ALL OUT FOR BASEBALL
But in spite of the efforts of the fellows to keep Pell’s accident in
the pool a secret it became known throughout the school in a matter of
hours.
Every fellow in the locker room realized that Pell had been breaking
a rule,――a very strict rule, and while none of them approved of this
and in their hearts felt that he deserved punishment, they were not
willing to go back on him to the extent of making his misdemeanor and
the resulting accident known. Indeed, while there were few among them
who really cared very much for Pell they all felt that under similar
circumstances they would want the fellows to stand by them and they
tried to cover up the little Sophomore’s difficulties as much as
possible.
Thatcher and Buck Hart, along with Wiggins and Dixon, were the most
concerned about trying to get Pell out of the locker room and back to
his room in Newkirk Hall. The rest of the fellows of the baseball
squad left the gym. in twos and threes or larger groups and went to
their rooms, while these four lingered behind with Pell, who was still
weak and trembling from exhaustion. The accident had taken a greater
toll of his strength than most of them realized.
“Are you feeling all right now?” asked Buck Hart.
Pell forced a smile and tried to stand up. But his legs refused to obey
and he sat down weakly.
“Thought I was, but I guess I’d better rest a little longer,” he said,
a little ashamed of his weakness.
“All right. Rest a bit longer,” said Buck. Then turning to Honey
Wiggins and Dixon, he said: “Honey, you and George needn’t wait. Jeff
and I will get him over to Newkirk. Fact is, I don’t think you’d better
wait. Four of us helping him back will look mighty funny. I think Jeff
and I can get him over and be less conspicuous about it.”
“Well, maybe so,” said big George Dixon. “All right, Hon and I will
blow, then. Sure you don’t need us?”
“No, Buck and I can manage,” said Jeff.
Pell looked around the locker room and then back at Jeff and Buck.
“Where’s Gould?” he asked curiously.
“Gould? Oh, he went out with the bunch,” said Jeff, and in spite
of himself he could not repress all the scorn that he held for the
Sophomore for deserting his supposed chum.
“Huh,” grunted Pell, after a moment’s silence. He evidently intended to
say more but reconsidered. Still in that grunt Jeff detected the fact
that Pell’s eyes were opened to the value of Gould’s friendship.
“How about it now? Feeling any stronger?” asked Buck as he heard the
doors upstairs slam behind George Dixon and Honey Wiggins.
“Try to stand now,” urged Jeff; “we’ll support you between us and get
you over to Newkirk and to bed. You’ll get an hour’s rest before the
supper bell and that will brace you up.”
Pell got to his feet once more and walked slowly, but steadily, to his
locker, where he managed to get into his overcoat and hat. Then with
Jeff and Buck partly supporting him, yet not being conspicuous about
it, they helped him up the stairs and out of the building into a fast
gathering March twilight.
Across the campus they hurried, as fast as the weak and still trembling
Pell could move. And under the cover of the half light they managed to
reach Newkirk Hall and get Pell into his room without encountering any
one.
Pell’s teeth were chattering when they bundled him into his blankets
and turned on the steam radiator in his room. Jeff paused and looked at
him a minute.
“Jiminy, old fellow, you’re shivering so you shake the bed. Think we had
better call Dr. Stout?”
“No, don’t do that,” protested Pell; “I’ll be all right by supper time,
I think.”
But when Jeff and Buck left him they did not agree with him in that
respect.
“I’m afraid the shock and exposure and everything has just about done
him up,” said Jeff to Buck.
“I don’t like to see him have chills that way. Looks bad to me. But we
won’t call the Doctor unless he doesn’t show up for supper,” said Jeff.
Both boys went to their rooms and made themselves ready for the evening
meal. Wade Grenville burst into the room, late as usual, and began to
tumble into clean clothes.
“How’s Pell?” he asked, between splashes in the wash basin in the
corner of the room. “Get him to his room all right?”
“Yes, we got him there all right without any one seeing us, but I think
he’s a mighty sick kid. If he don’t show up for supper we’ll have to
call Dr. Stout,” said Jeff.
“Oh, nonsense; he’s a tough little rooster. He’ll show up, all right.
There goes the bell. Jiminy. Wait up, Jeff, till I put on my collar.”
Both boys made a wild, last minute dash down the hall toward the dining
room, only to almost bump into Dr. Livingston at the dining room door.
“Well, what’s the matter. Can’t you fellows shave time just a little
closer than this?” asked the Headmaster sarcastically, the humor of
which was not lost on both of them.
But as they stepped inside the big room, the door opened behind them
and Pell walked in. Dr. Livingston turned to see who the late comer was.
“Well, Pell,” he said, still with a suggestion of sarcasm, “you are
nearly as late as Thatcher and Grenville. Can’t you―― Why, what’s the
matter, boy?”
Pell had closed the dining room door behind him and started on
obviously unsteady legs toward his table. Two spots of color burned in
his cheeks and his eyes were strangely bright. As he started to step
past the Headmaster, he paused momentarily and tried to steady himself.
Then as he stepped out again he suddenly collapsed. His trembling legs
gave way under him and he dropped in a heap on the floor.
Dr. Livingston and Jeff reached down and lifted him to his feet. Then,
with the whole school looking at them, the Headmaster gathered the boy
up in his arms, exclaiming:
“Why, you’re sick, Pell――terribly sick, with a high fever. Thatcher,
call Dr. Stout.”
But there was not need for Jeff to call the physician. When the little
Sophomore collapsed, Dr. Stout had jumped up from his place at the head
of the junior school table and hurried through the crowd of boys to the
side of the Headmaster.
Together they carried the boy out of the building and across the
campus to the infirmary, while Professor Reisenberg brought order in
the dining room and made the students start on their meal.
Neither Dr. Stout nor the Headmaster returned to the dining room
while the students were eating, and when the boys left the hall the
conclusions they reached among themselves were that Birdie Pell was
very ill.
And such proved to be the case, for in the morning it was announced
from the chapel platform that the boy had developed a slight case of
pneumonia and that Dr. Stout had spent the night fighting to keep it
from getting any more serious. The shock of the accident along with the
exposure had proved too much for Pell.
For two weeks he lingered in the infirmary, with Jeff and Wade and
Buck Hart and many other boys frequent visitors to his room, when he
was permitted to receive them. Meanwhile, however, indoor practice had
continued with increasing enthusiasm among the members of the squad of
sixteen. Honey Wiggins, big George Dixon and Cy Gordon, the pitching
candidates, were warming up to their task of working out their arms,
and with Tad Sloan, the captain and regular catcher of last year, and
Al. Canner and Mickey Daily acting as substitutes, the three slabmen
were shooting balls across the gym. with real vigor, sometimes even
trying curves and shoots when Mr. Rice would permit them to unlimber
all they had for a brief period.
A batting cage, almost entirely surrounded by corded netting, was
installed at one end of the gym., too, and the fellows began to
discover how pleasant it was to swing a bat once more. With the
corded netting draped all around the room to enmesh a stray ball, the
candidates were permitted to slug as hard as they cared to, and they
went at the work of finding their batting eye with a will.
Jeff was particularly keen for this batting cage practice, for he had
long ago developed that co-ordination of eye, brain and muscle that
makes a three hundred batter, and there was nothing he enjoyed more
than proving to a pitcher that there were few curves or jumps that
could fool him. He noticed, too, with a certain eagerness, that Mr.
Rice had watched him while he occupied the batting cage, and he felt
certain that he saw approval in his eye as he watched his freedom of
swing and the way he put his shoulders and body behind some of the
smacks that sent the horse hide against the corded netting with a thump.
Indeed, the coach even went so far after one slashing wallop of the
ball as to remark his approval.
“That’s real stick work, Thatcher. Great stuff. Wish some of the rest
of the fellows would get the hang of the thing the way you have it. All
you need is to correct your feet a little more and you’ll be a three
hundred hitter some day.”
Jeff was thoroughly pleased to have won that much praise from the
coach and he could not help smiling with a sense of satisfaction as he
stepped out of the cage to give his place to another batter. He smiled
more, too, when he noted an expression of jealous hate on the face of
Gould.
“That sort of thing gets his goat, I guess,” he said to himself as he
walked over to relieve Mickey Daily of his catcher’s mitt and his job
of catching the curves of Honey Wiggins. Daily was next in line for
practice in the batting cage.
And so the indoor practice progressed satisfactorily enough through the
last week in March and the first week in April. The weather was fast
developing into an ideal spring. The cold weather that had lingered
all too long in March disappeared completely with the first day of
April and spring seemed to sweep down upon the country with a rush.
Budding trees began to show a fresh greenness, shrubbery about the
campus showed color that was a source of cheer after the bleakness of
winter. Robins appeared on the broad lawns of the campus and searched
diligently for worms that were crowding toward the surface in the damp
and rapidly warming loam, blue birds were awing and their soft, almost
delicate song could be heard from the maples and elms that lined the
driveway. Song sparrows were tuning up in the woods across the river
and the colony of barn swallows that nested under the eaves of the
library building returned in force.
“Oh, boy, this is swell baseball weather,” exclaimed Jeff one day as,
hurrying across the campus he encountered Coach Rice and Tad Sloan, the
captain, moving toward the baseball diamond.
“Great, isn’t it?” said Tad Sloan, who was a short, stocky chap of a
quiet but forceful type, and a senior at Pennington.
“I’ll say so,” said Jeff, wondering with interest why the captain and
the coach were walking toward the diamond.
Tad evidently noticed the look of inquiry Jeff shot at them, for he
smiled and spoke.
“We’re going over to see how wet the ground is. If the sun has dried
the diamond out sufficiently Mr. Rice says he will call for outdoor
practice beginning this afternoon.”
“Oh, boy, that will be swell,” exclaimed Jeff, delighted with the
prospects.
He hurried on to his classes then, eager to spread the glad
possibilities, and for the rest of the morning each time he and Wade
and several other baseball enthusiasts passed the bulletin board in the
hall they looked eagerly for the posting of a new notice there.
And at the end of the last period that morning they were not
disappointed. There it was in big letters.
“ALL OUT FOR BASEBALL! SQUAD AND NEW CANDIDATES WILL REPORT FOR
PRACTICE AT 3 O’CLOCK. NORTH FIELD.”