POISON SPLEEN.
Phil Springer returned to Oakdale in a wretched frame of mind. Barely
had the train carried him out of Clearport before he began to regret
his hasty action in running away, but it was then too late to turn back.
"I suppose some of the fellows will think it rotten of me to sneak," he
muttered, "but the game was practically over, and there was no reason
why I shouldn't get back home as soon as I could. Why should I hang
round just for the pleasure of making the return trip with the rest of
the bub-bunch and being forced to listen to their praise of Rod Grant
for his fine work! They'll slobber over him, all right. He's the star
now, and I--I who taught him everything he knows about pitching--I am
the second string man! I won't be that! I won't be anything! I'm
done!"
He was not a little surprised as he stepped off the train to find it
was not raining, although the sky was still heavy and threatening, as
if the downpour might come at any moment.
"It certainly is coming down in Clearport, just the same. It had begun
before I hiked. Hiked! I hate that word; Grant uses it. Clearport is
nineteen miles away, and it frequently rains there when it doesn't
here."
He hurried over the bridge and up through the village toward his home.
"Hi, there, Phil!" cried a voice as he was passing the postoffice, and
a wondering looking youngster came running out. "What are you doing
here--at this hour? Saw you start for Clearport with the team, and----"
"Game's over," cut in Springer. "Rain sus-stopped it."
"Rain? Why----"
"Yes; it's raining over at the Port."
"Rotten! How many innings----"
"Five; just finished the fif-fifth when the clouds started to leak."
"Oh, then it counts as a game," palpitated the interested boy. "How
did the score stand? Who was ahead?"
"Oakdale, six to one," answered Springer over his shoulder as he
hurried on up the street.
"Hooray!" came the elated shout of the rejoicing lad. "Then you
trimmed 'em! Jinks! that's fine. But, say--say, who pitched?"
Springer quickened his stride, seemingly deaf of a sudden. He had felt
the question coming, and he had no heart to answer it. It would be
asked by every fellow in Oakdale who had not attended the game, and, on
learning the truth, they would join in one grand chorus of acclamation
and praise for the Texan. For the time being Grant would be the king
pin of the town.
Reaching home, Phil slipped in quietly without being seen by his mother
and tiptoed up to his room, where, in sour meditation, he spent the
intervening time until supper was ready. In a vague way he realized
that he had, by deserting the team, betrayed himself to all his
comrades as a fellow swayed by petty jealousy; but this thought, which
seemed trying to force itself humiliatingly upon him, he beat back and
thrust aside, persisting in dwelling on the notion that he had been
most shabbily treated by Captain Eliot.
"He led me to believe he meant to give me a chance to-day, and then he
let me warm the bench while Grant went out to win all the glory. It
wasn't a square deal. I'll show him he can't treat me that way! I'll
never pitch again as long as he is captain."
This resolution, however, gave him anything but a feeling of
satisfaction; it was poor retaliation, indeed, for him, who loved the
game so dearly and had looked forward so confidently to this season
when he would be the star pitcher of the nine, to "get square" with
Eliot by refusing to play at all. It would have seemed somewhat better
had he felt certain that his withdrawal must seriously cripple the
nine, but, judging by recent events, it appeared that Oakdale could get
along very well without him--might, indeed, succeed fully as well as it
could with him on the team.
Grant was to blame for it all. No, not Grant; he himself was to blame.
Had he not been such a blind fool he might have foreseen what would
happen, for had not Rodney Grant displayed beyond doubt since appearing
in Oakdale the natural qualifications of mind and body which would make
him a leader at anything he might undertake with unbridled vim and
enthusiasm? The fellow who had been so completely misjudged by almost
everyone during his early days at the academy, had demonstrated later
that he was a thoroughbred, with nerve, brains, courage and the will to
step into the front ranks wherever he might be. His one great fault, a
fiery and unreasoning temper, he was fighting hard to master, and in
this, as in other things, he had already shown that he was destined to
succeed.
"I was a Jack!" growled Phil, walking the floor of his room and
savagely kicking an inoffensive chair out of his way. "I should have
known. If I had taken Hooker in hand and coached him, instead of
Grant---- But I never did like Roy very much, and somehow Rod Grant
got on my sus-soft side."
His mother, hearing him prowling around, called up the stairs and was
somewhat surprised to find him home.
At supper he tried to hide the disturbed state of his mind, but his
father, who seldom took any interest at all in such matters
unexpectedly attempted to joke him a bit.
"Got beat to-day, I see," said Mr. Springer. "Did you up pretty bad,
didn't they?"
"How did you get that idea?" asked Phil evasively.
"Oh, I can tell by the way you act. You're broke up, though you're
making a bluff not to show it. Let's see, played Clearport, didn't ye?
I s'pose they give you an awful hammering? Oakdale'll have to get
another pitcher after this."
"They didn't beat us; we won."
"Whew! Is that a fact? Well, what's the matter with you, then? I
thought by your looks that you'd been done up brown. What went wrong
with the game, anyhow? Didn't you get good backing up?"
"I didn't pitch."
"So _that's_ it, eh? How did it happen? The way you've been blowing
around the house every time you could get anybody to listen, I thought
you were the whole thing in that particular department."
Phil's cheeks burned and his hands shook nervously, although he fought
hard to appear unconcerned and indifferent. In replying the slight
impediment in his speech became more pronounced.
"The gug-game only went fuf-five innings; it commenced to rur-rain
then, so they didn't finish it out. You see I--I cuc-can't do all the
pitching, and Eliot put in Grant for the first pup-part of this game."
He was intensely annoyed because of his unusual halting and stammering
over this explanation.
"Humph! Rained, eh? That was odd; just began to rain here about half
an hour ago."
"It began to pour at Clearport right in the middle of the game,"
declared Phil. "I was just ready to relieve Grant, for he--he was sort
of--sort of sus-showing signs of weakening. Eliot had sus-started me
to warming up, but it--it began to rain, and that sus-settled it."
His wounded pride, his wretched jealousy of Grant, had led him into the
telling of an untruth, and he left the table feeling very contemptible
indeed. Certainly it was not a malicious falsehood that was liable to
do any one particular harm, but it was a falsehood just the same, and
he was ashamed.
His room was like a cage, and he found he could not read or study.
What were they saying about the game in town? What were they saying
about the pitching of Rodney Grant? Despite the rain, some of the
fellows would gather after supper at the postoffice or Stickney's store
to talk it over. This talk after a victorious game had ever held a
keen delight for Phil, and it was rarely that he missed being on hand
to take part in it.
"I must get out!" he cried suddenly. "I'll just wander down street;
maybe I'll meet some fellow who won't be all done up in Grant."
Putting on an old raincoat and securing an umbrella, he left the house
and started down the street. At the first corner he paused, for if he
continued straight down Main Street he would have to pass Roger Eliot's
home, and surely he had no desire by any chance to run upon Roger. A
drizzling rain was falling, and twilight was coming on. Turning, he
cut through Cedar Street and down Willow to avoid passing Urian Eliot's
fine house.
On his way he passed a house no less pretentious than that of the
Eliots; it was the home of Lemuel Hayden, whose only son, Bernard, had
been compelled to leave Oakdale because of his jealous efforts and
lying and plotting to injure Ben Stone, whom he bitterly hated. The
boys of the town had talked that matter over many times, and it was
universally conceded that Bernard's unrestrained hatred of Stone and
plotting for the boy's injury had led him at last into a pit of his own
digging and brought upon him nothing more than just retribution.
A strange and most unpleasant thought struck in upon Springer; in
almost every particular, save a deliberate underhand effort to injure
Grant, he was not a whit better than Bern Hayden, who now had not a
single boy friend left in Oakdale.
That thought staggered Phil a bit. Why, in a vague way he had
contemplated seeking some surreptitious method of accomplishing the
overthrow of Grant!
"Oh, I guess I'm rotten!" he growled. "But it's dirty luck that's made
me so!"