Those Times and These

“Your name is Morehead! Your grandfather was a great governor of this great state. Your father was my companion in arms upon the field of battle – and no braver man ever breathed, sir. This historic inclosure bears the honoured name of your honoured line – Morehead Downs. You are the chosen leader of these companions of yours. And how have you led them to-day? How have you acquitted yourself of your trust? I ask you that – how?” He halted, out of breath.

“The other team is stronger. They’ve got us outclassed. Look – why, look at the reputation they’ve got all over this country! What – what chance have we against them?”

The confession came from little Morehead haltingly, as though he spoke against his own will in his own defence.

“Damn their reputation!” shouted Major Stone. “Your very words are an admission of the things I allege against you, and against all of you here. Concede that your antagonists are stronger than you, man for man. Concede that they outclass you in experience. Is that any reason why they should outclass you in courage and in determination? Your father and the fathers of more than half of the rest of you served in an army that for four years defended our beloved country against a foe immensely stronger than they were – stronger in men, in money, in munitions, in food, in supplies, in guns – stronger in everything except valour.

“Suppose, because of the odds against them, your people had lost heart from the very outset, as you yourselves have lost heart here today. Would that great war have lasted for four years? Or would it have lasted for four months? Would the Southern Confederacy have endured until it no longer had the soldiers to fill the gaps and hold the lines; or food for the bellies of those soldiers who were left; or powder and lead for their guns? Or would it have surrendered after the first repulse, as you have surrendered? Answer me that, some of you!

“These Northerners are game clear through; I can tell that. Their ancestors before them were brave men – the Southern Confederacy could never have been starved out and bled white by a breed of cowards. And these young men here – these splendid young Americans from up yonder in that Northern country – have the same gallant spirit their people showed forty years ago against your people. But you – you have lost the spirit of your race, that surely must have been born in you. You are going to let these Yankees run right over you – your behaviour proves it – and not fight back. That is what I charge against you. That is what I am here to tell you.”

“How about me?” put in one of the blanketed contingent of his audience. “My people were all Unionists.”

“Your name?” demanded the Major of him. “Speedman.”

“A son of the late Colonel Henry T. Speedman?”

“His nephew.”

“I knew your uncle and your uncle’s brothers and your grandfather. They were Union-men from principle; and I admired them for it, even though we differed, and even though they took up arms against their own kinsmen and fought on the opposite side. They wore the blue from conviction; but when the war was over your uncle, being a Southerner, helped to save his native state from carpetbaggery and bayonet rule. That was the type of man your uncle was. I regret to note that you did not inherit his qualities. I particularly observed your behaviour out there on that field yonder a while ago. You quit, young man – you quit like a dog!”

“Say, look here; you’re an old man, and that’s enough to save you!” Speedman suddenly was sobbing in his mortification. “But – but you’ve got no right to say things like that to me. You’ve – you’ve-” A gulp cut the miserable youngster’s utterance short. He choked and plaintively tried again: “If we can’t win we can’t win – and that’s all there is to it! Isn’t it, fellows?”

He looked to his companions in distress for comfort; but all of them, as though mesmerised, were looking at Major Stone. It dawned on me, watching and listening across the threshold, that some influence – some electric appeal to an inner consciousness of theirs – was beginning to galvanise them, taking the droop out of their spines, and making their frames tense where there had been a sag of nonresistance, and putting sparks of resentment into their eyes. The transformation had been almost instantaneously accomplished, but it was plainly visible.

“I am not expecting that you should win,” snapped the Major, turning Speedman’s words into an admonition for all of them. “I do not believe it is humanly possible for you to win. There is nothing disgraceful in being fairly defeated; the disgrace is in accepting defeat without fighting back with all your strength and all your will and all your skill and all your strategy and all your tactics. And that is exactly what I have just seen you doing. And that, judging by all the indications, is exactly what you will go on doing during the remaining portion of this affair.”

There were no more interruptions. For perhaps two or three minutes more, then, the old Major went steadily on, saying his say to the end. Saying it, he wasn’t the Old Major I had known before; he was not pottering and ponderous; he did not clothe his thoughts in cumbersome, heavy phrases. He fairly bit the words off – short, bitter, scorching words – and spat them out in their faces. He did not plead with them; nor – except by indirection – did he invoke a sentiment that was bound to be as much a part of them as the nails on their fingers or the teeth in their mouths.

And, somehow, I felt – and I knew they felt – that here, in this short, stumpy white-haired form, stood the Old South, embodied and typified, with all its sectional pride and all its sectional devotion – yes, and all its sectional prejudices. All at once, in the midst of a sentence, he checked up; and then, staring hard at them through a pause, he spoke his final message: “You are of the seed of heroes. Try to remember that when you go back out yonder before that great crowd. You are the sons of men who had sand, who had bottom, who had all the things a fighting man should have. Try – if you can – to remember it!”

Out from behind the group that had clustered before the speaker, darted a diminutive darky – Midsylvania’s self-appointed water carrier:

“He done jest said it!” whooped the little negro, dancing up and down in frenzy. “He done jest said it! ‘Cinnamon Seed an’ Sandy Bottom! ‘Dat’s it! Cinnamon Seed an’ Sandy Bottom!’ – same ez you sez it w’en you sings Dixie Land. Dem’s de words to win by! W’ite folks, youse done heared de lesson preached frum de true tex’. Come on! Le’s us go an’ tear dem Sangamonders down! ‘Cinnamon Seed an’ Sandy Bottom!’ Oh, gloree, gloree, hallelujah!”

He rocked back on his splay feet, his knees sprung forward, his mouth wide open, and his eyes popping out of his black face.

The Major did not look the little darky’s way. Settling his slouch hat on his head, he faced about and out he stalked; and I, following along after him, was filled with conflicting emotions, for, as it happened, my father was a Confederate soldier, too, and I had been bred up on a mixed diet of Robert E. Lee, N. B. Forrest and Albert Sidney Johnston.

I followed him back to our post, he saying nothing at all on the way and I likewise silent. I scrouged past him to my place alongside Ike Webb and sat down, and tried in a few words to give Ike and Gil Boyd a summary of the sight I had just witnessed. And when I was done I illustrated my brief and eager narrative by pointing with a flirt of my thumb to Major Stone, stiffly erect on my left hand, with his chest protruded and his head held high in a posture faintly suggestive of certain popular likenesses of the late Napoleon Bonaparte; and on his elderly face was the look of one who, having sowed good seed in receptive loam, confidently expects an abundant and a gratifying harvest.

It was a different team which came out for the second half of that game; not exactly a jaunty team, nor yet a boisterous one, but rather a team that were grimly silent, indicating by their silence a certain preparedness and a certain resolution for the performance of that which is claimed to speak louder than words – action.

The onlookers, I judged, saw the difference almost instantly and realised that from some source, somehow, Morehead’s men had gathered unto themselves a new power of will, which presently they meant to express physically. And three minutes later Sangamon found herself breasted by a mechanism that had in its composition the springiness of an earnest desire and a sincere determination, whereas before, in emergencies, it had expressed no more than sullen and downhearted desperation.

Now from the very outset there was resilience behind its formations and active intelligence behind its movements, guiding and shaping them. The confronting line might give under the pressure of superior weight, but it bounced right back. At once it was made manifest that the Red eleven would not thenceforward be content merely to defend, but would have the effrontery actually to attack, and attack again, and to keep on attacking. No longer was it a case of hammer falling on anvil; two hammers were battering against one another, nose to nose now, and in one stroke there was as much buoyancy as in the other.

In my eagerness to reach my climax I am getting ahead of my story. Let’s go back a bit: The whistle blew. The antagonists having swapped goals, Midsylvania now had what benefit was to be derived from the wind, which blew out of the West at a quartering angle across the field. Following the kick-off an interchange of punts ensued. Midsylvania apparently elected to continue these kicking operations indefinitely; whereupon it is probable the Sangamon strategists jumped at the conclusion that, realising the hopelessness of overcoming the weight presented against them, the locals meant to make a kicking match of it. Be that as it may, they accepted the challenge, if challenge it was, and a punting duel ensued, with no noteworthy fortunes falling to either eleven.

I think it was early in this stage of the proceedings, after some mighty brisk scrimmaging, when the strangers, by coming into violent physical contact with their opponents, discovered that a new spirit inspired and governed the others, and began to apprehend that, after all, this would not be a walkover for them; but that they must fight, and fight hard, to hold their present lead, and fight even harder if they expected to swell that lead.

When, at the first opportunity for a forward push, the Red line came at the Blue with an impetuosity theretofore lacking from its frontal assaults, you could almost see the ripple of astonishment running down the spines of the Northerners as they braced themselves to meet and stay the onslaught. Anyhow, you could imagine you saw it; certainly there were puzzled looks on the faces of some of them as they emerged from the mêlée.

With appreciative roars, the crowd greeted these evidences of a newer and more comforting aspect to the situation. Each time some Midsylvania player caught the booted ball as it came tumbling out of the skies the grand stand rocked to the noise; each time Midsylvania sent it flying back to foreign ground it rocked some more; each time the teams clashed, then locked together, it was to be seen that the Midsylvanians held their ground despite the efforts of their bulkier rivals to uproot and overthrow them.

And, at that, the air space beneath the peaked roof was ripped all to flinders by exultant blares from sundry thousands of lungs. Under the steady pounding feet the floor of the grand stand became a great bass drum, which was never silent; and all the myriad red flags danced together. Into the struggle an element of real dash had entered and mightily it uplifted the spectators. They knew now that, though the Varsity team might be beaten, and probably would be, they would not be disgraced. It would be an honourable defeat before overpowering odds, and one stoutly resisted to the end by all that intelligence, plus pluck, could do.

There was no fault now to be found with Midsylvania’s captain. Little Morehead, with his face a red smear, was playing all over the lot. The impact of a collision with a bigger frame than his, had slammed him face down against the ground, skinning one cheek and bloodying his nose. He looked like a mad Indian in streaky war paint, and he played like one. He seemed to be everywhere at once, exhorting, commanding, leading; by shouted precept and by reckless example giving the cue to his teammates.

I suppose the latter half was about half over when the Sangamon team changed their tactics and, no longer content to play safe and exchange punts, sought to charge through and gain ground by sheer force. Doubtlessly their decision was based on sound principles of reason; but by reason of certain insurmountable obstacles, personified in eleven gouging, wrestling, panting, sweating youths, they were effectually deterred, during a breathless period of minutes, from so doing.

It was inevitable that a break must come sooner or later. It was not humanly possible for any team or any two teams to maintain that punishing pace very long without giving way somewhere.

The ball, after various vicissitudes, was in the middle of the field, and the Northerners had it. As the Blue tackles slipped back of their comrades stealthily, and Vretson, stealing forward, poised himself to take the catch, we on the press benches realised that Sangamon meant to undertake a repetition of the device that had won her lone goal for her. Thirty minutes earlier it would have seemed the logical move to try. Now, in view of everything, it was audacious.

At that, though, I guess it was Sangamon’s best card, even though Midsylvania would be forewarned and forearmed by their earlier disastrous experience to take measures for combating the play. Everything depended on getting Vretson away to a flying start and then keeping his interference intact.

The captain chanted the code numbers. The Blue press shifted in quick shuttlelike motions, and the ball, beautifully and faultlessly handled, was flipped back, aiming straight for Vretson’s welcoming grasp. Simultaneously something else happened. That something else was Morehead.

As the ball was passed he moved. There was a hole in Sangamon’s breastworks, made by the spreading out of her men. It was a little hole and a hole which instantaneously closed up again, being stoppered by an interposing torso; but in that flash of space Morehead saw the opening and, without being touched, came whizzing straight through it like a small, compact torpedo. Head in and head down, he crashed into Vretson in the same tenth-second when the ball reached Vretson’s fingers. With his skull, his shoulders, his arms, and his trunk he smashed against the giant.

Vretson staggered sideways. The ball escaped from his grip; and, striking the earth, it took one lazy bound, and then another; but no more. As it bounced the second time, Morehead, bending double from his hips, slid under it with outspread arms, scooped it up to his breast, and was off, travelling faster, I am sure, than Morehead in all his life had ever travelled. He was clear and away, going at supertopspeed, while Vretson still spun and rocked on his heels.

Obeying the signal for the play the majority of the Sangamon team already had darted off to their right to make a living barrier upon the threatened side of the imaginary lane their star was due to follow. It behooved them to reverse the manouvre. Digging their heels into the earth for brakes they wheeled round, scuttling back and spreading out to intercept the fugitive; but he was already past and beyond Vretson, and nearing the line of cross-angle along which the nearest of his pursuers must go to encounter him. Before him, along the eastern boundary of Sangamon’s territory, was a clear stretch of cross-marked turf.

Vretson recovered himself and made a stem chase of it, and Vretson could run, as I said before; but it would have been as reasonable to expect a Jersey bull to overtake a swamp rabbit when the swamp rabbit had the start of the bull, and was scared to death besides, as to expect Vretson to catch Morehead. The Red captain travelled three feet for every two the bigger man travelled. Twenty yards – thirty, forty – he sped, and not a tackler’s hand was laid on him. With the pack of his adversaries tagging out behind him like hounds behind a hare, he pitched over the goal line and lay there, his streaming nose in the grass roots, with the precious ball under him, and the Sangamon players tumbling over him as they came tailing up. Single-handed, on a fluky chance, Morehead had duplicated and bettered what Vretson, with assistance, had done.

The crowd simply went stark, raving crazy and behaved accordingly. But the Varsity section in the grand stand and the clump of blanketted Varsity substitutes and scrubs on the side lines were the craziest spots of all.

After this there isn’t so very much to be told. Midsylvania kicked for a goal, but failed, as Sangamon had done. The ball struck the crossbar between the white goal posts and flopped back; and during the few remaining minutes of play neither side tallied a point, though both tried hard enough and Sangamon came very near it once, but failed – thanks to the same inspired counterforces that had balked her in similar ambitions all through this half.

So, at the end, with the winter sun going down red in the west, and the grand stand all red with dancing flags to match it, the score stood even – four to four.

Officially a tie, yes; but not otherwise – not by the reckoning of the populace. That Midsylvania, outmanned and outweighted as she was, should have played those Middle West champions to a standstill was, in effect, a victory – so the crowd figured – and fitting to be celebrated on that basis, which promptly it was.

Out from the upstanding ranks of the multitude, down from the stand, across the track and into the field came the Varsity students, clamouring their joy, and their band came with them, and others, unattached, came trailing after them. Some were dancing dervishes and some were human steam whistles, and all the rest were just plain lunatics. They fell into an irregular weaving formation, four or six abreast, behind the team, with Morehead up ahead, riding upon the shoulders of two of his fellows; and round the gridiron they started, going first between one pair of goal posts and then between the other pair. Doubtlessly the band played; but what tune they elected to play nobody knew, because nobody could hear it – not even the musicians themselves.

As the top of the column, completing its first circuit, swung down the gridiron toward the judges’ stand, Morehead pointed toward where we sat and, from his perch on their shoulders, called down something to those who bore him. At that, a deputation of about half a dozen broke out of the mass and charged straight for us. For a moment it must have seemed to the crowd that this detachment contemplated a physical assault upon some obnoxious newspaper man behind our bench, for they dived right in among us, laying hands upon one of our number, heaving him bodily upward, and bearing him away a prisoner.

Half a minute later Major Putnam Stone, somewhat dishevelled as to his attire, was also mounted on a double pair of shoulders and was bobbing along at the front of the procession, side by side with young Morehead. Judging by his expression, I should say the Major was enjoying the ride. Without knowing the whys and the wherefores of it, the spectators derived that in some fashion this little, old, white-haired man was esteemed by Midsylvania’s representatives to have had a share in the achieved result.

As this conviction sank home, the exultant yelling mounted higher and higher still. I think it was along here the members of the band quit trying to be heard and stopped their playing, and took their horns down from their faces.

Immediately after this still another strange figure attained a conspicuous place in the parade: A little darky, mad with joy, and wearing a red-and-gray sweater much too roomy for him, came bounding across the field, with an empty water bucket in one hand. He caught up with the front row of the marchers; and, scuttling along backward, directly in front of them, he began calling out certain words in a sort of slogan, repeating them over and over again, until those nearest him detected the purport of his utterances and started chanting them in time with him.

Presently, as the chorus of definite sounds and the meaning of the sounds spread along down the column, the Varsity boys took up the refrain, and it rose and fell in a great, thundering cadence. And then everybody made out its substance, the words being these:

“Cinnamon Seed and Sandy Bottom! Cinnamon Seed and Sandy Bottom! CINNAMON SEED AND SANDY BOTTOM!”

The sun, following its usual custom, continued to go down, growing redder and redder as it went; and Midsylvania, over and above the triumph it had to celebrate and was celebrating, had also these three things now added unto her: A new college yell, in this perfectly meaningless line from an old song; a new cheer leader – her first, by the way – in the person of a ragged black water boy; and a new football idol to take to her heart, the same being an elderly gentleman who knew nothing at all of the science of football, and doubtlessly cared less – an idol who in the fullness of time would become a tradition, to be treasured along with the noseless statue of Henry Clay and the beech tree under which Daniel Boone slept one night.

So that explains why, each year after the main game, when the team of a bigger and stronger Midsylvania have broken training, they drink a rising toast to the memory of Major Putnam Stone, deceased; whereat, as afore-stated, there are no heel-taps whatsoever.

CHAPTER IX. A KISS FOR KINDNESS

AS WILL be recalled, it was from the lips of His Honour, Judge Priest, that I heard the story relating to those little scars upon the legs of Mr. Herman Felsburg. It was from the same source that I gleaned certain details concerning the manner of Mr. Felsburg’s enlistment and services as a private soldier in the Army of the Confederate States of America; and it is these facts that make up the narrative I would now relate. As Judge Priest gave them to me, with occasional interruptions by old Doctor Lake, so now do I propose giving them to you.

This tale I heard at a rally in the midst of one of the Bryan campaigns, back in those good days before the automobile and the attached cuff came in, while Bryan campaigns were still fashionable in the nation. It could not have been the third Bryan campaign, and I am pretty sure it was not the first one; so it must have been the second one. On second thought, I am certain it was the second one – when the candidate’s hair was still almost as long in front as behind.

By reason of the free-silver split four years earlier, and bitter dissensions within the party organization subsequently, our state had fallen into the doubtful column; wherefore, campaigns took on even a more hectic and feverish aspect than before. Of course there was no doubt about our own district. Whatever might betide, she was safe and sound – a Democratic Rock of Ages. “Solid as Gibraltar!” John C. Breckinridge called her once; and, taking the name, a Gibraltar she remained forever after, piling up a plurality on which the faithful might mount and stand, even as on a watch-tower of the outer battlements, to observe the struggle for those debatable counties to the eastward and the northward of us. It was not a question whether she would give a majority for the ticket, but a question of how big a majority she would give. Come to think about it, that was not much of a question, either. We had sincere voters and competent compilers of election returns down our way then; and still have, for that matter.

Nevertheless and notwithstanding, it was to be remembered that, four years before, the bulk of the state’s votes in the Electoral College, for the first time in history, had been recorded for a Republican nominee; and so, with a possibility of a recurrence of this catastrophe staring us in the face, the rally that was held on that fine Indian summery day at Cold Springs, five miles out from town on the road to Maxon’s Mills, assumed a scope and an importance beyond the rallies of earlier and less uncertain times. It was felt that by precept and deed the Stalwarts should set an example for all wavering brethren above the river. So there was a parade through town in the morning and burgoo and a barbecue in the woods at noon, and in the afternoon a feast of oratory, with Congressman Dabney Prentiss to preside and a United States Senator from down across the line in Tennessee to deliver the principal address. There was forethought in the shaping of the programme thus: those who came to feast would remain to hear.