“BATTER UP!”
Joe returned to Amesville at a little before three on Sunday afternoon.
He had meant to get back much earlier, but several things had
prevented. In the first place, he had unintentionally taken advantage
of the privilege of late slumber afforded by the quiet hotel and had
not awakened until after eight o’clock, a most unusual proceeding
for Joe! But, late as he had been, he had dressed and was reading a
morning newspaper before Mr. Graham appeared. Breakfast was a leisurely
ceremony and a surprisingly pleasant one. Joe had never seen anyone
pay so much attention to the ordering of a meal as the writer did, and
when it came it was quite unlike any breakfast Joe had ever partaken
of. Strawberries were served with the stems on, a half-dozen big,
luscious ones arranged in a circle about a pyramid of powdered sugar.
Joe waited, at a loss as to how to proceed, until Mr. Graham had shown
the way by lifting a berry by its stem, dipping it in the sugar and
transferring it to his mouth. His host, without appearing to observe
Joe’s hesitation, explained that strawberries eaten in that way were
far easier to digest than when accompanied by cream. Then had arrived,
after finger-bowls, two half chickens, broiled and laid on toast,
Julienne potatoes――only Joe called them “shoestring”――tiny crisp,
crescent-shaped rolls, orange marmalade, coffee――this, too, without
cream, fashioned on the table in some bewildering way with boiled milk
and a tiny pat of sweet butter!――and, last but by no means least,
golden-brown griddle-cakes served with honey.
That had been a wonderful breakfast, indeed, and Joe had eaten until
he felt ashamed of himself, but without, since they spent all of an
hour at the table with the June sunshine lying across the white napery
and glistening on the silver, any after discomfort. Later, when Joe
had spoken of a ten o’clock train, Mr. Graham vetoed the plan at once,
lightly but firmly, and they had taken a long walk, during which the
writer, who seemed to know everything in the city worth seeing and the
shortest way to reach it, had made Joe work his shorter legs to the
utmost to keep up with his companion’s giant strides!
At the station Mr. Graham had gone to the news-stand and doubtless
vastly surprised the attendant by selecting four books from the pen of
Westley Graham. From there they went to the ledge outside the ticket
office and Mr. Graham wrote Joe’s name and his own on the fly-leaf of
each and then piled them into the boy’s arms. After that, in spite of
Joe’s earnest protests, he had bought the latter’s ticket and parlour
car seat.
“You can get some lunch at Toledo,” said Mr. Graham. “You’ll have
twenty minutes there.”
“I shan’t ever want to eat again,” replied Joe with a wistful
recollection of that breakfast.
The other laughed. “Oh, yes, you will. You’ll be hungry by the time you
reach Toledo. If you’re not, you’re no real boy.” At the parlour car
steps Mr. Graham shook hands warmly. “Good-bye, Faulkner,” he said.
“We’ve had rather a jolly little party, haven’t we? I’ve enjoyed it,
anyhow. Good luck to you, my boy. You’ll find an address in one of
those books that usually gets me. Drop me a line some day and tell me
how you’re getting on. Let me know who wins that game on Wednesday. I’d
like to see that.”
“I don’t suppose you ever get to Amesville?” asked Joe anxiously.
“Amesville?” Mr. Graham smiled. “I get everywhere sooner or later,
Faulkner. Whether I do or don’t, we’ll run across each other again some
day. That’s my experience. It’s a wee bit of a world, after all, and a
mighty nice thing about it is that friends are always meeting.”
Joe had opened one of the books as soon as he had had his last glimpse
of Mr. Graham on the station platform, and, in spite of the latter’s
prediction, had not lunched at Toledo. Instead, he sat on a baggage
truck and pursued the adventures of the hero of the tale with a
breathless interest that almost lost him his train to Amesville!
His first act when he got home was to seek Mr. Chase, the station
agent. But that gentleman was not on duty and so Joe enclosed the
borrowed money in an envelope, scribbled a note that recounted the
success of his expedition and thanked Mr. Chase for his assistance, and
left it at the office.
It was a worried and anxious Aunt Sarah who met him at the door, and
Joe’s first half-hour at home was devoted to a full and complete
history of the past twenty-four hours, during which he was made to
drink two cups of tea and eat three slices of currant cake. Then he
called up the Strobes’ house, found that Jack had been asking for him
and was at last able to see him, and forthwith hurried to the meeting.
Jack was swathed in a dressing-robe and flanked by medicines and an
atomiser when Joe found him, but he looked pretty healthy and declared
that he felt fine today and was to go out tomorrow unless the pesky
doctor changed his mind in the morning.
“I was frightened to death I wouldn’t be able to play Wednesday,” he
said; “but I can. Say, did Frank play Saturday?”
“Yes, he did, Jack, for a couple of innings; no, three.”
Jack groaned. “It’s all up, then! Bat will put him in Wednesday just
out of kindness. Isn’t that rotten luck? Who invented quinsy, anyway?”
“Edison, I suppose.”
“Oh, it’s all well enough for you to grin, but I lose that wager and
Handsome Frank will be more conceited than ever! And I won’t get that
bat-case――――”
“I’ll buy that for you if you’ll shut up about it,” declared Joe
desperately.
“I don’t want you to. I can buy it myself, for that matter. It――it’s
beating Frank that matters.”
“And only the other day you were saying that you were sorry for him!”
“Well, I’m not today,” said Jack grimly. “Say, where were you all the
morning? I thought surely you’d come around or call up.”
“Most of the morning I was in Detroit,” answered Joe soberly.
“In Detroit! What do you mean, Detroit?”
“Detroit, Michigan. There isn’t any other, is there?”
“You mean you’ve been to Detroit today?” asked Jack incredulously. Joe
shook his head.
“I came from there today. I went last night.”
Jack stared unbelievingly. “What for? What’s the joke?”
“For seventy-five dollars,” replied Joe, smilingly. “And I got it, or
most of it.”
“Say, are you batty?” demanded Jack impatiently. “What seventy-five
dollars? What’s the big idea?”
So Joe told his story once more, while Jack’s eyes got bigger and
rounder and he hurled questions at the narrator breathlessly. And when
he had heard all about it and had had every last detail explained to
his satisfaction he deliberately kicked over a chair.
“Wouldn’t that make you sick?” he exclaimed. “I have to go and get
quinsy and lose all that fun! Of course Young couldn’t have sneaked off
when I was well! Oh, dear, no! It had to be when I was laid up! Hang
the luck, anyway! Say, if I’d been along, Joey, I’d have punched his
head!”
“Just as well you weren’t, then,” laughed Joe. “As it was, everything
went off quietly and strictly according to the rules-book.”
“Well, what do you know about it!” marvelled Jack. “Joey, when they
named you ‘Lucky’ Faulkner they hit it just about right! Why, you
didn’t have one chance in ten thousand to get that money back!”
“I guess that’s so. Come to think of it, Jack, I didn’t get it back. It
was Mr. Graham did it.”
“Never mind who did it, you brought it home. Now what are we going to
do for someone to look after the stand?”
“I’ve been thinking that the best thing would be to put the tin box
back for a few days. School closes Thursday, and after that we can look
after it ourselves.”
“All right. I dare say four days won’t lose us much. I wonder, though,
how we’re going to like sticking around that lobby when the hot weather
comes. That won’t be so pleasant, eh?”
“I don’t believe the Adams Building will be hotter than any other
place,” replied Joe. “Anyway, if we’re going to earn money we’ve got
to work for it and put up with some things. I’ve got to be going now,
Jack.”
“What’s your hurry? I haven’t seen you for an age!”
“I’ll drop around after supper if you can see folks then. But I want to
go and give this nine-fifty to Mrs. Bennett. I guess she needs it worse
than we do.”
Jack was back in school Monday morning, a bit weak in the legs, but
otherwise as good as ever, or so he declared. He had two days of
examinations to make up and, since he would not have been of much use
to the team anyway, he stayed away from practice that afternoon and
toiled over his papers in a deserted class-room under the eagle eye of
one of the teachers.
On Tuesday there was only an hour of light work for the players. The
Second Team ended its season with a game with the grammar school, which
it won in a breath-taking tenth inning rally, and the diamond was given
over to the workmen who were to put it in shape for the morrow’s battle.
Petersburg descended on Amesville the next day at noon and went to
lunch at the principal hotel. She arrived nearly a hundred strong and
armed with a multitude of gay banners, which she waved jubilantly as,
luncheon over, the team and its followers took trolley cars to the
field.
Petersburg had gone through a more than usually successful season,
playing nineteen games, of which she had won twelve and tied one. In
Calvert she had a pitcher of known ability who had last year proved a
good deal of a riddle to Amesville’s batters, and her second-choice
twirler, Gorman, had been coming fast during the last month and had
only a week ago held Minton School to one hit. For the rest, Petersburg
had an average team, with a fast, snappy infield and an outfield
composed of two veterans and one newcomer. Petersburg had not gained
the reputation of a hard-hitting outfit this year, but an analysis of
the scores of past conflicts would have shown that she had usually
secured hits when they were most needed.
Amesville, however, went into the game that afternoon with more
confidence than usual. There had been seasons when she had had a strong
pitching staff and a poor fielding team, seasons when she had been
brilliant at fielding and weak at batting, and seasons when she could
bat anything and had no talent in the box. But this year it was felt
that the Brown-and-Blue was an evenly rounded nine with good pitchers,
clever fielders, and the ability to bat, and most of the local rooters
who filled the two stands behind first base and flowed over on to the
field held that it was less a question of which team would win than
what the score would be!
Petersburg had nearly an hour of practice before Amesville trotted out
to claim the diamond, and by that time the audience had assembled and
the stage was set. The umpire had been imported from Lima, and, since
he had presumably never heard of either Amesville or Petersburg High
School in his life, was credited with being about as impartial as an
umpire could be. He was a small, rotund, business-like-looking chap who
wore the regulation blue flannels and had a voice like a mild-mannered
bull.
Amesville’s batting order was as follows: Smith, s.; Morris, cf.;
Strobe, lf.; Hale, 3b.; Peddie, 2b.; Faulkner, 1b.; Cummings, rf.;
Craig, c.; Pollock, p. Toby Williams hoped to get into the game before
the curtain fell on the afternoon’s performance, and probably Carl
Moran entertained a similar hope, but it was pretty certain that Tom
would remain on the mound as long as the opponent showed its teeth.
On the bench, when the Amesville players trotted out for the opening
inning, remained Williams, Moran, Foley, Loomis, Speyer, Johnson, a
capable hitter from the disbanded Scrubs, and Buster Healey. Buster was
not in playing togs, however, and he viewed the world from behind a
pair of horn spectacles with thick lenses that gave him the appearance
of a wise owl. Manager Mifflin was there, too, with his battered
score-book spread open on his knees, and so was Coach Talbot, in
low-voiced conversation with Mr. John Hall, a privileged well-wisher of
the team.
At half-past two to the second Mr. Reardon, the imported umpire,
faced the stands in “big-league” fashion and announced the batteries
in a voice that carried easily to the outfield fence: “Batthery for
Amesville, Pollock and Craig! For Petthersburg, Calvert and Beale.
_Batther up!_”