PHIL’S RESOLUTION
THE Christmas holidays were over. Varrell limped no more, and Dickinson,
who had long since discarded his cane, walked with quick, elastic step
as of old, apparently completely recovered. A few new boys had entered
school. One of these, who was somewhat rough in appearance and who
struggled clumsily with the lessons of a lower class, was said to be a
pitcher. He was older than most of the students, in years rather a man
than a boy. This fact was not in itself remarkable, for there is no age
limit at Seaton, and many an honest, earnest fellow who after his
twentieth year has conceived a longing for an education has found
opportunity and encouragement there. But Flanahan seemed not entirely of
this class.
“What about him, Sands?” asked Dick. “He looks suspicious.”
“Suspicious! What do you mean by that?” demanded the captain. “He isn’t
the youngest fellow in school, of course; but he isn’t the oldest,
either. Why shouldn’t he have a chance for an education as well as any
one else?”
“He should if he really wants it,” replied Melvin. “He looks as if he
had knocked around on a good many diamonds before coming here.”
“Do you mean that he’s a professional?”
“Yes, something of that kind,—semi-professional would hit it better, I
think.”
“If he’s a professional, I don’t know it,” said Sands. “I didn’t get him
here. He says he’s an amateur, and he has certainly played on some good
amateur nines. He can pitch, and we need a pitcher. That’s all I know
about it.”
“And all you want to know,” said Melvin, with a smile.
“Yes, all I want to know,” repeated Sands.
Melvin passed to another topic: “Phil would like to try for the nine. Is
there any chance for him?”
“None at all,” replied Sands, promptly.
“That’s a fine way to choose a team!” retorted Melvin. “You haven’t
tried him and yet you say he has no show. We searched high and low for
football material,—fairly scoured the school, and here you are deciding
offhand against a fellow whose playing you’ve never seen. No wonder the
nine gets beaten.”
Sands’s face reddened: “I didn’t say I wouldn’t try him. I’ll try
anything that offers. I only said that he hadn’t any chance.”
“Have you seen him play?”
“Yes; he can throw pretty well and field fairly, but he isn’t old enough
or big enough or strong enough or experienced enough for the school
nine.”
“Well, he’ll grow, won’t he?” persisted Dick. “Just give him a chance to
work up.”
“I’ll give him just the chance I give any one else and no more,” replied
Sands, decisively. “Every man who makes the nine this year has got to
earn his place, and the fact that Phil is your chum and a friend of mine
will simply make me harder on him. When I say he hasn’t a chance, I mean
that he cannot meet the standard. He may try as hard as he wants to.”
They separated at the gymnasium door, each going to his own part of the
locker rooms to dress. A few minutes later, as Dick was running upstairs
to his regular gymnasium work, he caught the sound of Sands’s voice
exhorting the squad in the baseball cage. He paused a moment with a
smile of approval on his lips, as he marked the steady, confident tones,
and recalled the captain’s sturdy resolve to hold to the merit system in
choosing the nine. Then Flanahan’s lanky figure loomed up by the
doorway, and the smile on Melvin’s face died suddenly away. He turned
abruptly and went on his way upstairs.
“Phil,” said Melvin that night, as the junior came in after supper,
“should you really like to try for the nine?”
“Should I!” the boy’s eyes sparkled. “If I had the ghost of a chance of
being kept on the squad till we got outdoors, I’d say ‘yes’ right off.”
“What can you play best?” asked Melvin.
“I’ve always played in the out-field,” Poole replied rather humbly. “I’m
fairly safe on flies, and could always throw a little farther and a
little straighter than the other fellows.”
“An out-fielder must be a good hitter or they won’t keep him. Can you
bat?”
“They used to say I had a good eye,” returned Phil, who was not used to
singing his own praises. “I’m not heavy enough for long hits.”
“If you’re sure on the elements, go in and try,” said Melvin, “but you
must do your level best. The only way for you to accomplish anything is
just to devote your whole thought and attention out of study hours to
baseball and nothing but baseball. Do everything you’re told to do and
more. Study yourself all the time. Get help outside that the others
haven’t. Hang to the squad till they kick you off, and when that
happens, organize a nine of your own and keep up your practice. If they
call you a fool and a crank, just laugh and keep on playing. Are you
willing to do all that?”
The color deepened on Phil’s cheeks as he listened. “I’ll do more than
that,” he cried; “I’ll shack balls, I’ll tend the bats, I’ll carry
water, I’ll do anything they put upon me. I’ll try this year and next
and the year after, but if there’s any baseball in me, I’ll make the
nine before I leave school.”
“Good!” exclaimed the senior, giving the boy’s hand a squeeze that made
the bones crack. “I don’t know much about baseball, but that’s the
spirit that wins. Only don’t talk about what you’re going to do. Think a
lot, but keep your thoughts to yourself. When you play, play with all
your might.”
They settled down to the work of the evening. Occasionally Dick glanced
with interest across the table to see whether the hated Virgil lesson or
the excitement of the new resolution was to possess Phil’s thoughts. For
a time the lad, with face still flushed, gazed vacantly up toward the
picture moulding. Then with a start and a slam he opened his Æneid at
the fourth book, and ground away for two steady, patient hours at the
lovelorn wails of the unhappy Dido, in whose fate he had about as much
sympathetic interest as a horse on a coal wagon feels for the sufferings
of the freezing poor.
“I’ll bet on him in the long run,” thought Dick, as he eyed the
determined plodder.
The next day Philip Poole’s name appeared on the list of candidates for
the nine.
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