Chapter 9

The game with Hale had been a genuine eye-opener. Elliott's 20 to 6 victory had hardly been looked for and neither had the startling performance of one Tim Mooney whose open field running had made two touchdowns possible and whose talented toe had kicked two field goals. A new star had arisen to add to Coach Brown's constellation of developed gridiron heroes.

On the strength of Mooneyes work alone, football authorities were now willing to concede Elliott a chance against Larwood, second of the Big Three, which was to be met the following Saturday. But Delmar, last and bitterest enemy of Elliott--a college noted for the consistent power of its football elevens and this season rated as possessing the greatest team in the country--was considered a good thirty to forty points better than Coach Brown's aggregation at its strongest.

"What! Mooney banned off the team!"

When the news of Coach Brown's drastic action flashed through the Elliott student body it was greeted by a storm of indignant and growing protest. A petition was immediately drawn up and sent the rounds asking John Brown to reconsider his expelling of Mooney. The petition was as nearly one hundred per cent as a petition could be. But the petition failed to move the coach. Those who reflected on his past history reported gloomily that once the coach took a stand on anything he was like several rocks of Gibraltar.

Ruth Chesterton, the girl indirectly responsible for Tim Mooney's dismissal, felt greatly upset over the whole affair. She had thought Coach Brown's bed time regulation a silly old rule until it had operated against her hero. Now she was one of the most rebellious in her attitude toward the man whom many people referred to familiarly as J. B. So, the petition had failed to do any good? Well, she knew what she would do! She would go to him and tell him what she thought about the matter and then what could he do but rescind his action?

But when the irate Miss Chesterton came into the presence of the great John Brown she suddenly quailed. She couldn't tell exactly why she quailed but she found it exceedingly difficult to look into the crystal-pointed blue of J. B.'s eyes and say the things she was going to say. Instead, she felt somehow like a foolish little girl who had been used to having her own way at all costs and who had now met up with a man who knew her better than her own father.

She was conscious almost at once of the smooth tufts of silvery hair about this man's temples and the great furrowed line across his forehead, the firmly set mouth, the broad shoulders--the trace of a smile as he leaned toward her and said, in a kindly inquiring manner, "Well?"

And that one word, peculiar as it may seem, had unnerved her or disarmed her, she didn't know which. There crept over Ruth Chesterton a sense of guilt. She found herself stammering and stumbling.

"Please, sir ... I'm the girl that Mr. Mooney went out with when he broke the rules."

"Oh--you are?"

"Yes, sir."

An embarrassed pause.

"Well--what of it?"

"Why, I ... I thought perhaps you'd like to see me."

That wasn't the right thing to say. Ruth knew it the moment she had uttered it but she had never felt more uncomfortable in her life.

"Me--like to see you? Why should you have thought that?" There was a trace of ironic amusement in the coach's voice.

"Why--why because I was sort of responsible for Mr. Mooney's breaking the rules."

"Did he send you here?"

This question did much to bring Ruth back en her feet.

"No, sir! I came of my own free will. He doesn't know anything about it. He isn't that kind, Mr. Brown. He's taken all the blame--and it's really more my fault than his--lots more. I--I encouraged him to--to go out with me those nights ... I didn't think it would do any harm ... and you'll have to admit yourself that ten o'clock is pretty early," Ruth added, as she gained courage.

"Sorry, young lady, but the question of time is not debatable. Mr. Mooney broke the rules and that ends it..."

"But, Mr. Brown ... won't you ... I mean ... the team ... or rather, the game with Larwood. Won't he be needed?"

The coach nodded, frankly.

"I shouldn't be surprised."

"Then perhaps--well, maybe if folks understood just how he came to break the rules... I'd be glad to..."

John Brown raised his hand in a waving gesture.

"It's done now--and what's done cannot be helped. The time for you to have thought of the consequences was before you tempted your friend to ignore the restrictions."

Ruth, sensing that she was getting nowhere, decided to throw herself entirely upon John Brown's sympathy.

"Mr. Brown ... if I tell you that I'm awfully, awfully sorry and that I'll never, never interfere with anyone keeping rules again, would you...?"

The coach shook his head, giving a sharp, deep-throated laugh. Then the lines in his face hardened, the furrowed crease stiffened--ridge-like--and he leaned forward compellingly.

"You are not sorry because Tim Mooney's loss to the team may mean the loss of the game--or games. You are sorry only for Mr. Mooney and the limelight his playing might reflect upon you. Pardon my frankness but I know your type well. You are a disciple of this individual freedom cult which has swept the world. You have regarded rules as being made only for the thrill and pleasure of breaking. It has pleased your vanity that Mr. Mooney should have chosen your company rather than the observance of football regulations, A loyal Elliott girl, having a friend on the team, would have insisted on keeping training rules with him. But, not you! You've been a thoughtless traitor to your college. And now perhaps your joy will be complete when I tell you that your act may come close to costing me the ambition of my life. Good day!"

Shocked by the sudden, burning reprimand and the blunt abruptness of her dismissal, Ruth sat for a few prickly seconds staring at the coach. Then she arose and, in place of being indignant, walked sobbingly from the room!

The following Saturday, minus the services of Tim Mooney, Elliott went down to a bitter, heart-rending defeat at the hands of Larwood, losing by the hard-fought score of 7 to 0. Five times during this blood-tingling conflict, Elliott drove the ball down inside the enemy's ten yard line but somehow, every one of these times, just missed the punch which would have taken it over. Throughout the game, and especially at the moments when Elliott was in possession of her golden scoring opportunities, the stands had madly implored for Mooney.

"Mooney! Mooney! Give us Mooney!" they had chanted.

And after the game Elliott fans took occasion to warmly denounce Coach Brown for the discipline he had employed which had deprived Elliott University of what would have been one of her most notable victories in years. The press of the nation was full to overflowing of newsprint that day either attacking or defending the great John Brown. Most sport writers were of the opinion that the famous coach had only himself to blame for the defeat, poking much fun at his ten o'clock law. A few of the more orthodox ones, however, credited John Brown with having put law and order above victory, and lauded the personal sacrifice he had made in so doing. But Elliott, crazed at having been given a taste of athletic fruits after so long a time of starving, could not reconcile herself at not having been able to eat the whole apple. As time ticked on, Larwood's defeat of Elliott seemed more and more uncalled for ... and the abuse of John Brown grew and grew.

What Coach Brown's thoughts were on the situation no one knew. He had scarcely been seen since the game and he had stayed so close to his room--it had been reported--that he had even had his meals sent up to him, refusing all interviews as well as callers. This in itself was unusual--but that was John Brown. Eccentricity was expected of a man who had been in the habit of accomplishing such astounding results with raw human material and a football. To those who flattered themselves that they reasoned, it was decided that John Brown, incurring popular disfavor, had taken the simplest and most effective course of curbing drastic comment by giving his antagonists no object to shoot at. After all, right or wrong, Coach Brown was in charge of the team and it had been through his efforts solely that Elliott had been able to even give Larwood a fight.

Every Monday, following a game, it was a custom among coaches to review the previous Saturday's struggle, calling attention to the errors of omission and commission as well as stressing the strong points of play. Coach Brown's analyses of games had been regarded by many as classics--some even called them scholarly treatises--but, at any rate, the Monday hour in the Elliott clubhouse was recognized as the education period par excellence of the entire week in football circles and everyone who could possibly command a right to attend was there to hear the contests cussed and discussed play by play.

"Wonder what thunderbolt J. B. will have up his sleeve for us this time?" every Elliott football man was asking himself as he headed for the clubhouse the Monday after the Larwood battle.

It was certain that John Brown would say something distinctly significant. His stone silence over the week-end would indicate that. Whatever his reactions to the boiling pot of criticism which had been stewed over him, the team could expect to get most of these reactions in the form of sharply defined lightning thrusts at weaknesses which--to Coach Brown--had been responsible for Elliott's failure to win. Team members instinctively knew that, so far as Tim Mooney was concerned, John Brown would regard him as though he had never lived. The coach would chalk up the defeat--not against Mooney's absence from the line-up--but against the team individually or collectively failing to come through in some particular. They knew this because John Brown had emphasized, in some outstanding past instances, that "Games are never won by the men on the sidelines but by the eleven on the field."

At the clubhouse the hands of the old wooden-faced clock pointed to five minutes after four. This was fifteen minutes past the time that the Monday talk usually began. Players, lounging in the locker room, looked at one another in silent wonderment and then strolled toward the windows and gazed out down the walk which led through a lane of trees to the campus. As the clock droned the quarter hour, Red Murdock--assistant coach--got up, with an air of uneasiness, and sauntered to the door and stood, peering. An unnatural quiet fell upon those present. Coach Brown had never been late before. Punctuality had been one of his iron-clad rules. And now he had kept them sitting there, in growing impatience and suspense, some twenty-five minutes!

Suddenly the assistant coach straightened up and stepped from the door. Automatically the players changed from lounging positions to attitudes of expectant attention. And every face cried to heaven of the exclamation, "Ah,--he's coming!"

There followed the sound of feet on the sidewalk--a firm, measured tread which grew methodically nearer until it stopped abruptly at the threshold. A moment more and a figure filled the doorway. But such a figure! John Brown to be sure--yet a different John Brown, an older John Brown; a sadder John Brown. His face looked white--not so white as the chalk lines on the gridiron--but unusually white. And there was a drawn quality about it with a certain weariness under the eyes. All this no one could help but notice as he stood in the doorway, facing them. Yet, when the face relaxed into the smile that everyone had grown to love, its white, drawn weariness was forgotten. The coach was himself again.

"Well, boys, you've got one on me this time. Sorry to have kept you waiting."

John Brown advanced into the room, nodding a greeting to Red Murdock. He lifted a foot and placed it upon the empty end of a bench on which some players were seated, leaning over to rest his elbow on his upraised knee and his chin upon the palm of his hand. He stood thus, the thumb of his other hand run in under his belt strap, his cap pulled well down so that the band of the rim seemed almost to press against the furrowed line of his forehead. Just a simple, unaffected pose perhaps--but somehow, this tardy Monday afternoon, it held a touch of the dramatic.

"Team--I have a little surprise for you to-day," said the great John Brown. "We're not going to discuss Saturday's game with Larwood, The game itself has been discussed enough by everyone who saw it. But I would like to say to you and let it be heralded as coming from me, that I never hope to see a more perfect game of football than you men of Elliott played against Larwood!"

Could the roof have crashed in unexpectedly at that instant it could have caused no more profound astonishment than this most surprising of tributes from the lips of John Brown. Was he suddenly gone crazy--or was he about to perpetrate some biting joke?

A substitute, anticipating a sarcastic follow-up, let out a mirthful cackle.

"All right, you're through for the day." The coach gave the order without raising his voice nor even looking at the culprit. He waited until the chagrined disturber had slunk out before resuming.

"I mean it, men. My idea of perfect play Is when a team performs strictly as it has been coached to perform ... following a system through to the very last regardless of the breaks of the game or the preconceived notions of the individual players. That is team-work in the fullest--that is genuine football. That you failed to win does not alter the fact that you gave a faultless exhibition insofar as your experience and training permitted. Saturday you were by no means the greatest team I have ever coached, but you were by all odds the fightingest, willingest bunch of grid warriors that, in my estimation, ever wore moleskins!"

The coach paused and shifted his position to the other knee while the Elliott men sat like a group of badly fussed and dumbfounded school boys. Even Red Murdock could not conceal a look of frank bewilderment. What on earth was the great John Brown driving at? He had never heard the coach extol an eleven before. This was a most radical departure....

"A comparatively green line and a green backfield and yet you held Larwood to one touchdown and threatened her goal five different times! There is victory enough for me in that achievement...."

Forgetting their embarrassment at the praise which was being heaped upon them, a change began to creep over the team members--a sort of magical change which stiffened spines and raised heads with a growing pride. Gone was the inward despondency which had gripped them since their gruelling loss to Larwood. And in its place...?

Quick to note this rousing transformation, Red Murdock--assistant coach--fought back a smile and the simultaneous inclination to kick himself.

"Strike me for a dumb-bell! J. B. sure knows his stuff. He realizes he's dealing with practically new and little seasoned men ... and he's trying to save their morale and bolster it up for the biggest game of the year--against Delmar. Criticism at this stage of development would eat their hearts out. He's feeding them... but oh, aren't they eating it? They've turned to putty in his hands right now!"

This much Red Murdock told himself while Coach Brown was pacing impulsively across the room and back. The wily old fox still! And the Elliott men leaning forward breathlessly, hanging upon his every word.

"But what you _have_ done is nothing as compared to what you _can_ do! This week you are going to learn how to beat Delmar ... and next Saturday you are going to do it!"

An involuntary gasp escaped the lips of John Brown's listeners.

"You are going to do it because I have faith in you and I am going to see you through. I..."

The face of John Brown returned suddenly back to its chalk-like white; the flash sunk out of his eyes, leaving weary rings; the drawn quality took hold of his cheek muscles--and his foot slipped off the bench to the floor as he clutched impulsively at his shirt front.

"I..."

A dozen hands caught the great John Brown as he slumped forward and fell.

There was the mad moment of bringing water, of applying restoratives, of sending out a rush call for Doctor Landon. Then the quieter, more chilling moment when the doctor had come ... and had looked up ... and shaken his head.

Newspapers were kindly enough now. They told how the great John Brown had been stricken down at the height of his brilliant career. They intimated that the strain of developing a winning team at Elliott had taken its toll, together with the loss of the Larwood game and its attendant _unjust_ criticism. Colleges throughout the country went into mourning. Football practices were curtailed as a mark of respect and memorial services were held. At Naylor there was talk of a monument to place in their Hall of Fame. The sporting populace at large sincerely grieved over the passing of this nationally revered figure who had contributed much to football in particular and all athletics in general.

But it was natural that Elliott should take Coach Brown's passing hardest of all. A difference of opinion sprung up at once as to whether the last game of the season should be played. Some argued that the game should be cancelled as a tribute to John Brown's memory, while others--who claimed to know J. B. the best--wondered if this were the sort of tribute that the famous coach would have appreciated. Had he not left his body with the message to "carry on" on his lips? Had not his dying words been a fervent exhortation to the team to buckle down to the strenuous task of preparing to meet and, if humanly possible, to defeat Delmar? In the light of Delmar's imposing season's record, the coach's last talk may have seemed preposterous for the colossal faith he was seemingly placing in his system and his ill-experienced but fighting team. Yet John Brown had died with his face to the front--ready to meet his biggest test head-on, and--under these circumstances it would be a good thing for Elliott and the entire football world if the game were gone through with on schedule.

There were two individuals at Elliott who mourned as one--a big-framed, well proportioned fellow and a slender-lined, sweet-faced girl. Their sorrow over J. B.'s loss had been made all the more inconsolable because of certain previous events now stamped indelibly upon their minds and magnified to the point of causing them much remorse. Perhaps they should not have taken the happening quite so much to heart but Tim Mooney and Ruth Chesterton somehow felt as though they had been condemned in the eyes of the coach and his demise now offered them no opportunity to redeem themselves.

When the Elliott board of control, after a special called session of great solemnity, announced its decision to permit the looming contest with Delmar to be played there was much sober rejoicing. The athletic world figuratively wore a mourning band on its arm but there had been born a sense of thrill in its heart such as the prospects of no other gridiron battle had aroused. The demand for seats at the Elliott stadium became unprecedented. Authorities, harassed from all sides by the frenzied petition for pasteboards, ordered the construction of temporary stands but the clamor soon outgrew all bounds of accommodation.

It was estimated that some fifty thousand fans must be denied the spectacle of Coach John Brown's last team meeting the tartar of all football elevens in Delmar. There was little doubt as to what would be the outcome of the game but the conditions under which the game was to be played were such as to raise interest to the highest human pitch.

It had been decreed that there should be no vying of rival cheering sections with one another--a rather foolish decree, some thought--finding it hard to imagine a football contest devoid of the familiar and on-spurring "Rah, rahs." But this was an idea that the faculty had devised as a mark of respect and no one could criticize the spirit which had prompted the formulation of the decree. No, if the game were to be played the proper tribute to John Brown must, at the same time, not be lost sight of. And what could be more significantly impressive than a crowd numbering upwards of seventy thousand, watching a football contest in profound silence?

Wednesday night, after Red Murdock had got back to his room from the services held for his beloved leader, he was surprised by a tap on the door.

"Don't wish to be disturbed," he said.

"But I--it's very important, sir," intreated a voice from the other side.

"Can't help it!" he snapped, his irritation being due to the enormous responsibility which had fallen upon him. "See me tomorrow."

For answer the doorknob turned and the door swung inward. The assistant coach raised his head, about to make angry protest, but the protest melted on his lips at what he saw. Standing in the hallway was the grim and resolute figure of Tim Mooney.

"I beg your pardon, sir--but I've just got to see you tonight!"

"Well,--all right. Come in."

The former Elliott fullback stepped through the doorway and pushed the door shut after him, nervously. He came over toward the man who had been forced into the unenviable role of trying to fill Coach Brown's great shoes, and stood--fumbling with his cap. There was an awkward moment, broken finally by Red Murdock.

"You said you had something important. Let's get it over quickly. I don't feel like...."

Tim Mooney crumpled the cap in his large right hand and raised the fist in an appealing gesture.

"It's just this, sir... I didn't have to--being off the squad--but I've kept every regulation since. And I want to go in. I'd give my right arm to go in. I--I--somehow I feel like I'd been partly responsible for J. B.'s death!"

"You shouldn't feel that way, Mooney."

"Perhaps not ... but I can't help it.... If we'd only won from Larwood. But we can't lose to Delmar, Mr. Murdock. We can't! No matter how strong Delmar is we've got to beat 'em ... for J. B.'s sake. Please, sir ... won't you reinstate me just for this game? After that I'm through. I'll never play again so long as I live..." Mooney choked. "I guess there's no flowers our coach would like better than a victory over Delmar. Won't you let me help try to give 'em to him?"

There was something in Tim Mooney's appeal that was heart-rending. Tears glistened in the former Elliott fullback's eyes and found their reflection in the eyes of John Brown's assistant coach.

"Mooney," spoke Red Murdock, with difficulty, "I know just how you feel. I played for J. B. once and I'd have given as much for him in life as you're now willing to give to him in death. I can't refuse you, boy. You play. Report for practice tomorrow night!"

Outside the brown-stoned house and across the street from the place in which Red Murdock had his room, a girl paced up and down, taking care to keep within the gathering shadows. Every once in a while she would stop, just opposite the house, and gaze anxiously at the entrance. The time of her waiting seemed a young eternity to her though in all it could not have been more than ten minutes. And then the figure she had been looking for emerged. He glanced about, saw her, and both started toward each other.

"What did he say?" she cried, breathlessly.

The former Elliott fullback did not attempt a verbal reply. He simply reached out and gripped the hands of the girl, as they met, and nodded his head.