THE DOCTOR’S VERDICT
“Maybe if you take a few days’ rest you’ll be all right, Bill,”
suggested Pete a little later, when the brothers were in their
connecting rooms.
“That’s it,” agreed Cap eagerly. “A rest will do you good, Bill, and
then you’ll be in shape for the try-out just before the first league
game. Take a good rest.”
“I’m not tired,” protested Bill who sat in a corner nervously fingering
his pitching glove. “Why should I need a rest?” He asked the question
fiercely as though there was some disgrace attached to it.
“But your eyes,” said Cap. “You know you’re off in your pitching.”
“That’s right—I did rotten to-day, and if I’d been in a game they’d
have knocked me out of the box. But I’ll be all right in a few days
more. That lump is still as sore as the mischief,” and he tenderly felt
of the place where the batted ball had hit him.
“And if you don’t get all right?” asked Cap softly.
“Then I’ll see a doctor!” exclaimed Bill with energy. “I’m not going to
lose a chance to pitch on the Varsity this season, and I believe I will
have a chance. I’ve been watching Mersfeld, and he’s not such a wonder.”
“I don’t think anything of him,” admitted Cap. “I’ve caught for him
in a couple of practice games, and he hasn’t half your speed, though
he has some nice curves, and a good control. I don’t believe he’d last
through a hard game.”
“Oh, we’ll fix Bill up, and have him on the Varsity yet,” declared
Pete easily. He could afford to speak thus for he was sure of his own
position at short, and Cap had at least a tentative promise of being
behind the bat in a number of the big games that would soon be played.
The brothers talked over the situation, and then fell to studying,
with more or less energy, until interrupted by the entrance of
Whistle-Breeches and Dick, or “Roundy,” Lawson, the genial senior
having gotten into the habit lately of calling on his neighbors.
“What’s wrong?” demanded Whistle-Breeches as he noticed Bill’s rather
dejected attitude.
“Oh, I’m on the blink. Can’t see to throw straight,” and then the
story, which was already known to several in the school, was told.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” began Lawson, and his words were carefully
listened to, as befitted a Senior. “You want to see a doctor, Bill.”
“You mean Doc. Blasdell?”
“No, he’s all right for a pain on your insides, but I mean an eye
doctor—an oculist. I know a good one. I had trouble with my eyes once,
and I went to him. He can fix you up. Maybe there’s a little strain
which some medicine will cure. Why don’t you go to see him?”
“I believe I will. It’s tough to be knocked out before the season
starts. I’ll go to-morrow.”
Then they fell to talking of the baseball prospects, how this player
was making out at first, another in the field, what the chances were
for good batters, the prospects of Westfield holding the pennant, and
kindred matters.
All the while Bill sat in a darkened corner, for Lawson had insisted on
this since his advent into the room, saying that darkness was good for
weak eyes. And poor Bill fingered his pitching glove, wondering if he
would ever get back into the box again. Cap was straightening a bent
wire in his mask and Pete was re-winding some tape on a favorite bat
that always opened at the split every time he used it. But he could not
bring himself to throw it away.
“Mind now,” stipulated Lawson, as he and Whistle-Breeches took their
leave, “you see that eye man to-morrow.”
And Bill promised.
They went to the oculist’s together, Cap and Bill, and the pitcher was
put through a number of tests. He sat and looked at candles, while
the medical man put a lens in front of the lights, and turned the
glass sideways to make the single image develop into two. Then when
Bill admitted that the two lights were not on the same level (as they
should have been to one of normal vision) the oculist shook his head
doubtfully.
Next he looked through the eye away into the back of Bill’s head, with
a queerly constructed instrument, and reflected glaring lights into
the lad’s orbs until he blinked in pain. Reading cards of different
size type, taking a stick, and trying to impale a series of concentric
circles, first with his left eye closed and then with the right one
shut, ended the test.
“Well,” announced the oculist at length, “it’s not as bad as it might
be. Your left eye is considerably out of focus, and I should say it was
caused by some pressure on the optic nerve—possibly the result of that
blow with the ball.”
“But what can be done about it?” demanded Bill with a note of despair
in his voice.
“Well, nothing much. In time it may readjust itself, and again—it may
not.”
“Do you mean that I’ll always be this way—not able to throw straight?”
demanded the pitcher almost springing up from his chair.
“Easy now, old man,” cautioned Cap in a low voice.
“Won’t I ever be able to throw straight again?” cried poor Bill.
“I’m afraid not,” answered the doctor. “Of course if the pressure on
the nerve could be removed it would be possible, but that would take
an operation, and I don’t recommend it. In fact it might make matters
worse. But it’s not so bad. It will cause you no annoyance.”
“No annoyance?”
“Not a bit. You can see as well as ever. You can read, write, walk
about, in fact only in matters requiring a critical judge of distance
will you be at all hampered.”
“But that’s just it!” cried Bill. “I _need_ to be a judge of distance
if I’m going to pitch on the team.”
“I’m sorry, but you can’t pitch any more,” was the doctor’s verdict,
and to Bill, who like his brothers had his whole soul wrapped up in
baseball, the words sounded like a doom.
“Not pitch any more?” repeated Bill dully.
“Not until that nerve pressure is removed,” was the answer, “and I
advise against any operation for that. I can fit you with a pair of
glasses that will take off any strain when you are reading, and that’s
all you need. But you can’t pitch—that is if you have to be accurate.”
“And that’s just what I have to be,” murmured Bill. “Not pitch any
more—not pitch any more,” and he covered his eyes with his hand, and
swayed uncertainly.
“There—there old man!” spoke Cap, a trifle hoarsely, for he was much
affected by the way his brother had taken the blow that had fallen.
“Maybe it won’t be as bad as it seems. You may get better.”
Bill shook his head despondently.
“Come on,” he said to his brother. “I—I’ll come back for the reading
glasses later, doctor. I—I don’t just feel like it now,” and Cap
linked his arm in that of Bill’s and led him away, the footsteps
seeming to recite mockingly over and over again, like some death knell.
“You can’t—pitch—any—more! You can’t—pitch—any—more!”