PERSONA AU GRATIN
To every town, whether great or ungreat, appertain and do therefore
belong certain individualistic beings. In the big town they are more or
less lost, perhaps. In the smaller town they are readily to be found and
as readily to be recognised. There is, for example, the man who, be the
weather what it may and frequently is, never wears underwear, yet
continues ever to enjoy health so robust as to constitute him,
especially in winter time, a living reproach to all his fleece-lined
fellow citizens. There is the man who hangs round somebody's livery
stable, being without other visible means of support, and makes a
specialty of diagnosing the diseases of the horse and trimming up fox
terrier pups, as regards their ears and tails. Among the neighbouring
youth, who yield him a fearsome veneration, a belief exists to the
effect that he never removes the tails with an edged tool but just takes
and bites them off. There is the man who, because his mother or his
wife or his sister takes in sewing, has a good deal of spare time on his
hands and devotes it to carving with an ordinary pocketknife--he'll show
you the knife--a four-foot chain, complete with solid links and
practical swivel ornaments, out of a single block of soft pine, often
achieving the even more miraculous accomplishment of creating a
full-rigged ship inside of a narrow-mouthed bottle.
There is the man who goes about publicly vainglorious of his ownership
of the finest gold-embossed shaving mug in the leading barbershop. There
is the man--his name is apt to be A. J. Abbott or else August
Ackerman--who invariably refers to himself as the first citizen of the
place, and then, to make good his joke, shows the stranger where in the
city directory he, like Abou ben Adhem--who, since I come to think about
it, was similarly gifted in the matter of initials--leads all the rest.
There is the town drunkard, the town profligate, the town beau, the town
comedian. And finally, but by no means least, there is the man who knows
baseball from A, which is Chadwick, to Z, which is Weeghman. These
others--the champion whittler, the dog-biter, and the whole list of
them--are what you might call perennials, but he is a hardy annual,
blossoming forth in the spring when the season opens and His Honour, the
Mayor, throws out the first ball, attaining to full-petalled effulgence
along toward midsummer, as the fight for the flag narrows, growing
fluffy in the pod at the seedtime of the World's Series in October, and
through the long winter hibernating beneath a rich mulch of Spalding's
guides and sporting annuals.
* * * * *
The thriving city of Anneburg, situate some distance south of Mason and
Dixon's Line at the point where the Tobacco Belt and the Cotton Belt,
fusing imperceptibly together, mingle the nitrogenous weed and the
bolled staple in the same patchwork strip of fertile loam lands, was
large enough to enjoy a Carnegie library, a municipal graft scandal, and
a reunion of the Confederate Veterans' Association about once in so
often, and small enough to have and to hold--and to value--at least one
characteristic example of each of the types just enumerated. But
especially did it excel in its exclusive possession of J. Henry
Birdseye.
This Mr. Birdseye, be it said, was hardly less widely known than a
certain former governor of the state, who as the leading citizen of
Anneburg took a distinguished part in all civic and communal movements.
Yet the man was not wealthy or eloquent; neither was he learned in the
law nor gifted with the pen. His gainful pursuit was that of being a
commercial traveller. His business of livelihood was to sell Good Old
Mother Menifee's Infallible Chill Cure through nine adjacent counties of
the midcontinental malaria zone. But his principal profession was the
profession of baseball. In his mind G. O. P. stood for Grand Occidental
Pastime, and he always thought of it as spelled with capital letters. He
knew the national game as a mother knows the colour of her first-born's
eyes. He yearned for it in the off-season interim as a drunkard for his
bottle. Offhand he could tell you the exact weight of the bat wielded by
Ed Delehanty in 1899 when Ed hit 408; or what Big Dan Brouthers' average
was in Big Dan's best year; or where Cap. Anson was born and how he
first broke into fast company, and all the lesser circumstances
connected with that paramount event. His was the signature that headed
the subscription list which each February secured for Anneburg a
membership franchise in a Class C League, and he the sincerest mourner
when the circuit uniformly blew up with a low, penniless thud toward the
Fourth of July.
He glanced at the headlines of the various metropolitan papers for which
he subscribed; that was because, as a patriotic and public-spirited
American, he deemed it to be his duty to keep abreast of war, crimes,
markets, politics, and the other live issues of the day; but what he
really read was the sporting department, reading it from the vignette of
its chief editor, displayed in the upper left-hand corner, to the
sweepings of minute diamond dust accumulated in the lower right-hand
corner.
In short, J. Henry Birdseye was a fan in all that the word implies. In a
grist mill, now, a fan means something which winnows out the chaff from
the grain. In the Orient a fan means a plane-surface of coloured paper,
bearing a picture of a snow-capped mountain, and having also a bamboo
handle, and a tendency to come unravelled round the edges. But when
anywhere in these United States you speak of a fan, be you a Harlem
cliff-swallow or a Bangtown jay, you mean such a one as J. Henry
Birdseye. You know him, I know him, everybody knows him. So much being
conceded, we get down to our knitting.
Springtime had come: 'twas early April. The robin, which is a harbinger
in the North and a potpie in the South, had winged his way from
Gulfport, Mississippi, to Central Park, New York, and, stepping stiffly
on his frost-bitten toes, was regretting he had been in such a hurry
about it. Palm Beach being through and Newport not yet begun, the idle
rich were disconsolately reflecting that for them there was nowhere to
go except home. That Anglophobiac of the feathered kingdom, the English
snipe, bid a reluctant farewell to the Old Southern angleworms whose
hospitality he had enjoyed all winter, and headed for Upper Quebec,
intent now on family duties. And one morning Mr. Birdseye picked up the
Anneburg _Press Intelligencer_, and read that on their homebound journey
from the spring training camp the Moguls, league champions four times
hand-running and World's Champions every once in a while, were by
special arrangement to stop off for half a day in Anneburg and play an
exhibition game with the Anneburg team of the K-A-T League.
Nor was it the second-string outfit of the Moguls that would come. That
band of callow and diffident rookies would travel north over another
route, its members earning their keep by playing match games as they
went. No, Anneburg, favoured among the haunts of men, was to be honoured
with the actual presence of the regulars, peerlessly captained by that
short and wily premier of all baseball premiers, so young in years yet
so old in wisdom, Swifty Megrue; and bearing with him in its train such
deathless fixtures of the Temple of Fame as Long Leaf Pinderson, the
Greatest Living Pitcher, he who, though barely out of his teens, already
had made spitball a cherished household word in every American home;
Magnus, that noble Indian, catcher by trade, a red chieftain in his own
right; Gigs McGuire, mightiest among keystone bagsmen and worshipped the
hemisphere over as the most eminent and at the same time the most
cultured umpire-baiter a dazzled planet ever beheld; Flying Jenny
Schuster, batsman extraordinary, likewise base-stealer without a peer;
Albino Magoon, the Circassian Beauty of the outfield, especially to be
loved and revered because a product of the Sunny Southland; Sauer and
Krautman, better known as the Dutch Lunch battery; little Lew Hull, who
could play any position between sungarden and homeplate; Salmon, a
veritable walloping window-blind with the stick; Jordan, who pitched on
occasion, employing a gifted southpaw exclusively therefor; Rube Gracey;
Streaky Flynn, always there with the old noodle and fast enough on his
feet to be sure of a fixed assignment on almost any other team, but
carried in this unparalleled aggregation of stars as a utility player;
Andrew Jackson Harkness; Canuck LaFarge, and others yet besides. These
mastodons among men would flash across the palpitant Anneburg horizon
like a troupe of companion comets, would tarry just long enough to mop
up the porous soil of Bragg County with the best defensive the K-A-T had
to offer, and then at eventide would resume their journey to where, on
the vast home grounds, new glories and fresh triumphs awaited them.
No such honour had ever come to Anneburg before; and as Mr. Birdseye,
with quickened pulse, read and then reread the delectable tidings,
forgetting all else of lesser import which the _Press Intelligencer_
might contain, a splendid inspiration sprang full-grown into his brain,
and in that moment he resolved that her, Anneburg's, honour should be
his, J. Henry Birdseye's, opportunity. Opportunity, despite a current
impression, does not knock once at every man's door. Belief in the
proverb to that effect has spelled many a man's undoing. He has besat
him indoors awaiting the sound of her knuckles upon the panels when he
should have been ranging afield with his eye peeled. As a seasoned
travelling man Mr. Birdseye knew opportunity for what she is--a coy bird
and hard to find--and knew that to get her you must go gunning for her.
But he figured he had the proper ammunition in stock to bring down the
quarry this time--the suitable salt to put on her tail. Of that also he
felt most certain-sure.
The resolution took definite form and hardened. Details, ways and means,
probable contingencies and possible emergencies--all these had been
mapped and platted upon the blueprints of the thinker's mind before he
laid aside the paper. To but one man--and he only under the pledge of a
secrecy almost Masonic in its power to bind--did Mr. Birdseye confide
the completed plan of his campaign. That man was a neighbour of the
Birdseyes, a Mr. Fluellen, more commonly known among friends as Pink
Egg Fluellen. The gentleman did not owe his rather startling titular
adornment to any idiosyncrasy of complexion or of physical aspect. He
went through life an animate sacrifice to a mother's pride. Because in
her veins coursed the blood of two old South Carolina families, the
Pinckneys and the Eggners, the misguided woman had seen fit to have the
child christened Pinckney Eggner. Under the very lip of the baptismal
font the nickname then was born, and through all the days of his fleshy
embodiment it walked with him. As a boy, boy-like, he had fought against
it; as a man, chastened by the experience of maturity, he had ceased to
rebel. Now, as the head of a family, he heard it without flinching.
On his way downtown after breakfast, Mr. Birdseye met Mr. Fluellen
coming out of his gate bound in the same direction. As they walked along
together Mr. Birdseye told Mr. Fluellen all, first, though, exacting
from him a promise which really was in the nature of a solemn oath.
"You see, Pink Egg," amplified Mr. Birdseye when the glittering main fact
of his ambition had been revealed, "it'll be like this: The Moguls get
in here over the O. & Y. V. at twelve-forty-five that day. Coming from
the West, that means they hit Barstow Junction at eleven-twenty and lay
over there nine minutes for the northbound connection. Well, I'm making
Delhi the day before--seeing my trade there. I drive over to the
junction that evening from Delhi--it's only nine miles by buggy--stay
all night at the hotel, and when the train with the team gets in next
morning, who climbs aboard her? Nobody but just little old me."
"But won't there be a delegation from here waiting at Barstow to meet
'em and ride in with 'em?"
Mr. Birdseye was wise in the lore of local time cards. He shook his
head.
"Not a chance, Pinkie, not a chance. The only way to get out to Barstow
from here that morning would be to get up at four o'clock and catch the
early freight. No, sir, the crowd here won't see the boys until we all
come piling off at the union depot at twelve-forty-five. By that time
I'll be calling all those Moguls by their first names. Give me an hour;
that's all I ask--just an hour on the same train together with 'em. You
know me, and from reading in the papers about 'em, you know about what
kind of fellows those Moguls are. Say, Pink Egg, can't you just close
your eyes and see the look on Nick Cornwall's face when he and all the
rest see me stepping down off that train along with Swifty Megrue and
old Long Leaf and the Indian, and all the outfit? I owe Nick Cornwall
one anyway. You remember how shirty he got with me last year when I went
to him and told him if he'd switch Gillam from short to third and put
Husk Blynn second in the batting order instead of fifth, that he'd
improve the strength of the team forty per cent. If he'd only a-done
that, we'd have been in the money sure. But did he do it? He did not. He
told me there was only one manager getting paid to run the club, and so
far as he knew he was him. Manager? Huh! Look where we finished--or
would have finished if the league had lasted out the season. Eight
teams, and us in eighth place, fighting hard not to be in ninth."
"Suppose, though, J. Henry, there just happens to be somebody else from
Anneburg on the twelve-forty-five?"
Perhaps it was a tiny spark of envy in Mr. Fluellen's heart which
inspired him to raise this second doubt against the certainty of his
friend's coup.
"I should worry if there is!" said Mr. Birdseye. "Who else is there in
this town that can talk their own language with those boys like I can?
I'll bet you they're so blamed sick and tired of talking with ignorant,
uneducated people that don't know a thing about baseball, they'll jump
at a chance to associate with a man that's really on to every angle of
the game--inside ball and averages and standings and all that. Human
nature is just the same in a twenty-thousand-a-year big leaguer as it is
in anybody else, if you know how to go at him. And if I didn't know
human nature from the ground up, would I be where I am as a travelling
salesman? Answer me that."
"I guess you're right, J. Henry," agreed Mr. Fluellen. "Gee, I wish I
could be along with you," he added wistfully.
Mr. Birdseye shook his head in earnest discount of any such vain
cravings upon Mr. Fluellen's part. If there had been the remotest
prospect of having Mr. Fluellen for a companion to share in this glory,
he wouldn't have told anything about it to Mr. Fluellen in the first
place.
"Anyhow, I reckon my wife wouldn't hear to it," said Mr. Fluellen
hopelessly. "She's funny that way."
"No, it wouldn't do for you to be along either, Pink Egg," said Mr.
Birdseye compassionately but with all firmness. "You don't know the real
science of baseball the same as I do. They wouldn't care to talk to
anybody that was even the least bit off on the fine points. I was just
thinking--I'll be able to give 'em some tips about how to size up the
situation here--not that they need it particularly."
"J. Henry, you wouldn't tip 'em off to the weak spots in the Anneburg
team?" Loyalty to local ideals sharpened Mr. Fluellen's voice with
anxiety.
"Certainly not, Pink Egg, certainly not," reassured Mr. Birdseye. "What
do you think I am? Not that they need to be told anything. They'll wipe
up the ground with our bunch of morning glories anyway--best we can hope
for is that we don't get skunked and that the score is kind of low. But
I'll certainly put 'em wise to that soft place back of centre field,
where the grass is high. That's only true sportsmanship, that's only
fair."
"Yes," assented Mr. Fluellen, "I reckon that's no more than fair. Well,
as I said before, J. Henry, I certainly wish I was going to be with
you."
* * * * *
The great day came and was auspiciously sunshiny from its dawning
onward. Contrary to the custom of trains in certain interior sections of
our common country, the train upon which so much depended slid into
Barstow Junction at eleven-twenty, exactly on time. On the platform of
the little box station, awaiting it, stood our Mr. Birdseye, impatiently
enduring the company of a combination agent-telegrapher-ticketseller,
who wore pink sleeve-garters with rosettes on them and a watch charm
carved from a peach kernel to represent a monkey with its tail curved
over its back.
Mr. Birdseye was costumed in a fashion befitting the spirit of the hour,
as he sensed it. The main item of his attire was a new light-gray
business suit, but lightening touches of a semi-sporting character were
provided by such further adornments as a white Fedora hat with a wide
black band, a soft collar held down trimly with a gold pin fashioned
like a little riding-crop, and low tan shoes with elaborated gunwalelike
extensions of the soles, showing heavy stitching. The finger tips of a
pair of buckskin gloves, protruding from a breast pocket of his coat,
suggested two-thirds of a dozen of small but well-ripened plantains. His
visible jewelry included dog's-head cuff buttons and a fob strap of
plaited leather with a heavy silver harness buckle setting off its
pendant end.
Looking the general effect over from time to time during that dragging
forenoon, he had each separate time felt himself to be habited in
accordance with the best taste and the best judgment, considering the
nature of the occasion and the rôle he meant to play. An added fillip to
his anticipations was afforded by the consciousness that no rival would
divide the coming triumph with him. Anneburg had forty thousand
inhabitants, including whites--that is, forty thousand by the United
States census reports; seventy-five thousand by patriotic local
estimates. By sight or by name Mr. Birdseye knew most of the whites and
many of the blacks, browns and yellows. At the hotel no Anneburgian name
was registered, saving and excepting his own; in the little knot
gathered on the platform no familiar Anneburg shape now disclosed
itself. He was alone and all was well.
The locomotive rolled in and gently halted, as though to avoid jostling
its precious freightage of talent. Behind it, tailing along up the
track, stretched two day coaches and sundry Pullmans. From these last
dropped down dark-faced figures, white-clad in short jackets, and they
placed boxes below every alternate set of car steps. The train conductor
dismounted. Carrying a small handbag, Mr. Birdseye approached and hailed
him.
"Hello, Cap," he said, "have a smoke."
"Thanks." The conductor deposited the cigar with tender care in the
crown of his uniform cap. "Smoke it later on, if you don't mind. Nice
weather."
"Which car are the boys on?" asked Mr. Birdseye.
"Boys--which boys?"
"Why, the boys that are going to play Anneburg, of course."
"Oh, that bunch? Back yonder." He flirted a thumb over his shoulder
toward the tail of his vestibuled convoy. If the conductor meant to say
more he lost the chance through his own slowness. Already Mr. Birdseye
was hurrying up the cindered stretch beyond the platform.
At the portals of the rearmost Pullman but one a porter interposed
himself.
"Private sleeper, cap'n," he warned.
"That'll be all right," stated Mr. Birdseye. "That's the one I'm looking
for--came out from Anneburg especially to meet the boys and ride in with
'em." He proffered a small cardboard slip and with it a large round
coin. "Take the Pullman fare out of that and keep the change."
"A' right, suh, boss--an' much obliged." The porter pouched dollar and
ticket with one hand and with the other saluted profoundly. He aided the
generous white gentleman to mount the steps.
Within the door of the coach, at the mouth of its narrow end passage,
Mr. Birdseye halted to take swift inventory of its interior. It was a
sleeper of the pattern familiar to all who travel much and widely; it
looked its part and smelled it, giving off the inevitable torrid aromas
of warm plush and heat-softened shellac. It contained fifteen or
eighteen occupants scattered through its length, some sitting singly,
some paired off and, in one group, four together, playing cards--all
young or youngish men, all smartly dressed, all live-looking. At first
glance Mr. Birdseye told himself he was in the right car. At second
glance he told himself he was not so absolutely sure. For one thing, the
persons here revealed seemed so quiet, so sedate; there was no
skylarking; no quips flying back and forth; no persiflage filtering out
of the open windows. Still, for one initiated, it should be an easy task
to make sure, and very sure at that.
Almost in arm-reach of him two of the passengers faced each other from
opposite seats with a checkerboard upon their knees. The one who had his
back to Mr. Birdseye, a tall, light-haired person, kept his head bent in
deep study of the problem of the next move. His opponent looked up.
Barring the cut and colour of his costume he might have passed, with his
smooth, rosy cheek and his round, blue Irish orb, for a Christian
Brother. Full well did Mr. Birdseye know that Gigs McGuire, foremost of
all second-basemen, had studied for the priesthood before he abandoned
the seminary for the stadium. Indeed, he knew all about Gigs McGuire
that the leading chroniclers of baseball had ever written for
publication. He advanced half a pace, his right arm extended, a
greeting forming on his lips.
The ensuing conduct of the blue-eyed man was peculiar, not to say
disconcerting. He stared at Mr. Birdseye for the brief part of a brief
second. Then he twisted his head over his shoulder, and, without
addressing anyone in particular, rapidly uttered the word "Cheese!"
thrice in a tone of seeming impatience. And then he picked up a red disk
and with it jumped a black one. Mr. Birdseye felt constrained to step
along.
Across the aisle diagonally were the four who played at cards. It was to
be seen that bridge was the game occupying them. And bridge, properly
played, is an absorbing pursuit, requiring concentration and silence.
None of the quartet bestowed so much as a sidelong look upon Mr.
Birdseye as Mr. Birdseye, slowly advancing toward the middle of the car,
passed them by.
Thus progressing, he came close to one who spraddled in solitary comfort
over two seats. This one was interred nose-deep in a book.
"Hello," said Mr. Birdseye tentatively, almost timidly, for increasing
doubt assailed him.
"'Lo," answered the reader in a chill monosyllable without lifting his
face from his book. Mr. Birdseye noted that the book contained verse
printed in German, and he regretted having spoken. It wasn't in the
nature of things for a ballplayer to be reading German poetry in the
original, and he had no time to waste upon any other than a ballplayer.
In that same instant, though, his glance fell on the next two
passengers, and his heart gave a glad upward leap in his bosom. Surely
the broad man with the swarthy skin and the straight black hair must be
the Indian. Just as surely the short, square man alongside, the owner of
that heavy jaw and that slightly up-tilted nose, could be none but the
Richelieu of managers. Mr. Birdseye almost sprang forward.
"Well, Chief!" he cried genially. "Well, Swifty! I thought I'd find you.
How's everything?"
Coldly they both regarded him. It was the short, square man who
answered, and the reader behind put down his volume of Heine to listen.
"Everything would be all right if they'd only keep these car doors
locked," said the short man, and he didn't speak as a true sportsman
should speak--tone, inflection, pronunciation, all were wrong.
Enthusiasm was lacking, joviality was woefully missing. He continued, in
the manner rather of a civil engineer--an impassive ordinarily civil
engineer, say, who was now slightly irritated about something: "I figure
you've made a mistake. This gentleman is not a chief--he's my private
secretary. And my name does not happen to be Swift, if I heard you
right. My name is Dinglefoogle--Omar G. Dinglefoogle, of Swedish
descent."
He disengaged his gaze from that of the abashed Birdseye and resumed his
conversation with his companion at a point where it had been
interrupted:
"Have it your own way, John. Abbey for yours, but Sargent and Whistler
for mine--yes, and Remington."
"But where are you going to find anything to beat that thing of
Abbey's--The Search for the Holy Grail?" It was the swarthy man taking
up the issue. "Every time I go to Boston----"
Moving onward in a small, self-generated fog of bewilderment which
travelled with him, Mr. Birdseye heard no more. So moving, he passed in
turn a young man who was bedded down in a nest of pamphlets and
Government bulletins dealing in the main apparently with topics relating
to forestry or else with intensive farming; and a young man who napped
with his hat over his eyes; and another young man intently making notes
on the back of an envelope; and two young men silently examining the
mechanism of a gold watch which plainly was the property of one of the
two; until at the far end of the car he came to one more young man who,
casting aside a newspaper and straightening to get the kinks out of his
back, showed Mr. Birdseye a profiled face of a clear pinkish colour,
with a calm, reflective eye set in it under a pale yellow eyebrow and,
above, a mop of hair so light as to be almost white. Verily there could
be no confusion of identity here. Coincidence was coincidence, but so
unique, so distinctive, a physical aspect was not to be duplicated
outside of a story book.
"Say, I'd know you anywhere by your pictures," said Mr. Birdseye, and
extended the right hand of fellowship.
"That's the main objection to those pictures--they do look a little like
me," replied the young man with a smile so grave as to verge upon the
melancholy. Half rising, he shook hands with the other. "Have a seat?"
Hospitably he indicated the cushioned expanse in front of him and drew
in his knees.
Here was proof, added and cumulative. The voice of the pale-haired young
man was as it should be, a gently modulated r-slurring voice. Was it not
known of all men that Albino Magoon, the Circassian Beauty of the
outfield, owned allegiance of birth to the Sunny Southland, Mr.
Birdseye's own land? Bond and double bond would they share between them.
In a flutter of reviving joy Mr. Birdseye scrooged in and sat.
The young man, having done the courtesies, sat back modestly as though
awaiting the newcomer's pleasure in the matter of choosing a topic for
conversation. Mr. Birdseye lost no time. He knew the subjects fittest to
be discussed.
"Well," he said, "what do you think about Chicago's chances? Think she's
going to give New York a run for her white alley this year?"
"I'm sure I don't know, suh." Such was the first sentence of the
astonishing rejoinder. "Chicago is growing, awfully fast--faster than
any big interior city, I presume, but the latest figures show New York
has a greater population now, including suburbs, than London even. It's
hardly possible, I reckon, for Chicago to hope to catch up with New
York--this year or any other year."
Puzzled, I must admit, but by no means nonplussed, Mr. Birdseye jibed
and went about mentally. As the cant phrase goes, he took a new tack.
"Say, listen," he said; "do you know what I think? I think the Federals
gave you-all a rotten deal. Yes, sir, a rotten deal all the way through.
Naturally down here nearly everybody feels that way about it--naturally
the sympathies of nearly everybody in this part of the country would
turn that way anyhow. I reckon you'd know that without my telling you
how we feel. Of course a good knock-down-and-drag-out fight is all
right, but when you sit down and figure out the way the Federals behaved
right from the start----"
The other put up an objecting hand.
"I hope you'll excuse me, suh," he said, "but I don't believe in keeping
those old sores open. I thought sectionalism was dying out everywhere--I
hoped it was, anyway. My father fought the Federals for four years and
he died reconciled. I don't know why we younger men shouldn't be. After
all, we're all Americans now."
"I wasn't speaking of the Federal Army," explained Mr. Birdseye,
desperately upset. "I was speaking of the Federal League."
"Oh, the Federal League!" said the other. "I beg your pardon, suh. Are
you--are you interested in baseball?" He put the question wonderingly.
"Am I interested in--well, say, ain't you interested?"
"Me? Oh, no, suh. I make it a rule never to discuss the subject. You
see, I'm a divinity student. I reckon you must've mistaken me for
somebody else. I was afraid so when you first spoke. I'm mighty sorry."
"Yes, I must've," agreed Mr. Birdseye. He got upon his own feet and
stumbled over the young man's feet and ran a hand through the hair on
his pestered head. "I guess I must've got in the wrong car."
"That's probably it," said the pale-haired one. His odd-coloured but
ingenuous countenance expressed solicitude and sympathy for the
stranger's disappointment. Indeed, it wrinkled and twitched almost as
though this tender-hearted person meant to shed tears. As if to hide his
emotions, he suddenly reached for his discarded newspaper and in its
opened pages buried his face to the ears--ears which slowly turned from
pink to red. When next he spoke it was from behind the shelter of his
newsprint shield, and his voice seemed choked. "Undoubtedly that's
it--you got in the wrong car. Well, good-bye, my brother--and God bless
and speed you."
At this precise moment, with the train just beginning to pull out from
Barstow Junction, with the light-haired man sinking deeper and deeper
inside the opened sheets, and with Mr. Birdseye teetering on uncertain
legs in the aisle, there came to the latter's ears what he might have
heard before had his hearing been attuned for sounds from that quarter.
He heard a great rollicking, whooping, vehement outburst coming from the
next car back, which was likewise the last car. It had youth in it, that
sound did--the spirit of unbridled, exuberant youth at play, and abandon
and deviltry and prankishness and carefreedom. Mr. Birdseye faced about.
He caught up his handbag and, swift as a courier bearing glad tidings,
he sped on winged feet--at least those extensive soles almost
approximated wings--through the cramped passage flanking the smoking
compartment. Where the two cars clankingly joined beneath a metal flange
he came into collision with a train butcher just emerging from the rear
sleeper.
Butch's hair was dishevelled and his collar awry. He dangled an emptied
fruit basket in one hand and clinked coins together in the palm of the
other. On his face was a grin of comic dismay and begrudged admiration.
"Some gang back there--some wild gang!" he murmured and, dodging
adeptly past Mr. Birdseye, was gone, heading forward.
The searcher rounded the jog of the compartment reservation, and inside
him then his soul was lifted up and exalted. There could be no mistake
now. Within the confines of this Pullman romped and rampaged young men
and youths to the number of perhaps twenty. There seemed to be more than
twenty of them; that, though, was due to the flitting movements of their
rambunctious forms. Norfolk-jacketed bodies, legs in modishly short
trousers deeply cuffed at the bottoms, tousled heads to which rakish
soft hats and plaid travelling caps adhered at angles calculated to
upset the theory of the attraction of gravitation, showed here, there,
everywhere, in a confused and shifting vista. Snappy suit cases, a big,
awkward-looking, cylindrical bag of canvas, leather-faced, and two or
three other boxes in which, to judge by their shapes, stringed musical
instruments were temporarily entombed, encumbered a seat near by.
All this Mr. Birdseye's kindled eye comprehended in the first quick
scrutiny. Also it took in the posture of a long, lean, lanky giant in
his early twenties, who stood midway of the coach, balancing himself
easily on his legs, for by now the train was picking up speed. One arm
of the tall athlete--the left--was laid along his breast, and in its
crook it held several small, half-ripened oranges. His right hand would
pluck up an orange, the right arm would wind up, and then with
marvellous accuracy and incredible velocity the missile would fly, like
a tawny-green streak, out of an open window at some convenient target.
So fast he worked and so well, it seemed as though a constant stream of
citrus was being discharged through that particular window. An orange
spattered against a signpost marking the limits of the yard. Two oranges
in instantaneous succession struck the rounded belly of a water tank,
making twin yellow asterisks where they hit. A fourth, driven as though
by a piston, whizzed past the nappy head of a darky pedestrian who had
halted to watch the train go by. That darky ducked just in time.
Mr. Birdseye lunged forward to pay tribute to the sharpshooter. Beyond
peradventure there could be but one set of muscles on this continent
capable of such marksmanship. But another confronted him, barring his
way, a stockily built personage with a wide, humorous face, and yet with
authority in all its contour and lines.
"Well, see who's here!" he clarioned and literally he embraced Mr.
Birdseye, pinning that gentleman's arms to his sides. He bent his head
and put his lips close to Mr. Birdseye's flattered ear, the better to be
heard above the uproar dinning about them. "What was the name?" he
inquired.
"Birdseye--J. Henry Birdseye."
Continuing to maintain a firm grasp upon Mr. Birdseye's coat sleeve the
stocky individual swung about and called for attention:
"Gentlemen, one moment--one moment, if you please."
Plainly he had unquestioned dominion over this mad and pranksome crew.
His fellows paused in whatever they were doing to give heed unto his
words.
"Boys, it gives me joy to introduce to you Colonel Birdshot."
"Birdseye," corrected his prisoner, overcome with gratification, not
unmixed with embarrassment.
"I beg your pardon," said the master of ceremonies. Then more loudly
again: "I should have said Col. Birdseye Maple."
"Three cheers for the walking bedroom set!" This timely suggestion
emanated from a wiry skylarker who had drawn nigh and was endeavouring
to find Mr. Birdseye's hand with a view to shaking it.
Three cheers they were, and right heartily given too.
"And to what, may I ask--to what are we indebted for the pleasure of
this unexpected but nevertheless happy meeting?" asked the blocky man.
One instant he suggested the prime minister; the next, the court jester.
And was not that as it should be too? It was, if one might credit what
one had read of the king-pin of managers.
"Why--why, I just ran over from Anneburg to meet you and ride in with
you--and sort of put you onto the ropes and everything," vouchsafed Mr.
Birdseye.
"Well, isn't that splendid--we didn't expect it!" Once more he addressed
his attentive fellows:
"Gentlemen, you'll never guess it until I tell you. It is none other
than the official reception committee bearing with it the keys of the
corporation. I shrewdly suspect the Colonel has the words 'Welcome to
Our City' tattooed upon his chest."
"Let's undress him and see."
The idea was advanced by the same wire-drawn youngster who had called
for the cheers. He laid hold on Mr. Birdseye's collar, but instantly the
happy captive was plucked from his grasp and passed from one to another
of the clustering group. They squeezed Mr. Birdseye's fingers with
painfully affectionate force; they dealt him cordially violent slaps
upon the back. They inquired regarding his own health and the health of
his little ones, and in less than no time at all, it seemed to him, he,
somewhat jostled and dishevelled, confused but filled with a tingling
bliss, had been propelled the length of the aisle and back again, and
found himself sitting so he faced the directing genius of this exuberant
coterie of athletes. The rest, sensing that their leader desired
conference with the newcomer, resumed their diversions, and so in a
small eddy of calm on the edge of a typhoon of clamour these
two--Birdseye and the great manager--conversed together as man to man.
"And so you ran down to meet us--that was bully," said the blocky man.
His mood was now serious, and Mr. Birdseye set himself to reply in the
same spirit. "What's the prospects for a crowd over in Anneburg?"
"Couldn't be better," Mr. Birdseye told him. "Everybody in town that can
walk, ride or crawl will be out to see you fellows play."
"To see us play--that's good!"
"The Mayor is going to be there, and ex-Governor Featherston--he's about
the biggest man we've got in Anneburg--and oh, just everybody."
"Whosoever will, let him come, that's our motto," stated his vis-à-vis;
"entertainment for man and beast. You'll be there of course?"
"In a front seat--rooting my head off," promised Mr. Birdseye,
forgetting in the supreme joy of this supreme moment that he owed first
duty to Anneburg's own puny contenders. "Say, you fellows are just
exactly like I thought you'd be--regular hellions. Well, it's the old
pep that counts."
"You said it--the old pep is the thing."
"What kind of a trip did you have coming up?"
"Fine--fine from the start."
"And where do you go from Anneburg?"
"Asheville, then Richmond. Anneburg is the smallest town we play."
"Don't think we don't appreciate it, Swifty. Say, the Big Fellow
certainly can pitch, can't he?" Mr. Birdseye pointed toward the flinger
of oranges who, having exhausted his ammunition, was now half out of a
window, contemplating the flitting landscape. "How's his arm going to be
this year?"
"Better than ever--better than ever. I guess you know about the no-hit
game he pitched last year--the last game he played?"
"Tell me something about that kid I don't know," boasted Mr. Birdseye.
"I've followed him from the time he first broke in."
"Then you know he's there with the pipes?"
"The pipes?"
"Sure--the educated larynx, the talented tonsils, the silver-lined
throat--in other words, the gift of song."
"Why, I didn't know he sang," owned Mr. Birdseye, a mite puzzled.
"That's it--let a fellow do one thing better than anybody else, and they
forget his other accomplishments. Sing? Well, rather! And punish old
John J. Mandolin, too, if anybody should ask you."
So saying, the speaker drew forth a bulldog pipe and proceeded to load
it from a leather tobacco case.
"I don't have to keep in condition, seeing as I'm merely running
things," he explained. "But you bet I make my flock keep in
condition--no boozing and mighty little cigarette smoking for them while
their little papa's eye is on them."
"I've always heard you were strong for discipline," said Mr. Birdseye,
plastering the flattering unction on thickly.
"I have to be, with a rowdy outfit like this one. Look yonder--that's a
sample of the way they carry on when the bridle is off."
Three of these temporarily unhaltered colts had captured the car porter.
Two held him fast while the third massaged his woolly scalp with hard
knuckles. Half a dozen more shouted advice to the operator. The porter
broke away and fled, his expression betraying that he hardly knew
whether to feel indignant or complimented. Mr. Birdseye saw that the
volunteer masseur, now approaching them, had coal-black hair and
snapping black eyes, and a skin the colour of polished cherry.
"That's the Chief coming, of course?" opined Mr. Birdseye. His tone was
filled with reverence.
"Sh-h, don't let him hear you. If I had a big Indian whatyoumaycallim
for a grandfather I'd advertise it, but he's a little touchy on the
subject. Great boy though--one of the best."
"Part Pawnee, ain't he?"
"No; Parsee, I think."
Mr. Birdseye was going to ask where that tribe lived, but skylarking
broke out in a fresh quarter and he forgot it. They talked averages
then, or started to. Mr. Birdseye was made proud to find his companion
agreed with him that Tris Speaker undoubtedly had a shade on Joe
Jackson, and then was just about to take up the question of Honus
Wagner's ability to come back after his last season's slump--a vital
issue and one upon which he entertained decided views in the
affirmative--when something occurred. Without being able to comprehend
exactly how it came about, he discovered himself all of a sudden forming
one link in a human chain of which six or eight more were likewise
component parts. With arms intertwined and heads bent toward a common
centre, they all mingled their lusty voices in snatches of song and glee
and roundelay, and he--he perforce joined with them. One moment Merrily
They Rolled Along, Rolled Along, Rolled Along--indeed they did; the
next, From Aunt Dinah's Quilting Party they were Seeing Nell-l-l-i-e
Home. Then a single minstrel advanced the duly credited assertion of
parties unnamed that A Nigger Won't Steal, whereupon several others
instantly and melodiously responded to the effect that be this as it
may, I Caught Three in My Cornfield; One Had a Shovel and One Had a Hoe
and if That Ain't Stealing I Don't Know! And so on without cessation for
many fleeting, glorious, golden minutes. Once Mr. Birdseye, feeling
certain he recognised the blithesome tenor whose wide shoulders his
right arm encompassed, broke off his carolling long enough to say:
"Some doings, eh, Flying Jenny?"
Whereat the singer, thus jovially addressed, conferred a wink and a grin
upon him and shouted back: "Don't be so blamed formal--just call me
Jane!" and then skillfully picked up the tune again and kept right on
tenoring. They were all still enmeshed and in all unison enriching the
pent-up confines of their car with close harmonies when the train began
to check up bumpingly, and advised by familiar objects beginning to pass
the windows Mr. Birdseye realised that they approached their
destination. It didn't seem humanly possible that so much time had
elapsed with such miraculous rapidity, but there was the indisputable
evidence in Langford's Real Estate Division and the trackside warehouses
of Brazzell Brothers' Pride of Dixie fertilizer works. From a chosen and
accepted comrade he now became also a guide.
"Fellows!" he announced, breaking out of the ring, "we'll be in in just
a minute--this is Anneburg!"
Coincidentally with this announcement the conductor appeared at the
forward end of the car and in a word gave confirmatory evidence. Of the
car porter there was no sign. Duty called him to be present, but
prudence bade him nay. He had discretion, that porter.
The song that was being sung at that particular moment--whatever it
was--was suffered to languish and die midway of a long-drawn refrain.
There was a scattering of the minstrels to snatch up suit cases, bags
and other portable impedimenta.
"I'll ride up to the hotel with you," suggested Mr. Birdseye, laying a
detaining hand upon the master's elbow. "If I get a chance there's
something I want to tell you on the way." He was just remembering he had
forgotten to mention that treacherous soft spot back of centre field.
"You bet your blameless young life you'll ride with us!" answered back
the other, reaching for a valise.
"What? Lose our honoured and esteemed reception committee now? Not a
chance!" confirmed an enormous youth whose bass tones fitted him for
the life of a troubadour, but whose breadth of frame qualified him for
piano-moving or centre-rushing. With a great bear-hug he lifted Mr.
Birdseye in his arms, roughly fondling him.
"You're going to the Hotel Balboa, of course," added Mr. Birdseye,
regaining his feet and his breath as the caressing grip of the giant
relaxed.
"Hotel Balboa is right, old Pathfinder."
"Then we'd all better take the hotel bus uptown, hadn't we?"
"Just watch us take it."
"I'll lay eight to five that bus has never been properly taken before
now."
"But it's about to be." He who uttered this prophecy was the brisk
youngster who had objected to being designated by so elaborated a title
as Flying Jenny.
"All out!"
Like a chip on the crest of a mountain torrent Mr. Birdseye was borne
down the car steps as the train halted beneath the shed of the Anneburg
station. Across the intervening tracks, through the gate and the station
and out again at the far side of the waiting room the living freshet
poured. As he was carried along with it, the Indian being at his right
hand, the orange thrower at his left, and behind him irresistible forces
ramping and roaring, Mr. Birdseye was aware of a large crowd, of Nick
Cornwall, of others locally associated with the destinies of the
Anneburg team, of many known to him personally or by name, all staring
hard, with puzzled looks, as he went whirling on by. Their faces were
visible a fleeting moment, then vanished like faces seen in a fitful
dream, and now the human ground swell had surrounded and inundated a
large motorbus, property of the Hotel Balboa.
Strong arms reached upward and, as though he had been a child, plucked
from his perch the dumfounded driver of this vehicle, with a swing
depositing him ten feet distant, well out of harm's way. A youth who
plainly understood the mystery of motors clambered up, nimble as a
monkey, taking seat and wheel. Another mounted alongside of him and
rolled up a magazine to make a coaching horn of it. Another and yet
another followed, until a cushioned space designed for two only held
four. As pirates aforetime have boarded a wallowing galleon the rest of
the crew boarded the body of the bus. They entered by door or by window,
whichever chanced to be handier, first firing their hand baggage in with
a splendid disregard of consequences.
In less than no time at all, to tallyho tootings, to whoops and to yells
and to snatches of melody, the Hotel Balboa bus was rolling through a
startled business district, bearing in it, upon it and overflowing from
it full twice as many fares as its builder had imagined it conceivably
would ever contain when he planned its design and its accommodations.
Side by side on the floor at its back door with feet out in space, were
jammed together Mr. J. Henry Birdseye and the aforesaid blocky chieftain
of the band. Teams checked up as the caravan rolled on. Foot travellers
froze in their tracks to stare at the spectacle. Birdseye saw them. They
saw Birdseye. And he saw that they saw and felt that be the future what
it might, life for him could never bring a greater, more triumphant,
more exultant moment than this.
"Is that the opera house right ahead?" inquired his illustrious mate as
the bus jounced round the corner of Lattimer Street.
"No, that's the new Second National Bank," explained Mr. Birdseye
between jolts. "The opera house is four doors further down--see, right
there--just next to where that sign says 'Tascott & Nutt, Hardware.'"
Simultaneously those who rode in front and atop must likewise have read
the sign of Tascott & Nutt. For the bus, as though on signal, swerved to
the curb before this establishment and stopped dead short, and in chorus
a dozen strong voices called for Mr. Nutt, continuing to call until a
plump, middle-aged gentleman in his shirt sleeves issued from the
interior and crossed the sidewalk, surprise being writ large upon his
face. When he had drawn near enough, sinewy hands stretched forth and
pounced upon him, and as the bus resumed its journey he most unwillingly
was dragged at an undignified dogtrot alongside a rear wheel while
strange, tormenting questions were shouted down at him:
"Oh, Mr. Nutt, how's your dear old coco?"
"And how's your daughter Hazel?--charming girl, Hazel!"
"And your son, Philip Bertram? Don't tell me the squirrels have been
after that dear Phil Bert again!"
"You'll be careful about the chipmunks this summer, won't you, Mr.
Nutt--for our sakes?"
"Old Man Nutt is a good old soul."
But this last was part of a song, and not a question at all.
The victim wrested himself free at last and stood in the highroad
speechless with indignation. Lack of breath was likewise a contributing
factor. Mr. Birdseye observed, as they drew away from the panting
figure, that the starting eyes of Mr. Nutt were fixed upon him
recognisingly and accusingly, and realised that he was in some way being
blamed for the discomfiture of that solid man and that he had made a
sincere enemy for life. But what cared he? Meadow larks, golden
breasted, sat in his short ribs and sang to his soul.
And now they had drawn up at the Hotel Balboa, and with Birdseye still
in the van they had piled off and were swirling through the lobby to
splash up against the bulkhead of the clerk's desk, behind which, with
a wide professional smile of hospitality on his lips, Head Clerk Ollie
Bates awaited their coming and their pleasure.
"You got our wire?" demanded of him the young manager. "Rooms all
ready?"
"Rooms all ready, Mister----"
"Fine and dandy! We'll go right up and wash up for lunch. Here's the
list--copy the names onto the register yourself. Where's the elevator?
Oh, there it is. All aboard, boys! No, wait a minute," countermanded
this young commander who forgot nothing, as he turned and confronted Mr.
Birdseye. "Before parting, we will give three cheers for our dear
friend, guide and well-wisher, Colonel Birdseye Maple. All together:
"Whee! _Whee!_ =Whee!="
The last and loudest Whee died away; the troupe charged through and over
a skirmish line of darky bell hops; they stormed the elevator cage. Half
in and half out of it their chief paused to wave a hand to him whom they
had just honoured.
"See you later, Colonel," he called across the intervening space. "You
said you'd be there when we open up, you know."
"I'll be there, Swifty, on a front seat!" pledged Mr. Birdseye happily.
The overloaded elevator strained and started and vanished upward, vocal
to the last. In the comparative calm which ensued Mr. Birdseye, head
well up, chest well out, and thumbs in the arm openings of a distended
waistcoat, lounged easily but with the obvious air of a conqueror back
toward the desk and Mr. Ollie Bates.
"Some noisy bunch!" said Mr. Bates admiringly. "Say, J. Henry, where did
they pick you up?"
"They didn't pick me up, I picked them up--met 'em over at Barstow and
rode in with 'em."
"Seems like it didn't take you long to make friends with 'em," commented
Mr. Bates.
"It didn't take me half a minute. Easiest bunch to get acquainted with
you ever saw in your life, Ollie. And kidders? Well, they wrote
kidding--that's all--words and music. I wish you could a-seen them
stringing old man 'Lonzo Nutt down the street! I like to died!" He
unbent a trifle; after all, Mr. Bates was an old friend. "Say, Ollie,
that gang won't do a thing to our little old scrub team this afternoon,
with Long Leaf Pinderson pitching. I saw him in action--with oranges.
He----"
"Say, listen, J. Henry," broke in Mr. Bates. "Who in thunder do you
think that gang is you've been associating with?"
"Think it is? Who would it be but the Moguls?"
"Moguls?"
A convulsion seized and overcame Mr. Bates. He bent double, his
distorted face in his hands, his shoulders heaving, weird sounds issuing
from his throat. Then lifting his head, he opened that big mouth of his,
afflicting the adjacent air with raucous and discordant laughter.
"Moguls! Moguls! Say, you need to have your head looked into. Why, J.
Henry, the Moguls came in on the twelve-forty-five and Nick Cornwall and
the crowd met 'em and they're down to the Hotel Esplanade right this
minute, I reckon. We tried to land 'em for the Balboa, but it seemed
like they wanted a quiet hotel. Well, they'll have their wish at the
Esplanade!"
"Then who--then who are these?"
It was the broken, faltering accent of Mr. Birdseye, sounded wanly and
as from a long way off.
"These? Why, it's the College Glee Club from Chickasaw Tech., down in
Alabama, that's going to give a concert at the opera house to-night. And
you thought all the time you were with the Moguls? Well, you poor simp!"
In addition to simp Mr. Bates also used the words boob, sucker, chunk of
Camembert and dub in this connection. But it is doubtful if Mr. Birdseye
heard him now. A great roaring, as of dashing cataracts and swirling
rapids, filled his ears as he fled away, blindly seeking some sanctuary
wherein to hide himself from the gaze of mortal man.
Remaining to be told is but little; but that little looms important as
tending to prove that truth sometimes is stranger than fiction. With
Swifty Megrue coaching, with Magnus, the Big Chief, backstopping, with
Pinderson, master of the spitball, in the box twirling, nevertheless and
to the contrary notwithstanding, the Anneburg team that day mopped up,
the score standing:
R H E
Anneburg 6 9 1
Moguls 4 7 2