ERSKINE _VS._ HARVARD
The nine took its first long trip when it journeyed to Cambridge
and played Harvard in a warm drizzle of rain that made the ball
slippery and hard to hold, and set the players to steaming like so
many tea-kettles. Erskine met her second defeat of the season that
afternoon. She had an attack of the stage-fright usual to the teams of
lesser colleges when confronting those of the “big four,” and it lasted
until the fifth inning, when, with the score 9 to 0 in her favor,
Harvard’s pitcher slumped and allowed the bases to fill for the first
time during the contest.
Erskine awakened, then, to the fact that her opponents were only human
beings, after all, and not supernatural personages protected by the
gods, a fact which Hanson had been seeking to convince them of all day
long, but without success. With bases full, one man out, and Bissell at
bat, there seemed no reason why the Purple should not place a tally
in her empty column. This was evidently the view that Bissell himself
took, for after having two strikes and two balls called on him, he
found what he wanted and drove it hard and straight between first and
second. Gilberth scored, but Billings was caught out at the plate.
Motter reached third and Bissell went to second. Hanson whispered to
Lowe as he selected his bat. Harvard shortened field.
“Last man!” called the crimson-legged first-baseman.
“Last man!” echoed the shortstop.
Lowe’s first attempt at a bunt missed fire and the umpire called a
strike on him. Then came two balls, each an enticing and deceptive
drop. Lowe was the last man on the batting list, but if he wasn’t much
of a hitter he at least was capable of obeying orders. He watched
the balls go by in a disinterested manner that was beautiful to see.
Then came another strike, and for an instant his round, freckled face
expressed uneasiness. The Harvard pitcher decided to end the half, and
threw straight over base. Lowe shortened his bat a trifle and found the
ball, and the next moment both were going toward first base, the ball
very slowly, Lowe about as rapidly as he ever moved in his life.
It was the pitcher’s ball, and the pitcher ran for it. Motter, at
third, started pell-mell for home, only to stop as suddenly and dive
back to the bag. But the pitcher knew better than to throw there, and
as soon as Motter had turned he sped the ball to first. But he had
delayed an instant too long, and the umpire dropped his hand in the
direction of Lowe, who, with both feet planted firmly on the bag, was
obeying Perkins’s repeated command to “Hold it, Ted!” It was a close
decision, but there was no reason to judge it as unfair, and the game
went on with the bases again filled and Erskine’s heavy batters up.
Joe Perkins stepped to the plate, gripped his bat, and looked over
the field. Shortstop was covering second, and the infield was playing
close. Out toward the corner of the Carey building the right-fielder
was stepping back. Erskine’s captain had already sent two long flies
into his territory, and it wouldn’t do to take risks. Joe looked with
longing eyes upon a stretch of undefended territory behind first base
and out of reach of right-fielder. If he could bring a low fly down
there it was safe for another tally. But the pitcher had himself in
hand again. He was more than usually deliberate and the first delivery
didn’t lend encouragement to Joe’s hopes, for although that youth,
staggering away from the base, sought to impress the umpire with the
fact that the ball had gone well inside of the plate, that astute,
black-capped person called “Strike!”
The three or four hundred students who, with raincoats and umbrellas,
were braving the discomforting drizzle, applauded. Jack, huddled
between Clover and Northup on the bench in the lee of the west stand,
sighed and took his hand from the folds of his sweater to beat them
anxiously on his knees. Clover wiped the rain from his cheek and turned.
“We could use a home run, couldn’t we?”
“You might as well talk about winning the game,” growled Northup, who
had overheard. “That pitcher hasn’t given any one a home run yet this
season, and you can bet he isn’t going to present us with one.”
“Ball!” droned the umpire.
“Well, I’ll be satisfied with a hit,” sighed Jack.
“You’re wise,” Northup answered with a grin. “There it is again,” he
muttered then, as Joe, reaching for an outshoot, swung in the air and
stepped back to tap the plate with his bat and look exasperated.
“Say, doesn’t that make you mad,” asked Clover, “to reach for something
when you know you shouldn’t, and then get fooled? I’ll bet Cap could
bite nails now!”
But Joe got over his annoyance the next instant, and gave his attention
to the ball. When it had passed he sighed with relief and silently
gave thanks to the little red-faced umpire. It was now two strikes and
two balls. Back of first and third King and Gilberth were coaching
frantically:
“Two out, Ted! Play off! Play away off!”
“Run on anything, Teddy! Two gone! Now! _Now!_ NOW!”
“With two Teds on bases,” said Northup, “it seems as though something
might happen.”
“Two? Is Lowe’s name Ted?”
“Yes, Theodore Coveney Lowe, Esquire, is the gentleman’s full-- _Hey!_”
Northup was on his feet, and a second later the bench was empty. Ten
purple-stockinged maniacs danced and shrieked over the sopping turf,
waving sweaters and caps. Motter and Bissell and Lowe were racing home
almost in a bunch. Joe Perkins was speeding for second. He had put the
ball where he wanted it, well over first-baseman’s head, and yards and
yards in front of right-fielder; had placed it there as carefully as
though he had walked across the diamond and dropped it exactly in the
middle of the uncovered territory.
First-baseman started back for it, and the pitcher ran to cover first.
But right-field was racing in, and it was that player who reached
the ball first and fielded it home just too late to catch Lowe at the
plate. Then the sphere flew back to second, but Joe, hearkening to the
coaching, slid across the brown mud and got his fingers on a corner of
the bag in plenty of time.
There followed a pause in the progress of the game while Harvard’s
pitcher and her captain tried to convince the umpire that Lowe had not
touched second base in his journey toward home. In that interim the
little band of Erskine players and substitutes gathered together and
cheered, with the rain falling into their wide-open mouths, until the
Harvard stand applauded vigorously.
“Four to nine!” yelled Knox. “We can beat them yet!”
But King, with desperate purpose written eloquently over his face, went
to bat and ingloriously fouled out to third-baseman, and the half was
over. Erskine never came near to scoring again, although, now that the
ice was broken, every man felt capable of doing wonderful things, and
tried his best to accomplish them. The difficulty was with the Harvard
team, and notably the Harvard pitcher; they objected. But if Erskine
was not able to add further tallies to her score, she, at least, held
her opponents down to two more runs, Gilberth pitching a remarkable
game, and what had looked for a time like an overwhelming defeat
resolved itself into a creditable showing for the Purple.
Jack didn’t get into the game for an instant, nor, in fact, did any of
the substitutes. But, as he had scarcely hoped to do so, he was not
greatly disappointed. After the game was over the team went back to
Boston inside and outside a stage-coach, laughing, joking, cheering now
and then, and, on the whole, very well pleased with themselves. Hanson
didn’t see fit to dampen their enthusiasm by reminding them of the
faults which had been plentifully in evidence, but reserved his cold
water for the next day. They had dinner at a hotel. In the course of
the meal, King called across the table to Joe:
“I say, we’ve got old Tidball to thank for this feed, haven’t we? If it
hadn’t been for that speech of his we’d never have had enough money in
the treasury to buy sandwiches.”
“I guess that’s so,” answered the captain.
“You fellows needn’t think, though,” cautioned Patterson, “that you’re
going to get this sort of thing every trip.”
There was a groan.
“Put him out!” called Gilberth.
“Down with the manager!” cried King.
“I wish,” said Jack to Motter, who sat at his left, “that I could take
some of this dinner back to Tidball. I don’t believe he ever had a real
good dinner in all his life!”
“Guess you’re right,” Motter laughed. “Anyway, he doesn’t look as
though he ever had!”
Patterson distributed tickets to one of the theaters, and the men were
cautioned to be back at the hotel promptly at eleven in order to take
the midnight train for home.
“The management doesn’t pay for these, does it?” Jack asked.
“Thunder, no!” answered Motter. “The theater gives them to us, and
advertises the fact that we’re going to be there; calls it ‘Erskine
night.’ We’re on show, as it were. Some of the Harvard team are going,
too. You needn’t fear that Patterson’s going to buy theater seats for
us; you’re lucky if you get him to pay your car-fare to the station!”
Jack’s experience of theaters was extremely limited, and he enjoyed
himself thoroughly all the evening. The team occupied two big boxes at
the left of the stage, while across the house the corresponding boxes
were filled with members of the Harvard team. There was some cheering
on the part of the Purple’s supporters, but neither Hanson nor Joe
encouraged it.
“Shut that up,” begged the latter, once. “They’ll think we’re a prep.
school!”
At half past eleven they got into a train at North Station and went
promptly to sleep, two in a berth, and knew little of events until they
were roused out in the early morning at Centerport.