Part 12

We didn’t stay at the table after Mrs. Perrin went because we weren’t smoking, and Mr. Perrin pretended he didn’t want to. So we went back to the library, and the first thing I knew Pete was over at the piano with Mrs. Perrin pulling the music about for him. Pete’s a wonder at the ivories, and he played and we all sang; Mr. Perrin, too, when he knew the song; and had a regular merry-merry for about an hour. Then we had to mosey back to Cambridge, and Mr. Perrin sent out and had Pete’s car brought around from the stable. They made us take sweaters and coats, for we hadn’t brought any, and it was getting chilly. We were to leave them with Bob. We said good-night to Mrs. Perrin in the library, and she made us all promise to come again, which wasn’t hard to do, for we were dead eager to. Mr. Perrin went out to the car with us and stood around while we lighted up and packed ourselves in. Pete started the engine the first time and tried not to look surprised, and we all shook hands and Mr. Perrin said we mustn’t forget our promise to come again, and we said he wasn’t to worry about that! But then he didn’t move away, and we saw he had something to say and Pete throttled down his engine.

“There’s one thing I’d like to know,” he said earnestly, “and it’s this. I want Harvard to win this year, boys, perhaps every bit as much as you do. I’m afraid I haven’t appeared very sympathetic this evening, but I do sympathize with you in your trouble. I’ve been through with something of the same sort myself, and I haven’t forgotten. And I’m not going to tell you that whether we win or lose the world’s going to keep on whirling. I know it didn’t seem so to me in the old days, and it doesn’t seem so to you. I don’t believe there’s an old player who follows the fortunes of the Team any more closely than I do, boys. I’ve ridden eighty miles at night to learn the result of a Yale game. I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to think that I’ve outgrown my devotion to the college, my loyalty to the Team.”

He paused and Pete pretended to tinker with the switch.

“And now one thing more,” said Mr. Perrin. “Two things, rather; for I want to tell you that I appreciate the fine way in which you have refrained from showing impatience or criticism of my attitude in regard to Bob. It may be that you secretly look on me as a selfish, pig-headed old codger――――”

Billy started to say something, but Mr. Perrin continued:

“And perhaps I am. But partly because you have acted like three of God’s gentlemen and partly because――well, because an old player can never quite forget, I’m going to leave it in your hands. If you think the Team needs Bob more than I do, you tell him that he is to go in there and play his level best! Good-night, boys!”

* * * * *

Mearsville was ten miles behind before anyone said anything. Then it was Billy, and, since we had a hard road and the engine purred no louder than a kitten, we heard him even though he only muttered. “Fellows _do_ get hurt,” he growled. “You can’t deny that. Look at the list of them just in our own time: Choate and Riley and ‘Fan’ Tanner and a whole bunch, to say nothing of this year’s list.”

A mile further on, I said: “I suppose a fellow with a busted leg wouldn’t be much use out there on that job.”

Going into Worcester, Pete said: “There’s that chap Nelson.”

“Did well at Exeter,” said Billy.

“With six weeks to work on him,” I murmured, “seems to me――――”

Later Pete broke out with: “Hang him, he had no business saying that we thought him selfish and pig-headed!”

“Still, we did, you know,” I reminded, “before.”

“Before, yes, but not after! Anyway, I didn’t.”

“Mean to say I did?” demanded Billy somewhat hotly.

“Shut up! What we’ve got to decide is this,” I said. “What are we going to tell Porter to-morrow?”

“Tell him?” grunted Pete, taking a corner on two wheels. “Tell him nothing doing!”

I showed this to Pete, who went in heavy for English Composition and can talk you deaf, dumb and blind about characterization, climax, crisis, suspense and _dénouement_, and he says I finished my story at the last paragraph and that if I write any more I’ll be pulling an anti-climax. Maybe he’s right, but I know that if I was reading this yarn I’d want to know who won the Yale game. And so I’m going to tell you. And if you think the way Pete does, why, you can stop up there where it says “nothing doing.” That’s all right, isn’t it?

Well, Bob Perrin didn’t come out for the team. Porter fumed and kicked for a while, and then yanked Nelson off the bench and sicked half a dozen assistant coaches on him. He had a pretty tough time of it for about five weeks. No matter which way he turned there was always one or more coaches waiting to grab him. I’m not sure they didn’t read him to sleep out of the rules book and camp outside his door at night. But they did what they set out to do, believe me! They made an All-America end of him, even if they almost killed him in the operation. And, although we lost to Brown, and although Princeton swamped us, we came right back on the twenty-fourth of November and put it over the Elis, 7 to 3.

As Billy would say, we were that sort!

JONESIE AND THE ALL-STARS

I

Joe Tyson, playing third on the Randall’s School first team, pegged the ball across in the general direction of first base. Steve Cook stabbed the air with a gloved hand and the ball continued blithely on its way, disappearing behind the grandstand. Four blue-stockinged youths raced home, the fourth registering the tenth tally for Popham Academy.

Daniel Webster Jones, Jr., seated cross-legged in front of the bench on the home side of the field, score book on knees, credited the enemy with four runs and added a black dot under the “E” column and opposite the name of Tyson.

“Of course,” murmured Jonesie reflectively, “in order to throw to first you’ve got to know more than the ball.”

Of the three occupants of the bench, weary and disgruntled with waiting, none replied to the sagacious observation. Jonesie, however, hadn’t expected any reply. He didn’t care. When there was no one to talk to, Jonesie talked to himself. That was much better than keeping still. Jonesie had a horror of being bored, and nothing bored him quicker than inactivity, either of body or tongue. That was the reason why, on a perfectly glorious afternoon in early June, he was to be found seated Turk-fashion here keeping score for the Team.

Art Simpson, the manager, whose duty it was to preside over the official score book, was in the infirmary with a delightful case of double mumps, and Billy Carpenter, baseball captain, had, so to speak, drafted Jonesie from a comfortable seat in the stand, thrust a black-covered book and a leaky fountain pen upon him and bade him keep the score. Jonesie knew how to do that after a fashion, but his fashion was not Art Simpson’s, and he soon found the intricacies too many for him. After Jimmy Buell had been caught flat-footed off second and chased down between that station and third by exactly six-ninths of the opposing team, Jonesie gave it up in despair. The only redeeming feature of his task was the fact that it allowed him to square accounts to some extent with one or two fellows he had grudges against. Thus Carpenter himself, for imposing such a task on Jonesie, had been credited with two errors when, as a matter of fact, Billy had so far played his position faultlessly. Jimmy Buell, too, had erred, according to the book, not once, but three times, and even Steve Cook, who was a particular friend of Jonesie’s, had a neat period set opposite his name in the error column. Jonesie had chuckled when he set that down. It was always fun getting a rise out of Steve!

Daniel Webster Jones, Jr., was a cherub-faced youth of fifteen with coppery brown hair brushed sleekly back, gray-blue eyes that were pools of truth and innocence, a somewhat button-like nose that attested to good nature, and a general appearance of physical and mental well-being. Folks generally, and nice elderly ladies in particular, fell in love with Jonesie at first sight. They simply couldn’t help it. Such candor and truthfulness and innocence shone from his countenance it did one good merely to look upon it. For the rest, he was comfortably rounded as to figure, a fact which perhaps increased his likeness to a cherub, dressed very carefully――Jonesie was always a little in advance of the fashions――and carried himself with an air.

After much searching the ball was back in the pitcher’s hands. (For no especial reason Jonesie credited Gordon, who had thrown it in, with an assist!) Carey Bingham, football captain, who was umpiring, was evidently getting tired of standing out there in the sun, for he called three strikes on the Popham batsman in succession――Proudfoot, the Randall’s slab artist, had never been known to pitch three good ones in succession before!――and then ruled the next man out at first in spite of the fact that Steve Cook had quite failed to tag him. But Popham had a comfortable lead of eight runs, it was getting late and Carey wanted to get on the river before suppertime. Popham objected only half-heartedly to the decision, being doubtless quite willing to hurry the battle through.

The bench filled as the perspiring players trotted in from the field. Billy Carpenter, squeezing in behind Jonesie, glanced at the score.

“Ten to two, isn’t it?” he asked wearily.

“Yes,” replied Jonesie. “Gordon up! Proudfoot on deck! Billings in the hold!”

“What’s the inning, Jonesie?” inquired Joe Tyson from further along the bench.

“Last of the ninth,” answered Jonesie promptly.

“Get out! It’s the eighth!” declared Billy Carpenter. “Let’s see. Of course it’s the eighth, you idiot!”

“Is it?” murmured the non-official scorer. “All right. I just said ninth so as you fellows would get off easier.”

“Is that so?” said Billy unamiably. “Never you mind about us. Just you―――― Here, what the dickens are those things over there in my column?”

“Those?” asked Jonesie innocently. “Oh, those are errors.”

“Errors! When did I make an error, you lunkhead?”

“I forget; third, I guess; maybe it was the fourth.”

“You’re dippy! I haven’t made an error to-day! You rub those out, Jonesie, or I’ll kick you back to school!”

“My mistake,” replied Jonesie untroubledly, canceling the dots. “Say, Billy, why don’t you have a good team?”

“The team’s all right,” answered the captain, mollified as the untruthful periods disappeared. “We’ve had perfectly rotten luck to-day.”

“Oh, sure!” Jonesie’s tone was maddeningly sarcastic. “Blame it on the luck, Billy. Say, honest, Billy――――”

“Don’t you be so fresh with your ‘Billys,’ kid,” advised the other, prodding Jonesie’s spine with the toe of his shoe. Billy was a senior, and at Randall’s seniors exacted proper respect from lower-class fellows.

“My mistake, Mr. Carpenter,” corrected Jonesie sweetly. “I was going to say――Proudfoot up! Billings on deck!――going to say that I could make up a team of lower-class fellows that would beat you all around the block, Bil――er――Carpenter.”

“You could do wonders,” responded the captain derisively. “Suppose, though, you credit that Popham first base with a put-out if you’re not too busy talking nonsense.”

“No trouble at all,” murmured Jonesie, placing a period in the wrong space and so adding to the glory of the Popham left-fielder. “The trouble with this bunch of yours is that they can’t bat, can’t field and can’t handle the ball. Aside from that, though, Billy, they’re certainly a fine lot. Who threw that to first?”

“Why don’t you watch the game and find out?” snarled Billy.

“Call this a game? It――it’s a farce, that’s what it is, a blooming farce!” Jonesie gave the assist to the shortstop on a chance and chattered on. “You see, Bil――that is, Mr. Carpenter――in order to play baseball you’ve got to know more than the ball.”

“Oh, cut it out,” growled Billy. “A fat lot you know about it!”

“If you mean baseball, I know a great deal. I don’t pretend that I invented the game, Billy, but I certainly organized the Nile Valley League and――――”

“Say, you bum scorer, who’s up?”

“You are, you talented right-fielder!”

“What on earth is the Nile Valley League?” inquired Billy, who had never heard of that mythical aggregation. Jonesie glanced around with a look of pitying surprise.

“And you’re captain of a ball team!” he exclaimed. He shook his head gently. “Honest, Billy, I look at you in wonder! You’re on deck, by the way.”

Billy got up and selected a bat with much care. Jonesie watched him pessimistically.

“Say, Cap, in order to use that you’ve got to know more than the bat,” he volunteered helpfully. Billy scowled.

Randall’s failed to add to her score and Popham came in. With a man on first the second batsman lined a hot one at Billy, and Billy watched it travel into center field while he wrung a bunch of aching fingers. Jonesie smiled and restored one of the canceled errors opposite the captain’s name.

“Prophetic,” he murmured. “That’s what it was, prophetic!”

Popham added another run to her tally in that first of the ninth, but Jonesie didn’t trouble to score it. He was too busy drawing a picture of Steve Cook at first on the margin of the page. It wasn’t a good likeness, but it showed a lot of action, and it pleased Jonesie. So enthralled was he with his artistic endeavors that the teams had changed sides before he realized it, and he hurriedly set down several assists, put-outs and errors wherever they looked best.

Billy was disgruntled when he got back to the bench, and he was rather rude in the way in which he thrust Jonesie aside to get his seat.

“Ah,” observed Jonesie, looking about with a gratified air, “the heroes are back again! In order to catch a ball, Billy, you’ve got to know――――” But a muscular hand closed about Jonesie’s throat from behind and the remark was not concluded. Instead, “Buell at bat!” he announced huskily. “Gordon on deck! Proudfoot in the hold!”

Jonesie remained silent while Jimmy Buell fell victim to the puzzling slants of the Popham pitcher. But he felt communicative to-day, and after Buell had disconsolately reseated himself Jonesie went on brightly.

“Honest, Carpenter,” he said, “I wasn’t joshing about that.”

“About what?” growled Billy, working the fingers of his right hand experimentally to see if they were broken or merely dislocated.

“About making up a team from the lower-class fellows and showing your bunch a few of the rudiments of baseball. You see, Billy, it isn’t so much that your fellows _can’t_ play; I think they could if they knew how; but no one has ever shown them, do you see? Now, I think――what? yes, you’re on deck, Billings!――I think that if you could only play a game or two with a team that knew a little about it, do you see――――?”

“I’ll wring your neck for you in a minute,” returned Billy angrily. Jonesie silently considered the chances of Billy’s carrying out the threat. It was Billy himself who made the next remark.

“I’d like to see the bunch of players you’d get together, Jonesie,” he said. “They’d be wonders.” He laughed most disagreeably. “Bring ’em along some day and give us some sport, Jonesie. We need practice――――”

“You sure do! You need more than that, though, old top; you need to learn what to do on a ball field. For instance, now, if someone explained to Proudfoot that a bat is made to swat the ball with and not to hang over his right shoulder, he might do something besides posing like one of those Roman gladiators at the circus. Yes, sir, Billy, you fellows certainly ought to have a little instruction.”

Captain Carpenter opened his mouth to reply hastily and angrily. But he closed it again. After all, it was only Jonesie talking! Jonesie indicated on the score book that Proudfoot had been hit by a pitched ball and had taken his base and then credited the Popham pitcher with a put-out on the ground that anyone who inflicted pain on Proudfoot was a public benefactor and deserving of reward! Then, after another moment, Jonesie spoke again.

“What day will it be convenient to play us, Billy?” he asked.

“Play who?” inquired Billy, wondering whether it was worth while to relieve Steve Cook in the coacher’s box and try to get Proudfoot around for a run.

“This team I’m going to get up,” answered Jonesie. “Any day next week will suit us.”

Billy laughed derisively. “Cut out the comedy, Jonesie,” he begged.

“Well, I don’t much blame you,” was the reply. “It would look bad to be beaten by a lot of lower-class fellows. I guess you’re right to back down, Billy.”

“Oh, dry up, Jonesie! And credit Billings with a two-bagger, why don’t you? Say, what sort of a score is that you’re keeping, anyway?”

“This? This is the finest little score you ever saw. What did you say Billings made?”

“I said―――― _Good work, Charlie!_ Guess I’d better go out and take a hand.” The bases were filled and Billy’s good nature was restored by the prospect of adding a few runs to their meager score.

“Then you mean you won’t play us?” insisted Jonesie as the older boy pushed by him.

“Play you? Yes, we’ll play you, Jonesie.” Billy laughed. “Bring on your team!”

“Next――next Thursday?” yelled Jonesie.

“Sure thing!”

Jonesie whistled softly to himself, not at all melodiously, and scrawled strange forms on the margins of the score sheet. He was thinking. When Jonesie thought it was safe to assume that sooner or later, and probably at no very distant time, something of interest would happen at Randall’s!

His preoccupation was rudely dispelled by the sound of a bat striking a ball and the frenzied shouts of the few onlookers who had survived eight wearisome innings. Jonesie looked up to see Steve Cook legging it to first, the Popham center-fielder racing back toward the distant fence and the bases emptying. Behind first base Billy Carpenter was waving and shouting. Behind third Jimmy Buell was doing likewise. Jonesie sighed. More work for the scorer!

And then a flat silence fell. Away out in center field a blue-stockinged youth had, after a desperate race, put up a hand and pulled down the ball. Steve had flied out! The game was over! Popham had won, 11 to 2! or was it 10 to 2?

Jonesie added an error to Billy’s column on general principles and closed the book with a vindictive slam.

II

“Sparrow,” asked Jonesie that evening, “did you ever play ball?”

It was Saturday and so, of course, Sparrow Bowles, who was a tall and lanky youth and, in spite of being Jonesie’s roommate, was much disliked by that young gentleman, had a perfect right to spend his time over one of Dumas’ most exciting romances. It might be added, however, that Sparrow would have done just what he was doing had it been Monday or Friday or any other day of the week. I refuse to even insinuate a virtue that Sparrow didn’t possess. Sparrow looked up regretfully from the book.

“No,” he muttered. “What for?”

“Then you’re the chap I want,” replied Jonesie cheerfully. “I’ll put you down――――” He frowned intently for a moment at the list before him and poised a pencil above it――“I’ll put you down for third base.”

“You can put me down for――for batter, if you like,” jeered Sparrow, thus showing the depths of his ignorance of the National Game, “but you don’t get me to break my fingers!”

Jonesie didn’t even glance up. “That just about finishes it,” he murmured. “I think, though, I’ll put Pinky at first instead of Wigman. Pinky says if he doesn’t play there he won’t play at all.”

“Say, what are you talking about?” demanded Sparrow, curiosity getting the better of an inherent contempt for any of Jonesie’s plans.

“I’m talking,” answered Jonesie with dignity, folding his list and returning it to a pocket, “about the All-Stars Baseball Team. You see, I’m getting up a team to give Billy Carpenter’s bunch of amateurs a little practice. We play them Thursday.”

“Play the School Team!” Sparrow turned Dumas’ face down on his knees and stared blankly at his roommate. “Say, are you funny in your head? Why――why, they’d lick the stuffing out of any team you could make up!”

“That’s what Billy thinks,” chuckled Jonesie.

“Should think he might!”

“But this team I’m getting up, Sparrow, is something a little bit out of the ordinary. Listen to this.” Jonesie found his list again and read it for Sparrow’s benefit. “Bumstead, pitcher; Jones, catcher; Trainor, first base; Hoyt, second base; Bowles, third base; Wigman, shortstop; Clint Wrenn, right field; George Wrenn, center field; Nash, left field. What do you think of that, Sparrow?”

“I think you’re crazy,” replied Sparrow with enthusiasm. “I’ll bet there isn’t a fellow in the lot ever played baseball!”

“Yes, there is,” rejoined Jonesie with a grin. “Both those Wrenns have played a lot. I thought first I wouldn’t have them, but I couldn’t get anyone else. You see, I told Billy I’d make up the team from the lower classes. But I put the Wrenns in the outfield where they won’t be able to do much harm.”

“If they can play why don’t you let them?” asked Sparrow puzzledly.

“‘A little learning is a dangerous thing,’” quoted Jonesie. “I’ve tried to get fellows who never have played, because I can teach them. You can’t teach a fellow who thinks he knows the whole thing to start with. Do you see?”

“No, I don’t see,” said Sparrow bluntly. “I suppose it’s another of your silly jokes, but you don’t get me into it!”

“Joke!” exclaimed Jonesie indignantly. “There’s no joke about this. It’s a perfectly――er――sincere attempt to help the School Team. Didn’t you hear what happened to them to-day? Got licked by Popham! Ten to two――or eleven to two; there’s some doubt about the exact figures, I think! And what’s Popham? A little old one-horse school up back there in the woods! Don’t you see that the Team needs to go up against a bunch that can give them a few pointers on how the game ought to be played? Why, Billy was almost tearful when I agreed to get a nine up, and――――”

“Aw, piffle!” interrupted Sparrow inelegantly. Sparrow was somewhat addicted to inelegant speech. I trust he did not learn it from Dumas. “Why, there isn’t a fellow on that list who knows what a ball looks like! Maybe the Wrenns do, but the rest――――”

“You forget that we have three days to practice,” answered Jonesie patiently. “I shall teach them――――”

Sparrow laughed immoderately. “You! Bet you never played baseball in your life!”

“Right-o; at least, not much. But I’ve watched a lot of it and I’ve got a pretty good notion of the way it ought to be played, old Sparrow Hawk.” Jonesie found his cap, settled it on the extreme back of his head and moved toward the door. “First practice is at three on Monday, Sparrow.”

“Me! You won’t get me into it,” declared Sparrow warmly. “I won’t have anything to do with your old team!”

Jonesie observed him in a pained way. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist, Sparrow,” he said gently but firmly. “You wouldn’t like it generally known how Faculty found out about that little party at Steve Cook’s. You know, Sparrow, I’ve never told anyone about that――yet. But if you don’t play on the All-Stars I’ll be so dreadfully disappointed that I may get sort of loose-tongued. Disappointment affects me that way. Queer, isn’t it? Three o’clock, Sparrow. Ta-ta!”

Jonesie closed the door behind him, and Sparrow could hear him tramping down the corridor, whistling blithely; Sparrow frowned darkly at the book on his knees.

“And I never caught a ball in my life!” he groaned.

III

SCHOOL TEAM VS. ALL-STARS!

THERE WILL BE A GAME OF BASEBALL BETWEEN THE SCHOOL TEAM AND JONES’S ALL-STARS ON THE PLAYING FIELD AT THREE O’CLOCK THURSDAY. THIS IS THE ATHLETIC EVENT OF THE SEASON, AND IT IS HOPED THAT THE SCHOOL WILL SHOW ITS APPRECIATION OF THE EFFORTS OF THE ALL-STARS TO PROVIDE INSTRUCTION FOR THE SCHOOL TEAM BY TURNING OUT IN FORCE. SPECIAL TRAINS WILL BE RUN, AND A RATE OF ONE AND A HALF THE REGULAR FARE WILL BE CHARGED.

COME ONE, COME ALL!