CONSTERNATION
McRae’s exclamation of alarm was echoed promptly in various forms by
Robbie and the members of the Giant team, who came crowding around Joe
and Jim.
“No, I’m not hurt, Mac,” replied Joe reassuringly, “though I don’t
wonder you think so, from the way I look. That is, I’m not hurt
seriously. A bit of a burn and blister here and there, that’s all. Wait
till you see the supper I pack away and you’ll know I’m all right.”
“But what has happened, anyway?” asked McRae.
“Oh, I got a bit too near to a burning house down there a way and got
singed,” returned Joe.
“Listen to him!” exclaimed Jim. “Here’s the straight of it. Joe went
up through a house that was burning like tinder, got an old woman who
was trapped in one of the rooms, threw her over his shoulder and made
his way down with her through the flames and smoke. Outside of that he
didn’t do anything!”
“Just like the old rascal!” exclaimed Robbie, with a glint of
admiration in his eyes. “Always Johnny on the spot when there’s
anything to be done.”
“But you couldn’t do all that without getting hurt,” declared McRae.
“You’re not trying to cover up anything from me, are you, Joe?”
“Not at all, Mac,” returned Joe. “My lungs feel all right, so I know I
didn’t inhale any of the flame. And I kept my eyes shut at the worst
places. The only hurts I’ve got are a few superficial burns here and
there that don’t amount to anything. I’ll be right as a trivet in a day
or two.”
“But your arm, your pitching arm?” persisted McRae. “Was that burned at
all?”
“Scorched a bit,” replied Joe. “But a doctor down there dressed it.
He’s coming around to take another look at it later on.”
“We won’t wait for him,” declared McRae. “Dougherty,” he said,
addressing the trainer of the club, who had joined the group, “come
right up with Joe to his room and look at that arm. I’d rather have
your judgment of it than that of any doctor round here.”
Joe and Jim, together with McRae, Robbie and Dougherty, repaired at
once to Joe’s room where the latter was at once subjected to the most
careful examination.
“Absolutely all right except the arm,” pronounced Dougherty at last.
“Except the arm!” McRae fairly shouted. “Why, man, that’s everything!”
“I don’t mean that there’s anything serious with that either,”
explained the trainer. “I only mean that I’m sure the other burns don’t
amount to anything, while I’m not so sure about the arm. It depends on
how deep the burn went. Probably it didn’t go deep enough to affect or
twist any of the muscles. But we’ll have to wait a little while until
the inflammation subsides before we can be absolutely certain.”
He made Joe flex the muscles, which the latter did with so little
appearance of pain or flinching that McRae was partially reassured.
Then the doctor, who had come in, dressed the arm with exceeding care
and went away and the anxious party adjourned to the dining room.
But the clean sweep that the hardy athletes commonly made at the table
was not in evidence that night. Their usual appetites were lacking. The
mere possibility that anything could have happened to their kingpin
twirler to mar his effectiveness was felt by each as a personal
calamity.
They all felt that Joe was the keystone of the Giant arch. If that
keystone gave way, the whole structure threatened to fall.
McRae and Robbie scarcely ate anything and soon left the table to seek
a secluded corner of the porch where they could brood undisturbed over
their troubles.
“Just when everything was going as smooth as oil this thing had to
happen,” growled the manager, as he viciously bit off the end of his
cigar. “What was it I told you just this afternoon? That if Joe should
break his arm all our hopes would go geflooey. The greatest pitching
arm that baseball ever knew!”
“There, there, John,” soothed Robbie. “Don’t be so quick in borrowing
trouble. Joe hasn’t broken his arm, and by the same token he probably
hasn’t hurt it at all, at all. Just keep your shirt on and be patient
for a day or two. It’ll all come out in the wash.”
“I hope so,” said McRae. “But if Joe doesn’t come through all right
it’s all up with the Giants for this season as far as the championship
is concerned. I was counting on him to turn in thirty victories
this year, and that, with what the other pitchers could do, would
practically cinch the pennant.”
“To say nothing of the other games he’d win with his bat on the days
he wasn’t pitching,” added Robbie. “He’s as much of a wonder with the
stick as he is in the pitcher’s box.”
“Oh, why couldn’t it have been his left arm that was hurt, if it had
to be either!” groaned McRae.
“Be thankful, John, that ’tis no worse,” adjured Robbie. “Suppose he’d
never come out of that house alive. And from what Jim said, it was
just a matter of touch and go. I tell you, John, that boy is a regular
fellow to risk his life for an old woman he’d never seen before.”
“Of course he is,” agreed McRae. “And of course I wouldn’t have wanted
him to do anything else than he did. All the same, I wish that house
hadn’t taken a mind to burn.”
While this colloquy was taking place on the veranda, another was going
on in Joe’s room, where he and Jim had gone directly from the table in
compliance with Dougherty’s command that Joe should go to bed early and
get a good night’s sleep.
On the way Joe had stopped at the clerk’s desk and sent a long night
letter to Mabel and another to his mother, reassuring them against any
lurid accounts that they might see of the affair in the next day’s
papers.
“Pretty well all in, old boy,” remarked Jim solicitously, as Joe
dropped into a chair after reaching the room occupied by him and his
chum.
“I am, for a fact,” admitted Joe. “The reaction, I suppose. Tired
physically and worried a little mentally.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jim in quick alarm. “You don’t really think
that you’ve seriously injured your arm, do you?”
“I try not to,” returned Joe, with a forced smile. “But naturally
I can’t help feeling anxious about it. That arm brings me in my
livelihood. I suppose I feel somewhat as a violinist might who had hurt
his fingers and didn’t know whether they were going to be permanently
crippled or not.”
“But you worked your arm without any apparent pain when Dougherty asked
you to!” exclaimed Jim.
“‘Apparent’ is right,” rejoined Joe. “But I don’t mind admitting to
you, old boy, on the dead quiet, that it hurt me like the mischief all
the same. But good old Mac was so worried that I didn’t have the heart
to add to his burdens. So I just grit my teeth and stalled through.”
“Of course, though, that may not have meant anything,” said Jim
comfortingly, though his own heart had sunk down into his boots with
apprehension. “The arm was naturally inflamed from the burn and any
motion would have hurt it. But that doesn’t say that it won’t be all
right as soon as the inflammation subsides.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself,” said Joe. “All the same there’s a
great big if behind it, and I can’t help thinking what it may mean if
the worst comes to the worst.”
“There isn’t going to be any worst,” declared Jim stoutly. “In a couple
of days this will be only like a bad dream and we’ll be laughing over
the worry we’ve had for nothing.”
“Here’s hoping that you’re a true prophet,” said Joe. “Well, I’m
not going to grizzle over it anyway. It isn’t for myself I care so
much. It’s what it will mean to Mabel! To mother, too, and to Clara
and to dad. They’d take it to heart more than I would myself. And
then――there’s the Giants!”
“It would be a terrible blow to the chances of the team,” Jim admitted.
“It would mean more to them than the loss of any other three men. Why,
you could take the Yannigans, just as you did this afternoon, and with
you pitching and batting you could lead them to the pennant.”
“I’m afraid it’s just your friendship that’s talking now,” deprecated
Joe. “But honest, Jim, the old team is more to me than anything on
earth except my family. My heart is bound up in its success. They’ve
done an awful lot for me. They’ve given me my chance, they’ve backed me
up, they’ve helped me make whatever reputation I have. And to think of
failing them now――well, I don’t dare think of it.”
“I know just how you feel about it,” replied Jim sympathetically. “All
the same, don’t forget that if you owe a lot to the Giants, they owe
still more to you. There have been years when they wouldn’t have been
anywhere at all in the race if it hadn’t been for you.
“And don’t forget, Joe,” his friend went on earnestly, “that even
if your right arm did go back on you, that wouldn’t put you out of
baseball. What’s the matter with that left arm of yours? In a little
while you could develop that so that you would become as great as a
southpaw as you are as a right-hander.”
“I suppose I might do something with it,” said Joe, brightening a
little. “By Jove, I hadn’t thought of that!”
“And even leaving that out of the question,” pursued Jim, “there’s that
old noddle of yours, full of baseball brains and able to out-think any
other on the diamond. Why, there’s any number of clubs in the league
that would fight each other to a frazzle to get you as manager at any
salary you might want to ask. It would be a matter of writing your own
contract.”
“Oh, I don’t suppose I should starve,” said Joe, with a whimsical
smile. “But it would be a mighty wrench to get out of the active part
of the game. The roar of the crowds, the thrill of striking out a
batter with the bases full, the crash of the bat when you knock out a
homer! Gee, it’s the breath of life!”
“Well, you’re going to draw in a good many of those breaths yet,”
declared Jim, with decision. “Now, let’s cut out all the gloom stuff
and you get to bed with the belief that everything’s going to be for
the best in the best of all possible worlds. McRae would have a fit if
he knew I’d kept you up talking.”
Just then there came a knock at the door.
“Who on earth can that be?” asked Jim, a little impatiently.
“A bellboy perhaps,” surmised Joe. “Better let him in and see what he
wants. Come in,” he called.
The door opened, and in the doorway stood framed a resplendent vision,
a young man dressed from head to foot in the very height of fashion.