NEW FRIENDS
“Yes, I believe it figures out something like that,” laughed the
other. “But, mind you, I’m not saying you could get that. Probably you
couldn’t get anything yet. You’re a year or two too young. If I were
you, and thought seriously of playing professional ball, I’d get on
some amateur team this year and play with them for the practice.”
“What’s the difference, please, between an amateur team and a
professional?”
“Money. On an amateur team you play for the love of playing and nothing
else. On a professional team you play for the love of playing plus a
fat salary.”
“I see,” murmured Wayne. “But could I--I mean would you----”
“Sure, if I needed the money,” was the answer. “I wouldn’t be a
professional ball player and expect to stick at it all my life. You
can’t do it. The pace is too hard. But if I had the ability and could
command a good salary for playing ball I’d do it, and keep my eyes
open for something better. I know a chap who played professional ball
for six years and studied law in the winter and whenever he got a
chance. Then he went into an office two winters. After that he quit
baseball and now he’s doing well over in Trenton. Lots of folks think
professional baseball is like highway robbery or something. They class
professional ball players and prize fighters and thugs all together. I
guess there was a time when some ball players were a roughish lot, but
that’s gone by. Most of them are just like the rest of us nowadays.
A lot of them lead cleaner lives than the folks who knock them. They
have to, for one thing. Anyway, they do it. You can be a professional
ball player now and be a gentleman, too. Most of them are. A great many
are college fellows; practically all are educated. They don’t expect
to make a life’s work of it, you see. They’ve got the gift of playing
good ball and they turn it into money, just the same as a man who has
the gift of teaching Greek turns it into money. It’s just a business
proposition. Where your ball player has it on some of the rest of us is
just here: he likes his work and we don’t!”
Pattern knocked the ashes from his pipe against the edge of the
platform and yawned. “I’ve got to get back,” he announced. “It’s nearly
one. Think over what I said about joining an amateur team and getting
practice, my boy. That’s your best move.” He nodded, smiled, and
hurried away, leaving Wayne, for some reason, rather excited.
He had never considered playing baseball for a living, had never taken
his ability seriously. He had known since he was fourteen that he
could field and throw and bat far better than his playmates, but he
had accepted the fact without concern. They had made him captain of
his school team in his last year and he had led them through a season
of almost uninterrupted victories. And that summer he had played
twice a week with the “White Sox,” a local aggregation formed by the
young men and older boys in Sleepersville, holding down third base
with phenomenal success and winning renown with his bat. But never
until today had it occurred to him that he might perhaps earn money
in such a simple way as playing a game he loved. It didn’t sound
sensible, he thought. Why, he would be glad to play baseball for
his board and lodging alone! Glad to do it for nothing if he could
afford to! To receive thirty-five dollars a week, or even twenty, for
doing it sounded absurd. But, of course, fellows did get paid for it,
and--and--well, it was something to think over!
He thought it over a good deal during the succeeding days. He had
another talk with Pattern, waylaying him one evening on his return from
the coal office. He had, he said, decided to follow the other’s advice
about joining an amateur team, but he didn’t know how to do it, didn’t
know where there was such a team.
“There’s one here in Medfield,” replied Pattern. “Two, in fact. The
Athletics have a pretty fair bunch, but I don’t believe they’d take you
on. They’re rather a silk-stocking lot. The other team is the Chenango.
Younger fellows mostly: the Y. M. C. A. bunch. By the way, you don’t
belong to the Y. M. C. A., do you? Why don’t you join? It won’t cost
you much of anything and will do you a lot of good all around. You’ll
meet fellows, for one thing. I’ll get you an application, Sloan. It’s
something you ought to do, my boy.”
“I’d like to very much,” said Wayne. “But I’m afraid I wouldn’t have
much time for playing ball. You see, I have to work until five every
day.”
“Most of the others do, too, I guess. They usually hold practice after
that time. You’ll have your Saturday afternoons to yourself after
the middle of June, and they only play on Saturdays. You join the
Association, Sloan, and I’ll make you acquainted with some of the
chaps there. You’ll find them a nice lot. And I guess you won’t have
much trouble getting a chance to play.”
Pattern--his full name was Arthur Pattern, as Wayne eventually
learned--was as good as his word and four days later Wayne was a member
of the Medfield Young Men’s Christian Association and had increased his
list of acquaintances about two hundred per cent. The Association had a
comfortable building in the new business district, with a well-equipped
gymnasium, a small auditorium, reading, lounging, and game rooms, and
a few bedrooms at the top of the building, one of which Arthur Pattern
occupied. Pattern, Wayne learned, was not a native of Medfield, but
had come there a year before from a small town in New Hampshire, where
his folks still resided. Pattern preferred his room at the Y. M. C.
A. to similar accommodation at a boarding-house. It was in Pattern’s
little room that Wayne made a clean breast of his adventures for the
past three months. His host, who had vouched for him to the Association
without knowing any more about him than had been revealed to him in
their few meetings in the freight yard, had asked no questions, but
Wayne thought he owed some account of himself to his new friend.
Pattern listened interestedly, and when Wayne had ended shook his head
slowly.
“It’s none of my business, Sloan,” he said, “and I don’t know what you
were up against back home, but this thing of running away is usually a
pretty poor business. However, that’s done now. One thing I would do if
I were you, though, is write back and tell your stepfather where you
are and how you are. I guess you owe him that much. Will you do that?”
Wayne consented doubtfully. “I wouldn’t want him to come after me,
though, and fetch me home with him,” he said.
“I dare say he could do that, but I don’t believe he would. From what
you’ve told me of him--or, maybe, from what you haven’t told me--I
gather that he might be rather relieved to be rid of the expense of
clothing and feeding you, Sloan. Anything in that?”
“A heap, I reckon. I don’t mind his knowing where I am as long as he
doesn’t make trouble.”
“I don’t see what trouble he could make,” objected Pattern. “Anyway,
you’d feel better for writing. I’d tell him why I left, that I was well
and getting on and that I meant to make my own way.”
“June wrote to his mother a little while after we got here, so I reckon
Mr. Higgins knows I’m still alive. June didn’t tell where we were,
though.”
“Where did he mail his letter?” asked the other. “Here in Medfield?”
“Yes.”
“Then it seems to me he may have a suspicion,” laughed Pattern.
“I never thought of that!” exclaimed Wayne, joining the laughter. “I
reckon if he’d wanted me back he’d been after me before this, then.
I’ll write tonight, before I go home.”
“I would. What about this boy that’s with you? Why doesn’t he join
here, too?”
“June? Why, he--he’s coloured!”
“So you said. What’s that got to do with it? Isn’t he a clean, decent
boy?”
“Why, yes, but--I thought----”
“We don’t draw the colour line up here, Sloan. We’ve got more than
a dozen coloured fellows in the Association right now. Some of them
are mighty well liked, too. You’d better get your friend to come in.
It’ll be good for him and good for us. We’re trying to get all the new
members we can. See if you can’t persuade him.”
“Oh, he will join if I tell him to,” responded Wayne carelessly. “But
it seems--sort of funny----”
“Yes, but you’re not down in Dixie now, my boy. Remember that.”
For once, however, Wayne’s authority failed him. June firmly and
respectfully declined to have anything to do with the Y. M. C. A.
“Maybe it’s jus’ like you-all say, Mas’ Wayne, but I ain’ fixin’ to act
like these yere Northern darkies, no, sir! I done watch ’em. They acts
like they thought they was quality, Mas’ Wayne, dressin’ themselves up
in store clothes an’ buttin’ white folks right off’n the sidewalk! If
they was down in Colquitt County someone’d hit ’em over the head with a
axe!”
“But this isn’t Colquitt County, June. This is up North, and things are
different here. Up here a coloured man is as good as a white man--at
least they think he is.”
“No, sir, Mas’ Wayne, they don’ think that, sir. They jus’ perten’ they
thinks it. Don’ no white man sit down to a table with a nigger, does
they? They lets you ride in the same car with the white folks, but you
can’ go to white folkses hotel. It’s mighty mixed up, Mas’ Wayne, an’
you don’ know where you is!”
“But there are a lot of coloured fellows in the Y. M. C. A., June.
Doesn’t that show that it’s all right for you to join it?”
“Shows it’s all right for them, Mas’ Wayne, but it don’ prove nothin’
to me! I jus’ wouldn’ care for it. White folks is white folks an’
niggers is niggers, an’ there ain’ no gettin’ aroun’ it, Mas’ Wayne.
No, sir, don’ you ask me to join no ’Sociation, Mas’ Wayne.”
Secretly, Wayne was a little relieved at June’s decision, for he held
the same views on the subject. He and June had been playmates when
they were tiny, companions later, and friends always, but he had been
brought up in the firm conviction that the negro was an inferior race.
Whether he was right or wrong I don’t pretend to know.
At all events, June remained firm. By this time he was flourishing
exceedingly. His deposit had been paid and he was now getting three
dollars every Monday from the proprietor of the hotel and earning
an average of twice that amount in tips, all of which, it may be
truthfully stated, he did his honest best to deserve. He was easily the
most popular of the four bell boys employed at the hotel, and, since
envy and malice are not confined to those with white skins, he had
had his troubles. The head bell boy who, prior to June’s advent, had
ruled the roost with a high hand, levying toll on the earnings of the
other and younger boys, had not yielded his rule without a struggle.
But he had run up against a Tartar in June, for the latter refused to
either acknowledge the other’s right of dominion or give up any of his
earnings to him. The eventual result was a decisive battle with fists
in the furnace-room, a bout in which June, in spite of smaller size and
weight, conclusively proved his superiority. The head bell boy retired
from public life for the space of one whole day, and, when he returned,
brought back with him a meek and respectful demeanour. June didn’t
deceive himself into thinking that the other was any fonder of him for
the beating he had received, but he was quite sure that thereafter he
would be let alone.
Meanwhile Wayne learned a little better every day how to make himself
useful to Jim Mason and every day grew to find more interest in his
work. He became a great favourite with the men around the freight yard,
while Jim never missed an opportunity to do him any kindness in his
power. Frequently Wayne was invited to the house with the sun-parlor
for supper or Sunday dinner, and less frequently he accepted the
invitation and went. He was always certain of good, well-cooked food
which, if plain, was abundant. Mrs. Mason had long since learned of
Wayne’s rescue of Terry and could never do enough for him. Terry, too,
welcomed the visitor, evincing an almost embarrassing enthusiasm for
his society. Wayne was duly introduced to the wonderful hen--whose
name, strangely enough, proved to be Teddie--and to her even more
wonderful brood of chickens, four in number.
In consequence of new friends and new interests, Wayne naturally
spent less time at “Carhurst” and saw less of June. But June, too,
had found friends amongst his own race and was not lonesome. In fact,
he confided to Wayne one evening after supper, while the latter was
anxiously examining the growth of his plants and watering them from the
dish pan, that he “liked this yere place right smart,” adding that he
“reckoned it wasn’t never intended they should go to New York.” June
had blossomed forth in new clothes which, while extremely inexpensive,
made him look quite fine. Wayne tried to tease him by saying that he
was just like a Northern nigger now, but June didn’t mind. “’Tain’ your
clothes, Mas’ Wayne, that makes you ’spectable,” he said. “It’s the way
you acts!”
Wayne, too, had provided himself with new attire. It was Arthur Pattern
who tactfully hinted at the advisability of enlarging his wardrobe,
something that Wayne had had in mind for a fortnight and had been
deterred from doing only by the realisation of the tremendous hole the
outlay would make in his savings. When he did emerge from the clothing
store carrying a neat blue serge suit in a big pasteboard box he was
as near penniless as one could be and have a jingle left in his pocket!
But the expenditure paid for itself if only in the comfortable feeling
of being decently dressed when Wayne went to the Y. M. C. A. of an
afternoon, as had become his custom. Usually Arthur Pattern stopped for
him on his way past the freight house and they walked uptown together.
Wayne saw his circle of acquaintances grow from day to day, thanks
to Arthur, and it wasn’t long before he could truthfully echo June’s
sentiments and say that he “liked this yere place right smart.” And
finally, as May was drawing to its end, he secured what he had hoped
for from the first, an invitation to join the Chenango Base-Ball Club
squad and show what he could do.