Play the Game! by Ruth Comfort Mitchell
CHAPTER V
It rained the day of the game. It had been sulking and threatening fortwenty-four hours, and Honor wakened to the sound of a sluicingdownpour. She ran to her window, which looked out on the garden. Thelong leaves of the banana tree were flapping wetly and the Bougainvillaeaon the summerhouse looked soaked and sodden. Somewhere a mocking birdwas singing deliriously, making his tuneful fun of the weather. Honorwent down to breakfast with a sober face.
They had a house-guest, a friend of her stepfather's, an Englishwoman, anovelist. She was a brisk, ruddy-skinned creature, with crisp sentencesand sturdy legs in thick stockings, and she was taking a keen interestin American sport. "Oh, I say," she greeted Honor, "isn't this bad foryour match?"
"Yes, Miss Bruce-Drummond, it is. We were hoping for a dry field.They're more used to playing in the mud than we are. But it'll be allright."
"I'm fearfully keen about it.--No, thank you--my mother was Scotch, yousee, and I don't take sugar to my porridge. Salt, please!" She turned toStephen Lorimer. "I've been meaning to ask you what you think of ArnoldBennett over here?"
Honor's stepfather flung himself zestfully into the discussion. He likedclever women and he knew a lot of them, but he had been at some painsnot to marry one. Mildred Lorimer, beside the shining copper coffeepercolator, looked a lovely Vesta of the hearth and home.
Honor wished she might take a pleat in the fore-noon. She didn't see howshe was going to get through the hours between breakfast and the time tostart for the game. It was a relief to see Jimsy coming across the lawnat ten o'clock. She ran out to meet him.
"Hello, Jimsy!"
"'Lo, Skipper. Isn't this weather the deuce?"
"Beastly, but it doesn't really matter. We're certain to----" she brokeoff and looked closely at him. "Jimsy, what's the matter?"
"Oh ... nothing."
"Yes, there is! Come on in the house. There's no one home. Stepper'sdriving Miss Bruce-Drummond and Muzzie's being marcelled." She did notspeak again until they were in the living room. "Now, tell me."
"Why--it's nothing, really. Feeling kind of seedy, that's all. Didn'thave much sleep."
"Jimsy! You didn't--you weren't out with Carter?"
"Just for a little while. We went to a Movie. Coach told us to--keep ourminds off the game. But I was home and in the house at nine-thirty. Itwas--Dad. He came in about midnight. I--I didn't go to bed at all."
"_Oh_...." Her eyes yearned over him, over them both. "Jimsy, I'm soterribly sorry. Is he--how is he now?"
"Sleeping. I guess he'll sleep all day. Gee--I wish I could!" His youngface looked gray and strained.
The girl drew a long breath. "Jimsy, you've got to sleep now. You've gotto put it--you've got to put your father away--out of your mind. Youdon't belong to him to-day; you belong to the team; you belong toL. A.... No matter what's happening to _you_, you've got to do yourbest--and--and _be_ your best."
"If I can," he said, haggardly.
"Lie down on the couch."
"Oh, I don't want to lie down, Skipper--I'll just----"
"Lie down on the couch, Jimsy!" She herded him firmly to the couch,tucked a soft, flat pillow under his head, threw a light afghan overhim. Then she opened a window wide to the wet sweet air and drew theother shades down, and came to sit on the floor beside him, talking allthe time, softly, lazily, about the English lady novelist who didn'ttake sugar "to" her porridge ... about the giddy mocking bird, singingin the rain ... about a new book which Carter thought was wonderful andwhich she couldn't see through at all ... until his quick, burdenedbreathing yielded to a long relaxing sigh like that of a tired puppy,and the hope of L. A. High and the last of the "Wild Kings" slept. Shemounted rigid guard over him for three hours, banishing the returnedstepfather and house-guest, keeping her noisy little brothers at bay.She had ordered a strictly training-table luncheon for one o'clock forher charge, and while the clock was striking the hour Kada brought thetray. Jimsy was still sleeping. Honor looked at him, hesitating, thenshe ran to the piano and struck her stepfather's rousing chords andbegan to sing:
There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night, Ten to make and the match to win--
At the first line he stirred, at the second he rubbed his eyes, and atthe third he was sitting up and listening. She swung into the finish,and as always, it ran away with her. She had never gotten over the firstchoking thrill at the words:
_Play up! Play up! and--Play the Game!_
Jimsy King came to stand beside her. His hair was mussed and his faceflushed, and there was a sleep-crease on one cheek, but his eyes wereclear and steady. "It's O. K., Skipper," he said. "I can. I'm going to.I will."
Carter Van Meter drove Honor and Stephen Lorimer and Miss Bruce-Drummondin his newest car and the four of them sat together on the edge of therooting section.
It was still raining a little, teasingly, reluctant to leave offaltogether, and the field was a batter of mud. The rooting section ofL. A. High was damp but undaunted. The yell leaders, vehement, piercinglyvocal, conducted them into thunderous challenges:
_Ali beebo! Ali by-bo!_ _Ali beebo by-bo bum!_ _Catch 'em in a rat trap,_ _Put 'em in a cat trap,_ _Catch 'em in a cat trap,_ _Put 'em in a rat trap!_ _Ali beebo! Ali by-bo!_ _Ali beebo by-bo bum!_
The bleachers rocked and creaked and swayed with the rhythm of it. "Myword!" said Miss Bruce-Drummond. She listened fascinatedly to theirdeafening repertoire. Greenmount's supporters, a rather forlorn littlegroup of substitutes, with the coach and trainer and a teacher or two,and a pert fox terrier wearing their colors on his collar, elicitated abrief, passing pity from Honor. They looked strange and friendless,these smart Northern prep-schoolers. The L. A. rooters conscientiouslygave their opponents' yell and received a spatter of applause. TheNortherners trotted out on the field and were hospitably cheered.
"There, Stepper," said Honor, tensely, "that's Gridley--the tallestone,--see? Last on the right?"
"So, that's the boy with the beamish boot, eh?"
"Yes. He mustn't get a chance. He _mustn't_."
Miss Bruce-Drummond looked at her friend's stepdaughter. "You'refrightfully keen about it, aren't you?"
"Yes," said Honor, briefly.
"I daresay I shall find it very different from Rugby, but I expect Ishall be able to follow it if you'll explain a bit."
Honor did not answer. She was standing up, yelling with all the strengthof her lusty young lungs, as the Southern champions came out. Then therooting section made everything that they had said and done before seemlike a lullaby; it seemed to the Englishwoman she had never known therecould be such noise. Her head hummed with it:
King! King! King! K-I-N-G, King! G-I-N-K, Gink! He's the King Gink! He's the King Gink! He's the King Gink! K-I-N-G, King! KING!
Honor sat down again, her fists clenched, her lower lip between herteeth. If only it were time to begin ... time for the kick-off! This wasalways the worse part, just before.... It was L. A.'s kick-off. Thewhistle sounded, mercifully, and with the solid, satisfying impact ofleather against leather she relaxed. It was on. It had started. All theweeks of waiting for the championship game were over. This was the game,and it was just like any other game; Jimsy was there--here, there,everywhere, and they would fight, fight. And you couldn't beat L. A.High. The mud was horrible. It took grace and fleetness and made a mockof them; both teams were playing raggedly. Well, of course they would,at first; it was so frightfully important. They would shake down intoform in a moment.
"I don't believe," cut in the fresh, crisp voice of Miss Bruce-Drummond,"that I quite understand what a 'down' is. Would you mind explaining itto me?"
"Why," said Honor, without turning her head, "they have three downs inwhich to make----" she was on her feet again, screaming, "Come on! Comeon! Come--oh----"
Jimsy King, with the mud-smeared ball under his arm, had made fifteenprecious yards before he was tackled. He was up in a flash, wiping themud off his face, gri
Stephen Lorimer looked at Honor and at Carter Van Meter. He always feltsorry for the boy at a game; he looked paler and frailer than ever incontrast with the hearty young savages on the field, and he was neverable really to give himself to the agony and wild joy of it.
Honor forced herself to sit still, her elbows on her knees, her hot facepropped on her clenched hands. They were playing better now, all ofthem, but it wasn't brilliant football; it couldn't be. It would be abattle of dogged endurance.
"I say, my dear, is _that_ a down?" the English novelist wanted to know.
"Yes," said Honor, patiently. "That's a down, and now there'll beanother because they have----" again she cut short her explanation andcaught hold of her stepfather's arm. "Stepper! Look! _Gridley isn'tplaying!_"
He stared. "Really, Top Step? Why, they surely----"
"I tell you he isn't playing. See,--there he is, on the side-lines, inthe purple sweater!"
"Well, so much the better for L. A.," said Carter, easily.
Honor shook her head. "I don't understand it." She began, oddly, to feelherself enveloped in a fog of depression, of foreboding. Again and againher eyes left the play to rest unhappily on the silent figure in thepurple sweater. Jimsy was playing well; every man on the team wasplaying well; but they were not gaining. Jimsy King, on whose heels werealways the wings of Mercury, could not get up speed in that mud,--abrief flash, no more. She began to bargain with the gods of thegridiron; at first she had been concerned with scoring in the first fiveminutes of play; then she had remodeled her petition ... to score in thefirst half. Now, her throat dry, she was aching with the fear of beingscored upon ... counting the minutes yet to play, speeding them in herheart. It was raining hard again. The rooting section, in spite of thefrantic effort of the hoarse yell leaders, was slowing down. What wasit?--The rain? The mud? Was Jimsy not himself, not the King Gink? Washis heart with his father in the darkened room in the old King house?
"Of course, I'm not up on this at all, but I'm rather afraid your youngfriends are getting the worst of it, my dear!" said Miss Bruce-Drummond,cheerily.
"It's the longest first half I ever saw in my life," said Honor, betweenclenched teeth.
"Ah, yes,--I daresay it does seem so to you, but I expect they keep thetime very carefully, don't you?" She looked the girl over interestedly."The psychology of this sort of thing is ver-r-ry entertaining," shesaid to Stephen Lorimer.
"Less than five minutes, T. S.," said her stepfather, comfortingly.
"You know, I'm afraid you'll think me fearfully dull," said theEnglishwoman, conversationally, "but I'm still not quite clear about a'down.' _Would_ you mind telling me the next time they do one?--Justwhen it begins, and when it ends?"
"One's ended now," said Honor, bitterly, "and we've lost the ball,--onour twenty yard line. We've lost the ball."
"Ah, well, my dear, I daresay you'll soon get it back!"
Honor sprang to her feet with a cry which made people turn and look ather. "Look there! _Look!_ See what they're doing?" One of the Greenmountplayers had been called out by the coach and had splashed his way to theside-lines, to be patted wetly on the back and wrapped in a dampblanket. That was well enough. That was the usual thing. But theunusual, the astounding thing was that two of the Greenmount team hadslopped to the side-lines and picked up Gridley, divested now of hispurple sweater, bodily, in their arms, and carried him, dry-shod, overthe slithering mud. Honor gave a gasping moan. "I _knew_...." There wasa dead, sick silence on the bleachers. The rain sluiced down. Somewherein a near-by garden another giddy mocking bird sang deliriously in thestillness. Tenderly as two nurses with a sick man, the bearers setGridley down. Slowly, solemnly, he stepped off the distance to thequarter back; briskly, but with dreadful thoroughness, the men who hadcarried him wiped the mud from his feet with a towel and took theirplaces to defend him from the wild-eyed L. A. men, poised, breathless,menacing. There was a muttering roar from the bleachers, hoarselypleading, commanding--"Block-that-kick! _Block-that-kick!_BLOCK-THAT-KICK!" The kneeling quarter back opened his muddy hands; themuddied oval came sailing lazily into them.... There was the gentle thudof Gridley's toe against the leather, and then--unbelievably,unbearably, it was an accomplished fact, a finished thing. Gridley hadexecuted his place kick. They were scored on. It stood there on theboard, glaring white letters and figures on black:
GREENMOUNT 4 L. A. HIGH 0
At first Honor's own woe engulfed her utterly. For the first instant shewasn't even aware of Jimsy King, standing alone, his arms folded acrosshis chest, staring down the field; of his men, wiping the mud out oftheir eyes and looking at him, looking to him; of the stunned rooters.But at the second breath she was awake, alive again, tense, tingling,bursting with her message for them all, keeping herself by main force inher place. Jimsy King never saw any one in a game; he never knew any onein a game; people ceased to exist for him while he was on the field. Butto-day, in this difficult hour, she was to see him turn and face thebleachers and rake them with his aghast and startled eyes until he foundher. She was on her feet, in her white jersey suit and her blue hat andscarf--L. A.'s colors--waving to him, looking down at him with all hergallant soul in her eyes. It seemed to her as if she must be saying italoud; as if she must be singing it:
_Play up! Play up! and--Play the Game!_
Then the bleachers and the players saw the Captain of the L. A. teamturn and wade briskly down the field to Gridley. They saw him hold outhis muddy hand; they heard his clear, "Peach of a kick!" They saw himgive the Northerner's hand a hearty shake; they saw him fling up hishead, and grin, and face the grandstand for a second, his eyesseeking.... They saw him rally his men with a snapped-out order,--andthen they were on their feet, shouting, screaming, stamping, cheering:
KING! KING! KING!
The yell leaders couldn't get hold of them; there was no need. Every manwas his own yell leader. They yelled for Gridley and for Greenmount (whyworry, when Jimsy clearly wasn't worried?) and for their own team, manby man, and the call of time for the first half failed to make thefaintest dent in their enthusiasm.
"But"--said Miss Bruce-Drummond, her mouth close to Honor's ear--"youhaven't won, have you?"
"Not yet!" Honor shouted. "Wait!" She began to sing with the rest:
_You can't beat L. A. High!_ _You can't beat L. A. High!_ _Use your team to get up steam,_ _But you can't beat L. A. High!_
It was gay, mocking, scatheless, inexorable. You _couldn't_ beat L. A.High. Honor swayed and swung to it. Use your team and your tricks andyour dry-shod men to kick, but you couldn't beat L. A. High. And itappeared, in fact, that you couldn't, for Jimsy King's team went intothe second half like happy young tigers, against men who were a littletired, a little overconfident, and in the first ten minutes of play theKing Gink, mud-smeared beyond recognition, grinning, went over the linefor a touchdown, and nobody minded much Burke's missing the goal becausethey had won anyway:
GREENMOUNT 4 L. A. HIGH 5
and the championship, the state championship, stayed south, and itsuddenly stopped raining and the sun came out gloriously after thereckless manner of Southern California suns, and everything was for thebest in the best of all possible worlds.
Honor, star-eyed, more utterly and completely happy and content than shehad ever been in her life, turned penitently to Miss Bruce-Drummond."When we get home," she said, "I'll explain to you exactly what a 'down'is!"
They waited to see the joyous serpentine, to watch Jimsy's struggles toget down from the shoulders of his adorers who bore him the length ofthe field and back, and then Carter drove them home and went back forthe Captain, who would be showered and dressed by that time. They wereboth dining with Honor, but Jimsy looked in on his father first.
"Gusty says he's slept all day," he reported to Honor. He kept lookingat her, with an odd intensity, all through the lively meal. She hadchanged her wet white jersey for one of her long-lined, cle
"You know, Stephen," said Miss Bruce-Drummond while they were havingtheir coffee in the living room, "of course you know that both thoselads are in love with your nice girl."
"Do you see it, too?"
She laughed. "I may not know what a 'down' is, but I've still reasonablysharp eyes in my head. And the odd thing is that she doesn't know it."
"Isn't it amazing? I'm watching, and wondering."
"It's a pretty time o' life, Stephen," said one of the clever women hehadn't wanted to marry.
"'Youth's sweet-scented manuscript,' Ethel," said Honor's stepfather.
"Jimsy, will you come here a minute?" Honor called from the dining-roomdoor.
"Yes, Skipper!" He was there at a bound.
"Don't you think your father would like this water-ice? I think hecould--I believe he might enjoy it."
He took the little covered tray out of her hands. "I'll bet he will,Skipper. You're a brick. Come on over with me, will you--and wait on theporch?"
She looked back into the roomful. "Had I better? I don't suppose they'llmiss me for a minute----"
But Carter Van Meter was coming toward them, threading his way amongpeople and furniture with his slight, halting limp. He looked from oneto the other, questioningly.
"Taking this over to my Dad," Jimsy explained. "Back in a shake."
"I see. How about a ride to the beach? Supper at the ship-hotel?Celebrate a little?"
"Deuce of a lot of work for Monday," Jimsy frowned. "Haven't studied alick this week."
Carter laughed. "Oh, Monday's--Monday! Come along! We can't"--he turnedto Honor--"be by ourselves to-night, with the celeb. here. Honor has tostay and play-pretty with her."
"Well ... if we don't make it too late----"
Jimsy turned and sped away with Honor's offering for James King.
Honor looked at Carter. His eyes were very bright; he looked moreexcited, now, some way, than he had at the game. Poor old Carter. Hewanted, she supposed, to do something for Jimsy ... to give him awonderful party ... to spend money on him ... to excel and to shine in_his_ way. But--the ship-hotel--and his father over there all day in thedarkened room--For the first time in her honest life she stooped toguile. "I'll be down in a minute, Carter," she said and ran upstairs,through the hall, down the backstairs, cut through the kitchen andacross the wet and springy lawn to the King place.
She waited in the shadow of the house until he came out.
"Jimsy!"
"Skipper!"
"I slipped out--sh ... Jimsy, I--_please_ don't go with Carter to-night!I don't mean to interfere or--or nag, Jimsy,--you know that, don't you?"She slipped a little on the wet grass in her thin slippers, and laidhold of his arm to steady herself. "But--it worries me. You're thefinest, the most wonderful person in the world, and I trust you morethan I trust myself, but--I know how boys are about--things--and--" sheturned her face to the dark house where so many "Wild Kings" had livedand moved and had their unhappy being--"I couldn't _bear_ it if----"
It began to rain again, softly, and they moved unconsciously toward theshelter of the porch.
"You were so splendid to-day! I haven't had a chance to tell you ...shaking hands with him, being so----"
"You made me," said Jimsy King. Then, at her murmured protest. "You did.You made me, just as you've made me do every decent thing I've everdone. I'm just beginning to see it. I guess I'm the blindest bat thatever lived. Of course I won't go with Cart' to-night. I won't doanything you don't----"
Honor had mounted two steps, to be under the roof of the porch, and now,turning sharply in her gladness, the wet slipper slipped again, and shewould have fallen if he had not caught her.
"_Skipper!_"
"It's--it's all right!" said Honor in a breathless whisper. "I'm allright, Jimsy. Let me----"
But Jimsy King would not let her go. He held her fast with all hisfootball strength and all his eighteen years of living and loving, andhe said over and over in the new, strange voice she had never heardbefore, "_Skipper! Skipper! Skipper!_"
"Jimsy ... what--what is happening to us? Jimsy, dear, we neverbefore--Jimsy, are we--are we--_Is this being--in love_?"
And the mocking-bird of the morning, mounted on the wet Bougainvillaea onthe summerhouse in Honor's garden, explained to them in a mad, exultant,thrilling burst of song.