CHAPTER XI

OLD POP CONSOLES

Collin flashed a look of mingled scorn and triumph on Joe as he walked past him. It needed only this to make our hero feel that he had stood about all he could, and he turned away, and tried to get rid of a lump in his throat.

None of the other players seemed to notice him. Probably it was an old story to them. Competition was too fierce--it was a matter of making a living on their part--every man was for himself, in a certain sense. They had seen young players come and old players go. It was only a question of time when they themselves would go--go never to come back into baseball again. They might eke out a livelihood as a scout or as a ground-keeper in some big league. It was a fight for the survival of the fittest, and Joe's seeming failure brought no apparent sympathy.

Understand me, I am not speaking against organized baseball. It is a grand thing, and one of the cleanest sports in the world. But what I am trying to point out is that it is a business, and from a business standpoint everyone in it must do his best for himself. Each man, in a sense, is concerned only with his own success. Nor do I mean that this precludes a love of the club, and good team work. Far from it.

Nor were Joe's feelings made any the less poignant by the fact that Collin did some wonderful pitching. He needed to in order to pull the home team out of the hole into which it had slipped--and not altogether through Joe's weakness, either.

Perhaps the other players braced up when they saw the veteran Collin in the box. Perhaps he even pitched better than usual because he had, in a sense, been humiliated by Joe's preference over himself. At any rate, whatever the reason, the answer was found in the fact that Pittston began to wake up.

Collin held the other team hitless for one inning, and the rest of the game, ordinary in a sense, saw Pittston march on to victory--a small enough victory--by a margin of two runs, but that was enough. For victory had come out of almost sure defeat.

Poor Joe sat on the bench and brooded. For a time no one seemed to take any notice of him, and then Gregory, good general that he was, turned to the new recruit and said:

"You mustn't mind a little thing like that, Joe. I have to do the best as I see it. This is business, you know. Why, I'd have pulled Collin out, or Tooley, just as quick."

"I know it," returned Joe, thickly.

But the knowledge did not add to his comfort, though he tried to make it do so.

But I am getting a little ahead of my story.

The game was almost over, and it was practically won by Pittston, when a voice spoke back of where Joe sat on the players' bench. It was a husky, uncertain, hesitating sort of voice and it said, in the ear of the young pitcher:

"Never mind, my lad. Ten years from now, when you're in a big league, you'll forget all about this. It'll do you good, anyhow, for it'll make you work harder, and hard work makes a good ball player out of a middle-class one. Brace up. I know what I'm talking about!"

Joe hesitated a moment before turning. Somehow he had a vague feeling that he had heard that voice before, and under strange circumstances. He wanted to see if he could place it before looking at the speaker.

But it was baffling, and Joe turned quickly. He started as he saw standing behind him, attired rather more neatly than when last he had confronted our hero--the tramp whom he had saved from the freight train.

On his part the other looked sharply at Joe for a moment. Over his face passed shadows of memory, and then the light came. He recognized Joe, and with a note of gladness in his husky voice--husky from much shouting on the ball field, and from a reckless life--he exclaimed:

"Why it's the boy! It's the boy who pulled me off the track! It's the boy!"

"Of course!" exclaimed Joe. Impulsively he held out his hand.

A shout arose as one of the Pittston players brought in the winning run, but Joe paid no heed. He was staring at old Pop Dutton.

The other player--the "has-been"--looked at Joe's extended hand a moment as if in doubt. Then he glanced over the field, and listened to the glad cries. He seemed to straighten up, and his nostrils widened as he sniffed in the odors of the crushed green grass. It was as though a broken-down horse had heard from afar the battle-riot in which he never again would take part.

Back came the blood-shot eyes to Joe's still extended hand.

"Do you--do you mean it?" faltered the old ball player.

"Mean it? Mean what?" asked Joe, in surprise.

"Are you going to shake hands with me--with a----"

He did not finish his obvious sentence.

"Why not?" asked Joe.

The other did not need to answer, for at that moment Gregory came up. He started at the sight of Dutton, and said sharply:

"How did you get in here? What are you doing here. Didn't I tell you to keep away?"

"I paid my way in--_Mister_ Gregory!" was the sarcastic answer. "I still have the price."

"Well, we don't care for your money. What are you doing here? The bleachers for yours!"

"He came--I think he came to see me," spoke Joe, softly, and he reached for the other's reluctant hand. "I have met him before."

"Oh," said Gregory, and there was a queer note in his voice. "I guess we've all met him before, and none of us are the better for it. You probably don't know him as well as the rest of us, Joe."

"He--he saved my life," faltered the unfortunate old ball player.

"In a way that was a pity," returned Gregory, coolly--cuttingly, Joe thought, "for you're no good to yourself, Dutton, nor to anyone else, as near as I can make out. I told you I didn't want you hanging around my grounds, and I don't. Now be off! If I find you here again I'll hand you over to the police!"

Joe expected an outburst from Dutton, but the man's spirit was evidently broken. For an instant--just for an instant--he straightened up and looked full at Gregory. Then he seemed to shrink in his clothes and turned to shuffle away.

"All--all right," he mumbled. "I'll keep away. But you've got one fine little pitcher in that boy, and I didn't want to see him lose his nerve and get discouraged--as I often did. That--that's why I spoke to him."

Poor Joe felt that he had rather made a mess of it in speaking to Dutton, but, he said afterward, he would have done the same thing over again.

"You needn't worry about Matson," said the manager, with a sneer. "I'll look after Joe--I'll see that he doesn't lose his nerve--or get discouraged."

"I--I hope you do," said the old player, and then, with uncertain gait, he walked off as the victorious Pittston players swarmed in. The game was over.