Quarter-Back Bates

by Ralph Henry Barbour

  CHAPTER X

  WHITEWASHED!

  Parkinson played Cumner High School the next afternoon. Cumner wasa nearby town of some eight or nine thousand inhabitants set in themiddle of a prosperous farming community. The Cumner teams were madeup largely of very hefty sons of the soil, averaging slightly olderthan Parkinson's representatives and invariably out-weighing them.As a rule Parkinson won because of better knowledge of the game andgreater speed. She called Cumner's players The Farmers, but she did itwith much respect and liking, knowing which Cumner took no exceptionto the title. In fact, the Cumner Football Team was one of a few thatinvariably received as hearty a welcome when it trotted onto ParkinsonField as did the brown-and-white eleven. Its members were big, manly,hard-playing chaps who took defeat gallantly and victory modestly.

  Dick, of course, was not vitally interested in that game and as hewas not required to report in togs today he and Stanley and Sidwatched the contest from seats in a stand. Cumner showed up unusuallyformidable during the ten or fifteen minutes of practice that precededthe contest, and Sid, who, although a baseball man, knew football verythoroughly, predicted trouble ahead for the Brown-and-White.

  "That's the heaviest team they've sent over since I've been here,"commented Sid, "and they don't look nearly as slow as they generallydo. And that black-headed giant down there hasn't missed a goal yet,although he's tried some fierce angles. No, sir, Parkinson isn't goingto have any old walk-away this afternoon."

  "Oh, we won't pile up more than twenty points, maybe," said Stanley."Sometimes we don't."

  "Yes, and sometimes we just squeak through, as we did two years ago.Seven-six it was that time. I remember I had heart disease whenSinclair got ready to try that goal. And then he wouldn't have made itif the ball had gone six inches further to the right."

  "You don't play football!" asked Dick. "I mean, you never have?"

  "No." Sid shook his head. "I've always preferred baseball. I supposeI like it better because it gives more chance for individual work. Ofcourse, if you're a backfield player in football you have more showto work 'on your own,' but a lineman's a good deal like a piece ofmachinery; the more he's like it the better he is. Now in baseball----"

  "He's off!" groaned Stanley. "You shouldn't have got him started, Dick.He's good for an hour now!"

  But Sid's exposition of the advantages of baseball over the rivalgame was interrupted by the referee's whistle and the thud of "Babe"Upton's toe against the ball. Parkinson had put in what was to dateher strongest line-up: Furniss, Harris, Cupp, Upton, Newhall, Wendell,Peters, Stone, Gaines, Warden and Kirkendall. Opposed to them wereeleven heavier and yet apparently rangy youths. Even the Cumnerquarter-back must have tipped the scales at a hundred and fifty, andthe ends were unusually weighty for their positions. But Cumner soonshowed that weight and speed may go together. The kick-off fell on hertwenty-yard line, was seized by a long-legged back and, with the teamclosing in ahead of him, the back ran straight ahead for fifteen yardsbefore he was downed. Bob Peters had followed the short kick closely,but even Bob couldn't penetrate the close defence until three whitelines had been crossed by the runner.

  Three plays took the ball out of the danger zone and Cumner opened upwith a dazzling forward-pass that put the ball well beyond the centreof the field. After that a penalty set her back and she was forced topunt. But three minutes later the ball was hers again, for Kirkendall,tackled on an end run, had dropped it and a Cumner youth had fallenon it. Again came a forward, this time far and swift, and Furniss,watching the wrong opponent, saw the pigskin settle into the hands ofthe Cumner right half. It was Stone who chased the runner out of boundson Parkinson's twenty-six yards.

  "What do you know about that?" marvelled Sid.

  "You tell me," said Stanley.

  "Sure I will! I'll tell you that I smell a score, sonny!"

  "Oh, we'll hold 'em off, all right. They won't try any more forwards.Watch them crack against our line."

  But Cumner didn't crack. At least, she managed to make her distancein four and arrived at the Brown-and-White's fifteen-yard line to thesurprised dismay of the home rooters. The Parkinson left had been twicepunctured for respectable gains and twice Cumner had slashed a pathoutside right tackle. Cumner had evolved a very satisfactory method forbottling Captain Peters, using a tackle, brought across from the otherside of her line, and a back for the purpose. But, although the hundredor more Cumner supporters yelled in triumph and a touchdown seemedimminent, Parkinson for the time staved off a score. Two straightplunges at the left of her centre gained only two yards, and the Cumnerright half walked back to kicking position. The angle, however, wasdifficult and few looked for a bona fide attempt at a field-goal.Consequently the short forward-pass that followed, from the Cumnerright half directly across the centre of the line, didn't catch thehome team napping. Gaines intercepted it and went plunging back intothe melee and made seven yards before he was stopped. Parkinson puntedon first down and the ball was Cumner's on her forty-six.

  Stanley taunted Sid with the failure of his prediction. "Where's thatscore, you old gloom?" he demanded. "Dick, I don't want to say anythingthat might be construed into a criticism of our mutual friend, Mr.Crocker, but I must remark that he's a bum prophet."

  "Hold your horses," answered Sid soberly. "That score's coming and it'scoming mighty soon. Those farmers have found someone to teach themfootball. They know the game. Watch them for the next five minutes,Stan, and then tell me if I'm a bum prophet."

  "I'll tell you so now," replied Stanley cheerfully. "I don't have towait five minutes. Say what are those hayseeds up to? What sort of asilly stunt is that?"

  Cumner had stretched her line across the field in a weird formationindeed. A horse and wagon might have easily been driven between anytwo of her linemen. Quite alone stooped the centre, the quartereight yards behind him and the other backs apparently no longerinterested in anything he might do. To meet this scattering of forcesParkinson likewise spread out, but she did it less whole-heartedly,keeping her centre trio pretty close together. Her backs adopted the"basket formation" well behind the line, for it seemed that Cumner'squeer arrangement of her players must portend some novel type offorward-passing. Yet, when centre lined the ball back to the quarter,nothing extremely novel developed. The outspread line dashed forwardstraight toward the opponent's goal and the quarter, delaying a moment,sped off at a slight angle, the ball cupped in his arm. To his supportcame two backs. But Parkinson, after a brief second of hesitation,concentrated on the oncoming trio, and, although Cumner netted sixyards on the play, the Brown-and-White's adherents howled ironically.That even six yards had been gained was merely because Parkinson hadrefused to believe her eyes and had waited too long before going in.Another time, jeered Stanley, they'd be lucky to get an inch!

  Cumner tried her full-back against Parkinson's right and lost two ofthe six she had won. This was from ordinary formation, as was her nextattempt to skirt Bob Peter's end. On the latter play she made a scantyard. Then, while Parkinson rooters laughed and hooted in good-naturedderision, Cumner again broke her line apart. What followed this time,however, was far different. When the ball was shot back to the quarterthe Parkinson centre trio made straight for that youth, bowling thecentre out of their path. The quarter seemed to the onlookers unusuallyslow and even at a loss, for after a moment of hesitation he made atentative stride to the right, stopped, faced the attack undecidedlyand then dashed away at a surprising speed toward the right side ofthe field. A back had already shot off in that direction and was somefifteen yards beyond the quarter when the latter, deftly eludingthe Parkinson left tackle, whirled, stopped and shot the ball awayat a lateral pass. Parkinson had unconsciously drawn in toward thequarter-back, even her left half having wandered from his position, andwhen the Cumner half, catching the pass neatly, again threw the ballforward there was none near the receiver. The latter was the Cumnerright end who had, almost unseen, trotted down the field just insidethe boundary. That second pass was fairly high and it s
eemed thatKirkendall would reach the receiver in time to spoil it, but he didn'tquite succeed. The best he could do was give chase along the edge ofthe field and, at the last, defeat the effort of that speedy Cumnerright end to centre the ball behind the Parkinson goal. Stone, too, wasin the race, but, like the full-back, never reached the runner untilthe line had been crossed.

  Cumner's supporters went wild with joy, and long after the pigskinhad been punted out from the corner of the gridiron to a waiting leftguard, their howls and cheers arose from across the field. Sid foreboreto say "I told you so," but Stanley sadly apologised. "I retract whatI said, Sid," he stated dolefully. "You're not a bum prophet. You're aprophetic bum!"

  Cumner kicked goal easily after the punt-out and when the ballhad again sailed through the air the first quarter ended. Thattwelve-minute period, however, spelled ultimate disaster for the hometeam, for although Cumner did not score again, Parkinson failed toscore at all! Twice she came near to it, once in the second quarterand once in the third. In the second she slammed her way to Cumner'sseven yards, lost ten yards on a penalty, and failed of a field-goal byinches only. In the third period she reached her opponent's four yardsonly to have Kirkendall's last effort fail by a scant six inches. Thatwas bitter medicine to the Brown-and-White, and after that failure allthe fight seemed to have gone out of her. In the final period, withmany substitutes in, she showed some life, to be sure, but there wasn'tpunch enough left to make her dangerous, and Cumner, still playing withher first line-up practically intact, kicked out of danger whenever itthreatened.

  Going back to the campus after Cumner, cheering and singing, hadmarched triumphantly under the goals, Sid predicted a shake-up in theteam. "You can't tell me," he said, "that we had any right to getlicked today. That flukey play of Cumner's that got them their scoremay have been unpreventable, although I don't think so, but where wefell down hard was in that third period when K couldn't get across. Itisn't allowable for a Parkinson team to get to the four yards and notget over. It isn't done among the best Parkinson teams!"

  "I thought," observed Dick, "that Kirkendall should have been sentaround tackle on that last play. We'd hammered their centre three timesand they were looking for us to do it again and they'd massed theirwhole secondary defence behind it. Seems to me----"

  "I think so too," agreed Sid. "Give 'em what they aren't expecting, ismy motto. Stone ought to have kept them guessing. His idea, I suppose,was that if he hammered the centre long enough it would weaken. Eventheir backs couldn't have stopped a score if the line had busted, Dick.You see, we needed only a yard at the last and we'd have got it iftheir centre had weakened a bit more. It's easy to criticise from thegrand-stand, but it's likely that Stone knew more than we did aboutthose fellows he was facing. He probably had good reason to think hecould smash K through there. Must have or he wouldn't have persistedthe way he did. Well, we'll have to do better next week or we'll get agood trouncing."

  "Phillipsburg?" asked Stan. "Yes, that's so. We play them on theirgrounds, too, and that makes a difference. Hang it, I wish we'd trieda goal from the field that last time. Even three points would besomething! It looks like the dickens to have those farmers whitewashus! We haven't been whitewashed for ages!"

  "Maybe we needed it, then," chuckled Sid. "But you know Bob Peters wellenough to be certain he wouldn't be satisfied with three points whenhe might get seven. Not Bob! He'd want to win or tie. Just getting aconsolation prize wouldn't appeal to him, Stan."

  "It would to me, then," muttered Stan. "You going to Phillipsburg?"

  "No, I can't. We've got a sort of a game on Saturday with WarneHigh School. It doesn't amount to much; six innings and we to usesecond-string pitchers; but it's likely to be about the last chance ofthe season to try some real work. You expect to go?"

  "I don't know. What about it, Dick?"

  "I'd like to. Is it much of a trip?"

  "No, a couple of hours. I'll go if you do, I guess. Got any money?"

  "Yes. I'll stake you. Will many of the fellows go?"

  "A lot," answered Sid. "I think Blash intends going. Well, see youlater, fellows. We'll be over about seven."

  "That's right," exclaimed Stanley joyfully. "This is movie night! Oh,you Douglas Hart! Oh, you Bill Fairbanks! So long, Sid!"