THE PUMP CHANGES HANDS
In April, after the roads dried off, Tom engaged one of Malloy’s trucks
to bring the pump in from the farm. It cost him ten dollars and he
sometimes doubted the wisdom of it. Uncle Israel remitted the storage
charge when confronted with the money.
“Guess,” he said, “as Cummings knocked off four dollars and a half to
you, Tom, we won’t say anything about storage. I guess you’re a fool,
though, to pay those men ten dollars to lug that thing to town, because
you’ll never sell it for more’n that.”
Tom rather doubted it himself, but he went through with it and in due
time the pump, a rather cumbersome and very heavy affair, was deposited
in the basement of the hardware store. It was Mr. Cummings who advised
the expenditure of further money in the shape of an advertisement in a
morning paper and who helped write it.
“I guess,” he said, “we won’t put any price on it. We’ll just say,
‘Cheap for cash.’ If anyone comes to look at it, you leave him to me.”
Tom was very glad to, for he greatly doubted his ability to conduct
advantageous bargaining. The advertisement ran three mornings a week
for over a month and cost Tom five dollars and twenty cents and brought
no returns. Nor did a card displayed at the back of the store, setting
forth in Tom’s best lettering the fact that a rare bargain awaited some
lucky purchaser, do any better. Tom had almost forgotten the existence
of the pump when, one morning in April, he stopped on Main Street to
watch the excavating for a new office building. The contractors had
struck water at a depth of some eighteen feet below the street level
and the workmen were wading and splashing about in a good twelve inches
of it. They had one pump at work, but it was quite evident to the
spectators that fringed the railing that the pump was making little
if any headway. A middle-aged man with a perplexed expression emerged
from the temporary office and, accompanied by a subordinate, watched
the work for a moment. As the two men were within a few feet of Tom, he
could not help overhearing what was said.
“That thing isn’t doing enough work to earn its oil,” said the
contractor disgustedly, nodding to the pump and the long length of big
hose that ran down to the water. “Brown and Cole say they can’t ship
until next week. Funny thing we can’t get a pump nearer than Chicago!”
“‘Next week!’” responded the foreman bitterly. “What’ll I be doing
until next week with all this gang? I don’t dare lay them off. Stevens
is after men for that new job of his.”
“Bailing wouldn’t help much, I suppose.”
“Not a bit, save to keep them at work. The water’s running in faster’n
we can pump it out. Sure, it’s a regular spring we’ve struck, I’m
thinking.”
“No, it’s not a spring, Jim; it’s a subterranean stream that flows
between that gravel and the clay underneath. With another pump I guess
we could hold it all right. Meanwhile, though, we’re losing a couple of
hundred dollars a day and getting behind on the contract.”
“Subterranean it may be,” replied Jim disgustedly. “I don’t know if it
is or not, but it’s holdin’ us back from the work. I know that. What’s
the matter with gettin’ a lot of hand-pumps, sir? The water company’ll
be havin’ one or two, maybe, and the plumbers----”
“Good idea, Jim! At least it’ll help and it’ll keep those dagos busy.
If we’ve got to keep them, we might as well make them work. I’ll see
what I can do.”
He turned away and hurried through the crowd. But Tom was after him.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, touching the contractor’s arm. “But I heard
you say something about a pump.”
“Eh? Yes, what of it? Know where I can get one--buy, borrow, or steal?”
“I--that is, Cummings and Wright have one for sale. It’s only been used
twice and it’s in perfect condition, sir.”
“Thanks. I’ll have a look at it. Wish I’d known about it two days ago.
What make is it?”
Tom told him and he nodded. But Tom couldn’t answer the other questions
the contractor put as they hurried up the street. In the store Tom
left the contractor and hurried to the office after Mr. Cummings, who,
fortunately, was in. A few words explained the situation and in a
minute Mr. Cummings and the contractor were on their way downstairs.
In an almost incredibly short space of time they emerged again, the
contractor hurried away and Mr. Cummings, smiling broadly, sought Tom.
“You’re in luck, Tom,” he announced. “He jumped at it. They’re going to
haul it away in ten minutes.”
“He bought it?” asked Tom eagerly.
“No, I made him a present of it,” laughed Mr. Cummings. “For sixty
dollars.”
“Sixty dollars! Why--why, it only cost that much when it was new!”
ejaculated Tom.
“Sixty-four and a half, son. He’d have paid a hundred, I guess, if I’d
asked it. He’s losing that much every day for the want of it. Oh, he
was tickled enough to get it for sixty! There’s no kick coming from
him. And I guess you’re not kicking either, are you?”
“No, sir! I--I’m awfully much obliged. If you don’t mind, Mr. Cummings,
I’d like you to take out that four and a half.”
“Commission, eh? Nonsense, Tom; we don’t want that four-fifty. We’ve
more than got our money back on it, son. You want to remember that that
pump didn’t cost us sixty-four and a half, not by fifteen dollars and
more. We’re satisfied. He’s going to mail his check for the money. What
shall I do with it--endorse it over to you or give you the money?”
“I guess--I guess you might just endorse it, sir. I think I’ll start a
bank account with that!”
“A good idea, son, a mighty good idea. Take it over to the Trust
Company and they’ll give you four per cent. on it. Nothing like having
a savings account, Tom.”
Tom told Sidney of his good fortune at lunch hour and Sidney smote him
triumphantly on the back, inducing a severe cough. “Now,” cried Sidney,
“you can afford to give up your job and pitch for us!”
“Do what?” gasped Tom.
“Why, leave the store and come out for the team! What’s to prevent you
now?”
“Say, Sid, how long do you suppose sixty dollars would last if I had to
pay for my room and meals out of it?”
Sidney’s face fell. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t last very long,” he
acknowledged, sobered. “Maybe--maybe three months. Then you could go
back to work again.” He brightened. “What’s the matter with doing
that?” he demanded.
“I don’t believe they’d take me back,” answered Tom with a smile for
the impracticable suggestion.
“Oh, you could get a job somewhere else,” answered his chum easily.
“Maybe I could and maybe I couldn’t. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to leave
Cummings and Wright’s, even to play baseball! Who’d look after my
sporting goods for me?”
“Oh, hang your old sporting goods!” said Sidney disgustedly. “If you
had any--any patriotism, any right feeling, you’d come out and help the
team, Tom! Why, say, you ought to see Pete Farrar in the box. He--he’s
a--a fake, that’s all he is, a regular fake!”
“Isn’t there anyone else?” asked Tom sympathetically.
“Three or four,” said Sidney gloomily. “Bat’s trying his best to
develop them, but they’re all pretty green. There’s Toby Williams. You
know him, don’t you? He’s in your class. He’s the best of the lot. He
pitched for the grammar school a couple of years ago, but he’s only
fifteen and hasn’t much on the ball. Oh, we may pull through with what
we have, but we certainly need a real pitcher. The funny part of it is
that Pete Farrar thinks he’s a regular wonder, Tom. He and Frank Warner
are great cronies, you know, and maybe if we had a decent pitcher Frank
wouldn’t let him into the box in a big game. He seems to think Pete’s
all right. Has an idea, I guess, that as long as he’s playing second it
doesn’t matter who’s in the box!”
“Doesn’t seem as if Frank Warner could cover the whole field,” objected
Tom.
“Oh, he thinks--I don’t know what he thinks! Bet you there’ll be a
mix-up between him and Bat Talbot pretty soon. Bat won’t stand much
funny-business.”
“When do you play your first game?”
“Two weeks from to-morrow; Y.M.C.A. Team. They’ll beat us, of course,
but Bat says it’ll give us good practice.”
“That’s a Saturday, isn’t it? I guess I’ll try and get out to see it.
How are you hitting, Sid?”
“Rotten! So we all are. Bat had us at the net over an hour yesterday
and he was hopping mad at the way we missed them.” Sidney chuckled.
“He told Buster he swung at the ball with--what was it he said? Oh,
‘with all the ineffable grace of a derrick!’ Buster was so mad he
almost swallowed his tongue trying to keep it still!”
“That _must_ have been hard for Buster,” replied Tom, with a laugh.
“Guess I’ll certainly have to get out some day and see your wonderful
team at work!”
Sidney gazed at him reproachfully. “If you were half-way decent,” he
said, “you’d come out and help instead of poking fun at us!”
At Mrs. Tully’s boarding-house dinner was served at the fashionable
hour of six-thirty, and quite often Tom had nearly a half-hour to wait
after getting home from the store. Sometimes he made use of the interim
to study the morrow’s lessons, sometimes he read the morning paper,
turning first of all to the baseball and sporting news, and sometimes,
if the weather was fair, he sat on the front steps and conversed with
whoever turned up there. With the advent of warmer weather it was
almost always pleasanter on the front steps than indoors. The grass
in the little plot in front began to take on a tinge of new green and
the shrubbery that hid the party fence along the side-yard showed
swollen buds. One spring-like evening, a day or two after the last
recorded talk with Sidney, Tom came downstairs after washing for dinner
and seated himself on the top step at Mrs. Tully’s. None of the other
boarders were there and after a moment Tom, hands in pockets, possessed
of a restlessness that made sitting still uncomfortable, wandered past
the newly raked flower bed and into the side-yard. There was a long
stretch of turf there, flanked on one side by the hedge and fence and
on the other by a gravel walk which led along the side of the house,
under the parlour and dining-room windows, to a gate in a brown board
fence. This fence hid the back-yard where the clothes were dried and
where the ashes were kept until, on Monday mornings, Mr. Tully, attired
in blue overalls, rolled them out in four big galvanised iron barrels
to the sidewalk, whistling “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Just what
connection there might be between ashes and the star-spangled banner,
Tom couldn’t make out; but Mr. Tully always whistled that particular
tune and nothing else on such occasions.
Viewing the stretch of turf which in olden days would have made a fine
bowling green, and the brown board fence, Tom had an idea. Ceasing
his own whistling and bringing his hands smartly from his pockets,
he turned and hurried up two flights of stairs to his room. When he
returned he had a baseball in his hand. Measuring off the proper
distance, Tom faced the division fence and began to throw the ball at
it. It was rather a noisy operation and every moment he expected to
hear remonstrance from Mrs. Tully. But he had thrown and recovered the
ball a dozen times and his arm was getting nicely limbered up before
anything happened. Then footsteps crunched on the path and Tom looked
up to see Mr. George observing him with smiling interest.
The railroad detective was rather disappointing in appearance, judged
by one’s usual notion of what a detective should look like. He was
tall and square-shouldered, had a large face with high cheek-bones and
a prominent nose, and wore a black moustache that was clipped short.
There were rather heavy brows over a pair of mild brown eyes and his
cheeks were rather ruddy. Altogether, he looked prosperous and healthy
and, above all, peaceable. He invariably wore dark Oxford clothes,
but had a passion, it seemed, for loudly hued neckties. A rather heavy
gold fob dangled into sight occasionally from a waistcoat pocket and a
very big diamond ring adorned a finger of his left hand. At table Mr.
George was not talkative. Neither was he taciturn. He never, however,
made mention of his business. He and Tom always spoke when they met,
but beyond that their acquaintance had not progressed. Now, though, he
began conversation at once.
“What are you pitching?” he asked, crossing the grass to a position
behind the boy.
“Just an out-curve, or trying to,” replied Tom, a trifle embarrassed.
“Let’s see it,” said the other.
Tom pitched and made rather a mess of it. “I’m not very good at it,” he
murmured deprecatingly.
“What you want is something to pitch across,” said the detective. “Wait
a minute.” He set off to the back-yard and was soon back with the
galvanised iron lid of an ash barrel. He set it on the grass some six
feet from the fence. “That’s rather a big plate, isn’t it?” he asked
with a smile. “Now let her go.”
Tom, who had picked up his ball again, obeyed, and Mr. George nodded.
“That’s not bad for a ‘roundhouse curve,’ son. What you want to do,
though, is to make ’em break sharper.”
Tom viewed him in surprise and interest. “Can you show me how?” he
asked eagerly.
“I guess I might,” was the reply. Mr. George leisurely divested himself
of his coat, laid it, carefully folded, on the grass and took the ball.
“It’s some time since I tried this,” he explained, fingering the ball
knowingly. “Now you watch, son. Better get behind me so’s you can see.”
[Illustration: “Now you watch, son. Better get behind me so’s you can
see”]
Mr. George drew his arm back, brought his left foot off the ground
and swung it around his right leg, and pitched. Down came arm and leg
together and off went the ball. Tom watched it. He had just begun
to tell himself that, after all, Mr. George had pitched only the
straightest sort of a straight ball, when the flying sphere “broke”
abruptly to the left and downward and slammed against the fence so
forcibly that it rolled half-way back again.
“Gee!” said Tom admiringly. “That was some curve!”
“No curve about that, son. That’s an out-shoot. You see, your curve
begins to break to the left almost as soon as it leaves your hand,
but a shoot doesn’t break until it’s travelled part of the distance
to the plate. Now you take an old-style in-curve, and that’s a good
deal harder to pitch than an out-shoot, and put it over the inside of
the plate. It isn’t hard for the batter because an in-curve never has
as much on it as an out. But you make that in-curve an in-shoot, and
it’s a puzzler. There was a fellow pitched with us two seasons down
in Montgomery and he had an in-shoot that didn’t begin to break until
it was right up to the plate. It was a dandy, I tell you. I tried to
get him to show me that ball and he was willing enough, but he just
couldn’t seem to explain it. I never could get it right.”
“Did you--did you use to play baseball?” asked Tom with a touch of awe
in his voice.
The detective nodded. “Eight years at it--Southern, Central, and Texas
leagues. That was ’most ten years ago now. There wasn’t anything in it
and I quit before they threw me into the real bush. It isn’t bad as
long as you’re young, but baseball isn’t any business for a man after
thirty. And I’m getting on toward forty-five now. Let’s see your ball
again. Here’s a drop that used to fool ’em some.”
And it certainly was a drop! Mr. George wasn’t satisfied with it,
explaining that his arm was all out of practice, but it almost made
Tom’s eyes pop out! And the remarkable thing about the detective’s
pitching was that he did it with seemingly no effort and the ball
simply flew through the air! Tom wondered what would happen to the
fence if he really tried to pitch a swift one!
“I wish I could pitch like that,” he said enviously. “Or half as good.”
“Maybe you will when you’ve been at it longer,” responded Mr. George.
“Take it from me, son, there isn’t anything you can’t teach your
muscles to do if you go at it right. Haven’t got a mitt, have you?”
“No, sir.”
“I was going to say, if you had, I’d catch a few for you. I’ll get one
to-morrow and you and I’ll have some fun out here. I haven’t held a
baseball for two years and it feels good.” He swung his arm around and
made a grimace. “Stiff as a crutch,” he said. “Let’s see yours, son.”
Tom stepped over and the detective ran his fingers up and down the
boy’s arm and around his shoulder. Then he nodded approvingly. “You
got a start, all right,” he said. “You got good stuff up there at the
shoulder, and that’s where you need it. Done much of it?”
“Pitching? No, sir, not much. I just started last spring. A fellow
and I--he plays with the high school team--we used to pitch and catch
sometimes of an evening. Then this summer I pitched in a couple of
games for the Blues. They said I didn’t do so badly.”
“Want to learn more about it?”
“Yes, sir, very much. I tried to teach myself out of a book, but it’s
pretty hard.”
Mr. George sniffed. “There isn’t any book that’ll teach you, son. But I
can. And I will if you want me to. There’s the dinner gong. To-morrow
I’ll buy us a catcher’s mitt and we’ll have some fun, eh?”
“Yes, sir, thank you. I wish, though, you’d let me buy the mitt. You
see, Mr. George, I can get it at wholesale price.”
“That so?” The detective pulled a roll of money from a pocket and
peeled off a five-dollar bill. “Then you get me one, a good one, son.”
“It won’t be more than a dollar and seventy-five cents, I guess,” Tom
objected.
“All right, but have it good. And if there’s anything left you bring
along a mask. Might as well do this thing right, eh? And we better have
a new ball, too. This one’s getting played out. Here, maybe you’ll need
some more money.” And Mr. George put his hand to his pocket again.
“I’ve got enough, sir, I think,” said Tom. “Anyway, it’s only fair for
me to pay for something. You see, it’s me--I who am going to get the
good of it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied the detective, slapping Tom on the shoulder
as they passed around to the doorway. “I expect to get a bunch of fun
out of it myself. And I guess it’ll do me good to limber some of the
splints out of my arm. Anyway, if you don’t have enough, you let me
know to-morrow. Practice is at six sharp, son!”