CHAPTER XIII

OFF FOR THE TRAINING CAMP

The next few days flew by as though on wings. There were a hundred things to be done before Joe would set out on the long swing around the circuit that was to increase or diminish his fame, as fate might decree. Above all, he was anxious to spend all the time he could in practice, so as to report at the training camp in superb condition.

One thing that pleased him immensely was the success of the scheme he had carried through with Dick Talbot. True to his promise, Dick had been on hand at the appointed time with his camera and they had carried out the program he had suggested. Joe broke the white sheet of paper stretched between the bamboo poles so repeatedly and conclusively that only an idiot could have questioned that he had curved the ball. And it is only fair to state that when the film was reeled off before the astonished eyes of Professor Enoch Crabbe he admitted this fact.

“I have to admit that you are right, Mr. Matson,” he avowed, “and I’m sorry that I was so positive about it the other day. I shall have to study up the law that controls the curve, and by the time you come back at the end of the season perhaps I shall have found out what it is.”

“I’m sure that you can find it if anybody can, Professor,” said Joe, not to be outdone in politeness; and so the two opponents parted with increased respect for each other.

“I hear the Giants are going to train at Marlin Springs this year,” said Tom Davis, as they left the gymnasium and walked up the street together.

“Yes,” answered Joe. “McRae seems to have a liking for Texas as a place to get in condition. And he ought to know, for he’s tried almost every place on the map. He’s taken his team to Birmingham, to Memphis, to Los Angeles, and one year he didn’t go any farther south than Lakewood, New Jersey. So that if he’s finally fixed on Marlin, he must believe that it has advantages over all the others.”

“Isn’t this southern training trip a rather modern idea?” asked Tom.

“Oh, no,” answered Joe. “All the big teams have been doing it for a number of years now. I think it was old Cap Anson of the Chicagos who started the thing, in 1882. He took the team down south while all the other teams stayed in the north as usual. The result was that when the Chicagos came north they mowed down the other teams like grass and won the pennant that year without half trying. That put a flea in the ears of the other managers, and since then it has been a regular thing. It’s a mighty good thing, too, in more ways than one. It gives the manager a chance to try out all the material he has bought or drafted from the minor leagues. In the north, with so many cold and rainy days, they wouldn’t get half a chance. Then, too, there are usually plenty of good teams in the vicinity of the training grounds and the boys can get plenty of practice in regular games without the weather’s interfering. McRae, for instance, can find crack teams at Dallas and Waco and Houston that sometimes give the Giants all they want to do to win. The result is that when the boys come north they’re in crackerjack condition. They’re like so many thoroughbreds waiting for the flag to fall, and the public gets good games for its money from the very start of the season.”

“Just what time do you have to report?” asked Tom.

“In just about a week,” answered Joe. “I think I’ll start next Thursday afternoon.”

“Are you going straight to New York and go south with the rest of the team?” Tom inquired.

“I don’t think so,” was the reply. “McRae left it to me to pick out my route in any way that would be most convenient to me as long as I joined the party somewhere on the way. I think I’ll go by way of Goldsboro, North Carolina. The boys go through there, and that will be as good a place as any to meet them.”

Joe spoke with an elaborate affectation of carelessness, but he could not prevent that troublesome blood of his from flooding his face.

“Gee, Joe, but you’re red!” cried honest Tom. “You haven’t been exercising too much this afternoon, have you?”

“Not a bit of it,” returned Joe, with unnecessary emphasis. “I never felt better in my life.”

But if he could fool Tom, he could not “get away with it” with Clara, and he was subjected to an unmerciful teasing when that young lady learned of the route he had chosen.

“Goldsboro, North Carolina,” she mused. “Where have I heard that name before? Oh, how stupid of me! Of course, that is where Reggie lives. I suppose you’re awfully anxious to see him.”

But Joe was so engrossed in his packing just then that he pretended not to hear, and all her efforts to get a reply out of him, although carried out with a perseverance worthy of a better cause, ended in comparative failure.

The dreaded afternoon came at last, dreaded by all the members of the little family who were welded so closely together in heart and life. The others all went down to the train to see Joe off, and it was only the presence of a large part of the population of Riverside, who had come with a similar purpose, that kept the mother and sister from breaking down entirely at the thought of the long parting from the son and brother that they idolized. As it was, they bore up bravely, and waved their handkerchiefs with smiles that were tremulous as the train moved out of the station to the accompaniment of a storm of cheers from the crowd that packed the platform. Joe waved back, but he had eyes for only three figures in all that throng. The train rounded a curve and he was off, leaving the old home town behind him for many months to come.

The train was a local and he had to travel twenty miles before he should reach the Junction, where he was to connect with the “Flyer.” He found the latter train puffing impatiently when he arrived, and it was the work of a moment to transfer his belongings to the sleeper. He found the seat which his ticket called for and settled down for an unbroken trip to Goldsboro.

He was lost in the pleasant thoughts this name called up when the porter passed through announcing that dinner was ready in the dining car. Joe’s healthy appetite seldom had to be prodded by a second announcement, and he promptly went forward. He found a good seat facing forward, and he was soon engrossed in a careful study of the bill of fare. It proved to be all that he could ask, and he soon had a most tempting and abundant meal spread before him.

He applied himself to this conscientiously, and was half-way through the meal when a man took the seat directly opposite him. Joe gave him a passing glance and saw that he was a man rather advanced in years but who bore himself with a certain suppleness and vigor that bespoke an early athletic training. It was an honest, pleasing face he had, Joe decided, after a careless glance. Then he went on eating and forgot all about the stranger.

But the newcomer kept looking at Joe from time to time with a puzzled expression, as though he had seen him before but scarcely knew how to place him. Several times he seemed on the point of addressing the young pitcher, but checked himself. At last the impulse proved too strong for him to resist.

“Beg pardon,” he said, “but your face looks very familiar to me. Would you mind telling me your name?”

Joe looked up with quick suspicion. He had been approached more than once by oily strangers who had sought to scrape acquaintance, and he had learned to be on his guard. But there was nothing in the frank smile and candid face before him to arouse distrust, and he answered readily:

“Not the least in the world. My name is Joseph Matson.”

“Not the Matson that is going to play on the Giants this year?” asked the stranger eagerly.

“I guess I am,” returned Joe, smiling.

“That explains why your face looked so familiar!” exclaimed the other. “I’ve seen your picture in various papers twenty times in the last week. I’ve read all about you, and I’m mighty glad to meet you. My name is Wilson, and I’m an old ball player myself. In fact, I guess I was playing professional ball twenty years or more before you were born.”

“That’s a long time ago,” laughed Joe, as he took the stranger’s offered hand and shook it heartily. “What team did you play on and what was your position?”

“I played right field on the old Red Stockings of Cincinnati,” was the answer.

Joe almost jumped out of his seat.

“Not _the_ Red Stockings, the team of 1869?” he cried. “Not the team that whipped them all, that went through the whole season without losing a single game?”

“That was my team,” was the answer given calmly, though a gleam of pride and exultation came into the stranger’s eyes as he noted Joe’s enthusiasm.