AFTER THE BATTLE.
To say that the town of Catalpa was very deeply mortified by this
latest and most signal defeat of the favorite Nine would be a mild
way of putting the case. For weeks afterwards, nothing was talked of
in the place but the disgraceful overthrow of the Catalpa Nine. Very
soon, so high did the debate run, there were two sides formed among the
townspeople, one party blaming the Catalpas for their lack of training
and practice, and the other excusing them for their evident inability
to cope with the sturdy farmer boys from "down the river."
"I tell you it is not mere brute muscle that our fellows want," said
Squire Mead, one of the great lights of the town, "it's not brawn, but
skill, that they must acquire before they can stand up against the base
ball players of this part of the country. Let them pay more attention
to work, and less to frills, and they will come out all right."
But Dr. Selby, whose son was one of the rising players in the less
aristocratic Dean County Nine, would have none of this sort of
argument. Tom Selby was not only a wiry and agile player in the field,
but he was the best oarsman on the river, and he could lift a barrel of
flour, properly slung, "without turning a hair." He had done it often.
His father believed in muscle.
"Now there's Bill Van Orman, the Dean County Nine's catcher," Dr. Selby
would say, "who is like an ox in appearance, and I really believe could
stave in the panel of that door with one blow of his fist, but who
gets about the bases as spry as a cat, and who has got down the curve
to such a fine point that nobody can pitch like him in half a dozen
counties. Sam Ellis, the champion pitcher of the Jonesvilles, cannot
hold a candle to Van's pitching. And do you pretend to tell me that
any light-waisted young fellow, like Will Sprague, for instance, could
ever, by all the training in the world, make such a catcher or such a
pitcher as Bill?"
It was the old question over again--skill against muscle. But Judge
Howell, whose opinions on all subjects whatever commanded respect,
probably gave voice to the average public judgment when he said, "What
we want, gentlemen, is muscle _and_ training. I am confident that
in this good town of Catalpa there are more than nine young men who
can give time to the practice necessary for the purpose, and who are
endowed by nature with the requisite powers for the development of
first-rate base ball players."
"Good for you, Jedge!" It was Tony May, an aged and disreputable
loafer in the store where this debate was taking place, who spoke. Tony
was usually called "Rough and Ready" because of his frequent use of
that phrase as applied to himself. Having applauded the Judge's remark,
he drew back, a little confusedly, and murmured "'Scuse me, Jedge, I
didn't mean to be interruptious, but you know I'm rough and ready,
rough and ready, Jedge, and that 'ere remark of yourn does seem to be
about the fust sensible thing I've hearn in this 'ere jag of words.
'Scuse me, Jedge, fer sayin' so; you know I'm rough and I'm ready." And
the speaker subsided into a corner pulling his 'coonskin cap down over
his shaggy brows.
Judge Howell, with an additional stiffness perceptible in his
manner, waved his hand towards the dry goods boxes in the angles of
which "Rough and Ready" had dropped and said, "Our friend here is
enthusiastic. He has a right to be. His son Fremont has certainly
distinguished himself, before now, as the right fielder of the Dean
County Nine. But does anybody know if that handsome young Irish lad,
Larry Boyne, could be drawn from the Jonesville Nine, in case we should
desire to reinforce our home nine by drafts on foreign material, so to
speak?"
Nobody knew; but Jason Elderkin, the storekeeper, leaned over his
counter, pausing in his occupation of measuring off a yard of Kentucky
jean, and said:
"I tell you what it is, Judge, that's the likeliest young fellow in
these parts. He lives with his mother over to Sugar Grove, and
started in to read law with 'Squire Welby, over to Dean Center; but
he had to give it up on account of his father's being killed by being
crushed under a tree that he was felling. Awful blow to the boy,
likewise to his ma. The Jonesvilles pay him something for playing with
them; so I've hearn tell."
[Illustration: "WHAT WE WANT, GENTLEMEN, IS MUSCLE _AND_
TRAINING."--Page 37.]
This suggestion created a momentary stir in the congress, for the
gathering had by this time assumed such a character. Two or three
of the speakers did not see how anybody could think of making a
professional club out of an amateur, such as the Jonesville Nine
pretended to be. If Larry Boyne was paid a salary, why were not others?
And if salaries were paid to the men, it was a professional club,
wasn't it?
"I don't know enough about what we may call the etiquette of the game
to decide what is an amateur and what a professional club," remarked
Judge Howell, in slow and dignified accents. "But if we are in earnest
in this proposition to organize a really creditable base ball club in
Catalpa, and I take it that we are,"--and here he glanced at "Rough and
Ready," who had slid forward into sight again,--"and I take it that we
are, I say, we may as well make up our minds to put our hands into our
pockets and help the boys a little, otherwise we shall go down again."
"Right as a trivet, Jedge," cried Rough and Ready. "Right as a trivet;
for unless we take hold all together, we shell go down to where
flour is nine dollars a bar'l and no money to buy it at that; 'scuse
me, gen'lemen, but I'm rough and ready, you know. I allow that the
Jedge here speaks the senterments of the community." And the old man
retreated into the depths of his 'coonskin cap.
The oracle of the grocery store was right in saying that Judge Howell
spoke the sentiments of the community in regard to the necessity of
taking hold in earnest and organizing a base ball club, if anything
serious was to be accomplished. The project took definite shape at once.
"Why," said Weeks, the bridge-tender, who, from his position, came into
contact with half of the townspeople, nearly every day, as they crossed
and recrossed the river. "Why, every town north of Bloomington, as far
as I know, has got a champion base ball nine, and why should Catalpa
be behind the rest? That's what I want to know. And if we are to have
champions, we have got to take hold and help the boys, like they do in
other towns. And the very first thing I want to see done is the licking
of them Jonesvilles. They are so everlastingly set up by their carrying
off the pennant that they are ready to challenge all creation. So I'm
told."
Around many an evening fire and in many a lounging-place in the town,
the question was animatedly discussed, as autumn waned into winter, and
most outdoor sports became a little unseasonable. It was decided, in
that informal and irregular way with which a western community settles
its internal affairs, that there must be in Catalpa a first-rate base
ball nine, and that it must be organized before the spring opened.