TOM IS "RATTLED"
"The fourth straight," said Aleck Parks. "The 'Hopes' are mowing
'em down as easily as a scythe cuts grass. How's that for playing,
Luke Phelps? Wasn't yesterday's game a peach? Nine to six against
Willington. Roycroft cracked out a homer, a two-base hit and a single.
Oh, yes; that's going some. I saw 'Vanitas' sneaking around in the
crowd looking kind of pale."
"If the Ramblers lose the next game they'll be yanked from their
jobs as fast as a vacuum cleaner sucks up dust," remarked Phelps,
complacently. "They go over to play the Engletons again to-morrow."
"Another bucket of white stuff for the official record," growled Parks.
"Let's get away. Here comes 'Checkered-Cap.'"
"Afraid of him?" laughed Luke.
"No! It's his own safety I'm thinking about. Ever since I met him I've
had a hard time to keep from handing him something that might disturb
his center of gravity."
"Simply awful!" grinned Phelps. "Let's do the next worse thing--go over
and see the Ramblers practicing."
An ominous calm seemed to hover over the school. The "Hopes'" string of
clean-cut victories was bringing more wavering Somers adherents into
the "outlaw" camp. The quiet did not lull the fears of the staunch
supporters of the regulars. It seemed to possess a deeper, more
significant meaning than the noisy, wild demonstrations which had taken
place on the campus.
On the following afternoon the Engleton trolley did a flourishing
business. Eager students and townspeople packed the cars to their
fullest capacity.
Engleton was a little town about five miles distant, nestling amidst an
amphitheater of hills. The baseball field was situated in the northern
part, hemmed in on three sides by steep, grass-covered slopes. At the
extreme end of the open section an immense pile of ashes covered what
was once a treacherous gully. Several ramshackle frame dwellings,
surrounded by rickety or broken fences, with here and there great piles
of rubbish, indicated that "Goatville" was not the most select part of
the town.
By the time the regulars arrived the ball field and grassy hills were
crowded.
"I hope you'll enjoy this game, Roycroft," said "Crackers" Brown. "I
can't help feeling kind of sorry for Bob Somers. He's a pretty good
sort. But I guess this is the last game the Ramblers will play as the
school team."
"Here, Dan Brown, you cut out calling it the Ramblers' team, or
there'll be a whole lot of trouble!" cried a gruff voice so near at
hand that the captain of the "Hopes" was startled.
Tom Clifton, with flushed face, was striding forward.
"Trouble?" echoed Brown.
"Yes! And more than you can handle. I know your game, Brown. You've
been sneaking around, trying to put it into everybody's head that the
Rambler Club is running this team. Do you get me, Dan Brown?"
[Illustration: "I KNOW YOUR GAME"]
"I shall pretty soon," returned "Crackers," solemnly.
"Oh, you think you're mighty smart!" cried Tom. "But if your specs
weren't so blurred with conceit you'd see that you're going too far."
"I suppose this is a little prelude to the show," said the coach,
pleasantly. "It's a bad thing for ball players to get overheated before
the umpire begins his chirp. Please oblige me: run away and cool off."
"Two forty-five P. M. A ball player advised to run away and
cool off," piped Benny Wilkins, suddenly. "What's the best way, Mr.
Brown--shower bath or----?"
"You're the meanest little duffer in the whole school!" cried Tom,
turning upon him wrathfully. "It's a wonder you have the nerve to show
your face inside the door!"
"Well, I like that!" snorted Benny. "Now what's up?"
"Oh, you thought you could keep it quiet. But I found out, just the
same."
"Found out what?"
"Why, it was you who said that mean thing about Mr. Barry planting corn
on his field!" fairly exploded Tom. "You ought to be ashamed to look
me in the face."
Benny was aghast.
"What--what?" he stammered.
"I don't wonder you can hardly speak," went on Tom, fiercely.
"Hardly speak?" interposed "Crackers." "Why, if you're not careful,
he'll let off such a blast that we'll all get blown down flat."
"Well, suppose I did say it! It was all a joke!" admitted Benny.
"A fine joke!" jeered Tom. "Didn't it make Mr. Barry so mad that he
almost felt like withdrawing his offer? Oh, I know all about it!"
The look of embarrassment faded from Benny's eyes, to be replaced by an
expression of blazing anger.
"I don't care if you do," he roared. "And I know something about you,
too, that ought to make you chuck off that uniform and beat it back to
Kingswood."
"Get out!" snapped Tom. "You don't know anything, and never could know
anything. That wooden head-piece of yours wouldn't hold it."
"You haven't got anything on me, 'Vanitas!'" Benny Wilkins stalked
forward, planting himself directly before the tall first baseman. "I
don't, eh?" he cried. "Just listen to this: one day in the gym you
called Mr. Barry an eccentric old creature--you know you did."
Tom's face flushed a deeper crimson.
"Well--well?" he demanded.
"And Mr. Barry heard about that, too! I got it from a fellow who
knows. And maybe he wasn't riled!--said he wished he'd never made the
confounded offer."
"I--I don't believe it," gasped Tom.
"Ask Victor Collins, then. You will try to sit on me, 'Vanitas'--you
will, eh?"
"If Mr. Barry heard about it, I'll bet you told him yourself!" howled
Tom, thoroughly angry. "You're small in every way, Benny Wilkins. Bob
Somers and Steele caught you spying."
"You mean that I caught 'em trying to sneak into Mr. Barry's without
being seen," retorted Benny. "I never said a word to Mr. Barry. But if
you get too fresh with me, 'Vanitas,' he's going to learn the name of
the particular chap who made such an interesting remark; that's the
only thing he doesn't know. Now--will that hold you for a minute?"
The altercation was attracting considerable attention. A grinning
crowd, industriously calling upon the two principals to "mix it up a
bit," presently brought the realization to Tom that his thoughtless
remark uttered in the gymnasium was being scattered broadcast.
"Said Mr. Barry was an eccentric old creature!" jeered Benny, "and has
the nerve to try and call me down for something not a quarter as bad!"
"You've got the tall one going!" cried an Engleton boy, encouragingly.
"Don't be skeered. Wade right into him."
"I'll sic a goat on him; that's what I'll do!" exclaimed Benny.
"Hello, Tom Clifton! Hello, Tom!" coming over the air was the most
pleasant sound the first baseman had heard for some time. "We're ready
for practice," continued the voice--Roger Steele's. "Hello, Tom! Where
are you?"
"Coming!" bawled Tom. Then darting an angry, flustered look at his
little tormentor, he added: "I haven't done with you yet, Benny
Wilkins."
"Is that so?" sneered Benny. "If you and Blake had sense enough to get
off the team maybe all this row in the school would come to an end."
"Do you think I'll stand for being pushed off? Well, I rather guess
not!" cried Tom.
"Have a wooden head-piece, have I? Well, it isn't a solid block like
yours. Just remember: If the school doesn't get those grounds T.
'Vanitas' Clifton will be one of the chaps who's most responsible.
Everybody's saying it."
Embarrassed and confused by the staring, noisy crowd, so full of
emotion that his tongue seemed almost incapable of framing the words he
wished to utter, the first baseman turned away.
"Everybody saying it, eh?"
Tom Clifton's thoughts sprang back to the beginning of the season,
when, full of confidence and enthusiasm, he had expected the High's
team to go from one victory to another. "Vanitas!" The word rang in
his ears. He recalled now that his zeal and earnest efforts in behalf
of the nine had called forth remarks of a somewhat similar nature
before. But his armor of confidence was so great that the shafts
dropped harmlessly aside.
"I never could have believed it," he murmured. "The fellows are
twisting my words and manner into something wholly undeserved. They
ought to see that it was only because I'm red-hot for the school and
team."
The first baseman was so deep in thought that he scarcely heeded the
voices of the fans, or the sharp cracks of the bats as the balls were
sent flying over the field.
"So everybody's saying it: if we don't get the field I'll be one of the
chaps who's most responsible, eh? By George! I wonder if it's true!
I'll find out before night."
Tom's thoughts turned to the crowd--the fickle crowd--ever ready to
yell itself hoarse when things were breaking right, but which, he
reflected bitterly, was often equally ready to jeer and hoot a player
off the field on small provocation.
"What's the matter, Tom? Aren't you going to practice to-day?" called
Roger Steele, catching sight of him from his position near home plate.
"Sure!" responded Tom, making a strong effort to change the channel of
his thoughts.
"Anything wrong, son?" Steele came forward. He lowered his voice. "You
look kind of down in the mouth."
"Oh, it's nothing," said Tom.
"Well, get busy. I think we can turn the trick to-day."
Tom had been losing his self-consciousness. Now, however, it returned
with added force. The first baseman could not shake off a feeling that
the fans, friends and foes alike, had their eyes upon him, watching
every move. The vigorous shouts, the blasts from megaphones and the
strains from Victor Collins' bugle seemed to possess an importance
which he had never noticed before. He felt in a far greater degree than
the other players how much hinged on the contest.
With his nerves at a tension Tom was, naturally, unable to do himself
justice. In his over-anxiety to play the best game of his life he made
several errors which called forth derisive yells of "butterfingers!"
from the familiar voice of Benny Wilkins.
"Take him out!" yelled some one else.
"How'd he get on the nine?" screeched Aleck Parks.
"Who told him he could play ball?" shouted Jim Wilton.
"It's enough to make any self-respecting trolley company refuse to
carry him home," growled Luke Phelps. "I wonder if he's selling out the
High?"
"I suppose that kind of talk is for the good of the school?" roared a
tremendous voice.
Captain Bunderley glowered savagely upon the group, the members of
which, a little startled at having their words overheard by so firm a
friend of the Ramblers, returned his gaze without speaking.
"You remind me of a mutinous crew who deserts the captain of a ship in
the hour of peril." The skipper's tones spoke volumes of disapproval
and disgust. "How do you expect that lad to play when you're doing
everything you can to rattle him?"
"Good! Soak it to 'em, Uncle Ralph," cried Victor Collins. "They
certainly need it."
"You may have started out honestly enough," went on the captain,
relentlessly, "but your idea now seems to be to have your own way at
any cost."
The group was silent and sullen.
Then the heavy broadside of the captain seemed to waft them away like
the blasts of a hurricane. That part of the field knew them no more.
"He's the noisiest old chap I ever saw," cried Aleck Parks, after a
distance of two hundred feet separated them from the skipper. "I'd like
to give him a piece of my mind."
"Why didn't you?" asked Benny Wilkins. "Maybe your intellect suffered a
complete lapse."
"You're like a two-edged sword, Benny," growled Aleck. "You've got
something mean to say to everybody. Fellows, the only thing I ask is
this: if you see me getting anywhere near 'Checkered-Cap' to-day grab
me at the front, back and sides. I'm afraid I might accidentally let
fly, and pulverize him."
"By Jingo! There's Brown talking to the old salt water pirate, now,"
put in Benny. "Another fifty feet for me. I wonder if we'd better run?
His voice gives me the staggers."
"I'm going back," announced Parks, firmly. "Roycroft and Lawrence are
with Brown. Ha, ha! I think they'll protect us from violence."
Captain Bunderley's arm, directed straight toward them, however, caused
Benny Wilkins' motion of fifty feet to be immediately seconded.
"Those were the chaps," the skipper said to the imperturbable Brown.
"But, captain, the boys are all worked up over this affair; you can't
expect 'em to act like a lot of little French dancing masters,"
protested Brown.
"All nonsense! I say emphatically you're not giving the nine a fair
show. I've noticed your carryings-on."
"Sorry you feel that way, captain. We look upon things differently.
When a set of fellows chosen to represent the school doesn't make good
it's up to the boys to find another set who will."
"And that's what we've done," put in Owen Lawrence.
"I'm sorry all this has happened," put in Earl Roycroft. "No one wanted
to see Bob Somers succeed more than I."
A tremendous volley of cheering and the sight of boys waving their caps
in the air put a stop to Captain Bunderley's reply.
Looking over the scene, he saw hilarious groups racing down the
grass-covered slopes and the field being invaded by a stream of
humanity on its way to the break in the hills beyond.
"Ah! The game must be ended," said Captain Bunderley. "I was so busy
talking I forgot to look. What is the score, young fellow?"
He addressed a boy just passing.
"Five--two, favor Engleton."
"That clinches our argument, Captain Bunderley!" exclaimed Brown.
"Compare the showing the 'Hopes' made against Engleton with that
of the Rambler Club's ball nine." He paused an instant then added
significantly: "This is probably the last game they'll play as the
recognized team of the Kingswood High."