As he looked up when the band had ceased, he met the full gaze of Helen
Phillips. She was looking straight at him, with a rapt smile upon her
fresh young face. Then he remembered where he had seen that face
before.
It was at that Yale game at Cambridge. Harvard was due to win; but Yale
had scored once in the first half, and all but scored again before the
Harvard men pulled themselves together. During the intermission Captain
"Monk" Eliot had corralled his crimson warriors in the dressing-room and
addressed to them a few disjointed remarks that made history.
He began moderately; but as he talked his choler rose, and he took off
the limit: "You lobsters are the blankety-blankedest crowd of wooden
Indians that ever advertised a dope-house. You seem to think you are
out here for your health. What in the blank is the matter with you? Do
you think Soldiers Field is a Chinese opium joint where you can go to
sleep and forget your troubles? Maybe you don’t want to get your
clothes dirty, or you are afraid some big, bad, blue Yale man will eat
you up without salt. Now look here! I want you to understand that
we’ve got to win this game if it breaks every damn one of our infernal
necks, and if any of you overgrown babies doesn’t like what I say or
hasn’t the nerve to go into the second half on that basis, just say so
right now, damn you, and I’ll give you the job of holding some _man’s_
sweater for the rest of this game—and we’ll settle it when it’s over."
It was a desperate crowd of men in crimson who went into that second
half; and their collision with the Yale line was terrific. But Eli
didn’t seem to change his mind about winning the game—for he hadn’t
heard the crimson captain’s crimson speech.
For twenty minutes the giants reeled and staggered in an equal struggle.
Yale then saw that she must win by holding the score as it was, and
began all manner of dilatory tactics. This drove Captain Eliot frantic.
He must score in five minutes—or lose. Fifty-five yards in five minutes
against that wall of blue fiends!—nothing but desperation could
accomplish it. He glanced at his squad of reserves on the side-lines;
and with spendthrift recklessness that counted not the cost he began to
burn men up. He sent his best and strongest in merciless repetition
against the weakest—no, not that—against the least strong man in the
Yale line.
Harvard began to creep forward slowly, so slowly; and the five minutes
were no longer five, but four—three—two and a half—hurry! Still forward
the crimson surged with every hammering shock. But flesh and blood
could not stand it! Out went Field, the pick of the Harvard flock,
carried off mumbling like a crazy man, with a bleeding cut across his
forehead. Next went Lee, then Carmichael, then Eliot himself, after a
desperately reckless dash, with a turned ankle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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