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CHAPTER VIII
THE CALL OF THE PIGSKIN
“Maybe it’s Professor Skeel,” whispered George, apprehensively.
“Or Merry himself,” added Jack.
“Nonsense!” replied Tom. “Neither of them would be in our dormitory at this hour.”
“Unless they got wise to the fact that we went out, and they’re laying to catch us when we come in,” declared Bert. “If I’m nabbed I hope my dad doesn’t hear of it.”
“Come on, fellows,” came in a shrill whisper from Bruce. “It’s only Demy, our studious janitor. He’s boning over some book, and if you help him with his conjugation, or demonstrate a geometric proposition for him, he’ll let you burn the school down and say nothing about it. Come on; it’s all right.”
They entered through the door, which was not locked, so that Bruce did not have to use his key, and at their advance, into what was a sort of storeroom of the basement, the studious janitor looked up from a book he was reading.
“Well, well!” he exclaimed. “Is this – ahem! young gentleman, I hardly know what – ”
“It’s all right, Demy,” interrupted Bruce with a laugh. “I brought ’em in. They want to help you do a little – let’s see what you’re at, anyhow?” and he looked at the book.
“It’s Horace,” said the janitor. “I want to read some of his odes in the original, but the translating is very hard, to say the least. Still, I am determined to get an education while I have the chance.”
“Good for you!” exclaimed the Senior. “I’ll help you, Demy. Horace is pie for me. You fellows cut along to your rooms,” he added, significantly. “You haven’t seen them, have you, Demy?”
“No, Mr. Bennington, not if you don’t wish me to,” and the janitor, with a grateful look at the Senior, prepared to listen to the Latin, while Tom and his chums, grateful for the aid given them, hurried up the stairs to their apartments.
“That was fine of him, wasn’t it?” remarked Jack, as good-nights were being whispered.
“It sure was,” declared Tom, wishing more than ever that he could help the unhappy Senior.
“I wonder why the janitor wants to know Latin?” came from the human question mark.
“Oh, answer that in your dreams,” advised Tom.
From the fact that no mention was made of their little night excursion, Tom and the others concluded that the studious janitor had kept his pact with Bruce. The latter told Tom afterward that he was kept busy giving Latin instruction until nearly midnight.
“It was good of you,” said our hero.
“Oh, pshaw! I’m glad I can do somebody good,” was the rejoinder. That was Bruce Bennington’s way. As Reddy had said, the Senior was his own worst enemy.
“Hear the news?” burst out Jack, as he entered the room where Tom was studying, a few afternoons later.
“No, what news?”
“Call for Freshmen and regular football candidates is posted. Practice begins to-morrow. Let’s get out our suits.”
“Fine!” cried Tom, tossing his book on the table, and scurrying for his trunk where he had packed away his moleskin trousers and canvas jacket. Jack soon had his out, looking for possible rents and ripped seams.
“I’ve got to do some mending – worse luck!” exclaimed Tom, as he saw a big hole in his trousers.
“Can you sew?” asked Jack.
“Oh, so-so,” laughed Tom. “I can make a stab at it, anyhow,” and he proceeded to close up the rent by the simple process of gathering the edges together like the mouth of a bag, and winding string around them. “There! I guess that’ll do,” he added.
It was a clear, crisp day, and “the call of the pigskin” had been heard all through the college. Several score of lads, in more or less disreputable suits, that had seen lots of service, assembled on the gridiron under the watchful eyes of the coaches.
“I hope I make the regular eleven,” said Tom, as he sent a beautiful spiral kick to Jack.
“So do I,” was the reply. “But I hear there are lots of candidates for it, and almost a whole team was left over from last season, so there won’t be much chance for us.”
The practice was more or less ragged, and, in fact it was only designed to let the coaches see how the new lads “sized-up.” Several elevens were tentatively formed, and taken to different parts of the field to play against each other.
Tom worked hard, and he was glad to note that one of the older players had regarded him with what our hero thought were favorable eyes. Jack was also doing well.
This practice was kept up for several days, and about a week later Reddy Burke, meeting Tom, exclaimed:
“Say, you fellows are in luck!”
“How so?” asked Jack, who was with his chum.
“You’ve made the eleven, I hear. You’ll probably get notice to-day.”
“The regular?” cried Tom in delight.
“Hardly! There’s only one new fellow going on that, I understand, though you might fill in as subs. But you’re both going to play on the first Freshman eleven.”
“The Freshman team,” spoke Jack, somewhat disappointedly.
“Say, what do you want?” asked Tom. “I think it’s fine. Of course I wish it was the regular, but maybe next year – ”
“That’s the way to talk,” declared Reddy, who was on the leading team himself. “But I tell you that you’re in luck to make the Freshman team. There are no end of candidates, but you two seemed to hit the mark.”
Tom rejoiced exceedingly, and when he received his formal notice, as did Jack, our hero at once wrote to his parents, who were soon to reach Australia. Tom had had several letters from them since leaving home, but had yet to hear of their safe arrival. He sent the letter to Sydney, in care of his father’s lawyer.
There were busy days for our hero and his chums now. With lectures to attend, studying to do, and football practice, their time was pretty well occupied. Bert Wilson had made the Freshman eleven, and the three chums played well together.
Tom had not seen much of Bruce Bennington since the night the Senior aided the first year lads, for Bruce was busy too, as he was on the ’varsity.
Tom found that football, as played at Elmwood, was very different from the Academy games, but he was made of tough material, and he soon worked well into his place as right half-back, while Jack was left tackle. Several scrub games had been played, and the Freshman coaches seemed satisfied with the work of their charges.
“Hurray!” yelled Tom, running up to Jack one afternoon, as his chum was strolling across the campus. “Yell, old man!”
“What for?”
“We play our first regular game Saturday against Holwell college. They’ve got a strong team, but we’re going to win! I’m going to make a touchdown!”
“Good! Oh, say, it’s great here!” and in the excess of their good spirits Tom and Jack fell to pummelling each other in hearty fashion.
CHAPTER IX
TOM’S TOUCHDOWN
“Come on now, boys, line up!”
It was the call of Coach Jackson for the final practice of the Freshmen eleven before their first big game. The regulars were to play against the scrub, and, as some of the positions were yet in doubt, there were some anxious hearts. For not a substitute but wanted to fill in on the regular eleven.
Tom and Jack, because of the good showing they had made, were assured of places, but Sam Heller, who, to do him credit, was a fairly good player, was not so certain. It lay between him and Bert Wilson, as to who would be quarter-back.
“But if I had my rights, and if that Fairfield chap hadn’t come butting in,” declared Sam to his crony, Nick, “I would be sure of my place.”
“That’s right,” agreed Nick. “We’ll have to get up something on Fairfield, and make him quit Elmwood.”
“I wish I could. Say, the Sophs haven’t done any hazing this term yet; have they?”
“No, but they will.”
“I suppose so. Well, just have ’em let me down easy; will you? I’m a Soph myself, by rights, if old Hammond hadn’t marked me low in maths. But have the Sophs give it to Fairfield and his chum good and proper; will you?”
“Sure I will. We’re going to do some hazing after the football game. We thought we’d put it off until then.”
“All right, only do Tom Fairfield up if you can.”
“I will. I don’t like him any more than you do. He’s got too many airs to suit me – he and that Jack Fitch.”
“Line up! Line up!” called the coach, and the practice began. Sam Heller was called on to take his place in the scrub, which he did with no good grace, casting envious eyes at Bert Wilson, and with a feeling of bitterness in his heart toward Tom. And with no good cause, for Tom had done nothing to Sam.
“Now, boys, play your heads off!” ordered the coach. “I want to see what sort of stuff you’re made of. The best players will go against Holwell to-morrow.”
Then the scrub game began, with the Freshmen players doing their best to shove back their opponents, and the latter equally determined to make as good a showing as possible. Back and forth the battle of the gridiron waged, with Tom jumping into every play, looking for openings where he might wriggle through with the ball, or help the man who had it to gain a yard or two.
“Touchdown! Touchdown!” yelled the members of the first eleven, as they got the ball well down toward the scrub goal. “Make it a touchdown!”
It would have been, but for the fact that Bert Wilson fumbled the ball in passing it back from centre. A scrub player broke through, grabbed the pigskin, and was off down the field like a shot.
“Get him, boys!” cried Morse Denton, the Freshman captain, and Jack Fitch, who was as fleet as some ends, was after the fleeing youth. He caught him in time to prevent a score being made, but the coach shook his head at the next line up.
“Heller, you go in at quarter to replace Wilson,” he said. “I am sorry,” the arbiter added, at the look of gloom on the face of Tom’s chum, “but fumbles are costly. I can’t afford to take any chances.”
Bert said nothing, but he knew that he was not altogether at fault, for the centre had not passed the ball accurately. Sam Heller, with a triumphant smile at Tom, went to quarter, and the game proceeded. But it was noticed that Sam, who was giving signals, and deciding on most of the plays, did not give Tom as many chances as when Bert had been in place behind the centre.
“You want to look out for Sam in the game to-morrow,” said Jack to Tom that night, when, after gruelling practice, the regular Freshmen had shoved the scrub all over the field.
“Why so?”
“Because I think he has it in for you. He’ll spoil your plays if he can, and he won’t give you a chance. Look out for him.”
“I will. But at the same time I don’t believe he’d do anything to spoil the chance of the team winning.”
“I wouldn’t trust him. At the same time he may do nothing worse than not give you a chance. It’s going to be a big game, I hear, and the fellow who makes good will be in line for the ’varsity next season.”
“I’ll watch out. Now let’s do something. Come on in Bert’s room. He feels bad about not playing to-morrow.”
“I know. But it’s forbidden to visit in other fellows’ rooms after hours.”
“Oh, what of it?” asked Tom, who liked to take chances. “We’ve got to do something. It isn’t so late, and there are no lectures to-morrow.”
“All right, go ahead. I’m with you. But I hope we don’t get caught. It might mean being ruled out of the game to-morrow.”
Bert was grateful for the sympathy of his chums, and soon felt in better humor. Jack offered to repeat his water pitcher juggling act, and was only prevented by force on the part of Tom. There was a merry scuffle, and George Abbot came in to see what was going on, at the same time bringing warning that a sub-monitor had been patroling the corridors.
“Then we’ve got to be quiet,” declared Tom. “Cut out your juggling, Jack.”
The four chums talked for an hour or more, and then the three, who were out of their rooms, taking a cautious survey of the hall, prepared to go to bed, ready for the big game on the morrow. Jack and Tom just escaped being caught as they slipped into their apartment, but, as Tom remarked, “A miss was as good as a mile.”
Then came the day of the great game.
“Line up! Line up!”
“Over here, Elmwood!”
“This way, Holwell!”
“Rah! Rah! Rah!”
“Toot! Toot! Toot!”
These were only some of the cries that burst forth from hundreds of throats at the annual game between the Elmwood and Holwell schools, as the Freshmen prepared to clash in their gridiron battle.
The game was to take place on the Elmwood grounds, and both teams were out for practice. The crowds were beginning to arrive, and the bands were playing.
“Say, there’s a mob here all right,” remarked Jack to Tom. “A raft of people.”
“Yes. I hope we win.”
“Oh, sure we will. Don’t get nervous. I only wish Bert was at quarter instead of Sam Heller.”
“So do I, but it can’t be helped. I guess it will be all right.”
“Line up!”
It was the final call. The preliminaries had been all arranged, the goals chosen, and the practice balls called in. Elmwood was to kick off, and the new yellow pigskin was handed to her burly centre, who was poising it on a little mound of earth in the middle of the field.
“Ready?” asked the official.
“Ready!” answered both captains.
The whistle shrilled out its signal, and the toe of the big centre met the ball squarely. It was well kicked into the Holwell territory.
The full-back on the latter team caught it skillfully, and started to return with it, well protected by interference, but Jack Fitch worked his way through it, and tackled his man hard.
“Good! Good!” screamed the Elmwood enthusiasts, and then the first scrimmage was prepared for.
I am not going to describe for you that game in detail, for it formed but a small part in the life of Tom Fairfield. Sufficient to say that the gridiron battle was fairly even, and that at the end of the third quarter the score was a tie.
“But we’ve got to win!” declared the Elmwood captain, during the rest period. “We’ve got to.”
“And we will, if there’s a change made,” declared Jack Fitch boldly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Tom Fairfield isn’t getting a fair show.”
“Oh, Jack!” exclaimed Tom.
“That’s right! You’re not!” declared his chum. “Sam hasn’t called on you three times during the game. It’s been all wing shift plays, or place kicks, or forward passes, or fake kicks or something like that. Why can’t we have some straight, old-fashioned football, with a rush of the half-back through tackle and guard or centre? Tom’s a good ground-gainer.”
“I’ve played him as much as I saw proper,” snapped Sam.
“You have not!” declared Jack hotly.
“Easy, boys,” cautioned the coach. “There must be no personal feeling. Perhaps some straight football would go well, Heller.”
“All right, I’ll give it to ’em.”
The whistle blew to start the last quarter.
“Remember, boys, a touchdown will do the trick, and win the game!” pleaded the Elmwood captain.
“Look out for yourself, Tom,” cautioned Jack.
“Why?”
“Because Sam is just mad enough to make you fumble the ball and spoil a play. Then he’ll accuse you of losing the game.”
“I’ll watch out.”
The play was resumed. It was give and take, hammer and tongs, with the best players making the most gains. The ball was slowly forced down the field toward the Holwell goal.
“Touchdown! Touchdown!” screamed the supporters of our hero’s college, and there were many of them.
“Seven, eleven, thirty-three, Elmwood! Eight – nine – twenty-one!” called Sam.
It was the signal for the full-back to take the ball through centre. It was almost the last chance, for the time was nearly up, and Tom had not been given a single opportunity that quarter. His heart burned against his enemy; yet what could he do?
The quarter-back dropped his hands as a signal for the centre to snap the ball back. Sam caught it fairly, and turned to pass it to the full-back. Then, that always fatal element in football developed. There was a fumble. The ball was dropped.
“Grab it! Fall on it!” yelled half a dozen Holwell players.
The Elmwood line wavered. Could it hold?
Tom Fairfield, a mist before his eyes, saw the pigskin rolling toward him. He picked it up on the jump. In another moment Jack Fitch and Joe Rooney, his guard, had torn a hole in the opposing line.
“Come on, Tom!” yelled Jack hoarsely.
And Tom, with lowered head, with the ball held close to his breast, plunged into the line. He hit it hard. It yielded. He went through with a rush, pushed by Jack and Joe. Then, seeing but a single man between himself and the coveted goal, he rushed for it.
All but the opposing full-back had been drawn in at the sight of the fumble, and the chance to secure the ball. Tom rushed at this lone player.
There was a shock. Tom reeled, but managed to retain his footing. He shoved the full-back aside, and ran on.
“Oh, great!” he heard hundreds yell. “Go on! Go on!”
How he ran! It was the opportunity for which he had waited. In spite of Sam Heller it had come to him. Over the white chalk marks Tom scudded, until, with panting breath, with a heart that seemed bursting, and with eyes that scarcely saw, he fell over the last line, and planted the ball between the goal posts, making the winning touchdown. The other players – his own and his opponents – straggled up to the last mark. The whistle blew, ending the game.
“Oh wow!” shrilled hundreds of voices. “Elmwood! Elmwood! Elmwood forever!”
“Tom, you won the game! You won the game!” yelled Jack in his chum’s ear, as Tom got up, holding his foot on the ball. “You won in spite of Sam!”
“I – I’m glad – of – it!” panted Tom, scarcely able to breathe even yet, for he had run hard.
CHAPTER X
A COWARD’S TRICK
“Three cheers for Fairfield!”
“Rah! Rah! Rah! – Elmwood!”
“Three cheers for Holwell!”
There were shouts, cries and cheers of joy at the victory on the part of our hero’s followers, while there was corresponding gloom in the camp of their unsuccessful rivals.
“Great work, old man!” complimented Tom’s captain. “You did the trick for us!”
“It was an accident. I just managed to get the ball, and run,” explained Tom.
“Lucky for us you did. It was an accident that might have counted heavily against us. What was the matter with you, Sam, in passing the ball?”
“Aw, it wasn’t my fault. It slipped. Anyhow our full-back had his hands on it, and he dropped it.”
“I did not!” declared that player. “You didn’t pass it to me fairly.”
“That’ll do!” interrupted the captain sharply. “We don’t want any quarrels. Besides, we won the game.”
Tom was surrounded by a joyous crowd of his chums, and other admirers, as the team raced from the field, and the throng of spectators filed out of the stands.
“Well, how do you feel?” asked Jack of his chum, as they were in their room together, after a refreshing bath in the gymnasium.
“Great! I expect I’ll be a little lame and stiff tomorrow though. Somebody gave me a beaut dig in the ribs.”
“And I guess our whole team, and half of the other one, was piled on me at one stage of the game,” remarked Jack ruefully, as he rubbed his back reflectively. “But it was a glorious win all right. And how you did run, Tom!”
“I just had to, to make that touchdown.” And then the two boys fell to talking of the game, playing it all over again in detail.
“I just thought Sam would be mean enough not to give you a chance,” remarked Jack.
“Oh, maybe it wasn’t intentional,” replied our hero, who did not like to think ill of anyone.
“Get out! Of course it was. Ask any of the fellows. But he fooled himself. That fumble spoiled his plans, and you grabbed your opportunity.”
“And the ball too,” added Tom, as there came a knock on their door.
“Come!” called Jack, and Bert Wilson and George Abbot entered.
“Came to pay our respects,” spoke Bert. “How does it feel to be hero? Aren’t your ears burning, with the way the fellows are talking about you?”
“Not exactly.”
“Why should his ears burn?” asked George. “Is it because he – ”
“Now you quit, or I’ll fire the dictionary at you,” threatened Bert. “I told you I’d bring you in on one condition, and that was that you wouldn’t be a question box.”
“But I just wanted to know,” pleaded George.
“Then look it up in an encyclopedia,” directed Jack, with a laugh. “I’m not going to answer any more questions.”
“I hope you get a chance next game,” said Tom to Bert. “Maybe you will after the fumble Sam made.”
And Bert did. For there was a conference between the Freshman captain and coach that night, which resulted in Sam being sent back to the scrub. He protested mightily.
“It wasn’t my fault – that fumble,” he declared.
“I think it was,” spoke the coach. “Anyhow you didn’t run the team as well as I thought you would. Why, you didn’t give Fairfield half a chance, and he showed what he could do when he did get a show.”
“Aw, he can’t play football.”
“I think he can. Anyhow, you’ll shift back, but if you do good work I’ll play you on the regular team again before the season is over.” And with this Sam had to be content.
Football practice was resumed on Monday, and the team seemed to do better with the change in quarter-backs. There was a match in the middle of the week, and again Elmwood won handily, Jack Fitch distinguishing himself by a long run, while Tom made some star tackles, once saving a touchdown by catching the player a short distance from the goal.
“I’ll get even with Fairfield yet!” threatened Sam to Nick. “He needn’t think he can run things here.”
“Go in and do him,” advised his crony. “Can’t you pick a quarrel with him, and have it out?”
“I’ll try. If you see a chance, sail in and lick him.”
“I will,” promised Nick, but Sam’s chance came sooner than he expected, or, rather, he made the opportunity.
There is a certain fine powder, a sort of a pepper-snuff so fine that it can not be seen floating about, yet which, if scattered about a room, will irritate the eyes, nose and throat in a marked degree. Sam bought some of this powder, and making it up into a small paper parcel, he watched his chance to slip it into Tom’s handkerchief pocket.
“He’ll pull it out in class,” Sam explained to Nick, “and set the whole room to sneezing. I’ll try and have him do it in Latin recitation, and Skeel won’t do a thing to him, for Tom sits in the front row, and the prof. will see him.”
“Suppose Fairfield catches you?”
“I’ll take care that he doesn’t,” declared Sam, and he was lucky enough to bring about his cowardly trick undetected. As the students went into the Latin class, presided over by Professor Skeel, Sam slipped the sneezing powder into Tom’s pocket, on top of his handkerchief. It was quickly done, and, in the press, our hero never noticed it. Then Sam quickly joined one of his classmates, with whom he was more or less thick, to prevent detection.
The recitation was about half over, and Tom, who had been called on, had made a failure, for a very hard question, and one he had never dreamed would be brought up in class, was asked him.
“Remain after the session, and write me out fifty lines of Cæsar,” ordered the mean instructor. Tom shut his laps grimly. A little later he pulled out his handkerchief, and, as might have been expected, the powder flew out, scattering from the paper. A few moments later a boy began to sneeze, and soon the whole room was doing it – even the professor.
Now Professor Skeel was no simpleton, if he was mean, and he at once detected the irritating powder. He realized at once that some one had done it for a trick, and he had seen the paper fall from Tom’s pocket, as the stuff scattered.
“Fairfield!” he exclaimed angrily, “did you scatter that powder?”
“Not intentionally, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I did not know it was there. Some one must have put it in my pocket for a joke.”
“Nonsense! Do you expect me to believe that?” the professor asked sharply of Tom.
“It’s the truth, sir.”
“Preposterous! I don’t believe you!”
“Sir!” exclaimed our hero, for he was not in the habit of being told that he spoke an untruth.
“Don’t contradict me!” stormed the teacher. “I say you did it on purpose – er – a-ker-choo! On purpose – ker-choo! I have known it to be done before, in other classes, but never in mine. I will have no nonsense! Ker-choo!”
The professor was having hard work to talk, for he sneezed quite often, as, in fact, did every one in the class.
“This foolishness will have to stop!” he declared. “I am certain you put that powder in your own pocket, Fairfield.”
“I did not, sir.”
“Ha! Did any one here put that powder in Fairfield’s pocket?” asked the professor.
Naturally the guilty Sam did not answer.
“There, you see!” exclaimed Mr. Skeel, triumphantly. “I knew you did it – ker-choo! But I have no doubt others may have been implicated, and I will punish the whole class. You will all of you write me out a hundred lines of Cæsar.”
“That is not fair, sir,” spoke Tom boldly.
“What! You dare to tell me that!” stormed Mr. Skeel.
“It is not fair,” insisted Tom. “Either I alone am responsible, which I deny, or some one else is. I assure you, sir, that no one in the class entered with me into any trick to do this thing.”
“I don’t believe you. The whole class will be punished unless the guilty one confesses – and that includes you!” and the professor looked angrily at Tom.
Sam, of course, would not admit his part in the affair, and as it was impossible to have the class remain longer in the powder-infested room, the students were dismissed. But Professor Skeel would not remit the punishment.
“Say, this is tough luck – to have to write out all that Latin, for something we didn’t do,” complained Frank Nelson.
“I should say so,” added Harry Morse. “Why don’t you own up to it, Fairfield, and save our hides.”
“Because I didn’t do it intentionally.”
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“Say, if Tom says he didn’t do it, he didn’t,” declared Jack.
“I guess that’s right,” agreed Harry. “Excuse me, Tom,” and, to the credit of Tom’s classmates, one and all expressed their belief in his innocence. That is, all but Sam, and he kept quiet, avoiding our hero. But, to ward off suspicion, Sam growled louder than anyone about the task.
“I’d like to get hold of the fellow who used that powder,” complained Ed. Ward.
“You won’t have to look far for him, I guess,” said Jack, in a voice that only Tom heard.
“Do you think Sam did it?” asked Tom.
“I sure do. But you want to be certain of your proof against him before you accuse him!”
“I will,” declared Tom. “I’ll do a bit of detective work.”
But he had no clews to work on, and, though he was sure his enemy had made him and the others suffer, he could prove nothing, for the paper in which the powder was wrapped was blank.
