give every ounce of his mighty power, to offer that splendid body, for his Alma Mater, and now he must hobble impotently on the side-line, watching his team fight a desperate battle.
”If Bannister only had a sure, accurate drop-kicker!” reflected Captain Butch hopelessly. ”One who could be depended on to average eight out of ten trials, we'd have a fighting chance with Ballard. Deke Radford is a wonder.
He can kick a forty-five-yard goal, but he's erratic! He might boot the pigskin over when a score is needed from the forty-yard line, and again he might miss from the twenty-yard mark. Oh, for a kicker who isn't brilliant and spectacular, but who can methodically drop 'em over from, say, the thirty-five-yard line! h.e.l.lo, what's the row, Hicks?”
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., started to speak, changed his mind, coughed, grew red and embarra.s.sed, and acted in a most puzzling manner. At any other time, big Butch would have been bewildered; but with Thor's loss weighing on his mind, the Gold and Green captain gave his comrade only a cursory glance.
”I--I--Oh, nothing, Butch!” stammered Hicks, to whom, being ”fussed,” as Bannister termed embarra.s.sment, was almost unknown. ”I--I guess I'll take this football over to my locker in the Gym. I ought to glance at my Chemistry, too. So-long, Butch; see you later, old top!”
When the splinter-youth had drifted into the Gym., Butch Brewster, remembering his strange actions, actually managed to transfer his thoughts for a time from the eleven to the care-free T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. The behemoth Senior reflected that, to date, the pestiferous Hicks had not explained his baffling mystery he recalled the day when he had told the Gold and Green eleven of the loyal Hicks' ambition to please his dad by winning his B, when he had described the youth's intense college spirit and had suggested that if Hicks failed to corral his letter the Athletic a.s.sociation award him one for his loyalty to old Bannister. And Butch saw again the bewildering sentences in the letter from Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., to his son.
”Evidently,” meditated Butch, literally and figuratively ”on the fence,”
”Hicks has failed to summon up enough self-confidence to explain his mystery; queer, too, for he usually is bubbling with faith in himself. He has acted like a bashful schoolgirl at frequent times--he starts to tell me something, then he gets embarra.s.sed, back-fires, and stalls. He and Theophilus have been sneaking out in the early dawn, too. Wow! What did he sneak out of the dorm. that way, with a football, for? He looked like a yeggman working night s.h.i.+ft. Why shouldskulk out with a football? He has never explained his dad's letter, or told just what Mr. Hicks meant by calling him the ”Cla.s.s Kid” of Yale, '96, and saying those members of old Eli wanted him to star! Oh, he's a tantalizing wretch, and I'd like to solve his mystery, without his knowledge, so I could--”
At that instant, to the intense indignation and bewilderment of good Butch Brewster, little Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e, the timorous Human Encyclopedia of old Bannister, exited from Bannister Hall. The Senior b.o.n.e.r gave a correct imitation of the offending Hicks, in that he skulked out, gazing around him nervously; but he portaged no pigskin, and, unlike the sunny youth, on periscoping Butch, he seemed relieved.
”Theophilus, !” thundered the wrathful football captain, s.h.i.+fting his tonnage on the Senior Fence. ”What's the plot, anyhow? It's bad enough when T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., sneaks out, bearing a football, like an amateur cracksman making a getaway; but when you appear, imitating a Nihilist about to hurl a bomb--say, what's the answer to the puzzle, old man?”
Little Theophilus, his pathetically frail body trembling with suppressed excitement, his big-rimmed spectacles tumbling off with ridiculous regularity, and his solemn eyes peering owlishly at his behemoth cla.s.smate, stood before the startled Butch. It was evident that the 1919 grind labored under great stress. He was waging a terrific battle with himself, struggling to make some vast and all-important decision. He strove to speak, hesitated, choked, coughed apologetically, and acted as fussed as Hicks had done, until Butch was wild; then, as if resolved to cast the die and cross the Rubicon, he decided, and plunged desperately ahead.
”It's--it's Hicks, Butch!” he quavered, torn cruelly by conflicting emotions. ”Oh, I don't want to be a traitor--he trusted me with his secret, and I--I can't betray him, I just can't! But he didn't make me promise not to tell. He just told me not to. Oh, it's his very last chance, Butch, and with Thor hurt, old Bannister might need him in the Ballard game.”
”What is it, Theophilus, old man?” Butch spoke kindly, for he saw the solemn little Senior was intensely excited. ”Tell me--if our Alma Mater needs any fellow's services, you know, he should give them freely--since you did not promise not to tell about Hicks, if Bannister may be able to use Hicks against Ballard--though I can't, by any stretch of the imagination, figure how--then it is your duty to tell! I think I glimpse the dark secret--Hicks possesses some sort of football prowess, goodness knows what, and he lacks the confidence to tell Coach Corridan! Now, were it only drop-kicking--”
”It is drop-kicking!” Theophilus burst forth desperately. ”Hicks is a drop-kicker, Butch, and a sure one--inside the thirty-yard line. He almostmisses a goal, and he kicks them from every angle, too. He isn't strong enough to kick past the thirty-yard line, but inside that he is wonderfully accurate. With Thor out of the Ballard game, a drop-kick may win for Bannister, and Deke Radford is so erratic! Oh, Hicks will be angry with me for telling; but he just won't tell about himself, after all his practice, because he fears the fellows will jeer. He is afraid he will fail in the supreme test. Oh, I've betrayed him, but--”
”T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., a drop-kicker!” exploded the dazed Butch, who could not have been more astounded had Theophilus announced that the sunny youth possessed powers of black magic. ”Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e, Tantalus himself was never so tantalized as I have been of late. Tell me the whole story, old man--hurry. Spill it, old top!”
Butch Brewster, by questioning the excited Human Encyclopedia, like a police official giving the third degree, slowly extracted from Theophilus the startling story. A year before, just as the Gold and Green practiced for the Ham game, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., one afternoon, had arrayed his splinter-structure in a grotesque, nondescript athletic outfit, and had jogged out on Bannister Field. The gladsome youth's motive had been free from any torturesome purpose. He intended to round up the Phillyloo Bird, Shad Weatherby, and other non-athletic collegians, and with them boot the pigskin, for exercise. However, little Skeet Wigglesworth, beholding him as he donned the weird regalia of loud sweater, odd basket-ball stockings, tennis trousers, baseball shoes, and so on, misconstrued his plan, and believed Hicks intended to torment the squad. Hence, he hurried out, so that when Hicks appeared in the offing, the football squad and the spectators in the stands had jeered the happy-go-lucky Junior, and had good-natured sport at his expense.
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., after Jack Merritt had drop-kicked a forty-yard goal, made the excessively rash statement that it was easy. Captain Butch Brewster had indignantly challenged the heedless youth to show him, and the results of Hicks' effort to propel the pigskin over the crossbar were hilarious, for he missed the oval by a foot, nearly dislocated his knee, and, slipping in the mud, he sat down violently with a thud. However, so the excited Theophilus now narrated, even as the convulsed students jeered Hicks, hurling whistles, shouts, cat-calls, songs and humorous remarks at the downfallen kicker, one of Hicks' celebrated inspirations had smitten the pestersome Junior, evidently jarred loose by his cras.h.i.+ng to terra firma.
”Hicks figured this way, Butch,” explained little Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e, eloquent in his comrade's behalf, ”nature had built him like a mosquito, and endowed him with enough power to lift a pillow; hence he could never hope to play football on the 'Varsity; but he knew that many games are won by drop-kicks and by fellows especially trained and coached for that purpose, and they don't need weight and strength, but they must have the art, that peculiar knack which few possess. His inspiration was this: Perhaps he had that knack, perhaps he could practice faithfully, and develop into a sure drop-kicker. If he trained for a year, in his Senior season, he might be able to serve old Bannister, maybe to win a big game.
So he set to work.”
Theophilus hurriedly yet graphically narrated how T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had made the loyal, hero-wors.h.i.+ping little Human Encyclopedia his sole confidant. He told the thrilled Butch how the sunny youth, from that day on, had watched and listened as Head Coach Corridan trained the drop-kickers, learning all the points he could gain. Vividly he described the mosquito-like Hicks, as he with a football bought from the Athletic a.s.sociation began in secret to practice the fine art of drop-kicking! For a year, at old Bannister and at his dad's country home near Pittsburgh, Hicks had faithfully, doggedly kept at it. With no one bat Theophilus knowing of his great ambition, he had gone out on Bannister Field, when he felt safe from observation; here, with his faithful comrade to keep watch, and to retrieve the pigskin, he had practiced the instructions and points gained from watching Coach Corridan train the booters of the squad. To his vast delight, and the joy of his little friend, Hicks had found that he did possess the knack, and from before the Ham game until Commencement he had kept his secret, practicing clandestinely at old Bannister; he had improved wonderfully, and when vacation started the cheery collegian had told his beloved dad, Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., of his hopes.