SETTLING WITH A TEASER
Saturday morning, about eight o'clock, the entire team of the
Central Grammar met at Dave Darrin's house. In the front yard
they waited for their captain.
"Queer Dick should be a bit late," muttered Torn Reade. "He's
our model of punctuality."
"You'll see him come around the corner 'most any minute," Greg
predicted.
Nor was Holmes wrong in this. When Prescott arrived he came on
a jog trot.
"We wondered what kept you, our right-to-the-minute captain,"
announced Dave.
"Well, you see," replied Dick quizzically, "I've been thinking."
"Thinking?" repeated Tom. "Oh, I understand. You've been thinking
about what the man on the clubhouse steps said."
"Well, hardly anything as big as that," teased Dick. "I'm afraid
that you fellows are growing impatient on what is, after all,
not a very important matter."
"So, then, the speech of the man on the clubhouse steps wasn't
very important?" inquired Tom, seeking to pin their leader down.
"Why, that would depend on how you happened to regard what the
man on the clubhouse steps said," Dick laughed.
"Is that what you're going to tell us?" almost bowled Hazelton.
"I don't know that I am going to tell you much of anything," Prescott
continued.
"What did the man on the clubhouse steps say?" asked Dan, advancing
with uplifted bat.
"You'll never drag the secret from me by threats or violence,"
retorted Dick, with a stubborn shake of the head.
"We're getting away from the point," Tom went on. "You said you
had been thinking."
"Well?"
"You've made the claim of having been thinking, but you haven't
offered the slightest proof."
"What I was thinking, fellows, was that we are obliged to meet
the South Grammar nine on the diamond to-day."
"We're not afraid of them," scoffed Dave.
"No," Dick went on, "but I've an idea that we're up against an
ordeal, after a fashion. You all know what a guyer Ted Teall
is---how he nearly broke up our match with the Norths last Wednesday
afternoon."
"Ted can't do any guying this morning," declared Greg readily.
"If he does, the umpire will rule him out of the game, and that
would snap all of Ted's nerve. No; Ted won't guy us to-day."
"But I'll tell you just what will happen to us," Dick offered.
"The spectators who come from the South Grammar aren't under
the umpire's orders. You may be sure that Ted has posted the
fellows from his school on a lot of things that they can yell
at us. Oh, we'll get guyed from the start to the finish of the
game."
"If they go too far," hinted Dave, "we can thrash some of the
funny ones afterwards."
"I shan't feel like thrashing anyone for having a little fun with
us," remarked Reade.
"Thrashing wouldn't do any good, anyway," Dick continued. "Besides
which, we might just happen, incidentally, to be the fellows that
got the worst thrashing if we started anything like that going.
I don't object to good-natured ridicule. But the South Grammar
fellows may have some things to yell at us that will rattle our
play. That's what I want to stop."
"How can you stop it?" queried Greg.
"That's what kept me home a little later than I intended to stay
there," Dick replied. "I have been thinking, since last night,
how I could take some of the starch out of Ted Teall, and have
some way of throwing the horse laugh back on the South Grammar
boys in case they start anything funny enough to rattle us."
"How did the thinking get on?" Tom wanted to know.
"I believe I've something here that will do it," Prescott replied,
taking an object from one of his pockets and holding it up.
"It looks like a home-made ball for babies to play with," remarked
Dan Dalzell, grinning.
"It's a home-made ball, all right," Dick nodded. "Yet I don't
believe that I'd let a baby have it to play with."
"What's the matter with it?" Tom asked. "Loaded?"
"Some one told you," protested Prescott, pretending to look astounded.
"What are you going to do with that thing?" Dave insisted.
"If I have a chance I'm going to get Ted Teall up in the air,
and before the crowd, too," Dick asserted.
"With this ball?" Greg asked, taking it from his friend's hand.
"Yes."
"Hm! I don't see anything about it to shatter the nerves of a
hardy youth like Ted Teall," Greg muttered. "This ball is just
wound with string and covered with pieces of old glove. Why,
it's so soft that I don't believe I could throw it straight."
Greg raised the home-made ball to throw it.
"Here! Don't toss it, or you may put it out of business," objected
Prescott, taking it away from his friend.
"If the ball can't be thrown, then what on earth is it good for?"
questioned Darrin.
"I'll come to that by degrees," Dick promised. "Did you know
that dad has secured a license this year to sell fireworks at
his store?"
"Yes," nodded several of the boys.
"Well, yesterday, Dad had a lot of samples come in from the
manufacturers. There were a few of the extra big and noisy
torpedoes," Dick explained. "I got one of them and wrapped this
string and leather around it."
Then, in low tones, Dick confided to his comrades the use to which
he hoped to put the ball. There were a good many grins as the
plot dawned on the young diamond enthusiasts.
"That'll be a warm one, if it works," grinned Reade.
"Say, but I shall be hanging right around to see it happen," declared
Darrin.
Originally this Saturday game had been scheduled for two in the
afternoon. However, so many of the schoolboys in town wanted
to have Saturday afternoon for other fun that the time had been
changed to nine in the forenoon.
"Hadn't we better be starting?" asked Dick, looking at his watch.
"Yes; I want to be in at the death of Teall," agreed Reade.
All in uniform the Central Grammars started down the street, though
this time they did not march. As they moved along other boys
joined them, some from the Central and others from the North Grammar.
By the time that Dick's nine and substitutes neared the field
more than a hundred fans trailed along with them.
Nearly three hundred other boys were walking about on the field,
or lying down under the trees.
Already the South Grammar boys were on the field, practicing by
way of warming up.
"Hello! Here come the bluebells!" yelled a group of South Grammar
fans and rooters.
"Blue? You bet they'll be blue when the game is over!"
"Hey, Prescott! What'll you take for the letters on your shirt?"
"Gimme that yellow curl over your forehead? I saw it first."
"Oh, my, don't the Little Boys Blue look sweet?"
In silence the Central players marched by their tormentors. Dick
gazed across the field to see Ted Teall swinging a bat at the
home plate.
"Teall!" called Dick, as he and the others dropped their jackets
at the batters' benches.
"Hello!" returned Ted. "I'm glad to see that you fellows really
had the nerve to come to-day."
"I saw you doing some pretty wild batting, Teall," laughed Dick
Prescott. "That kind of work won't save you when I get started.
Shall I throw you in a few real ones---hard ones---before we
get at it in earnest?"
"Go on!" retorted Ted scornfully.
"Oh, I won't hurt you," Prescott promised.
"You bet you won't," boasted Teall.
"He's afraid, even before the game starts," jeered a group of
Central Grammar boys. "That's right, Ted. Guard your life."
"Don't be afraid, Teall," Dick urged tantalizingly. "Trying to
hit some of my deliveries will be something like an education
for you."
"Bosh!" sneered Teall.
"Then why won't you try a few?"
"I will, if you really think you can throw a ball that will rattle
me any," Teall agreed, grinning broadly.
"Go at him, Dick!"
"Whoop! Show him what a cheap batter he is."
Laughing, balancing a ball in his hands, Dick glided out on to
the diamond.
"Ready, Ted? Just see what you can do with one like this," Dick
mocked.
It was a swift ball, but a straight one. To a batsman of Teall's
skill it was not a difficult one to hit. Ted swung his bat and
gave the ball a crack that sent it far out into outfield.
"Is that the best you can do?" jeered Ted.
"Oh, I've one or two better than that," replied Dick, pretending
to feel flustered.
Again Prescott sent in a swift one, and once more Teall sent the
leather spinning over the field. Hoots and cat-calls from the
Souths filled the air. The Central fans began to look a bit uneasy.
What was their champion pitcher doing, to let Teall get away
with his deliveries as easily as this?
A third ball Dick drove in, with the same result as before.
"Say, what you fellows need is practice," leered Ted.
"Look out that I don't catch you yet," mocked Dick Prescott, bending
to scoop up the returning ball from the ground. Then he wheeled
like a flash to confront the batsman.
This time, by a quick substitution, Dick held the home-made ball.
He twirled it for an instant, then sent it in toward the plate.
"Just---as---easy!" scoffed Ted, whirling his bat, then reaching
out for the ball.
Crack! Teall hit it soundly.
Bang! With such force had the batsman struck that he exploded
the large torpedo inside the home-made ball. There was a rattling
explosion, and Teall, unable to figure, in that first instant,
what had happened, sent the bat flying.
"Ow-ow-ow!" yelled startled Ted, leaping up into the air. When
he alighted he ran a dozen or more steps as fast as he could go,
then halted and looked around him. For an instant Teall's face
expressed panic.
Then mocking laughter from hundreds of throats greeted him.
"I knew any little thing out of the ordinary would rattle you,"
smiled Dick. "Don't lose your nerve. It wasn't anything."
"Just a fresh idiot's attempt to be funny!" growled Teall, his
face now red with mortification.
"Laugh, Ted, confound you!" urged Tom Reade. "Laugh! Don't be
a grouch."
"What you need, Teall," teased Dave Darrin, "is some nerve tonic.
You ought not to let yourself get into such bad shape that you
almost faint when you hit the ball."
For once Ted Teall's ready tongue went back on him. He could
think of nothing to say that would not make him look still more
ridiculous.
"I guess he'll be good, for one game at least," grimaced Dick
as he turned to his teammates.