CHAPTER XII
A GATING AND A GAME
For the next few days Thornton’s thrashing was the principal themeof the school talk. The story was told, though no one knew whence itoriginated. Tony and Kit dismissed it with a laugh or an exclamation,but Finch, interrogated on all hands, gave a correct version. Thorntonand his friends kept themselves in the background for a week or so,but nursed their grudge with the dogged determination of ill-will, andwhen occasion offered continued to torture Finch on the sly, but not sobrutally.
The chief satisfaction that Tony got out of the incident, after thepleasure of thrashing a bully, was his talk with the Head on thesubject. “I hear,” said Doctor Forester, as he stopped Deering afterChapel one morning, “that there have been some lively doings inStanderland of late, in the absence of the masters.”
Tony, not yet sure of the Doctor’s attitude, blushed and stammeredsomething that was quite unintelligible. The Head eyed him keenly. “Foronce,” he said, laying his hand gently on the boy’s shoulder, “I am notdisposed to object to a somewhat vigorous method of taking the law intoyour own hands. I fancy you will have been successful in putting an endto the brutal hazing to which young Finch has been subjected.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Tony. “We were a bit rough and pretty generallyout of order, but we hoped the end justified the means.”
The Doctor smiled and went on.
Tony found Kit at the lobby outside the schoolroom, and repeated theconversation in great glee.
“Great man, the Doctor!” remarked Kit, judiciously. “Now I guess we’lllet the Gumshoe whistle for his lines. What a relief it is occasionallyto meet with broad-mindedness on the part of those who are charged withour education. Same with the Gumshoe’s gating,” he added, in illogicalparenthesis.
The opportunity to test Mr. Roylston’s whistling powers came soonerthan they expected. The day before the Boxford game, Jack Stentoncalled off the football practice, and had the school in to amass-meeting in the Gymnasium. The boys sang the school songs withtheir traditional vigor, and listened with the utmost good nature andappreciation to speeches that in many cases had been delivered a dozentimes before. The Doctor remarked that it was difficult to be originalon such occasions, as though he was making the remark for the firsttime; but at the risk of repeating himself he did not mind saying thatthey had supreme confidence in the prowess of the team and that theschool was confident of a victory on the morrow. Stenton gave, in hismatter of fact way, impressing the boys deeply, a careful estimate ofthe abilities of the different players and what might be expectedof them in the game, and offered a judicial estimate that the scorewould be two touch-downs to none in favor of Deal. Billy Wendell, thecaptain, stammered, in the traditional captain’s manner, that the teamwanted the school behind them, and that—that was about all he had tosay. Other members of the faculty made remarks, some of which werewitty, some merely facetious, but all received with wild applause. Thenthey sang some more, cheered for the team, for the school, for JackStenton, for Billy Wendell, and the meeting was concluded by the Headdeclaring a half-holiday for the team, and removing Monday Port boundsfor the afternoon in behalf of the two upper forms. Many of the boyshad friends coming on the afternoon trains, and counted on this largessas a general permission to go in and meet them.
Kit’s mother was coming, with a couple of girls. Rooms for themhad been taken at the Deal Inn on the Port Road near the school.Immediately after the mass-meeting Kit called to Tony, and asked him togo in with him to the depôt and meet the five o’clock train.
“Are we really going to break the Gumshoe’s gating?” asked Tony.
“We certainly are,” responded Kit cheerfully. “To heck with theGumshoe; bounds are off for the afternoon anyway. It’ll be a goodway to get the matter officially to the Head. By gum!” he exclaimed,glancing toward the Schoolhouse, “Gumshoe’s got call-over.”
Surely enough Mr. Roylston was standing on the Schoolhouse steps, witha long line of boys in single file beneath him, waiting to report.
“Shall we tell him?” asked Kit.
“Guess we’ll have to,” answered Tony. “Let’s butt in to the middle ofthe line for once, and get it over.” Ordinarily, it may be remarked,Fifth Formers did not report, unless they were going into Monday Port.They made for the line, and Kit grabbed a Third Form boy by the arm.
“Say, Bunting, do you mind letting us in here? We’re in a big hurry.”
The small boy flushed with pleasure at the request from such popularand distinguished persons as Wilson and Deering, and readily made way.Mr. Roylston, who seldom failed to see anything that was going onaround him, stopped for a moment and looked at them with an expressionof stern disapproval. The boys thought that he was about to order themto the end of the line, but for once he disappointed them, and after asignificant compression of his lips, went on with the call-over. Therewas a general titter along the line.
Soon it was Kit’s turn, and he was at Mr Roylston’s side. The masterheld a paper in his hand, on which was printed the school list. It wasthe duty of the master of the day to note on such a slip opposite eachboy’s name the plans that he reported for the afternoon.
“Wilson and Deering, sir,” said Kit.
Mr. Roylston faced him. “Now that they have usurped the places of ascore or so of boys who were in line before them, what do the Messrs.Wilson and Deering propose to do in such a hurry?”
“We are going to town, sir, to meet my mother who is arriving on thefive o’clock train.”
“Ah, indeed!” said Mr. Roylston. “I am very sorry to put Mrs. Wilsonto any inconvenience, but I fear I must do so. As you both are gatedfor the month, it is impossible for me to acquiesce in your ingenuousproposal.”
“Beg your pardon, sir,” said Kit, “but the Head has declared bounds offfor the afternoon.”
“Undoubtedly,” commented Mr. Roylston, “but I have had the unpleasantduty of gating you for a month. Next!”
Wilson and Deering were swept on by the crowd. Without further ado,they cut across the field, climbed the stone wall and started acrossthe meadows for the town.
In Monday Port they loafed about until five o’clock, when they went tothe depôt and met Mrs. Wilson. She was accompanied by two very prettyand attractive girls, Betty, Kit’s sister, and Barbara Worthington, hergreat friend and a boyish flame of Kit’s. The party had a merry timeon the drive out the Port Road and a pleasant tea on the old-fashionedgallery of the Inn, in the golden light of the Indian summer afternoon.Absorbed in the unusual pleasure attendant upon the presence of girlsat Deal, they quite forgot the predicament they were in with Mr.Roylston.
The master in charge had a better memory, and was waiting for them atthe entrance of the cloister that led into the refectory, where theschool was gathering for supper. He was very angry.
“I will trouble you,” he said, “to come with me at once to the Head.You have been flagrantly disobedient.”
The boys followed him without a word across the quadrangle to theRectory.
“A very annoying case, Doctor Forester,” Mr. Roylston began when theywere closeted with the Head in his study. “I gated Wilson and Deeringfor a month, but despite my warning at call-over, they deliberatelyignored the gating and went to town this afternoon.”
“It was quite necessary, sir,” protested Kit, “that I should meet mymother, who arrived at five o’clock. Besides, sir, we think that Mr.Roylston’s gating was unjust, and we asked him to refer the matter toyou, sir, and he refused.”
“That was not necessary,” said the Doctor, “except under exceptionalcircumstances. However, I may say that it is my general understandingthat when bounds are raised the day before the Boxford game, that forthe afternoon ordinary penalties and restrictions are suspended. Whywere they gated, sir?”
“For brutal conduct, Doctor Forester, to their younger schoolmates.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” said the Head, with something like a smileflitting across his face. “You behave
d brutally toward smaller boys?”He faced the culprits.
Tony smiled in spite of himself. “Why, yes, sir, I suppose we did; weplanned to.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” said the Head. “But, Mr. Roylston, for oncelet us compromise and temper justice with mercy. Only recently thesetwo young brutes did a very effective and commendable service to theschool,—they thrashed two bullies who had been making the life of asmall boy quite miserable. Let us forgive them their brutality in theone case for the sake of their brutality in the other, where it was notundeserved. I am disposed to ask you to dispense the gating and thepenalties for violating it.”
Mr. Roylston compressed his lips. “I—is it just, sir?”
The Doctor smiled in his odd way. “I am disposed to insist on yourbeing merciful, Mr. Roylston. I will guarantee that there will beno more brutality nor disobedience. Let us threaten them with direpenalties, if they are reported for brutality again. Good-day, boys.”
As they went out, they heard the Doctor say in suave and cheerfultones, “Stay and have a bit of supper with me, Roylston.” “Thank you,no;” answered the master, “I have duties immediately. Good-evening,sir.”
“One for the Gumshoe,” said Tony blithely, as they turned onto thecampus.
Kit was serious. “I have always said,” he remarked sententiously, “thatthe Gumshoe Ebenezer was an odious ass; but I have always had, untilthis moment, a sneaking conviction that in so saying I was doing himan injustice. Henceforth my conscience is absolved. Ass he is; ass heshall be.”
“Amen,” said Tony. “Fact is, Gumshoe’s had it in for Finch. Mysteriousbeast, ain’t he! We score to-day, kiddo, but the Gumshoe is notannihilated.”
“No, I dare say not. The possibilities of his getting back at us arepretty nigh endless. But say, Tonio, old sport, isn’t Bab Worthington aqueen?”
“Quite the queen, Kitty; but Betty Wilson is no mere handmaid.”
“Oh, bother Betty; she’s a good sort. But let’s hurry, so we can getdown early. I am half sorry I asked the crowd. Think I’d rather have—”
They both began to run then toward the dining-room, where the schoolwas already at supper.
That evening “the crowd,” as our friends called themselves in theirmodest schoolboy way, including Kit, Tony, Jimmie Lawrence, TeddyLansing and Tack Turner, went to the Inn and spent a merry eveningunder Mrs. Wilson’s indulgent chaperonage. There were other partiesthere, including the parents and sisters and cousins and an occasionalaunt of various boys; a gathering of the clans loyal to Deal; a scoreor so of Old Boys, mostly from Kingsbridge, back for the game, whohad overflowed from the crowded school into the Inn. In the proudconsciousness of their undoubted superiority as college men, the OldBoys somewhat cast their younger brethren in the shade, and treatedthem with patronizing airs, asking them occasional questions in apatriarchal manner.
Tony alone amongst his companions seemed to shine that evening. Thereflashed into prominence, to their first observation, in his manner, hisappearance even, something of that charm which was more and more makinghim a favorite, and which, though his schoolfellows never analyzedit, was to be cordially recognized later on. It would have been hardto say in just what Tony’s charm lay, perhaps it was that a certainserious sweetness of disposition, the finer traits of his character,for the most part unnoticed in the helter-skelter rough-and-readinessof school life, were emerging. Women, who are always quicker than mento estimate a personality, to be conscious of its finer as well asits more obvious strains, felt this at once in Tony. He was a successwith Mrs. Wilson and the girls. His own friends, intimate with him inall the openness and yet sometimes quite misleading circumstances ofeveryday existence, who ordinarily thought of him merely as a booncompanion, a genial playmate, gifted with a nice sense of honor butready for a lark and a risk with the most reckless, were a littlesurprised at the evident impression he made not only on Mrs. Wilson,but on Betty and Barbara Worthington. His friends saw in him thatnight a facility despite his modesty, a social poise untempered byself-consciousness, that more distinctly than ever before singled himout as their natural leader. Kit indeed, felt several miserable pangsof jealousy, as he noted Barbara’s quick response to Tony’s gayety,and her unconcealed desire to remain part of the group of which Tonywas in some sense the center rather than wander off with him forthe too obvious pleasure of a tête-à-tête. But Kit himself was toowhole-souled, too merry of nature, to sulk, and save for an occasionalgrowl to which no one paid attention, before the evening was over, hewas enjoying Tony as he had never enjoyed him before, wondering at thequick development of this social side of his character which had beenunobserved.
As for Tony he was quite unconscious of anything save that he wasenjoying himself immensely; that Betty Wilson was an extremelyattractive girl, a thoroughly “good sort,” as Kit had said; and that hewished there were more frequent occasions when the girls came to Deal.He was not sentimental, so that he did not imagine that he had fallenin love.
The day of the game was a perfect one for football, cool and gray, withno wind blowing. The teams were in fine condition, and the Boxfordboys, who had come over in the old-time coach across the hills,looked tremendously big and strong. Tony was still playing end, theposition to which he had been so unexpectedly assigned in his ThirdForm year, and in which, through no fault of his own, he had been themeans of losing the game. To be sure in the following year, when thecircumstances of that defeat had been made rather generally clear, hehad redeemed himself by good playing and they had won, but he felt akeen desire this year to blot out forever, if it might be, the bittermemory of that first Boxford game. He wanted, quite selfishly he toldhimself,—and perhaps he was thinking a little of Betty—to win a gameas definitely as he had lost one.
As the team stepped out onto the field that afternoon, resplendentin their red sweaters with the big black D across the breast, and hesniffed the cool air and heard the chorus of Deal cheers ring down thelines, he lifted his head like a good hunter keen for the chase, and athrill of determination went through him like a shiver. They must win!
Billy Wendell had the ball under his arm as they came onto the field.Immediately he tossed it to Kit, prominent to the spectators for hisshock of yellow hair and his bright red cheeks despite the fact thatthis was his first appearance on the school team. Kit tossed it toBarney Clayton, who muffed it, and then made a quick dive and fell onit very much as a kitten plays with a ball of yarn.... So for fifteenminutes or so the preliminary practice went on, until the boys werewell warmed up for the strenuous work of the game.
Then came the shrill note of the referee’s whistle; the two captainsmet in the center of the field; the Boxford boy called and won thetoss, and the two teams trotted out to their places for the kick-off.There were roars from the two grand-stands, the antiphonal ringing-outof the Deal and Boxford cheers; another blast from the referee’swhistle, and Kit, who was playing center, gave the ball a kick thatsent it sailing down the field to within five yards of the Boxford goalposts. A Boxford back caught it, but Tony downed him in his tracks.
Then the teams lined up, the Boxford quarter signaled to his full backfor a line plunge, and in less time than it takes to write it, thegreat hulk of a six-foot boy went tearing through the Deal line. Dealreceived a shock as great as it was unexpected. They had foreseen nosuch smashing attack, and before they could rally to the defense, theyhad been forced for down after down over the smooth brown field untilthe play was well in their own territory....
We do not mean to describe the game in detail, for is it not written inthe chronicles of the boys of Deal? Wendell rallied his team just intime to prevent Boxford from scoring in the first half, when the ballhad been worried to within twenty yards of his goal. Then followed anexchange of punts, which, as Edward Clavering, Deal’s full back, couldkick farther than his opponent, gave Deal a slight advantage. When theygot the ball at last in the middle of the field, they made a few gainsby end runs. They were swifter, more ingenious, better kickers than theBoxfor
d boys, but the team from over the hills had the advantage inweight and strength.
During the intermission between the halves Stenton did his best tohearten his boys, but it was a poor best, for he felt pretty certainthat they were bound to be scored against heavily in the next half.They could not stand the smashing of the line—already Clayton and oneor two others had been taken out.
The second half saw a repetition of the tactics of the first. Boxfordpersistently hit the line, and within five minutes of the play hadscored the inevitable touchdown. The enthusiasm of their supporters wasonly a trifle dampened when they failed to kick the goal. After thatDeal worried them a good deal with trick plays, and once after gaininga considerable distance by an exceptionally long punt and a fumble,they seemed within striking distance of the goal. Clavering tried for afield goal, but to the sharp distress of his supporters the ball wentwide of the mark. Boxford took the ball on their twenty-five yard line,and renewed their demoralizing attack. Despite the Deal boys’ desperateefforts, the ball was forced back into their territory, straight downthe field by smashing center plays toward their goal. Poor Kit hadbeen carried off, bruised and lame, but not seriously hurt; the veteranClavering had succumbed, and Deal was left to finish the game with ateam that was half composed of substitutes. It was a question now, itseemed, of simply keeping down the score.
Boxford fumbled, and again they escaped danger for the moment. Butsoon the ball had been worried again dangerously near their goal.Twenty-five, twenty, fifteen yards—Tony measured the distance withgrim despair. Suddenly, as the Boxford quarter snapped back the ball,something unexpected happened. Signals got twisted,—at any rate, therewas a fumble and a scrimmage, and twenty boys were scrambling in aheap, when the attention of the spectators was arrested by the shrillcry of the Boxford quarter, for Tony Deering, with the ball tuckedunder his arm, had emerged from the mass of players, and was speedinglike a frightened deer down the field toward the Boxford goal.
The quarter made a desperate effort to intercept him, but Tony dodgedas quickly as lightning flashes, and raced on with a clear field. Thetwo teams, recovered, were rushing after him.... One could have hearda whisper from one side of the field to the other so tense was theexcitement. The silence was absolute save for the pattering of theswift feet upon the turf.... Then the cheers broke forth, for Tony hadplanted the ball midway behind the goal posts. For five minutes therewas pandemonium on the side lines, restrained for a moment, only tobreak forth afresh as Clavering kicked the goal. The game was won,for almost immediately after the kick-off, the whistle blew, and thereferee called “Time.”
TONY DODGED ... AND RACED ON WITH A CLEAR FIELD]
Deering of Deal; Or, The Spirit of the School Page 15