A NEW PITCHER
Although there was an early breakfast on Kennedy’s farm, when old Jack
arose his sister surprised him by stating that the new man had been up
and wandering about the place for an hour or more.
“I wonder if he didn’t sleep well?” said Kennedy.
“I asked him,” returned Mrs. Malone, “and he said he slept like a log.
He’s a fine-looking fellow, Jack, but he ain’t no farmer. If you took
him for one you got bunkoed.”
Kennedy gave her a laughing, knowing wink. “Leave it to me, Kit,”
he said. “I know my business, whether I’m hirin’ farm hands or ball
players.”
“I’m thinking you’d be much more successful picking the latter,” she
replied. “You may call yourself a farmer, but it’s baseball that’s
still got the hook on ye.”
“Mebbe you’re right, Kitty,” he agreed. “Mebbe that’s why I decided to
taper off with this bush league bunch. Perhaps I’m like a man that’s
been drinking hard and finds he’s got to quit, but it’ll kill him if he
stops all to once. When the baseball bug gets into a man’s blood for
fair he never is quite cured. It’s a disease, my girl.”
“If you’d had a square deal you’d be at it now.”
“Don’t let that worry you. I knew it was coming some time. Where’s this
man of mine?”
“I wouldn’t wonder if you found him out viewin’ the scenery. There’s
something sort of sad and lonesome about him. He acts like he’s lost
his last friend on earth. But he’s a handsome feller, Jack.”
“Now, Kitty, don’t be sentimental. I thought you was done with the men?”
“So I am,” she retorted, flushing almost like a girl. “Stop your
joshing. Me day is over, but I can tell the kind that git the girls
as well as I ever could. Breakfast will be ready in less than five
minutes.”
Laughing, Kennedy went out to search for Locke, whom he found on the
veranda. Lefty rose at once when Jack appeared.
“Good morning,” he said. “You told me to look around, and I’ve been
doing so.”
“Right-o! You’re an early bird, all right. It’s an appetite you should
have for breakfast.”
“I haven’t any working clothes,” said the other. “I’ve been trying to
think what became of my outfit. Can’t seem to remember.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got old clothes enough, and they’ll do when
you want ’em, which won’t be to-day. Come in to breakfast.”
At the table Lefty was silent, but, whatever else could be said of
him, his appetite was healthy enough. He seemed wholly unaware of the
occasional glances of interest from the blue eyes of Mrs. Kitty Malone.
In every movement he proclaimed himself a person of refinement, and it
was only in occasional lapses of speech when he seemed almost trying to
remember something, or repeating a lesson that had been learned, that
there was the slightest suggestion of anything different.
After breakfast Kennedy gave his foreman some instructions, and later
he found Locke waiting for him. Old Jack appeared with a soiled
baseball and a glove.
“I may have to get into the game myself to-day,” he said cheerfully,
“and I’m a bit out of practice. As long as you’re not going to work
until to-morrow, mebbe you’d throw me a few?”
Lefty frowned, but did not refuse.
“Pull off your coat,” directed the old manager, as he paced off and
marked the regular pitching distance in the yard. “Here’s a flat stone
for you to put ’em over. I’ll be the catcher.”
If he had prepared a trap, the other walked into it without hesitation.
Taking his place on the mark indicated, he caught the ball which Jack
tossed him, and squared away.
“Take it easy at first,” suggested Kennedy, in full remembrance of the
smoking speed with which Lefty Locke had dazzled the best batters in
the Big League. “As long as you’re green, you’ll hurt your whip if you
start in by wallopin’ ’em.”
Lefty complied to the letter, and the old manager’s eyes glittered with
the secret triumph he felt as the young man began putting the ball over
with perfect control and apparently without effort. Gradually Kennedy
urged him to speed up, and the change made no difference. Wherever Jack
held his hands behind that flat rock――high, low, behind the inside or
the outside corner――Lefty Locke winged the ball straight into them, so
that it was scarcely necessary to make the slightest movement to catch
it.
“Say,” cried Kennedy suddenly, “I thought you didn’t know anything
about this business?”
“I don’t,” was the instant declaration. “Don’t think I ever handled
a baseball before in all my life.” But there was a strange flush in
his face and a peculiar light of aroused interest in his eyes, all of
which the former Blue Stockings’ manager observed with unspeakable
gratification.
“Well, if you’re a greenhorn, certainly you’re a wonder,” said
Kennedy, still careful to follow the other’s lead. “Say, throw me a
drop.”
Locke shook his head. “I don’t know how.”
“Easiest thing you ever tried. Here, I’ll show you.”
He jogged forward, took the ball, and demonstrated how it should be
held and in what manner it should be released with the proper whirling
motion to make it drop.
“Now try it that way,” he said, returning to his position.
Three times Lefty threw the ball without the slightest indication of a
drop, but with the fourth throw, into which he put a bit more speed,
the sphere, coming breast-high, took a sudden shoot toward the ground
just before reaching the stone which served for a plate. Kennedy,
scooping it from the turf, whooped.
“That’s it!” he shouted. “Great smoke! That was a peach! It would have
had Logie, of the Specters, breakin’ his back.”
For the first time since his arrival in Deering, something like a faint
smile flitted across the young man’s face.
“Queer,” he said. “I didn’t know I could do that. Pitching can’t be so
difficult to learn.”
“It isn’t for some men,” assured Kennedy. “Give me another.”
He snapped the ball wide and high to Locke, who carelessly thrust up
his right hand, stopped it, and permitted it to drop into his left, a
movement so familiar to old Jack that he nearly whooped again.
“Give me one just like the last,” invited Kennedy, “and burn it. Let it
come smoking.”
It was like the last, and with only his small fielder’s glove to aid
him Kennedy lost it.
“Oh, some speed, son――some speed!” he rejoiced. “The left-hander I told
you about last night used to have a duplicate of Walter Johnson’s hook
curve, only it took the opposite twist toward the inside corner for a
right-hand batter, and so was a heap worse to hit. Let me show you how
he threw it, if I can remember.”
Again he demonstrated, and again Locke apparently tried to follow
directions. This time he threw the hook with the first effort, and old
Jack bit his tongue to hold himself in check.
“That’s it!” he cried. “Why, I could make a pitcher out of you――I sure
could! And there’s more money in it than working on a farm. It’s good,
healthy business, too. Just what your doctor’d ordered if he’d knowed
you could do it.”
“How could he know, if I didn’t know myself?” was the good-natured
question, all the somberness seeming gone from Locke’s face――temporarily
at least. In every movement he was now a pitcher, the same young wonder
who had made such a record under Kennedy with the Blue Stockings; the
same jovial-appearing, resolute, reliable boxman who had made a host of
friends and admirers, and had come to be feared and respected by
opposing batsmen.
“You throw ’em any way you’re a mind to now, and let ’em come,” said
Kennedy. “You’re giving me some practice, all right.”
There was life, ginger, fire, and marvelous control in every delivery.
The whistlers that left Locke’s fingers made old Jack set his teeth
and grin painfully as, one after another, they nearly lifted him off
his feet. In a few moments the old manager, unprotected by a big mitt,
found that he was getting more than enough.
“That will do!” he shouted, dropping the ball, and blowing on his
smarting right hand. “Perhaps you never saw a ball game, but, believe
me, you can pitch――and I know pitchers.”