We had six second- or third-string fellows in our line-up when the third quarter began, and I was plumb certain we had our work cut out for us if we were going to win the old ball game. Mills came back at us mighty savage after the kick-off and had things her own way until we took a brace and made her punt. We sort of got together then and worked the ends and a long forward pass and made her thirty-one. Then we got penalized for holding and finally had to punt and Brill sent the ball over the line. Play sort of see-sawed again for a while, with Mills having slightly the better of the kicking game, and then the first score came, and came unexpected.
Joe had been holding his end up pretty well, partly because I’d tipped Thompson off to go light on him, and he’d made a couple of yards for us once or twice. Well, pretty soon Mills had to punt from around her forty-five and Thompson went back up the field, taking Joe with him. Torrey had been taking punts and Joe had taken Torrey’s place and so Thompson calls him back without thinking much about it. The punt went sort of askew and landed in the corner of the field. Joe didn’t judge it for beans and it hit about on the fifteen yards and went up again with him grabbing for it. He missed it but got it near the five-yard line, and by that time a red-headed end named Brennan was right on top of him. I don’t know how Brennan got there so quick but there he was. Of course, if Joe had thought he’d have let the old ball alone, but he didn’t. He grabbed it, juggled it a bit and froze on to it just as this red-headed Mills right end came up. Then he started to run. By that time there was a mob on the scene and I couldn’t see just what happened. But when it was all over there was Joe a yard behind our goal line with the ball still hugged tight and Bert Naylor was putting a big white 2 on the score board where it said “Opponent.” Joe had scored a safety!
I started to bust into the poor boob, but he looked so unhappy I didn’t have the heart to say much. I just told him he had probably lost the game for us and a few things like that, and let it go. He certainly did look sick over it.
The Mills rooters went crazy and howled like a lot of red Indians and we went back to the job, pretty well determined now to make the fur fly and get a score. The quarter ended pretty soon after Joe had scored for the enemy and we changed goals. Newt threw in a couple more subs, the silly jay, and I expected he’d sink Joe, but he didn’t. If we could have opened up on those fresh Mills guys and used a few of our scoring plays we could have licked them quick enough, I guess, but Thompson had his orders from Rusty not to show anything and nothing I could say would move him. Just the same, we got going pretty well in that last period and ate our way down to the enemy’s nineteen yards only to have a sub that Newt had stuck in for Pete Swanson boot the game away by a perfectly inexcusable fumble that Mills captured. Newt had a brain storm then and sent Bentley in to take my place, and although I offered to punch him full of holes if he didn’t get off the field and told him I was captain the umpire butted in and I had to beat it. So I saw the rest of the game from the bench, and didn’t mind it much after Newt pulled Babe out two plays later. Babe was so mad that I felt a lot better.