Pitcher Pollock

Pete Farrar had his troubles from the very first instant. After getting a strike on the batsman, he offered one in the groove and the head of the Petersburg batting-list cracked...

That was the beginning of the friendship. Sidney, who had begun being nice to Tom to please his mother, continued being nice to him because he liked him. There was an earnest, d...

He didn’t set out for the Morrises house until nearly eight o’clock. They had been busier than usual in the store and had not got rid of the last customer until almost a quarter...

It was awfully nice to have Sidney home again. Tom didn’t realise until now how much he had really missed him. And Mrs. Morris, too; and Mr. Morris to a lesser extent. They were...

In April, after the roads dried off, Tom engaged one of Malloy’s trucks to bring the pump in from the farm. It cost him ten dollars and he sometimes doubted the wisdom of it. Un...

The shadows were lengthening when the first half of the tenth inning began and were not much longer when it was over. The Lynton pitcher came back strong, and Sanborn and Smith...

By the end of the week Tom had settled down into his new life. In the mornings he was up at half-past six and by seven-thirty had dressed, breakfasted, and reached the store. Th...

It wasn’t necessary, however, for the detective to put any dents in Mr. Wright, for the next morning Mr. Cummings informed Tom that it was all arranged. “It wasn’t so easy to br...

The new department started up the last week in March, and none too soon. It had been a hard, cold winter, but its very severity seemed to wear it out along toward the first of t...

That spring proved to be the pleasantest in Tom’s recollection. To be sure, lessons didn’t always go easily; in fact, Tom had a fortnight of trouble when the first lazy, warm da...

Amesville was still in the lead with one run, the score being 4 to 3, when Buster Healey strode to the plate with a confident swagger and tapped his bat determinedly. But pride...

The Lynton team still fought under the high school banner, although, like the Amesville team, it had been weakened by the absence of several of its good players. Few if any of t...

The clock in a nearby steeple showed Tom that there still remained nearly ten minutes of waiting, and so he joined the northward-bound throng and idled along the street, pausing...

Amesville was a city of some twenty-five thousand population, and on a certain Monday in late September of the year 1911 it increased its population, to our certain knowledge, b...

Tom realised, as he walked over to the mound and picked up the ball, that at least a portion of his audience was hostile. He could not expect Pete Farrar to be wholly pleased at...

It was a Thursday, languidly warm, and trade had been dull. Mr. Cummings wandered down to where Tom, having just got back from school, was placing selling marks on a new arrival...

It _was_ hot! Tom’s head felt as though it was being slowly baked in spite of his cap as, getting the signal from Sam, he swung his arms up and sped a fast ball across in the gr...

Mr. Cummings, who had not failed to inquire anxiously between the innings how Tom felt, and who had on each occasion received the same answer, “Fine, thanks, sir!” found Tom’s r...

Almost every day after that Tom and Mr. George spent the half-hour preceding dinner in the side-yard. Frequently the half-hour lengthened into three-quarters and the two had to...

Amesville had her batting eye with her to-day and Buster started things moving at once. By the time Tommy Hughes was thrown out at second on an attempted steal one run had cross...

It was nearly six o’clock when the team and its still enthusiastic supporters reached Amesville, and Tom, declining Sidney’s invitation to dinner, went on downtown and alighted...

“Oh.” Mr. Cummings turned back to his task of rearranging a number of carpenter’s squares in a green box and made no other reply for a moment. The boy waited silently, watching...

Uncle Israel nodded. “If it don’t work like you say it will, though, I won’t pay a cent for it. We ain’t had a decent breath o’ wind for a month and we’ve been haulin’ all the w...

The next evening they were at it again. Sidney was able to pitch an out-curve and a drop and had besides what he called his “slow ball.” The latter, however, didn’t differ much,...

Derry lay twenty-two miles to the west of Amesville and it required almost an hour for the branch line train to reach the little settlement. Tom descended from the car amidst th...