BEN TELLS A SECRET
The team missed connection at North Taunton coming back and had to kick
their heels about the platform there for more than an hour, reaching
school finally just before eight, a very tired lot. There was a cold
supper awaiting them in the dining-hall, and after that had been
demolished few of the fellows had inclination for anything but bed.
Jimmy, who had remained on the bench all the afternoon, was in a
particularly pessimistic frame of mind, and Dud’s last conscious memory
was of Jimmy, pajama-clad, seated on the edge of his bed, muttering
dire threats against Star Meyer.
Thursday was a busy day for Dud, with examinations beginning in real
earnest. In the corridor of School Hall at noon he was hailed by Roy
Dresser. “Say, Baker, Myatt’s looking for you. Told me to tell you to
drop around to his room if I saw you.”
As there was still a half-hour before dinner, Dud turned his steps
toward Lothrop and climbed the flight of slate steps that led to the
second corridor. Ben Myatt roomed with Nate Leddy in Number 8, and both
occupants of the two-room suite were in when Dud entered. He hadn’t
seen Myatt for several days and he was surprised to find him stretched
out on the couch looking rather pale and fagged.
“Hello, Dud,” he said. “Mind if I don’t get up? I’m feeling a bit rocky
today. Pull up a chair.” Dud replied to Leddy’s greeting and found a
seat. Leddy went on sorting some books at his desk. “Nate,” continued
Myatt, “has been telling me about your good work yesterday, Dud. I was
awfully glad to hear it, son. How’s the arm today?”
“Quite all right, thanks. Oh, it’s a little stiff, but I guess it will
limber up this afternoon.”
“Better go easy with it. Nine innings is quite a stretch the first
time. You’ve never gone the full limit before, eh?”
“No, and I thought for a while yesterday that I wasn’t going to be able
to. I guess Leddy told you what a mess I made of that fifth inning.”
Ben nodded. “I wonder,” he ruminated, “how many of us have had an upset
in that ‘fatal fifth.’ It seems that the fifth is crucial. Anyway, I’ve
always had a sort of superstition about it. If I can last out the fifth
I can go the limit, but almost every game I pitch something happens
in that inning. Sometimes it’s only a stumble and sometimes it’s a
regular fall-down. I dare say you thought it funny Pete didn’t pull
you out yesterday when you went bad, eh?”
Dud nodded his head. “Yes, I expected him to, and when he didn’t
I――well, I sort of thought he was keeping me in to――to discipline me. I
suppose he was.”
“Not exactly. We were talking you over the other evening; I guess it
was the night after the Lawrence game; and Pete said he guessed you
wouldn’t stand a full game this year but that you might next. I told
him you could stand it any time if he’d let you do it. ‘You put Baker
in a game that’s on ice,’ I said, ‘or a game you don’t particularly
care about winning and let him see himself through. Every pitcher has
got to get into trouble once and dig out again before he finds himself.
After he has done it once he knows that he can do it and after that he
does it.’ Pete thought I might be right and Guy said he was certain of
it. Great Scott, don’t I know? Haven’t I been through it? I’ve stood up
there with the crowd yelping and been so scared I couldn’t half see the
plate! Just had to trust to luck when I let ’em go that they wouldn’t
fly over the backstop! Don’t you feel, now that you’ve stood the gaff,
that you could start out this afternoon and pitch nine innings without
getting wobbly?”
“Yes, I think I could,” responded Dud cautiously. “But I mightn’t. When
a fellow’s stuff stops breaking right for him and a play goes wrong in
the infield and there are a couple on the bases――――”
“Right you are,” said Leddy. “I know the feeling, Baker. It’s the
deuce!”
“It sure is,” agreed Ben. “But what I’m trying to say is that a chap
has got to get good and scared and get over it before he’s worth a
hang in the box. You had your scare in the Lawrence game, Dud. I could
see just how you felt. But they had to pull you out to save the game.
You had another one yesterday and they didn’t have to pull you out and
you found it was up to you to crawl out of the hole all by yourself,
and you buckled down and did it. You didn’t know it, but if we’d been
trimmed thirty to nothing yesterday you’d still been in there pitching
’em over when the game ended! That was Pete’s plan from the first. ‘If
Baker’s in shape,’ he said to me, ‘I’ll put him in and let him pitch
the whole game.’”
“I’m glad I didn’t know it,” laughed Dud. “I’d have been frightened
stiff if I had!”
“Wouldn’t have blamed you a mite,” said Nate. “To tell the truth,
Baker, when Pete told me on the bench there yesterday that he was going
to put you in for the limit I thought he was crazy. I didn’t expect you
to last more than four innings. I don’t mind telling you now, because
it turned out all right and you fooled me beautifully. I apologize. You
pitched as nice a game for a rookie as I ever saw in my life, old man,
and that’s a fact!”
“I wish I could have seen it,” said Ben. “Fact is, Dud, I sort of look
on you as a pupil, although I never really taught you a thing except a
little common sense. You had everything you’ve got now when I got after
you that day in the cage, but――――”
“You taught me how to use what I did have,” said Dud stoutly. “If it
hadn’t been for you I’d never have made good a little bit.”
“Well, all right. Thanks for the testimonial. What I wanted to see
you about today was this. Nate and I talked it over and we decided
to put you wise to what’s up. Pete probably thinks it’s better to
keep quiet about it. Anyway, it wouldn’t help any to let it get over
to Mount Morris. So you keep it to yourself. I’m dished for the rest
of the year, Baker. When I was a kid I had a sunstroke. A lot of us
were on the beach one beast of a hot day and we were doing stunts and
racing and going on the way kids will, you know. Well, I keeled over
and was sick for two or three days; had rather a narrow squeak of it,
I believe. I’ve never had any trouble since, though, until Saturday.
It was beastly hot that day, and I guess I was feeling sort of punk,
anyway. Well, the result was that I had to give up, and after I got
to the Field House I was as sick as a dog and felt like the dickens.
Now the Doc says I’ve got to keep out of the sun all summer. Oh, he
says there’s no harm in going around if it’s just ordinarily warm,
but I’m supposed to wear some sort of a ventilated hat or stick a
newspaper in it or something. If the day’s all right I’ll have a try
at twirling Saturday, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be good for only four
or five innings. That means that Nate here will have to finish out. Or
Nate may start and I’ll go in if it’s necessary. Anyhow, there’s the
second Mount Morris game the next Friday, and, in case they get one
away from us, we’ll have to play them again the next afternoon. See
what I’m getting at, Dud? You’ve got to take your turn in one of those
games, old man. You can’t figure it any other way. Gus may get a whack,
of course, and if Gus happened to have a good day it would help the
situation a lot. For my part, I don’t believe we can count on finishing
the series this year in two games. Mount Morris is good and she’s got a
pitching staff that’s every bit up to ours. So there it is. Nate will
have to pitch part of the Friday game, at least, and if he does he
won’t be up to twirling again the next day. We want to win the series,
naturally, and we’ve been talking it over. And we decided that it
would be the best thing to put you next to what was up and let you get
accustomed to the idea. I don’t know how you are that way, Dud, but I
know that a good many fellows if they were suddenly called on to go in
and pitch in a deciding game with the rival team would have nerves so
badly they wouldn’t know a drop from a jump.”
Dud took a long breath. “Gee!” he said. “Can I do it?”
“Yes, I’m sure you can――after yesterday. Yesterday’s experience was
just the sort of medicine you needed. Don’t you think so yourself?”
“Yes, I do. At least, I don’t think I’d ever go to pieces quite so
badly again, Ben. But――but pitching against Mount Morris――――”
“Pshaw,” said Leddy. “Mount Morris isn’t so different from Corliss.
They play a little better, that’s all. The big thing is to just go in
and tell yourself, and make yourself _believe_, that you’re a heap
better than any batsman they can put up. Isn’t that so, Ben?”
“Yep, I think it is. Confidence is a big factor in pitching, Dud. And
we want you to spend the next week or so accumulating a lot of it.
You’re not likely to have to work Saturday, although you never can tell
what’ll happen in a ball game. Anyway, you won’t have to work more
than an inning or two. I’m pretty sure I can go four and Nate isn’t
likely to break down under five, I guess. I wish to goodness we had one
south-paw in the bunch!”
“Brunswick’s a left-hander,” offered Dud.
“I know, but he isn’t ready yet. I guess he’ll come around nicely next
year. Well, that’s the outlook. Now, if you take my advice, you’ll do a
little work every day, Dud; not a great deal, but enough to keep silky;
and you’ll get used to the idea of going into one of those Mount Morris
games and doing a lot of pretty pitching. I’m going to get out of here
tomorrow and we’ll have a try-out, just you and I, Dud. I want to see
that cross-fire of yours again. If you can make that good it might be
a big asset against some of Mount Morris’ right-handed batters. How is
your hitting nowadays, Dud?”
“Pretty poor, I’m afraid,” replied Dud ruefully.
“Try and brace up with it. You never can tell when a hit will mean a
whole lot to your team. And a pitcher that can smash out a safety now
and then――especially when it’s needed a lot――is pretty useful.”
“That’s the only thing that got Ben his place,” said Leddy dryly.
“It helped a lot, anyway,” laughed Ben, “especially when I started in
with the second and didn’t have much more than my glove. But you try
to meet ’em between now and next Friday, Dud. And, by the way, better
not let Pete Sargent know that you’re on. Maybe he will give you a hint
himself in a day or two, but until he does you let him think you don’t
suspect anything.”
But Dud got no hint from the coach that week. The next day, Friday,
Ben lugged Dud off to the practice diamond after the teams had gone
in and put him through his paces. Dud’s round-arm delivery interested
him considerably, and Ben had to have a try at it himself, without,
however, getting any such result as Dud did.
“I like that,” said Ben. “If you can make it a bit more certain, Dud,
you’ll have a good ball there. I know if you pitched that to me and
I didn’t know what was coming I’d back out of the box! Let’s try it
again.”
Dud put in every moment at batting that he could find opportunity for.
But he didn’t seem to make any improvement. He could land on some of
Brunswick’s offerings fairly well, but Gus Weston or Leddy nearly
always got them past him. He wasn’t used in the box on Thursday, and
had only two innings of work Friday, but his pitching arm was back in
shape and he assured himself over and over again that he was quite
ready to face Mount Morris or anyone else. Nevertheless, his heart had
a way of jumping into his throat sometimes when he suddenly remembered
what might happen a week hence! Jimmy wasn’t much use to him at that
time, for Jimmy was having hard work with examinations and was,
besides, much disgruntled over Mr. Sargent’s preference for Star Meyer
in center field. Even when, the day after the Corliss game, he dwelt
on what he termed Dud’s “coup,” he was only half-hearted.
“You own the school now, Dud,” he proclaimed. “Your middle name is
Popularity. Didn’t I tell you that if you followed my advice and
specialized on pitching a baseball you’d get to be a regular feller?
Sure, I did! And you’ve gone and done it!”
Dud, though, failed to discern any enormous popularity. Of course those
who had seen the game were warm in their praise of his work, and those
who hadn’t been present looked on him a bit more interestedly, but
if he had expected to wake up on Thursday and find himself suddenly
famous――and, as a matter of fact, he hadn’t thought of any such
thing――he would have been disappointed. No one patted him on the back
and told him how good he was and no one particularly sought the honor
of his society. But the Corliss contest had not been a very important
one and the school had fully expected to win it, anyway. Real fame was
to be garnered only in a game with Mount Morris.
Saturday dawned hot and breathless, with an unclouded sky overhead.
There were no examinations that morning and the fellows had nothing to
do but look forward to the afternoon’s contest with their old rival and
speculate on the outcome of it. A few heroic ones played tennis and the
canoes were pretty busy, but the heat made idleness almost a virtue.
It was rumored at dinner time that Leddy would start in the box for
Grafton and that Myatt would be held in reserve.