Center Rush Rowland

“Well, what in the name of common sense has happened to you?” demanded Humphrey Nead as Ira trailed into the room about five. Ira smiled tiredly and gingerly lowered himself onto the erratic window seat.

“I’ve been playing football,” he answered. “Didn’t you see the game?”

Humphrey shook his head. “I did not,” he answered. “But if they all look like you it must have been a fine one! Who won?”

“Nobody. It was a tie. Ten to ten.”

“Great Scott! Do you mean that you tore your face into fragments and ended where you began?”

“Something like that. Only, of course, we all had a pleasant time, Nead, and got a lot of nice exercise. It’s a remarkable game, football.”

“Are you sure you’ve been playing football?” asked Humphrey, grinning. “Sure you haven’t been in a train wreck, Rowly?”

“Quite sure, thanks. I played opposite a fellow who probably invented the game. Anyway, he knew a lot of stunts I didn’t. He had more ways of using his hands without being seen than you can imagine.”

“Oh, that was it!” Humphrey frowned. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing much. Lyons said I ought to, but what’s the good of having rules if you don’t stick to them? I tried to keep from getting killed and barely got off with my life. I don’t think he got through me more than three times, but he certainly made it difficult for me! The last time he came through very nicely, though, and when I came to I was on my back and the trainer was trying to drown me with a sponge full of water. After that they lugged me off and sent me home. I didn’t see the rest of it, but I heard they tied up the game in the last quarter. I guess Fred Lyons is awfully disappointed. You see, there’s the meeting tonight.”

“It’ll be a frost,” said Humphrey. “I’ve heard a lot of the fellows say that they weren’t going. Here, you’d better let me doctor you a bit, Rowly. That eye’s a sight! Who stuck the plaster all over you?”

“Billy Goode. I do look sort of funny, don’t I?” Ira observed himself in the wavy mirror above the bureau. “I’d laugh,” he added, “only it hurts my mouth!”

“You were a silly ass not to go after that butcher,” growled Humphrey. “I wish I’d been playing against him! What was his name?”

“I don’t think I heard it. Hold on, don’t take that plaster off!”

“Shut up and stand still! You don’t need half a yard of the stuff there. Where are those scissors of yours? There, that’s something like. Oh, hang it, it’s bleeding again! Reach me the towel. Are you going to the meeting?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I suppose so. Lyons wouldn’t like it if we didn’t all go. That eye looks bad, though, doesn’t it? Guess I’ll get some hot water and bathe it.”

“Hot water be blowed! Cold water is what you want. Here, I’ll pour some out in the basin and you get to work.”

“Why didn’t you go to the game?” asked Ira, as he sopped a dripping wash cloth to his eye.

“Oh, I had something better to do.”

“Pool, I suppose,” sniffed Ira. “You do too much of that, Nead.”

“Well, you miss your guess, old top. I was out with Jimmy Fallon on his motorcycle. Say, that’s sport, all right, Rowly! Sixty-five miles an hour sometimes, and everything whizzing past so quick you couldn’t see it! I wish I could afford one of the things.”

“You’ll break your neck if you go rampaging around on one of those contraptions,” said Ira. “It isn’t safe, Nead.”

“Huh! That sounds fine from a fellow whose face looks like a beefsteak! You don’t see any black eyes or broken noses on me, do you?”

Ira laughed. “You’ve got the best of the argument,” he replied. “But some day you’ll come home with a broken neck if you’re not careful. Where’d you go?”

“Springfield. Took us forty minutes to go and less than that to get back. A motor cop tried to chase us once, but never had a chance. We left him standing.”

“Who is Jimmy Fallon?”

“He works in Benton’s cigar store. He’s a corker, Jimmy is.”

“He must be if he spends his time racing policemen. I suppose you think you’re going to play pool tonight.”

“Surest thing you know, sport!”

“Well, you’re not. You’re coming with me to the mass meeting. And you’re going to – ”

“Yes, I am! Like fun!” jeered Humphrey.

“And you’re going to clap your hands at the right moment and pull for the football team,” continued Ira, regardless of the interruption. “Also, Nead, you’re going to subscribe liberally to the cause.”

“Nothing doing, Rowly! I’ve got a date with some of the fellows downtown. Anyway, I couldn’t subscribe to the cause, as you call it, having but about a dollar and a half to my name and needing that for more important things, old top.”

“Broke again?” asked Ira.

“Pretty nearly. I’ve got a dollar and sixty-two cents, or something like that. Want to borrow a hundred, Rowly?”

“No, thanks. But I’ll stake you to a couple of dollars so you can put in your coin when they pass the hat.”

“All right. You put in a dollar for me and let me have the other now.”

“You can put it in yourself. You’ll be there.”

“Nothing doing!”

“This is something special, Nead,” said Ira, seriously, speaking through the folds of the towel. “I want you to go with me. It won’t matter if you miss one evening at the billiard place.”

“But I don’t want to go to your old meeting,” expostulated Humphrey. “It’s nothing in my young life! You give them a dollar for me and tell them I wish them well.”

“No, we want all the fellows we can get. You’ll be wanting to borrow in two or three days, Nead, and I shan’t want to loan to a fellow who won’t do a little thing like this to oblige me.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, old top. There are other places to make a raise.”

“Maybe, but I don’t believe you want to try them. I’ll be back here about half-past seven and the meeting’s at eight. We’d better start fairly early so as to get good seats.”

“Gee, a fellow would think you were going to the movies,” scoffed Humphrey. “What fun is there in listening to a lot of idiots talk about the football team? Are you going to speak, too?”

“Me?” asked Ira startledly. “Thunder, no! I couldn’t speak a piece!”

“Then I won’t go,” laughed Humphrey. “If you’ll make a speech, Rowly, I’ll take a chance.”

“Guess I’m the one who’d be taking a chance,” replied Ira. “How does this eye look now?”

“Dissipated, old top, dissipated! But it’s a bit better. Well, I guess I’ll run along and feed. Want to donate that dollar now, Rowly?”

“N-no, I don’t believe so.”

Humphrey frowned and paused irresolutely by the table, hat in hand. “You’re not in earnest about that, are you?” he asked. “I mean about holding out on me if I don’t go to the meeting.”

“Yes, I am, Nead. You’re wanted at the meeting and I’m asking you to go as a personal favour to me.”

“Rot! I don’t see how it affects you any, whether I go or don’t go. It isn’t your picnic.”

“Why not? I’m on the team, fighting and bleeding for the cause.” Ira felt tentatively of his nose. “Bleeding, anyhow. Naturally, I want the thing to be a success. Besides, Nead, they’ve got to raise some money if they’re going to last the season out. Shall we say about twenty minutes to eight?”

“Say what you like,” laughed Humphrey, “but don’t look for me, Rowly. I’ve got something to do tonight. Bye!”

“Bye,” answered Ira. When the door had closed he smiled gently. “If he doesn’t go with me I miss my guess,” he murmured as he donned his vest and coat and slicked his hair down with a wet brush. “I suppose it’s a poor business, buying him like that, but you’ve got to suit your method to your man.” With which bit of philosophy he observed his disfigured countenance dubiously and turned out the light.

CHAPTER XV

PARKINSON HAS A CHANGE OF HEART

Humphrey was waiting when Ira returned from supper. “Thought I might as well go along and see the fun,” he observed carelessly.

They reached the auditorium, on the second floor of Parkinson Hall, in good time but found it already half-full. A dozen rather conscious-looking fellows stood or sat about the stage: Fred Lyons, De Wolf Lowell, Gene Goodloe, the four class presidents, Steve Crocker, baseball captain, and several whom Ira didn’t know. Mr. Driscoll, followed by Billy Goode, the trainer, came in a few minutes later and joined the assemblage on the stage. There was a good deal of noise in the hall, for everyone was talking or laughing. It was evident not only that about every fellow in school was to be on hand but that they were here principally with the idea of finding amusement. Ira and Humphrey found seats on the left about midway between the stage and the green swinging doors with the oval lights at the other end of the auditorium. By five minutes to eight all the seats were occupied and a fringe of boys lined the wall at the back. Ira saw several of the faculty in the audience: Mr. Morgan, Mr. Talbot and Mr. Tasser. Their presence was easily explained since they were the faculty members of the Athletic Committee.

At eight by the big, round clock over the stage, Hodges, fourth class president, who had evidently accepted the office of chairman, arose and the noise quieted to furtive scraping of feet or coughing. Hodges explained unemotionally the purpose of the meeting and introduced Lowell. The best feature of Hodges’ introduction was its brevity, and the best feature of the manager’s talk was doubtless its strict attention to facts and figures. He undoubtedly showed conclusively that the Football Association was sadly in need of funds; the figures which he paraded proved it; but figures and facts are dull things and by the time he had finished the quiet had gone. Many fellows were whispering behind their hands and many others were frankly yawning. Ira knew that they needed stirring up and hoped that the next speaker would do it. But the next was Fred Lyons, and although Fred wanted very much to make an appeal that would reach his audience, he failed most dismally. Perhaps it was because he wanted to do it too hard that he couldn’t. His earnestness was convincing enough, but it so closely approached solemnity that it was better calculated to produce tears than enthusiasm. Fred apologised for the poor showing made by the team in recent years and made the mistake, possibly, of placing a share of the blame on the lack of support supplied by the school. No audience cares to listen to a recital of its shortcomings unless it is in a particularly sympathetic mood, and this one wasn’t. Fred asked the school to get behind the team, to believe in it and to aid it.

“It’s your team and it will do what you want it to if you will give it support. It can’t win without that support. We’ve got good players and a fine coach, and we’re all eager to do our best, fellows. But we need your help, moral and financial. Manager Lowell has told you how we stand regarding money. Last season was a poor one financially and we started this year with a practically empty treasury. So far we have managed to worry along from one game to the next, but we need a lot of supplies, we owe money for printing and we owe Mr. Driscoll half his salary. What Lowell didn’t tell you is that he has dug into his own pocket several times, just as I have, for that matter, in order to keep going. Comparatively few season tickets have been taken this year, nearly eighty less than last, and the attendance at the games, with one exception, has been poor. We need money, fellows, quite a lot of money, and I’m hoping you will give it to us. And we need even more; to feel that you are behind us and want us to come through. If you will do your part we’ll do ours, every one of us, players, coach, management and trainer. I think that’s all I have to say. Thank you.”

Fred sat down amidst a salvo of applause, but Ira somehow knew that his address had not carried conviction and that the applause was for Fred personally rather than for his appeal. And Fred’s countenance said that he realised the fact.

Coach Driscoll spoke briefly, dwelling on the ability of the team and the spirit of it and paying a tribute to Captain Lyons that again brought applause. He ended by echoing Fred’s request for support and stepped back to a hearty clapping of hands. Gene Goodloe did his best, but Gene was sadly out of his element. His embarrassment was so evident that it brought a ripple of laughter, and Ira had hopes. But Gene made the mistake of resenting it and finished his remarks amidst a deep and discouraging silence. Others followed, but the first speakers had, so to say, sounded the tone of the meeting and each succeeding speaker seemed more lugubrious than the last. Feet shuffled impatiently and many eyes were fixed longingly on the doors. A few of those near the entrance had already slipped away. The meeting was proving long-drawn-out and dismal to a degree. Audible remarks began to be heard, such as: “Pass the hat and call it a day!” “Question, Mr. Speaker! Question!” “Let’s have a song!” It was Hodges who, recognising the attitude of the audience, tried to induce Billy Goode to say something. But Billy resolutely refused to be dragged from his chair, even though the audience, scenting possible relief from the dead solemnity of the proceedings, clapped loudly and demanded a speech. In the end, Hodges gave the trainer up and took the floor himself.

“Well, you’ve heard us all, fellows. You know what is wanted of you. So let’s get down to business. We’ve got some slips here and some pencils and some of us are going to pass them around to you in a minute. I hope every fellow will contribute. The Association needs about three hundred dollars to get to the Kenwood game with. That means that some of us must give liberally. But before we start the collection perhaps there’s someone that would like to say something. If there is let’s hear from him. Debate is open.”

No one, however, seemed to have any message to deliver, although there was plenty of whispering and subdued laughter. Finally, though, a tall, lean youth with an earnest manner arose at one side of the hall and cleared his throat nervously. Hodges recognised him and sat down.

“Who’s the giraffe?” whispered Humphrey. Ira shook his head.

“Mr. President – er – Chairman, and Fellow Students,” began the earnest one. “I’ve listened carefully to what has been said and as near as I can see it doesn’t amount to much.” Some applause and a good deal of laughter rewarded him. “This football team of ours needs money to go on with, they tell us,” continued the speaker, encouraged by the applause, “but I ask them: Why? This is an age of efficiency, gentlemen, and when something is proven inefficient it is discarded. Seems to me this football team has proved itself about as inefficient as anything could be. Seems to me a football team’s excuse for existence is – er – is winning games. If that’s so, this football team of ours stopped being efficient three years ago. I ask you what use there is in contributing money for the benefit of something that has outlived its usefulness. I claim that it’s poor business, gentlemen. I maintain – ”

But he didn’t get any further, for the audience was laughing and shouting its applause by that time. At last someone had waked them up! The idea of discarding the team appealed to their sense of humour and while the tall youth went on making faces and waving his hands the audience gave way to hilarity.

“Good scheme! Discharge the team!”

“Pay ’em off and let ’em go!”

“No wins, no wages! How about it, Fred?”

On the stage the fellows were smiling, but not very comfortably. Fred Lyons was whispering to Lowell, and the latter was shaking his head helplessly. Somewhere in the back of the hall a second speaker was demanding recognition and there was a general craning of necks as Hodges rapped for order. Someone pulled the long-necked youth to his chair, still talking and gesticulating.

“Mr. Chairman!” began the new speaker, “I want to say that most of us fellows would support the football team if it would show itself worth supporting. Isn’t that so, fellows?”

Laughing agreement arose about him.

“That team hasn’t won anything worth winning for so long that no one remembers what it was they won. They talk about wanting three hundred dollars. Well, maybe they do. But I say let them show something first. This school is just as loyal to its teams as any school, but it wants something for its money. I say let’s give the team a hundred dollars now and tell them to earn the rest!”

“That’s right!” someone called. “We’re from Missouri!”

A young, second class fellow jumped up and declared in a thin, high voice that he “seconded the motion.” Hodges rapped for silence.

“No motion has been put. If you want to put a motion we will vote on it. But I must say that many of you are wrong when you think this is a vaudeville show. Please try to talk sense. Are there any more remarks?”

There were several, but they weren’t serious and the speakers didn’t stand up. Hodges looked slowly around the hall and then turned toward the table beside him.

“If there aren’t,” he announced, “we will proceed with the purpose of the meeting.”

“Mr. Chairman!”

“Mister – ” The chairman paused, at a loss, and Fred Lyons whispered across to him – “Mr. Rowland?”

Ira, on his feet, conscious of Humphrey’s wide-open mouth and of the four hundred and more curious gazes, moistened his lips and took a deep breath. He had acted quite on impulse, which was something he seldom did do, and he was still a bit surprised to find himself standing there facing the meeting.

“Shoot!” called someone, and many laughed.

“Mr. Chairman and – and fellows,” began Ira slowly, “I – ”

“Louder!” came a demand from the back of the auditorium.

Ira made a new start, facing so that he could make himself heard at the back of the hall. “I want to tell a story,” he said.

“Naughty! Naughty!” cried a facetious youth.

Ira smiled. “It’s about a horse race. Down in Maine, where I come from, there was an old man who owned a horse.” There was a nasal twang in his voice that brought chuckles from many and smiles of anticipated amusement from more. “She wasn’t much of a horse, fellows. She was about fourteen years old, and her front knees sorter knocked together and she had the spring-halt in the left hind leg and she was blind in one eye and couldn’t see any too well outer the other. And she was fat and she was lazy because this man I’m telling about didn’t use her except to drive to the village once a week in an old rattletrap buckboard to get a pound of coffee and a sack of flour and so on. Well, one time when he was in the village he saw a notice about a trotting meeting to be held at the Fair Grounds a week or so later. So all the way home that day he talked it over with Old Bess and she switched her tail and flicked her ears and between them they decided to enter the race. So he went in to the village again and put down his entry fee and borrowed an old sulky of Peters, the blacksmith. It wasn’t a very good sulky to look at, but Peters put a new rim on one wheel and tied some baling wire around it here and there and the old man hitched it on back of the buckboard and fetched it home. And every day after that you’d see him and Old Bess jogging along the turnpike.

“Well, it came the day of the meeting and the old man and Bess went to the Fair Grounds. There was a heap of betting going on and the old man he strolled around and strolled around and pretty soon he’d met about everyone he knew and he didn’t have a red cent left in his pockets, and he calculated that if Old Bess won he’d be about fifteen hundred dollars to the good, because everyone he laid a bet with gave him perfectly scandalous odds. When it came Old Bess’s time he drove out on the track and everyone howled and the judges got down out of the stand and asked him to go away and keep the peace. But he wouldn’t listen to ’em and so they had to let Old Bess start. And that’s about all she did do. Once on a time she’d been a pretty good trotter, but that was a long way off, and maybe the old man didn’t realise it. There was just the one heat for Old Bess. When the other horses started she switched her tail once or twice, looked around over her shoulder and jogged away. Pretty soon they met the other horses coming back, but Old Bess didn’t take any notice of ’em. She just jogged on. And after awhile a man came running up to them and asked wouldn’t they please get off the track because they were starting the next heat. And so the old man he turned Old Bess around and she jogged back. And that’s all there was to it. But one of the men that had laid a bet with the old man was sorter sorry for him, guessing he was just about cleaned out, and he said: ‘Old Man, ain’t you got nary sense at all? Didn’t you know that horse o’ yourn had spring-halt and epizootics and was knock-kneed in front and fallin’ away behind?’ ‘Why, yes,’ replied the old man, ‘I knowed that, I guess.’ ‘An’ you knew she was fourteen or fifteen years old, didn’t you?’ ‘Ought to, I lived right with her all the time.’ ‘An’ you knew she was stone-blind in one eye, didn’t you?’ ‘Yes, I knowed that, too.’ ‘An’ you knew she was too fat, anyway, didn’t you?’ ‘I sorter suspected it.’ ‘Well, then why in tarnation did you bet on her for?’ ‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ says the old man. ‘She’s my horse, an’ what’s mine I stands back of. An’ win or not win, she’s the finest horse an’ the fastest trotter in the State o’ Maine! Get ap, Bess!’”

Ira sat down.

The clapping and stamping and laughter might have been heard across on Faculty Row. It went on and on, and Hodges, smiling broadly as he pounded his gavel, might just as well have been hitting a feather bed with a broom-straw!

“Get up!” urged Humphrey. “Go on! They want more!”

“There isn’t any more,” said Ira, smiling. “And they don’t need any more.”

And maybe they didn’t, for it was a vastly different gathering that scrambled for the slips of paper and put down figures and names. Perhaps tomorrow or still later some of them would regret the size of the figures, but just now they were in the mood to be generous, for Ira’s story had succeeded where all the rest of the oratory had failed. They still chuckled as they passed the slips along and were still smiling when the pledges were dumped on the table. Among them was one which bore the inscription “$2.00 – Humphrey Nead.”

The meeting broke up then, but most of the audience waited until those on the stage had hurriedly reckoned up the pledges, and when Hodges held up his hand for silence and announced the total to be three hundred and forty-one dollars they cheered loudly and long. And when Steve Crocker pushed past Hodges and called for “a regular cheer for the Team, fellows, and make it good!” the result indicated that Parkinson School had experienced a change of heart!

CHAPTER XVI

IRA PLANS

Ira escaped that night from the gratitude of those in charge of the meeting, but he had to face it next day. Fred Lyons was almost tearful and Gene slapped him on the back repeatedly and Manager Lowell shook hands with him earnestly on three separate occasions. And at least three of the class presidents if not all of them – Ira became a bit confused eventually – congratulated him and told him he had saved the meeting. Later, between recitations, he was waylaid on the steps of Parkinson by a youth with glasses and a long, thin nose and asked to join the Debating Society.

“But I couldn’t make a speech to save my life,” declared Ira.

“You’d learn very soon, Rowland. Any fellow who can tell a story as you did last night has the making of a public speaker. In my own experience – ” and the president of the Debating Society managed to give the impression that he had spent a lifetime on the rostrum – “I have found it much more difficult to tell a story or anecdote effectively than to deliver an argument.”

Ira managed to escape by agreeing to “think it over” and let the other know his decision when the football season was done.

For several days he experienced the treatment that falls to one who becomes suddenly prominent. He had the feeling that fellows looked after him as he passed and spoke his name in lowered tones. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it made him a little self-conscious, and Ira didn’t exactly like to feel self-conscious. Fellows who usually nodded to him on campus or gridiron now fell into casual conversations, during which mention was generally made of the football meeting, if not of his share in it. At the field, too, there were signs of a new consideration, or else Ira imagined them. Coach Driscoll, who never referred to the meeting in Ira’s hearing, nevertheless gave more attention to the substitute guard, and the same was true of Fred Lyons. It seemed to Ira that one or the other always had an eye on him, was always offering criticisms or suggestions. It was flattering, no doubt, but it made him a little nervous at first, and his playing suffered a bit. Even Billy Goode got the habit of hovering over him like a fussy old Mother Hen, just as he hovered over such celebrities as Captain Lyons or “The” Dannis or Billy Wells or numerous others whose welfare might be considered a matter of importance. Several times Ira was “pulled” from play merely because he was a little short of breath or had developed a momentary limp. He usually protested weakly, but Billy never listened to protests. He was an extremely decided trainer.