THE RETURN TO BELMONT
Ray Wendell’s foresight had saved us much trouble and annoyance. It so
happened that the rules of the Berkshire League made little provision
in case of two colleges tying for the championship. This deficiency
had entirely escaped the attention of those who had originally framed
the rules; and as no tie in the competition had ever occurred thus
far in the experience of the colleges, the matter had been altogether
overlooked. While every student believed that tie would always be
settled by an extra game, there was no definite rule requiring it. The
nearest approach to it was the clause to which Ray alluded, and which
provided for only such settlement of a tie as should be mutually agreed
upon by the captains of the competing nines.
Of course this was intended to mean that a deciding game should be
played, for the framers of the rules took it for granted that both
captains would be eager to settle the championship in this way, but the
rule was so unsatisfactorily worded as to leave either captain free
to decline a deciding game without sacrificing the championship. The
matter had not escaped Ray’s attention, and he had been sharp enough
to detect this deficiency. Foreseeing the possibility of the Park men
making just such a claim as Arnold advanced, he had approached Beard
before the game, and had arranged the matter completely.
We were highly elated over Ray’s strategic move; and that, added to the
delight we experienced in reviewing our successful tour, filled our
cup of joy to overflowing. All the coldness, rudeness, bad humor, and
chagrin that met us on every hand during our brief stay at Berkeley
could not dampen our spirits one iota; and when once aboard the train
and bound for Belmont, our feelings found joyous vent in shouting and
singing, till the sober passengers about us rose and betook themselves
to the other cars, thinking, no doubt, that bedlam itself was off on
a pleasure tour. We soon had things to ourselves, and then the fun
increased until the conductor himself could stand it no longer.
“This ain’t no cattle train,” he said. “If you fellers wants to raise a
racket, go ahead into the baggage room, and give the other passengers a
show.”
The noisier ones, accordingly, under Percy Randall’s leadership, betook
themselves to the baggage compartment at the forward end of the car,
where they had free scope for their _specialties_; while several of us
remained to talk our experiences over more quietly.
“I tell you what it is, Ray,” said Dick Palmer, “you are a trump. Your
cute little stroke with Beard was as great a victory as the game.”
“What particularly pleased me,” answered Ray, “was Beard’s agreement
to play the deciding game on our grounds. I had hardly hoped to win
that point. I expected, of course, that he would reject the proposition
positively, or at least that he would demand that the question of the
grounds should be decided by lot. I was prepared to meet him in that
demand if he had insisted; so when he accepted my proposition as I
first stated it, he nearly took my breath away.”
“What could have made him so obliging, I wonder?” said Dick.
“Oh, he carried the high and mighty air. He was so cocksure of winning
the game that he was ready to agree to anything that depended on his
losing it. He smiled in a superior way when I spoke to him, and used a
condescending tone as much as to say, ‘Oh, yes, I might just as well
agree with you as not. It won’t make any difference, for we are going
to wipe up the field with you anyhow.’ You may imagine, then, how he
felt when Arnold called him a fool before all those fellows on the
piazza of the Wyman Hotel.”
“When had we better play the deciding game?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” answered Ray. “We can tell better after thinking it
over――the later the better; for I, for one, shall be very busy during
the next week preparing for final examinations. Tony!”
Tony was busily figuring in his memorandum book, and did not answer.
“Tony, what are you at there?” asked Ray.
“Oh, the accounts, of course,” answered Tony. “I have been so busy with
the scores and other matters lately that I have rather let them slide.
They are all right now, though.”
“How do we stand?” I asked.
“Over $150 still in the treasury,” he answered. “Our trip has cost us
less than $100, and our expenses for this season are almost at an end.
Taking into account the profits we will derive from the deciding game
at Belmont, we ought to have a large balance in our favor to carry over
to next year.”
“Well, I hope the fellows don’t begrudge the money they have contributed
to baseball this term,” said Ray.
“That doesn’t sound as if they did, does it?” questioned Tony
significantly, as the distant sound of cheers greeted us――cheers that
came not from the baggage room, where our companions were, but from the
platform of Belmont depot, towards which we were rapidly approaching.
As the train slackened speed, Percy Randall and the rest came tumbling
back into the car; and we hurriedly gathered together our traps and
crowded out upon the platform.
What college man who has ever played ball can forget the glad moment
when, after a hard fought and successful tour, he returns to receive the
enthusiastic congratulations of his fellow students; the pleasurable
thrill with which he first hears the sound of their voices; the joyous,
clamorous greeting as the old familiar depot is reached; the happy,
noisy throng that receives him with open arms; the shouting, laughing,
singing, cheering, and the thousand other delightful details that
constitute his triumph!
All this was ours; and Belmont has still to look forward to a bigger
bonfire than was piled up and consumed on the old back campus that
night. To be sure, our joy was tempered by the consideration that the
championship was still to be won, that the Crimson Banner was still
to be wrested from the hands of the Park men by a deciding game; but,
nevertheless, our prospects had so suddenly brightened, our tour had
been so brilliantly successful, and our success augured so well for the
future, that an anticipatory triumph was quite natural and justifiable.
“We might just as well have our bonfire now, for the tour alone is
worthy of it,” said Clinton Edwards, when Ray suggested that perhaps
the triumph was a little premature. “We can easily have another one
when we win the championship. There is plenty of fuel lying loose
around town. I would contribute all the furniture in my room if I
thought it would be any help towards bringing the Crimson Banner back
to Belmont.”
These remarks were made in the lowest and hoarsest of whispers, for
Clinton’s voice, like those of his worthy “chorus,” had perished of
overwork. Once or twice during the evening when the fun raged hottest,
I saw him make a heroic effort to join in the cheering, but finding it
useless, shake his head despairingly, and betake himself to banging on
a big bass drum, which a member of the college instrumental club had
brought into service. But Clinton and his chorus had done their work
nobly that day, and no member of our nine will ever forget their timely
appearance and loyal support at Berkeley.
As the hour grew late, the excitement waned, and gradually the mass
of students broke up into small knots, and moved away. I was feeling
fatigued from the exertions and nervous strain of the game and the
evening’s celebration; so, about half past ten, I went to my room, and
there, lying off at ease, I watched from my windows the slow dispersion
of the revelers on the campus below me until the last group had
disappeared.
And long after my fellow students, wearied by shouting, had retired
to their various apartments, the fire burned on in the silent night,
crackling, sizzling, and darting its fitful beams into my room, where
they set grotesque and fanciful shadows dancing on ceiling and walls,
and blending their lurid and wavering gleams with the myriad faces and
images that the day’s memory recalled to my dreams.