CHAPTER XXIII

“BATTER UP!”

Joe returned to Amesville at a little before three on Sunday afternoon. He had meant to get back much earlier, but several things had prevented. In the first place, he had unintentionally taken advantage of the privilege of late slumber afforded by the quiet hotel and had not awakened until after eight o’clock, a most unusual proceeding for Joe! But, late as he had been, he had dressed and was reading a morning newspaper before Mr. Graham appeared. Breakfast was a leisurely ceremony and a surprisingly pleasant one. Joe had never seen anyone pay so much attention to the ordering of a meal as the writer did, and when it came it was quite unlike any breakfast Joe had ever partaken of. Strawberries were served with the stems on, a half-dozen big, luscious ones arranged in a circle about a pyramid of powdered sugar. Joe waited, at a loss as to how to proceed, until Mr. Graham had shown the way by lifting a berry by its stem, dipping it in the sugar and transferring it to his mouth. His host, without appearing to observe Joe’s hesitation, explained that strawberries eaten in that way were far easier to digest than when accompanied by cream. Then had arrived, after finger-bowls, two half chickens, broiled and laid on toast, Julienne potatoes――only Joe called them “shoestring”――tiny crisp, crescent-shaped rolls, orange marmalade, coffee――this, too, without cream, fashioned on the table in some bewildering way with boiled milk and a tiny pat of sweet butter!――and, last but by no means least, golden-brown griddle-cakes served with honey.

That had been a wonderful breakfast, indeed, and Joe had eaten until he felt ashamed of himself, but without, since they spent all of an hour at the table with the June sunshine lying across the white napery and glistening on the silver, any after discomfort. Later, when Joe had spoken of a ten o’clock train, Mr. Graham vetoed the plan at once, lightly but firmly, and they had taken a long walk, during which the writer, who seemed to know everything in the city worth seeing and the shortest way to reach it, had made Joe work his shorter legs to the utmost to keep up with his companion’s giant strides!

At the station Mr. Graham had gone to the news-stand and doubtless vastly surprised the attendant by selecting four books from the pen of Westley Graham. From there they went to the ledge outside the ticket office and Mr. Graham wrote Joe’s name and his own on the fly-leaf of each and then piled them into the boy’s arms. After that, in spite of Joe’s earnest protests, he had bought the latter’s ticket and parlour car seat.

“You can get some lunch at Toledo,” said Mr. Graham. “You’ll have twenty minutes there.”

“I shan’t ever want to eat again,” replied Joe with a wistful recollection of that breakfast.

The other laughed. “Oh, yes, you will. You’ll be hungry by the time you reach Toledo. If you’re not, you’re no real boy.” At the parlour car steps Mr. Graham shook hands warmly. “Good-bye, Faulkner,” he said. “We’ve had rather a jolly little party, haven’t we? I’ve enjoyed it, anyhow. Good luck to you, my boy. You’ll find an address in one of those books that usually gets me. Drop me a line some day and tell me how you’re getting on. Let me know who wins that game on Wednesday. I’d like to see that.”

“I don’t suppose you ever get to Amesville?” asked Joe anxiously.

“Amesville?” Mr. Graham smiled. “I get everywhere sooner or later, Faulkner. Whether I do or don’t, we’ll run across each other again some day. That’s my experience. It’s a wee bit of a world, after all, and a mighty nice thing about it is that friends are always meeting.”

Joe had opened one of the books as soon as he had had his last glimpse of Mr. Graham on the station platform, and, in spite of the latter’s prediction, had not lunched at Toledo. Instead, he sat on a baggage truck and pursued the adventures of the hero of the tale with a breathless interest that almost lost him his train to Amesville!

His first act when he got home was to seek Mr. Chase, the station agent. But that gentleman was not on duty and so Joe enclosed the borrowed money in an envelope, scribbled a note that recounted the success of his expedition and thanked Mr. Chase for his assistance, and left it at the office.

It was a worried and anxious Aunt Sarah who met him at the door, and Joe’s first half-hour at home was devoted to a full and complete history of the past twenty-four hours, during which he was made to drink two cups of tea and eat three slices of currant cake. Then he called up the Strobes’ house, found that Jack had been asking for him and was at last able to see him, and forthwith hurried to the meeting. Jack was swathed in a dressing-robe and flanked by medicines and an atomiser when Joe found him, but he looked pretty healthy and declared that he felt fine today and was to go out tomorrow unless the pesky doctor changed his mind in the morning.

“I was frightened to death I wouldn’t be able to play Wednesday,” he said; “but I can. Say, did Frank play Saturday?”

“Yes, he did, Jack, for a couple of innings; no, three.”

Jack groaned. “It’s all up, then! Bat will put him in Wednesday just out of kindness. Isn’t that rotten luck? Who invented quinsy, anyway?”

“Edison, I suppose.”

“Oh, it’s all well enough for you to grin, but I lose that wager and Handsome Frank will be more conceited than ever! And I won’t get that bat-case――――”

“I’ll buy that for you if you’ll shut up about it,” declared Joe desperately.

“I don’t want you to. I can buy it myself, for that matter. It――it’s beating Frank that matters.”

“And only the other day you were saying that you were sorry for him!”

“Well, I’m not today,” said Jack grimly. “Say, where were you all the morning? I thought surely you’d come around or call up.”

“Most of the morning I was in Detroit,” answered Joe soberly.

“In Detroit! What do you mean, Detroit?”

“Detroit, Michigan. There isn’t any other, is there?”

“You mean you’ve been to Detroit today?” asked Jack incredulously. Joe shook his head.

“I came from there today. I went last night.”

Jack stared unbelievingly. “What for? What’s the joke?”

“For seventy-five dollars,” replied Joe, smilingly. “And I got it, or most of it.”

“Say, are you batty?” demanded Jack impatiently. “What seventy-five dollars? What’s the big idea?”

So Joe told his story once more, while Jack’s eyes got bigger and rounder and he hurled questions at the narrator breathlessly. And when he had heard all about it and had had every last detail explained to his satisfaction he deliberately kicked over a chair.

“Wouldn’t that make you sick?” he exclaimed. “I have to go and get quinsy and lose all that fun! Of course Young couldn’t have sneaked off when I was well! Oh, dear, no! It had to be when I was laid up! Hang the luck, anyway! Say, if I’d been along, Joey, I’d have punched his head!”

“Just as well you weren’t, then,” laughed Joe. “As it was, everything went off quietly and strictly according to the rules-book.”

“Well, what do you know about it!” marvelled Jack. “Joey, when they named you ‘Lucky’ Faulkner they hit it just about right! Why, you didn’t have one chance in ten thousand to get that money back!”

“I guess that’s so. Come to think of it, Jack, I didn’t get it back. It was Mr. Graham did it.”

“Never mind who did it, you brought it home. Now what are we going to do for someone to look after the stand?”

“I’ve been thinking that the best thing would be to put the tin box back for a few days. School closes Thursday, and after that we can look after it ourselves.”

“All right. I dare say four days won’t lose us much. I wonder, though, how we’re going to like sticking around that lobby when the hot weather comes. That won’t be so pleasant, eh?”

“I don’t believe the Adams Building will be hotter than any other place,” replied Joe. “Anyway, if we’re going to earn money we’ve got to work for it and put up with some things. I’ve got to be going now, Jack.”

“What’s your hurry? I haven’t seen you for an age!”

“I’ll drop around after supper if you can see folks then. But I want to go and give this nine-fifty to Mrs. Bennett. I guess she needs it worse than we do.”

Jack was back in school Monday morning, a bit weak in the legs, but otherwise as good as ever, or so he declared. He had two days of examinations to make up and, since he would not have been of much use to the team anyway, he stayed away from practice that afternoon and toiled over his papers in a deserted class-room under the eagle eye of one of the teachers.

On Tuesday there was only an hour of light work for the players. The Second Team ended its season with a game with the grammar school, which it won in a breath-taking tenth inning rally, and the diamond was given over to the workmen who were to put it in shape for the morrow’s battle.

Petersburg descended on Amesville the next day at noon and went to lunch at the principal hotel. She arrived nearly a hundred strong and armed with a multitude of gay banners, which she waved jubilantly as, luncheon over, the team and its followers took trolley cars to the field.

Petersburg had gone through a more than usually successful season, playing nineteen games, of which she had won twelve and tied one. In Calvert she had a pitcher of known ability who had last year proved a good deal of a riddle to Amesville’s batters, and her second-choice twirler, Gorman, had been coming fast during the last month and had only a week ago held Minton School to one hit. For the rest, Petersburg had an average team, with a fast, snappy infield and an outfield composed of two veterans and one newcomer. Petersburg had not gained the reputation of a hard-hitting outfit this year, but an analysis of the scores of past conflicts would have shown that she had usually secured hits when they were most needed.

Amesville, however, went into the game that afternoon with more confidence than usual. There had been seasons when she had had a strong pitching staff and a poor fielding team, seasons when she had been brilliant at fielding and weak at batting, and seasons when she could bat anything and had no talent in the box. But this year it was felt that the Brown-and-Blue was an evenly rounded nine with good pitchers, clever fielders, and the ability to bat, and most of the local rooters who filled the two stands behind first base and flowed over on to the field held that it was less a question of which team would win than what the score would be!

Petersburg had nearly an hour of practice before Amesville trotted out to claim the diamond, and by that time the audience had assembled and the stage was set. The umpire had been imported from Lima, and, since he had presumably never heard of either Amesville or Petersburg High School in his life, was credited with being about as impartial as an umpire could be. He was a small, rotund, business-like-looking chap who wore the regulation blue flannels and had a voice like a mild-mannered bull.

Amesville’s batting order was as follows: Smith, s.; Morris, cf.; Strobe, lf.; Hale, 3b.; Peddie, 2b.; Faulkner, 1b.; Cummings, rf.; Craig, c.; Pollock, p. Toby Williams hoped to get into the game before the curtain fell on the afternoon’s performance, and probably Carl Moran entertained a similar hope, but it was pretty certain that Tom would remain on the mound as long as the opponent showed its teeth. On the bench, when the Amesville players trotted out for the opening inning, remained Williams, Moran, Foley, Loomis, Speyer, Johnson, a capable hitter from the disbanded Scrubs, and Buster Healey. Buster was not in playing togs, however, and he viewed the world from behind a pair of horn spectacles with thick lenses that gave him the appearance of a wise owl. Manager Mifflin was there, too, with his battered score-book spread open on his knees, and so was Coach Talbot, in low-voiced conversation with Mr. John Hall, a privileged well-wisher of the team.

At half-past two to the second Mr. Reardon, the imported umpire, faced the stands in “big-league” fashion and announced the batteries in a voice that carried easily to the outfield fence: “Batthery for Amesville, Pollock and Craig! For Petthersburg, Calvert and Beale. _Batther up!_”