CHAPTER XVI

YARDLEY IS PUZZLED

Of course the school turned out to a boy that afternoon to witness the contest. There was a good deal of curiosity regarding the now celebrated Mr. Holmes, but aside from that Yardley believed in supporting her teams and would have presented quite as big an audience had that extra attraction been missing. It is no very great task to sit in a grand stand or on the warm turf on a fine afternoon in spring and watch two well-trained teams contest a baseball game. On the contrary it is much more of a task to remain away when the crack of the bat is heard and the rival cheers float away up the hill. And that is what Gerald had to do; for at Yardley probation entailed remaining away from all athletic contests. To be sure, Gerald might have obtained a long-distance view of the game from the hill or from some window in Merle, but that would have been unsatisfactory at the best, and so he got a book from the school library and curled himself up on the window-seat by the open casement; and after awhile, since the book happened to be Stevenson’s “The Black Arrow,” forgot all about the ball game.

Porter went first to bat, and Reid quickly disposed of the first three men. Yardley applauded approvingly as the teams changed places. The far-famed Mr. Holmes proved to be a lank, carroty-haired youth with a freckled face and an extremely self-possessed appearance in the box. Some of the remarks that were passed about in the Yardley ranks were a bit unflattering.

“He is indeed lovely, is he not?” asked Alf on the bench. “He is not.”

“Bet he will never see eighteen again,” said Wheelock, who played in right field. “And look at the length of his arms, will you, fellows? He ought to be able to pitch, surely.”

“Hit it out, Cap!” advised Alf, as Durfee stepped to the plate and tapped his bat confidently on the ground. “He hasn’t got anything!”

Holmes viewed the batsman speculatively, glanced around him, wound himself into a tight knot, unwound and suddenly shot out his right arm.

“Strike one!” said the umpire.

Harry Durfee looked perplexed, tapped his bat again on the place, and waited. Again the red-haired pitcher turned and twisted and threw, and again the umpire called “Strike!” Durfee turned on him indignantly.

“Oh, say now, that was away out here!” he expostulated. “Gee, get your eyes working, won’t you?”

“Cut that out, Durfee,” warned Mr. Payson, the coach, from his seat at the end of the bench.

The next delivery looked pretty good to the Yardley captain, and he swung at it viciously. But the ball dropped under the bat and, with the handful of Porter Institute supporters howling gleefully, Durfee turned away to toss his bat to the ground and meet the grins of his teammates.

“He can fool you all right,” he muttered, as he squeezed himself in between Alf and Dan. “That drop of his is a peach. Watch out for it, Alf.”

Condit, third-baseman, went out on a pop-fly to catcher.

“Loring up,” announced the scorer. “Vinton on deck.”

Alf was a good hitter and not an easy man to deceive, but the Porter pitcher managed to fool him completely on the first three balls delivered; and in the end, although Alf managed to connect with the ball, he was an easy out, shortstop to first. Porter cheered derisively, and even Yardley was amused.

But if Holmes was effective, so for that matter was Reid. Reid was less showy than Holmes, but had some curves that were hard to judge. The first batsman got to first by being grazed on the elbow, but stayed there while the next three were called out on strikes. And so the game went for four innings, both sides proving unable to hit the ball safely. Durfee was getting quite peeved about it. His specialty was bunting, and once on first, it took a sharp infield to keep him from stealing around the cushions and reaching home. But twice, so far, he had been struck out, and he was getting thoroughly exasperated. At the beginning of the fourth inning the first Porter batsman up hit safely to short center; and, although the next man fouled out ingloriously, a bunt down the third-base line advanced the runner and left a man safe on first. The Porter coachers got busy then, and from behind first and third bases howled and shouted directions to the runners and made unkind observations regarding the pitcher.

“Take a lead there on second, old man! Come on, come on! Whoa! That’s enough! He won’t throw down! I’ll watch the baseman! Take a lead! Whoa! _Whoa!_ Up again! Get away, get away, get away! Whoa!”

“On your toes! We’ve got him going now! He don’t dare throw it! Look out for the double! Move along! Take more than that! That’s better! Stay right there! _Look out!_ Yah! He wouldn’t throw! He’s just bluffing! He’s up in the air! Look at that! Look at that! Oh, rotten! He can’t put ’em over!”

Well, Reid did let down for a space; most pitchers do now and then; and a base-hit over shortstop’s head looked for a moment like a tally. But there was some misunderstanding between runner and coach at third, and the former, after starting for home, doubled back on his tracks and contented himself with one base. But the bags were filled and only one man was out. Porter cheered and howled and whooped things up nobly considering the scarcity of her rooters, and Yardley gave a long, confident cheer to steady her players. Durfee’s sharp voice rang over the diamond:

“Come on now, fellows, and finish this! One down; play for the plate!”

But Reid was still unsteady and, amid the jeers of the enemy, sent in four bad ones one after another, and the batter walked to first, forcing in the first run of the game. Porter’s adherents voiced their delight, while the Yardley section of the grand stand was very quiet. Durfee appeared cheerfully undismayed.

“That’s all right, fellows!” he called. “That’s the only way they’ll score. We gave them that. Now then, let’s get the other two!”

And get them they did.

The next man tried to bunt, was fooled by an in-shoot, and sent the ball trickling toward third. Reid scooped it up, held the runner at third and then threw to first. After that Reid settled down and struck out the last man.

Yardley went to bat, but the best it could do with the delivery of the redoubtable Holmes was to pop up an infield fly and score two strike-outs. Durfee went out to his position growling exasperatedly. There was no more scoring until the sixth inning. Then a Porter man, a tail-ender on the batting list, managed somehow to connect with a fast ball and send it far out into the field for three bases. From third, after two of his mates had died ingloriously at the plate, he reached home on a hit to first that Black allowed to slip between his feet. Although Reid raced over and covered the bag, the substitute baseman gave a remarkable exhibition of juggling with the ball; and by the time he had finally got it into his hands and tossed it to the pitcher the Porter batsman was gripping a corner of the first sack with his fingers, having slid a good ten feet. That was all, however, for the next man was out, third to first.

Two to nothing didn’t look very encouraging to Yardley, and her supporters began to demand a hit. Durfee was up and he tried desperately to oblige, but his efforts came to naught. “Strike! You’re out!” said the umpire. The right-fielder slammed his bat down angrily and went back to the bench.

“Look here,” said Alf to Durfee, as Condit stepped to the plate to try his luck, “can’t we get that chap going somehow? I never saw a pitcher yet that couldn’t be bothered somehow, Harry.” Durfee looked dubious. And the umpire announced two strikes on Smith.

“He’s about as worried as a wooden Indian,” replied Durfee. “Don’t look as though he had any nerves. Besides, I don’t want to set out deliberately to win a game by rattling the pitcher. It isn’t good ethics, Alf.”

“Ethics be blowed! Every team tries to rattle its opponent, and you know it well enough. What does coaching amount to, anyhow, but rattling the other fellow? When you have the bases full you’re not thinking half as much about the runners as you are about the pitcher.”

“Well, that’s customary,” replied Durfee. “I don’t intend to set out to be a reformer, Alf, but I don’t like the idea of just starting out to rattle the pitcher. Besides, after all, it doesn’t make much difference whether we win this or not. I guess that chap Holmes is giving us some pretty fine batting practice, and we need it, too. Smith’s out. You’re up, Alf. See what you can do, for the love of Mike!”

Alf faced the pitcher without much confidence of being able to do anything. With two out it wasn’t likely that any effort of his would bring in a run. He decided to take it easy and study Mr. Holmes. Perhaps he might discover a weakness that would help him the next time. The first ball sent in was a high one that might have been called ball or strike. The umpire, after a second of indecision, announced it a ball. Holmes tried the same thing again. Alf swung at it and missed it by inches. That puzzled him until it occurred to him that he had struck too soon, and that very possibly all his teammates had been doing the same thing. He watched the next delivery carefully, and didn’t make any effort to hit it. And he learned something, which was that the principal effectiveness of Holmes’s delivery lay in the fact that the ball possessed the rather unique faculty of slowing up some few feet in front of the plate. He determined to try his luck with the next good one and see what happened.

Holmes chose to waste two before he again offered the batsman anything good. But the good one, when it did come, was breast-high and just inside the outer corner of the plate. Alf resisted the impulse to slam at it, and waited deliberately for an instant before he struck. It seemed to him that he was swinging much too late, but bat and ball met with a cheerful _crack_, and Alf raced for first. He had, however, no hope of beating out the ball, for his hit had been little more than a tap, and the ball was a slow grounder that was easy fielding for shortstop. He was out at first by a wide margin, but, as the two teams changed places again, Alf consoled himself with the thought that he had probably learned the secret of Holmes’s delivery; and that if the others of the Blue team would profit by his knowledge there might be hope of proving the Porter twirler not invulnerable.

In that inning the visitors filled the bases by an unexpected batting rally, and things for awhile looked doleful for Yardley. But with one out and a man at each station, Reid settled down as he so often did and struck out the next two men without difficulty.

Alf took Durfee aside at the bench and confided his theory regarding Holmes’s pitching, and Durfee called to Dan, who had chosen his bat and was walking toward the plate.

“Hold on a minute, Dan. Alf says we’re all swinging too soon at Holmes. And I believe he’s right. Holmes has probably got a sort of ‘fade-away’ ball that we’re not on to. Hit slow and see what happens, will you?”

Then Durfee and Alf went over to Mr. Payson. The latter, elbows on knees, was watching events in what appeared to be an absolutely disinterested condition of mind. He heard what Alf had to say without a change of countenance, although Alf thought he detected the tiniest ghost of a smile about the coach’s lips for a moment.