Part 4

Marty, watching breathless and wide-eyed from the field, threw a handspring and uttered a whoop of joy. The nines changed places, and the last half of the last inning began with the score still 12 to 9 in favor of Vulcan.

“Play carefully, fellows,” shouted Vulcan’s captain as Hamilton went to bat. “We’ve got to shut them out.”

“If youse can,” muttered Marty, seated on the bench between Bob and Wolcott.

It looked as though they could. Bob groaned as Hamilton popped a short fly into second-baseman’s hands, and the rest of the fellows echoed the mournful sound.

“Lift it, Will, lift it!” implored Bob as Pickering strode to the plate. And lift it he did. Unfortunately, however, when it descended it went plump into the hands of right field. In the stand half the throng was on its feet. Bob looked hopelessly at Warner as the pitcher selected a bat.

“Cheer up, Bob,” said the latter, grinning. “I’m going to crack that ball or know the reason why!”

The Vulcan pitcher was slow and careful. They had taken the wearied Baker out and put in a new twirler. Warner let his first effort pass unnoticed, and looked surprised when the umpire called it a strike. But he received the next one with a hearty welcome, and sent it speeding away for a safe hit, taking first base amid the wild cheers of the little group of blue-and-white-decked watchers. Hamilton hurried across to coach the runner, and Bob stepped to the plate. His contribution was a swift liner that was too hot for the pitcher, one that placed Warner on second and himself on first. Then, with Hamilton and Sleeper both coaching at the top of their lungs, the Vulcan catcher fumbled a ball at which Howe had struck, and the two runners moved up. The restive audience had overflowed on to the field now, and excitement reigned supreme. Another strike was called on Howe, and for a moment Summerville’s chances appeared to be hopeless. But a minute later the batter was limping to first, having been struck with the ball, and the pitcher was angrily grinding his heel into the ground.

“Webster at bat!” called the scorer.

“That’s you, Marty,” said Wolcott. “If you never do another thing, my boy, _swat that ball_!”

Marty picked out a bat and strode courageously to the plate. A roar of laughter greeted his appearance.

“Get on to Blue Jeans!” “Give us a home run, kid!” “Say, now, sonny, don’t fall over your pants!”

It needed just that ridicule to dispel Marty’s nervousness. He was angry. How could he help his “pants” being long? he asked himself, indignantly. He’d show those dudes that “pants” hadn’t anything to do with hitting a baseball! He shut his teeth hard, gripped the bat tightly, and faced the pitcher. The latter smiled at his adversary, but was not willing to take any chances, with the bases full. And so, heedless of the requests to “Toss him an easy one, Joe!” he delivered a swift, straight drop over the plate.

“Strike!” droned the little umpire, skipping aside.

Marty frowned, but gave no other sign of the chill of disappointment that traveled down his spine. On the bench Wolcott turned to his next neighbor and said, as he shook his head sorrowfully:

“Hard luck! If it had only been some one else’s turn now, we might have scored. I guess little Marty’s not up to curves.”

Marty watched the next delivery carefully--and let it pass.

“Ball!” called the umpire.

Again he held himself in, although it was all he could do to keep from swinging at the dirty-white globe as it sped by him.

“Two balls!”

“That’s right, Marty; wait for a good one,” called Wolcott, hoping against hope that Marty might get to first on balls. Marty made no answer, but stood there, pale of face but cool, while the ball sped around the bases and at last went back to the pitcher. Again the sphere sped forward. Now was his time! With all his strength he swung his bat--and twirled around on his heel! A roar of laughter swept across the diamond.

“Strike two!” cried the umpire.

But Marty, surprised at his failure, yet undaunted, heard nothing save the umpire’s unmoved voice. Forward flew the ball again, this time unmistakably wide of the plate, and the little man in the snuff-colored alpaca coat motioned to the right.

“Three balls!”

Bob, restlessly lifting his feet to be off and away on his dash to third, waited with despairing heart. Victory or defeat depended upon the next pitch. A three-bagger would tie the score, a safe hit would bring Sleeper to the bat! But as he looked at the pale-faced, odd-looking figure beside the plate he realized how hopeless it all was. The pitcher, thinking much the same thoughts, prepared for his last effort. Plainly the queer little ragamuffin was no batsman, and a straight ball over the plate would bring the agony to an end. Up went his hand, and straight and sure sped the globe.

Now, there was one kind of ball that Marty knew all about, and that was a nice, clean, straight one, guiltless of curve or drop or rise, the kind that “Whitey” Peters pitched in the vacant lot back of Keller’s Livery Stable. And Marty knew that kind when he saw it coming. Fair and square he caught it, just where he wanted it on the bat. All his strength, heart, and soul were behind that swing. There was a sharp _crack_, a sudden mighty roar from the watchers, and Marty was speeding toward first base.

High and far sped the ball. Center and left fielder turned as one man and raced up the field. Obeying instructions, they had been playing well in, and now they were to rue it. The roar of the crowd grew in volume. Warner, Bob, and Howe were already racing home, and Marty, running as hard as his legs would carry him, was touching second. Far up the field the ball was coming to earth slowly, gently, yet far too quickly for the fielders.

“A home run!” shrieked Wolcott. “_Come on--oh, come on, Marty, my boy!_”

Warner was home, now Bob, and then Howe was crossing the plate, and Marty was leaving second behind him. Would the fielder catch it? He dared look no longer, but sped onward. Then a new note crept into the shouts of the Vulcans, a note of disappointment, of despair. Up the field the center-fielder had tipped the ball with one outstretched hand, but had failed to catch it! At last, however, it was speeding home toward second base.

“Come on! Come on, Marty!” shrieked Bob.

The boy’s twinkling feet spurned the third bag and he swung homeward. The ball was settling into the second-baseman’s hands. The latter turned quickly and threw it straight, swift, unswerving toward the plate.

“_Slide!_” yelled Bob and Warner, in a breath.

Marty threw himself desperately forward; there was a cloud of brown dust at the plate, a _thug_ as the ball met the catcher’s gloves. The little man in the alpaca coat turned away with a grin, and picked up his mask again.

“_Safe, here!_”

The score was 13 to 12 in Summerville’s favor; Marty’s home run had saved the day!

In another minute or two it was all over. Sleeper had popped a high fly into the hands of the discomfited center-fielder, and the crowds swarmed inward over the diamond.

* * * * *

It was a tired, hungry, but joyous little group that journeyed back to Summerville through the soft, mellow summer twilight. Marty and the leather bat-case occupied a whole seat to themselves. Marty’s freckled face was beaming with happiness and pride, his heart sang a pæan of triumph in time to the _clickety-click_ of the car-wheels, and in one hand, tightly clenched, nestled a ten-dollar gold piece.

It was his share of the hundred-dollar purse the nine had won, Bob had explained, and it had been voted to him unanimously. And next spring he was to join the team as substitute! And Marty, doubting the trustiness of his pockets, held the shining prize firmly in his fist and grinned happily over the praise and thanks of his companions.

“It wasn’t nothin’, that home run; any feller could have done that!” And, besides, he explained, he had known all along that they were going to win. “Why,--don’t you see?--the other fellers didn’t have no mascot!”

PARMELEE’S “SPREAD”

The room was old-fashioned, a dark-walled parallelogram, the farthest end of which was seldom reached by the light which crept through the two small-paned windows. Overhead four huge rafters passed from side to side.

The ledges beneath the windows formed wide seats, which were upholstered in somber corduroy. The mantel above the large fireplace was narrow, high, a mere shelf, designed a century ago to hold the twin candlesticks and the snuffers on their silver tray.

The occupant had wisely confined the furnishings to old-style mahogany in quaint Chippendale forms. The green-shaded student-lamp on the desk under the heavy bronze chandelier gave almost the only modern touch. Yet with all its gloom, the apartment was singularly homelike and restful.

Perhaps this thought occurred to Parmelee, ’00, as he closed the door behind him, for his gaze swept slowly over the room, and he sighed once as he removed his cap and gown and laid them carefully aside. He crossed to one of the windows, and sank back dispiritedly against the cushions.

Parmelee’s face, seen in the warm light of a late June afternoon, lost something of its usual paleness, but the serious lines about the mouth and the pathos of the deep-set brown eyes were accentuated.

The face, on the whole, was strikingly handsome. The forehead under the dark hair was broad and high; the nose straight and fairly large; the mouth, despite its grave lines, seemed made for smiles; the chin was full and firm. Yet the expression now was one of weariness and melancholy.

Through the open windows came faintly the strains of a waltz from the band in the college yard. Over the top of a vividly green chestnut-tree the western sky was beginning to glow with the colors of sunset. Now and then a student in cap and gown, or the more brilliant attire appropriate to class-day, hurried past the house; but for the most the little street was deserted and still.

Parmelee had done his duty. He had conscientiously taken part in all the exercises of the day, excepting only those about the tree. When the procession that had marched about the yard and cheered the buildings had dissolved, he had hurried away to his room, lonesome and downhearted.

Every one seemed so disgustingly happy! Fellows with nice mothers and pretty sisters, cousins or sweethearts appeared to flaunt them before Parmelee’s eyes; fellows hurrying off to somebody’s spread thrust him unceremoniously out of the way with muttered apologies. He was so out of it all! He had no womenfolk to take care of, no friends to greet, no spreads to attend. He was simply a nonentity; merely “Parmelee, that hunchbacked fellow.”

That was Parmelee’s trouble. All his life he had been a “hunchback.” As a boy he had often taken flight before the merciless gibes of his companions, too sick at heart to follow his first impulse to stand and fight.

When he had entered the preparatory school he had enclosed himself in a shell of sensitiveness, and had missed many a friendship that might have been his. At college it had been the same. He believed his deformity to be repellent to others, and credited them with sentiments of distaste or pity, when, as was generally the case, the attractiveness of his countenance made them blind to his defect of form. Naturally fond of athletics, he believed himself barred from them. He made few acquaintances and no friends; no friends, that is, except one.

Philip Schuyler and he had met in their freshman year. Schuyler, refusing to be repelled, had won his way through Parmelee’s defenses, and the two had been inseparable until shortly before the last Christmas recess. Then they had quarreled.

The cause had been such a tiny thing that it is doubtful if either still remembered it. Pride had prevented the reconciliation which should have followed, and the two friends had drifted widely apart.

Parmelee sometimes told himself bitterly that Schuyler had made the quarrel an excuse for ending a companionship of which he was wearied. Schuyler had quickly found new friends; Parmelee simply retired more deeply than before into his shell. It meant more to him, that quarrel, than to Schuyler. He had lost the only real friend of his life. The wound was a deep one, and it refused to heal. On this day it ached more than it had for months.

Parmelee glanced at his watch, suddenly realizing that he was hungry. He had missed his lunch. It was yet far from the dinner-hour, he found.

Then he remembered that his boarding-house would be practically given over that evening to a spread. He shrank from the idea of facing the throng that would be present. The restaurants would be crowded. A solitary dinner in town was not attractive. The only alternative was to go dinnerless, or--yes, he could have something here in his room. He smiled a trifle bitterly.

“It will be Parmelee’s spread,” he said.

He went out and turned his steps toward the avenue. In the store he surprised the clerk by the magnitude of his order. The whimsical idea of having a spread of his own grew upon him. The expense meant nothing to him.

When he was ready to return, the bundle of his purchases was so large that for the moment he was dismayed. Then he took it in his arms and retraced his steps.

Back in his room, the first difficulty that confronted him was the lack of a tablecloth, but this was presently solved by spreading two immense white bath-towels over the study table. Then he began the distribution of the viands.

The matter of table decoration was something of a problem, and in the solving of it he forgot his depression, and even whistled a tune while trying to decide whether to bank all the oranges together or to distribute them in a sort of border about the edge of the table.

A few plates would have been an aid, but it was possible to do without them. The olives occasioned much bother by refusing to emerge on the point of the knife-blade from the narrow neck of their tall bottle. This difficulty was at last obviated by pouring off the brine and emptying the olives upon a sheet of letter-paper. The canned meats and the glasses of jellies and the tins of crackers he arranged with geometrical precision, forming stars, circles and diamonds in outline. The oranges formed a pyramid in the center of the board, topped with a bunch of vivid radishes.

Parmelee stood off and viewed the result, at first critically, then with approval. Displacing the big armchair, he shoved the banquet-table up to one of the windows, and set a fiddle-backed mahogany chair before it. The effect was incongruous, and he chuckled aloud.

“You’re the loneliest-looking chair I ever saw!” he exclaimed. “Here, this is better.”

He seized another chair and placed it at the opposite side of the table.

“There, that balances. Besides, one should always make provision for the unexpected guest. Perchance, the president or the dean may drop in.”

He gave a final look at the repast and disappeared into the bedroom at the back. Presently the sound of splashing water told its own story.

At that moment the house door slammed, footsteps sounded in the hall, and there was a knock at Parmelee’s door. But Parmelee, rioting at the basin in the back room, heard nothing. After an interval the knocking was repeated. Then the knob turned and the door opened.

The visitor was a very erect, white-whiskered man of about fifty, possessing a degree of stoutness that set off to the best advantage his well-cut black coat, white waistcoat and gray trousers. His dark eyes gleamed with kindliness and humor.

He held his shining hat and his gloves in his hand, and looked questioningly about the room. Then the sound of Parmelee’s ablutions caught his ear, and he took a step forward.

“Is there any one at home?” he called.

Parmelee, in his shirt-sleeves, the water dripping from the end of his nose, came to the inner doorway, the towel clutched desperately in one hand, and stared with amazement.

“I beg your pardon, sir, for this intrusion,” the visitor said. “I knocked, and receiving no answer, took the liberty of entering unbidden. We old graduates lay claim to many privileges on class-day, you know; nothing is sacred to us.”

He paused. Parmelee grasped the towel more firmly, as if it were a weapon of defense to be used against the invader, and nodded silently. His gaze fell on the banquet, and amazement gave way to dismay.

“I escaped from my wife and daughter after much scheming,” continued the visitor, “in order to slip down here and have a look at this room. I haven’t seen it for--well, not since I graduated, and that was twenty-nine years ago this month.”

“Ah!” Parmelee had found his tongue. “You lived here while in college?”

“Four years. After I entered the law school I roomed in town. But don’t let me disturb you. I’ll just glance round a moment, if I may.”

Parmelee’s courtesy came to the surface again. The visitor’s designs were plainly above suspicion. It was very awkward, but----

“Certainly, sir; just make yourself at home. If you’ll pardon me for a moment, I’ll get my coat on.”

The visitor bowed deprecatingly, and Parmelee disappeared again. He reentered the study a moment later, to find that the visitor had laid aside his hat and gloves, and, with hands clasped behind him, was looking from a window across the vista of trees and roofs at the sunset sky. He turned as Parmelee approached, sighed, smiled apologetically, and waved a hand toward the view.

“I have just accomplished a wonderful feat,” he said. “I have wiped out a quarter of a century.”

Parmelee smiled politely. “I presume you find things much changed?” he asked.

“Yes, yes; but not here. That view is almost the same as it was when I sat in that window there, studying, reading, dreaming, just as we all will when we’re young; just as I dare say you have done many times.”

“But I fancy, sir, your dreams came true.”

“My boy, none of our dreams ever come true just as we dream them. They couldn’t; they are much too grand. I have nothing to complain of and much to be happy for, but”--he shook his head, smiling wistfully--“I’m not the hero of those dreams.”

“I suppose it’s idle work, picturing the future, dreaming of the great things we’re going to do,” answered Parmelee, soberly; “but--it’s hard not to.”

“No, no, don’t think that!” The visitor laid a hand for a moment on Parmelee’s shoulder, then darted a quick look of surprise at the place his fingers had touched. Parmelee saw it, and a wave of color dyed his face. But the other continued after a pause that was almost imperceptible. “Don’t think that, my boy. Life wouldn’t be half what it is without dreams. And who knows? Perhaps yours are destined to come true. I hope they will.”

“They never have,” said Parmelee, bitterly.

The older man smiled. “But there’s time yet.” He turned and walked slowly about the apartment, nodding his head now and then, viewing the dark rafters as he might have viewed old friends, and putting his head in the bedroom door, but declining Parmelee’s invitation to enter.

Reminiscences came to his mind, and he told them lightly, entertainingly. He stood for several moments in front of the empty fireplace, and sighed again as he turned away.

He moved toward where he had laid his hat and gloves. “I left word with my wife to tell my son to come here for me, but I don’t see him.” He picked up his hat and looked out into the street. “He took part in the tree exercises; he would have to change his clothes afterward, and that would take some time. I dare say if I walk up the street I shall meet him.”

Parmelee struggled in silence with his reserve; then he said:

“I--I wish you’d wait here for him, sir. You see, it’s just possible that you might miss him if you went.”

“But you’re certain I sha’n’t be in the way? Your guests will not arrive for a while?”

“I’m not expecting any one, sir.”

“Indeed!” The visitor glanced at the banquet and looked puzzled. “Pardon me; I thought you were giving a small spread. I shall be very glad to remain if I’m not in your way.”

He laid aside his hat and took a seat. Parmelee retired to the window and frowned at the banquet. Of course he had not been asked to explain it, but no other course seemed possible; the situation was ridiculous. He would make a clean breast of it. Somehow it did not seem difficult to tell things to the kind-faced stranger.

“I dare say you think I’m crazy,” he said, “with all that stuff spread out there and--and nobody coming, but--” And then he explained things, although not very lucidly, for he was disturbed by a realization of the absurdity of the affair. But the visitor seemed to understand, and when Parmelee had ended, he exclaimed, with concern:

“Why, then I’ve been keeping you from your supper! And no lunch, you say? I’d no idea, I assure you--” He seized his hat again. Parmelee sprang to his feet.

“No, no, I’m not in the least hungry! That is, I’m in no hurry.”

The older man hesitated.

“But if you’ve had no lunch, you must be starved! Indeed, I’m sure you must be! I can appreciate your condition in a measure, for my own lunch was a sorry affair, although I did get a few bites. Don’t let me keep you a moment longer.”

“But--but--” exclaimed Parmelee. The visitor paused with his hand on the door-knob. “Perhaps--you must be hungry yourself, and--if you wouldn’t mind the lack of knives and forks--and plates--I’d be awfully glad----”

“Well, really now, I’ve half a mind to accept,” laughed the other. “The truth is, I’m as hungry as a bear. These boarding-houses on class-day--” He shook his head expressively. “You are sure I’m not taking some one else’s place?”

“No, indeed,” answered Parmelee. “The fact is, I set that chair there for you half an hour ago.”

“For me?” inquired the visitor.

“Well, for the unexpected guest. You see, sir, the one chair looked so lonely. Have you room enough? Shall I move the desk out a bit? It’s awkward having no plates--or forks--or anything. If you will take this penknife, sir? And--wait a moment! The very thing!”

Parmelee excitedly seized two old blue plates from over the mantel, dusted them on a corner of the nearest bath-towel, and presented one to the guest.

“Queer I didn’t think of these, isn’t it? I think you’ll find that sliced chicken very fair. Do you eat olives? I’ve never tried cold Saratoga chips myself, but they look rather good.”

He proffered one article after another in a very fever of hospitality. In his eagerness he distributed the olives impartially over the whole board and brought the _pièce de résistance_, the pyramid of oranges, tumbling into ruins.

The guest laid down his pocket-knife and looked gravely across at his host.

“Is--is anything the matter?” faltered Parmelee.

“I must refuse to go on until I see you eating something.”

“Oh!” Parmelee blushed and seized a tin of potted turkey at random. After that the banquet progressed finely. The unexpected guest did full justice to the repast, and the unaccustomed host remembered his own hunger and satisfied it. More than that, he forgot his shyness and was radiantly happy. And after a while, when the last of the strawberries had disappeared, he suddenly found himself telling, in the most natural way in the world, things that he had never told any one before, except, perhaps, Philip Schuyler. He stopped short in the middle of a sentence in sudden embarrassment.

“And so your deformity, such a little thing as it is, has worked all this--this misery?” mused the guest. “Dear, dear, such a pity, my boy, so unnecessary!”

“Unnecessary?” faltered Parmelee.