SECOND BASE SLOAN
[Illustration: The White Boy, the Black Boy, and the Yellow Dog]
Second Base Sloan
BY
CHRISTY MATHEWSON
AUTHOR OF
FIRST BASE FAULKNER,
CATCHER CRAIG, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
E. C. CASWELL
[Illustration]
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1917, by
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I TWO BOYS AND A DOG 3
II JUNE STRIKES A BARGAIN 13
III THE SEARCH FOR WORK 28
IV DISPOSSESSED 44
V WAYNE PARTS WITH SAM 57
VI THE NEW HOME 71
VII THE LUCK CHANGES 84
VIII WAYNE LOSES A JOB AND FINDS ONE 100
IX BIG TOM MAKES AN OFFER 118
X NEW FRIENDS 131
XI THE CHENANGO CLUB 143
XII MEDFIELD CELEBRATES 159
XIII WAYNE BEATS OUT THE BALL 172
XIV “A GENTLEMAN TO SEE MR. SLOAN” 186
XV PATTERN GIVES ADVICE 198
XVI OFF TO HARRISVILLE 210
XVII TURNED DOWN! 225
XVIII “BADGERS” VS. “BILLIES” 236
XIX WAYNE LENDS A HAND 250
XX JUNE GOES TO WORK 263
XXI MR. MILBURN PROMISES 274
XXII SECOND BASE SLOAN 287
ILLUSTRATIONS
The white boy, the black boy, and the yellow dog (Page 12)
_Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
Wayne’s cry was uttered involuntarily as he leaped forward 104
Every other Medfield adherent made a joyful noise 182
His conviction that he could hit that ball was still strong 296
SECOND BASE SLOAN
CHAPTER I
TWO BOYS AND A DOG
Two boys and a dog sat at the edge of a little wood and shiveringly
watched the eastern sky pale from inky blue to gray. One of the boys
was white and the other was black; and the dog was yellow. The white
boy was seventeen years old, the black boy sixteen, and the yellow
dog--well, no one knew just how old he was. The white boy’s name was
Wayne Torrence Sloan, the black boy’s name was Junius Brutus Bartow
Tasker, and the dog’s name was Sam. An hour ago they had been rudely
awakened from their sleep in a box car and more rudely driven forth
into cold and darkness and mystery. They had had no complaint to make,
for they had lain undisturbed in the car ever since the middle of the
previous afternoon; and between that time and an hour ago had rumbled
and jolted over miles and miles of track, just how many miles there was
no way of telling until, having learned their present whereabouts,
Wayne should puzzle out the matter of distance on the frayed and
tattered time-table in his pocket. Travelling as they had travelled,
on foot or stealing rides when the chance offered, makes a philosopher
of one, and instead of objecting to the fate that had overtaken them
when a suspicious train hand had flashed his lantern into the gloomy
recesses of the box car, they had departed hurriedly and in silence,
being thankful that the exodus had not been forced on them long before.
Minute by minute the sky brightened. The steely gray became softer in
tone and began to flush with a suggestion of rose. The stars paled. A
wan gleam of approaching daylight fell on one burnished rail of the
track which lay a few rods distant. The trees behind them took on form
and substance and their naked branches became visibly detailed against
the sky. The dog whined softly and curled himself tighter in Wayne’s
arms. Wayne stretched the corner of his gray sweater over the thin back
and eased himself from the cramped position against the trunk of a
small tree.
“What would you do, June, if someone came along about now with a can of
hot coffee?” he asked, breaking the silence that had lasted for many
minutes. The negro boy aroused from his half doze and flashed the
whites of his eyes in the gloom.
“Mas’ Wayne,” he answered fervently, “I’d jus’ about love that Mister
Man. M-m-mm! Hot coffee! Lawsy-y! You reckon it ever goin’ to get
lightsome, Mas’ Wayne?”
“I reckon we can start along pretty soon now, June. Whereabouts do you
suspect we are?”
“I reckon we must be gettin’ mighty nigh New York. How far was we
yesterday?”
“’Most two hundred and fifty miles. If we’d just kept right on going
all night we might have been in New York right now, but that freight
was standing still more times than it was moving, I reckon. Look
yonder, June. Daylight’s surely coming, isn’t it?”
Junius Brutus Bartow Tasker turned an obedient gaze toward the east,
but his reply was pessimistic. A negro who is cold is generally
pessimistic, and June was certainly cold. Unlike Wayne, he had no
sweater under his shabby jacket, nor was there much of anything else
under it, for the coarse gingham shirt offered little resistance to
the chill of the March night, and June and undershirts had long been
strangers. Early spring in southern Georgia is a different matter from
the same season up North, a fact which neither boy had allowed for.
“I reckon Christmas is comin’ too,” muttered June gloomily, “but it’s
a powerful long way off. How come the nights is so long up here, Mas’
Wayne?”
“I reckon there isn’t any difference, not really,” answered Wayne.
“They just seem like they were longer. Sam, you wake up and stretch
yourself. We’re going to travel again pretty soon now. Go catch
yourself a rabbit or something.”
The dog obeyed instructions so far as stretching himself was concerned,
and, after finding that he was not to be allowed to return to the
warmth of his master’s lap, even set off in a half-hearted, shivering
fashion to explore the surrounding world.
“I reckon he can projeck ’roun’ a mighty long time before he starts a
rabbit,” said June discouragedly. “It’s a powerful mean-lookin’ country
up this way, ain’ it? What state you-all reckons we’s in, Mas’ Wayne?”
Wayne shook his head. Shaking his head was very easy because he only
had to let the tremors that were agitating the rest of him extend above
the turned-up collar of his jacket! “I reckon it might be Maryland,
June. Somewheres around there, anyway.” He felt for the time-table in
his pocket, but he didn’t bring it forth for it was still too dark to
read. “I ’most wish I was back home, June,” he went on wistfully,
after a minute’s silence. “I sure do!”
“I done told you we hadn’t no business comin’ up this yere way. Ain’
nothin’ up here but Northerners, I reckon. If we’d gone West like I
said we’d been a heap better off.”
“Nobody asked you to come, anyway,” responded Wayne sharply. “There
wasn’t any reason for you coming. You--you just butted in!”
As there was no denying that statement, June wisely chose to change
the subject. “Reckon someone’s goin’ to give us some breakfast pretty
soon?” he asked.
But Wayne had a grievance now and, feeling a good deal more homesick
than he had thought he ever could feel, and a lot colder and emptier
than was pleasant, he nursed it. “I couldn’t stay there any longer and
slave for that man,” he said. “I stuck it out as long as I could. Ever
since mother died it’s been getting worse and worse. He hasn’t got any
hold on me, anyway. Stepfathers aren’t kin. I had a right to run away
if I wanted to, and he can’t fetch me back, not anyway, not even by
law!”
“No, sir, he can’,” agreed June soothingly.
“But you didn’t have any right to run away, June. You----”
“How come I ain’t” demanded the negro. “He ain’ no kin to me, neither,
is he? I was jus’ a-workin’ for him. Mister Higgins ain’ got no more
’sponsibility about me than he has about you, Mas’ Wayne.”
“Just the same, June, he can fetch you back if he ever catches you.”
“Can, can he? Let me tell you somethin’. He ain’ _goin’_ to catch me!
Nobody ain’ goin’ to catch me! Coloured folkses is free an’ independent
citizens, ain’ they? Ain’ they, Mas’ Wayne?”
“Maybe they’re free,” answered his companion grimly, “but if you get to
acting independent I’ll just about lick the hide off you! I ought to
have done it back yonder and sent you home where you belong.”
“I’se where I belong right now,” replied June stoutly. “Ain’ we been
together ever since we was jus’ little fellers, Mas’ Wayne? Wasn’ my
mammy your mammy’s nigger for years an’ years? How come I ain’ got no
right here? Ain’ my mammy always say to me, ‘You Junius Brutus Tasker,
you watch out for Young Master an’ don’ you ever let no harm come to
him, ’cause if you do I’ll tan your hide’? Ain’ she always tell me that
ever since I was so high? What you think I was goin’ to do, Mas’ Wayne,
when I seen you sneakin’ off that night? Wasn’ but jus’ one thing _to_
do, was there? How you ’spects I was goin’ to watch out for you like my
mammy tells me if I didn’ go along with you? Huh? So I jus’ track along
till you get to the big road, an’ then I track along till you get to
Summitty, and then I track along----”
“Yes, and you climbed into that freight car after me and the man saw
you and we all got thrown out,” continued Wayne. “I reckon you meant
all right, June, but what do you suppose I’m going to do with you up
North here? I got to find work to do and it’s going to be hard enough
to look after Sam here without having a pesky darkey on my hands. Best
thing you can do is hike back home before you starve to death.”
“Huh! I ain’ never starved to death yet, Mas’ Wayne, an’ I ain’ lookin’
to. Jus’ like I told you heaps of times, you ain’ got to do no worryin’
about June. I reckon I can find me a job of work, too, can’ I? Reckon
folkses has to plough an’ plant an’ pick their cotton up here jus’ like
they does back home.”
“There isn’t any cotton in the North, June.”
“Ain’ no cotton?” ejaculated the other incredulously. “What all they
plant up here, then, Mas’ Wayne?”
“Oh, apples, I reckon, and----”
“I can pick apples, then. I done pick peaches, ain’ I? What else they
plant?”
“Why----” Wayne didn’t have a very clear notion himself, but it didn’t
do to appear ignorant to June. “Why, they--they plant potatoes--white
potatoes, you know--and--and peas and--oh, lots of things, I reckon.”
June pondered that in silence for a moment. Then: “But how come they
don’t plant cotton?” he asked in puzzled tones.
“Too cold. It won’t grow for them up here.”
June gazed rather contemptuously about the gray morning landscape and
grunted comprehendingly. “Uh-huh. Reckon I wouldn’t neither if I was a
cotton plant! It surely is a mighty--mighty _mean_-lookin’ place, ain’
it?”
Well, it really was. Before them ran the railroad embankment,
behind them was the little grove of bare trees and on either hand
an uncultivated expanse of level field stretched away into the gray
gloom. No habitation was as yet in sight. The telegraph poles showed
spectrally against the dawn, and a little breeze, rising with the
rising sun, made a moaning sound in the clustered wires. Sam came back
from his profitless adventures and wormed himself between Wayne’s legs.
June blew on his cold hands and crooned a song under his breath. The
eastern sky grew lighter and lighter and suddenly, like a miracle,
a burst of rose glow spread upward toward the zenith, turning the
grayness into the soft hues of a dove’s breast! Wayne sprang to his
feet, with an exclamation of pain as his cramped and chilled muscles
responded to the demand, and stretched his arms and yawned prodigiously.
“Come along and let’s find that hot coffee, June,” he said almost
cheerfully. “There must be a house somewhere around here, I reckon.”
“Sure must!” replied the other, falling instantly into Wayne’s humour.
“Lawsy-y, I can jus’ taste that coffee now! Which way we goin’, Mas’
Wayne?”
Wayne stamped his feet on the still frosty ground and considered. At
last: “North,” he replied, “and north’s over that way. Come along!”
He led the way back toward the track, followed by June and Sam,
and after squeezing himself between the wires of a fence climbed
the embankment and set off over the ties with a speed born of long
practice. The rose hue was fast changing to gold now, and long rays of
sunlight streamed upward heralding the coming of His Majesty the Sun;
and against the glory of the eastern sky the three travellers stood
out like animated silhouettes cut from blue-black cardboard as they
trudged along--the white boy, the black boy, and the yellow dog.