High School was already at work when the brown-stockinged players reached the field and the stands were filling with an audience that threatened to test their capacity, for High School had plenty of friends and admirers, many of them of the gentler sex. The light dresses of the girls, together with a multitude of red-and-blue pennants and arm-bands, made the scene unusually bright and colourful, and for the first time Ira felt something very much like stage fright. But there wasn’t much time to indulge it, for they were at once hustled out of blankets and sweaters and set to work at warming up, and almost before Ira had limbered his muscles decently a whistle called them back to the bench. And then, three minutes later, while High School cheered mightily, Fred Lyons kicked off.
CHAPTER XIV
HARD KNOCKS
High School had the advantage of a longer preliminary season than her opponent, having already taken part in six contests, and in consequence what she lacked in weight – for she was a light team – was made up to her in experience. The first period resulted in a good deal of wasteful effort on both sides. High School yielded the ball soon after the kick-off and Parkinson started with line-plunging plays that took her from her own twenty-nine yards past the middle of the field and well into the opponent’s territory. Hodges, Little and Pearson, the substitute backs, showed good ability and were hard to stop. It was a fumble that finally cost them the ball and High School started back from her thirty-six-yard line with a series of running plays that for awhile fooled the Parkinson ends and backs and put the ball on the home team’s forty-yard line. During the rest of the twelve-minute quarter the pigskin passed back and forth across the fifty yards with slight advantage to either side. The Parkinson supporters grumbled because the team didn’t open up and try the High School ends instead of invariably yielding the ball after an unsuccessful fourth down plunge. But Dannis was in command, and Dannis generally knew what he was up to.
During that first period Ira found the going rather easy, for his opponent played a stupid game. It was only when, on attack, he had to try conclusions with the opposing centre that he had difficulty. That centre, although a comparative youngster, was, as everyone agreed afterwards, “some player!” He had no trouble standing the Parkinson centre, Conlon, on his head, to use the phrase, and it was his ability to do that that led to the first score which came a few minutes after the teams had changed places.
Dannis had intercepted a forward-pass just behind his line and zigzagged to the enemy’s thirty-eight. From there, in four rushes, Little and Pearson alternating, the pigskin had gone to the twenty-seven. Hodges had failed to get away outside right tackle and had lost a yard. With eleven to go on second down, Dannis had skirted the Red-and-Blue’s left and, behind good interference, had placed the ball near the twenty-yard line just inside the boundary. The next play had gone out and gained a scant yard, and Little, crashing through the right side of the High School defence, had just failed of the distance. Then, with the ball nearly opposite the goal-posts and eighteen yards away from them, Captain Lyons had dropped back for a try-at-goal. Conlon’s pass had been rather poor, the ball almost going over the kicker’s head, and possibly the knowledge of the fact had unsteadied him for a moment. At all events, the opposing centre had brushed him aside, avoided Pearson and leaped straight into the path of the ball as it left Lyons’ foot. It had banged against his body and bounded back up the field, and a speedy back, who had followed through behind the centre, had gathered it into his arms on the second bound and raced almost unchallenged for some seventy-five yards and a touchdown from which High School had kicked an easy goal.
Perhaps that handicap was just what Parkinson needed to make her show herself, for, after Lyons had again kicked off and the opponents had been held for downs and had punted back to Little, the brown team started with new determination. By that time Ira’s competitor had recovered from his slump, doubtless heartened by those seven points on the score board, and Ira had his hands full. Dannis thrust the backs at right and left of centre and Ira was busy trying to make holes or to keep the left of the High School line from romping through. Pearson was the best gainer through the line, and once he got almost clear and rushed twenty-two yards before he was brought down. Little and Hodges worked the ends for smaller gains and Dannis pulled off a twelve-yard stunt straight through centre on a fake pass. Parkinson was halted on High School’s twenty-five and the Red-and-Blue recovered seven of the necessary ten yards before she was forced to punt. Little caught near the side line and got back eight before he was run out of bounds. With the ball on the thirty-four, Dannis attempted a quarter-back run, but lost two yards. Hodges faked a forward and made six around right end and Little got the rest of the distance off right tackle. Near the fifteen yards, with four to go on third down, Hodges threw across the lines and Bradford caught on the eight. From there the ball was pushed over in three plays, Little scoring the touchdown. Lyons kicked the goal from a slight angle.
High School was given the ball for the kick-off and a short lift dropped it into the arms of Pearson near the twenty-yard line. The Red-and-Blue showed demoralisation then and her line went to pieces during the next dozen plays. Parkinson crashed through almost at will and had reached the enemy’s twenty-one when the whistle blew.
There was some criticism in the locker-room between halves, but Coach Driscoll found little fault, on the whole. Ira, who had been rather roughly used, had a piece of plaster applied to his nose and arnica rubbed into his right ankle. Conlon was horribly messed up and was, besides, angry clear through. The knowledge that he had been outplayed disgruntled him badly, and he spent the time when he was not in the hands of the rubber or trainer in glowering by himself in a corner.
Both teams presented new talent when the third quarter started. For Parkinson, Basker had taken Dannis’s place, Little and Pearson had retired, Crane was at left guard in place of Buffum, and Logan was at right end. High School had one new back and two new linesmen. Ira’s opponent was still on hand, however, and viewed him darkly as they lined up after the kick-off. Ira was as yet unable to view the struggle as anything other than a somewhat rough amusement, and the other boy’s evident ill-will puzzled him. He soon found, though, that his opponent held a different idea of the matter in hand. The High School left guard was not viewing the affair as a pastime, and the fact was brought home to Ira very speedily. The other fellow did not actually transgress the rules, but he approached so close to the borderland between fair and unfair use of the hands that Ira found himself at his wit’s end to protect himself from punishment. Almost anyone else would have lost his temper and fought back, but Ira kept his smile and took his medicine. By the time Parkinson had reached scoring distance once more he was pretty badly used up. He wondered what would happen if he called the umpire’s attention to his opponent’s tactics, and was tempted to see. But he didn’t. It seemed too much like acting the baby. Lyons, playing beside him at tackle, saw what was happening and hotly told Ira to “give him what he’s asking for, Rowland!” And, as Ira didn’t, Lyons took matters into his own hands on one occasion when the opportunity presented itself to him and considerably jarred the High School left guard by putting his shoulder under that youth’s chin. Fortunately for Lyons, the umpire didn’t see it. But the compliment didn’t alter the left guard’s tactics and Ira was sniffing at a bloody nose and looking dimly through one eye when, after three plunges at High School’s line had failed, Lyons dropped back and put the pigskin over the bar for the third score.
Fred went out then, Hodsdon taking his place, and James went in for Hodges. High School kicked off to Basker and the substitute quarter was run back for a loss of four yards. A fumble a minute later was recovered by Mason, at left half, on Parkinson’s twelve yards. Two attempts at the line gained but six and Basker punted to midfield. A smash at the Parkinson right side went through for five yards and Ira, who had been mowed down in the proceeding, felt so comfortable on the ground that it didn’t occur to him to get up until someone swashed a wet sponge over his face. When he did find his feet under him he was extremely glad of the support of the trainer, and when he found himself walking toward the bench he didn’t even protest. There was, he felt subconsciously, something radically wrong with a game that allowed the other fellow to “rough” you at pleasure and forbade you to “rough” him back. Someone lowered him to a bench and draped a blanket around his shoulders, and someone administered to his half-closed eye and added another piece of plaster to his already picturesque countenance. And after that he was sent off to the gymnasium, receiving as he went a scattered applause from the friendly stands.
Coach Driscoll used twenty-four players that afternoon, and the score of the game in the next morning’s Warne Independent looked a good deal like a section of a city directory. But in spite of putting two whole teams into the field the coach failed to capture the game, for, in the last three or four minutes of play, High School performed a miracle with a sadly patched-up eleven and worked the ball down to Parkinson’s twenty-two yards and from there, plunging once, grounding a forward-pass once and trying an end run that was stopped, she lifted the pigskin across the bar and tied the score at 10 to 10! And Fred Lyons, dragging tired feet up the gymnasium steps, remarked sadly to De Wolf Lowell: “Father was right!” Lowell, himself downcast and disappointed, not knowing that Fred had Coach Driscoll in mind, found the remark frivolous and senseless and only grunted.
“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!’”