Chapter 7

In Yale territory now, the bleak goal posts looming up in front of him, Broadhurst chanced a glance back over his shoulder. What he saw was none too reassuring. The Yale stands broke into a roar of insane entreaty. A Yale man was at Broadhurst's very heels, and Broadhurst was crossing Old Eli's ten-yard line with a touchdown in sight! It was but a matter of seconds. If the Crimson runner could be overtaken, Harvard's last bubble of hope would be punctured.

"Yea! He's got him!" yelled the Yale supporter, crashing Davies over the head.

"He hasn't, either!" the Harvard grad shouted, with a shove which all but upset the rival rooter. "Look at that, will you?"

At the four-yard line the Yale tackler left his feet in a frantic dive. He struck the man with the ball just below the knees, and Broadhurst crumpled forward, giving a tugging leap. It may have been due to the fact that he was soaked to the skin and that the tackler's hands were wet and chilled; at any rate, the Eli's grip slipped to one leg, and, instead of going down, Broadhurst strained along, dragging his tackler after him. As he reached the goal line the two other Yale men sailed through the air and hit him. All four went down in a splashing fall. Then every one in the stands went wild.

With the strength of a team gone delirious with joy, the Crimson players took their positions in front of the Yale goal and prepared for the play which would give them a try at the extra point after touchdown. The stands rocked with tributes of noise, bestowing upon Broadhurst one of the most deafening ovations ever accorded a gridiron hero. He had fittingly redeemed himself. His blood-tingling length-of-the-field run in the last minute of play had tied the score at six to six.

Davies waited only long enough to see the water-soaked ball sail between the uprights for the winning point. Then he clambered over the seats and cut across the outraged gridiron in the direction of the clubhouse, unmindful of the fact that the mud had sucked off both his rubbers.

At the clubhouse, Carrington Davies encountered unexpected opposition in gaining admittance. It seemed that no one had known who he was and, what was more, no one seemed to care after being informed. Such crass ignorance irritated Davies greatly, but he held his patience. The disregard shown him was only due to the prevailing excitement. If any one of them had only stopped to think!

At last Davies rushed to the door and slid past, picking a hole between the burly door-tender and a rather uppish young substitute who C. R. D. ardently hoped would never become a regular.

Once inside, the going was easier. Players in different stages of dressing, and others still under the showers, glanced at him curiously as his eyes sought out but one individual--the Harvard quarterback.

"Where's Broadhurst?" Davies asked of the Crimson man nearest him.

"Other side of the lockers," the individual addressed answered gruffly. Then, as Davies followed the direction, he mumbled: "Who let that bird in?"

The latest Harvard hero was lacing a shoe when the former All-American quarterback came upon him. Davies paused a moment, looking down at the slim-lined figure sitting on the bench. He watched the slender fingers as they plucked feverishly at the shoe strings.

Evidently the boy was in a great hurry, Davies thought. He probably wanted to get out--to meet his sweetheart and to hear her tell him how wonderful she thought he was. Davies felt a gripping pang. He knew all about it. He had been there--exactly in Broadhurst's shoes--twenty years before.

After what seemed a dragging century, the young fellow finished lacing the shoe, looked up, and started. "Oh! I--I beg your pardon. Did you want to see me?"

Now that his opportunity for congratulation had come, Davies for some unknown reason, felt suddenly small and insignificant. He felt the clear blue eyes of the new Harvard star boring into his with kindly inquiry, and for once in his life old C. R. D. found himself stammering.

He did manage to extend his hand.

"I--I just wanted to tell you how much I--that is--it did me lots of good to see---- Oh, hang it! Signals over! What I mean to say is that I've followed Harvard football for over twenty years. You see, my name's Carrington R. Davies."

The Harvard quarterback continued shaking the stranger's hand politely; but there was no sign of recognition at mention of the name, only a slight frowning of the eyebrows.

C. R. D. noted this and his stammering became several degrees worse. "I--I--used to play quarterback on the Crimson, too."

The other's eyebrows lifted at this.

"And I--and I---- Well, of course you wouldn't remember; but it was just such a day as this--twenty years ago--that I---- Perhaps you've heard tell of it?" C. R. D. brought up lamely, loath to relate the entire incident and hoping that Broadhurst would recall hearing of it.

The Harvard quarterback shook his head, but there was an interested gleam in his eyes. "Why, no. I'm sorry, sir; but I----"

"Well," the former All-American quarterback broke in desperately, "I made a ninety-five-yard run for a touchdown in the last minute of play and won the game against Yale, much as you did--to-day."

There was a deep-throated chuckle from young Broadhurst. "Then it's you, sir, who deserve congratulations!"

"No, no. That's not the point," insisted Davies, with a sense of giddy bungling. "That's really not the point. I just mentioned it because I--because I couldn't help thinking of it, that's all. I couldn't help thinking of myself from the moment I saw you out there, free, with the game at stake, making for the Yale goal. It was just like looking at a moving picture of myself--twenty years ago. You'll pardon me, Broadhurst, I know. Nothing's ever gripped me like that run of yours this afternoon. Nothing!"

Davies was in the swing of things now. He had recovered from his embarrassment and was pouring out his feelings in a flow of words which tumbled over themselves to get expressed. Broadhurst was the one who was embarrassed this time. He looked down at the floor and shifted his feet awkwardly and tried to draw away his hand, but the stranger only gripped it the tighter.

The Harvard quarterback shot a glance about the locker room, relieved to see that no one appeared to be noticing them. Every one was interested in his own business, anxious to get outside and join the victory-crazed celebrators.

"I was with you every step of the way," Davies went on. "When you slipped, I slipped. When you straight-armed the Yale man, I straight-armed him, too. Everything you did all the way to the goal line, I did. It was almost uncanny. Even when they tackled you as you went over for a touchdown and pounded you into the mud--that's just what happened to me. So I have you to thank more than to congratulate, Broadhurst, for we both know what it means to have done our best for the good old Crimson. And you have helped me to live over one of the happiest, most thrilling moments of my life!"

The Harvard quarterback withdrew his hand. The stranger turned away to hide eyes which brimmed with tears.

"I--I'm glad, sir," was all that Broadhurst could think of to say.

Davies stiffened, chagrined at himself for his show of feeling. He was a silly, sentimental old fool, inflicting his childishness upon a gentlemanly young fellow who was too kind and sportsmanlike to show distaste or offense. But why should any one else be interested in his, Carrington R. Davies' feelings, or the fact that, twenty years before, he had scored a touchdown?

"Well, I'm keeping you from going out. I'll be taking leave," remarked the All-American quarterback, backing off apologetically.

"Don't be in a hurry," Broadhurst said, reaching out for his dress shirt, but obviously glad to be about his business. "I'll be through in a minute and then----"

Whatever else the Harvard quarterback may have said was lost upon Davies. He was quite instantly, unexpectedly, and acutely made conscious of something extremely coincidental. The arm that reached out to take the shirt from the locker had the slip of a crimson bow tied about the wrist.

Davies rubbed a hand across his eyes and looked again. How he had missed seeing that bow before he could not understand. But it was certainly there. Infernally peculiar! It was certainly there.

Broadhurst, noting the stranger's stunned expression, stopped, his shirt half on, to inquire what was the matter.

"Why--why nothing--only that bow. You--you'll probably think me odd--but, do you mind my--my taking a good look at it?"

The Harvard quarterback held out his arm with a slight gesture of impatience. Davies took the hand and studied the bit of ribbon. Of course, it wasn't--but didn't it beat the devil how everything had worked out this day? Either that or he was suddenly losing his mind. Perhaps that was it. He had brooded so long over the affair of his youth that at last it had affected his brain.

The ribbon was wet--and soiled--and--this, he thought, could easily be his imagination--it was actually a trifle faded. But it did look strangely familiar, strangely like the one that a dear, trusting girl had tied about his wrist, and that he had sealed there with a kiss twenty years before. It was infernally peculiar. That was all there was to it. Infernally peculiar!

Davies straightened up, to find the Harvard quarterback at the point of exasperation.

"I don't blame you for thinking me out of my mind," sympathized C. R. D. "And I may be, for all I know. So many ungodly things have happened to me to-day. But--if it's not being too personal--where did you get that bow? From your sweetheart?"

There was almost a contemptuous note in Broadhurst's voice as he started to button his shirt. "No! My mother."

Davies felt his knees give way beneath him and he dropped down heavily upon the bench, staring up at the Harvard quarterback, unbelievingly. "Your--your mother?"

"Yes. What's wrong with that?" demanded Broadhurst, picking up collar and tie. "It's a good-luck charm," he explained curtly; then he added with a smile: "And it sure worked to-day!"

"A--a good-luck charm?" echoed Davies weakly. "A good-luck---- Say! Your mother--I mean, is your father--living?"

The Harvard quarterback paused in his tying of a four-in-hand to shoot a puzzled glance at the evidently insane stranger. "No, sir. He died before I was born."

"Oh, I see," Davies mumbled, conscious of his heart thumping in his ears. "But your name--Broadhurst? Was that your father's?"

This question was almost too much for the latest Harvard hero. He spun his locker door shut with a bang. "Why certainly!" Then, wheeling upon his questioner, he asked: "Why wouldn't it be?"

"I--I thought perhaps your mother might have married again and that you--you took the name of your--your stepfather," hazarded Davies.

"See here. I don't know what you're driving at, but I don't like your insinuations. My mother was married only once, and she----"

"Listen!" broke in Davies excitedly. "If I'm not badly mistaken, your real name's Carrington R. Davies. I mean--perhaps not Carrington R.--but Davies anyway!"

"You don't know what you're talking about. My name's Carrington Nubbins Broadhurst!"

"Carrington Nubbins. It is! Well, why didn't you say so? But you're all wrong on the last name. Where's your mother? I've got to see her. Why, confound it, old boy, I'm your father!"

Five palpitating seconds of electrifying silence followed Davies' fervent outburst. Then C. R. D. spoke again, in a voice that was husky with pent-up emotion and the shock of it all.

"Where's your mother? I've been twenty years trying to find her. Oh, God, this is wonderful! You--my son!"

Still the young man who went by the name of Broadhurst stood, unspeaking, undecided as to what to make of this rabidly serious personage who, not alone satisfied with claiming prestige for performing a gridiron feat similar to his, was now trying to claim a part in his parentage.

"It was twenty years ago," explained Davies appealingly, "almost to the day, when, just before the game with Yale, I met your mother--met her in a secluded spot under the stands. There was a cold rain falling, and I can remember how we pressed up close against the stands to keep from getting soaked. And she took that little crimson bow from about her neck and tied it around my wrist. I can even recall exactly what she said. It was, 'Here, take this--it's your token of good luck.'" Davies' voice broke at this and tears glazed the eyes of even the Harvard quarterback.

"I--I guess there must be something to it, all right," confessed the youth who had been surnamed Broadhurst, the name his mother had taken. "That's just what mother did this afternoon--insisted on meeting me under the stands, and--and tied on this bow--and said those same words!"

It was a peculiar sight--had any one been there to see it--a grown-up man and a growing man clasping hands, their faces wet and streaked.

"I'm taking mother to dinner tonight," said the younger man softly, after what seemed like an hour of understanding silence.

"No--you mean that I'm taking mother and you," corrected the old-time player firmly. Then, leaning over, he touched the crimson bow reverently and asked: "I--I wonder if you'd let me wear that to-night? I want her to see me with it on. I want her to know that Davies played the game!"

"BUTTER FINGERS"

How did "Rus" Lindley get his nickname, "Butter Fingers"? Now _I'll_ ask _you_ one! "Why did the guys call six foot Harry Tibbits, 'Shorty'?" Answer that and you've answered your own question about "Rus."

I guess, if you'd go into the science of nicknames far enough you'd find that the name you can pick which comes the furtherest from fitting who you're picking it for is the one that suits the best! There--how's that for getting rid of an involved sentence?

At any rate, if "Rus" really deserved to be dubbed "Butter Fingers" then the moon is really made of green cheese and the cow really did jump over it and all that stuff. Because if there was one thing that "Rus" _wasn't_, it was _butter fingers_.

"Rus" was a lean, lanky, long-armed, awkward, thin-nosed cuss that you'd think, to look at, didn't have an ounce of ambition or a pint of sense. The next minute you'd wake up to find the ounce a hundred pounds of condensed lightning and the pint a couple of gallons of trigger thinking. That's the kind of a surprise package "Rus" was. And, brother, look out!! If "Rus" ever had occasion to lay hands on you he didn't let go until he got good and ready. Try your _durndest_ and you couldn't shake loose the grip he carried in those long, slender fish hooks of his. "Butter Fingers"?

What a laugh! "Rus" was never known to have muffed anything in his life!

It was "Butter Fingers" who climbed the greased pole and took down the Senior colors his Freshman year. It was "Butter Fingers" who untied the wet knots in the fellows' clothes the time we Sophies got caught swimming in the Old Bend, thus saving us from a most embarrassing situation. It was "Butter Fingers" who hung by his digits from a window sill on the fourth story of our dorm when she was burning down ... hung there ten minutes till the firemen got a ladder under him after he'd been cut off from the stairs. He saved seven roommates by that sure-grip of his, swinging them from a window where they were trapped and sending them down the stairs ahead of him before the fire put the stairs out of commission.

And who but "Butter Fingers" could have "human-fly-ed" it up the front of the old stone chapel, clear up into the belfry? Of course he did it on a dare but those wonder fingers of his just pulled him up, catching hold of places that the ordinary person would tear their finger nails on and cry thirteen bloody murders from the strain of hanging to crevices by the finger tips.

That was "Butter Fingers"!

But, using the words of Al Jolson, "You ain't heard nothin' yet!" What I've just got through telling you was just practice exercises for the bird with the muscular mitts, the uncanny grip, the steam shovel hands and the never-break-clutch.

Say, I hope you're not getting this "Butter Fingers" wrong. He was long, lean, lanky, awkward, thin-nosed and all that ... but he wasn't built like a foundry. His hands weren't extra large, either ... excepting that the fingers were extra long. He only weighed a hundred and fifty-one pounds which isn't much when you're thinking in terms of football and so much for so tall. That's where "Butter Fingers" had you fooled. You had to see him in action before you'd believe what "Rus" Lindley could do.

Was he modest? He was so quiet and unassuming that you could hear his watch ticking in his vest pocket! Was he athletic? Don't be ridiculous! If he wasn't athletic anywhere but in his fingers he'd have been athletic enough. As it was, he was the best end that ever played on a football eleven representing Burden High!

What makes you think "Butter Fingers" was a freak? He wasn't born strong-fingered. Naw. He had to develop it. What made him do it? Well, I don't know as I could answer that exactly. I remember "Butter Fingers" saying once he'd gotten a kick out of chinning himself ever since he was a baby. Sure! You don't chin yourself with your chin ... you chin yourself with your ... anyhow it's mostly done with your grip! You get a hold of a bar or something and pull your body up rigid! All right, then! Why didn't you say you'd tried it? Ain't so easy, is it? Especially after the tenth time!

Can you imagine what sort of an end a guy with a powerful grip could make? Can you figure what would happen to a football if "Butter Fingers" ever laid his grapplers on it? And can you picture a runner trying to get away from a tackle by a bird like "Rus"? A fly might as well try to pull its feet off a sheet of sticky fly paper as a runner to jerk loose from "Butter Fingers" once he's got him.

Would you like to hear how "Butter Fingers" won his undying fame? Have I got the time? No, but I'll take time. This story's worth it!

Just make yourself as comfortable as possible. You'd better sit on the edge of your chair, though, because that's where you'll be before very long anyway. And I'll start right in at the beginning so you won't miss any of the picture.

First, you got to get a close-up of this fellow, "Rus" Lindley. He's the kind they describe in the movies as "Oliver, who takes everything seriously--including football." Before any of the guys nicknamed him "Butter Fingers," "Rus" was just an ordinary, awkward candidate for the team ... but while he was picking up bumps in practice he was likewise putting on bumps of knowledge. "Rus" had one of them scientific slants of mind and he always had to figure why he was supposed to do a certain thing a certain way. Once he'd found out the reason he was satisfied. Professor Tweedy, our "math" teacher, used to say that "Rus" was a "natural born thinker." But geometry and trigonometry weren't the only subjects that "Rus" approached from all angles. He used his bean at all times and places.

That's why, when "Rus" went out for football, he felt called upon to exercise his gray matter. It was perfectly obvious to him, for instance, after a careful study of the rudiments of the game, that the weather might seriously alter one's style of play.

"Take the difference between a dry field and a wet field," he says to me, one afternoon, "I'm surprised the coach doesn't make us practice with a wet ball and the field soaked down. The almanac indicates rain three Saturdays this fall and the signs couldn't be any worse for torrential precipitation on the Saturday we play Edgewood. What's that going to mean? Simply that the luckiest team wins! But if the coach used the little mechanism inside his bean it might mean that the _smartest team_ would win. What made Napoleon great was his dry land operations. But, oh boy, didn't he get _soaked_ at _Waterloo_! Of course that's a rather far-fetched illustration. Just the same, you've got to know how to handle yourself under all conditions or you're practically sunk before you start!"

I agreed with "Rus" not feeling equal to stacking my brain up against his, and besides he has a way of making things sound darn logical. Seeing as how the coach seemed to be overlooking a good bet, "Rus" decides that he's going to get the training he should have anyway. So we meet one night after football practice in his backyard.

"This is what I'd call a laboratory experiment," explains "Rus" as he soaks down the back lawn with the garden hose, "The other boys would probably give us the merry ha ha if they saw what we're going to do but if my theory's right we'll see the day when we can laugh up our own sleeves!"

When the lawn's nice and oozy and slippery from super-saturation, "Rus" turns the water on the football and gets it just as wet as though it had fallen in a lake.

"All right, Mark," he says to me, "I'll hit the dirt first. This kind of practice isn't exactly going to be pleasant but it has a good chance of proving profitable. Now you stand over there and roll that football across the grass. I'm going to try to fall on it!"

It's easy enough for me to do what "Rus" directs. But it's not so easy for "Rus" to do what he intends. We're dressed in our football togs, of course, right down to the cleated shoes. But even at that the grass is so sleek that the footing's as treacherous as a polished ball room floor. On his first try, "Rus" slips and falls flat before he gets to the ball and the pigskin rolls to the fence.

"There went the chance to save the game!" he points out as he gets to his feet. "Let's try her again!"

Honest, you never saw anybody that's such a glutton for punishment! "Rus" gets sopping wet and all grass-stained and dog-tired but he keeps me throwing that football in all sorts of zig-zag bounces across the lawn till it's so dark that the street lights come on. And then he apologizes for not having traded off with me so's I could have got some of the same experience. "I'm just as well satisfied," I answers. "You don't need to feel bad about that!"

"We'll do it again, every chance we get," says "Rus," not seeming to notice my lack of enthusiasm, "I'm rotten! I missed at least half my dives. And as for scooping the ball up on the run, wasn't I pitiful? But that's what an end's got to be able to do and yours truly isn't going to make a bad muff in a game if he can help it!"

Being a friend of "Rus's" and practically a next door neighbor as well as a team-mate, I can't really turn the serious-minded bird down. Besides, I have to admit to myself that it's darn interesting watching the vim that "Rus" puts into this secret practice. Some nights it's mighty chilly and with the grass wet down it's enough to make your spinal column wriggle, but "Rus" never seems to mind.

"The most annoying part of this thing for me," says "Rus," "is 'Mom's' objection to my draping these wet togs over her radiators. She claims the house smells like a Chinese laundry every night. I tell her she must be a good sport and put up with it for the good of the team!"

Say, you'd be surprised, after a couple of weeks, to see how "Rus" improves! It gets to be marvelous the way he can tear across the lawn, reach down with those long fingers, scoop that slippery pigskin up and keep right on going toward what he imagines is the enemy's goal!

"Preparedness!" he'd smile at me. "That's one of the greatest words in the English language! I want to be ready when the fumble comes!"