WEATHERBY’S INNING
BY RALPH HENRY BARBOUR.
Each, 12mo, Cloth, Illustrated.
Weatherby’s Inning.
Illustrated in Colors. $1.20 net; postage, 12 cents additional.
Behind the Line.
A Story of School and Football. $1.20 net; postage, 12 cents additional.
Captain of the Crew.
$1.20 net; postage, 12 cents additional.
For the Honor of the School.
A Story of School Life and Interscholastic Sport. $1.50.
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A Story of School, Football, and Golf. $1.50.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
[Illustration: Perkins was speeding for second.]
WEATHERBY’S INNING
A Story of College
Life and Baseball
BY
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
AUTHOR OF BEHIND THE LINE,
THE HALF-BACK, ETC.
_Illustrated by C. M. Relyea_
[Illustration]
New York
D. Appleton and Company
1903
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
_Published September, 1903_
TO
ALFRED LOUIS BAURY
AGED ELEVEN
YOUNGEST AND MOST LENIENT
OF CRITICS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--COWARD! 1
II.--AN INTERRUPTION 11
III.--MR. TIDBALL INTRODUCES HIMSELF 19
IV.--CATCHER AND PITCHER 30
V.--AN ENCOUNTER IN THE YARD 39
VI.--IN DISGRACE 47
VII.--AT THE BATTING NETS 57
VIII.--THE LAST STRAW 68
IX.--ANTHONY STUDIES A TIME-TABLE 80
X.--FLIGHT 94
XI.--ANTHONY MAKES A STATEMENT 106
XII.--A FLY TO LEFT-FIELDER 120
XIII.--JOE IS PESSIMISTIC 127
XIV.--THE MASS-MEETING 139
XV.--ANTHONY ON BASEBALL 148
XVI.--JACK COURTS THE MUSE 156
XVII.--ERSKINE _vs._ HARVARD 167
XVIII.--JACK AT SECOND 176
XIX.--ANTHONY TELLS A SECRET 184
XX.--STOLEN PROPERTY 194
XXI.--OFF TO COLLEGETOWN 203
XXII.--AT THE END OF THE SIXTH 213
XXIII.--A TRIPLE PLAY 223
XXIV.--WEATHERBY’S INNING 239
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
Perkins was speeding for second. _Frontispiece_
He leaned back, clinging to the planks behind him. 7
Anthony waved the coffee-pot hospitably. 47
“What’s wrong, Weatherby?” 99
Weatherby sprang straight upward, two feet above the turf. 238
With a gasp for breath he leaped forward. 246
WEATHERBY’S INNING
CHAPTER I
COWARD!
UNIVERSITY BASEBALL.--All men who wish to try for the team
report in the cage on Monday, February 25th, at 3.30 sharp.
JOS. L. PERKINS, _Capt._
Jack Weatherby, on his way out of the gymnasium, paused before the
bulletin-board in the little drafty hall and read the call.
“That’s next Monday,” he muttered. “All right, I’ll be there.”
Then, putting a shoulder against the big oak door, he pushed his way
out on to the granite steps and stood there a moment in scowling
contemplation of the cheerless scene. Before him the board-walk was
almost afloat in a shallow rivulet of melted snow that filled the
gravel-path from side to side. A few steps away the path ended at the
Washington Street gate in a veritable lake. The crossing was inches
deep in water and the Common was a dismal waste of pools and streams
out of which the soldiers’ monument reared itself as though agonizedly
searching for a dry spot to which to move. There was an incessant and
monotonous dripping and trickling and gurgling as the snow, which
two days before had covered the ground to a depth of over a foot,
disappeared as by magic under the breath of an unseasonable south wind.
The sky was leaden and lowering, and against it the bare branches of
the numberless elm-trees swayed complainingly. The Common and so much
of the college grounds as was in sight were deserted. Altogether it was
a dispiriting prospect that met Jack’s eyes, and one little likely to
aid him in the task of fighting the “blues,” which had oppressed him
all day.
He went listlessly down the steps, heroically striving to whistle a
tune. But the tune had died out ere the sidewalk was reached. He looked
with misgiving from the crossing to his shoes--shoes which even when
new had been scarcely adapted to wet weather--and after a moment of
hesitation gave up the idea of taking the usual short cut across the
Common, and went on down Washington Street. As he began to pick his
way gingerly across the wet pavement at the corner of Elm Street, two
men ran down the steps of a boarding-house. They were talking in high,
excited tones, and Jack could hear them until they had gone some
distance toward the railroad.
“The water’s away up to the road, they say,” one of them declared
loudly, “and it’s still rising. They’re afraid the bridge’ll go.
There’s a lot of ice coming down.”
“Should think it might go,” said the other. “The old thing looks as
though you could push it over if you tried.”
“Yes, don’t it? Let’s get a move on. We had a flood once up home
that----”
Then a heavy gust of wind, sweeping around the corner of the
tumble-down livery-stable, drowned the conversation. Jack paused
and silently weighed the respective attractions of a dark and not
overcomfortable room in the green-shuttered house a few steps away,
and a swollen river which might, if there was any such thing as good
luck--which he had begun to doubt--sweep away the tottering old wooden
bridge. Well, his feet were already wet, and so-- He retraced his steps
to the corner and went on down Washington Street in the wake of the
others. They were a block or so ahead, splashing their thick boots
through all kinds of puddles. They were evidently the best of friends,
for one kept his hand on the other’s shoulder. Once the prankish wind
bore a scrap of merry laughter up the street, and Jack, plodding along
behind, wary of puddles, as befits a fellow who is wearing his only
pair of winter shoes, heard it and felt gloomier and more forlorn than
ever.
He wondered what it was like to have real friends and a chum; to be
well known and liked. He had come to Erskine College in September fully
expecting such things to fall to his share. But he had been there five
months now and during that time his life had been very lonely. At
first he had tried to make friends in a diffident way. Perhaps he had
tried with the wrong men; perhaps his manner had been against him; the
result had been discouraging, and after a while, smarting under what to
his oversensitive feelings seemed rebuffs, he had ceased looking for
friends and had retired into a shell of pessimism and injured pride,
masking his loneliness under simulated indifference. Since then he had
undoubtedly lost many a chance to find the companionship he craved; but
he had learned his lesson, he told himself bitterly, and so he rejected
advances as though they were the deadliest of insults.
He didn’t look the least bit like a misanthrope. He was seventeen years
old, large for his age, lithe, muscular and healthy-looking, as is
proper in a boy who has never been pampered, with a face which even at
the present moment, in spite of the expression of settled bitterness
that marred it, was eminently attractive. His eyes were well apart and
gray in color; his hair was light brown, and his mouth, which of late
had formed the unfortunate habit of wearing a little supercilious sneer
in public, looked generous and honest, and, with the firmly rounded
chin beneath, suggested force and capability. On the whole he was a
clean-cut, manly-looking boy to whom fortune, you would have said, owed
much.
When Jack Weatherby reached the river he found that the report of
its depredations was not exaggerated. To be sure, River Street was
still above water, but the flood was well over the bank in places,
and farther along, in front of the coal-yards, several of the wharves
were awash. The broad stream, usually a quiet, even sluggish body, was
sending up a new sound, a low, threatening roar which, without his
having realized it, had reached Jack’s ears long before he had sighted
the river.
He wormed his way through the crowd of townfolk that lined the
street, and, passing through an empty coal-pocket, found himself on a
spray-drenched string-piece a foot above the water. To his right and
left piers ran some distance into the river. They were untenanted. But
beyond them the open spaces used by the coal company as storage ground
for wagons were black with watchers. A short way off was the bridge,
a low, wooden structure connecting Centerport with the little village
of Kirkplain across the river. Jack was on the up-stream side of the
bridge and could see the havoc that the drifting ice was making with
the worn spiling and hear the crashing and grinding as cake after cake
was hurled and jammed against it. Several of the supports were already
broken, and the entrance to the bridge was barred with a rope and
guarded by a member of Centerport’s small police force.
Jack drew back as far as he could from the edge of the beam and with
his shoulders against the boards of the big bin watched in strange
fascination the black, angry water rushing past. It frightened and
repelled him, and yet he found it difficult to remove his gaze. For as
long as he could remember he had been afraid of water. Once, when he
was only five years old, he had fallen into the brook that crossed his
father’s farm and had almost drowned before his mother, hastening after
the runaway, had dragged him out. His recollection of the escapade was
very hazy, but it had left him with a dread of water that was almost a
mania. All efforts to combat it had proved futile. He had never learned
to swim, and had never in all his life trusted himself in a boat. And
yet, as a boy, he had devoured ravenously all the stories of the sea he
could lay hands on, and had shuddered over shipwrecks and similar
disasters, at once repelled and fascinated.
Suddenly his contemplation of the river was disturbed by shouts of
alarm from up-stream. With an effort he withdrew his gaze from the
water and looked in the direction of the cries. At that instant, around
the corner of the pier to his right, floated something that thrashed
the water wildly and sent up shrill appeals for help. After the first
second of bewilderment Jack saw that it was a boy of thirteen or
fourteen years. The white face, horribly drawn with terror, turned
toward him, and, for an instant, the frightened, staring eyes looked
into his. Jack sickened and groped blindly for support. A trick of the
current shot the struggling body into the little harbor afforded by the
two piers, almost at his feet. In his ears was a meaningless babel of
shouts and in his heart an awful fear. He leaned back with outstretched
hands clinging to the planks behind him and closed his eyes to avoid
the sight of the appealing face below. Then, with a gasp, he sank to
his knees, seized the string-piece with one hand, and with the other
reached downward. But he was too late. The current, sweeping out again,
had already borne the boy beyond reach. There was a final despairing
shriek, then the arms ceased to struggle and the eddies closed over
the body. Jack joined his voice impotently with the others and looked
wildly about for a plank or a rope--anything that he could throw into
the water. But there was nothing. Sick and dizzy he subsided against
the timbers.
[Illustration: He leaned back, clinging to the planks behind him.]
Then, just at the corner of the down-stream wharf, the body came to the
surface again, the eyes sightless, the lips silent. And, almost too
late, came help.
Jack, leaning near the opening in the coal-bin, felt rather than saw
some one push by him. The rescuer, a man several years Jack’s senior,
had discarded his coat and vest, and now, stooping and placing a hand
lightly on the string-piece, he dropped into the water. A half dozen
strokes took him to the end of the pier, and just as the drowning boy
was again sinking he caught him. Turning, he struck out toward Jack,
swimming desperately against the swirling current. For a minute it
was difficult work; then he reached stiller water, and Jack, leaning
over the edge, stretched forth eager hands to help. But ere he could
do so he was pushed aside, narrowly saving himself from pitching head
foremost into the water, and a middle-aged man, whom Jack a moment
later saw to be Professor White, relieved the rescuer of his burden.
By that time the narrow foothold along the edge of the river was
thronged with students and townfolk. Quickly the apparently lifeless
body was borne past them through the yard and into a small office.
Jack, trembling in every limb, followed. But near the door he suddenly
became aware of a hostile atmosphere. The crowd, which had grown every
minute, were observing him curiously, contemptuously, muttering and
whispering. The blood rushed into his face and then receded, leaving it
deathly pale. For a moment he faced them. Then a small boy somewhere on
the edge of the throng sent up a shrill cry:
“That’s him! That’s the feller that didn’t make no try ter save him!
’Fraid of wettin’ his feet, he was!”
Jack looked about him and read in the faces that confronted him only
merciless condemnation. Something in his throat hurt him and refused
to be dislodged. With head up he turned and made his way through the
crowd, the old sneer on his lips. But there was worse in store. He felt
a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Professor White beside him.
“What’s your name?” asked the professor sternly.
“Weatherby, sir,” muttered Jack.
“Are you a student?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What class?”
“Six.”
The professor looked at him searchingly, then dropped the hand from his
shoulder.
“I find that hard to believe,” he said contemptuously. “I didn’t think
we had any cowards here at Erskine!”
He turned away, and Jack, after a moment of hesitation, a moment in
which his first inclination to protest against the injustice of the
verdict was drowned in a sudden dumbing surge of anger, made his way
out of the throng and stumbled back to his room through the gathering
twilight.
[Illustration: PLAN OF ERSKINE COLLEGE AND THE TOWN OF CENTERPORT 1901]