OFF FOR YALE
"We've got the game in the refrigerator--on ice."
"Take it easy now, Silver Stars."
"Let 'em get a few runs if they want to."
Thus spoke some of the spectators, and a number of the members of the
home team, as the last half of the seventh inning started with the score
ten to three in favor of the Silver Stars. It had not been a very tight
contest on either side, and errors were numerous. Yet, in spite of the
sneering laugh of the Yale man, Joe knew that he had pitched a good
game. They had hit him but seldom, and one run was due to a muffed ball
by the centre fielder.
"Well, I guess you haven't forgotten how to pitch," exulted Tom, as he
sat beside his chum on the bench.
Behind them, and over their heads, sat the spectators in the grandstand,
and when the applause at a sensational catch just made by the left
fielder, retiring the third man, had died away the voices of many in
comment on the game could be heard.
"Oh, I'm not so very proud of myself," remarked Joe. "I can see lots of
room for improvement. But I'm all out of practice. I think I could have
held 'em down better if we'd had a few more games to back us up."
"Sure thing. Well, this is a good way to wind up the season. I heard a
little while ago that the Resolutes came over here to make mince-meat of
us. They depended a whole lot on their pitcher, but you made him look
like thirty cents."
"Oh, I don't know. He's got lots of speed, and if he had the benefit of
the coaching we got at Excelsior Hall he'd make a dandy."
"Maybe. I'm going over here to have a chin with Rodney Burke. I won't be
up for a good while."
"And I guess I won't get a chance this inning," remarked Joe, as he
settled back on the bench. As he did so he was aware of a conversation
going on in the stand over his head.
"And you say he's going to Yale this term?" asked someone--a youth's
deep-chested tones.
"I believe so--yes," answered a girl. Joe recognized that Mabel Davis
was speaking. "He's a chum of my brother's," she went on.
"They're talking of me," thought Joe, and he looked apprehensively at
his companions on the bench, but they seemed to be paying no attention
to him, for which he was grateful. They were absorbed in the game.
"Going to Yale; eh?" went on the youth's voice, and Joe felt sure he was
Ford Weston. "Well, we eat his kind up down there!"
"Hush! You mustn't talk so of my friends," warned Mabel, and yet she
laughed.
"Oh, if he's a friend of yours, that's different," came the retort.
"You're awful strong with me, Mabel, and I'd do anything you asked."
The girl laughed in a pleased sort of way, and Joe, with a wild feeling
in his heart, felt a certain scorn for both of them.
"Yes, he and my brother are chums," resumed Mabel. "They went to
boarding school together, but Joe is going to Yale. He is just crazy
about baseball--in fact Tom is, too, but Joe wants to be a great
pitcher."
"Does he think he's going to pitch at Yale?"
"I believe he does!"
"Then he's got a whole lot more thinks coming!" laughed the Yale man.
"He's about the craziest specimen of a tosser I ever stacked up against.
He'll never make the Yale scrub!"
"Hush! Haven't I told you not to talk so about my friend?" insisted the
girl, but there was still laughter in her tones.
"All right Miss Mabel. I'll do anything you say. Wow! That was a pretty
hit all right. Go it, old man! A three-bagger!" and in the enthusiasm
over the game the Yale man dropped Joe as a topic of conversation.
Our hero, with burning cheeks, got up and strolled away. He had heard
too much, but he was glad they did not know he had unintentionally been
listening.
The game ended with the Silver Stars winners, but the score was not as
close as seemed likely in the seventh inning. For the Resolutes, most
unexpectedly, began hitting Joe, though he managed to pull himself
together in the ninth, and retired his opponents hitless. The last half
of the ninth was not played, as the home team had a margin of two runs.
"Well, we did 'em," remarked Tom, as he and Joe walked off the field.
"But they sort of pulled up on us. Did they get on to your curves?"
"No," spoke Joe listlessly. "I--er--I got a little tired I guess."
"No wonder. You're not in trim. But you stiffened up at the last."
"Oh, yes," but Joe knew it was not weariness that accounted for his
being hit so often. It was because of an inward rage, a sense of shame,
and, be it confessed, a bit of fear.
For well he knew how little it would take, in such a college as Yale,
to make or mar a man. Should he come, heralded perhaps by the unfriendly
tongue of the lad who had watched him pitch that day--heralded as one
with a "swelled head"--as one who thought himself a master-pitcher--Joe
knew he could never live it down.
"I'll never get my chance--the chance for the 'varsity--if he begins to
talk," mused Joe, and for a time he was miserable.
"Come on over to grub," invited Tom. "Sis and her latest find will be
there--that Yale chap. Maybe you'd like to meet him. If you don't we can
sneak in late and there'll be some eats left."
"No, thanks, I don't believe I will," replied Joe listlessly.
"Don't you want to meet that Yale fellow? Maybe he could give you some
points."
"No, I'd rather not."
"All right," assented Tom quickly. Something in his chum's tones made
him wonder what was the matter, but he did not ask.
"I've got some packing to do," went on Joe, conscious that he was not
acting very cordially toward his old schoolmate. "I may see you later."
"Sure, any time. I'll be on hand to see you off for Yale, old man."
"Yale!" whispered Joe, as he swung off toward his own home,
half-conscious of the pointing fingers and whispered comments of a
number of street urchins who were designating him as "dat's de pitchin'
guy what walloped de Resolutes!"
"Yale!" thought Joe. "I'm beginning to hate it!"
And then a revulsion of feeling suddenly came over him.
"Hang it all!" he exclaimed as he stumbled along. "This is no way for a
fellow to feel if he's going to college. I've got to perk up. If I am to
go to Yale, I'm going to do my best to be worth it!"
But something rankled in his heart, and, try as he might he could not
help clenching his teeth and gripping his hands as he thought of Ford
Weston.
"I--I'd like to fight him!" murmured Joe. "I wonder if they allow fights
at Yale?"
Several days later you might have heard this in the Matson home.
"Well, Joe, have you got everything packed?"
"Don't forget to send me a flag."
"You've got your ticket all right, haven't you?"
"Write as soon as you get there."
"And whatever you do, don't go around with wet feet. It's coming on
Winter now----"
"Mother! Mother!" broke in Mr. Matson, with a laugh at his wife and
daughter on either side of Joe, questioning and giving advice by turns.
"You're like hens with one chicken. Don't coddle him so. He's been away
before, and he's getting big enough to know his way around by this
time."
Well might he say so, for Joe had grown fast in the past three years,
and, though but nineteen, was taller than his father, who was not a
small man.
"Of course he's been away," agreed Mrs. Matson, "but not as far as New
Haven, and going to Yale is some different from Excelsior Hall, I
guess."
"I _know_ so," murmured Joe, with a wink at his father.
"I'm going to the station with you," declared Clara. "Here comes Tom. I
guess he's going, too."
"Well, I'll say good-bye here," said Mrs. Matson, and her voice trembled
a little. "Good-bye, my boy. I know you'll do what's right, and make us
all proud of you!"
Joe's answer was a kiss, and then, with her handkerchief much in
evidence, Mrs. Matson left the room.
"Come! Come!" laughed Mr. Matson. "You'll make Joe sorry he's going if
you keep on."
"The only thing I'm sorry about," replied the lad, "is that it'll be a
good while until Spring."
"Baseball; eh?" queried his father. "Well, I suppose you'll play if you
get the chance. But, Joe, just remember that life isn't all baseball,
though that has its place in the scheme of things. You're not going to
Yale just to play baseball."
"But, if I get a chance, I'm going to play my head off!" exclaimed the
lad, and, for the first time in some days there came a fierce light of
joy into his eyes.
"That's the spirit, son," exclaimed Mr. Matson. "And just remember that,
while you want to win, it isn't the only point in the game. Always be a
gentleman--play hard; but play clean! That's all the advice I'm going to
give you," and with a shake of his hand the inventor followed his wife
from the room.
"Well, I guess I'm going to be left alone to do the honors," laughed
Clara. "Come on now, it's almost train time. Oh, hello, Tom!" she added,
as Joe's chum entered. "Did you bring any extra handkerchiefs with you?"
"Say I'll pull your hairpins out, Clara, if you don't quit fooling!"
threatened her brother.
Joe's baggage, save for a small valise, had been sent on ahead, and
now, calling a good-bye to his parents, but not going to them, for
he realized that it would only make his mother cry more, the young
collegian, escorted by his sister and chum, started for the station.
Our hero found a few of his friends gathered there, among them Mabel
Davis.
"And so you're off for Yale," she remarked, and Joe noticed that she
too, like his sister, seemed to have "grown up" suddenly in the last
year. Mabel was quite a young lady now.
"Yes, I'm off," replied Joe, rather coldly.
"Oh, I think it's just grand to go to a big college," went on Mabel. "I
wish papa would let Tom go."
"I wish so myself," chimed in her brother.
"I know one Yale man," went on Mabel. "I met him this Summer. He was at
the game the other day. I could write to him, and tell him you are
coming."
"Please don't!" exclaimed Joe so suddenly that Mabel drew back, a little
offended.
"Wa'al, I want to shake hands with you, an' wish you all success,"
exclaimed a voice at Joe's elbow. He turned to see Mr. Ebenezer
Peterkin, a neighbor. "So you're off for college. I hear they're great
places for football and baseball! Ha! Ha! 'Member th' time you throwed a
ball through our winder, and splashed Alvirah's apple sass all over her
clean stove? 'Member that, Joe?"
"Indeed I do, Mr. Peterkin. And how you told Tom and me to hurry off, as
your wife was coming after us."
"That's right! Ha! Ha! Alvirah was considerable put out that day. She'd
just got her stove blacked, an' that sass was some of her best. Th'
ball landed plump into it! 'Member?" and again the old man chuckled with
mirth.
"I remember," laughed Joe. "And how Tom and I blackened the stove, and
helped clean up the kitchen for your wife. I was practising pitching
that day."
"Oh, yes, you _pitched_ all right," chuckled the aged man. "Wa'al, Joe,
I wish you all sorts of luck, an' if you do pitch down there at Yale,
don't go to splattering no apple sass!"
"I won't," promised the lad.
There were more congratulations, more wishes for success, more hand
shakings and more good-byes, and then the whistle of the approaching
train was heard. Somehow Joe could not but remember the day he had
driven the man to the station just in time to get his train. He wondered
if he would ever see that individual again.
"Good-bye, Joe!"
"So long, old man!"
"Don't forget to write!"
"Play ball!"
"Good-bye, Joe!"
Laughter, cheers, some tears too, but not many, waving hands, and amid
all this Joe entered the train. He waved back as long as he could see
any of them, and then he settled back in his seat.
He was off for Yale--for Yale, with all its traditions, its mysteries,
its learning and wiseness, its sports and games, its joys and
sorrows--its heart-burnings and its delights, its victories--and
defeats! Off for Yale. Joe felt his breath choking him, and into his
eyes there came a mist as he gazed out of the window. Off for Yale--and
baseball!