Barry Locke, half-back

Over at the Broadmoor bench Major Loring sprang to his feet, sent his gaze along the line of huddled forms, and called, “Locke!” Startled, Barry pushed his head from his blanket, like an inquiring turtle, saw, and answered. The Major led him toward the end of the bench, a hand on his arm.

“Go in for Noble,” he said crisply, “and kick out of there. Mind you, don’t speak to any one but the officials until after the first play. You’ll have to work fast, Locke, for those fellows are going to block if they can. Keep your head, boy, lock your leg, and wham it! Go ahead!”

And Barry went ahead, trailing his blanket well onto the field before he remembered that it still hung from one arm, rather scared but still more determined to give a good account of himself, as he ran repeating the coach’s brief instructions.

He reported breathlessly, took Noble’s head-guard, and slipped into position. Zinn gave the signal and he smashed in behind Haviland. There was a moment of frantic swaying and grunting and then the whistle and the referee’s voice:

“Second down! About seven to go!”

Johnny Zinn, trotting back from a deceptive sortie toward the left of the line, called signals as he came: “Locke back! Twenty-seven, sixty-one, fourteen! Twenty-seven, sixty-one, fourteen!”

Barry shuffled his feet two yards behind the goal-line, came to rest, stretched his hands toward the stooping Sisson. Beyond the line of his own forwards, he saw the swaying, eager forms of the enemy, feinting, pawing the air, desperation on every face. Then something brown left the trampled sod ahead of him, grew larger as it turned lazily over in its flight, and came to rest in his outthrust hands. Ten yards away turmoil and confusion sprang to life. Forms leaped against the sky as Barry took his step, dropped the ball, and swung a stiff right leg through its arc. There came to him the reassuring concussion of leather against leather, but he sensed it rather than heard it, for the air was filled with cries and the pounding of feet and the rasping of canvas-clad bodies. Then a charging enemy hurtled against him and he went spinning aside and rolled over and over on the turf.

When he found his feet again the scene of battle was far off, for the ball had covered more than forty-five yards and, its flight deflected by the wind, had escaped a Murray back and bounced across the side-line squarely in front of the Broadmoor bench and the Broadmoor coach. Barry went limping up the field, trailing the green-hosed youth who had thrown a hundred and sixty pounds against his ribs. The ball was being stepped in midway between the forty-five and the fifty yards. Broadmoor, on the stand, was still voicing its satisfaction. Johnny Zinn, coming back to safety position, grinned at Barry.

“Corking work, Locke!” he commented as he passed.

Murray had asked for time and was mending her offense with new material. But there were seconds left now instead of minutes,—not more than ninety of them,—and the score on the board up there was not destined to change. Murray tried desperately to get a man loose, throwing thrice to the tall forward-pass specialist, but twice the ball grounded and once only did he get his hands on it, securing then six yards with Barry clinging to his legs. And then, with the Murray punter stepping back, the end came, and Broadmoor had won, 6 to 0.

Barry, secretly still thrilled by the memory of that punt, though trying hard not to show it, followed the well-worn path that led across the field to the gymnasium, a silent member of a vocally triumphant stream of players. He still limped a little, but he wasn’t aware of it. He was supremely glad that he had come through so well. He wondered if Major Loring was pleased. Some one ranged alongside and Barry recognized behind a mask of grime the broad countenance of Pete Zosker.

“Lucky thing you got that guy, Locke,” said Pete, affably.

Barry stared up, perplexed. It seemed to him a strange way in which to refer to a punt. But he nodded and Pete added:

“He’s a mighty good hand with those things. Wish we had him!”

“You mean...?” murmured Barry.

“Yeah, that long-legged half-back of theirs. If you hadn’t stopped him that last time I’ll bet he’d have scored. He can run, that long-legged kangaroo!”

It dawned on Barry then that the center was talking about his tackle in the last minute of play and not about the punt, and he hurriedly readjusted his thoughts.

“Oh!” he said. “Well, I guess Zinn would have got him.”

“Not a chance,” declared Pete, convincingly. “I don’t believe any one could stop that cuss after he once got started!” Pete drew away, leaving Barry sorely perplexed. Not a word about that forty-five-yard kick, made with the enemy charging wildly down on him, made by one who had never before that season taken part in a game with an outside team! Not even mention of it! As for that tackle of the chap who had received the forward-pass, why, it hadn’t seemed to him worth a thought. He had been the nearest to the enemy and had instinctively made for him. By good fortune he had got him. Any fellow could have done that, could scarcely have avoided doing it, but that punt—well, he guessed that even Pete Zosker wouldn’t have done any better under the conditions!

In the locker-room two others rendered brief commendation for the tackle, one, Harris, right end, declaring that Barry had “sure saved the old game that time!” Barry was unresponsive. He wanted very much to say: “Well, but what about my punt from behind the goal-line? Where were you when that happened?” But of course he didn’t. His feelings were somewhat salved later, though, when Major Loring paused on his way out to say: “That was well done, Locke. I was pretty sure you could do it.” Barry was almost certain that the coach was referring to the punt and not the tackle.

Once, while he was achingly divesting himself of his togs, he looked across the room to find Clyde staring at him. Clyde’s expression was queer, Barry thought. It seemed composed about equally of resentment, puzzlement, and respect. Barry smiled. Clyde’s grimace as he turned hastily away was doubtless meant for a smile, too, but it was a painful effort.

Barry’s name was in the city paper the next morning. There was a very brief account of the Murray game, and under the word “Substitutions” occurred the following: “Locke for Noble.” That was all, but since it was the first time his name had ever appeared in a metropolitan paper he was decidedly thrilled. He cut out the story and treasured it.

After dinner that Sunday he turned his steps resolutely toward Number 42 Dawson. Clyde was at home and alone, and Barry somehow received the impression that the other had been expecting him. Clyde was friendly, almost anxiously so, and the lately patronizing manner was strangely absent. Barry was too much pleased to wonder. They talked of several things connected with Hazen, New York, and their folks, before the subject of the previous day’s game was introduced by Clyde. Clyde was flattering in his praise of the other’s performance, so insistent that Barry became uncomfortable and broke in with:

“I was sorry you didn’t get in, Clyde. I thought of course you would.” Perhaps the remark wasn’t very tactful, as he realized after he had made it, but Clyde apparently took no exception to it; rather he seemed to welcome it.

“I didn’t expect to,” he said. “I haven’t been having much luck lately.” Then, after a moment’s silence, he continued, “I guess you know why, Barry.”

Barry shook his head doubtfully.

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, yes you do! Loring’s playing you up for all you’re worth. He’ll dump me to the third to-morrow.”

“I don’t believe so,” said the other, uncomfortably. “I guess he wants me just because I punt a little. I’m not much good at anything else, Clyde. You know mighty well I wouldn’t want to—to hurt your chances!”

“Yes, I know that,” replied Clyde, gratefully. “That’s why I’m going to—well, tell you just how things stand with me. I dare say you thought it was sort of funny when I tried to discourage you about football, but the truth is, Barry, I knew pretty well that you’d make good if Loring took you in hand.”

“You didn’t say that!” Barry looked puzzled.

“No, because I didn’t want you to play. I know how it sounds; sort of low-down, Barry; but, you see, it means a whole lot to me to make the first this fall; lots more than it does to you. I’ve only got one more year here and then I’ll be going to college. You and I are just small-town folks. Of course Dad has some money, but he’s downright poor compared with some fellows’ fathers, and no one has ever heard of him fifty miles from Hazen. I mean I didn’t have much to start on when I got here, Barry. I haven’t done so badly, considering; I’ve got in with the right sort, I mean. But—well, it hasn’t been easy, it isn’t easy to keep where I am.

“When I go up to college,” he went on, “a lot of fellows here now will be big noises in the freshman class, and I’ve got to stick with them, Barry. Well, about all I’ve got to bank on is my football. I haven’t social position like some of them: we aren’t wealthy. Why, Jake Greenwalk’s father could buy my dad out with a week’s income! So—well, you see what I mean, don’t you, Barry?”

“I suppose so,” the younger boy answered slowly. “You want to trail along with these fellows after you get to college and you think that if you don’t make good in football they’ll drop you. Isn’t that it?”

“Yes,” said Clyde, eagerly. “A fellow has got to know the right sort when he enters college, because if he doesn’t he won’t get anywhere at all. Besides, it isn’t only college, Barry; it’s afterward, you know. A fellow has to think of what’s going to happen after he’s out, and the right sort of friends help a whole lot. This fall I thought I was pretty sure of making the team. I thought I had a cinch. Then Loring took a fancy to Demille and I saw about the best I could get was a first substitute’s job, but I knew Demille wouldn’t be here next year and I wasn’t worried so much. But now you’ve butted in.

“Oh, I know you didn’t want to,” he hastened to add, “but that doesn’t help much. You can punt and I can’t,—not any better than a lot of other chaps,—and Loring means to push you hard and use you in the big games. That’s plain. It’s fine for you, but it dishes me for fair. I’ll not get any sort of a show from now on. If I get into the Hoskins game it’ll be for about a minute at the end of it. So you see, Barry, I thought I’d tell you just how things stand and—and see what could be done.”

“Sure,” said the other, vaguely. “What—well, have you thought of anything?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how you’ll feel about it. Of course, in a way I have a right to ask you, but—I’d rather you did it as a favor. We’re pretty old friends, you know. I believe if you told the Major you’d just made up your mind you weren’t going to play any longer he’d let you off, Barry.”