Won in the ninth
by Christy Mathewson · English · Gutenberg #49568 · 415,096 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Won in the ninth
Author: Christy Mathewson
Editor: W. W. Aulick
Illustrator: Felix Mahony
Release date: August 1, 2015 [eBook #49568]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WON IN THE NINTH ***
[Illustration: “Just as the ball was going over his head straight as a
bullet, he put up his right hand and caught the ball.”]
WON IN THE NINTH
BY
CHRISTOPHER MATHEWSON
THE FAMOUS PITCHER OF THE NEW YORK GIANTS
THE FIRST OF A SERIES
OF STORIES FOR BOYS ON
SPORTS TO BE KNOWN AS
THE MATTY BOOKS
EDITED BY W. W. AULICK
THE WELL-KNOWN WRITER ON SPORTS
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
FELIX MAHONY
NEW YORK
R. J. BODMER COMPANY
1910
Copyright, 1910, by
R. J. BODMER COMPANY
THE NEW YORK BOOK COMPANY, SALES AGENTS
NEW YORK, N. Y.
DEDICATION
To the memory of Henry Chadwick, “The Father of Baseball,” whose life
was centered in the sport, and who, by his rugged honesty and his
relentless opposition to everything that savored of dishonesty and
commercialism in connection with the game, is entitled to the credit,
more than any other, of the high standing and unsullied reputation
which the sport enjoys to-day, and to the boys who love the great
American game I dedicate this book.
C. M.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE WINTER TERM 1
II. THE LOWELL SPIRIT 9
III. GETTING ACQUAINTED 14
IV. THE JERRY HARRIMAN SCHOLARSHIP PRIZES 23
V. THE FIRST LINE-UP 32
VI. PICKING THE VARSITY 46
VII. HAL AND CROSSLEY 56
VIII. BAD NEWS FROM HOME AND FLIGHT 63
IX. THE DIAMOND MEDAL 79
X. UNDER SUSPICION 84
XI. THE STUDENT DETECTIVES 98
XII. HAL IS DISCOVERED 104
XIII. HANS TAKES A TRIP 117
XIV. PREPARATIONS AT THE RIVAL COLLEGE 133
XV. THE “LOWELL REPORTER” 142
XVI. THE ALUMNI GAME 158
XVII. THE MAKING OF A FAN 169
XVIII. THE TRIP TO JEFFERSON 185
XIX. BEFORE THE BATTLE 193
XX. THE FIRST GAME 204
XXI. RETURNING HOME 220
XXII. DISTINGUISHED FANS 226
XXIII. THE SECOND STRUGGLE 231
XXIV. HANS’ SECOND TRIP TO NEW YORK 245
XXV. THE FINAL GAME 252
XXVI. HAL-HONUSED 271
XXVII. AWARDING THE PRIZES 288
XXVIII. SATO WRITES HOME 293
WON IN THE NINTH
CHAPTER I
THE WINTER TERM
“Eyah! Eyah! Hughie, RAH-RAH.” A wiry red-haired boy about twenty-three
years old swung lightly from the train with a big valise in his hand
into a crowd of college boys in caps and heavy ulsters. They gathered
round him at once, and while one crowd took charge of his valise, he
was lifted on to the shoulders of a half dozen fellows and carried
through the streets to his rooms in Elihu Dormitory. In a twinkling his
rooms and the halls outside were blocked with the lads of Lowell who
had come to welcome the most popular boy in school, Hughie Jenkins.
It was the day of the opening of the winter term of the University.
Hughie Jenkins had been the successful manager for three years of the
College Baseball team and on the Thanksgiving Day previous, Hughie as
Captain of the Football Eleven, with the help of the other members of
the team, had won the College Championship for the first time in five
years.
The boys of Lowell University had never been very successful in
football against their old rivals at Jefferson, and the fellows were
so chock-full of enthusiasm over it that they had not yet had enough
opportunity to satisfy it. As each of the members of the team had
arrived he had been welcomed in much the same way, but the great
welcome was, of course, given to “good old Hughie” as they called him,
and now that he was with them again it was possible, taking the boys’
view of it, for the work of the University to go on.
[Illustration: “Good old Hughie Jenkins was back.”]
As Captain Larke had said, “Hughie is entitled to all the credit we can
give him. He has been a wonder at baseball because he has always kept
the boys fighting hard to win, no matter what the score was, and we
have won many a game just because we wanted to do our best for him, and
the way he made us get out and win in the last few minutes of the big
football game kind of shows that he knows how to put them over.”
“That’s right,” said Kirkpatrick, who was right end on the team, “if
good old Hughie hadn’t put some of the fight back in us when that old
score was 0 to 0 in the last five minutes of play, and then himself
kicked that field goal from Jefferson’s twenty-five-yard line, we
wouldn’t have won.”
“Well,” said Hughie, “this is fine all right, boys. We did win, didn’t
we! and it’s very kind of you to try to give me all the credit, but
if it hadn’t been for the other ten fellows on the team, I guess I
couldn’t have done very much, and anyway it took eleven pretty good men
to beat that team from Jefferson.”
Then, turning to Johnny Everson he said, “Gee, I wish the snow would
melt. I’d like to find out what kind of new fellows we have who can
play baseball.”
And that was just like Hughie. Here it was winter, with snow on the
ground, and a month or two of cold weather still in sight. He had
hardly got rested from the football campaign, and now he was wishing it
was time to get out the bats, balls, and masks!
“It gets me,” said Delvin to Gibbie over in one corner, “how that old
boy hustles and is thinking about all kinds of things all the time, but
I guess that’s the way to win out.”
“In time of peace prepare for war,” said Hughie. “Now I am wondering
right now whom we are going to get to take the place of old boy Penny
on first (Fred Penny had been the sensation of the college world at the
first bag), and who will take Johnny King’s place as catcher and will
he be able to work that delayed throw trick with Johnny Everson and the
shortstop? And by the way, who is going to take Joe Brinker’s place at
short, besides the couple of other places that are vacant?
“Boys,” continued Hughie, “this is going to be my last year at school
here. You fellows have helped me win the championship before. It’s all
right about the football business, but this last year with you, we’ve
simply got to have another winning nine. Let’s give a good old cheer
for the football boys, and then let’s give another for the grand old
game of ball, and then you go and tell all the fellows who can play
ball that I want to see them in the cage next week, and tell all of
them that think they can play ball to come, too. Sometimes some of
these chaps who think they can’t do it turn out the best of all.”
And that evening when the boys got talking by themselves they forgot
all about football, and the fellows who had been to school last year
had to tell all over again about the wonderful stunts that Lowell boys
had pulled off in the past, just as if most of them hadn’t heard them
all before.
“Say, Johnny,” said Fred Larke, a Junior from Kansas and Captain of
the Baseball Nine, to Johnny Everson, “I was trying to tell Robb
here (Robb was from Georgia) how Johnny King and you and Joe Brinker
figured out that delayed-throw-to-second trick that won that game from
Princeville last year.”
“Well,” said Johnny, “it didn’t really win the game, you know, because
we were ahead then, but it kept the other fellows from winning. You
see, some one said to us in the visitors’ dressing room of Bailey Oval
that Walker of the Princeville team was a slow thinker. ‘I have a new
trick for fellows that can’t think quick,’ said King, the catcher, and
he explained it to us so we would be on the job if the chance came.
Sure enough it did.
“In the last half of the ninth inning of the game with Princeville
College, the Lowell boys were one run to the good. Princeville College
was at bat, of course.
“Walker, the first man up, had gotten to first on a hit and reached
second on a sacrifice and he was the lad they said didn’t think quick.
This was just the thing we figured might happen. King had said, ‘If
that fellow gets on second, I can pull off this new trick, which I
call the delayed throw. Let Joe cover the bag and Johnny stall.’ On
the first ball pitched, this Walker took a big lead off second, and
Brinker covered the bag, King motioned quick as if to throw, and I
stood still. Walker first started back toward second, but when he saw
that King didn’t throw he slowed down. Brinker, walking back to his
place at short, said to Walker, ‘We’d have got you that time, old boy,
if King had thrown the ball.’ For just one fatal moment Walker turned
around to answer Brinker’s remark and in that instant King threw the
ball to me as I hustled for the bag. Of course, I caught it and jabbed
it against the runner and before he knew how it was done, he was out.
“Of course you couldn’t work that on a real live player, but we won the
game on that play because the next batter drove out a long single on
which Walker could have scored. Looking at it one way, it was won in
the dressing room because that’s where we fixed up the scheme.”
“It pays to keep thinking about the game all the time, doesn’t it?”
commented Larke.
That brought up the other story of another game with Biltmore
University a couple of years before which Lowell lost, and Everson had
to tell that, too.
“I wasn’t there,” said Everson, “because it was two years ago, which
was before my time, and there was a whole lot of luck about it, too,
but it was this way. There were three on bases and Merry, our mighty
slugger, at bat with two out. Score was 3 to 0 against us and it was
our last half of the ninth, too; Merry hit the first ball pitched for a
homer over the right field fence, and four runs would have scored, only
for little Willie Keefer, right fielder for Biltmore, who was playing
well out toward the fence.
“The grounds were down by the railroad and right field was down hill
and rough. Inside, the fence sloped at an angle of 65 degrees, being
straight on the outside and covered with signs. Willie started with
the crack of the bat, leaped upon the slope of the fence and started to
run along it, going higher and higher and just as the ball was going
over his head, straight as a bullet, he put up his right hand, and
caught the ball fairly; then Willie went over the fence with the ball
in his mitt, rolling over in the dirt.
“Willie climbed back over the fence, and the runs didn’t count because
while the umpire couldn’t see it plainly, our fellows in the right
bleachers could see Willie all the time and they were, of course,
square enough to say that the ball was fairly caught, even if it did
lose the game for us.”
And so they talked and talked until long after time to be in bed, and
told all the stories about the great Lowell clubs of the past, the
great pitchers, the catchers and the fielders; and the fellows called
it the first meeting of the Hot Stove League of Lowell University 19--.
This talking League lasted through part of February, by which time the
freshies who had done wonders on the high-school teams at home, and who
had come to Lowell with high hopes of making the team, had a pretty
good idea of the kind of enthusiasm and loyalty and, most important,
the hard work they would have to show to get on the team at Lowell.
The night of Hughie Jenkins’ return a boyish-looking chap, who had come
all the way from California to Lowell University, only five months
before, wrote a long letter to his folks back home, and among other
things he said the boys had begun to talk baseball, and he was going
to try to be on the team and also that he was going to try for the
position of pitcher. Further, that he was going to try for one of the
Jerry Harriman Prizes. His name was Case.
CHAPTER II
THE LOWELL SPIRIT
Lowell University wasn’t one of those little colleges about which books
for boys are often written, nor was it just a big college. It was the
greatest University in the East. It had thousands of students and
hundreds of teachers. It was a rich college with dozens of buildings.
A great many hundreds of the boys who had been graduated from it, poor
boys and rich boys and medium-fortuned boys, now held high positions in
the big world outside.
Two of the boys who had attended school there years before and who
had played on its athletic teams had become Presidents of the United
States, and every year while these men were in the White House they
came to attend the big football and baseball games, and acted just like
boys again, while the games were going on at least. Other boys had
been made members of the Cabinet and a great many had become Senators
and Representatives in Congress while still others had become famous
ministers, doctors and merchants.
The students were made up of sons of rich families and poor alike. Boys
from the farms and from the city. Of those who were lucky in having
rich fathers, there were quite a number at school every year. Some of
them had finely furnished rooms, servants, automobiles and other things
which a rich man’s son generally has, and it must be said that a great
many, in fact, most of these boys developed into men of fine character
and ability, and made their marks in the world.
A few thought they were better than those who didn’t have so much
spending money, but they didn’t get very far or do so much in the
world, either in school or after they got out.
The spirit of Lowell was democratic, and with the exception of these
foolish fellows, the sons of the rich associated with the poor fellows,
particularly where the honor and fame of the school were at stake.
The poor fellows associated with the rich boys whenever they got a
chance. They lived in cheaper rooms and worked a little harder, because
the bright boys soon figured out that they would have to hustle to keep
up with the rich fellows.
Some of them worked during the vacations and earned enough money
to keep them at school during the winter just as they do at other
colleges, and some of them looked after furnaces around town, or waited
on tables at the boarding houses and did other things to assure their
schooling. Fully as many of the poor fellows who had been graduated
had become rich and famous in life, and one of the two who had become
President of the United States was a poor farmer’s boy.
The Faculty of the University wanted the students to mix with each
other and didn’t want any difference to be shown between rich boys and
poor, so they encouraged all athletic games, and this brought about
exactly what they wanted. There is nothing like athletics to put boys
on a common ground, and a fellow was always welcome to show what he
could do.
They had a fine athletic association. The equipment was the best
that money could buy. The best coaches in the world were secured to
train the boys in the different sports, and everything was done in a
business-like way. This made it possible to select the teams on merit
alone.
Any fellow who thought he could do something in the line of college
sports had only to report for a trial at the proper time, and at the
place called for in the notice, and he was given a chance to show what
he could do. The merit system picked him out and in that way the best
possible team was secured. If he had done one thing better than some
other fellow, he got the job, and he could keep it until some other
fellow who could do it better turned up and pushed him out of the
position.
If a fellow thought he could pitch he was given a chance to show what
he could do before the coach who was engaged especially to try out the
pitchers. If the coaches thought he “had it in him,” they would bring
it out. Very often, some young fellow showed up who proved to be a
wonder, and he got on the Varsity the first year.
This spirit attracted from all over the country boys who wanted to
enter college. It made college life very attractive and more students
came every year, and somehow Lowell University got more and more in
the habit of having winning teams in most college sports. Likewise, it
was usually Lowell boys who carried off the lion’s share of the Jerry
Harriman Scholarships in baseball.
In baseball, Lowell had most always been the champion. Her basketball
and hockey teams were only beaten when outlucked; her crew was beaten
but twice in twenty years. Only in football did she seem to fall
behind. Year after year she would get a team together that would win
its way through the games with the other schools in the East, hardly
ever scored against, only to fall before her old time rival college in
the West in the final game of the year. This happened in spite of the
fact that all of the cunning and ability of her coaches, captains and
managers were used to get a team together that could beat Jefferson
College.
But this past fall they had finally turned the trick against Jefferson
and won for the first time in five years. Half-back last year and
Captain and Half-back this year, good old Hughie Jenkins who had won
the baseball Championship three times, had done it, and now he was
back after the Christmas vacation, and when he had time to think about
something besides his studies he would be thinking about baseball and
the gaps in last year’s winner that would have to be filled because the
old standbys like Fred Penny, Johnny King, Joe Brinker and others had
been graduated.
“Well,” said Hughie one evening about the middle of January, to his
roommate and chum, Johnny Everson, “I have about five weeks before
the 15th of February to dream that the new fellows who think they
can play ball are going to be as good as the old boys and I am going
to have another winner this year, if--well, we just have to win the
Championship this year, that’s all.”
Little did he know that among those who had seen him on the day he got
back after the holidays, were almost a half dozen boys who had been
in school only five months who would make the Varsity this year, and
whose names would be written very near the top of the Roll of Honor in
Lowell’s Hall of Fame, and that another fellow, one who was destined to
be greater than all the rest, had not yet arrived.
CHAPTER III
GETTING ACQUAINTED
Harold Case mounted the stairs of his boarding house to the little hall
room that he had called home for the last five months. It had been his
first time away from home and he was lonesome and maybe just a little
homesick, for he had come all the way from California to attend school
at Lowell. Though he was a poor boy, he had never had to look out for
himself before.
Perhaps his room--there was only one small one--helped to make him
lonesome. It was comfortably furnished and the meals which Mrs. Malcolm
served her student boarder were good, but this was Harold’s first white
winter. He had lived all of his eighteen years in the balmy climate of
the Golden State, and he missed the warm sun and the bright green of
the orange leaves and the yellow fruit which he had been used to back
home, and he hadn’t become accustomed to wearing overcoat and rubbers
yet as they did every day here in the East.
He had just come in from class. His feet were wet and he was cold and
the register which was supposed to heat his room was cold; for the
weather was beginning to get mild for Eastern folks, and they had let
the furnace fire get low. But it was still too cold and chilly for this
boy from the far West, and he was wishing he were back among the fruit
groves near his home.
He was lonesome, too, because he missed the chums back home. He had not
been fortunate in making friends during his few months at college. Boys
are apt to make friends through the games they play together and Harold
was not familiar with the boys’ sports that are indulged in during the
cold New England winters.
[Illustration: “He was lonesome.”]
He had never had a pair of skates on in his life and didn’t know what
it was to skim over the smooth ice with a pair of sharp steel blades
fastened to his shoes. He had never enjoyed the sensation of coasting
or hitching on to bob-sleds, nor had he ever seen snow before coming to
Lowell.
Think of living eighteen years, and going to school two-thirds that
long, and never being mixed up in a snowball fight!
So you see the fact that it was winter and only winter sports were
indulged in put Harold out of it for the time being, and because he
wasn’t used to the climate, and didn’t know what fun winter sports
would provide, he rather felt that he didn’t care for them, and the
other fellows paid little attention to him, and he had not made any
friends.
This was hard luck of course, and if the other boys had thought about
it at all, they would no doubt have encouraged him to join them, but
they were not particularly interested at the moment in anyone who
didn’t like the things they liked.
As a matter of fact, Harold, as they called him back home, was a really
good fellow. He was very boyish looking for his eighteen years. He was
a well built fellow, but modest and somewhat backward about pushing
himself forward. His hair was brown and his features were good although
no one would call him handsome. His eyes were light blue and clear, his
mouth was firm, and if the other fellows only knew it, he was as quick
as a flash in any game he was familiar with, and he was as graceful as
a deer in motion. He could run almost as fast as a deer, too.
His parents were not in easy circumstances and it was harder than
Harold knew for Mr. Case to spare the money which he did to send him to
Lowell. Harold would perhaps have been just as well pleased to attend
a college in California (just now when he thought of the cold Eastern
winter he wished to goodness that he had), but his father had been a
Lowell man, having been graduated with the class of 18--, and while it
was a little hard on him financially to do so, he had always wanted
Harold to be a Lowell man, and he was willing to work a little more
out there in California to do what he wanted for his son. He felt sure
Harold would make his mark in the world and he also had an idea that
his boy would add something to the fame of Lowell one way or the other.
At the same time the understanding was that after he got out of school
and began to earn money, Harold was to pay back this college money, and
so while there was enough to be fairly comfortable for his first year,
the young fellow always kept in mind the fact that he was in a way
living on borrowed money, and that the less he spent the smaller the
amount would be to be paid back.
For this reason, he had secured a room in a somewhat cheaper and
quieter part of town, some distance away from the campus, instead of
taking up his quarters in one of the Students’ Halls, and this fact
also, and because he was in a house with no other students, served to
keep him from making friends as easily as he might. If he had been
living where there were a lot of other fellows he would not have been
so lonesome, and the boys at Lowell would have known sooner what a
grand fellow he was.
Harold looked at his watch to see how long it would be to dinner time,
for he had a good appetite even if he was cold, and just then the
dinner gong sounded. He went down to the dining room where he found
Mrs. Malcolm and her young son, a lad of twelve, already seated at
table. The dinner was good, and Harold noticed a more cheerful air in
Mrs. Malcolm’s conversation. This was rather a surprise as there had
been a noticeable lack of laughter in the house lately, at least so he
had been thinking.
Mrs. Malcolm was a widow and had come to the college town, thinking
she could add something to the small income left her by her husband
by establishing herself in the boarding-house business. She had three
other rooms to rent, but up to this time Harold had been the only
boarder she was lucky enough to get, and lately she had been a little
bit discouraged. With a larger house than she needed for herself and
son and only one boarder, the increased expense was more than Harold
was paying her, so she was losing money on her idea.
This evening, however, she was more cheerful, and she soon gave the
reason. She had secured two other students as boarders that day. One
was to come that evening, and had taken the room next to Harold’s on
the same floor, and the other had taken the little room over his on the
third floor, but this fellow only rented the room with the privilege of
taking his meals where he pleased.
“The young man who is coming to-night is a freshman like yourself,”
said Mrs. Malcolm. “His home is in Texas; I think you will like him and
it will be real nice for you to have some one else in the house. His
name is Hagner.”
When dinner was over Harold went up to his room to do some studying.
“I feel as though I could be chums with a Mexican greaser to-night,”
thought Harold, “and I certainly will be glad to meet him.”
Shortly afterward the door bell rang and Harold heard an expressman
bringing a trunk up the stairs, followed by the footsteps of a young
man and also a lighter step, no doubt that of Mrs. Malcolm. After a
few moments there was a knock at his door, and when he opened it Mrs.
Malcolm asked him if she might introduce him to the new boarder, Mr.
Hagner.
Harold found a big, raw-boned, awkward-looking German, a young fellow
about six feet tall, weighing fully 175 pounds. He was heavy set,
bow-legged, and had massive shoulders and long arms, but when he moved
around there was a wonderful ease and grace apparent in his movements,
which was a surprise.
Mrs. Malcolm soon went out and left the two together in Hagner’s room.
Harold started to leave, too, saying that he would come in after Hagner
had unpacked.
“Don’t need to go for that reason,” said Hagner, as he opened his
trunk, ready to unpack.
“All right, if you don’t mind,” said Harold. “I’m kind of lonesome
to-night, anyhow.”
“What’s the matter?” asked the other, “anything gone wrong?”
“No,” said Harold, “but you see I’m from California and I don’t like
this blamed snow and cold. I’d rather be back where it’s warm every day
like I’m used to.”
“How long have you been here?” asked Hagner. “This must be your first
year, too?”
“It is. I’ve been here five months and it’s been mighty cold for three
months of that time. When did you come?”
“I just got in yesterday,” said Hagner, starting to unpack. “Never saw
snow before in my life. I am from Texas myself and we don’t have it
down there either. It’s wet, ain’t it? Don’t like it much myself. Guess
I’ll have to stand it, though. Don’t expect to see Texas again for a
couple of years, anyhow.”
Harold began to feel more cheerful. Here was a fellow to whom he could
tell about college. Compared with Hagner, Harold was an old timer, and
he began to feel good. Hagner kept on taking things out of his trunk.
He was having a hard time, getting something out that seemed to be laid
in crosswise between the clothes. Harold looked, and just then out it
came, and there stood Hagner with an old baseball bat in his hand. He
reached in with his left and pulled out an old fielder’s mitt, which
had a big hole right through the middle.
[Illustration: “Just then out it came and there stood Hagner with an
old baseball bat in his hand.”]
Harold’s eyes bulged. “Do you play ball?” he asked.
“A little,” said the other; “used to play around the back lots down
home. Had to play hookey from Sunday school to get a chance. Had to
work week days after school. You play?”
“Some,” said Harold.
“What position?”
“Pitcher,” said Harold, falling into the other’s way of talking.
“What’s your place?”
“Short,” said Hagner.
“Going to try for the team?” asked Harold.
“Will if they want me. You?”
“I’m going to make them want me. The best pitcher they had last year is
gone and they need some one.”
“Better try for something else. Everybody thinks he can pitch. Only a
few know how.”
“Well, I’m a Southpaw pitcher, and I was pretty good on the High School
team out home. Southpaws are scarce.”
“Left handed, eh! You look quick, too. Think you might make a first
baseman.”
“I’d rather pitch,” said Harold.
“All right, sir,” said Hagner. “You can pitch if you want to and if
they want you, but if they give me a chance any place, I think I can
stop them all right, and if I miss one occasionally, I think I can hold
the job with my bat. What’s your first name? Mine’s John, but you can
call me Hagner.”
“My first name is Harold, but you had better call me by my last name,
too.”
And so they talked baseball until long after midnight, and their
enthusiasm for the great American game made them friends at once, and
Harold went to bed feeling that the world was bright and warm and that
spring would be coming pretty soon, and he made up his mind right there
not to get homesick any more, but to dig more into his studies so that
his marks wouldn’t interfere with the amount of time he wanted to give
to baseball when practice started.
CHAPTER IV
THE JERRY HARRIMAN SCHOLARSHIP PRIZES
When Lowell University won the college baseball Championship in 1876
the victory was to a large extent due to the wonderful all-round work
of Jerry Harriman. As a pitcher he had never up to that time had an
equal, and he could play almost any other position on the team well. In
those days a club would have only one pitcher and he was expected to
pitch almost every game of the season, which often meant pitching every
day in the week but Sunday. When not pitching he played an outfield
position.
This is a whole lot different than the way the game is conducted in the
colleges to-day. In these days a nine will sometimes have half a dozen
pitchers and they don’t do anything but pitch and then only in their
regular turns. Besides being a great pitcher Jerry was also a great
batter. This was also unusual because very seldom do you find a good
pitcher who can bat, but Jerry could both pitch and bat and he made a
great name for himself as a college athlete.
After he had been graduated he went into business in a city in the
Middle West, and became very wealthy.
As a young lad he had been weak physically and his heart was said to be
affected. In fact, he was not expected to live to grow up. When he was
thirteen years old the doctors said he couldn’t live a year. There came
to his home town, however, about this time, a young man who opened a
school of Physical Culture. He had a wonderfully well developed body,
was a great enthusiast on athletics, and he made a great effort to get
the young boys around town who were weak physically to come to him.
He made his living by forming gymnasium classes among the business men
of the town and by his work with them got many a staid old business
man, who was constantly confined to his office, into the habit of
taking exercise regularly, and he made many a man who had become fat
and sick through lack of exercise strong again physically.
But he had a particular interest in the boys and he was especially fond
of getting up classes for poor young fellows who were, as said before,
undeveloped and weak. He taught these youngsters for nothing what he
knew about the fine results of taking exercise regularly, and many a
poor fellow who would have died young, he developed into a strong and
healthy young man who lived long and became prominent in business and
politics.
Among the young fellows who came to the attention of this Professor
Mitchell was young Harriman, who by this time, however, was so weak
that he couldn’t join any of the classes. In fact, Jerry couldn’t walk
across the room without holding on to a chair or something, and even
the Professor had some doubts as to his ability to do anything for him.
However, the case interested him and he came every day to the house for
some weeks and had Jerry do such exercises as he could. At first there
was no improvement that could be noticed, but after a couple of months
of the most careful and lightest exercise possible, a very decided
improvement began to be noticed. Very soon, by carefully doing exactly
as the Professor told him, Jerry began to get stronger, until by the
end of the first year all trace of his heart trouble had disappeared
and the Professor told him that if he would only make it his business
to take his exercises every day he would some day be as strong as any
boy.
It is not the idea of this chapter to go into all the details of how
Harriman became a strong young man. It is only fair to say, however,
that to him his regular and systematic exercise became as important
as his meals or washing his face, night and morning. When he saw how
exercise was improving him physically he became almost a crank on the
subject.
At any rate, he made a resolution that some day he would be just as
well developed physically as any athlete in the world, and he kept this
idea foremost in his thoughts, because he could see that if he had a
perfect physical development, his mental capacity would increase in
proportion. In the end he became a wonderfully well developed lad and
was a living example of what exercise will do for a boy, or man either,
for that matter.
During this time he went to school, and soon was able to join the games
of the other boys. In the High School and in the Preparatory College
he went in for athletics, and by the time he entered Lowell, even he
laughed when anybody recalled the fact that seven or eight years before
the doctors had given him up to an early death from heart trouble.
It has been necessary to give this much of the details of this part
of his life in order to show what it meant to Harriman to become the
greatest pitcher who had ever been in the box for any college in the
country, and also to give the boys who read this good reason for his
great interest in college athletics, after he had gone into business
and become wealthy, as shown by the scholarship prizes which he gave
each year to the best athletes in the various colleges of the country.
A Jerry Harriman Scholarship meant free tuition and Five Hundred
Dollars per year for living expenses at any college in the country
selected by the winner, for the complete college course. Mr. Harriman
was liberal in the number of scholarship prizes offered. Several young
fellows, generally poor boys, were presented each year with a complete
college education. There was a scholarship for the best all-round
football player, for basketball, for hockey and each of the track and
field events.
The scholarships were awarded by the Intercollegiate Athletic
Association, and were given without restriction to the one chosen by
the Association, except that a nominee’s college had to submit to
Mr. Harriman a record of the prize winner’s standing in his studies.
In this particular a good average standing was required. It was the
argument of Mr. Harriman that the pursuit of athletics in college need
not interfere with a fellow’s studies and that if you give a boy a
well developed body his brain will get the benefit of it, and with an
average record as a student, any boy might be expected to make his way
in the world.
Now baseball was the game which Jerry Harriman liked above all others.
He liked best to see it played and to play it himself, and so when he
came to make up his list of scholarship prizes he gave the baseball
fellows the best of it. He was then and still is a real “fan.” He loved
to see new stars developed on the diamond.
He thought it was the best and squarest game in the world and he wanted
his boys, as he called all college boys, to love and play the game.
Therefore he had always offered four scholarships in baseball, one for
the leading pitcher, one for the leading infielder, one for the leading
outfielder and batter, and one for the best all-round infielder and
batsman.
Naturally, having been the baseball champions for so long, the Lowell
nine generally got most of these scholarship prizes and it was very
pleasing to Mr. Harriman to see his old college secure so many of them.
The talk around the University wherever the students gathered often
came around to these scholarship prizes, especially as the time for
baseball approached.
Fellows like Jenkins, Larke, Everson and other of the older fellows,
some of whom had won them in years past, would bring up the subject
when they noticed any of the young freshmen around, just to get them to
thinking about it, and a good many youngsters had developed an ambition
to try for a scholarship and some of them to win one, just from hearing
these older fellows talk. And generally these talks would turn from
a discussion of the records of winners of the prizes to the most
thrilling performances of the individual stars.
The day of the first meeting in the cage called by Hughie, to give him
a chance to look over the candidates for the team, was the first time
that Case and Hagner had been present at one of these talks.
Hughie had given a general talk about the game and had talked with each
of the candidates, asking various questions, such as “what position do
you play?” “Can you bat? Can you pitch?” etc. After they had all thrown
the ball around for an hour, just playing catch so that Hughie could
notice the way the different fellows threw and swung, they sat around
gossiping with each other, nobody wanting to go home, when one of the
older fellows would say something about the Scholarship Prizes.
Generally there was some one present who didn’t know the details and
this offered a chance to tell all about the prizes.
In this case it was Hagner, who had been at school only a few weeks,
and all he knew about the prizes was what Case had been able to tell
him. After Everson had finished explaining the prizes fully the talk,
as usual, drifted on to the wonderful records of the prize winners
of the past. Not that sensational catches or such other stunts as
unassisted triple plays would in themselves secure one of the prizes,
for they would not.
Only the official scorer’s records showing the standing of the
candidates were considered, but it was generally the fellow who had the
best record for any given position who got the chance to pull off the
thrilling plays, because only the good players can do the wonderful
things.
When the talk turned to fielders who had been famous on some of the old
Lowell teams, it wasn’t long before they were telling stories about
great catches made by some of the fielders on championship teams of
years gone by.
On such occasions Fred Larke never forgot to tell about that great
catch made by Jimmy Ryan. How he in one game jumped clear over the
fence in right field which separated the bleachers from the playing
field, and caught a fly ball while falling into the crowd.
Johnny Everson then had to tell his story of Hughie Jenkins’ greatest
catch, when he was playing short in one of the Biltmore College games.
There was an enormous crowd out. The stands wouldn’t hold them all, so
they were let out on the field and there were so many that they crowded
close to the base lines. In the ninth inning the score was tied, one
out, and Bill Everett of Biltmore College on third. The batter hit a
high foul ball into the crowd back of third base. Some of them were
seated but most of them were standing. Jenkins hustled across from his
position at short, hurled himself through the air without paying any
attention to the crowd, caught the ball fair and square and then fell
in among the spectators. That made two out, but Hughie was after the
third one. Bill Everett touched third after the catch and started for
home. Hughie couldn’t see but he guessed that Everett had started. He
climbed up out of the crowd, stepped on the people he had knocked down,
and threw to the plate without looking. The ball went straight into the
catcher’s mitt and Everett was out easily. In the next inning Lowell
won the game.
[Illustration: “Jenkins hurled himself through the air.”]
Then, of course, Miner Black had to tell his remarkable catch story
about Jimmie Siegel in a twenty inning game with Eastern Pennsylvania.
How in the eighteenth inning with a runner on first base, the mightiest
hitter of the Pennsylvania nine drove a hard hit ball to left center.
Just at that moment, however, Siegel had put his hand in his hip pocket
to get out his handkerchief, as the day was hot and the game was a hard
one.
Jimmie, of course, started after the ball, and made an effort to pull
his hand out of his pocket while running. It wouldn’t come out. He
jerked and jerked and still it stuck. Meantime the ball had to be
caught on the run and Jimmie had to make a try for it some way. He
leaped in the air, twisted, stuck up his left hand and caught it with
his back to the diamond. Jimmie threw the ball into the diamond with
his left hand. Strange to say his right hand then came out of his
pocket easily. He wiped the perspiration off his face, grinned, and the
crowd went wild for they realized why he had gone after it with one
hand.
After such talks the “freshies,” who had made some pretty fine catches
on the back lots at home, always made a resolution to do something
equally startling when they got on the Varsity, and the candidates
at Lowell this year were a good deal like all the other freshmen
candidates who had gone before them in this respect. This really was
a good thing for the boys, although, of course, many of them never
realized their ambitions for such fame.
CHAPTER V
THE FIRST LINE-UP
“Well, what do you think of your freshman phenoms?”
It was Johnny Everson who was speaking. Johnny besides being the
regular second baseman of the Varsity was the chum of Hughie Jenkins,
the manager of the team and his chief adviser with Captain Larke.
Johnny knew the game from top to bottom and across the middle. They
called him “a little bunch of brains and nerves,” and he deserved the
compliment.
He was small in size, but large in brains and many a game had been won
for the college by his quick work at trying moments, to say nothing
of the fact that he was largely responsible for the discovery and
development of many of the plays which had come to be known as “inside
baseball.” He had an aggressive chin which seemed to be always pointing
forward, and his eye was as quick and accurate as a sharpshooter’s.
“We seem to have a good many gaps to fill and I guess we will find
mostly yaps to fill them with,” he went on; “anyway that’s the way I
feel to-night after looking over the unpromising material that we put
through the stunts at the cage to-day.”
“I don’t feel discouraged. You can never tell, of course, on one trial,
but watching some of those youngsters this afternoon made me think that
with a little training some of them will make good,” said Hughie.
“Let’s go over the list and mark the fixtures we can count on, and
then we can tell what we have to do to get a real nine together,” said
Everson.
“All right. At second we have _you_,” said Hughie, “and I guess we
won’t need to worry about the Keystone bag, and at third we have
Delvin, who I think, will develop this year into a great star at the
near station. Captain Larke will handle left field all right as usual,
Miner Black will come back stronger than ever this year in the box,
and George Gibbs will, I think, do the catching all right. That’s just
about half a team, isn’t it?”
“Now, at the first sack we need somebody to take Penny’s place, and I
must confess that I did not notice any likely candidate, unless it was
Dill.”
“We are going to have a hard time, I think, to find some one at short
in place of our good friend Joe Brinker.”
“Did you notice the bowlegged and awkward-looking German named Hagner
in the cage to-day?” broke in Everson. “If he wasn’t so big and awkward
looking, he might be able to bat and we could play him in the outer
gardens, but I hardly think he would ever make a shortstop.”
“I hardly think so either,” said Jenkins, “but I had a talk with him
and he said he could play short. I have also had a report from Texas,
where he came from, that he is a perfect terror at bat. I can hardly
hope though that he will be able to fill Brinker’s place. I think if we
could figure out some scheme to remodel his anatomy we might be able to
make something out of him. Still he may be a diamond in the rough. I
don’t think you can tell anything about any of them until you see them
work in the open air for a week or two.”
“What do you think about right field?” asked Johnny.
“If I am not mistaken,” answered Hughie, “we have the real prize
package in that young chap from Georgia, Robb (a regular cracker name,
isn’t it)? Did you notice him at all? Did you ever see more speed? I am
knocking on wood when I talk about him, because I don’t want to fool
myself, but if I was a scout for a professional team, and saw this
fellow Robb playing ball on some back lot, I think I’d buy him without
instructions from headquarters.”
“Lots of them look like stars the first few days of spring,” said
Johnny. “I noticed Robb particularly, too. I was thinking that while he
is a clean-cut looking fellow, I’d hate to get into a fight with him,
because he looks like a chap who has no fear of anything.”
“Besides Robb there were half a dozen others who looked like they might
be made into fielders,” said Hughie. “There was Talkington, McKee,
Raymur, Oakley, Lunley, and Flack. If any of them know how to swing
a bat, I think we will be able to teach them what they need to know
about catching flies.”
“As usual most of the candidates want to pitch and if Miner is all
right this year we won’t need any one to help him, except, perhaps, a
left-hander. Did you notice anything promising along this line? I was
so busy looking over the fielders and possible first basemen that I
didn’t pay much attention to the pitchers. I rather liked the delivery
of Crossley the short time he was throwing. He looked promising for a
rich man’s son.”
“Besides that will be easier when old man Young gets here and we get
them out for coaching. You can also pick them out in batting practice.
Just tell them to throw straight swift balls over the plate and you
can pick out the poor ones anyhow, because a pitcher who can’t put a
straight ball over nine times out of ten, isn’t worth developing. Then
by the time Young gets a chance at them for a week we’ll know which are
no good at all, and what ones it will pay him to coach.”
“I had a talk,” said Johnny, “with that California lad, Case. He is a
quiet chap and unassuming. He says he is a southpaw pitcher too, and he
may be what we are looking for.”
A few days after this talk in Hughie’s room the snow began to melt and
within a week Lowell field, which had for months been covered with
snow and ice, suddenly took on a greenish look, the ground became dry
and firm and everyone began to feel the spring in the air. One day,
not long after, there appeared upon the bulletin board the following
notice:
University Baseball. Outdoor practice. On the field at 1 P. M.
February 25th. Candidates must bring their own suits.
HUGH JENKINS, _Manager_.
There was joy in the hearts of the hundred, for there were about that
number who hoped to be picked for the Varsity. Out of the hundred, at
least ninety were certain to be disappointed as far as the Varsity was
concerned, for there were only about ten places to fill, counting the
substitutes.
Of course, there was a chance that a fellow would get on the second
squad which might help him to the Varsity next year, and then there was
always the freshman team which was formed last and which generally was
an all pitcher team, so to speak, because every man on it had nursed
secret hopes of making the Varsity his first year, as a pitcher.
Harold Case was out early. He had come to the field with Hagner and was
now sitting on the steps of the clubhouse waiting for Hagner, who had
become his good friend. It was a strange friendship that had sprung up
between these two--the tall big-boned and awkward German lad, almost a
man in looks, and this young and exceedingly graceful Western lad, and
both were profiting by it.
While he was sitting there, what was left of last year’s champions
trotted out on the field. Gibbs, second catcher last year, and Larke,
old cronies; Black and Delvin; and last of all, of course, the
inseparables, Everson and Jenkins. The rest of the candidates straggled
out on to the field in twos and threes, to the number of fully a
hundred, and presently Hagner came out with his old bat and glove in
hand and Harold got up and they walked over to the diamond together.
“Better not let yourself out any to-day,” said Hagner, as they
approached the others who had already paired off and were tossing balls
back and forth to each other.
Before Harold had time to answer, however, Jenkins had said the same
thing practically.
“Getting ready for a baseball season isn’t quite like developing a
football team,” said Hughie. “In football you have to get the team
in shape for one or two big games, each of them requiring a terrific
outburst of energy, without thinking about the morrow, but in the case
of a baseball nine you have to develop your bodies to withstand the
strain of a long series of games, mostly in warm weather, and you must
start slowly and get into condition gradually, so do not try to do it
all to-day.
“Another thing, in football we train the team to withstand hard knocks,
a sort of bull-dog development, while a baseball team must have the
nice strength of a greyhound so as to enable it to keep going at top
speed for a long time, and so I want you to go easy.”
So he had them stand in circles, making five or six groups, and pass
around medicine balls, an exercise to strengthen the trunk muscles.
Then they paired off again, and tossed the baseball to each other two
by two--gently--just like boys playing catch.
All at once Hughie called out, “Come on, boys, around the field,” and
starting off in front he trotted all the way round the field along the
fence. By the time they got started on the second round a lot of the
fellows were puffing and blowing hard and found it difficult to keep
up, but Hughie knew how important it was for a ball player to have wind
and he knew this kind of a stunt practiced a couple of times a day
would fix them up in good shape by the time the games started.
Then he called them all up to the plate for batting practice, and asked
if there was any fellow around who could pitch. He knew, of course,
that Miner Black was there, but Miner knew enough not to say anything.
What Hughie wanted was to find out what kind of control these new
fellows who thought they could pitch had with a slow straight ball.
Hughie and Coach Young, who had arrived, stood back of the plate with
Everson and Larke watching.
Out of the dozen youngsters who said they would try he picked out
Hackett and told him to go into the box.
“Now go ahead,” said Hughie. “Don’t use any curves and don’t try to
burn them over; just give us some slow straight balls and try to get
them across the plate.”
What he really was trying to do besides give the men batting practice
was to get a line on the new pitching material, and this was the best
way to get it.
Then he had the batters take turns at the plate, and each fellow was
expected to stay there until he had made a hit, Hughie standing by
showing each, especially the new ones, how to stand up to the ball and
meet it fairly. Hackett, the first pitcher, didn’t seem to be able to
get them anywhere near the plate, and so Hughie told the next one,
Crossley, to go in and give it a trial. He was a little better, but
they had finally to call on Miner to put a few over.
As usual, Miner was long on control. Johnny Everson stepped to the
plate. Miner served one up and bing! The ball went scurrying out to
right field. Each fellow took his turn at bat. Boys like Delvin, Larke
and Gibbs--standing up like veterans and cracking the hits out in fine
shape, giving a little more running practice to some of the youngsters
who had been sent out to the field to chase the balls.
Finally it came Hagner’s turn. He stepped up to the plate and stood
there rather slouchily and loosely, far away from the mark as if he
were afraid of the ball.
“Better step up a little closer,” said Hughie, “he won’t hit you.”
“All right,” said Hagner, “I want to learn all about it.”
Miner served up one to him straight as an arrow. Hagner swung hard
at it and missed. He felt a bit surprised himself. The next one he
fouled off the bat near his hands. Just as Miner sent up the third
ball Hagner stepped back from the plate, swung the bat easily, met
it squarely and crack went the ball in a white streak clean over the
center field fence!
[Illustration: “Hagner swung hard and missed.”]
Miner looked at him surprised and said, “You can’t do that again.”
The next time Hagner came up, Miner decided to use some curves and
make him earn his hit. He sent up what looked like a fast straight
ball about waist high. Hagner swung on it and missed. The ball had a
terrific out curve and, of course, Hagner understood they were only to
be straight. He eyed Miner closely and when he started to pitch Hagner
stooped over to watch the ball like a hawk. On came the ball, starting
wide of the plate and Hagner first decided it was a ball and then as
the inshoot started in toward the plate, quick as a wink Hagner swung
his bat and over the fence she went again.
The fellows went wild. Hughie and Everson standing back of the batting
cage looked at each other. “What do you know about that?” asked Everson.
“I don’t know anything,” said Hughie. “For a big awkward fellow, he
seems to be about the quickest thing I ever saw. Why! he didn’t even
look ready to hit at that ball until it started to shoot in toward the
plate, and I was sure he was going to let it go by. If he can bat like
that regularly, we’ll play him some place if he fumbles every ball that
is batted to him.”
Pretty soon Hughie asked, “Haven’t we got another left-hander here?”
“There ought to be,” said Everson, looking around. “Here, Case, get out
there and show what you can do. This is your chance.”
“Thanks,” said Case in his polite way. “I’ll try if you want me to.”
He walked into the box and picked up the ball where Miner had dropped
it. He had not really tried to pitch since last summer and was a little
nervous. The first ball went a little bit wide. The second one nearly
hit the batter. The line of waiting batters grinned.
“Southpaws are either very good or very bad,” said Captain Larke to
Delvin. After he had thrown a dozen balls or so, however, Case’s arm
got in working order and only an occasional ball went wide of the
plate.
“He seems to be pretty good on the straight ones,” said Jenkins. “If he
can do as well when we let them begin to try the curves, I think we can
put him on as a substitute.”
“What do you think of the bunch in general?” asked Everson.
“Well,” said Hughie, “I think I can see a team out of this crowd all
right, though I am not quite sure of Dill at first base. This fellow
Robb seems to be a fine batter and so does Talkington. Coach Young
says there was one of the young pitchers that looked good, too--young
Radams. If this Hagner knows as much about any position as he seems
to about batting, I think I’ll let him choose his position. Think of
trying to tell him how to stand up to the plate. He’s just a natural
ball player. Don’t believe he knows himself how he hits them. Black
told me, after he came out of the box, that he did his best to fool
Hagner every time after that first time up, and you know how he
succeeded. We’ll know more when we get them out on the diamond in the
various positions.”
By this time the sun was sinking and it was too dark for further
practice. Hagner and Case walked over to the clubhouse together.
“You sure made a hit with the crowd to-day, Hagner,” said Case.
“I made five hits with my bat,” said Hagner, “two of them over the
fence.”
“Guess you will make the team all right,” remarked Case. “I heard
Jenkins say, any fellow who can bat like that can take his pick of
positions and play any one he likes.”
“Good. I’ll play shortstop if they give a choice.”
“Wish I had made as big a hit as you,” said Case.
“You did, because I heard Everson and Jenkins talking it over, too;
and they said you had excellent control, and if you did well with the
curves they could carry you with the team. If I were you, however, I’d
learn to play some position, and make your way as a utility player. You
see, left-handed pitchers are all right, but with a regular pitcher
like this Miner Black here, you wouldn’t often get a chance to pitch
more than an inning or two, anyhow.”
“I don’t know,” said Case, “how good this Miner Black is, but I think I
can beat him to the regular pitching job.”
“All right,” said Hagner, “but if you don’t have any more luck at
ousting him than most of the fellows have had hitting him, you’ll be
out of a regular job on the team for a long time. I’d practice playing
the first bag. Still think you’d make a first baseman.”
“I don’t think so,” said Case, as they entered the dressing room to
change their clothes, “besides either Dill or Ross seems sure to land
the job.”
The second week of out-door practice the regular work of the boys was
increased. At batting practice every fellow was expected to run clear
around the bases after he made his hit. The coaches and managers got a
line on the base-running ability of the boys in this way. Hagner, Robb,
Case and Talkington all showed up well in this direction.
Toward the end of the week the fellows were lined up on the diamond at
their regular positions, the coaches trying out the various candidates
for the fielding jobs. Hughie batted grounders to the infield, to each
of them in turn.
After each play the ball was thrown from base to base in all of the
different combinations necessary to all the imaginary situations, from
short to first it went, from first to third, from third home, and from
there to second, a white streak, the speed of the players increasing
daily as the men got surer of their positions.
Others were batting flies to the outfield and the coaches were moving
about watching the work of each man as he was tried in the different
positions. Each of the fielders was given a variety of work, at bunting
and the fielding of bunts, catching high infield flies, picking up
sizzling grounders, etc. This work enabled Hughie to pick out his first
line-up for the first and second squads.
By the middle of March the two squads were playing practice games among
themselves.
The first squad generally lined up as follows:
1st Base Dill
2nd Base Everson
3rd Base Delvin
Short Hagner
Right Fielder Robb
Center Fielder Talkington
Left Fielder Larke
Catcher Gibbs
Pitcher Black
The second squad was composed of a miscellaneous crew generally lined
up as follows:
1st Base Ross
2nd Base Gane
3rd Base Conley
Short Wallach
Right Fielder Raymur
Center Fielder Oakley
Left Fielder McKee
Catcher McLuin
Pitcher Radams
Harold Case was a sort of substitute pitcher for both squads. He would
relieve Black for a while for the first squad and Radams for the other
squad, so that both teams got plenty of practice in batting a left-hand
pitcher. There was no way for him to find out in advance what Jenkins
thought of him, but he had high hopes of making the team, and he felt
absolutely confident that if he ever got a chance in one of the full
regular games, he would be able to make good. Crossley also was given
a good deal of work during these practice games, as he gave promise
of doing well and it began to look as though the choice for left-hand
pitchers would be between these two.
CHAPTER VI
PICKING THE VARSITY
On the 21st day of March as Harold with the other members of the squads
was in the dressing room after practice, the head coach came into the
room with a slip of paper in his hand which he posted on the Bulletin
Board. There was a rush to read the notice as soon as the coach had
departed, and several faces, as they turned away, wore a look of
disappointment, while others seemed proud and happy.
Hagner and Case finally finished dressing and turned to the board to
read the bulletin before going out. This is what they read:
VARSITY TRAINING TABLE--The training table will start in the
morning at Prettyman’s and the following men for the first
squad will report there for breakfast--Everson, Delvin, Larke,
Gibbs, Black, Hagner, Robb, Talkington, Dill, Case, Radams,
Ross and Huyler. About the first of next month the list may be
increased or changed. Breakfast at eight o’clock sharp. Members
are required to be on time.
HUGH JENKINS, _Manager_.
“Guess I’ll get a chance to pitch after all,” said Harold. It was a
great day for him and he was highly elated. The 19-- Varsity had begun
to take definite shape, and being named on it meant recognition by the
great student body as possessing something worth while in the line of
ability. The news spread rapidly through the University and wherever
the boys who had been named went they were treated with honor and
respect.
Breakfast the first morning at the training table was a good deal of
a get-together, get-acquainted affair. I do not know what it is that
makes the choice of nicknames or how it is that it comes easier to
know some fellows by either their first or last names, others by an
abbreviation of one or the other, and still others by adoption of
something entirely different, but when boys get to a certain stage of
acquaintance with each other there comes a spontaneous desire to bestow
a nickname and these names generally fit in a remarkable way. Harold
Case went to breakfast known as Case and came out to be forever known
to Lowell men as Hal.
John Hagner started to drink his coffee that morning as Hagner and
when he had folded his napkin he was known as both Hans and Honus, why
nobody ever could tell, and the names stuck to him for life.
Charles Radams came away with the nickname Babe and as Babe he went
down into the Lowell Book of Heroes.
Everson had always been Everson before. He was Everson when he sat
down to the table that morning, and he was still Everson when he left
the room, though why this little brainy Crab should have gotten off
without a nickname is far beyond me.
You would think that Larke, who was always jolly, either whistling or
singing when not eating or asleep, would have been named The Lark years
before, but no, they called him just Cap., yet they had always called
Gibbs, Gibbie.
If there were a regular rule for nicknames they would undoubtedly have
called Black, White, but they always referred to him as Miner. Delvin
they generally called Arthur.
There was something stiff about Dill which was a good deal like the way
he played first base in the few games he lasted on the Varsity that
year, and the dispenser of nicknames overlooked him entirely at that
first breakfast. In fact, he never did acquire one, for he was dropped
from the team before anyone could really find a good name to fit him.
Pickle would have been a good name for him, and also his fate so far as
the team was concerned.
Talkington was a quiet young chap, who said very little either at the
table or on the field, so that “Talkie” or “Mr. Speaker,” or anything
like that wouldn’t seem natural at all, so they called him “Tris” and
let it go at that.
Robb might really have been given a fitting name at the end of the
season. If they had waited until then they would undoubtedly have
called him Robb because he had developed into the greatest base stealer
the game ever knew, but somebody had passed him the oatmeal that
morning, after he had demanded it vigorously, with a “Here you are,
Tyrant,” and Ty he is to-day--a very short name for so long a fellow.
A week later they played the first real game of the season, the first
real test of the line-up as it had been worked out by Jenkins. The
game, which was with Colfax, a small neighboring college, was not an
important one. Never had they been able to beat Lowell and rarely in
all the games that had taken place between the two teams had Lowell
been even scored upon. As it was, it was hardly even a test game for
the Varsity. Hal sat on the players’ bench with his chin on his hands,
and watched the Colfax boys getting licked.
There wasn’t anything very exciting about sitting on the bench and
there was nothing very encouraging about the playing of even the Lowell
boys. With the exception of a hair-raising one-handed stop by Hagner of
a fast grounder over second, and a wonderfully accurate throw to first
without getting into position, and the fine work of Gibbie behind the
bat in stopping Babe Radams’ wild drops and curves which the Colfax
boys struck at blindly, the game was dull and uninteresting.
If the Colfax team had not had the usual attack of stage fright that
struck it whenever it played Lowell, it probably would have won. Dill
on first dropped three throws in succession made by Everson to catch
runners at first, and if it had not been for the accurate throwing of
Gibbie to Delvin and Everson who nipped all base runners as they tried
to reach second and third, there is no knowing but that the Colfax
team might have scored, to say nothing of the possibility of winning.
Hagner had fumbled an easy grounder, only to make a jumping catch of
a high liner from the bat of the next man, which he promptly threw to
first completing a double as Dill did not miss that one.
Ty in right field had misjudged the only chance he had but had
recovered the ball in time to catch his man at third with a quick throw
and Delvin at the bag to receive it.
[Illustration: “Ty misjudged the only chance he had.”]
By the end of the seventh inning the score stood 8 to 0 in favor of
Lowell in spite of the poor playing. The Varsity had batted well,
nearly every one had made hits, Everson had 1; Honus, 2; Delvin, 1;
Ty, 2; Tris, 2; Cap., 1; Gibbie, 1; Dill, 1; and even Babe Radams had
dropped a Texas Leaguer over second. Hal had sat on the bench all the
time with Ross and Miner and some of the second squad.
At the beginning of the eighth, Jenkins turned to Ross and said: “You
cover the first bag,” and then to Hal, “Go on in the box for a little
real practice, Hal.” “That’s all right, Babe,” noticing a look of
disappointment on Radams’ face. “You are doing fine, but you can’t have
all the practice.”
“Remember, Hal,” he called from the bench, “let them hit it, but we
can’t have any scoring against us.”
“All right,” said Hal, as he picked up the ball.
The first man up hit the first ball pitched for a base. The second
batter laid down a neat bunt along the first base line. Ross, the
first baseman, came in for it, and Hal hustled over to cover the bag.
Meantime the batter who was fast man, was tearing down the base line
like mad. Ross made a good pick-up and turned to throw.
By that time the batter was only a few feet from the bag where Hal was
to receive the throw. Ross had to throw quick and in doing so threw
the ball at Hal’s feet. Hal reached down, made a neat pick-up, and the
umpire waved the runner out.
There was now one out with a man on second. The third batter hit a hard
one at Everson, who retired the runner at first, the man on second
reaching third. The next batter hit a slow bounder between the box and
first. Hal started after the ball, grabbed it on the bounce with one
hand and without stopping raced to first base, which he reached just
ahead of the runner, making the third out.
As he walked to the bench Jenkins came up to meet him and patting him
on the back, said: “Good boy, Hal,” which was fine, Hal thought.
It was his turn at bat, and he walked to the plate with high hopes of
making at least a two bagger. The first ball looked like a straight one
so Hal took a good swing at it and missed. “That’s all right,” called
Hughie from the coaching lines, “there will be two more better ones
coming over directly.” The next was a ball. The third was a slow one,
and as Hal noticed the left-fielder playing pretty far out he thought
he would just tap it for a nice little short fly back of third. He
thought of this as the ball was coming toward him from the pitcher’s
hands. He whirled his bat with a short, quick swing and--thud--he heard
the ball strike the catcher’s mitt.
“Well,” he heard Hughie calling him, “you only need one to hit it, and
you got one left.” The next two balls he fouled off. The next two the
umpire called balls and it was two strikes and three balls. Hal set
himself for the last one. It was now or never. Here was probably his
only chance to-day to make a hit and he might not get into another game
for weeks and show what he could do with his bat. Slowly the pitcher
started to wind up. Hal watched every move. Here it came waist high and
straight. Now watch it. He swung at it hard. He heard first--a tick,
then a thud. He had made a foul tip and the ball had struck in the
catcher’s mitt.
“That’s all right,” he heard Hughie saying, “we don’t expect pitchers
to hit ’em anyhow.” But Hal was disappointed and sore as he walked to
the bench. The next two men were retired on infield hits, and as Hal
walked to the box to pitch the first half of the ninth inning he was
nervous and mad at himself.
The result was he served up four bad balls in succession and there was
a man on first. The next up hit the first ball right at Ross who was
hugging the base and he booted it. Hal was over on first bag in a jump
but Ross got the ball to him too late to earn an assist and there were
two men on and nobody out. The crowd began to yell, “Take him out.”
“Where’s Miner?” but Jenkins paid no attention. Many a pitcher had
given a base on balls, and Hal was not responsible for the second man.
He got ready to pitch as he faced the batter; he somehow felt the man
was going to bunt. As he delivered the ball he started toward the plate
on the run, following the ball in. The batter bunted. Hal was almost
on top of him. He reached out, caught the ball off the bat before it
had reached the ground, thus making a caught fly out of what would have
been a perfect bunt, whirled around and fired the ball to Everson at
second, who nearly missed it because the play was almost too quick for
him, thus completing a remarkable double play.
[Illustration: “He caught it before it hit the ground.”]
The crowd cheered. He heard them saying: “Oh! You! Hal! Good boy! You
needn’t take him out!” and he felt so good he went back into the box
and struck out the next batter and the game was over. Then there was
the usual rush to get the sweaters, and the fans and players hustling
to get off the field as fast as they could together--the fans to get
home to dinner and the players to the shower baths and rub-downs.
Hal hustled along with the rest. On the way he caught up with and
passed Jenkins and Everson, together as usual. They did not see
him, but he heard Jenkins say: “He looks more like a fielder than a
pitcher,” and he thought they meant him. Later, as he walked along to
his boarding house with Hans, they talked about the game, and the part
each of them had taken in it, and Hans said, “I think you would make
a good first baseman,” but Hal, who thought he had come out of his
pitching test pretty well said, “But you see they don’t need a first
baseman (they all have their bad days like Dill and Ross to-day), and
they may need a good pitcher any time.”
CHAPTER VII
HAL AND CROSSLEY
There were quite a number of disappointed candidates the day the
Varsity list was posted. The disappointment was felt most by the boys
who had an idea that they were the real thing as pitchers. A pitcher
can rarely do anything but pitch, and a large percentage of boys who
think they have the pitching ability do not make good when put to the
real test. And so when they picked out the candidates for the Varsity
that year, a great number of fellows who had high hopes missed even the
second squad and finally landed on the freshman team.
Among the fellows who had hopes of making the team was Edward Crossley.
He had reported as a pitcher and had been given a good many try-outs
in the batting practice, and at first Hughie was attracted by his work
and had one or two talks with him about his experience. Hughie’s first
impression was that Crossley could be developed into a substitute or
extra pitcher as he was strong and could throw a swift ball. He also
seemed to be able to serve up curves fairly well. But Hughie had to
change his mind about Crossley. He was too erratic.
The trouble with Crossley was that he was a spoiled son of a very rich
man. He had the most luxurious rooms of any of the fellows at Lowell.
He had a servant and an automobile. He had lots of money to spend and
he didn’t hesitate to “blow it” as the boys say. He was a good fellow
with the boys whom he chose to make his friends and he liked and was
liked by those with whom he came in contact as long as no one tried to
do things different from the way he wanted them done.
Crossley had been brought up to think that every thing he wanted he
could have. The fault was largely with his parents. They gave him
everything he asked for and denied him nothing. Once in a while his
parents would try to curb his desire for one thing or another, and then
Crossley would pout and his parents gave in.
This gave Crossley a very wrong idea of the world in general. But he
was to find that there were other people in the world besides himself
and that they had ideas of their own and that many of them were just as
selfish in their ideas as he was. When he met this kind of a fellow he
got furiously angry.
When he came to Lowell he naturally thought that the son of so wealthy
a man as his father would receive special attention by the college
people and students. When he found out that merit alone counted in
Lowell affairs, he was furious. When he saw some fellow who could do
some one thing better than he could and who, therefore, received the
attention which his accomplishment warranted, he became very jealous.
When he wanted anything that came to him as a desire, he would stop at
nothing in his efforts to get it, by hook or crook.
The result of it all was that after he had been at college for a few
months he had not done anything worth while for himself, and outside of
a small number of fellows who were brought up like himself he had not
made many friends who would do him any good.
One of the things he asked his father for in the early spring was a new
automobile. His father would just as soon have sent it as not, but he
had been reading something about other boys doing wonderful things in
football at college, and he was disappointed that his son wasn’t in it.
So he had what to him was a brilliant idea, and he wrote his son that
he would present him with a new $15,000 imported car the day he was
named for the Varsity. This looked easy to Crossley.
At home, Crossley, the rich man’s son, had bought the suits for the
High School nine. His father had fixed up a fine ball park for the boys
to play in and he had done all this because his son had asked him to
and because he had insisted upon it.
Of course, Crossley had a right, under the circumstances, to say which
position on the team he would play, and he had promptly selected
the job as pitcher. At first he was no good at all, but he hired a
professional player to teach him and at the end of the year he had
developed into a pretty good pitcher. In fact, he might easily have
become a first-class flinger if his habits had been steady. Crossley
had come to Lowell from White College, a little school in the West,
and he had been the pitcher for the team there.
When Hughie first began to take notice of Crossley he couldn’t
understand how a fellow could do so well one day and so poorly another.
It puzzled him a good deal. He finally wrote to a friend who was
coach at White College and from him he found out what the trouble
was. Crossley had been a good pitcher for White. As good as they ever
had, but he would not observe the training rules and he would smoke
cigarettes and take an occasional drink. This made him erratic and
unreliable at times.
Furthermore, he had a terribly jealous disposition and bad temper and
couldn’t stand it to have anybody but himself praised when he was
around. Hughie’s friend doubted very much if Crossley would be of any
real service at Lowell, especially if he continued his habits there as
at White.
Hughie read this with a good deal of interest but Crossley had shown
up pretty well in practice and Jenkins was inclined to think that the
boy might have gotten over his childishness since, being at Lowell. So
Hughie decided to reserve his judgment.
When the first Varsity list was made up a few days later, Hughie and
the coaches had finally to decide between Crossley and Hal as left-hand
pitchers. They both showed up about the same in the box and the
decision was finally made in Hal’s favor. So his name went on the list
and Crossley was sent to the second squad.
Now Crossley had wanted this automobile very much and he was
disappointed. He felt that Case had beat him out of the position. He
became furiously jealous and made a resolution that he would “get” Hal
in one way or another. What the way was he himself did not know, but he
had a cunning mind and he decided to lay some deep plans to undermine
Hal, and then he would get the job and the auto.
A day or two after the Colfax game, the two squads were lined up for
general practice. The practice was principally devoted to batting and
base running. One squad would take the field lined up in the regular
positions, and the other at bat. Each batter remained at the plate
until he got a hit. Then he ran to first of course. From there he was
expected to steal his way round the bases.
Of course it is hard to steal a base when the other side knows what
you are going to do, but stealing bases is a very important part of
the game. Everson was on the lines helping Hughie instructing on base
stealing. And squad No. 2 was at bat. Hal had been asked to see what he
could do at the second bag. A few minutes afterward Crossley came up
for his turn at bat, and made a hit and went to first. Then Hughie, who
was on the coaching line back of first, told him to steal on the next
ball pitched. Crossley was a good runner and Hal was not used to the
position. He had stuck to the bag the way first basemen do, to receive
the throw from the catcher. The catcher threw quickly to Hal who had
the ball in his hand waiting for Crossley when the latter was still
fifteen feet from the base. The natural thing for Crossley to have done
was to slide. Instead he came the rest of the way standing up, and when
he was five feet from the bag he gave a jump for the bag, and landed
with both feet, spikes and all, on Hal’s right foot, cutting him badly,
and knocking him down. They both rolled over in the dirt, and Hal had
to be picked up and carried from the field.
Hughie and Everson had hold of Crossley and were calling him various
kinds of names for such bone-headed conduct--for once in their lives
both of these boys had been fooled--they thought what they had seen was
Crossley’s idea of stealing a base and were wondering where he got such
an idea.
Hal himself as he was carried from the field by Hans, thought it was
his own fault standing on second base as he did with the ball in his
hands, instead of running up the line out of the path of the runner and
touching him out before he got to the bag.
Hal blamed no one but himself, but Hans, while he said nothing, had
seen the look in Crossley’s eye as he started for second, and had
watched him all the way. He had noted particularly the viciousness
of Crossley’s jump and the care with which he brought his feet down
on the right spot and while he knew of no reason why Crossley should
have it in for Hal, he knew there was something back of it. Hal’s foot
was pretty badly cut, but the doctor fixed him up, sent him home in a
carriage and told him he’d better not put his uniform on for three or
four days.
He was out next day with a cane, and his foot did not hurt him
particularly. He went to the ball grounds and watched the boys practice
and he got to thinking that he hadn’t counted on being injured. He had
been spiked before, however, and he felt that with proper care he would
be back in the game again soon, and not knowing that he had an enemy,
he had no reason for not feeling good.
[Illustration: “He was out next day with a cane.”]
CHAPTER VIII
BAD NEWS FROM HOME AND FLIGHT
Hal, in fact, was feeling very good about this time. The winter’s cold
had given way to the rare warmth of the Eastern spring. The grass
was green, the trees were in leaf, the sun was just right--not too
warm--like his own balmy California. He was making friends among the
students, his prospects of getting into some of the big games were very
good--he was happy. He had a good chum in Hagner, whose more extended
experience with the hard knocks of the world had made him wise for his
age, and he was a good adviser for Hal.
You see Hagner had worked for everything he had gotten in the world.
He couldn’t remember when he didn’t work. When he was going to Grammar
School he sold papers at night and Saturdays. In the mornings he had to
get up early and deliver milk to the few people who could be induced to
patronize the Hagner dairy which consisted of two cows only--and whose
entire output didn’t warrant a wagon or bottles--so Hans delivered the
milk in tin pails.
One summer he worked in a barber shop, because that was the only thing
that he could find to do around the little town where he lived. When
he got into High School he gave up the milk and paper business to a
younger brother and spent his time clerking in a grocery store every
evening and on Saturdays, and made enough money that way, so that his
parents were content to let him follow out his ambition to secure an
education.
On Sundays he played baseball when it was baseball weather and in Texas
where he lived it was that kind of weather nearly all the year round.
That’s where he learned to like the game and also where he learned
the first principles of it. After he had been graduated from the High
School he went to Wahoo College, which was only fifty miles from his
home.
It was a little more than a preparatory institution, although the
course of study was broad enough so that a graduate from there could
enter Lowell without further examination. The summer before going to
Wahoo College Hagner had sold books--was a real book agent--and he made
enough money in the three months to keep him at college for a year. The
expenses at Wahoo were not large, and there was something left over
for his folks. This he did every year while at Wahoo, so that he was
able to give all of his time at school to his studies, and baseball. He
learned to love the game as nothing else in the world. He found he had
a certain naturalness which few boys possess. He seemed instinctively
to do the right thing at the right time, and this developed a great
deal of confidence in himself. His greatest ambition was to have a fine
education, but as a small boy it didn’t look as though that would ever
come. But little by little, as he did the things he had to do, he found
he was getting there.
He had gone through High School and made his own way, and at Wahoo
College he still made his own way, getting stronger and more confidence
in himself every day. He stood well in his studies and he got his good
marks by hard work and constant application.
On the little college team Hans was quite a wonder. What ability he
displayed there he thought was all natural.
As a matter of fact he studied the game of baseball as hard as he did
his Cæsar. He developed a lot of ability as a batter but he got it by
studying how to hold his bat, how to stand up at the plate, by watching
every movement of the pitcher, and keeping his eye on the ball all the
time and by learning not to be afraid of being hit.
So by the time he had arrived at Lowell he had a lot of confidence in
himself. He knew he could get out at any time and make a living as a
salesman. His confidence and earnestness were a great help to him in
that line, as they were in everything, and Hagner had gotten to the
point, even though only twenty-four, where he was absolutely sure of
himself, and he didn’t have to worry about anything but how to make
the most of his time at the University--how to get the most out of his
studies and how to have the most fun as time offered.
For this reason he was a good deal of help to Hal who had never had
to hustle for himself, although, as he knew, his folks had pinched and
saved in order to give him this first year at Lowell. His folks had
been sending him the funds he absolutely needed every month, with a
little pocket money besides, which Hal spent carefully. He was getting
into the habit of being economical and Hagner’s self-reliance and
confidence spurred him on.
They would talk these things over among themselves often. Hal knew that
if he was to be at Lowell the next year he would have to rely on his
folks again or else win one of those scholarships.
“Better work for the Scholarship,” said Hans. “It don’t pay to owe
anybody, even if it is your own folks. From what I have learned it is
pretty hard for them to send you this money every month, anyhow. I
don’t think I would have worked nearly so hard at school if I had been
spending some one else’s money. It hasn’t been easy work for me to sell
books every summer, but I’ve done it. I don’t like the work very well,
and now that this chance of a scholarship is in sight, I am going to
work my toes off if necessary, to land one of them; I think I’ll get
it, too, if I don’t break my leg or something.”
“That’s a fine thing for you, of course,” responded Hal, “because you
have a regular position on the team right now, and there’s no one to
take it away from you, while I am only a substitute pitcher and general
utility man, who probably won’t get a chance to play in any of the big
games at all.”
It was plain that Hal became discouraged from the talk. But he felt
absolutely certain that he could jump in and take the laurels away
from any pitcher they had, if he could only get in enough games to get
accustomed to the big crowds and the surroundings. But the season was
coming along and Black and Radams were doing the twirling and doing it
well, too.
Then, unexpectedly, one morning there came a letter from home that
Hal’s father had been taken sick and they had to use a little of the
money from Hal’s college fund to tide them over and Hal would have to
get along with about half his allowance for a month, anyhow.
This was a shock to Hal. Not so much the money part, but his father’s
sickness. He hated to think of his father being sick and he not at
home. Then he thought of the money, and his first idea was to get
on a train for California. Yes! That’s what he would have to do. He
couldn’t think of staying at Lowell any longer, spending his father’s
hard-earned money. What he ought to be doing was what Hans had done.
He should learn how to earn money and when he had done that, get his
education.
He felt this was a decision that should be acted on at once. He decided
to pack up right away. He didn’t stop to think he didn’t have anything
like the amount necessary to pay his fare home. Hans wasn’t in his
room and wasn’t to be back until three o’clock, so he thought in his
excitement that he would pack hurriedly and get out without seeing
anybody. He did so.
He wasn’t going to be dependent on his folks or anyone else for another
day. He left a note for Hans. This was at noon. He hunted up a time
table and found that the train for Boston to catch the through train
for the West left at three o’clock. He would buy his ticket and go. He
had no thought of changing his mind. He went to the depot to get his
ticket. All at once, he realized that he hadn’t any money. What was he
to do now? It was one o’clock already. Hal’s mind worked quickly. How
could he get two hundred dollars? Quickly he ran over in his mind the
things he had that he might raise some money on. There was only one
thing that was worth anything like that sum. At first he couldn’t think
of parting with that. It was his watch.
He had never told the story of the watch in Lowell to anyone but Hans.
The previous winter while swimming in the lake at home in California,
a rowboat in which there had been a man and two little girls, was
suddenly capsized. Hal was a regular “fish” in the water, just as
natural there as in anything that he understood at all, and he swam to
the rescue. He caught one of the little girls and held her up with one
hand while he righted the boat, and he then put her in.
By that time the man, who was the father of the little girls, had the
other one safe, but he was a big man and fat and couldn’t swim very
well, so Hal helped them both into the boat again, jumped in himself
and rowed them back to the shore near the hotel where they were
stopping. They were tourists from the East and wanted to reward Hal,
but he didn’t think he had done anything so great, so he ran away. That
was the last Hal heard of it, until a month later a package came by
express addressed to him. He opened it and found a letter and a very
fine gold watch with two large diamonds in the case.
The letter was from the father of the two little girls. He said he had
found out who Hal was and begged him to accept the watch in token of
the sender’s gratitude for the rescue of the little girls. They were
twins and exactly alike--so were the diamonds in the case. Hal hardly
ever wore the watch and so very few knew he had it. Now he decided to
pawn it if he could borrow enough on it to get to California.
He had never been in a pawnshop in his life and he was nervous.
Besides, his time was getting short. He rushed out of the station
and asked the first person he met (it was Crossley, although in his
excitement Hal couldn’t have told whether the man was black or white)
where there was a pawnshop. Crossley didn’t answer, because Hal hadn’t
stopped for an answer and Crossley himself was hurrying. He was already
talking to the policeman on the corner. The policeman told Hal there
was a pawnshop in the other end of town, but that most of the students
who had to raise money that way went to Boston. Hal started out to the
pawnshop the policeman told him about, but when he got there he found
it closed.
By the time Hal got back to the station it was five minutes of three.
He had decided to go into Boston and try to raise the money there on
the watch; then he would go right on home from here. He checked his
trunk, and just then the train drew into the station and he got aboard.
Meantime Hans had arrived back at the house thirty minutes before he
was expected. He straightened things around in his room, put his books
away and after a minute or two found Hal’s note. The note just said
that he had bad news from home, his father was sick, and they couldn’t
send him his allowance. He was going. He was sorry he couldn’t see Hans
again, but he was discouraged and said he would write. Would Hans tell
Hughie the circumstances, etc.? He was leaving Boston on the afternoon
train.
Hans knew the train left at three. He pulled out his watch and saw it
was fifteen minutes of three. It took sixteen minutes to get to the
station on the car. The train might be on time.
The note hadn’t sounded quite right to Hans. Hal ought not leave the
University without first registering out at the office of the college.
He thought there might be something else. Above all he didn’t want
Hal to go to California without seeing him again. He was very fond of
his chum. He thought of these things as he was gliding down the front
steps. To catch that train he would have to beat the car. That meant to
do it on foot.
Hans started to run. Every block put behind him was like a stolen base
to him. By running every block he managed to catch the last car of the
train just as she pulled out. There he stopped long enough to catch his
breath for he knew they couldn’t get off now since it was an express to
Boston without stop.
[Illustration: Every block was like a stolen base to Hans.]
Hans walked into the car. His first glance showed him a blue hat and
suit that looked like Hal’s, and as he came up to the seat he was just
about to slap him on the back with a “Hello! Hal!” when he saw the
fellow had on blue glasses. He stopped, then saw that the face wasn’t
Hal’s and went on through the train, glad that he hadn’t slapped a
stranger’s back in his best college style.
Up in the car next to the smoker he found Hal. He was sitting by the
window resting his chin on his hands and in his hand he held the letter
from his mother which he was rereading.
“You look mighty glum for a fellow that’s going home,” said Hans,
tapping him gently on the shoulder. “What’s up?”
Hal looked up in surprise at the familiar voice and turned to look at
Hans.
“Thought you were not going to be back until three,” remarked Hal. “I
am glad you got back in time to catch the train, though, because I
hated to leave without bidding you good-by.”
“Had to run all the way to the station to catch it. Thought I’d better
see you before you left for good. Would like to know the real reason.
Don’t look well to leave a college like Lowell without some explanation
to the office. What’s the trouble, anyhow?” burst out Hans, in the
short quick sentences which he used when he was much interested.
“This,” said Hal, handing him the letter. Hans read it over and then he
read it again. “Awfully sorry your father is sick, Hal,” he said, “but
I don’t see anything about wanting you to come home. Why, this letter
don’t even say that he is very sick. Don’t see any reason for going
home on that kind of a letter.”
“Well, but don’t you see,” broke in Hal, “they had to break into the
college fund to pay the extra bills and I must get along on less. I
don’t mind that, but this is the first time I knew that all my folks
have saved up in all these years was to go for my start in college,
and when I think of a fellow like you, Hans, who has made his own money
and think that I am here spending my parents’ savings, I can’t stand it
another minute, so I’m going home to learn how to make enough to pay my
own way through college.”
“And spoil your parents’ greatest happiness,” said Hans. “Let me tell
you something. My folks were poorer than yours. They were so poor they
couldn’t think of educating their children. Their greatest happiness
was in work and seeing others work with their hands. They couldn’t
realize what education would do. They had no way of realizing it.
Somehow or other I got the ambition to have an education. In order to
do that I had to earn enough money to pay into the family what I could
have made working daytimes.
“This was only after I was old enough to work for others. So I worked
early in the morning and late at night and made up to the folks the
time I spent at school. Now your parents know the value an education
will be to you. Your father is a Lowell graduate and they have been
saving this money for years in order to spend it on your first year at
Lowell, trusting to luck that some way will be found to let you go on.
It’s been their one great happiness and they’d probably feel mighty bad
to see you turn up at home without their sending for you.
“All you ought to be thinking of is how to get the most out of it
this year and get ready to make the burden lighter for the next year.
Winning one of the Scholarship Prizes would do it of course, but there
are other ways.”
“You put it up to me in a different way than I had thought of it
before,” said Hal. “If I thought I could earn some money working
nights, I think I’d try it.”
“If you think that way about it, I’ll see what I can do. We’ll go round
to the employment department of the University in the morning and see
if they haven’t something to do for a poor and needy student to help
him earn his way, especially one who is utility pitcher on the Varsity.
Meantime I guess we had better send a telegram to your folks asking if
your father is better or worse. We can have an answer by morning.”
“I think that would be a good idea,” said Hal, very much cheered by
his talk with Hans and his suggestions. “Come to think of it, though,
as you say, if he was sick enough to make them want me, they would
telegraph, anyhow, I suppose.”
“By the way,” said Hans. “Where did you expect to get the money to get
home on?”
And then Hal told him his idea about pawning his watch, of his effort
to do so before he started for Boston, and that he had intended to do
it in Boston.
“I wouldn’t do that ever until I had to,” remarked Hans. “Anyway not
to go home on. If you can pawn it for enough to get to California on,
you can pawn it for enough to keep you going at school for the rest of
the term. I wouldn’t do it until I had to, though. It’s a bad practice
to get into, although I never was in a pawnshop in my life, and hope I
never have to go.”
“I wonder how much they would loan me on the watch,” said Hal. “Suppose
we try it and see when we get to Boston. Just to see what it is worth,
anyhow.”
“All right,” said Hans, and just then the brakeman called out Boston
and in a minute or two the train stopped. Neither had ever been in
Boston before except to pass through on his way to the University.
They thought they might as well take in a show in the evening and take
the twelve o’clock train back to the University, which would land them
there about two o’clock in the morning. They were walking up to the
platform to go out through the depot when they met Arthur Delvin of the
Varsity going through the station.
“Hello, fellows,” said Arthur. “What are you doing in the city? By
George, I am glad to see you! Want you to come up to the house for
dinner and then we’ll take in a show. Wait for me in the station, will
you? I have to go out and find a cousin of mine who is coming in and
going right away again, and I have to see that she gets started right.
She’s on this train. I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.” And off he
went.
There was nothing to do but wait and the boys decided that if they were
going to see some of Boston, Arthur would be as fine a fellow as any to
show them around, and they went into the station to wait.
Meantime Hal had been wondering what his watch was really worth and as
he walked to the door of the station he saw a sign “Pawnbroker” with
three gold balls over the door. This was just like the place he saw at
the University town earlier in the day, and looking around for Hans
who was sitting on a bench absorbed in a newspaper, he quietly slipped
across the street into the pawnbroker’s shop, and pulling out his watch
said to the pawnbroker:
“How much will you loan me on this?” He wondered if that was the way
people generally talked when they tried to pawn things.
[Illustration: “How much will you loan me on this?”]
The man took the watch and looked at it carefully. He examined the
diamonds with a magnifying glass, he opened the case and examined the
works, then he laid it down on the counter and said “Four hundred
and fifty dollars.”
Hal wondered if he had heard rightly. “How much did you say?” he asked.
“Four hundred and fifty dollars,” answered the man. “She’s worth a
thousand.”
“Thanks,” said Hal, picking up the watch and putting it in his pocket.
“I just wanted to know how much it was worth.”
“Come in any time,” said the man, as Hal went out of the door.
Outside he drew a long breath, took out his handkerchief to wipe the
perspiration from his forehead, and started across the street. As he
did so, a young fellow who had been standing in the shadow of the
doorway stooped down and picked up an envelope which had fallen out of
Hal’s pocket when he took out his handkerchief, looked at it, gave a
start and went on down the street.
[Illustration: “As he did so a young fellow stooped down and picked up
an envelope which had fallen out of Hal’s pocket.”]
Hal went into the depot, and as he hadn’t been gone five minutes in
all, Hans hadn’t missed him. Hal told him where he’d been, also what
the pawnbroker had said, and as he named the amount Hans’ eyes opened a
good deal wider, for he had no idea the watch was so valuable.
Presently Arthur came up and the boys told him frankly how they
happened to be in town, and asked him to say nothing about it, which he
agreed to, as Hal had now decided to go back to school. Arthur said he
had come to town on the morning train to do some shopping.
So they went home with Arthur, and having some one who was familiar
with the city to pilot them, they weren’t worried about that. Mr.
and Mrs. Delvin were glad to have a couple of Arthur’s team mates to
dinner, and they went to a vaudeville show, which was a new experience
for Hans. They enjoyed the evening immensely and after a two-hour
ride on the train got home pretty tired, but none the worse for the
experience.
CHAPTER IX
THE DIAMOND MEDAL
There was plenty of excitement in and about Lowell the morning after
Hans and Hal returned from Boston. In fact there had been a good
deal of excitement the evening before, but of this Hans and Hal knew
nothing. They were in Boston having a good time with Delvin.
“What’s all the bustle about?” asked Hal as he and Hans entered the
dining room at training table next morning.
“What! haven’t you heard?” asked Robb, to whom more than anyone else
Hal seemed to be talking. “The diamond studded Championship Medal was
stolen from the safe of the University treasurer’s office yesterday
between twelve and one o’clock. There is no clue of any kind. Orders
are from the faculty that every student in the University shall report
at the dean’s study before six o’clock to-night, and explain his
movements after twelve o’clock yesterday. Seems funny that they should
suspect any student of doing it.”
“Wasn’t there some one in the room where the safe is all day
yesterday?” asked Hal.
“What makes them think it was stolen between twelve and one o’clock?
How do they know it wasn’t stolen a week or a month ago?” asked Hans.
“It seems that the secretary of the University brought it back from
the jewelers at noon yesterday. It had been taken there to have one of
the settings tightened. He had put it in the safe. A few minutes after
one o’clock, Mr. Williams, the treasurer, came in and asked if the
medal had come back yet. ‘I just brought it over,’ said the secretary,
and walked over to the safe to get it. It wasn’t there and he almost
collapsed.
“They searched everywhere a dozen times. It couldn’t be found. Finally
they were forced to conclude it had been stolen. Who could have taken
it? No one but students had called at the office during that hour. It
was hard to believe any student could have taken it, but they had to
admit the possibility.
[Illustration: “Who could have taken it?”]
“The police were notified and asked if they had seen any suspicious
characters around the building. The Chief instructed all the patrolmen
in town to bring in any suspicious characters.
“Finally late last night,” continued Robb, “the policeman down at the
station reported that shortly after one o’clock yesterday a young
fellow had asked to be directed to a pawnshop. He was very much excited
and in a hurry. Might have been a student, but he thought he was a
stranger because most students would know where the pawnshop was, even
if they didn’t have any business there.
“So they have this cop stationed down by the entrance and he is looking
at the students as they go in thinking he can identify the fellow if he
should happen to be a student.”
“Seems silly to me,” remarked Hans, “that they should think any student
of Lowell who would do a trick like that would be so bone-headed as to
try to pawn it in this town. I doubt if any pawnbroker in the country
would take a thing like that. It would be recognized immediately.”
“He could take out the diamonds and melt it up,” said Talkington, who
had joined in the discussion.
Hal’s face was white. He knew they were looking for him, thinking that
he was the guilty party! What should he do? He could account for all of
his time. He would tell them the exact facts, every detail, even his
visit to the pawnshop in Boston to find out what his watch was worth.
Hans was with him all the time, excepting in the pawnshop, and so was
Delvin most of the time. The pawnbroker would no doubt testify for him
that he simply made an inquiry there and pawned nothing.
After breakfast he said to Hagner with as much self-control as he could
muster, “Hans, I’m the fellow they are after. When I was crazy to get
away yesterday for home, and was bent on pawning my watch, I went up
to that policeman at the station and asked him where I could find a
pawnshop.”
“Gee!” said Hans, “that looks bad, doesn’t it? Yes! it looks bad, but
only looks. You’re all right. Wasn’t the pawnshop closed when you got
there? Isn’t it the only pawnshop in town? They can find out that it
was closed, can’t they? Wasn’t I with you all the time in Boston and on
the way there and back? And wasn’t Delvin with us, too?”
“All but during my visit to the shop,” said Hal, “when I learned the
value of my watch.”
“Well,” returned Hans, “the pawnbroker will know you if it comes to
that, and can testify that you didn’t leave anything there.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Hal. “I am going right down there and
tell the whole story. That will let me out, except that I may have to
make another trip to Boston.”
“I’ll go along,” said Hans.
So they went on down. They didn’t see any policeman around outside.
Inside they found Mr. Williams, the treasurer, who came to meet them.
Hal told him that they had heard the police were trying to locate a
fellow who had asked one of them to direct him to a pawnshop yesterday.
He was the fellow, and he said he wanted to tell all about it, which he
did.
Mr. Williams was impressed with the straightforwardness of his story
and told him he needn’t worry about it. He felt sure it wasn’t any
student that had stolen the medal. Only they had to run down this clew
and he was sorry he had been annoyed. Hal told him he would like some
one to go to the pawnbroker in Boston and verify what he had said
about his visit there just to remove any possibility of suspicion that
anyone might have against him on that account. He knew, of course, it
would prove to be as he said, and that was the only space of time he
was alone while in Boston. Without doing this, people might suspect
that both Hans and himself, having made such an unusual trip to Boston
together so soon after the robbery occurred, were in it and he didn’t
want anything left undone to prove that neither of them was in any way
connected with the matter or subject to suspicion.
Hal left with Hans, very much relieved. Not that he had anything to
be worried over, but the way the matter had come about had upset him
more than he himself could tell, and now that he had explained himself
fully, his feelings again became normal, and he went about his work of
the day in a much better frame of mind than he had enjoyed since he had
the accident.
CHAPTER X
UNDER SUSPICION
The theft of the medal was of course the all-absorbing topic at all
places where students came together. Hal’s explanation of his intended
flight and the causes which made him want to know where the pawnshop
was, brought to an end the clew which the authorities had thought would
quickly locate the thief. There seemed to be absolutely no way to trace
the culprit.
A week passed and Hal’s foot became better and he was able to resume
his practice with the team.
On Friday evening Hal was in his room doing his studies, in order to
have them out of the way, so that he could enjoy himself fully on
Saturday and Sunday, without having to think of college work, when he
received a note from Mr. Williams, the treasurer of the University,
asking him if he could come down for a few minutes. The note was
delivered by a blue-coated messenger boy. After reading it, he said he
would go and the messenger left.
Hal went into Hans’ room to tell where he was going, found that he was
not in his room and as they had planned to do some studying together
later in the evening he started to write a note on the pad on the
writing desk. Then he thought Hans would understand better what was up
if he left the treasurer’s note on Hans’ desk. He did this and went on
down to see Mr. Williams.
When he arrived there he found Mr. Williams, Dr. Lawrence, the
president, and Mr. Smith, the secretary, waiting for him. There was
nothing that Hal need be nervous about, and he could think of nothing
they could want him for, unless perhaps they wanted to “call him down”
for leaving the University without explanation.
On second thought he made up his mind that if that were the idea, they
surely wouldn’t have the president of the University on hand. Then he
thought that perhaps the president wanted to hear his story about the
pawnshop, etc., and he wished Hans were with him to verify it. All this
passed through his mind in the few seconds he had to wait until they
noticed his arrival.
“Oh, Case,” said Mr. Williams, “we have asked you down here to-night to
tell you some important news. First, the medal has been found, and----”
“I am very glad it has turned up,” broke in Hal, relieved, “and I
appreciate your telling me in this way, Mr. Williams, because I suppose
you know I have----”
“Yes, that is one reason, Case,” now broke in Mr. Williams, “but there
are certain circumstances in connection with the finding of the medal,
which I regret to say will need a little further explanation on your
part.”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked Hal, growing a little nervous at the
tone used by Mr. Williams.
“I hope,” went on Mr. Williams, “that you have an explanation which
is satisfactory. I cannot quite bring myself to believe, after the
straightforward talk you made to me last week, that you had anything
to do with the theft of the medal, but the circumstances of recovery
demand an explanation from you. When you told me your story the other
day you gave me the address of the pawnshop in Boston where you went to
inquire about the value of your watch. You were so frank about asking
us to go there and verify your story that I didn’t think it worth while
to do so.
“Among the methods used, however, by us in our efforts to recover the
medal we asked the Boston police to visit all the pawnshops and see
what they could find. This morning we had word by long distance phone
from Boston, saying the medal had been found in one of the pawnshops
there and suggesting that we send some one in authority to bring it
back and to go over some facts in connection with the case, which
might aid them in locating the culprit. I was going up anyhow and I
said I would attend to the matter myself. When I arrived at police
headquarters, the chief took me into his private office. He went to his
safe and when he returned he handed me the medal which I now show you
(he held up the beautiful medal in his right hand) and he also handed
me this.” Then with his left hand he picked up an envelope which was
lying on his desk and handed it to Hal.
Hal was puzzled because he didn’t know what that could have to do
with him. He looked up and noticed all three of the officers of the
University watching his face closely. He couldn’t understand it and
naturally became paler. It looked to him like a trap. Then he reached
over with his right hand and took the envelope which Mr. Williams held
out for him.
He felt that something terrible was going to happen and his hand shook.
He took the envelope, looked at it, turned it over, looked at the other
side, and gave a jump. What he saw would make most young fellows jump
even higher than Hal did, for on the address side of the envelope was
written
“HAROLD CASE,
----
California.”
Hal noticed at once that it was his own writing. It was some seconds
before anyone in the room spoke. To Hal it seemed hours. Finally, it
was he himself who broke the silence.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“The police found it with the medal in the shop where it was pawned,
and the broker said it was handed to him by the fellow who pawned the
medal.” This was said slowly in order to give the others a chance to
notice what effect the words had on Hal. “It looks something like your
writing,” said Mr. Williams.
“It is my handwriting,” said Hal.
“How do you explain it?” asked Mr. Williams.
“I can’t explain it,” answered Hal. “I know absolutely nothing about
it.”
“The medal and this envelope,” went on Mr. Williams, “were found in the
pawnshop which you said you had visited that night in Boston. After
I saw the Chief of Police and he gave me the medal and the envelope
he went with me to the pawnshop and when I got there I recognized
the address which you had given me. Then we rode back to the police
department to interview the pawnbroker who has been arrested for
receiving stolen property, and he told me this story.
“‘About five o’clock on Thursday evening of the previous week, a young
man wearing a blue cloth hat and a mixed gray suit of clothes came
into my place and asked me how much I would loan him on a watch which
he laid down on the show case. I picked it up and saw two good-sized
diamonds in the case. I was attracted by the stones and next examined
them with my magnifying glass. They were exactly alike and I saw at
once they were valuable, particularly to me as I had been asked that
day by a customer to find him two perfectly matched white stones.
“‘Then I examined the watch inside and out and saw that it was also
very valuable, and I said, thinking to get the watch cheap, since most
people who pawn things do not redeem them, “I will let you have four
hundred and fifty dollars on it.” The young fellow hesitated and then
asked: “How much is it worth?” and I said, “a thousand dollars,” and
he said, hesitating again, “Thank you, I just wanted to find out how
much it is worth,” and hurried out. I didn’t think any more of it,
except to guess to myself that the watch didn’t belong to the young
man. About five minutes later he came back and I said, “Well, you have
decided to let me have the watch anyhow for a while haven’t you?” He
looked at me rather queerly and said after hesitating as he did before,
“No, I won’t pawn that.” I noticed then he had on blue eyeglasses, but
couldn’t say whether he had them on the first time he called because I
paid more attention to the watch than to him.
“‘Finally he pulled out the medal, a very beautiful piece, and said,
“I can spare this better for a while than the watch if you can let me
have as much on it.” I took it in my hand, and noticing the inscription
on it, said: “Is it yours?” “Of course,” he replied, and as it might
easily be so from the inscription, and as very few people would take a
chance on trying to pawn that kind of a medal if it didn’t belong to
them, I took it and gave him four hundred and fifty dollars and the
ticket. “I may not be able to come for this myself,” he said, “and I
might lose the ticket, so make a note that it is not to be delivered
to anyone, even if he has the ticket unless it is accompanied by an
envelope like this one with this name on it and in his handwriting.”
Then he handed me the envelope which I put in the safe with the medal,
and which I turned over to the police this morning.’”
Hal was dumfounded. What could he say? He thought awfully hard. Finally
he was able to say, “But I was with Hagner or with Hagner and Delvin
all of the time I was in Boston, excepting during the five minutes it
took me to call at the pawnshop about the watch. Besides, I haven’t any
blue glasses. I didn’t have any and wouldn’t have had time to buy any
while there.”
“Are you sure you were only away from Hagner for five minutes? The
pawnbroker said both visits took place within ten or fifteen minutes
all told. The glasses might have been bought before you took the train.
We are not trying to accuse you, Case, we are trying to keep from
having to,” said Mr. Williams.
“I am not sure that it was exactly five minutes,” said Hal. “I am not
sure of anything except that I had nothing to do with the theft of
the medal. And yet I can’t blame you gentlemen very much, because it
certainly does look bad, especially when I was on my way to leave the
University for good.”
Hal had somewhat recovered his balance because he knew, of course, that
it must come out all right somehow, although he had no idea what or how
they were going to do him. He knew he was innocent yet here were a lot
of circumstances that looked like evidence to them and until he could
clear them up he would be under great suspicion.
If they should decide that the evidence warranted action they could
even have him locked up, and he began to think of the books he had
read of people--men, women, and boys who had been unjustly accused of
different crimes and had been locked up for years, many of them never
having their innocence proved. It was a terrible fix for him. All this
went through his mind while the others were consulting.
Finally Dr. Lawrence, the president, turned to Hal and said:
“Mr. Case, it is a terrible thing for all of us to have to consider a
matter of this kind. It is one of the few occasions in my life when I
would rather be anyone else than the President of Lowell University.
Whoever it was who performed this theft may have to answer finally for
the conviction of an innocent young man. We are loath to accuse you of
this crime. In fact, I wish you to understand thoroughly that we do
not accuse you now. At the same time the circumstances are such that
we cannot, we regret to say, exonerate you until the matter is fully
cleared up. You yourself admit that it looks bad for you. It does. But
we will not permit ourselves to believe you guilty until every effort
has been made to clear it up. Meantime, however, not as a punishment
for the matter, but to put it on a basis which while not justifiable
is nevertheless explainable, as the result of your intention to absent
yourself from the University without leave, we have decided that you
must consider yourself off the Varsity for the period of one week. We
rely on you not to leave the University pending the investigation. I am
sorry.”
[Illustration: “You must consider yourself off the varsity.”]
He shook Hal’s hand warmly after this dignified speech and expressed
the hope that the matter could be cleared up soon. He assured Hal that
no expense or labor would be saved in that direction.
Then they let him go home and it was the saddest trip Hal ever took
in the direction of Mrs. Malcolm’s home. Whether they considered him
guilty of the greater crime or not, he was disgraced anyhow. Surely
it was a hard punishment to give an impetuous young fellow for simply
wanting to go home and for the reason that Hal thought he had.
He went up the stairs to his room with a heavy heart--a heart that
ached in every way. He felt that he was done for.
Hans’ door was open and he heard Hal come in.
“Been up on the green carpet?” asked Hans. “That’s what they say,
isn’t it when they send for you like that?”
“Yes,” said Hal, dejected.
“What’s the matter now? Nothing about the medal or our trip to Boston,
was it?” went on Hans. But before he could answer, Hal broke down and
went all to pieces. “I’m disgraced,” he almost shouted in his agony.
“Tell me what happened,” said Hans when he had quieted him down
somewhat. Then Hal told him all that had taken place and what had been
said, the pawnbroker’s story and everything, winding up by repeating
the president’s speech which he could recite almost word for word, so
forcibly had every syllable sunk into his brain.
“I’m disgraced,” he concluded.
Hans was thunderstruck. Did they connect him with it in any way? Was
his name mentioned? Why didn’t they? It was preposterous. He had Hal go
over different parts of the story again and again. They didn’t believe
Hal guilty, yet they put him off the team for a week.
“We must clear this up,” said he, finally, when he had a little time
to think. “We must clear it up within a week. How I don’t know, but it
must be done. Don’t worry about being suspended for a week. No one but
Hughie need know. You can fix it up with him that your foot is paining
you again from Crossley’s spikes and carry your cane and limp a little.
Hughie will protect you. He likes you well enough for that. At the end
of the week you can get well again. We don’t need to worry about that
end of it. We’ve got to go over this thing step by step and account
for everything that happened to you and me from the time you left
this house that day until you got back. Now let’s get busy,” and they
started in on the hardest proposition they had ever tackled.
Item by item they went over the day’s happenings again and again. They
started in with Hal’s leaving Mrs. Malcolm’s house on the way to the
station.
“Did you walk or did you take the car? Who took your trunk! Did you
talk to anybody? Whom?”
These were the kind of questions Hans fired at Hal like shots out of
a gun. For once this phlegmatic young man was thoroughly aroused and
excited. Whenever he asked a question that Hal couldn’t answer he would
say “Think! Think!”
They went over everything up to the time Hal took the train, and they
found no clew of any kind. Hal had talked to no one except the ticket
agent, the policeman at the corner, and yes! he did ask another man
whom he met as he ran out of the station about the location of a
pawnshop but the other fellow was hurrying too and he guessed he hadn’t
heard his question because he didn’t stop. Hal hadn’t either.
Then they went all over the incidents of the ride to Boston, meeting
with Delvin, waiting in the station for him, Hal’s visit to the
pawnshop, the dinner at Delvin’s and the vaudeville show but found
nothing that would give them a start.
Then Hans had Hal tell the pawnbroker’s story over again, word for word
as near as he could remember it. When Hal came to the part about the
envelope Hans stopped him.
“Do you remember where you got that envelope and how you happened to
write your name on it?”
“Why yes, I got it off my desk that day when I was packing. I remember
I wrote my name and home address on it and put it in my handkerchief
pocket intending to leave it at the post office as a forwarding address
for my mail.”
“Did you leave it there?”
Hal thought a moment. “No, I’m sure I forgot all about that. I didn’t
go to the post office at all.”
“Then it must have been in your pocket on the train. You may have
pulled it out of your pocket with your handkerchief on the train,”
continued Hans.
“I can’t remember having used my handkerchief on the train,” said Hal,
“but I do recollect now that when I came out of the pawnshop I was
perspiring freely from slight nervousness and the excitement of knowing
the great value of my watch.”
“That might account for its having gotten into the pawnshop,” said Hans
eagerly, “if the thief was near there and happened to see it (then in
a moment). Sure that’s what happened. Didn’t he show up within five
minutes after you left the place? You drop the envelope on the sidewalk
without knowing it, he comes along, sees it, picks it up, and as one
name is as good to him as another, and as he doesn’t expect to call
for the medal again, he fixes up that story for the pawnbroker to show
him he doesn’t want to part with the medal forever and that makes the
broker loan him the money on it, because they had rather make loans to
people who redeem their pledges than not. People who do this have the
habit and become steady customers. We’re doing fine.”
By that time it was nearly daylight. They had been up all night without
noticing it. They felt they had made a start. At last they decided to
get an hour or two of sleep.
Hal went to his bed exhausted but couldn’t sleep, he was so worried.
Hans fell asleep promptly or thought he did. As a matter of fact he was
only half dozing with the problem going through his mind. He was so
intent on it that he was thinking of it unconsciously and as he thought
he was asleep he thought he had a dream of getting on a train to go
some place. Oh yes, he was trying to find Hal, he was getting on the
back end of the train and as he walked into the car he saw Hal sitting
on the last seat of the car, blue hat, mixed gray suit and all, and he
saw himself going up to speak to him and greet him in true college-boy
style, hitting his friend on the back as hard as his right hand would
permit him, and just as his hand was about to fall on Hal’s shoulders
he looked and, “By George!” said Hans, jumping out of bed and running
over to Hal’s room like mad, shouting, “I’ve got him. The fellow with
the blue glasses! Blue hat, gray suit, just like yours on the same
train.”
Then he told Hal about the fellow on the train whom he had almost
forgotten. How he thought he was Hal and was just about to hand him one
when he had noticed the blue glasses and then found it wasn’t Hal. He
wound up by saying, “Find the other fellow with the blue hat, the mixed
gray suit and the blue glasses and we’ve got the medal thief.”
[Illustration: “Find that man with the blue glasses!”]
CHAPTER XI
THE STUDENT DETECTIVES
The first thing they did in the morning was to hunt up Hughie. They
routed him out before breakfast. When they saw him they told him the
whole story from beginning to end. They told him about Hal’s suspension
for a week, and fixed it up with him for Hal to carry his cane and limp
when anybody was around. Then Hans got excused from practice for a few
days, also without any particular reason except the one to Hughie that
he wanted to put in his spare time on a little detective work.
After breakfast they went to Mr. Williams’ house. It was still before
hours, and after a little delay, Mr. Williams came downstairs. Hans
told him about seeing the fellow with the blue glasses on the train,
also that he had a hat and suit on that looked a good deal like Hal’s.
Mr. Williams was deeply interested and gave them both permission to
absent themselves from class for a few days, asking them to report to
him each evening. He said, too, he would tell the detective whom they
would employ that day so they could help run down the clew.
For three days they hunted the town over to find a merchant who might
have sold a blue cloth hat like Hal’s, but without result. The same
thing happened when they tried to find one who had sold a pair of blue
glasses. They didn’t make a bit of progress. The station agent couldn’t
recall anyone with a blue hat buying a ticket to Boston that day. He
didn’t even remember that Hal had worn that kind of a hat or a gray
suit, or even that he had bought a ticket.
The next morning passed also without result. At noon they went over to
Springville, the next town, to investigate the stores there to see if
they could find a clew.
As they were going into the town, the car stopped to give an automobile
a chance to cross the track ahead of them. This called Hans’ attention
to the automobile. There was no one in it but the driver, but he had on
a blue cloth hat and wore blue glasses. Hans jumped up and leaned out
to get a better view of the occupant, shouting to Hal: “Get the number
of that machine quick.” Hal did so, but just then Hans said, in a
disappointed tone, “Never mind the number, the driver’s colored and the
man who wore the blue glasses was white.” So they went back to their
seats more disappointed than ever. When they had gone a little farther,
however, Hans burst out, “Do you remember that number yet?”
[Illustration: “Get the number of that machine.”]
“Yes,” said Hal, “27,843, Mo. There was another smaller number
underneath, but I couldn’t get that one.”
“Let’s go back,” said Hans. “I have a hunch that we ought to
investigate that car.”
With that they swung off the trolley and after waiting a few minutes
along came another car going in the opposite direction.
“That auto may stop in Lowell. I don’t suppose it will do any good, but
it’s the first thing that looks like a clew that we have had, and we’d
better follow it up.”
When they got back to town they visited all the garages in the city
without explaining their mission, and looked at the numbers on all the
cars. They didn’t find the one they were looking for, so they went down
to report to Mr. Williams. He was very much interested.
“Why didn’t you ask the garage people if they had seen a car with that
number?”
“Guess we didn’t know enough,” said Hans. “We’re not such great
detectives after all.”
Mr. Williams thought enough of the clew to say that he would have one
of the detectives interview the managers of the garages and find out if
a car of that number had been in town that day and to see if they could
trace it. “We can also write to St. Louis and find out who owns that
Missouri number.”
Hans and Hal then went to their rooms to get ready for dinner, for
their work made them hungry, although of course Hans had the better
appetite of the two. In the evening they were sitting in Hans’ room
when there was a knock on the door. Hal opened it and there was Mr.
Williams.
“We’ve found the automobile,” said Mr. Williams. “It belongs to one of
the students of the University who has a colored driver. The driver has
been employed for only a month and I am afraid that there is nothing in
our clew. The machine belongs to Crossley.”
Hans jumped about four feet in the air: “Crossley did you say?” The
jump seemed to give him power to think quick. “Could it be possible.
Could he do such a thing? I hardly think so. He wouldn’t have any
reason for it. He has plenty of money.” He was thinking out loud.
“Wait, let me see. He might not want to do it just for money. He
deliberately spiked Hal. He seemed to have it in for him for some
reason. Come to think of it that fellow on the train looked something
like him under those glasses.” Then came “yes, it might have been
Crossley.”
The others sat watching him in amazement. Finally Hans turned to Mr.
Williams and told him what he had noticed about the deliberate spiking
of Hal. He could give no motive and neither could Hal say why Crossley
might dislike him.
When he had finished Mr. Williams said, “I hardly think it could be
possible. Still I think I had better send for Crossley; I will do so
right away.” He promised to let the boys know later in the evening if
anything worth while resulted. As a matter of fact Mr. Williams had
concluded there might be more in the idea than he had let on. He sent
Crossley a note like the one he had sent Hal, asking him to come to the
office at once, late though it was. But he added a few words at the
bottom: “Bring your chauffeur’s hat and goggles.”
When Crossley received the note he read it only once, but he knew it
was all up with him. He had been having a pretty uncomfortable time
himself during the past days, but it was only when he received Mr.
Williams’ note that the utter baseness of his misdeeds became fully
apparent to him. He couldn’t stand the thought of facing Mr. Williams
and Hal.
Like a lot of the boys, he was brave only until he was called upon to
stand a real test, and Crossley’s training wasn’t the kind that would
let him take his medicine. So he didn’t even wait until the messenger
had gone. His automobile was standing at the curb in front of his
quarters. He didn’t stop for anything, not even to pack up, nor did
he wait for his driver. He dashed down the stairs, jumped into his
automobile and went away as fast as his machine could carry him. The
messenger boy reported to Mr. Williams what he had seen and he said,
“He must be the guilty party. His flight surely was a confession.”
He called up Hal and Hans and told them what had happened and that Hal
might consider the suspension removed.
As for Crossley this is where he goes out of the story. They struck his
name from the rolls of the University. No doubt he turned up at his
home in due time, but the University authorities never made any attempt
to punish him. They were satisfied that he had gone without bringing
the fair name of the school into more disrepute.
They packed up his things and sent them to his home, and if they were
ever called upon by Crossley’s father to explain anything about the
matter will probably never be known. Nothing was ever said about it one
way or the other at Lowell. The college people sent out the news that
the medal had been found, leaving anyone to guess whether it had really
been stolen or mislaid.
President Lawrence sent for Hal and thanked him for the courage he had
shown while under the cloud, again expressed his sorrow that he had
been forced by circumstances to put him under suspicion, and Hal went
home feeling more relieved than he had ever felt in his life.
As for Hans he was jubilant. Hal felt particularly grateful to him for
his clever work in clearing up the mystery and wanted to tell the story
at the training table in order that Hans should have full credit, but
Hans objected in his modest way and so they kept the story absolutely
to themselves and were happy.
CHAPTER XII
HAL IS DISCOVERED
The season was coming along rapidly. The first big game of the
year with Armour was only a week off and the Varsity was hardly
prepared for it. Baseball in the big colleges had come to be almost
as scientific as in the professional leagues, which by the way were
full of college men--they having been rapidly replacing the old-time
every-man-for-himself sluggers who learned their baseball on the back
lots, and who while “Kings of the game” in their days were no match
for the scientific brainy players of inside baseball which had been
developed in the colleges. Also the fact that college-trained men were
taking positions in the professional leagues, took a good deal of the
rowdyism out of the game and increased its popularity with the “fans”
all over the country.
Lowell University had been the first to develop the clever “inside
ball” as it had come to be called and the other colleges had taken it
up. A big part of “inside ball” is made possible by the “signals” which
each of the players had to know and remember.
They had signals for every combination that could be imagined, some of
the players, as, for instance, the shortstop, the key to the infield,
had fifteen signals, all of which he had to keep in mind, and any one
of which he might have to use at any moment. The other players had
their own signals, too, and every player on the team must be familiar
with every other player’s signals, while at bat. Otherwise if two men
used the same signals the opposing players would soon catch on to what
was going to be tried.
And so before this first big game with Armour, Hughie spent most of the
practice hours training the men in the use and understanding of the
signals, so that each man on the bases could tell by watching just what
the batter would try to do, and if the opposing team was at bat, the
Lowell boys in the field signaled to each other how to play if the ball
went here or there.
Then there was practice in base running, sliding, etc., particularly
the fall-away slide. Ty Robb and Honus enjoyed the sliding. These two
stole more bases in practice and regular games than all the other men
on the team put together.
The rules of the game give the runner absolute right to the base paths,
otherwise a baseman could always block a runner. The average player,
even though courageous, starts his slide when about fifteen feet from
the bag, so that by the time the bag is reached the slider is not
coming at very fast speed--he is almost stopped in fact, and it is easy
for the baseman to tag him without much danger from spikes. But Ty and
Honus were daredevils. Neither knew what fear was. They got onto the
fact that by starting to slide when about eight feet from the base
they would sail into it full speed, and that nine times out of ten the
baseman was afraid to try to touch them even if he had the ball. So Ty
and Honus were detailed to teach the others how to slide, and everyone
was working hard to perfect the team work.
At the end of the week the team took its first trip out of town, when
they went to Hudson City for the annual game with Armour, which always
had one of the best teams in the East. The boys arrived after an
all-night ride in the sleeper, but by the time breakfast was over and
they reached the ground for a little warming-up practice, everyone was
feeling fine with the exception of Huyler, the substitute infielder
who sprained his ankle, and had been sent to a hospital to have it
attended to, and Hal, who had been brought along, but who saw no chance
whatever to get into the game, since Miner was in fine form and Babe
had developed into a pretty steady winner. Nothing but an avalanche of
singles, two-baggers, and homers would give him a chance that day.
It looked like rain almost up until the game had been called.
Hudson City was one of the largest college towns in the country.
Fifteen thousand people could be seated in the stands, and they were
filled, while five thousand others stood or sat on the ground. A
thousand Lowell boys and two thousand Lowell graduates were seated in
the stands back of third base where the visiting players’ bench was
also located.
Down in the field in front of the section where the Lowell boys sat
were four Lowell boys with megaphones and without coats or hats who
led the yelling and the singing, and the wearers of the green did
their best to make as much noise and sing as loud as the more numerous
adherents of the orange (Armour’s color), who sat in the stands back
of first base and spread out on the field, and who would have won the
game purely on their enthusiasm if they could. Last year Armour had
played at Lowell and had lost, but they had a good time anyhow with
their cheering and their singing, and especially after the game when
the Lowell crowd entertained them.
That afternoon the team came nearer to defeat than at any time so far
that year. The advantage of being champions had been partly offset
by the big hostile crowd in the stand. The feeling of nervousness
was shared by Hughie and the coaches over the one weak spot, first
base, in what would otherwise have seemed to him a championship team.
Dill had been tried and found wanting, and Ross was given the job. He
was at times fit, but at other times he made the rankest errors and
occasionally made such a boneheaded play that it upset the confidence
of the whole team.
“If this is one of Ross’s good days,” said Hughie, “we’re all right;
but if he is as bad as he was two weeks ago in the game with Colfax,
then look out. We have no one else to put in, and we can’t win from
this crowd if it’s a bad day for Ross.”
Then the gong sounded, the umpire said “Play ball,” the Armour boys
took their places in the field and the game was on.
Everson led off for Lowell and drew a base on balls. Captain sacrificed
him to second; Honus drove a hot one to the shortstop, who fumbled but
recovered in time to catch the runner at first, Everson taking third.
Ty placed a neat single over the second bag and Everson came in, Ty
taking second on the throw in. Tris came up next and drove a hot one
past third base and Ty came all the way home on the hit. Tris being
held on first, Delvin hit a screamer down the first-base line, which
rolled to the fence, and Arthur made the round trip with Tris ahead of
him. Ross, the next man up, struck out.
“That’s a bad sign,” said Hughie to himself as Ross walked down to
first and picked up his glove.
Carter, the first man up for Armour, fouled out; Wilson, the next batter,
hit a long fly to Ty; Blair, the next man up, hit a grass-scorcher over
second. Honus rushed over, made a beautiful pick up with one hand and a
perfect throw to Ross ten feet ahead of the runner, and Ross muffed the
ball. Gibbie signaled to Miner to throw to first to catch the runner who
had taken a big lead. His throw was good, but Ross again muffed. The
next man up made a clean hit over third, and Blair, the man on first,
got clear around to third. Hughie signaled the infield to play in close,
because a hit would bring in a run anyhow. The batter tapped an easy
one toward Ross, who picked it up neatly, but while he was making up
his mind where to throw it, the man on third came in and the batter
reached first. The next man sent a high fly to left, which Cap.
gathered in. Score, 4 to 1.
In Lowell’s half of the second we went out in one-two-three order. In
Armour’s half, Miner was unsteady and passed Clymer, the first man.
Then he struck out the second batter. The next man up laid a neat bunt
down toward third; Delvin came rushing in, scooped it up neatly and
hurled it straight for the bag. Again Ross muffed the ball, and before
he had recovered it the batter was safe and Clymer who had received
the base on balls originally was perched on third. By this time the
nervousness had spread to the rest of the team. A hit would mean
another run.
[Illustration: “Again Ross muffed the ball.”]
The next man up, who was the pitcher, dropped an unexpected hit in
short right, but Ty who had crept in pretty close made a quick pick
up and threw to first ahead of the runner who had expected the throw
to go to the plate and had come down slow. But Ty had seen at once he
could not catch the man going home, so he did the unexpected and caught
the man at first, and as good luck would have it Ross caught the throw
while everybody felt that he would have muffed it again if it hadn’t
been so unexpected. Brain, the next batter, hit an easy grounder to
Ross who touched first and the side was retired. Score, Lowell, 4;
Armour, 2.
It was easy for Armour to see that the weak spot in the Lowell team
was first base and they directed all their play toward that point, the
batters trying to drive the ball down that way continually. Then for
three innings and in Lowell’s half of the sixth, the sides went out in
one-two-three order. Miner knew he must make them either strike out
or put them up in the air, and the flies were all caught by Lowell’s
fielders, so the other boys made no runs. Practically the same things
happened to Lowell. We got one or two more hits but they were scattered
and nothing happened.
But in the last half of the sixth inning came more trouble. The first
man up batted a pretty swift grounder toward first base and it passed
through Ross’ legs though Ty came racing in and held the runner on
first. It was a sure thing there would be more runs if they continued
to direct the attack on Ross. Everson and Miner stalled to give Ross
a chance to cool off and Jenkins was tearing his hair on the bench
because he had no one to send to take Ross’ place. Dill, the only other
man who had ever played the bag, was not with the team, and Huyler was
unexpectedly hurt. Once Hughie turned to Hal and said, “Do you think
you could cover that bag?”
“I have never tried it,” said Hal, “but if you order me in there, I’ll
do my best for you and Lowell.” By that time, however, play had been
resumed. The whole team was nervous. They felt that any ball batted to
Ross would be missed, and that if they did stop anything, Ross would
miss the throw. Miner temporarily lost control again, giving another
base on balls, making a man on first and one on second, with nobody
out. This helped to increase the nervousness of the whole team, and
even Hughie began to lose his nerve apparently. Webb, the batter, hit
the next ball pitched for a line drive over Honus’ head, who did the
best he could and knocked it down, but too late to get his man at
first. Three men on bases and nobody out, and any kind of a hit meant a
run, and possibly two. The next man up again directed his attention to
Ross, and hit another easy grounder toward him. Ross made a beautiful
stop and setting himself deliberately for the throw, for he had plenty
of time, threw straight for the plate, but ten feet over Gibbie’s head,
and two runs came in, tying the score. Hughie was wild, the team was
wild, the Lowell “rooters” were wild, the score was tied, no one out,
and Marsh of Armour was on second. Hughie walked over to Hal and said:
“Go in; you can’t do any worse than that.”
Hal said: “I’ll do my best.”
Hal’s entry into the game didn’t help the rest of the team back to
confidence any. The whole team was up in the air, and now they had an
entirely unknown quantity to deal with at the initial sack. Hal was
most nervous of all of them, of course, although as soon as Honus saw
what was up he walked over to meet him and said:
“Don’t worry, I told you several times you would make a good first
baseman, and you paid no attention to me. Now you got to do it.”
Of course, the Armour team knew Hal must be untried, or Hughie would
not have hesitated so long about putting him in, and they decided if
they could, they would continue their attack upon the custodian of
first base. The situation now was a tied score, no one out and a man on
second.
The first man up sent a hot grounder to Honus. He got it, held it
long enough to hold the man on second close to the bag, but too long
to make the throw to first easy. Therefore he threw it with all his
might at Hal, and in doing so he threw it very wide of the bag. Hal saw
it coming with the speed of a bullet; he also saw the runner rushing
toward him along the base line. His throwing or really his pitching
hand was his left hand, and that was bare. To run up the base line far
enough to get that ball in his gloved hand meant a collision with the
runner, to take it with his bare left probably meant a crippled hand
and the loss of his pitching ambition.
All this he seemed to think of as that ball was rushing at him across
a space of possibly one hundred feet from where Honus stood and in
probably one-half a second of time. By that time the ball was upon him.
Should he take it with his left or should he run up the base line and
get it with his right? He did neither; he stuck his left foot in the
bag, whirled quickly around with his back to the ball, stretched out
his right mitt, stuck it out in the air and caught the ball with one
hand.
[Illustration: “He stuck his left foot in the bag, whirled quickly
around with his back to the ball, stretched out his right mitt, stuck
it out in the air and caught the ball with one hand.”]
“Runner out!” was all he heard, and the crowd and his team mates, the
Armour boys and even the man on second were so thunderstruck with the
quickness of it all and the apparent ease with which it was done that
they cheered for five minutes, and the man on second forgot to run home
while he had a chance. Nothing like it had ever been seen before on any
ball ground. Surely he did not think that out while the ball was coming
toward him. He couldn’t have thought it out. He didn’t have time. It
was instinct--a sort of baseball eighth sense. Hughie was dancing up
and down before the bench with joy, plucking blades of grass now with
one hand, now with another, whistling through his fingers, sticking one
leg out before him straight, yelling “Eyah.”
The whole team was wild, but with a different kind of wildness. A
fellow that could do that was a natural ball player. If he could make
one stop like that he could make another. This game didn’t make so
much difference now--they had discovered a first baseman. Hughie knew
it, the whole team knew it--and the opposing team knew it--they all
sensed it. The fans in the stands may not have realized it, and Hal was
sure he didn’t know what it was all about, in fact, he hardly knew yet
what he had done.
The umpire had called time to let the excitement subside, and after a
few minutes play was resumed. From nervousness the team had gone to the
other extreme. They were exhilarated. The next man up hit a low liner
over third. Delvin rushed over, stuck out his right hand and the ball
stuck; two out. The next man hit a hot grounder to Everson, who relayed
it to Hal. Out of pure joy, he fired it about five feet over Hal’s
head. Again the latter figured over quickly in his mind how to get that
ball. While he was thinking about it his instinct made him leap up in
the air and stick up his gloved hand into space, and again the ball
stuck and came down with him as he landed on the bag, two feet ahead of
the runner. Three out.
Again the crowd went wild. “What’s his name? He’s a wonder. Where did
he learn to play first base?” and such expressions were heard on all
sides as he walked to the bench. After that it was easy. The team
simply had the confidence, more of it than they ever had before. Armour
on the other hand was now nervous. Miner didn’t let them have another
hit and the Lowell boys pounded out five more runs, so that the final
score stood 9 to 4 in favor of the champions.
[Illustration: “Again the crowd went wild.”]
After the game Hal’s team mates crowded around him. They were wild with
joy. In the dressing room they kept on cheering him.
“Had a first baseman all the time,” said Hughie, “and didn’t notice it.”
“Told him the first day I saw him he would make a first baseman,” said
Honus, “made a pretty good guess, didn’t I, Hal?”
“I guess it was an accident,” said Hal, at the same time knowing that
he had found his place.
“Accident nothing,” chimed in Robb and Everson in chorus.
Just then in walked good old Fred Penny. They were busy for a few
seconds shaking hands with the old boy. Penny had come over to the
game with a lot of other old Lowell graduates. “I want to see Case,”
said Penny. “I want to ask him where he learned to play first base.”
Then when they introduced him to Hal, he said: “I’d just like to have
been the office boy for about six months around the place where they
teach that kind of baseball.”
“Well,” said Hal, “I suppose after this, I’ll have to give up the
pitching business. I’m willing to tackle this first-base job on one
condition, Penny, and that is that you come down to Lowell for a week
and teach me a little of what you know about playing that position.”
“That’s a go,” said Penny. “I feel like getting into practice myself to
get a little of the stiffness out of my arms and legs.”
That evening they all went to the theater as the guests of the Armour
boys, and after the show took the sleeper at midnight for home. Hal and
Hans therefore didn’t get a chance to see much of the city, not as much
as they would have liked to.
When they got home next morning before breakfast the whole student body
was down to meet them. Tim Murnin hadn’t let any grass grow under his
feet in getting the news back to college. His story had appeared in an
extra issue of the _Lowell Reporter_, the college paper, and they all
knew about Hal’s performance. They had plenty of cheers for the team in
general, but for the moment at least Hal was the only Great One, and he
took his honors as modestly as he could.
CHAPTER XIII
HANS TAKES A TRIP
One day in May Hans came into Hal’s room with a letter from his sister
who had come to New York to be present at the wedding of a former
schoolmate to take place in Brooklyn, the next week. She asked Hans to
come down to New York the following Thursday and accompany her to the
wedding. She was visiting some friends who lived in one of the New York
suburbs and wrote that she would meet him at the Grand Central Station
at two o’clock in the afternoon, and he could then take her over to
Brooklyn to be present at the wedding, which was to be at four o’clock.
Hans had never been in New York before, and hesitated quite a little
about making the trip alone, and wanted Hal to go along. Hal couldn’t
afford to spend the time or money just then, and reminded Hans that his
sister had been in New York before and probably knew how to get around
the best way, and he needn’t be nervous. He thought all Hans’ sister
wanted him for anyhow, was as escort.
So Hans wrote he would be there on time and made his preparations
for the trip to the big city. While he was getting ready he got more
and more excited. Like most boys he didn’t care anything about the
wedding, in fact, he’d rather be going for most any other reason, but
he thought he might stay over Sunday if he got along all right, and see
some of the shows.
“Perhaps I’ll have time to see the _Out Door Weekly_ and get a job for
both of us canvassing for subscriptions in our spare time,” he said.
On Thursday morning, bright and early, he took the train for New York,
which left at five o’clock, but he was not so early but that Hal was up
also to bid him good-by.
“Look out for the confidence men,” said Hal, as Hans was leaving the
house. “If any fellow walks up to you at the station down there and
says, ‘Well! Well! if it isn’t my old friend Hagner’s son Hans! How are
you, Hans?’ you’d better just walk by and not notice him.”
“Oh! I know those fellows,” said Hans. “I’ll see you Monday, and if I
don’t have any other trouble but confidence men, it will be easy.”
But when Hal was going out to chapel the next morning whom should he
meet on the doorstep but Hans with his grip in his hand, and looking
glum and discouraged.
“What! did they get you so soon as all this?” asked Hal.
“Oh! don’t talk to me any more about the delights of New York,”
answered Hans, and that was all Hal could get out of him about his trip
for nearly three days.
By Sunday evening, though, things began to thaw out with Hans. The boys
were both in Hagner’s room, writing their weekly letters home, telling
the folks all about the troubles of the past few days, and also some of
the good things that had happened during the week.
Hans had finished his letter with a sigh, as he evidently wasn’t quite
over his New York experience, and had leaned his head back against the
cushions in the Morris chair and was thinking. All at once he said, “I
have a letter here from my sister which I got yesterday, but haven’t
opened yet, because it probably has a lot in it about my trip to New
York, and I don’t care to hear any more about that.”
“Better read it,” said Hal. “It isn’t fair to people who write you
letters not to at least read them.”
“I suppose I’ll have to read it some time,” said Hans, and he opened
the letter and started to read it. Hal went on with his writing for a
while undisturbed, and then he heard Hans begin to chuckle to himself.
From chuckling he turned to laughing to himself and finally to laugh
out loud. Then he said, “Well, I guess it depends altogether on how you
put it. This letter from my sister tells something about my trip to New
York. It puts it in an altogether different light than I had thought of
it before, and come to think of it, it’s really funny, after it is all
over.”
“I’ve been dying to ask you what happened,” said Hal, “but your face
during the past three days has been dark enough to keep anyone from
asking questions. I suppose father’s friends from way back home got
you anyhow.”
“No, I didn’t see any confidence men,” answered Hans. “What got me was
that I went all the way to New York to attend a wedding and to see some
of the sights of the town over Sunday and here I am back at Lowell
again within twenty-four hours, without seeing either the wedding or
any of the sights and just about $25 to the bad.”
“How could that happen?” asked Hal, showing much interest.
“Well, it was this way,” said Hans. “I got to the Grand Central
Station all right about one o’clock. The sun was shining and I was
feeling pretty good. There were lots of people coming and going, and
the streets outside were so crowded I thought sure there was going
to be a parade. About half past one it started to rain and it rained
harder than it ever rains in Texas. Of course I didn’t have any rubbers
or umbrella along, and when my sister got there she didn’t have any
either. It wasn’t raining and didn’t look like rain when she left the
house where she was visiting.
“She was all dressed up in her finest dress, with big hat, and looked
very pretty, but I couldn’t take her on a street car in that kind of
weather, and so I said, ‘I guess we’ll have to take a cab.’ She said
under the circumstances she would go in a cab, but that she would pay
for it, because she knew I couldn’t have very much money, I guess, and
she gave me her pocketbook with some money in it. I told her she had
better come with me and we would find the best way to get there. She
said we had better take the Twenty-third Street Ferry to Broadway,
Brooklyn, and thought it would be cheaper to take one cab to the ferry,
then ride across on the boat, and get another cab on the other side. So
I asked a cabby to take us to the Twenty-third Street Ferry and after
we had been riding for about ten minutes we got there, and when I asked
him how much I owed him he said ‘Three Aces,’ and I said ‘What?’ and he
said ‘Three Dollars.’ So I paid the three dollars out of sister’s money
(she had fifteen dollars), though I felt like fighting, and we rode
across the East River on the ferryboat.
[Illustration: “I asked a cabby to take us to the 23rd St. Ferry.”]
“When we got over on the Brooklyn side it was raining harder than
ever, and I went out to look for a cab. There was none in sight, so I
telephoned to six livery stables, but there wasn’t any to be had. And
there we were, stuck in Brooklyn in the ferryhouse and the rain coming
down like anything, and no cabs.
“I said ‘we better walk,’ but sis said ‘no, she had an idea’; and she
started for the entrance to the ferryhouse, where I saw a string of
carriages approaching. When I caught up to her I saw it was a lot of
carriages bringing people back from a funeral, and sister was busy
talking to the driver of one of them. Finally we explained things to
the people inside, and they consented to let us have their carriage,
and they thought they could get a carriage on the New York side,
although it was queer to change a funeral carriage into one to go to a
wedding. When we got in I told the driver where we wanted to go, and
he sort of smiled, but, of course, I didn’t know what about. I soon
found out though, as after he had gone about four blocks and turned one
corner the carriage stopped, and the driver got down and opened the
door, saying we were there. I hadn’t asked him how much it would be,
but told him to wait for us, as it was time for the wedding and we only
expected to be there for a little while.
“The building was one of those apartment houses, my sister told me--a
brand new building with elevators and boys with brass buttons, and
all that. This was my first sight of an apartment house--this was the
kind which had little apartments--four rooms and bath, and the young
couple who were getting married had furnished it up very nicely, and
were going to start housekeeping right after the wedding. Because they
had only a little room, they had rented or obtained the use of the
apartment next door, for people to leave their wraps. The boy showed us
in there.
“A maid showed sister into one room and me into another, and said,
‘There is a brush and comb and clothesbrush in the bath-room if you
need one.’ I needed it because I was pretty wet, and my hair was
rumpled. I went into the bath-room, and, of course, turned the bolt in
the door. I brushed my clothes and combed my hair, and then started
to get out. When I tried to turn the bolt it wouldn’t budge. You see
this apartment had never been occupied and this bolt in the door had
never been tried, so when I had turned it to lock it, it had worked all
right, but when I tried to unlock it, it had stuck tight in the door
and I couldn’t budge it. I tried and tried until my fingers were worn
sore and still I was in there.
[Illustration: “I tried and tried until my fingers were worn out.”]
“The weather was warm and I was perspiring like a horse after a race.
I pounded on the door but nobody could hear me, because everybody but
sister and the maid had gone in to the wedding. Sister and the maid
were waiting in the other end of the apartment for me and didn’t hear
me. After about fifteen minutes I began to kick the door and holler. By
that time sister had begun looking for me, and came to the door. She
asked me why I didn’t come out, and I said I was locked in, and I told
her to find somebody. I saw at once that I might be in there an hour or
two, so I said she had better go down and pay off the cabby.
“She said I had all the money, so I slipped a ten-dollar bill (hers)
under the door and she went downstairs to pay him off. He took the ten
dollars and drove off, and that’s the last we saw of him or any part
of the ten dollars, as he took advantage of the rain and my sister
to drive away. Sister came up excited and told me about that and I
commenced to get madder than ever. Also I kept getting warmer. Finally
sister came and said that she had sent for the janitor to come up with
a monkey-wrench.
“While we were waiting for the janitor the wedding had taken place and
the news got around that one of the guests was locked in the bath-room.
That broke up the reception more or less and the whole crowd came over
to the other apartment, and stood in front of the bath-room door, to
advise me how to get out. After half an hour, the janitor came, but
there was no way for him to get the monkey-wrench to me. Finally, he
said he would go round to the other apartment across the airshaft and
if I would hang out of the window on one side, he would do the same on
the other and I could reach the monkey-wrench. We did this, and both of
us got soaked good and hard by the rain, but I managed to get hold of
the wrench by hanging onto the window-sill by my toes. I was pretty mad
by that time, but I knew I’d get out quick now, so I walked up to the
door, put the wrench on the knob which was flat on both sides, and gave
her a mighty twist, and crack! the knob broke off, and I was worse off
than ever.
[Illustration: “If I would hang out of the window on one side, he would
do the same on the other.”]
“Then the people outside suggested taking the hinges off the door,
which was a good idea, but it would take more than a wrench to get the
pins out, so the janitor started for a screw-driver. After another half
hour he appeared at the window across the airshaft again, and I got the
screw-driver and another ducking from the rain, and started to work on
the pins.
“They had been put in to stay, but I managed to get them out in three
quarters of an hour, and told the folks outside to push. They pushed,
but the door wouldn’t budge. You see the bolt in the other side of the
door was just long enough to hold the door tight and it couldn’t be
opened even then.
“By that time it was seven o’clock and the janitor got an axe and broke
out the lower panels with that, and I finally crawled out. Just as I
did so three policemen came into the apartment and outside I could hear
the fire gongs. Somebody looked out of the window and there was a hook
and ladder company, which had come in answer to the telephone call of
one of the guests, and were going to get me out by way of the bath-room
window. The wedding, however, was over, the bride was in hysterics, and
there was nothing left to do, since it was still raining hard, but to
get another cab back to New York in the hope of getting to the station
in time to enable sister to catch the 8.03 train for Westchester, the
town she was visiting in, and where they were giving a card party in
her honor that night. I was to go, too.
“We arrived at the station at exactly 8.04 P. M. The cab fare was five
dollars. The next train she could get would be 9.30, and we hadn’t had
a bite to eat since noon. There was nothing to do but have some dinner,
which I was in no mood for. We went to one of the hotels near by and
ate a little something. When the waiter brought the bill, it was nine
dollars and eighty cents, and I never paid over fifty cents for a good
dinner in my life. I had paid out eighteen dollars in cash for three
different cab rides--one of ten minutes, three dollars; one of five
minutes, ten dollars; and one of an hour, five dollars. Fifteen dollars
of this was sister’s money. The dinner cost me nine dollars and eighty
cents, which made twelve dollars and eighty cents of my own money I had
spent on a wedding which I didn’t see, and on a trip to New York on
which I saw nothing but a lot of thieving cabbies.
“By that time I was so angry I was red in the face, and the madder I
got the more sister laughed, until I got out of patience with her and
put her on the train, while I took the sleeper for Lowell, and I have
been mad at things in general ever since, until now I begin to think
it was laughable myself, after it is all over, though it cost a lot of
money, and I didn’t see much of the big city.”
While Hans was telling this Hal sat in his chair and roared and laughed
until he couldn’t laugh any more. It must have been awfully funny with
Hans telling it in his own peculiar way. Hal said finally he thought
Hans had had a pretty good time riding around in cabs all day just like
a real New Yorker, but Hans said he had enough of riding in cabs, and
he didn’t like weddings anyhow.
After a little while, Hal finished his letter and went into his own
room. Then he sat down to write the story of Hans’ experience in New
York to his folks. He started in with a new sheet of paper and just
for fun he wrote it out like a story, heading and all. The heading was
like this:
GOING TO A WEDDING IN BROOKLYN FROM NEW YORK, U. S. A.
By Harold Case
Then he wrote out the story very much as Hans had told it to him,
adding a touch here and there as the funny side of it occurred to him
again, and when he had finished it he started to put it in the letter
which he had written to his folks at home. What he really did, however,
was to make a mistake through pure carelessness which, had he only
known it, was to cause him not only a lot of joy but a great deal of
happiness.
He had addressed a letter to the editor of the _Out Door Weekly_ in New
York for terms to agents soliciting subscriptions to the magazine, as
Hans and he had talked about before Hans’ trip to New York. The scheme
was for Hans and himself to try to get orders for the magazine by the
year from the people who lived in near-by towns, and the letter had to
be written, now that Hans had come back from New York without seeing
the people. Now when he came to put the story about Hans, intended only
for his folks, in the letter he had written them, he picked up the
wrong envelope and stuck the story in the envelope addressed to the
editor of the _Out Door Weekly_, and the letter he intended for the
editor he put in the envelope addressed to his folks along with his
regular letter. Then he mailed them and went to bed.
About a week later, among the letters received by Hal was one from the
_Out Door Weekly_, and Hal opened it to see what they had to say about
the job of getting subscriptions which they had asked for. When he
opened the letter something dropped out of it to the floor, and upon
picking it up found it was a check for $250, made out to Harold Case.
Of course, he didn’t understand this so he opened the letter, and this
is what he read:
“MR. HAROLD CASE,
“DEAR SIR: We beg to advise you that your story has been
accepted by the editor and will appear in the next issue. We
have taken the liberty of putting our own title on it.
“Inclosed please find check for $250 in payment of same.
Any time you have any stories as good as this to submit for
publication, we trust you will favor this magazine.
“Yours very truly,
“WALTON KEMP, _Editor_
“_Out Door Weekly_.”
Hal couldn’t understand it and so he took the letter, check and all,
into Hans’ room, and asked him what he made out of it.
“Guess somebody made a $250 mistake,” said Hans.
“They certainly have got me mixed up with some author,” answered Hal.
“I didn’t send them any story. The only thing I have sent to this
magazine is the letter which you asked me to write about the job as
agents for their magazine.”
“Well, have you written any stories to anybody?” asked Hans.
“Not that I know of,” answered Hal. “The only story I have written
lately was this. When you told me the tale of your New York visit the
other night I sat down in my room afterwards and wrote it all out, and
sent it to the folks, thinking they would enjoy it. They feel as though
they know you as well as I do by this time.”
“I have it,” said Hans. “I’ll bet I know what you have done. You went
and put the letter for the magazine in the letter to your folks and you
put the story about me in the envelope addressed to the magazine, and
they’re going to publish that story about me all over the country.”
“I don’t suppose I could make a mistake like that,” said Hal.
“Well, I don’t suppose you could either. But say, wouldn’t it be a
lucky mistake if you had done it. Think of making a mistake like that
and getting $250 for it. Think of being an author and not knowing it.
That would be rich. If you did make that mistake I think I ought to
lick the stuffing out of you for advertising me all over the country.”
“All right; but say, maybe I did make that mistake. Guess I am not
entitled to this check unless I did do something for it, but what on
earth anybody would want to pay $250 for that kind of a story for, I
don’t quite see. Now if I did make that mistake and they think enough
of the story to pay $250, it would look foolish, wouldn’t it, for me to
write them now and tell them they made a mistake. Wouldn’t the best way
be to wait until Saturday when the next number of the _Weekly_ appears,
and we can then see what story they refer to. And say, if that should
be so, and I made the mistake the way you guess, I’ll give you half of
the profits provided you agree not to lick me. Anyway, there’s no other
name mentioned but just Hans.”
So they decided to hold the check and wait for the next number of the
magazine which was five days off. They were very much excited about it.
They could hardly wait until Saturday came. On Friday Hal got a letter
from his folks in answer to the one he had mailed ten days before, and
in it his father returned him the letter addressed to the magazine in
which they had asked for a job as agents.
Hal then knew he had made a mistake in inclosing the letters and had
sent the story about Hans to the magazine. It began to look like the
$250 check was really his, by the greatest possible luck. The next
morning they could hardly wait for the news store to open. They were
both on hand before the doors were unlocked. When the place was opened
they found the magazine wouldn’t arrive until ten o’clock. That was
four hours to wait. They went home to breakfast but were on hand
promptly when the package arrived from the depot, and eagerly bought a
copy. Hal turned the pages one after the other until he came to a story
headed:
“TO A BROOKLYN WEDDING AND BACK AGAIN”
A STORY FROM REAL LIFE ABOUT HANS
By Harold Case
“There she is,” said Hal. “Now what do you think of that?” They read
it through together. Eight whole pages. It was almost exactly as Hal
had written it. The editor had changed a word here and there and it was
illustrated with imaginative pictures of Hans at the Grand Central,
Hans dealing with the driver of the funeral coach, Hans hanging out of
the bath-room window, and every kind of way.
“By George,” said Hans. “You are an author and it would be rude to lick
an author, but you won’t have to canvass for the magazine subscribers
for a month or two anyhow.”
“Well, you won’t either,” said Hal. “We’ll divide it up and when the
money’s spent, I’ll send you on another trip to New York, and if you
can get something else to happen to you, I may be able to get another
story.”
Then they went down to the bank and had the check cashed and Hal
counted out one hundred and twenty-five dollars which he gave to Hans
who immediately put his in the bank again, to his own credit, while
Hal rolled his up, put a rubber band around it and stuffed it in his
trousers’ pocket.
CHAPTER XIV
PREPARATIONS AT THE RIVAL COLLEGE
The progress of the nine was quite satisfactory to Hughie and the
coaches and they began to feel as though they had the championship
again in their inside pockets, and they were right in thinking so,
because never before in all the ball teams put together, in college or
out, had there been so many individual stars on any one team.
“This,” said Hughie, talking with Penny who had been down for a week,
“has been the greatest luck that any baseball manager ever had, to
find himself at the beginning of the training season with five of the
most important positions of the team vacant and then to discover among
the freshmen, a bunch of fellows like Case, Hagner, Robb, Talkington
and Radams who make good right away. Of course, I’d not tell them so
to their faces, but those fellows are playing their positions better
than any fellows who ever played those corners before. They ought to
be world’s champions. Those boys, especially when steadied by the
more experienced bunch we have left, Everson, Larke, Gibbs, Black and
Delvin, ought to beat any team in the world.”
“They haven’t been beaten yet,” said Everson, who just came up, “and I
don’t think we are going to be licked this year. Did you ever see such
a bunch of stars?”
“If Jefferson College has anything like our kind of luck in discovering
stars among the freshmen, there will be the hottest series of ball
games that ever was played anywhere between two teams,” said Penny.
“It’s hardly possible that Jefferson should have anything like the same
kind of luck,” remarked Hughie.
Meantime, however, some very similar talk was going on at Jefferson.
“They licked us at football this year all right and I still think it
was mostly luck that they did,” said Captain and Manager Frank Church
to his coaches and captains about this same time, “but we’ve got them
this year on the ball game. Won’t Lowell be surprised though when we
turn ’em inside out on the diamond.”
“Did you ever know of anybody else having the kind of baseball luck we
have had this year?” asked Tommy Beach, center fielder on the Jefferson
team and good friend of Church’s.
“No,” said Church, “I’ve seen the bad luck come in bunches often
before, such as having a half dozen of the team put out of the game on
account of injuries in a day, but no one ever had the good luck we have
had in picking out fine kids from a bunch of freshmen recruits, and
have them develop into stars after the few games we have played.”
“This Lowell crowd has put it over us in the past,” said Big George
Mellen, star pitcher of the Western college, “but methinks that when we
have finished our games with them this year, with the team we have now,
this bunch of fellows will have wiped out not only all the disgrace of
the football defeat, but also the long string of baseball beatings they
have handed us in the past years.”
About this time, too, various graduates of Lowell who lived in the
West and had had a chance to see some of the games which Jefferson had
played with other Western colleges, began to think that Church had
finally succeeded in putting a team together that would, if they kept
up the pace which they had set for themselves, give Lowell a pretty
hard tussle.
They could not quite speak what was really their true opinion because
of their great belief in Jenkins, but when they looked way down deep in
their hearts they not only felt these Western boys might give Lowell
a pretty good tussle, but they were very much afraid they would take
the championship. So they began sending what seemed at first to their
friends at Lowell to whom they wrote some wonderful stories of the star
players on the new team at Jefferson College, and gave many warnings
that at last Church had a real ball team, and that when he brought his
boys to Lowell the championship would at least be in danger.
George Davids wrote to Delvin about a fast shortstop, who, strange
to say, had come from the East to attend this Western college. “His
name is Eddie Hollins,” wrote George, “and he is a star performer.
He came direct here from Columbus College and I am surprised that you
didn’t hear of him in time to induce him to go to Lowell. Of course,
you wouldn’t be looking for a shortstop if you still had Brinker, and
I hope you have had some luck in getting a new one. Hollins, however,
is very fast on the bases and a wonderful fielder. Besides he is a
crack-a-jack with the bat. You know I once had an idea about playing
short myself, but this boy acts as though he had years of training
under Joe himself.”
From Amos Russell came a long report to Black about a wonderful pitcher
that had been discovered. “His name is Cam,” wrote Russell, “and his
curves are longer and wider than his name. He was born in Kentucky
which explains why he happened to come to Jefferson. He is a right
hander, with great speed, sharp curves, and he is long on control. I
really think you had better send some one out here to look the whole
team over. You may be able to discover some weak points. I have looked
them over several times, and I think that for once dear old Lowell will
have to hustle if they beat this team.”
Dear old Pop Anderson took particular pains to write about the
Jefferson team in general. “I don’t want to scare you, my dear Hughie,”
wrote Pop, “but you had better be prepared to outdo even yourself when
you come out here to play this year’s Jefferson team. We didn’t have
such a very easy time with them last year, though the effort it cost
made the victory just that much sweeter. You asked me to write you
fully of what I think and I will do so.
“At first base they have, of course, Frank Church who is, as you know,
still the captain-manager. I need not say much about him because you
know he is one of the greatest first basemen ever known, and it was his
ability as a manager you had to beat last year. I hope you have found
some one nearly as good as Penny to play first. You will need him.”
Hughie chuckled to himself as he thought of his own wonder at first
base.
[Illustration: “Frank Church was still Captain Manager.”]
“At second,” wrote Pop further, “they have as you know La Joy who
is one of the best batters around in the West. He also is as fine a
fielder as ever, but, of course, you have Johnny Everson and you need
not worry about that position. At third, Laird was on last year’s team,
the best third sacker they ever had out here and better this year than
ever. At short they have a youngster named Hollins. He is a wonder and
a great batter. He is brilliant, heady and fast, and is a dangerous
player both at bat and on the bases. He can play second even better.
“They seem to have had a good deal of luck in picking up freshmen
youngsters who can fill the holes in the team made by the graduations
of last year. I think this Hollins is a great shortstop, and I hope you
have found a good one in Joe’s place, as you will surely need him.”
Again Hughie smiled to himself. He was no doubt thinking of Hagner, his
big awkward-looking shortstop. Whenever Hughie wanted to feel real good
he drew a mind picture of Hagner going after a hot grounder or a Texas
Leaguer out his way.
“They have a great right fielder out here named Twitchell, also a new
man in the position. He is a fine batter and a good thrower. In center
is Thomas Beach, just as good in the field chasing flies as he was a
couple of years ago at third base. You will, I know, never forget the
trouble this young Beach person has caused Lowell teams. In the past,
reports of the first inning in so many games read ‘Beach got a double
or triple to left.’
“One thing I have noticed, though, Beach is still weak when it comes to
getting caught at third. Do you remember how last year King caught him
off third three times when with Church on first and Tommy on third,
they attempted a double steal? I’ve seen him get caught twice this year
the same way. Funny, isn’t it, that he can’t get over that play. He
just can’t resist the temptation if the catcher makes a motion as if
to throw to second to stop a steal, to make a false start toward the
plate, and when the catcher throws to third instead of second, Beach
gets caught almost every time. Hope you can work it on him this year
again.
[Illustration: “Beach gets caught this way every time.”]
“Warcford in left is only a fair fielder, but a wonder with the bat. He
comes from Kansas and is likely to make trouble at any time with his
stick. He hits all kinds of pitching.
“You will have finally to deal with George Mellen in the pitcher’s box.
He is better than ever. He has won twelve straight games this year and
is almost as good a batter as any man on the team. There is also a
young pitcher named Cam who promises to be a wonder. For catcher they
have a youngster, a freshman named Roger Brest. This fellow is a wonder
also. Of course, with Gibbie on the team--and I think he ought to be
fine this year--you may have the advantage of a catcher with experience
on big college teams, but Brest seems to be a find, and I think is as
good as any. On the whole, they seem to have had remarkable luck out
here with the team this year.
“It will take all your ability as manager and as good a team as you
had last year to beat them, and if they keep up the pace they have set
with the smaller colleges out here, you may have the fight of your
life on your hands. They haven’t been scored on as yet. I hope you
have something good up your sleeve. If you have had any luck with your
recruits, we ought to have the best series of games of college ball
ever played between two nines in the history of the sport, and with an
even break of the luck, it will be the best team to win.”
Of course all of the reports from all sources were laid before a
committee consisting of Hughie, Everson, Larke, Gibbie, and one or two
others. It made even Hughie a little anxious. In the enthusiasm over
his team he hadn’t given much thought to Lowell’s great rivals, because
he couldn’t see how another school could have such luck as he had in
finding stars. Every fellow on the nine was a wonder, in his opinion.
It looked like an all-star team.
They went over the reports together and compared the two teams, man for
man, as best they could. The result was enough to make them anxious and
they finally decided to send Young, the coach, who could tell a real
ball player across a fifty-acre lot, out to Jefferson to look over the
rival team and get as many pointers as he could.
No doubt some fellow from Jefferson had already been looking the Lowell
team over in action or would be around soon, but of course there was no
way to prevent this, and besides there was no reason why it shouldn’t
be done. The rivalry between the two schools was of the keenest, in
every way.
On the whole the boys decided that if the team kept on as they had
been--working together like a machine--and if they could avoid a slump,
they would have just as good a chance to win as the other fellows,
and perhaps a little better. They were the champions and had been for
years; and this would give them a slight advantage.
So they worked a little harder in practice, trying to perfect
themselves more and more in their signal and other inside work, and
every man on the team pledged himself again and again to Hughie to try
a little more earnestly than he had before, if that were possible, for
the honor and glory of the university. And this helped them to keep
from getting nervous when they thought of these reports of Church’s
team at Jefferson.
CHAPTER XV
THE “LOWELL REPORTER”
The _Lowell Reporter_ was the college paper of the University. It
appeared once a week and in it was printed all the news of the college
world, and announcements of various kinds. The advertising columns
furnished an opportunity for a couple of young hustlers to earn enough
money soliciting advertisements to keep them in school.
The paper was edited entirely by the students under the watchful eye of
the faculty and especially of Professor Bennett, assistant teacher of
English and of many years’ experience as a newspaper writer and editor.
He also had under his direct supervision a small class in journalism,
a department which had but recently been founded. The University let
the students’ committee publish the paper themselves, i. e., to get
it ready and then just before being printed, Professor Bennett would
go over the copy in order to be sure that nothing contrary to the
policy of the University was published and once in a while to curb the
enthusiasm of this or that writer, when he allowed his imagination to
prepare any article that was not in keeping with the dignity of the
institution.
Timothy Murnin, a young Irish lad of American parentage, was one
of the two fellows who kept themselves in college by hustling for
advertisements for the _Reporter_. Timothy’s one ambition was to be the
owner and editor of a big city newspaper, and his job of hustling for
advertisements was the best start he could have made in that direction
if he only knew it.
Besides attending to his studies and getting most of the advertisements
for the _Reporter_, Tim added to his many duties, by request of the
student body, the job of reporting all the sporting events of the
college. His many duties didn’t give him a chance to indulge in any of
the games himself, but he had a wonderful knowledge of all the sports,
football, baseball, basketball, track work and everything. In baseball
he was particularly fit. Like all good healthy boys in this country he
loved the great American game of Baseball. He loved it for the same
reason that millions of others loved it--its squareness and thrills.
He knew the game from “soup to nuts,” as he would say in talking about
the ability of this or that great player. He could give you offhand the
records of all the great college teams in the country for twenty years
back and the individual fitness of almost every player. He had them all
on his finger tips, and his reports of the games at college were filled
with items showing that this first baseman acted like old Pop Anderson,
yonder pitcher reminded him of Russell, or some young catcher threw
down to second like Charley Burnett, or that so and so stood up to the
bat like old Dan Brewers or King Kelly.
Once in a while he surpassed himself, and his report of a dull and
uninteresting game was many times more exciting and enjoyable than
the game itself. Such a game was the one the team played with Barber
College along about the middle of April. The team had been going along
pretty well in the half dozen or more games which had been played with
the minor colleges, all of them preparatory to the bigger games toward
the close of the season. Lowell had had a rather easy time of it up to
the fourth inning, at which time the score stood 7 to 0 in favor of
the Varsity. The game had been played in a drizzle of rain, the ball
was wet, the grounds slippery, and errors were the rule instead of the
exception. Fielders had tumbled over themselves chasing balls over the
wet grass, and players who had attempted the fall-away slide could
hardly be recognized on account of their mud-stained uniforms.
In the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings, Miner had given way to Babe,
as the game looked safe and Babe had an off day, for Barber secured six
hits in the three innings, which, mixed with the errors, enabled the
visitors to pile up five runs while the Lowell team was doing nothing
in the tally line.
The game ended, however, with Lowell still two runs to the good and the
game was ours, but this is the way Tim’s report of parts of it looked
in the _Reporter_ the next day after he had reduced his idea of the
contest to writing. Here it is:
LOWELL, 7; BARBER, 5.
Jones, one of the big family, the first to swing the willow for
the enemy, pushed a grass cutter to Hagner, who relayed it to
the custodian of the first salt bag. Knight hit a sunscraper
into the meridian and Gibbie pocketed it on the return trip.
Wilson stung the pellet to Robbville, which Ty annexed without
leaving his office.
Ross launched a Lusitania to Amberg, which broke down in
midocean. Everson loafed around the rubber for four misfits and
got them. Little Arthur stung a beauty over the near station,
which took him to the first stop and opened the switches for
Everson’s run to the middle junction, Hagner bumped a daisy
scorcher to Joe, which the latter pickled, but it went as a
sacrifice, as Delvin navigated to second and the Human Crab
breezed to third. Ty swung his trusty locust against the first
groove cutter and the horsehide stamped his initials on the
Clubhouse flag pole, while he almost beat Everson and Little
Arthur to the water cooler after his circle of the bags. Mr.
Talkington, while waiting on four, was chased with three, and
Larke sent one singing to the curve box, which the slab artist
tossed to the initial sack ahead of him.
[Illustration: “Everson loafed around the rubber.”]
SECOND INNING
Amberg sent one over the shortest route to Everson. Wheeler
spun three times and sat down. Dorner imitated Wheeler
perfectly.
Black did what was expected of the pitcher. Gibbie got a one
timer back of Wilson. Ross arched one to Knight. Everson
dropped one in front of the rubber, Gibbie annexing the
keystone bag. Little Arthur was there with a dew drop which
Wilson picked off the grass too late to shut the door on either
Gibbie, Everson or Delvin who slid into the vacant chairs and
all the seats at table were occupied.
The big German lad leaned gently against the leather apple and
knocked it out of the orchard, shaking the tree for four more
juicy ones for Lowell. Ty fouled to Bowman. Three out. Score,
7-0.
After that for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth spasms
neither side got a look in, although three hopefuls from each
college went boldly to the front, only to be cut down in their
youth, before crossing the Rubicon.
SEVENTH INNING
In the stand-up session, however, the tonsorial artists made
the Lowell hair stand up. Hughie sent the Infant in for a piece
of the pie. Jones, the first shaver up, swung the sign on a
drop and raised it over Arthur’s study box for a single.
The fellow with the after 6 P. M. name waited patiently, and as
the Babe couldn’t see the plate because Knight was so near, he
walked. Wilson hit a slow one to Johnny which he came in on and
rolled around the sod while Jones, Knight and Wilson perched
on the salt bags. Hughie wigwagged the infield to come close,
so they could hear the song of the Whirling Sphere and join
in the chorus. Amberg binged one which knocked the wind out of
Hagner’s organ, and Johnny picked up the sphere and heaved it
at the Barber band which was sitting back of Gibbie behind the
screen, to make them join the music.
[Illustration: “Hughie wigwagged the infielders to come in
closer.”]
Jonesy and the Utter Darkness beat a fast tattoo on the base
lines and disappeared over the horizon to the visitors’ bench
after their final journey toward the West. Loud pedal by the
band and the Barber chorus and two tallies.
Babe got himself in tune by this time and whanged out three
high but perfect notes which Wheeler tried to reach in unison
with him, but couldn’t. Wilson, who had reached third while the
loud pedal was open, was lulled to sleep by the sweet strains
and caught napping by Gibbie. Dorner sent a whistler out to
Talkington who muffled it and the singing practice was over.
Score, 7-2.
The report of the game went on in this style to the end. Tim had
discovered a new language and he was proud of his effort. When he had
finished he turned in his copy. A few minutes after he reached home
he was called to the telephone. It was Professor Bennett speaking,
and he asked Tim if he could come around and see him right away. He
had something to talk with him about. When he reached the professor’s
office he found him sitting with a puzzled expression looking at some
manuscript which Tim thought was his. It was:
“I don’t quite understand this, a-- I suppose it is a report of the
baseball game with Barber yesterday.”
“That’s it,” said Tim; “don’t you think it’s pretty good?”
“Have they changed the baseball terms recently? I hadn’t heard of
it. If not, and this is only an original way of yours of reporting
what took place at the game, I’m afraid that we will have to dispense
with it. I’m afraid that coming out as it does with the O. K. of the
department of English, the _Lowell Reporter_ will be discredited among
the alumni.”
“I hope you won’t cut it out,” said Tim. “Yesterday’s game was mostly
a one-sided and dull affair, and I thought I’d liven it up a bit by
putting some spirit into the report.”
“Well, but the words and terms you use are not understandable.”
“I think you are mistaken, Professor, about that. I think even the
smallest boy who knows anything at all about baseball could understand
perfectly what is meant.”
“Suppose we go over it together,” said the Professor, “and let me see
if I can get an idea what it is all about. Now, right at the beginning
you say Jones, one of the big family (I can understand that), the first
to swing the willow for the enemy, etc., what do you mean by that?”
asked the Professor.
“Well,” answered Tim, “the bat is made of willow, the Barber nine is
our enemy for the time being. A grass cutter is a ball that is rolled
swiftly over the grass. Jones hit a ground ball to shortstop, who
picked it up and threw it to first base.”
“Good,” said the Professor. “Now let’s see the rest of it. Knight hit a
sunscraper into the meridian and Gibbie pocketed it on the return trip.”
“Perfectly plain, Professor,” said Tim. “A high building is a
skyscraper--then a high ball might be a sunscraper--the meridian is
directly overhead, isn’t it? Then this ball that Knight hit went
straight up in the air, very high, Gibbie the catcher caught it easily
when it came down.”
“Not bad,” said the Professor. “Let’s take the next line. Wilson stung
the pellet to Robbville, which Ty annexed without leaving his office.
What----?”
“That means,” continued Tim, “that Wilson hit the ball hard to right
field where Tyrus Robb plays, and hit it absolutely into his hands. He
didn’t have to leave his office means, he didn’t have to move to get
it.”
“I begin to be interested in your new style of English. It seems all
right if you have a key handy. Are you going to furnish a glossary of
terms with each of your reports after this, Murnin?
“Suppose we go on. Now then you say: Ross launched a Lusitania to
Amberg which broke down in midocean. What possible connection can there
be between a fast liner and a ball game?”
“You have it. Fine. Don’t you see how quickly the meaning comes to
you when you get a start? Lusitania--a fast liner--launched to
Amberg--went straight for him--broke down in midocean--it stopped when
it got to Amberg, who caught it.”
“Good, now let’s see if I can figure it out myself. Everson loafed
(waited) around the rubber (the plate) for four misfits (four balls, I
guess); Little Arthur (must be Delvin) stung a beauty (a good one) over
the near station--near station? (Oh! yes, third base) which took him
to the first stop (first base) and opened the switches for Everson’s
(let’s see, where was Everson? Oh, yes, he got a base on balls and was
on first) run to the middle station (Everson got to second), Honus
bumped a daisy scorcher (now, what’s a daisy scorcher, Tim?)”
“A low ball, not one rolling on the ground, but a little raised, about
as high as the daisy blossoms.”
“Good, Honus bumped a daisy scorcher to Jones which the latter pickled
(he must have gotten it and put Honus out if it went as a sacrifice).
Delvin navigated to second (advanced to second) and the Human Crab
breezed to third. (Who’s the Crab? Let me see, he must have been on
second. Do you call Everson the Human Crab?)”
“Yes,” said Tim.
“This is the situation now, isn’t it? Everson on third, Delvin on
second. All right, now let’s see what happened.”
“Ty swung his trusty locust (thought it was willow) against the first
groove cutter (let me see, that must mean a ball put over the plate)
and the horsehide (ball) stamped his initials on the Clubhouse flag
pole (the ball must have hit the flag pole, eh?) and Ty almost beat
Everson and Little Arthur to the water cooler (that’s almost too plain,
Tim. Ty made a home run and brought home Everson and Delvin. Better
improve that one a little).”
“I think it will average up,” said Tim.
“All right,” said Professor Bennett. “What happened next? Mr.
Talkington (why mister, I wonder?) while waiting for four (trying to
get his base on balls) was chased with three (what, get his base on
three balls?).”
“No, sir, he struck out. They chased him to the bench.”
“Oh, I see!” said the Professor. “Larke sent one singing to the curve
box (that must be the pitcher) which the slab artist (pitcher) tossed
to the initial sack (first).”
“I really think some of it is too plain,” said the Professor, rather
more pleased than he would let on. He found himself quite an adept in
this new language.
“It improves as you go along, I think,” said Tim.
“Let’s see what happened in the second inning,” went on the Professor.
“Barber College goes to bat now, doesn’t it? Amberg hit one over the
shortest route to Everson (that must be a straight-line h
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