In the last week a great change took place in the sentiment of the university—the hoping against hope that often arrives with the intensity of combat. At this time Harvard and Yale were still reluctantly estranged, due to a purely hypothetical question as to which side had begun a certain historic slaughter, and the big game of the season was with Princeton, which, under the leadership of Garry Cockerell, Dink’s first captain at Lawrenceville, had established a record of unusual power and brilliancy.
Up to Monday of the last week, the opinion around the campus was unanimous that the day of defeat had arrived; but, with the opening of the week and the flocking in of the old players, a new spirit was noticeable, and (among the freshmen) a tentative loosening of the purse-strings on news of extra-insulting challenges from the South.
At the practise, the season’s marked division among the coaches was forgotten, and the field was alive with frantic assistants. The scrimmage between the varsity and the scrub took on a savageness that was sometimes difficult to control. The team, facing the impossible, with eagerness to respond, had clearly overworked itself. Stover himself weighed a bare one hundred and forty, an unspeakable depravity which he carefully concealed.
Still, the team began to feel a new impulse and a new unity, inspired by the confidence of the returned heroes. The grim silence of the past began to be broken by hopeful comments.
“By George, I believe there’s something in those boys.”
“We’ve come up smiling before.”
“We may do it again.”
“Shouldn’t be surprised if they gave those Princeton Tigers the fight of their lives.”
“Oh, they’ll fight it out all right.”
One or two trick plays were perpetrated behind closed gates, and a thorough drill in a new method of breaking up the Princeton formation for a kick, under the instruction of returning scouts. The team itself began to question and wonder.
“That fellow Rivers certainly has stiffened us up in the center of the line,” said Regan, between plays, in one of his rare moments of loquacity. “I’ve learned more in three days than in the whole darn season.”
“You’ve got to hold for my kicks,” said Stover, submitting to the sponge which Clancy, the trainer, was daubing over his face.
“We’ll hold.”
“What do you really think, Tom?” said Stover as they stood a little apart, waiting for the scrimmage to be resumed. “Do you think there’s a chance?”
“I’m not thinking,” said Regan, in his direct way. “Haven’t any business to think. But we’re getting together, there’s no doubt of that. If we can’t win, why, we’ll lose as we ought to, and that’s something.”
Others were not so unruffled as Regan. The last days brought out all the divergent ways in which fierce, combative natures approach a crisis. Dana, the captain, was plainly on the edge of his self-control, his forehead drawn in a constant frown, his glance shooting nervously back and forth, speaking to no one except in the routine of the day. Dudley, at the other half, had adopted the same attitude. De Soto at quarter, on the contrary, radiated a fierce joy, joking and laughing, his nervous little voice piping out:
“A little more murder, fellows! Send them back on stretchers. That’s the stuff. What the deuce is the matter, Bill, do you want to live forever? Use your hands, use your feet, use your teeth, anything! Whoop her up!”
Others in the line were more stolid, yet each in his way contributing to the nervous electricity that sent the team tirelessly, frantically, like mad dervishes, into the breach, while behind them, at their sides, everywhere, the coaches goaded them on.
“Oh, get together!”
“Shove the man in front of you!”
“Get your shoulder into it!”
“Fight for that last inch there!”
“Knock him off his feet!”
“Put your man out o’ the play!”
“Break him up!”
No one paid any attention to the scrubs, fighting desperately with the same loyalty against the odds of weight and organization, without hope of distinction, giving every last ounce of their strength in futile, frantic effort, rejoicing when flung aside and crushed under the victorious rush of the varsity, who alone counted.
Against the scrubs Stover felt a sort of rage. Time after time he went crashing into the line, seeing the blurred faces of his own comrades with an instinctive hatred, striking them with his shoulder, hurling them from the path of attack with a wild, uncontrollable fury at their resistance, almost unable to keep his temper in leash. The first feeling of sympathy he had felt so acutely for those who bore all the brunt of the punishment, unrewarded, was gone. He no longer felt any pity, but a brutal joy at the incessant smarting, grinding shock of the attack of which he was part and the touch of prostrate bodies under his rushing feet.
Thursday and Friday the practise was lightened for all except for the backs. For an hour he was kept at his punting in the open and behind the lines, while the scrubs, reinforced by every available veteran, swarmed through the line, seeking to block his kicks.
To one side a little knot of coaches watched the result with critical anxiety, following the length of the punts in grim silence.
Tompkins, behind him, from time to time, spoke quietly, knowing that his was a nature to be restrained rather than goaded on.
“Watch your opposing backs, Stover. Keep your punts low and away from them so as to gain as much on the ground as you can. That’s it! Here, you center men, you’ve got to hold longer than that! You’re hurrying the kick too much. Get it off clean, Stover. Not so good. Remember what I say about placing your punt. You’re going to be out-kicked fifteen yards; make
