A POPULAR HERO
Reggie hurried away to order the meal that was to put the chef on his
mettle, leaving Mabel and Joe once more in possession of the room.
Good-natured, blundering Reggie! Why had he not waited five minutes
longer before breaking in on that momentous conversation?
To be sure they could have resumed it now, but Joe felt instinctively
that it was not the time. Cupid is sensitive as to time and place, and
the little blind god is only at his best when assured of leisure and
privacy. His motto is that “two is company” while three or more are
undeniably “a crowd.”
Reggie might be back at any moment, and then, too, the waiters would be
coming in to spread the table. So Joe, though sorely against his will,
was forced to wait till fate should be more kind.
But he was in the presence of his divinity anyway and could feast his
eyes upon her as she chatted gaily, her color heightened by the scene
through which they had just passed.
And Mabel was a very delightful object for the eyes to rest upon. Joe
himself, of course, was not a competent witness. If any one had asked
him to describe her, he would have answered that she was a combination
of Cleopatra and Madame Recamier and all the other famous beauties of
history. What the unbiased observer would have seen was a very charming
girl, sweet and womanly, with lustrous brown eyes, wavy hair whose
tendrils persisted in playing hide and seek about her ears, dimples that
came and went in a maddening fashion and a flower-like mouth, revealing
two rows of pearly teeth when she smiled, which was often.
Even Reggie was moved to compliment her when he came in again after his
interview with the head waiter.
“My word, Sis, but you’re blooming to-night, don’t you know,” he
remarked, as he went across the room and put his hand caressingly on her
shoulder. “This little trip must be doing you good. You’ve got such a
splendid color, don’t you know.”
“Just think of it! A compliment from a brother! Wonder of wonders!” she
laughed merrily.
Perhaps if she had cared to, she might have enlightened the obtuse
Reggie as to the cause of the heightened color that enhanced her
loveliness. Joe, too, could have made a shrewd guess at it.
But now the waiters came bustling in and they talked of indifferent
things until the table was spread. A sumptuous meal was brought in, and
the three sat down to as merry a little dinner party as there was that
night in the city of New York.
“How honored we are, Reggie,” exclaimed Mabel, “to have the great Mr.
Matson as our guest! There are hundreds of people who would give their
eyes for such a chance.”
She flashed a mocking glance at Joe who grew red, as she knew he would.
The little witch delighted in making him blush. It made his bronzed face
still more handsome, she thought.
“You’d better make the most of it,” Joe grinned in reply. “I may fall
down in the World Series and be batted out of the box. Then you’ll be
pretending that you don’t know me.”
“I’m not afraid of that,” returned Mabel. “After the way you pitched
this afternoon, I’m sure there’s nothing in the American League you need
to be afraid of.”
“That’s loyal, anyway,” laughed Joe. “Still you never can tell. It’s
happened to me before and it may happen again. Then, too, you must
remember that it’s a different proposition I’ll be up against.
“Take, for instance, the Chicagos to-day. I’ve pitched against them
before and I knew their weak points. I knew the fellows who can’t hit a
high ball but are death on the low ones. I knew the ones who would try
to wait me out and those who would lash out at any ball that came within
reach. I knew the ones who would crowd the plate and those who would
inch in to meet the ball. The whole problem was to feed them what they
didn’t want.
“But it will be different when I come up against the American Leaguers.
It will be some time before I catch on to their weak points. And while
I’m learning, one of them may line out a three bagger or a home run that
will win the game.”
“You speak of their weak points as though they all had them,” put in
Reggie.
“They do,” replied Joe, promptly. “All of them have some weakness, and
sooner or later you find it out. If there’s any exception to that rule
at all, it’s Ty Cobb of Detroit. If he has any weakness, no one knows
what it is. For the last seven years he’s led the American League in
batting, base stealing and everything else worth while. All pitchers
look alike to him. He’s a perfect terror to the twirlers.”
“Well, you won’t have to worry about him, anyway,” smiled Mabel. “It’s
lucky that he’s on the Detroits instead of the Bostons. For I suppose
it’s the Bostons you’ll have to face in the World Series.”
“I guess it will be,” answered Joe. “Their season doesn’t end until
Friday. They’ve had almost as tight a race in their league as we’ve
had in ours, for the Athletics have been close on their heels. But
the Bostons have to take only one game to clinch the flag while the
Athletics will have to win every game. So it’s pretty nearly a sure
thing for the Red Sox.”
“Which team would you rather have to fight against?” asked Reggie.
“Well, it’s pretty near a toss-up,” answered Joe, thoughtfully. “Either
one will be a hard nut to crack. That one hundred thousand dollar
infield of the Athletics is a stone wall, but I think the Boston
outfield is stronger. That manager of the Athletics is in a class by
himself, and what he doesn’t know about the game isn’t worth knowing.
He’s liable to spring something on you at any time. Still the Boston
manager is mighty foxy, too, and you have to keep your eyes open to
circumvent him. Take it all in all, I’d just about as lief face one team
as the other.”
“It will be a little shorter trip for you between the two cities, if you
happen to have the Athletics for your opponents,” suggested Mabel.
“Yes,” assented Joe. “In that case we’d have a good long sleep in
regular beds every night, while on the Boston trip we’d have to put up
with sleeping cars. Still the jumps wouldn’t be big in either case,
and it’s a mighty sight better than if we had to go out West for the
Chicagos or Detroits.
“From a money point of view the boys are rooting for Boston to win,” he
went on.
“Why, what difference would that make?” asked Mabel in surprise.
“Because the Boston grounds hold more people than the Athletics’ park,”
was the answer.
“That’s something new to me,” put in Reggie. “I’ve attended games at
both grounds, and it didn’t seem to me there was much difference between
them.”
“The answer is,” replied Joe, “that we’re not going to play at Fenway
Park, the regular American League grounds in Boston, in case Boston is
our opponent.”
“How is that?”
“Because Braves Field, the National League grounds there, will hold over
forty-three thousand people, and the owners have put it at the disposal
of the American League Club,” Joe answered.
“That’s a sportsmanlike thing to do,” commented Mabel, warmly.
“It certainly is,” echoed her brother.
“Oh, the days of the old cutthroat policy have gone by,” said Joe. “The
National and American Leagues used to fight each other like a pair of
Kilkenny cats, but they’ve found that there is nothing in such a game.
This act of the Boston people shows the new spirit. We saw it, too,
when the grandstand was burned at the Polo Grounds. The ruins hadn’t
got through smoking before the Yankee management offered the use of its
grounds to McRae as long as he needed them. And then a little later when
the Yankees lost their grounds because streets were going to be cut
through them, McRae returned the favor by giving them the use of the
Polo Grounds. It’s the right spirit. Fight like tigers to win games, but
outside of that, let live and wish the other luck.”
“Tell me honestly, Joe, what you think the New York’s chances are, in
case they have to stack up against Boston,” said Reggie.
“Well,” answered Joe, thoughtfully, toying with his spoon, “if you’d
asked me that question a week ago, I’d have said that New York would win
in a walk. But just now I wouldn’t be anywhere near so sure of that.”
“You mean the accident to Hughson?” put in Mabel.
“Exactly that. He was going like a house afire just before that. You saw
what he did to Chicago in the first game. He had those fellows eating
out of his hand. He was simply unhittable. That fadeaway of his was
zipping along six inches under their bats. They didn’t have a Chinaman’s
chance.
“Then, too, in addition to that splendid pitching his reputation helps
a lot. The minute it is announced that Hughson is going to pitch, the
other fellows begin to curl up. They’re half whipped before they start,
because they feel that he has the Indian sign on them, and it’s of no
use to try.”
“That’s so,” assented Reggie. “Besides, when he’s in the box his own
team feel they’re in for a victory and they play like demons behind him.”
“It’s going to take away a lot of confidence from our boys,” said Joe,
“and in a critical series like that, confidence is half the battle. We
could have lost two or three other men and yet have a better chance than
we will have with Hughson out of the game.”
“Isn’t there any chance of his recovering in time to take part in some
of the games?” asked Mabel.
“A bare chance only,” Joe replied. “I saw the old boy yesterday, and
he’s getting along surprisingly fast. You see, he always keeps himself
in such splendid physical condition that he recovers more quickly than
an ordinary man would. We’ve got over a week yet before the Series
starts, and he may possibly be able to go in before the games are over.
If he does, that will be an immense help. But McRae had figured on
having him pitch the first game, so as to get the jump on the other
fellows at the very start. Then he could have gone in at least twice
more, perhaps three times, and it would have been all over but the
shouting.”
“It’s lucky that McRae has you at hand to step into Hughson’s shoes,”
declared Reggie.
“Step into them!” exclaimed Joe. “Yes, and rattle around in them. Nobody
can fill them.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” cried Mabel warmly--so warmly in fact
that her brother looked at her in some surprise.
“Yes,” she repeated, holding her ground valiantly, “I mean just what I
say. It’s awfully generous of you, Joe, to praise Hughson to the skies,
but there’s no use in underrating yourself. I don’t think Hughson can
pitch one bit better than you can. Look at that game this afternoon. I
heard lots of people around me say that they never saw such pitching
in all their lives. And what you did to-day you can do again. So
there!”--she caught herself up, smiling a little confusedly, as though
she had betrayed herself, but finished defiantly--“if that be treason,
make the most of it.”
Joe’s heart gave a great leap, not only at the tribute but at the tone
and look that had gone with it. So this was what Mabel thought of him!
This was how she believed in him!
His head was whirling, but in his happy confusion one thought kept
pounding away at his consciousness, a thought that never left him
through all the tremendous test that lay before him:
“I’ve _got_ to make good! I’ve _got_ to make good!”