CHAPTER III

A POPULAR HERO

Reggie hurried away to order the meal that was to put the chef on his mettle, leaving Mabel and Joe once more in possession of the room.

Good-natured, blundering Reggie! Why had he not waited five minutes longer before breaking in on that momentous conversation?

To be sure they could have resumed it now, but Joe felt instinctively that it was not the time. Cupid is sensitive as to time and place, and the little blind god is only at his best when assured of leisure and privacy. His motto is that “two is company” while three or more are undeniably “a crowd.”

Reggie might be back at any moment, and then, too, the waiters would be coming in to spread the table. So Joe, though sorely against his will, was forced to wait till fate should be more kind.

But he was in the presence of his divinity anyway and could feast his eyes upon her as she chatted gaily, her color heightened by the scene through which they had just passed.

And Mabel was a very delightful object for the eyes to rest upon. Joe himself, of course, was not a competent witness. If any one had asked him to describe her, he would have answered that she was a combination of Cleopatra and Madame Recamier and all the other famous beauties of history. What the unbiased observer would have seen was a very charming girl, sweet and womanly, with lustrous brown eyes, wavy hair whose tendrils persisted in playing hide and seek about her ears, dimples that came and went in a maddening fashion and a flower-like mouth, revealing two rows of pearly teeth when she smiled, which was often.

Even Reggie was moved to compliment her when he came in again after his interview with the head waiter.

“My word, Sis, but you’re blooming to-night, don’t you know,” he remarked, as he went across the room and put his hand caressingly on her shoulder. “This little trip must be doing you good. You’ve got such a splendid color, don’t you know.”

“Just think of it! A compliment from a brother! Wonder of wonders!” she laughed merrily.

Perhaps if she had cared to, she might have enlightened the obtuse Reggie as to the cause of the heightened color that enhanced her loveliness. Joe, too, could have made a shrewd guess at it.

But now the waiters came bustling in and they talked of indifferent things until the table was spread. A sumptuous meal was brought in, and the three sat down to as merry a little dinner party as there was that night in the city of New York.

“How honored we are, Reggie,” exclaimed Mabel, “to have the great Mr. Matson as our guest! There are hundreds of people who would give their eyes for such a chance.”

She flashed a mocking glance at Joe who grew red, as she knew he would. The little witch delighted in making him blush. It made his bronzed face still more handsome, she thought.

“You’d better make the most of it,” Joe grinned in reply. “I may fall down in the World Series and be batted out of the box. Then you’ll be pretending that you don’t know me.”

“I’m not afraid of that,” returned Mabel. “After the way you pitched this afternoon, I’m sure there’s nothing in the American League you need to be afraid of.”

“That’s loyal, anyway,” laughed Joe. “Still you never can tell. It’s happened to me before and it may happen again. Then, too, you must remember that it’s a different proposition I’ll be up against.

“Take, for instance, the Chicagos to-day. I’ve pitched against them before and I knew their weak points. I knew the fellows who can’t hit a high ball but are death on the low ones. I knew the ones who would try to wait me out and those who would lash out at any ball that came within reach. I knew the ones who would crowd the plate and those who would inch in to meet the ball. The whole problem was to feed them what they didn’t want.

“But it will be different when I come up against the American Leaguers. It will be some time before I catch on to their weak points. And while I’m learning, one of them may line out a three bagger or a home run that will win the game.”

“You speak of their weak points as though they all had them,” put in Reggie.

“They do,” replied Joe, promptly. “All of them have some weakness, and sooner or later you find it out. If there’s any exception to that rule at all, it’s Ty Cobb of Detroit. If he has any weakness, no one knows what it is. For the last seven years he’s led the American League in batting, base stealing and everything else worth while. All pitchers look alike to him. He’s a perfect terror to the twirlers.”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about him, anyway,” smiled Mabel. “It’s lucky that he’s on the Detroits instead of the Bostons. For I suppose it’s the Bostons you’ll have to face in the World Series.”

“I guess it will be,” answered Joe. “Their season doesn’t end until Friday. They’ve had almost as tight a race in their league as we’ve had in ours, for the Athletics have been close on their heels. But the Bostons have to take only one game to clinch the flag while the Athletics will have to win every game. So it’s pretty nearly a sure thing for the Red Sox.”

“Which team would you rather have to fight against?” asked Reggie.

“Well, it’s pretty near a toss-up,” answered Joe, thoughtfully. “Either one will be a hard nut to crack. That one hundred thousand dollar infield of the Athletics is a stone wall, but I think the Boston outfield is stronger. That manager of the Athletics is in a class by himself, and what he doesn’t know about the game isn’t worth knowing. He’s liable to spring something on you at any time. Still the Boston manager is mighty foxy, too, and you have to keep your eyes open to circumvent him. Take it all in all, I’d just about as lief face one team as the other.”

“It will be a little shorter trip for you between the two cities, if you happen to have the Athletics for your opponents,” suggested Mabel.

“Yes,” assented Joe. “In that case we’d have a good long sleep in regular beds every night, while on the Boston trip we’d have to put up with sleeping cars. Still the jumps wouldn’t be big in either case, and it’s a mighty sight better than if we had to go out West for the Chicagos or Detroits.

“From a money point of view the boys are rooting for Boston to win,” he went on.

“Why, what difference would that make?” asked Mabel in surprise.

“Because the Boston grounds hold more people than the Athletics’ park,” was the answer.

“That’s something new to me,” put in Reggie. “I’ve attended games at both grounds, and it didn’t seem to me there was much difference between them.”

“The answer is,” replied Joe, “that we’re not going to play at Fenway Park, the regular American League grounds in Boston, in case Boston is our opponent.”

“How is that?”

“Because Braves Field, the National League grounds there, will hold over forty-three thousand people, and the owners have put it at the disposal of the American League Club,” Joe answered.

“That’s a sportsmanlike thing to do,” commented Mabel, warmly.

“It certainly is,” echoed her brother.

“Oh, the days of the old cutthroat policy have gone by,” said Joe. “The National and American Leagues used to fight each other like a pair of Kilkenny cats, but they’ve found that there is nothing in such a game. This act of the Boston people shows the new spirit. We saw it, too, when the grandstand was burned at the Polo Grounds. The ruins hadn’t got through smoking before the Yankee management offered the use of its grounds to McRae as long as he needed them. And then a little later when the Yankees lost their grounds because streets were going to be cut through them, McRae returned the favor by giving them the use of the Polo Grounds. It’s the right spirit. Fight like tigers to win games, but outside of that, let live and wish the other luck.”

“Tell me honestly, Joe, what you think the New York’s chances are, in case they have to stack up against Boston,” said Reggie.

“Well,” answered Joe, thoughtfully, toying with his spoon, “if you’d asked me that question a week ago, I’d have said that New York would win in a walk. But just now I wouldn’t be anywhere near so sure of that.”

“You mean the accident to Hughson?” put in Mabel.

“Exactly that. He was going like a house afire just before that. You saw what he did to Chicago in the first game. He had those fellows eating out of his hand. He was simply unhittable. That fadeaway of his was zipping along six inches under their bats. They didn’t have a Chinaman’s chance.

“Then, too, in addition to that splendid pitching his reputation helps a lot. The minute it is announced that Hughson is going to pitch, the other fellows begin to curl up. They’re half whipped before they start, because they feel that he has the Indian sign on them, and it’s of no use to try.”

“That’s so,” assented Reggie. “Besides, when he’s in the box his own team feel they’re in for a victory and they play like demons behind him.”

“It’s going to take away a lot of confidence from our boys,” said Joe, “and in a critical series like that, confidence is half the battle. We could have lost two or three other men and yet have a better chance than we will have with Hughson out of the game.”

“Isn’t there any chance of his recovering in time to take part in some of the games?” asked Mabel.

“A bare chance only,” Joe replied. “I saw the old boy yesterday, and he’s getting along surprisingly fast. You see, he always keeps himself in such splendid physical condition that he recovers more quickly than an ordinary man would. We’ve got over a week yet before the Series starts, and he may possibly be able to go in before the games are over. If he does, that will be an immense help. But McRae had figured on having him pitch the first game, so as to get the jump on the other fellows at the very start. Then he could have gone in at least twice more, perhaps three times, and it would have been all over but the shouting.”

“It’s lucky that McRae has you at hand to step into Hughson’s shoes,” declared Reggie.

“Step into them!” exclaimed Joe. “Yes, and rattle around in them. Nobody can fill them.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” cried Mabel warmly--so warmly in fact that her brother looked at her in some surprise.

“Yes,” she repeated, holding her ground valiantly, “I mean just what I say. It’s awfully generous of you, Joe, to praise Hughson to the skies, but there’s no use in underrating yourself. I don’t think Hughson can pitch one bit better than you can. Look at that game this afternoon. I heard lots of people around me say that they never saw such pitching in all their lives. And what you did to-day you can do again. So there!”--she caught herself up, smiling a little confusedly, as though she had betrayed herself, but finished defiantly--“if that be treason, make the most of it.”

Joe’s heart gave a great leap, not only at the tribute but at the tone and look that had gone with it. So this was what Mabel thought of him! This was how she believed in him!

His head was whirling, but in his happy confusion one thought kept pounding away at his consciousness, a thought that never left him through all the tremendous test that lay before him:

“I’ve _got_ to make good! I’ve _got_ to make good!”