Bert Wilson on the Gridiron Part 11

There never were such delicious waffles as that fellow turned out. And there was Pietro at the chestnut stand, always good natured under the teasing of the boys, and old John, the doughnut man----

O, what was the use? He must get back to those letters.

There was the "sugar eat" in the spring. That usually came in the latter part of March. The soft wind would come up out of the south, the snow would begin to vanish and the sap stir in the trees. That was the signal for the "Hike." A scouting party would be sent out to make arrangements at some sugar camp five or six miles away. Then the next morning the fellows would "cut" recitations, and the startled professors would find their rooms deserted, while the hilarious culprits were footing it out to the camp. The farmer's wife, forewarned in advance, would have the long rough tables under the trees prepared for the hungry crew. Out from her capacious ovens would come great pans of hot puffy biscuits, while from the boiling caldrons the boys drew huge cans of bubbling maple syrup. And that sugar on those biscuits! Ambrosia, nectar, food for the G.o.ds! He had dined since then in the finest restaurants in the world, and never tasted anything to be compared to it.

What mattered the sarcastic and cutting remarks of the Profs. on the following day? They had had their fling and were willing to pay the price.

He came back to reality and the telegram that he was automatically folding and unfolding.

"Team gone to pieces." He stirred uneasily.

That was certainly tough luck. It must be serious when "Bull" talked like that. It had usually been the good fortune of Blue teams to make the other fellows go "to pieces." Now it really seemed as though the good old colors were in danger of being dimmed, if not disgraced.

They hadn't been disgraced when he wore them, he remembered. How they had wound up the season in a blaze of glory the last year he had played on the team! He saw even now, the crowded stands, the riot of colors, the frenzied roars of the Blues, when he had squirmed out of the ma.s.s piled on him, and grabbing the ball, had rushed down the field for a touchdown, with the enemy thundering at his heels. He felt still the thrill of that supreme moment when the fellows had hoisted him on their shoulders and carried him in triumph off the field.

He half rose from his chair, but sank back.

"If it wasn't for that confounded deal," he groaned.

He had been so used to Blue victories that their failure for the last two years had made him "sore." In his business a.s.sociations and at his club he came in contact with many graduates from different colleges. He had usually been able to "josh" them good naturedly over the way the Blues had "done them up." But lately the shoe had been on the other foot and they had delighted in getting even.

He was not too thin skinned, and took their jibes smilingly, even though the smile was a trifle forced. They were ent.i.tled to their revenge.

Sometimes, however, he winced when they flicked him "on the raw." There was Evans, for instance, an old Princeton tackle. Good fellow, Evans--corking good fellow--but after the Blues lost last fall, he had gloated a little too much. He had met him on the street and clapped him hilariously on the shoulder.

"Ha, ha, Ames," he shouted, "how about it? We tied the can on the bulldog's tail, and we'll do the same next year."

That had stung. His face flushed now as he recalled it:

"We tied the can on the bulldog's tail, and we'll do the same next year."

"They will, will they?" he roared, jumping to his feet.

He pressed a b.u.t.ton on his desk, and his confidential man came in.

"Thompson," said Ames hurriedly, "I've been called East on important business. Keep in touch with me by wire. I've just got time to catch the Twentieth Century Express."

CHAPTER IX

HAMMERED INTO SHAPE

LIKE a sheaf of arrows, the other telegrams sped over the country, and most of them went straight to the mark. A mining engineer in Montana got one, and pulled up stakes at once. A rising young lawyer in Minneapolis found it necessary to look up some data in the old college library. A guest on a houseboat down near Jacksonville made hurried excuses and came North by the first train. Others felt urgently the need of a brief vacation from their accustomed duties and acted promptly on the impulse.

Not a week had elapsed before ten of the dozen were on the scene of action. Of the remaining two, one was up in the North Woods and could not be reached, and the other was on his honeymoon.

They had a royal welcome from the coach, who had not doubted for a moment that they would heed the call. He knew that the old war horses would "sniff the battle from afar" and come galloping to the fray. Now that they were there, he felt the lightening of the tremendous load of responsibility he had been carrying since the beginning of the season.

These men were not theorists, but from actual experience knew every point of the game from start to finish. Now he could divide his men up into squads, each one presided over by an expert who could coach each individual player in the duties of his position, while Hendricks himself could exercise a general supervision of the whole.

"It was bully of you fellows to come," he said, as they gathered in his rooms, as full of life and ginger as so many two-year-old colts. "And, now that you are here, I'm going to give you plenty of work to do.

Heaven knows there's enough to keep you busy if we're to have a ghost of a show to win this fall."

"What's the seat of the trouble?" asked Ames. "Are they s.h.i.+rking? Are they too light? Many accidents? Come, get it off your chest. Tell us the sad story of your life."

"It wasn't so sad until lately," grinned "Bull," "and up to a week ago I didn't feel the necessity of weeping on any one's shoulder. In fact, I was beginning to think that the team was the real goods. They walked all over the Army, and what they did to Dartmouth was a sin and a shame.

Then somebody must have wished a hoodoo on us and things began to happen."

And he narrated in detail the unexpected way in which three of his best men had been whisked off the team, and the results that followed.

"The fellows simply got in the doldrums," he went on, "and, with a few exceptions, have played like a lot of schoolboys. They seem to have forgotten all that they ever knew. Now you fellows know as well as I do that when a team slumps in that fas.h.i.+on there's only one thing to do.

We've got to have new blood, new faces, new tactics. That's the reason I sent for you fellows. The boys know you by reputation. They've heard of the big things you did when in college, they look up to you as heroes----"

"Spare our blushes!" exclaimed Hadley.

"And it will give them a new inspiration," went on the coach, not heeding the interruption. "They'll forget their troubles and play like fiends to justify your good opinion, and to show you that the honor of the old college is safe in their hands. I want you to teach them all you ever knew, and then some.

"I'm not asking you to make bricks without straw," he continued. "The stuff is there for a crackerjack team. We're a bit short on beef, and I'd like to have an average of five pounds more in the line. But I've got the finest back field in the country, bar none. Wilson at full is simply chain lightning, and the whole country will be talking of him by November. Axtell is one of the most savage tacklers I've ever seen, and if he can only get his conditions worked off soon, we won't have to worry about right half. Morley, the man I put in his place, is a dandy, but doesn't come up to Axtell. Henderson at quarter is as quick as a cat and as cunning as a fox. Trent at center and Drake at right end are as good as they make 'em. Those fellows I've named are stars. The rest are good, but I've seen as good and better on many a Blue team.

"Now that's the way I size them up, and I want you fellows to go to it.

There are just about enough of us to take a man apiece. Do what you like with them. I'll stand for anything short of murder. Work them till their tongues hang out. Knock it into them if you have to use an axe. Every day counts now. Do you realize that the game with the 'Maroons' is only three weeks off? If it were to-morrow they wouldn't leave anything of us but a grease-spot. And the 'Greys' wouldn't leave even that."

"Leave it to us," answered Ames, grimly voicing the general sentiment.

"We'll give 'em medicine in allopathic doses, and it will be a case of 'kill or cure.'"

And promptly the next afternoon they proceeded to make good their threat. They went at their men hammer and tongs from the start. And the boys responded at once to this drastic treatment. There was a general brace all along the line. A new factor had been injected into the situation. The listlessness of a few days back gave place to animation, and before half an hour had pa.s.sed the coach was delighted at the way his plan was working.

In order that the newcomers might get a line on their style of play, the whole team was put through the fundamentals. The tackling dummy was brought out, and the players in turn launched themselves against it to the accompaniment of stimulating cries:

"Harder."

"You're too low."

"That was a love tap."

"Batter it."

"Above the knees."

"Slam the life out of it."

"Too ladylike."

"Once more."

"Murder it."

And there was no let up until the tackling was as savage as even the most exacting of the visitors demanded.