Chapter 21 - Page 2

Claflin, now just a fortnight distant, why, it was already as good as lost! Anyone would have told you that. The only point of disagreement was the size of the score. That ran, according to various estimates, from 6 to 0 to 50 to 3. It was a wonder they allowed Brimfield that 3! But all this was on the way home. Gradually the reaction set in and hope crept back. After all, a slump was something you had to contend with. It happened to every team some time in the season. Perhaps it was lucky it had come now instead of later. Of course, Chambers Tech was only a fair-to-middling team and Brimfield ought to have beaten her hands down, but since she hadn't, there was no use in worrying about it. By the time supper was over that evening, the stock of the Brimfield Football Team had risen to close to par, and anyone who had had the temerity to even suggest the possibility of a victory for Claflin would have been promptly and efficaciously squelched!

The Chambers game resulted in a shake-up. That it was coming was hinted on Monday when only a few of the substitutes on the first were given any work and four of the second team fellows were lifted from their places and shifted over to what represented the 'varsity that day. These four were Trow and Saunders, tackles; Thursby, centre, and Freer, half-back. On Tuesday the first-string 'varsity men were back at work, with the exception of Benson, whose ankle was in pretty bad condition. Thursby was given a try-out at centre and Saunders at left tackle in the short scrimmage that followed practice. Thursby showed up so brilliantly that many predicted the retirement of Innes to the bench. Saunders failed to impress Coach Robey very greatly and he and Freer and Trow went back to the second the next day. The slump was still in evidence and the work was light until Thursday. Benson was still on crutches and his place was being taken by Roberts. Thursby ran Innes such a good race for the position of centre-rush that a substitute centre named Coolidge suddenly found his nose out of joint and faced the prospect of viewing the Claflin game from the bench.

The school held its first mass meeting on Wednesday evening of that week and cheered and sang and whooped things up with a fine frenzy. The discouragement of the Chambers game was quite forgotten. Andy Miller, in a short speech, soberly predicted a victory over Claflin, and the audience yelled until the roof seemed to shake. Coach Robey gave a résumé of the season, thanked the school for its support of the team, pledged the best efforts of everyone concerned and, while refusing to say so in so many words, hinted that Brimfield would have the long end of the score on the twenty-fifth. After that the football excitement grew and spread and took possession of the school like an epidemic. Recitations became farces, faculty fumed and threatened--and bore it, and some one hundred and fifty boys fixed their gaze on the twenty-fifth of