Left Tackle Thayer

CHAPTER XV

A BRO­KEN FID­DLE

Brim­field trooped back across the field to the Row nois­ily tri­umphant. Two hours be­fore had any­one sug­gest­ed that it would be sat­is­fied with any­thing less than three scores it would have de­rid­ed the no­tion. Now how­ev­er it was not on­ly sat­is­fied but elat­ed. Those sev­en points looked large and no­ble, and the home team's vic­to­ry was viewed as a mas­ter­ful tri­umph. Cham­bers was cred­it­ed with hav­ing put up a fine fight, with hav­ing a more than or­di­nar­ily pow­er­ful team, and there were some who even went so far as to de­clare that Claflin would show no bet­ter foot­ball than to­day's vis­itors had shown. But that was doubt­less an ex­ag­ger­ation, and those who made it had prob­ably for­got­ten those first two pe­ri­ods in which both teams played very or­di­nary foot­ball in­deed. A fair anal­ysis of the game would have shown that the two elevens, while play­ing some­what dif­fer­ent styles of foot­ball, had been very even­ly matched in abil­ity and con­di­tion, that both had been weak on de­fence and that nei­ther had proved it­self the pos­ses­sor of an at­tack which could be de­pend­ed on to gain con­sis­tent­ly. What both teams had shown was a do-​or-​die spir­it which, while ex­treme­ly com­mend­able, would not have availed against a well-​round­ed eleven even­ly de­vel­oped as to at­tack and de­fence. In oth­er words, both Brim­field and Cham­bers had shown fine pos­si­bil­ities, but nei­ther was yet by any means a re­mark­able team.

In some ways the vis­itors had out­played Brim­field. Cham­bers' at­tack, es­pe­cial­ly be­tween the twen­ty-​five-​yard lines, had been far more var­ied and ef­fec­tive. Her line, from tack­le to tack­le, had been stronger than her op­po­nent's. Brim­field had been es­pe­cial­ly weak at the left of cen­tre, and a re­sume of the game showed that Cham­bers had made two-​thirds of her line gains through Blais­dell and Saun­ders. Churchill, who had re­placed Blais­dell in the sec­ond half, had shown up no bet­ter on de­fence. At the ends Brim­field had held her own, while her backs had shown up su­pe­ri­or to Cham­bers'. Cham­bers had out­punt­ed Brim­field an av­er­age of five yards at a kick and had placed her punts to bet­ter ad­van­tage. In gen­er­al­ship both teams had erred fre­quent­ly and there was lit­tle to choose be­tween them.

But all this had no present ef­fect on Brim­field's ju­bi­la­tion, and the school act­ed as if a most no­table vic­to­ry had been won. When the 'var­si­ty team came in to sup­per that night it re­ceived an ova­tion hard­ly sec­ond in en­thu­si­asm to that usu­al­ly ac­cord­ed it af­ter a vic­to­ry over Claflin. And per­haps, af­ter all, the team de­served it, for when all was said and done the spir­it which had been shown when they had held Cham­bers score­less on the four yards and again lat­er when they had them­selves worn down the de­fence and gained their touch­down had been of the right sort.

Clint filled four pages of his Sun­day's let­ter the next af­ter­noon with a glow­ing and de­tailed ac­count of that game, and it is to be hoped that the folks at Cedar Run en­joyed the pe­rusal of it half as much as he en­joyed writ­ing it. That evening he and Amy dropped in at Num­ber 14 Hensey and found a room­ful of fel­lows in ex­cit­ed dis­cus­sion of the game. There was a dis­po­si­tion on the part of some of the fel­lows to con­sid­er the Claflin con­test as good as won, but Jack Innes was more pes­simistic.

“Look here,” he in­ter­rupt­ed fi­nal­ly, “you fel­lows talk like a lot of sick ducks. I'm blessed if I see what you're so cocky about. We beat Cham­bers, all right, but we didn't any more than beat them, and we had to work like the very dick­ens to do it. And, what's more, we on­ly kept Cham­bers from scor­ing by the biggest piece of good luck.”

“Oh, pif­fle, Jack!” ex­claimed Still. “We had them fourth down and five to go. They couldn't have made it to save their lives!”

“They on­ly had four to go,” replied Jack, “and if they'd tried any­thing but a child's trick they'd like­ly have made it. The on­ly way we got across was by spring­ing a de­layed pass on them when they were look­ing for a line-​plunge.”

“Bet you any­thing you like we could have gone straight through for that touch­down.” said Still. “We had the ball on their four yards and it was on­ly third down. Har­ris or Kendall could have torn that four yards off eas­ily.”

“That's your opin­ion,” replied Jack dri­ly. “As I re­mem­ber it, though, you were not on at the time. We knew mighty well we _couldn't_ get that four yards by play­ing the line. If you don't be­lieve me, ask Robey. The first thing he said af­ter­wards was that he was afraid we were go­ing to send Har­ris at cen­tre on that last play and that if we had we'd nev­er have got over.”

“Oh, well, we got it, any­way,” ob­served Tom Hall cheer­ful­ly.

“Yes, we got it,” agreed Jack Innes, “but I'm telling you fel­lows that we on­ly just did get it, and that we've got mighty lit­tle to crow about. Our for­ward line wasn't near­ly as good as Cham­bers'. You all know that. And you ought to know that if we went in against Claflin and played the sort of foot­ball we played yes­ter­day we'd be lit­er­al­ly swamped!”

“But, look here, Jack,” protest­ed Tracey Black warm­ly, “it's on­ly mid-​sea­son, old man. You've got to ac­knowl­edge that we're in mighty good shape for the time of year.”

“I'm not knock­ing, Tracey. I'm giv­ing all the fel­lows cred­it for what they did yes­ter­day, but I don't want them to get the idea in their heads that all we've got to do is mark time from now un­til the big game. We've got to be at least twice as good then as we were yes­ter­day. Be­sides, I don't call it the mid­dle of the sea­son when we've got on­ly three games to play be­fore Claflin. The Ben­ton game was the mid-​sea­son game. We're on the last lap now. And,” he added grim­ly, “we've got some work ahead of us!”

“For my part,” ob­served Amy, who had been rather bored by the dis­cus­sion, “I think the whole bunch of you played pret­ty rot­ten­ly.”

“You do, eh?” de­mand­ed Ed­wards. “Sup­pose you tell us all about it, Amy. Give us of your wis­dom, O en­light­ened one.”

“There you go,” groaned Tom Hall, “talk­ing the way he does!”

“Oh, I don't know that I care to spec­ify which of you was the worst,” replied Amy care­less­ly. “Pos­si­bly it was you, Steve. You had a dandy chance once to up­set the ref­er­ee and you de­lib­er­ate­ly side-​stepped him. If you're go­ing to play the game, boy, _play_ it! Don't dodge any of your du­ties or re­spon­si­bil­ities.”

“Oh, you be blowed,” laughed Ed­wards. “It's the sor­row of my life, Amy, that you didn't keep on with foot­ball.”

“I dare say if I had I'd have shown you fel­lows a few things about it,” replied Amy mod­est­ly. “The­oret­ical­ly, I'm some­thing of an au­thor­ity on foot­ball. When you come right down to brass tacks, it's the fel­low on the side line who sees most of the game. I'm con­sid­er­ing coach­ing when I leave school. Take my young friend Clint here. Clint owes a whole lot to my ad­vice and guid­ance. He wouldn't be where he is to­day if it hadn't been for me, would you, Clint?”

“I'm on the bench just now,” re­tort­ed Clint dri­ly.

“That's where you'll stay if you lis­ten to his rav­ings,” said Steve Ed­wards, amidst gen­er­al laugh­ter.

“By the way, how is that an­kle of yours, Thay­er?” in­quired Innes.

“Pret­ty near­ly all right, thanks. It's my knee, though.”

“Oh, is it? Say, Churchill got a peach of a black eye yes­ter­day. Seen it!”

“Rather!” replied Freer. “He looked pos­itive­ly dis­rep­utable, poor chap.”

“The fun of it is,” chuck­led Hall, “that he had to ad­dress the Chris­tian As­so­ci­ation this af­ter­noon. Were you there, Jack?”

“Yes. It wasn't so bad. He had a patch over it. Still, it was sort of fun­ny to hear him talk­ing about clean play­ing!”

Clint was giv­en a clear bill of health the next day and went back to prac­tice with a silk ban­dage around his knee. He was giv­en light work and sat on the bench again while the sec­ond played two twelve-​minute pe­ri­ods against the 'var­si­ty sub­sti­tutes. It seemed to him that Rob­bins fair­ly out­played him­self that af­ter­noon, but he failed to take in­to con­sid­er­ation that his ri­val was pit­ted against sub­sti­tutes or that his own state of mind was rather pes­simistic. Prac­tice end­ed ear­ly and af­ter a show­er and a rub Clint am­bled across to Tor­rence feel­ing rather dispir­it­ed. The dor­mi­to­ry seemed pret­ty emp­ty and lone­some as he en­tered the cor­ri­dor. Even Pen­ny Durkin's vi­olin was silent, which was a most un­usu­al con­di­tion of af­fairs for that hour of the af­ter­noon. Clint slammed his door be­hind him, tossed his cap in the gen­er­al di­rec­tion of the win­dow-​seat and flopped mo­rose­ly in­to a chair at the ta­ble. He had plen­ty of work to do, but af­ter pulling a book to­ward him and find­ing his place he slammed it shut again and pushed it dis­taste­ful­ly away. He wished Amy would come back, and looked at his watch. It was on­ly a lit­tle af­ter half-​past four, though, and Amy, who was prob­ably play­ing ten­nis, would scarce­ly stop as long as he was able to dis­tin­guish the balls. Per­haps it was the ab­sence of the cus­tom­ary wail­ing of the next door vi­olin that put Pen­ny Durkin in mind. Clint had nev­er been in Pen­ny's room, nor ev­er said more than two dozen words to him ex­cept on the oc­ca­sion of Pen­ny's en­counter with Har­mon Dreer, but just now Clint want­ed might­ily to talk to some­one and so he de­cid­ed to see if Pen­ny was in. At first his knock on the door of Num­ber 13 elicit­ed no an­swer, and he was turn­ing away when a doubt­ful “Come in” reached him from be­yond the closed por­tal. When he en­tered Pen­ny was seat­ed on the win­dow-​seat at the far end of the room do­ing some­thing to his vi­olin.

“Hel­lo,” he said not very gra­cious­ly. Then, giv­ing the new­com­er a sec­ond glance, he added: “Oh, that you, Thay­er? I thought it was Mullins. Come on in.”

“Thought maybe you were dead,” said Clint flip­pant­ly, “and dropped in to see.”

“Dead!” ques­tioned Pen­ny vague­ly.

“Yes, I didn't hear the vi­olin, you know.”

“Oh, I see.” There was a mo­ment's si­lence. Then Pen­ny said very sober­ly: “It isn't me that's dead; it's the vi­olin.”

“Some­thing gone wrong?” asked Clint, join­ing the oth­er at the win­dow and view­ing the in­stru­ment so­lic­itous­ly. Pen­ny nod­ded.

“I guess it's a goner,” he mut­tered. “Look here.” He held the vi­olin out for Clint's in­spec­tion and the lat­ter stared at it with­out see­ing any­thing wrong un­til Pen­ny sad­ly in­di­cat­ed a crack which ran the full length of the brown sur­face.

“Oh, I see,” said Clint. “Too bad. Will it hurt it much?”

Pen­ny viewed him in sur­prise. “Hurt it! Why, it spoils it! It'll nev­er have the same tone, Thay­er. It--it's just worth­less now! I was pret­ty”--there was a catch in Pen­ny's voice--fond of this old feller."

“That is a shame,” said Clint sym­pa­thet­ical­ly. “How'd you do it?”

Pen­ny laid the vi­olin down be­side him on the win­dow-​seat and gazed at it sor­row­ful­ly a mo­ment. Fi­nal­ly, “I didn't do it,” he an­swered. “I found it like that an hour ago.”

“Then--how did it hap­pen? I sup­pose they're fair­ly easy to bust, aren't they?”

“No, they're not. Who­ev­er cracked that had to give it a pret­ty good blow. You can see where it was hit.”

“But who--Was it Emery, do you think?” Emery was Pen­ny's room-​mate, a qui­et fifth form fel­low who lived to stuff and who spent most of his wak­ing hours in recita­tion room or school li­brary. “He might have knocked it off, I dare say.”

Pen­ny shook his head. “It wasn't Gus and it wasn't the cham­ber­maid. I asked them both. Be­sides, the vi­olin was in its case lean­ing in the cor­ner. No, some­body took it out and ei­ther struck it with some­thing or hit it over the cor­ner of the ta­ble. I think prob­ably they hit it on the ta­ble.”

Clint stared. “You mean that--that some­one did it de­lib­er­ate­ly?” he gasped in­cred­ulous­ly. “But, Durkin, no one would do a thing like that!”

“Of course, I've got an­oth­er one,” said Pen­ny, “but it isn't like this. This is a Moret­ti and cost six­ty dol­lars twelve years ago. You can't buy them any more. Moret­ti's dead, and he on­ly made about three a year, and there aren't many any­how.”

“But, Durkin, who could have done it?”

Pen­ny didn't an­swer; on­ly picked up the vi­olin ten­der­ly and once more traced the al­most im­per­cep­ti­ble crack along the face of the mel­lowed wood.

“You don't mean”--Clint's voice dropped--don't mean Dreer?"

“I can't prove it on him,” an­swered Pen­ny qui­et­ly.

“But--but, oh, hang it, Durkin, even Dreer wouldn't do as mean a thing as that!” But even as he said it Clint some­how knew that Pen­ny's sus­pi­cions were cor­rect, and, at vari­ance with his as­ser­tion, added wrath­ful­ly: “By Jove, he ought to be thrashed!”

“He said he'd get even,” ob­served Pen­ny thought­ful­ly.

Clint sat down on the end of the win­dow-​seat and looked frown­ing­ly at Pen­ny. “What are you go­ing to do?” he asked fi­nal­ly.

“Don't see that I can do any­thing ex­cept grin,” was the re­ply. “If I charge him with it he'll de­ny it. No one saw him do it, I guess. He prob­ably came in here ear­ly this af­ter­noon. I have French at two, you know, and he prob­ably count­ed on that. Gus nev­er is in, any­how. Af­ter he did it he put it back in the case, but I knew as soon as I'd opened it that some­body had been at it be­cause my hand­ker­chief was un­der­neath, and I al­ways spread it on top. If I beat him up he'll go to Josh and Josh will say it was an un­war­rantable at­tack, or some­thing, and I'll get the dick­ens. I can't af­ford that, be­cause I'm try­ing hard for a Drap­er Schol­ar­ship and can't take chances. I guess he's evened things up all right, Thay­er.”

“It's per­fect­ly rot­ten!” said Clint ex­plo­sive­ly. “If it was me I'd thrash him, schol­ar­ship or no schol­ar­ship! The mean pup!”

“You wouldn't if it might mean los­ing your chance of com­ing back af­ter Christ­mas. I need that schol­ar­ship the worst way and I have a hunch that I'll get it if I don't get in­to trou­ble. I had it last year, you know. I haven't done very well with busi­ness this Fall; fel­lows haven't seemed to want things much. No, if Dreer fig­ured out that I wouldn't go af­ter him on ac­count of the schol­ar­ship, he guessed about right. I'd like to”--Pen­ny's voice trem­bled--“to half kill him, but--I won't!”

“Then tell fac­ul­ty, Durkin. Have him fired out of school. Do--do some­thing!”

“No use telling fac­ul­ty; I can't prove it on him. Be­sides, I don't like the idea of play­ing ba­by. And, any­way, noth­ing I could do to Dreer would give me my vi­olin back the way it was. It--it had a grand tone, Thay­er! You've heard it!”

“Yes.” Clint had to sup­press a smile. “Yes, I've heard it of­ten, Durkin. It did have a good tone; nice and--and clear.”

“There isn't a bet­ter in­stru­ment made than a Moret­ti,” said Pen­ny sad­ly. “I can have it fixed so it won't show, but it won't ev­er be the same.” He laid the vi­olin back in the case very ten­der­ly and spread the white silk hand­ker­chief across the strings. “If you don't mind, Thay­er, I'd just as leave you didn't say much about this.”

“All right,” agreed Clint gruffly. “Mind if I tell Amy, though?”

“Oh, no, on­ly I--I'd rather it didn't get around. Some of the fel­lows don't like my play­ing, any­how, you see, and they'd do a lot of talk­ing.”

Clint took his de­par­ture a minute lat­er, af­ter re­newed re­grets, and went back to his room. Amy was still ab­sent and it was not un­til af­ter sup­per that they met.