CHAPTER VII

_A Lesson in Obedience_

Cascade College baseball team was out for the fall practice. Only a few recruits, fellows who had been barred by their studies or by conditions during the regular season, were out with the veterans who, proudly wearing their C’s were tossing balls around the long vacant field. The team had been a failure in its important games, and Coach Haxton, chafing under criticism of the upper classmen and the dearth of interest throughout the college, had decreed that the team must work during the fall until the football men occupied the stage, and he had threatened angrily to replace several of the veterans of the team with youngsters. Yet there had not been a call for recruits to strengthen the team.

It was not customary at Cascade to call baseball volunteers in the fall term, but to issue calls late in the winter term and at the opening of the spring. The games played in the fall were not of importance from a college standpoint. The “big” games against Golden University and St. Mary’s—those that counted in the standing of the rival schools—were playing in the spring. But during the fall and early winter—when the genial climate permitted playing, games were scheduled against the strong teams of the nearby cities, games which tested the ability of the players even more than did those of the championship season; as their opponents usually were the best of the independent amateurs.

It was onto this scene of half-hearted activity that Larry Kirkland came on the crisp, perfect afternoon, followed by Katsura, Winans and Big Trumbull, the heavy-hitting giant who had sided with Larry during his troubles of the preceding spring. The arrival of the quartette on the playing field created something of a sensation among the veterans, who stopped their listless practice and watched them wonderingly. Those close together exchanged puzzled questions as to the meaning of the sudden descent of the leaders of the opposition of the preceding term. Behind the quartette sauntered “Paw” Lattiser, an open book in one hand, a straw hat absent-mindedly held in his mouth. He was bareheaded as usual, and appeared to pay no attention either to the new recruits or to the regulars, who were practicing.

Coach Haxton was standing talking with some of the pitchers and catchers, instructing them as to the way he wanted signals given. He turned quickly as the quartette approached.

“Well?” he asked belligerently, “I suppose you fellows want us to stop practice and let you use the field?”

“No,” said Larry, acting as spokesman. “We came down to offer ourselves for the team, if you need us or can use us.”

Haxton was taken aback by the conciliatory tone of the youth he had considered the ring-leader of the opposition.

“Oh, you’d like to get on the team, eh?” he said harshly. “I suppose you’d like to be captain—or perhaps to coach it?”

A wave of angry resentment at the tone and the words arose within Larry and he struggled to control his growing anger.

“No, sir,” he said. “I’ll try to make the team, if I’m good enough. You see, we did not come out to report last year and you ordered us off the field because we didn’t. Now we report and are ready to try with the others for positions.”

Harry Baldwin, who had been tossing a ball around, came near enough to overhear the conversation. Haxton hesitated.

“Well,” he said, “if you fellows want to take your chances and will obey”——

“We do,” replied Winans; “maybe we weren’t in the right last term. We figure that we owe it to the college to do all we can to help”——

“I guess the college can run without your help,” said Baldwin. “You didn’t appear very anxious to help it last spring.”

“We have just admitted that we believe we were wrong, Baldwin,” said Larry. “It seems to me we are offering whatever we have—and Mr. Haxton is judge of what is best for the team and the school.”

“You seem to think you can win a place on this team as easily as you can one with those niggers and Japs at the ranch,” sneered Baldwin. “You’ll find the decent fellows here will not stand for it—or for you.”

“Hold on, Baldwin, hold on,” remarked Paw Lattiser mildly. “Seems to me, from what I’ve heard, someone else is trying to run things.”

“What have you to do with this, Lattiser?” snapped Haxton, who resented the patronizing calmness of the veteran. “I’m running this team.”

“Well,” replied Lattiser quaintly, “I admit that—although from the last two years’ showing you have little enough to boast about. The point is this: I gave these youngsters some advice last fall; told them they were here to work for the honor of the school and not for their own reputations. I overheard them planning to come and offer their services, so I thought I’d stroll down and see if they were right when they claimed, last year, that they were not wanted.”

“We want players who can play—and are willing to do right,” said Haxton. “We’ve had enough swelled-headed players who think they can run the team.”

“You’re the judge of their ability,” remarked Lattiser. “But it seems to me you’re judging the ability of these four youngsters in rather an off-hand manner, since you’ve never even seen them play. There is a feeling among the students now that the teams are not being chosen with a view to the best results—and if this idea spreads it will not help Cascade as an athletic school—or any other way.”

“Any student is at liberty to try for the team,” assented Haxton sulkily.

“You’re not going to let them”—— Baldwin stopped in the midst of his angry question. He, as well as Haxton, recognized the power of Paw Lattiser over the students, and he checked himself through fear of arousing the placid veteran to action.

“They are at liberty to TRY,” responded Haxton, emphatically. “Come on, you fellows, get to work. We’ve been wasting a lot of time arguing over nothing. You new men get out there in the outfield and chase flies. We’ll soon discover whether or not you can play ball.”

Lattiser stood with a twisted grin on his face. Larry, who had flushed with a rebellious start at the order to chase flies saw the veteran watching him, smiled his thanks and turning raced to catch Katsura, who already was sprinting for the outfield. Lattiser stood for an instant, then strolled away, opening his neglected book.

“The Cascade team is looking up,” he remarked whimsically to himself. “I thought that youngster was going to refuse to go. He is all right—he and that little brown boy.”

“We’re in just as bad a fix as ever, Katty,” remarked Larry as they trotted back, perspiring after pursuing a long hit to the center field fence. “Haxton will not give us a fair chance—but we must keep at it, and keep trying.”

“One of our philosophers says,” replied the little Nipponese, “that he who is in power never is in power long who rules unfairly.”

“Gee,” laughed Larry, “maybe our philosophers say the same thing; but it is hard for me to swallow.”

That evening he wrote a long letter to Krag, detailing the events of the day. He awaited anxiously for four days for the answer, wondering how the big ex-pitcher would look upon his moves and his submission to what he considered unjust treatment.

“You’ve scored in the first inning,” read Krag’s letter. “Just keep plugging away and they can’t keep you down. Don’t criticise any of the other fellows, or offer advice unless it is asked. You are lucky to have three fellows with you. Work with them and let Haxton go his own gait. The guy who isn’t square as a boss soon cooks his own goose.”

“You see,” remarked Katsura laughing as Larry read to him what Krag had written, “you have your philosophers. Mr. Krag says the same thing—in a different way.”