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We watched the team practise all day and dreamed of it all night. And then the blow fell. It wasn't exactly a blow. It was more like a dynamite explosion. School let out the day before Thanksgiving, and when announcement time came in chapel Professor Sillcocks got up and begged permission to make a few remarks.
I think that would have discouraged the Faculty if it hadn't been for Professor Sillcocks. Did I ever tell you about Professor Sillcocks? It's a shame if I haven't, because every one is the better and nobler for hearing about him. He was about a nickel's worth of near-man with Persian-lamb whiskers and the disposition of a pint of modified milk. Crickets were bold and quarrelsome beside him.
Therefore I propose that if we have to be beaten we make it so emphatic that no one will ever forget it. Let's make it picturesque and instructive. Let's show the Faculty that we can obey orders. Let's play a game of football the way Sillcocks and his tools would like to see it.
Our gang put on big crêpe bows, just to be doing something, and marched into the stadium that afternoon with hats off. It was packed. Talk about promotion work. Rearick had pasted up bills until all Jonesville was red in the face. And the Faculty was there, too. Every member was present. They sat in a big special box and Sillcocks had the seat of honor.
He looked as pleased as though he had just reformed a cannibal tribe. I suppose the programs did it. They announced once more that the celebrated Sillcocks system of football as worked out by the coach and Mr. Keg Rearick would be played in this game by the Siwash team. The whole town was there too, congested with curiosity.
We were going to be tramped all over by our deadly rival in order to afford pleasure to a fuzzy-faced old fossil who had peculiar ideas and had us to try them out on. I guess, if the students had had a vote on it that day, Professor Sillcocks would have been elected resident governor of Vesuvius. We seethed all day and all that night.
You let me pick the team now, and give me to-night and to-morrow morning to drill them, and I'll bet Kiowa will never burn any property celebrating." Bost was there with his head down between his knees and he said he didn't care Rearick or Sillcocks or his satanic majesty could pick the team.
It implored every Siwash student to turn out to the game that afternoon. "New team new rules new results!" it read. "The celebrated Sillcocks system of football will be played by the Siwash team. Attendance at this game counts five chapel cuts after Thanksgiving. Admission free. Tea will be served. You are requested to be present." Were we present?
There we were, wiped out, utterly extinguished legislated into disgrace and defeat and all by a smiling villain who said "That is all" when he had read the death sentence! There wasn't a loophole in the decree. Sillcocks had carved the entire football talent of the school right out of it with that little list of his.
Professor Sillcocks looked rather depressed for a day or two, but he soon cheered up and seemed to forget the team's existence. We swam right along, beating Pottawattamie, scoring sixty points on Ogallala and getting into magnificent condition for the Kiowa game on Thanksgiving. That was the game of the year for us.
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