Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Football -- Juvenile fiction; Football stories
We had six second- or third-string fellows in our line-up when the
third quarter began, and I was plumb certain we had our work cut out
for us if we were going to win the old ball game. Mills came back at
us mighty savage after the kick-off and had things her own way until
we took a brace and made her punt. We sort of got together then and
worked the ends and a long forward pass and made her thirty-one. Then
we got penalized for holding and finally had to punt and Brill sent
the ball over the line. Play sort of see-sawed again for a while, with
Mills having slightly the better of the kicking game, and then the
first score came, and came unexpected.
Joe had been holding his end up pretty well, partly because I’d tipped
Thompson off to go light on him, and he’d made a couple of yards for
us once or twice. Well, pretty soon Mills had to punt from around her
forty-five and Thompson went back up the field, taking Joe with him.
Torrey had been taking punts and Joe had taken Torrey’s place and so
Thompson calls him back without thinking much about it. The punt went
sort of askew and landed in the corner of the field. Joe didn’t judge
it for beans and it hit about on the fifteen yards and went up again
with him grabbing for it. He missed it but got it near the five-yard
line, and by that time a red-headed end named Brennan was right on top
of him. I don’t know how Brennan got there so quick but there he was.
Of course, if Joe had thought he’d have let the old ball alone, but
he didn’t. He grabbed it, juggled it a bit and froze on to it just as
this red-headed Mills right end came up. Then he started to run. By
that time there was a mob on the scene and I couldn’t see just what
happened. But when it was all over there was Joe a yard behind our goal
line with the ball still hugged tight and Bert Naylor was putting a big
white 2 on the score board where it said “Opponent.” Joe had scored a
safety!
I started to bust into the poor boob, but he looked so unhappy I didn’t
have the heart to say much. I just told him he had probably lost the
game for us and a few things like that, and let it go. He certainly did
look sick over it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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