Instead of booting the pigskin down the field in an honest and earnest endeavour to obtain distance, she deliberately and with malice aforethought, dribbled it on the bias, so to speak, toward the side-line.

Benson, right end, should certainly have got it, but he was so perplexed that he never thought of picking it up until a Canterbury forward had performed the task for him and had raced nearly twenty yards down the field! It was an unprecedented thing to do, or, at least, unprecedented at Brimfield, and the audience voiced its disapproval strongly.

But as the ball had gone the required ten yards there was nothing to do but smile--a trifle foolishly, perhaps--and accept the situation.

And the situation was this: Canterbury had kicked off and gained over thirty yards without losing possession of the ball! But in one way that play was ill-advised.

Brimfield had stood all sorts of jokes and pranks from the enemy with fairly good grace, but this enormity was too much.
Brimfield was peeved! More than that, she was really angry! And, being angry, she forgot that for twenty minutes she had been outplayed and started in then and there to administer a licking to the obstreperous small boy.
Even then, however, Canterbury continued to romp and enjoy herself.