Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Football stories; School sports -- Juvenile fiction; Teenage boys -- Juvenile fiction
“We beat her back in ’16, in ’17 once more;
We swamped her in ’20 with a sixteen-nothing score!
We beat her in ’21 when she couldn’t hold the ball,
But this year, on her own field, we’ll beat her worst of all!”
Wyndham had no band to aid――or hinder――but she made the welkin ring.
Dodson, white-sweatered, leaped and danced and kept time with waving
arms and swaying body. “Great! Once more now! All sing!” They
responded valiantly, louder than before since many, previously silent,
found courage and lifted their voices. Wolcott applauded and laughed
and came back with a derisive composition in which “Wyndham” was
insultingly punned with “wind ’em.”
Across the field, Mr. Deane lighted a fresh cigar and said: “Well, it
looks as if they’d pulled that fellow’s teeth, eh? What’shisname, I
mean.”
“Hoskins?” asked Loring. “Yes, I don’t believe he will trouble us much,
father. Mr. Babcock set two men to covering him and he hasn’t got away
with anything yet. What Wolcott may do, though, is fake a throw to
Hoskins and send the ball the other way. That might catch us napping.”
“How did you spy that fellow, Lory?”
“They ran him on near the end of last week’s game. Wolcott had scored a
touchdown and a field-goal in the first half and sent her first-string
men off to the showers. After that she couldn’t do much. The other team
got scrappy and held Wolcott twice inside its twenty yards. I think
Wolcott thought she ought to have one score at least to show for the
last half and took a chance. Anyway, after she’d used up two downs over
there near the twenty-five-yard line she called Hoskins in, and he
sifted through on the first play and trotted down to the corner of the
field, just as he did a few minutes ago. The ball went right into his
hands and he stepped over the line for a touchdown. Then he was taken
right out again. I saw the trainer hand him his sweater and send him
back to the gym. That was all I needed to see, sir.”
Mr. Deane chuckled, and Mrs. Deane said admiringly: “I think that was
very, very clever, dear.”
“Thanks, moms, but it really wasn’t. Any one could have called the
turn. I suppose they thought we didn’t know that they’d been working
up that forward-passing stuff under cover. They’d kept it pretty well
hidden. If they had thought twice, though, they wouldn’t have shown
their hand like that.”
“It’s safe to say they wish they hadn’t,” chuckled Mr. Deane. “I
suppose they’re wondering now what happened, eh?”
“They know what happened,” laughed Loring, “but it’s a bit late! I wish
we had managed to get one score in that half, though. Wolcott will come
back pretty hard, I guess.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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