CHAPTER X

JUST KITTENS

They were everywhere; flaunting along the dormitory corridors, in the lavatories, on the bulletin boards, spread under window sills, tacked to innumerable trees. You encountered one at every few steps, no matter where you went. They were even to be seen in the classrooms――until the instructors arrived! The school stared and marveled. The absurd things had not been in sight last evening, and now they had fairly taken possession of the buildings and grounds. Breathless Juniors, returning from scouting expeditions afield, reported that the front of the grand stand was almost hidden by the white paper strips with the bold blue lettering. For something like two hours the football game ceased to be the all-absorbing topic. Here was a fine and intriguing mystery! Some one――or, more probably, several some ones――had gone about under cover of midnight darkness and plastered the school from end to end and top to bottom as it had never been plastered before in its history. The difficulties of the undertaking challenged imagination and the thoroughness of its execution appealed to admiration. In brief, Wyndham saw, marveled and applauded, and then asked, quite allowably, “What’s it all about?”

“No Defeats!” What kind of defeats? Football? That was absolutely crazy, because one was due in about six hours. Still, crazy or not, it must be football defeats that the paper strips meant, for it wasn’t likely that any one――or any number of ones――would go to all that trouble in honor of the debating team! Yes, sir, it meant no defeats on the gridiron! What did you think of that? Cuckoo? Sure, but just the same it was――well, it was rather a magnificent gesture, wasn’t it? And some fellows had certainly worked like beavers to put it over! One would certainly like to know who had done it, by gosh!

There were six fellows who could have told, but they didn’t. At least, not just then. Perhaps Sherlock Holmes, had he been called in on the case, might have solved the mystery. One can imagine him passing the fellows in review and saying at intervals: “Ah, my dear fellow, you yawn! Your eyes have a heavy look, as though your slumber had been interfered with. Or perhaps you were up a bit late last evening. Watson, you observe, do you not, that the young gentleman seems a trifle done up? Thank you, my dear Watson!”

But Mr. Holmes didn’t appear and the identity of the bill posters remained unrevealed for the present.

“No Defeats!” Well, at that, it was a corking slogan, and if the dumb-bells hadn’t balled things up by taking on a team of world-beating giants like the Jordan Academy team there’d be some sense in it. Because, when you thought of it, it would be a simply ripping stunt to get through the season without being licked, wouldn’t it? And think how you could howl that at a game! “No Defeats! No Defeats! No Defeats!” Swell, what? If a miracle took place and Wyndham _did_ get through to-day―― But, of course, she wouldn’t. That was too much to expect. Just the same, it was too bad that slogan couldn’t have been made use of. It certainly was a swell yowl! You’d tell the world!

Fortunately――and designedly――the midnight bill posters had committed no offense against school laws so far as the location of the placards was concerned. They had not defaced school property “by the driving of nails, tacks or patented devices,” as the rules had it. The placards had been attached by dabs of paste, readily removable from woodwork, or, as on the trees, secured with toothpicks. Perhaps faculty might have made an issue of the affair had it cared to, but I suspect that faculty was as intrigued as the students by the coup. In any case, it was considered by those who had effected the decorating wise to remain perdue for the time being.

Clif’s father made his first trip of the term to Freeburg that morning and Clif was at the inn when he arrived. Being very glad indeed to see his father again after nearly a month, Clif affected an offhand manner which, while it may have deceived Mr. Otis, who came out on the porch at the moment, was quite understood by Mr. Bingham. The latter had discovered that at the age of seventeen demonstrations of affection are taboo. Even, however, if Clif was secretly delighted by the reunion he did not propose to fail in his duty as a son. It didn’t do for a fellow to allow his emotions to make him too lenient. So, when greetings had been exchanged, Clif stood off and viewed the dusty touring car from front bumper to rear. Then he asked sternly: “Dad, when did you have the car washed last?”

“Well,” replied Mr. Bingham evasively, “you see, son, I’ve been using it a good deal lately――” Then he encountered Clif’s compelling stare and ended lamely: “Must be nearly a week ago, Clif.”

“Thought so,” grunted Clif. “And you’ve still got that old, worn-out spare on back, haven’t you? Dad, I told you you ought to get a new one. That thing wouldn’t last twenty miles if you had to use it.”

“I’ve been intending to do that, son, but it’s sort of slipped my mind. I’ll order a new one first thing Monday morning.”

Clif looked as if he had still another matter on his mind, but just then Mr. Otis came down the steps and Clif introduced him to his father. Mr. Bingham was tall and well built, a fine figure of a man in his long motoring coat and cap. He looked almost too youthful to be Clif’s father; and sometimes it was Clif’s secret notion that he acted too youthful, too! There were, indeed, times when Clif had to supply the dignity for both. Clif considered his father awfully good-looking, which he was, and of late he had begun to fear that, now that he was no longer at home to keep an eye on him, he would go and get married again. Clif’s mother had died when he was quite a little kid, but he remembered her very well and was loyal to that memory. He would, he thought, simply hate having a stepmother! To be sure, Mr. Bingham had not so far provided grounds for Clif’s uneasiness, but last month, in London, he had certainly taken some watching!

When Mr. Otis had gone on they went upstairs to the room that had been previously engaged by Clif, and Mr. Bingham opened his bag and produced a handsome box of glacé fruits. Clif was extremely fond of that particular confection and there was a strained look in his eyes as he gazed at the box and shook his head. “Gee, dad,” he muttered, “I can’t eat candy! I’m in training!”

“By Jove, I forgot that! Too bad, son! Well, take it along and give it to some one who can. How are you getting on?”

“Only fair,” replied Clif ruefully. “I wish ‘G. G.’ hadn’t switched me from end.”

“Hm,” said Mr. Bingham dryly. “As a matter of fact, Clif, I meant in your school work.”

“Oh, that! Pretty good, sir. Say, wait till I tell you about the stunt we worked last night, dad!” So Mr. Bingham, while he washed and changed into the decorous attire befitting the father of a dignified second classman, was told about the “No Defeats” campaign and the posters, and was led to the window and ordered to lean out and crane his neck until he could see one of the blue-and-white slips adorning a tree at the next corner.

“Very neat,” said Mr. Bingham. “But, look here, son, won’t the faculty get up on their ear, eh?”

“No, sir, I don’t think they’re going to bother. We didn’t do anything, anyway, they can get waxy about. At least――well, they might try to say that we were out of hall after hours, or out of our rooms, you know, but they couldn’t prove it. Besides, we weren’t――much. Sam Erlingby and Tom and I plastered the grand stand about half-past seven, and Sid Talbot and Billy Purdy did the trees and the buildings――we helped on the buildings――and we were all in assembly hall at eight. How’s that? Tom, the silly coot, wanted to put a couple of placards on ‘J. W.’s’ porch rail, but I wouldn’t let him!”

“I should say not!” Mr. Bingham shook his head sadly. “My goodness, what the present generation is coming to I don’t know!”

“Shucks,” laughed Clif, “that isn’t a patch on some of the things you did when you were at school! Guess you’ve forgot telling me about them, eh?”

“Did I?” murmured dad. “Well, you must allow for exaggeration, Clif. You know how it is when you want to tell a good story. But I say, I’ve got an idea! Why not get a lot of buttons and wear them? You know, campaign buttons. White, with ‘No Defeats’ in blue letters. Wouldn’t that――”

But Clif was out of his chair and shaking his fists. “Great, dad! How’d you think of it? The very thing! Say, that’s simply corking! Look here, sir, could you――”

“I could, son. I know the very place to get them. You leave it to me and I’ll attend to it Monday and have them sent to you inside four days. They can do it in that time, as I happen to know.” Mr. Bingham took out a little silver-cornered book, detached a tiny pencil from it and looked across. “How many do you want?”

“How many? Let’s see. There are just under two hundred fellows this term, I think. Better have two hundred and――and twenty-five.”

“Pshaw, you’ll want more than that. The things get lost. Besides, three hundred won’t cost any more, I guess. Dark blue letters, eh?”

“Yes, sir; and big. You know, sort of――sort of startling!”

“Well, I guess you can’t get very big letters on a small celluloid button, Clif; but I’ll tell them to make them as big as they can.”

“Thanks, dad. Say, those buttons will be great, won’t they? Gee, I’ll bet we’re going to put this thing over big!”

“Fine! But can you do it, son? I mean, can you get through without being beaten?”

“I think so,” answered Clif hesitantly. “We’re sure going to try. Loring thinks that if we can really get the crowd to believing it, we’ll do it. Do you, dad?”

“Hm, that’s hard to say. There’s no doubt that you can do a thing a heap better for thinking you can, though. But you fellows will have to play football, too!”

“Yes, sir, I guess we will.” Clif’s gravity lightened and he chuckled. “Most of the crowd think we’re going to get licked to-day!”

“To-day? How’s that?”

Clif shook his head. “I don’t just know, sir. Some one started a rumor that Jordan is awfully good and it just kept on getting bigger and bigger. Now most every one believes it, I guess. We’re not supposed to have a chance. It――it’s sort of funny.”

“What do you think?” Mr. Bingham sat down, selected a cigar from a leather case and sighed comfortably.

“I’ve bet Tom a couple of ice-cream cones that we’ll win; but, gosh, when every one else talks defeat you sort of wonder if there isn’t something in it!”

“Well, but _is_ this Jordan crowd so good, son?”

“That’s the funny part of it, sir. No one seems to know! We can’t find any records of theirs. They don’t play any of the teams we play. They――they’re sort of an unknown quantity.”

“The _X_ in your problem, eh? Well, we’ll hope for the best. Are you playing this afternoon?”

Clif shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid not. Oh, he may let me in for a while, like he did last week, but Joe Weldon’s still got the call for the position. Mr. Otis told me when he first talked about it that if I didn’t show the goods he’d put me back at end. I sort of wish he would. I’d be sure of my place then. Tom’s got his place cinched all right, and I’d be the same way if ‘G. G.’ hadn’t got this fool notion in his bean.”

“But doesn’t the fact that he’s still using you at tackle indicate that he’s pretty well satisfied with what you’re doing? Downstairs there he spoke very well of your playing.”

Clif grinned. “Dad, you’re awfully innocent sometimes! Don’t you suppose coaches always pull that line when they’re talking to fellows’ fathers? That doesn’t mean a thing. Still, like you just said, it does seem that if he wasn’t halfway satisfied he’d put me back where he got me. If he’s going to I’d rather he did it now, because Drayton and Couch are getting mighty good, and first thing I know I’ll be left out all around. And Jeff Adams is no slouch of an end, either. And then there’s Gosman――”

“Jeff Adams? He’s your captain?”

“No, sir, that’s Jeff Ogden. It’s the first names that got you mixed. You’ll remember Ogden when you see him. He was with us last spring one day. He was our pitching ace, sir. He and Adams are both called Jeff, but Ogden’s name is Jeffreys and Adams’ is Jefferson. Sounds like a list of the presidents, doesn’t it?”

“Hm, reversed, yes. Lunching with me, son?”

“No, sir, I can’t. Best I can do is dinner to-morrow. May I bring Tom?”

“Surely, and another chap if you like. How’s my friend Walter?”

“Fine, sir. I’ll ask him. Gosh, I’ve got a recitation in six minutes! Come on over with me, dad. I say, you haven’t seen our room yet! You wait up there and I’ll be through in forty-five minutes. Nothing afterwards until eleven-forty. How’d you like to lunch at school?”

“No, I guess not, thanks,” answered Mr. Bingham a trifle grimly. “I tried that once last spring, if you remember, and they put me next to a talkative lady and I nearly starved!”

“Mrs. Flood, sir, the matron,” chuckled Clif. “I’ll bet you made eyes at her, dad. She’s been looking sort of wistful ever since!”

Mr. Bingham reached for Clif’s legs with his cane, but the legs whisked themselves out of reach and led the way down the stairs.

Jordan arrived on the scene at a little after one o’clock, almost breathlessly observed by the Wyndham students, nearly a hundred of whom happened――designedly――to be out in front when the big motor bus rolled up the drive and around the corner of East Hall to the gymnasium. That first view of the enemy was slightly disappointing. Dressed in civies, they didn’t look nearly so big nor ferocious as report had pictured them. Nor were there very many of them. However, you couldn’t tell much about them, as the bus didn’t loiter, and street attire may disguise a player considerably. Wyndham decided to reserve judgment.

But some forty minutes later, trotting out on the field in their neat and surprisingly immaculate green and white sweaters and hose, the Jordan heroes were again disappointing. They were not giants after all. They weren’t even sizable! Well, there were several quite tall youths in the number, but they were also slim and apparently lacking in muscular development. And they looked awfully young, too; as if seventeen might be the average age. Wyndham, assembled early for the exciting event, stared and stared again, at first in surprise, then in disillusionment. A murmur of something very like chagrin moved across the stand. Wyndham felt cheated!

The man-eating tigers had turned out to be, in appearance at least, no more than kittens! What Wyndham gazed at disconcertedly were some twenty-five nice-looking, clean-limbed boys of sixteen and seventeen and, rarely, eighteen, who handled themselves in practice as though they were not any too well coached and were horribly conscious of being under observation. The coach aroused rueful mirth in the opposing camp. He was quite evidently one of the teachers, a short, chunky, motherly sort of man of possibly thirty-five, very carefully dressed as though for an afternoon tea, who moved about among his charges with the anxious watchfulness of a plump bantam hen with a hatching of long-legged Indian games. He held innumerable conferences with his players and was apparently quite as perturbed by the unceasing stare of the enemy as they were. On the Wyndham bench, Clif leaned forward, grinning, and spoke to Tom, further down the line of waiting players.

“Tom!”

“Huh?”

“I’ll take a maple walnut!”

Tom only shook his head incredulously.

A few minutes later the game began.

It can be best disposed of in terms of scoring. At the end of the first twelve-minute period the score was Wyndham 9, Jordan 0. At the end of the half it was Wyndham 22, Jordan 0. When the third quarter was over, the dark blue’s line-up then consisting almost wholly of substitutes――Clif amongst them――the figures were 29 to 0. When the memorable contest had finally dragged to its end the score stood, Wyndham 36, Jordan 0.

In the locker room, Clif leaned over Tom’s shoulder as the latter tiredly removed his shoes. “Tom,” he said, “know something?” Tom turned a suspicious countenance. “I don’t believe Jordan ever played the Yale Second to a tie. Now, honestly, do you?”

Then Clif hurdled a bench and made the corner of the alley just ahead of a shoe.