Follow the Ball

That evening Joe sought out Rusty in his room in the village. “I guess I might as well quit,” he said. “I’m no good at it, Rusty, and there’s no sense in my taking the place of...

In September Joe was back again at Holman’s, three months older, nearly an inch taller than he had been the preceding fall and a good eight pounds heavier than when he had left...

While I had never had any sympathy for fellows who made a fetish of athletic sports and competitions, I could not help being concerned for Lamar. Of course it would serve his ec...

When they were back at school Joe proceeded enthusiastically with his skating education. Fortunately there was cold weather from New Year’s Day on and plenty of hard ice. Confid...

Hal won the captaincy, and two days later he and Joe and Bert Madden started for home. About three hundred other youths also started for home, but none of them lived in Central...

The Coach and Captain Hop MacLean and Danny Lord, who was first-string quarterback, and Slim Porter went off to Hawleyville early Saturday morning to see Munson play Kernwood an...

Instinctively Joe worked harder at the pedals and gained the corner; was around it before the futility of further pursuit came to him. He looked back for sight of a policeman bu...

That was Thursday. The deciding game was to be played in the city on Saturday. The Holman’s team returned to the well-nigh empty campus and settled down for the wait. Gus didn’t...

The school year was nearly over and there were many things that he had meant to do and hadn’t done. There was that extra course in the spring term, there was that reading that w...

Ginger called all and sundry by their first names; all, that is, save Gus Cousins and Manager Naylor. Gus was “Mister Coach” and Naylor was just “Mister.” There was no hint of d...

Ginger returned the discarded bat to the orderly array near the bench, sank to one knee beside it and watched anxiously. It was evident that Cross meant to send that game to ext...

In August Hal wrote persuasively from the north, renewing his invitation to Joe. Joe was to come up and spend the last fortnight before school began again, insisted Hal. With th...

Another night of deep, restful sleep followed, and in the morning they woke to find that it had snowed a good two inches already and was still at it. There was enough wind, howe...

Next morning’s _Courier_, which was Mr. Kenton’s choice among the Central City dailies, had a full half-column about the Vigilantes. The _Courier_ was quite enthusiastic, and pr...

Three boys descended from the afternoon train, dragging after them duffle bags, blanket rolls and bundles until, as the four-car train took up its slow and seemingly painful jou...

A few yards short of his goal, his foot caught on something and Joe measured his length with a force that almost drove the breath from his body. Fortunately the fall had left hi...

As it happened, Joe had been coming back along the shore when the two men had emerged from the woods at the left of the cabin. They had not, he was certain, seen him, for he had...

Something like a half hour later Philip and Joe passed out of Central City on the road that led to Squirrel Lake. The sun was still above the purple, hazy hills beyond the river...

Joe swung dextrously between a big red truck and a light delivery wagon and slowed down at the curb, where, transferring one foot from pedal to sidewalk, he balanced his bicycle...

“Babe” Linder, the big catcher of the Holman’s School nine, turned in the operation of pulling on his huge mitt and observed the speaker with mild interest. “Hello, son,” he ret...

Holman’s School had won the first contest with Munson, and she wanted very much to win the second and do away with the necessity of playing a third on neutral territory. This wa...