The Weber Literary Journal Cupid Goes Through Kenneth Farley LAD to see you, Bill. Come in. You've heard all about the game, I suppose? Say, old top, I've been in some pretty rare tussles before, but none that could compare with that battle. This place isn't just what you'd call a palace, but the old room serves its purpose and is pretty good for five dollars a month. Well how's the old side-kick, and how's everybody back home? Does my 'Lulu' still love me?" Spike Burrows was speaking and he was welcoming Bill Harris, our former pal and a member of the "Terrible Trinity," as we were called the year before by the opposing teams. That year was Bill's last. He was captain and fullback with Spike and I playing right and left halves. Our team won the state championship. On account of a delay in train service, Bill had missed the big Thanksgiving Day game between Bedford Academy and the Laketown High School the previous day. Bedford and Laketown had been rivals for years and it had been customary to appease the rivalry on the gridiron every Thanksgiving Day. Spike and I were seniors and had played three years on the Bedford team. After a few exchanges of items of gossip of the usual nature, the trend of talk drifted, of course, to football. "Well, Bill, we've missed your playing pretty much this year; but we beat Laketown and that is just as good as a state pennant. We all got the surprise of our lives yesterday but I guess you know all about it and there's no use in me repeating." This was from Spike. "No, I haven't heard a thing and I'm crazy to know all of the details. Go ahead; shoot. Let's hear them." We gave Bill the one and only chair and Spike and I chose the floor. Spike, stretched out, started his story of the greatest game of our careers. Spike was a dynamo when it came to "gabbing." "This year Coach Morgan has had a pretty tough time find- The Weber Literary Journal ing a man to fill your shoes as fullback. Bob Jones was fast but not heavy enough for the position. But we managed to get along with Jones until the White Rock game. White Rock had a pretty hard bunch and the first thing they did was to knock out Jones and Davis, the center. That crippled us and we lost the game, twenty-one to seven. Jones was out for the rest of the season and the biggest game of the year yet to be played. Things looked gloomy for us, I'll tell you. There was a big fellow around school, a freshman, whom everyone knew; but no one had given him the slightest serious consideration in connection with football. He was big enough. That was just the trouble; he was so big that he was awkward and sloppy. He had a round, red face and wore his hair, what there was of it, in a short pompadore fashion. His name was Christopher Augustus Peterson. He was Swedish and as shy and backward as they come. But every one knew him as 'Cupie,' probably because of his hair certainly not on account of his popularity with the ladies. "About a week before the game some of the fellows, more as a joke than anything else, brought the Cupid out on the field, fully arrayed in a mud-stained uniform. For the first few nights we got quite a kick out of throwing the ball at him and using him as general cannon fodder as fullback on the scrub eleven. He improved very little and we gave him up as hopeless. He was too chicken-hearted always afraid of hurting someone. "Well, the big day arrived and I'll have to admit there wasn't very much hilarity among the Bedford students. "The game started with Jimmy Ware, a substitute, playing fullback. Cupie was on the bench in full uniform. I think the Coach figured he might cast consternation into the hearts of the Laketown players and probably upset their morale. Nobody thought he would ever get into the game. "For three quarters it was a battle with neither side scoring a point. Jimmy was playing a fair game but our evident weakness was in the fullback position. At the beginning of the fourth quarter some guy stepped in my eye and closed it up tighter than a clam, but, being captain, I had to stay in and see the game through. Soon after, Jimmie weakened and