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Before the Wilton game Coach Murray had a few words to say to the team that made every member tingle with a desire to show what he could do. When the whistle blew and the game began, Teeny-bits was sitting on the side lines with the other substitutes. Ridgley kicked off to Wilton, and immediately received a terrific surprise.
The Jefferson team was fighting harder than ever and playing with machine-like smoothness. They carried the ball for twenty-five yards and then punted, and downed Neil Durant in his tracks. Ridgley fought hard to advance the ball and gained a first down, then, meeting with no further success, punted.
In his own opinion he had, aside from the one fortunate play in which he had crossed the Jefferson goal line, contributed very little to the Ridgley victory, but as the evening went on and one player after another joined his name with that of Neil Durant, he saw that these big fellows with whom he had been so closely associated during the past few weeks felt, for some miraculous reason, that he had helped them to maintain their spirit and to carry the fight to Jefferson.
At Lincoln Hall the Jefferson guests according to immemorial custom sat down to a luncheon that Ridgley School provided. A year later the compliment would be returned. The band played, the visitors cheered, the song leader jumped on a table and swung his arms in time to the latest Jefferson song, and all Ridgley School knew that Jefferson was having the time of her life.
The Jefferson right half-back had the ball and the play was aimed at center; big Tom Curwood, however, was equal to the occasion; he stopped the play before the purple-clad son of Jefferson had covered a yard beyond the Ridgley line.
The largest amount of space was given to Norris, the Jefferson full-back, but Neil Durant came in for his share and a paragraph was devoted to Teeny-bits who was described in these words: "The Ridgley left-half will be the lightest player on the field; he cannot be expected to do much against the heavy Jefferson line, but he has gained a reputation as a shifty runner and deserves to be watched on open plays."
Norris made the tackle, but he was an instant too late; the big captain of the Ridgley team fell across the line and hugged the leather oval close to the brown earth while pandemonium reigned and the members of the red team hurled their headgears into the air. Neil limped when he got to his feet and motioned to Tom Curwood to make the kick.
The Ridgley quarter-back then gave the signal 7, 16, 11, which indicated a double-pass play. The ball came back to Stillson who, after starting toward the right end, passed to Neil Durant who was going at a terrific pace in the opposite direction. Teeny-bits' duty was to form interference for his captain and he suddenly found himself "Indianizing" the captain of the Jefferson team.
Poor Jerry, the grizzled old-timer, who for years had been general helper to Slocum, the head janitor, was an object of suspicion in the eyes of some of the newcomers at Ridgley. There was no doubt about it, Jerry did have a most fearsome cast of features. Mr. Stevens, the English master, once remarked that he looked like an "amiable murderer." It was an apt description.
Certain weak spirits in the Ridgley stands now looked at each other with faces which showed plainly that hope had fled from them, that they now knew that the Jefferson menace which had been built up week after week by rumor and also by fact, as represented in scores, was real, that the purple team was invincible, that Ridgley had met the irresistible force and could not by any alchemy of spirit turn defeat into victory.
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