Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Books project.)
CATCHER CRAIG
[Illustration: A breathless silence then. The figure on the ledge
settled back]
CATCHER CRAIG
By
CHRISTY MATHEWSON
AUTHOR OF “PITCHING IN A PINCH,” “PITCHER POLLOCK,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CHARLES M. RELYEA
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1915, by
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I SAM MAKES A PURCHASE 3
II OFF FOR CAMP 15
III “THE WIGWAM” 26
IV THE BLANKET THAT RAN AWAY 45
V A SLIDE TO THE PLATE 61
VI THE TILTING MATCH 72
VII SAM OFFERS A SUGGESTION 85
VIII THE “BLUES” WIN! 96
IX DOUGHNUTS IN THE RAIN 109
X SIDNEY SINGS A DITTY 118
XI MAKING THE NINE 138
XII ON CONQUEST BENT 150
XIII OUT AT THIRD! 163
XIV TIED IN THE EIGHTH 175
XV STEVE SCORES 188
XVI KIDNAPPED 200
XVII “GREYSIDES” 211
XVIII MR. YORK MAKES A PROPOSITION 229
XIX HOME AGAIN 238
XX THE MAN IN THE PANAMA 249
XXI MR. HALL TALKS BASEBALL 263
XXII BASES FULL! 276
XXIII A THROW TO SECOND 295
XXIV FIRE! 311
XXV SAM SIGNALS FOR A FAST ONE 327
XXVI CATCHER CRAIG 339
ILLUSTRATIONS
A breathless silence then. The figure on the
ledge settled back (page 342) _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
“Well, Craig, so you found us, eh?” asked the short man,
with a smile and a firm clasp of the hand 36
And above the din and through the red dust-cloud sounded
Mr. York’s voice, “_He’s out!_” 198
“From the ear, Sam! From the ear!” 308
CATCHER CRAIG
CHAPTER I
SAM MAKES A PURCHASE
It was a window to gladden any boy’s heart. Behind the big plate-glass
pane were baseball bats of all sorts and prices, masks and protectors,
gloves and mitts, balls peeking temptingly forth from their tin-foil
wrappers, golf clubs and bags, running shoes and apparel, and many,
many other things to send a chap’s hand diving into his pocket.
Sam Craig’s hand was already there, jingling the few coins he had with
him, while his gaze wandered raptly over the enticing array. Always,
though, it returned to the display of catcher’s mitts.
He was seventeen, a sturdy, brown-haired youth with a well-tanned
face from which dark grey eyes looked untroubledly forth. As he stood
there in front of Cummings and Wright’s window his feet were planted
apart, his attitude seeming to say: “Here I am and here I stay!” And
the resolute expression of his face backed up the assertion of his
body, so that, had you for any reason wished to move Sam from in front
of that window, it would never have occurred to you to try force. If
persuasion failed you’d have let him stay there!
You wouldn’t have called Sam handsome, although, judged separately,
his features were all good. His nose was straight and short, his eyes
thoughtful, his mouth fairly wide and firm, and his chin purposeful.
What you might have mistaken for a dimple in the cleft of the chin was
in reality only a tiny scar, the result of collision with the point of
a newly sharpened pencil caused by a fall on an icy sidewalk many years
before. When accounting for that scar Sam was wont to indulge in one of
his infrequent jokes. There was, he would tell you, a queer coincidence
about it; it had happened in Faber-ary. If, through ignorance of the
brand of pencils affected in Amesville, you missed the point of the
joke, Sam didn’t explain it. He had evolved that pun all himself, and,
not being addicted to airy persiflage, thought rather well of it.
Consequently, if you didn’t catch it, Sam thought poorly of your sense
of humour and wasted no effort on you. He appreciated jokes when he
heard them, but seldom perpetrated one himself. And his appreciation
was seldom demonstrative. When others laughed Sam confined himself to
a slight lifting of one corner of his mouth and a quizzical expression
in his calm grey eyes. When others doubled themselves over and frankly
shouted their amusement, Sam merely chuckled.
He was captain of the Amesville High School Baseball Team. When, two
days after the final contest with Petersburg, a contest which had
resulted in a victory for Amesville and given the Brown-and-Blue the
season’s championship, the players had met to choose a leader for the
next year, the honour had gone to Sam. Probably had Tom Pollock, whose
heady pitching had done more than anything else to win the Petersburg
series, been in his final year at high school, the captaincy would
have gone to him by acclamation. But Tom was still a junior and it was
the custom to elect a senior, and, with Tom out of it, the choice fell
naturally on Sam. The school at large was well satisfied. Sam Craig was
well liked. It would be stretching a point to say that he was popular,
for he was quiet, unassuming, and kept pretty much to himself, and in
consequence made friends slowly. Certainly he was not socially popular
as was Sidney Morris, nor was he hailed as a hero as was Tom Pollock.
But he was liked and respected, and, if he wasn’t called a hero, few
failed to realise that his steady, always cool-headed and sometimes
brilliant work behind the bat had had more than a little to do with
the successful outcome of the season just finished. Sam’s election had
been made unanimous, Sam had faltered a much embarrassed speech of
acceptance, and the team had disbanded for the summer.
To-day, a bright, warm morning in the latter part of June and
just over a week after the election, Sam was seriously debating a
momentous question, which was whether to deplete his slender hoard
of spending-money for one of the brand-new mitts lying so temptingly
beyond the glass, or to save his money and make his old one, a thing of
many honourable scars, do him until next spring. If, he told himself,
he had a lot of money, there were many things in that window he would
buy: a new ball--his own had been several times restitched--a new
mask and--yes, by jingo, if he could afford it!--one of those dandy
black-tipped bats bearing the facsimile signature of a noted Big
Leaguer. More than once his hand came out of his pocket and more than
once he half turned away, but each time his fingers went back to the
coins again, and, at last, he entered the wide, hospitably open door of
the big hardware and sporting-goods store. If he had not done so this
story would have been far different, for more than the purchase of a
catcher’s mitt resulted from his visit that morning to Cummings and
Wright’s.
The front of the store, to the left as you entered, was devoted to
the sporting goods. The department was only about two years old,
but already it had thrice outgrown its limit, until now it occupied
fully a third of the store’s space. There were racks of golf clubs,
shelves filled with enticing boxes, handsome show-cases over which a
red-blooded boy could hang entranced for a long time, polished counters
holding things cunningly displayed, and, between window and cases, an
oak-topped desk, at which a boy of about Sam’s age was busily writing.
He was a capable-looking fellow, with much red-brown hair and a pair of
frank and honest blue eyes and a nice smile. And the smile appeared
the minute he glanced up from the letter he was writing and glimpsed
Sam over the top of the desk.
“Hello!” he said, jumping up. “Haven’t seen you since they made you
captain, Sam. How are you?”
“All right,” said Sam, viewing him, with his quizzical smile, across
the bat-rack. “Say, Tom, I want to buy a mitt. How much do I have to
pay?”
“Oh, we never tell you that till we’ve shown you the goods,” laughed
Tom Pollock. “What you want is one of these, Sam. It’s just like your
old one, I think, and you can’t beat it at any price. We’ve got them
for more money, but----”
“This is all right, thanks.” Sam thrust a hand into the black leather
mitt and thumped it experimentally with his right fist. “How much, Tom?”
“Well, you get the team discount, Sam.” Tom tore a piece of paper from
a pad and figured on it. Then he pushed it toward Sam, and Sam read the
result, hesitated momentarily, and then nodded.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll take it. You needn’t do it up.”
“Going to wear it home?” asked Tom, with a laugh. “By the way, Morris
was talking the other day about getting the Blues together again this
summer. You’ll play if we do, won’t you?”
“I guess so. I don’t know yet. I’m looking for a job, Tom. Know anyone
who wants to hire a strong, willing chap like me?”
Tom smiled and shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t, Sam.”
“I went over to see Harper at the mills yesterday and got a sort of
half promise of a job in the packing-room later. I’m not crazy about
that, though. Maybe I’m lazy, but they sure do work you hard over
there. I worked in the stock-room one summer and nearly passed out! And
hot!”
“Must be,” Tom agreed. “Wish I did know of something, Sam, but----” He
paused and glanced toward his desk. Then, “By Jove!” he muttered. “I
wonder--Look here, Sam, mind going away from home?”
“How far? Where to?”
“Indian Lake.”
“Where’s that?”
“Up toward Mendon. About a hundred and twenty miles north of here.”
“What’s up there? Say, it isn’t peddling books, is it? I tried that one
time and nearly starved to death. Sold four sets of Murray’s Compendium
of Universal History and cleared just eleven dollars and eighty cents
in a month!”
Tom smiled. “No, it’s---- Here’s--here’s the letter I got this morning.
You can read it for yourself. I don’t know why they wrote to me unless
this chap has bought goods from us. I haven’t looked him up yet.”
Sam took the brief typewritten letter and read it. It was addressed to
“Manager Sporting Goods Department, Cummings and Wright, Amesville,
Ohio,” and was as follows:
“DEAR SIR:--Do you happen to know of a young man who will
accept a position in a boys’ camp this summer, July 5 to
September 13? We’ve only been running one year and can’t offer
big pay, but we’ll provide comfortable sleeping quarters and
plenty of good food and pay five a week. If you know of anyone,
please drop me a line right away. Applicant must be moral,
know something about handling boys--we take them from eleven
to fifteen--and able to help instruct in athletics. References
required. Thanking you in advance for any trouble I am putting
you to,
“Respectfully,
“WARREN LANGHAM, Director.”
The letter was typed on a sheet of paper bearing at the top the legend:
“The Wigwam; a Summer Camp for Boys, Indian Lake, Ohio. Warren Bradley
Langham, A.M., Director.”
Sam read it twice, the second time more thoughtfully. Then he looked
questioningly at Tom.
“Interest you?” asked the latter. “If I could take it I’d do it in a
minute, Sam.”
“Yes, but this man’s looking for someone a heap older than I am, I
guess, Tom, although he doesn’t say anything about age. ‘A young man’;
that’s all.”
“Well, aren’t you a young man?”
“I’m young,” agreed Sam, “but I’m no man yet. Anyway, I suppose I
couldn’t go so far. There’s just my mother and Nell at home----”
“It would be only about nine weeks, though. The pay isn’t big, but----”
“The pay’s all right, Tom, because I’d be getting my board, you see.
The only thing would be leaving my folks alone so long. Still----” Sam
thoughtfully fondled the catcher’s mitt.
“You could give him all the references he wanted,” urged Tom.
“Who from?” asked the other doubtfully. “What sort of references?”
“Why, from your minister and your school principal, of course.”
“Oh! Well, what about handling boys? I never handled any. And what
about helping to instruct in athletics?”
“He doesn’t say that you must be _used_ to handling them; only that you
must know something about it. You do, don’t you?”
Sam looked blank. “Do I?” he asked.
“Of course you do! Any fellow does who has sense and has been a
kid himself.” Tom laughed. “You’re too modest, Sam. Throw out your
chest! Aren’t you captain of the Amesville High School Nine? As for
instructing in athletics, why, all that means is that you’ll have to
play ball with the kids and arrange running and jumping stunts and----
Say, you can swim, can’t you?”
“Yes.” Sam seemed quite decided about that.
“There you are, then! You take the letter and write to Mr. Whatshisname
right off.”
“I’d like to,” mused Sam. “I’d like the job.”
“Take it then! I’ll drop the man a note and tell him I’ve got just the
fellow for him; baseball captain, all-around athlete, fine swimmer,
highly moral, and a wonder at handling boys! How’s that?”
“Pack of lies,” replied Sam, with a smile. “You let me take this letter
and I’ll think it over to-night and talk to mother and Nell about it
and see you in the morning. If they think it’s all right maybe I’ll try
for it. Just the same, I know mighty well he’ll think I’m too young.”
“In years, maybe,” said Tom, “but in experience, Sam!” Tom shook his
head knowingly. “It’s experience that counts, my boy.”
“You’re a chump,” said Sam. “Mind if I take this, though?”
“Not a bit. Let me know in the morning, Sam. Joking aside, I think it
would be a first-rate thing. You’d come back in September simply full
of health and able to lick your weight in bear-cats. We’ll miss you,
though, if we get the ball team together again. Who could we get to
catch for us, Sam?”
“Buster Healey.”
“That’s so, he might do. Anything else I can sell you, Sam?”
“No, I guess not. Did I pay you for this?”
“Not yet. You needn’t if you don’t want to. Let me charge it to you.”
“No, thanks,” said Sam hurriedly, diving for his money. “If I get that
place I’ll need this mitt, I guess. I’ve been trying to persuade myself
all the morning that I really ought to have it.”
“Another reason for accepting the job, Sam,” said Tom cheerfully.
“It’ll justify your extravagance.”
“That’s putting ’em over,” said Sam, with a chuckle. “‘Justify your
extravagance!’ Gee, Tom, that’s real language, that is!”
“Yes, right in the groove, Sam. Say, I’d like to get out and pitch a
few. What are you doing this evening? Let’s get a ball and see how it
feels. Will you? Good stuff! Drop around here at five and get me.”