A CALL
I have spoken of Ben Mayberry's fondness for athletic sports, and the
great benefit he gained from the exercise thus obtained. When business
permitted, I visited the ball grounds, where his skill made him the
favorite of the enthusiastic crowd which always assembled there. He
played shortstop, and his activity in picking up hot grounders and his
wonderful accuracy in throwing to first base were the chief attractions
which brought many to the place. He was equally successful at the bat,
and, when only fourteen years old, repeatedly lifted the ball over the
left-field fence--a feat which was only accomplished very rarely by the
heaviest batsmen of the visiting nines.
There were many, including myself, who particularly admired Ben's
throwing. How any living person can acquire such skill is beyond my
comprehension. Ben was the superior of all his companions when a small
urchin, and his wonderful accuracy improved as he grew older.
To please a number of spectators, Ben used to place himself on third
base, and then "bore in" the ball to first. In its arrowy passage it
seemed scarcely to rise more than two or three feet above the horizontal,
and shot through the air with such unerring aim that I really believe he
could have struck a breast-pin on a player's front nine times out of ten.
I never saw him make a wild throw, and some of his double plays were
executed with such brilliancy that a veteran player took his hand one day
as he ran from the field, and said:
"Ben, you'll be on a professional nine in a couple of years. Harry Wright
and the different managers are always on the lookout for talent, and
they'll scoop you in."
"I think not," said the modest Ben, panting slightly from a terrific run.
"I am a little lucky, that's all; but though I'm very fond of playing
ball I never will take it up as a means of living."
"There's where your head ain't level, sonny. Why, you'll get more money
for one summer's play than you will make in two or three years nursing a
telegraph machine. Besides that, think of the fun you will have."
"That's all very good, and I can understand why baseball is so tempting
to so many young men. But it lasts a short time, and then the player
finds himself without any regular business. His fingers are banged out of
shape; he has exercised so violently that more than likely his health is
injured, and he is compelled to work like a common laborer to get a
living. Ten years from now there will hardly be one of the present
professionals in the business, I'm sure."
"I guess you ain't far from the fact, but for all that, if I had the
chance that you have, I would be mighty glad to take in all the baseball
sport I could."
But Ben was sensible in this respect, and steadily refused to look upon
himself as training for the professional ball field. In looking back to
that time, I am rejoiced that such is the fact. There are many of my
readers who recall the popular players of years ago--McBride, Wright,
Fisler, Sensenderfer, McMullen, Start, Brainard, Gould, Leonard, Dean,
Spalding, Sweeney, Radcliffe, McDonald, Addy, Pierce, and a score of
others. Among them all I recall none still in the field. Some are dead,
and the rest are so "used up" that they would make a sorry exhibition if
placed on the ball field to-day.
Ben Mayberry was a swift and skillful skater, and in running there was
not a boy in Damietta who could equal him. It was by giving heed to these
forms of healthful exercise, and by avoiding liquor and tobacco, that he
preserved his rosy cheeks, his clear eye, his vigorous brain, and his
bounding health.
"Why, how do you do, Ben?"
The lad looked up from his desk in the office, one clear, autumn day, as
he heard these words, and I did the same. There stood one of the
loveliest little girls I ever looked upon. She seemed to be ten or eleven
years of age, was richly dressed, with an exuberant mass of yellow hair
falling over her shoulders. Her large, lustrous eyes were of a deep blue,
her complexion as rich and pink as the lining of a sea shell, and her
features as winsome as any that Phidias himself ever carved from Parian
marble.
Ben rose in a hesitating way and walked toward her, uncertain, though he
suspected her identity.
"Is this--no, it cannot be----"
"Yes; I am Dolly Willard, that you saved from drowning with my poor mamma
last winter. I wrote you a letter soon after I got home, but you felt too
important to notice it, I suppose."
And the laughing girl reached her hand over the counter, while Ben shook
it warmly, and said:
"You wrote to me? Surely there was some mistake, for I never got the
letter; I would have only been too glad to answer it. Maybe you forgot to
drop it in the office."
"I gave it to Uncle George, and told him to be careful and put it in the
mail, and he said he did so when he came home, so it was not my fault. But
I am visiting at my cousin's in Commerce Street, at Mr. Grandin's----"
"I know the place."
"They are going to have a grand party there to-night, and I've come down
to ask you to be sure and be there."
"I am delighted to receive your invitation, but----"
"You can go," said I, as Ben looked appealingly toward me.
"Thank you, sir. Yes, Miss Dolly, I count upon great pleasure in being
present."
"If you don't come, I'll never speak to you again," called the pretty
little miss as she passed out of the door.
"I am sorry and troubled about one thing," said Ben to me, when we stood
together. "This Uncle George of Dolly's is the G. R. Burkhill who
received that cipher dispatch. I am satisfied he is a villain, and
there's trouble close at hand."