Chapter 7

BASEBALL TALK

There was silence for a moment, following Joe's warning, and then the voice of his mother was heard:

"Joe, you're wanted on the telephone."

"Oh, all right," he answered in a relieved tone. "I didn't want her to hear about Shalleg," he added in a whisper to Charlie. "She and father would worry, and, with his recent sickness, that wouldn't be a good thing for him."

"I should say not," agreed the other ball player.

"I'll be right there, Mother," went on Joe, in louder tones and then he went to the hall, where the telephone stood. It was only a message from a local sporting goods dealer, saying that he had secured for Joe a certain glove he had had made to order.

Joe went back to his chum, and the baseball talk was renewed.

"What were you going to say that Shalleg was up to?" asked Joe.

"As I was saying," resumed Charlie, "there may be nothing in the rumor, but it's the talk, in baseball circles, that Shalleg has been trying his best, since being released, to get a place with the Cardinals."

"You don't mean it!" cried Joe. "That accounts for his surprise, and perhaps for his bitter feeling against me when I told him there was a chance that I would go to St. Louis."

"Probably," agreed Charlie. "So, having heard this, and knowing that Shalleg is a hard character, I thought I'd warn you."

"I'm glad you did," returned Joe warmly. "It was very good of you to go to that trouble. And, after the experience I had with Shalleg, I shouldn't wonder but what there was something in it. Though why he should be vindictive toward me is more than I can fathom. I certainly never did anything to him, except to refuse to lend him money, and I actually had to do that."

"Of course," agreed Charlie. "But I guess, from his bad habits, his mind is warped. He is abnormal, and your refusal, coupled with the fact that you are probably going to a team that he has tried his best to make, and can't, simply made him wild. So, if I were you, I should be on the lookout, Joe."

"I certainly will. It's queer that I met Shalleg the way I did--in the storm. It was quite an unusual coincidence. It seems he had been to Rocky Ford, a town near here, to see if he could borrow money from somebody there--at least so he said. Then he heard I lived here, and he started for Riverside, and got lost on the way, in the storm. Altogether it was rather queer. I never was so surprised in my life as when, after riding with me for some time, the man said he was looking for me."

"It _was_ queer," agreed Charlie. "Well, the only thing to do, after this, is to steer clear of him. And, after all, it may only be talk."

"Yes," assented Joe, "and now let's talk about something pleasant. How are you, anyhow? What are your plans for the coming season? And how are all the boys since we played the last pennant game?"

"Gracious!" exclaimed Charlie with a laugh. "You fire almost as many questions at a fellow as a lawyer would."

Then the two plunged into baseball talk, which, as it has no special interest for my readers, I shall omit.

"Have you anything special to do?" asked Joe, as Charlie and he came to a pause in recalling scenes and incidents, many of which you will find set down in the previous book of this series.

"No. After I clean up all the orders I can here I will have a few days' vacation," replied Hall.

"Good!" cried Joe. "Then spend them with me. Reggie Varley and his sister are here for a while--you remember Reggie; don't you, Charlie?"

"As well as you remember his sister, I reckon," was the laughing rejoinder.

"Never mind that. Then I'll count on you. I'll introduce you to a nice girl, and we'll get up a little sleigh-riding party. There'll be a fine moon in a couple of nights."

"Go as far as you like with me," invited Charlie. "I'm not in training yet, and I guess a late oyster supper, after a long ride, won't do me any particular harm."

Charlie departed for the hotel, to get his baggage, for he was going to finish out the rest of his stay in Riverside as Joe's guest, and the young pitcher went to get the new glove, about which he had received the telephone message.

It was a little later that day that, as Clara was passing her brother's room, she heard a curious, thumping noise.

"I wonder what that is?" she murmured. "Sounds as though Joe were working at a punching bag. Joe, what in the world are you doing?" she asked, pausing outside his door.

"Making a pocket in my new glove," he answered. "Come on in, Sis. I'm all covered with olive oil, or I'd open the door for you."

"Olive oil! The idea! Are you making a salad, as well?" she asked laughingly, as she pushed open the portal.

She saw her brother, attired in old clothes, alternately pouring a few drops of olive oil on his new pitcher's glove, and then, with an old baseball pounding a hollow place in the palm.

"What does it mean?" asked Clara.

"Oh, I'm just limbering up my new glove," answered Joe. "If I'm to play with a big team, like the St. Louis Cardinals, I want to have the best sort of an outfit. You know a ball will often slip out of a new glove, so I'm making a sort of 'pocket' in this one, only not as deep as in a catcher's mitt, so it will hold the ball better."

"But why the olive oil?"

"Oh, well, of course any good oil would do, but this was the handiest. The oil softens the leather, and makes it pliable. And say, if you haven't anything else to do, there's an old glove, that's pretty badly ripped; you might sew it up. It will do to practice with."

"I'll sew it to-morrow, Joe. I've got to make a new collar now. Mabel and I are going to the matinee, and I want to look my best."

"Oh, all right," agreed Joe easily. "There's no special hurry," and he went on thumping the baseball into the hollow of the new glove.

"Well, Joe, is there anything new in the baseball situation?" asked Mr. Matson of his son a little later. The inventor, whose eyesight had been saved by the operation (to pay for which most of Joe's pennant money went) was able to give part of his time to his business now.

"No, there's not much new, Dad," replied the young player. "I am still waiting to hear definitely about St. Louis. I do hope I am drafted there."

"It means quite an advance for you; doesn't it, Joe?"

"Indeed it does, Dad. There aren't many players who are taken out of a small league, to a major one, at the close of their first season. I suppose I ought to be proud."

"Well, I hope you are, Joe, in a proper way," said Mr. Matson. "Pride, of the right sort, is very good. And I'm glad of your prospective advance. I am sure it was brought about by hard work, and, after all, that is the only thing that counts. And you did work hard, Joe."

"Yes, I suppose I did," admitted the young pitcher modestly, as he thought of the times he pitched when his arm ached, and when his nerves were all unstrung on account of the receipt of bad news. "But other fellows worked hard, too," he went on. "You've _got_ to work hard in baseball."

"Will it be any easier on the St. Louis team?" his father wanted to know.

"No, it will be harder," replied Joe. "I might as well face that at once."

And it was well that Joe had thus prepared himself in advance, for before him, though he did not actually know it, were the hardest struggles to which a young pitcher could be subjected.

"Yes, there'll be hard work," Joe went on, "but I don't mind. I like it. And I'm not so foolish as to think that I'm going to go in, right off the reel, and become the star pitcher of the team. I guess I'll have to sit back, and warm the bench for quite a considerable time before I'm called on to pull the game out of the fire."

"Well, that's all right, as long as you're there when the time comes," said his father. "Stick to it, Joe, now that you are in it. Your mother didn't take much to baseball at first, but, the more I see of it, and read of it, the more I realize that it's a great business, and a clean sport. I'm glad you're in it, Joe."

"And I am too, Dad."