Chapter 28

AN EXCITING BATTLE

The "that" was a brilliant bit of fielding "pulled off" by Teddy.

Fred had varied the grounders by sending up a high fly into short centre field. It was away over Teddy's head, and it seemed impossible for him to reach it. But he had started for it at the crack of the bat, and, running like a deer, he just managed to get under it with his ungloved hand. He clung to it desperately, however, and, although he rolled over and over, he rose with the ball in his hand. It was a neat bit of fielding and Teddy got a round of hand clapping from those who had seen it.

"Wasn't that a peach?" asked Wayland enthusiastically.

"It certainly was!" agreed the professor warmly. "I didn't think he had a chance to reach it."

"Of course, one swallow doesn't make a summer," conceded Wayland, "and perhaps he couldn't do it often."

"I don't think it was a fluke," said the professor. "I saw him make a swift pick-up a few minutes ago that nine out of ten would have missed. And he threw down to first almost on a line. The ball didn't rise more than three inches on the way down."

"If he can keep up that kind of work, he'll give Ward all he can do to hold his job," declared Ned.

"Baseball ability seems to run in the family," said the professor. "Fred is a first-rate pitcher, and, with him in the box besides yourself, I think we'll be well fortified in that position. Besides, he's a good hitter, and on days when he isn't pitching, you can put him in to bat at times when a hit is needed."

"Yes," agreed Ned, "he'll be a great big element in our success this season. That outcurve of his is awfully hard to hit, and his drop ball is a pippin."

"As for the backstop," went on the professor, "Tom Eldridge hasn't any rival. Granger, at first base, is a star both in fielding and hitting. But we're not any too strong at second. Hendricks doesn't seem to take so much interest in his work as he did last season."

"How would it do to put Morley there, on trial?" suggested Ned. "Then we could shift Ward to third and try out Teddy Rushton at short."

For several days the sifting process went on, but when the line up was finally settled upon, Teddy held down short, while Fred was to alternate with Ned as pitcher.

The nine practiced faithfully, playing with neighboring village teams and making a good record. They had won three games and lost only one, and that by a close score, when the day came for the Mount Vernon game.

This was to be held on the enemy's grounds, and the boys had a train ride of twenty miles before they reached the station. A crowd of the Rally Hall boys went with them, to root and cheer for a victory over their most important baseball rivals.

The Green Haven station was crowded that morning with hilarious youths, and there was a buzzing as of a swarm of bees, while they waited for their train to come.

The only fly in the ointment was the cloudy condition of the sky. No rain had fallen, but it looked as though it might come down at any moment.

"It's up to us to get a good start early in the game," remarked Fred, "so that if the rain does come down after the fifth inning and we're in the lead, we'll win anyway."

"Right you are," replied Ned. "Last year we lost a game that way just as we thought we had it tucked away in our bat bag. The other fellows were one run ahead, and when we came to bat in our half of the sixth we got three men on bases in less than no time. Our heaviest batters were just coming up, and one of them knocked a homer, clearing the bases and putting us three runs in the lead. The fellows were dancing round and hugging each other, when just then the rain came down like fury and the game had to be called. Of course, our runs didn't count and the score stood as it was at the end of the fifth, with the other fellows ahead. I tell you it was a tough game to lose."

"Well, I swan, It looks like ra-in, Gidde-ap, Napoleon, We'll get the hay in,"

drawled Tom, who had not only a store of good poetry always on tap but was also well provided with plenty that was not so good.

"Your poetry is rank, Tom," laughed Teddy, as he made a pass at him, "but the sentiment is all to the good. We'll get the hay in in the early part of the game."

Just then there was a whistle in the distance.

"Here she comes!" went up the cry and there was a general scurry toward the front of the platform. The train was a local, with only three cars, and it was a certainty that with the unusual crush that morning a lot of the passengers would have to stand.

The train drew up with a clang and a rattle, and there was a regular football rush the moment it came to a stop.

"Get aboard!" shouted one.

"If you can't get a board, get a plank," yelled another.

"Easy there," shouted the conductor, as the swirling mob almost swept him off his feet.

But he might as well have tried to check a cyclone. They swarmed around him, and in less than a minute the train was packed. There was a lot of jolly, good-natured scuffling to get the vacant seats.

"Wow! get off my toes!" yelled one of the unlucky ones.

"How can I help it?" laughed the one addressed. "I've got to stand somewhere, haven't I?"

The conductor wiped his perspiring brow.

"Well, of all the young limbs!" he ejaculated. But his frown quickly melted into a grin. He had boys of his own.

"They can only be kids once," he muttered, as he gave the engineer the signal to go ahead.

Inside the cars, all was cheerful hubbub and confusion.

"Give us a song, Billy!" shouted one.

The request was greeted by a roar of unanimous approval.

"What shall it be?" grinned Billy Burton, who seldom had to be coaxed.

There was a chorus of suggestions, for Billy's repertoire was very extensive. The majority seemed to favor: "We All Sit Round and Listen, When Hiram Drinks His Soup," although there was a strong minority for "When Father Carves the Duck." In order to satisfy them all, Billy sang both ditties to a thunder of applause.

He had to respond to numerous encores, and when at last he was too hoarse to sing any longer, the crowd fell back on "Ten Little Injuns" and "Forty-nine Bluebottles, a-Hanging on the Wall," together with other school favorites. There were any number of discords and any amount of flatting, but little things like that did not bother the young minstrels. They wanted noise and plenty of it. And no one in that train could deny that they got what they wanted.

"Now, Slim, it's up to you," said Ned Wayland. "It's a long time since we've had one of your truthful stories."

"A story from Slim," went up the chorus, as all that could crowded around.

But Slim assumed an air of profoundest gloom.

"Nothing doing," he said, shaking his head with a decision that the twinkle in his eyes belied. "You fellows wouldn't believe me anyway.

"Look at the last one I told you," he went on, with an aggrieved air, "about the fellows that used to catch crabs with their toes as they sat on the end of the dock. Didn't you fellows as much as call me a--er--fabricator? Even when I explained that they had hardened their toes by soaking them in alum, so that they wouldn't feel the bites? Even when I offered to show you one of the crabs that they caught?"

He wagged his head sadly, as one who was deeply pained by the appalling amount of unbelief to be met with in the world.

"Perhaps we did you a great injustice, Slim," said Fred with a mock air of penitence.

"I'm willing to apologize and never do it again," chimed in Melvin.

"And I'll go still further and agree to believe your next story before you tell it," promised Tom.

"Now that sounds more like it," said Slim, throwing off his gloom. "I'm always ready to add to the slight store of knowledge that you lowbrows have in stock, but you must admit that it's rather discouraging to see that cold, hard look in your eyes when I'm doing my best to give you the exact facts."

"We'll admit anything, Ananias," chirped up Billy; "only go ahead with the story."

Slim shot a scathing glance at Billy, but seeing that all were waiting breathlessly, he gave an impressive cough and started in.

"There was a farmer down our way," he began, "who was strictly up to date. He wasn't satisfied to go along like the majority of old mossbacks, year in and year out, doing the same old thing in the same old way as it had been done for a hundred years. He tried all the new wrinkles, subscribed to the leading farm papers, and studied the market reports.

"He was looking over these one night when he saw that there was an unusual demand for beef tongues and that they were bringing the biggest price in the market that they had brought for a good many years past. This set him thinking.

"You know how fond cattle are of salt. Well, this farmer set aside about a dozen of his cows, to try an experiment with them. He kept them without salt during the day so that they got crazy for it. Then at night he tied them up in stalls, and hung a lump of rock salt by a string just a little out of their reach. They'd stick out their tongues to get at it but couldn't quite make it. At last, by straining hard they'd maybe touch it. Of course, as they stretched, the effort gradually made their tongues grow bigger, and--"

Here, Slim looked around rather dubiously to see if his hearers were preparing to spring upon him, but they seemed as if held in the spell of an awful fascination. So he took courage and went on:

"You know how it is with a blacksmith. The more he exercises his arm the bigger the muscles get. You know that our dear Dr. Rally has often impressed on our youthful minds that the more we use our brains the more brains we'll have to use. Well, that's just the way it was with these cows. Each day the farmer would put the salt a little further ahead of them, and they'd keep stretching more and more, until finally their tongues were three times the ordinary size. I tell you that farmer cleared up a pile of money when he sent his cattle to market that fall, and--"

"I should think," interrupted Fred, in a voice that he tried to keep steady, "that their tongues would get in the way and choke them."

"You would think so," admitted Slim, easily, "but as I said, this farmer was up to date and he had figured that out. He got a lot of rubber tubes and taught the cows to curl their tongues around in those and keep them out of the way. He--"

But just then, the overtaxed patience of his auditors gave way and they rushed in a body on Slim.

"I told you it would be that way," he complained, as he extricated himself from the laughing mob. "It's casting pearls before swine to try to tell you fellows the truth. You wouldn't want the truth, if I handed it to you on a gold platter."

The rest of the passengers in the train, other than the Rally Hall boys, looked on and listened with varied emotions. One or two had a sour expression and muttered more or less about "those pesky boys," but by far the greater number were smiling and showed a frank pleasure in the picture of bubbling, joyous youth that they presented. It came as a welcome interlude in the cares of life.

Fred had found a seat alongside a rather elderly man whose face radiated good nature. When the train had gone ten miles or so, the stranger entered into conversation.

"A jolly crowd you have here," he said, beaming. "I take it you're going somewhere special. What's on for to-day?"

"We're going to play a game of ball with the Mount Vernon team, a little way up the line," Fred smiled in return.

"Baseball, eh?" said the other with an evident quickening of interest. "That's the king of sports with me. I used to play a lot in my time and I've never got over my liking for it. I'd rather see a game than eat."

"It's a dandy sport, all right," assented Fred, with enthusiasm. "There isn't anything in the world to equal it in my opinion, except perhaps football."

"I don't know much about football," admitted the other. "I see a game once in a while, but it always seems to me rather confusing. That's because I don't know the rules, I guess. But I know baseball from start to finish and from the time the umpire says 'Play ball!' until the last man's out in the ninth inning, I don't take my eyes off the diamond."

"I suppose you have some great memories of the old days," remarked Fred.

"You're just right," said the stranger with emphasis. "I guess I've seen almost all the great players who made the game at one time or another. There were the old Red Stockings of Cincinnati, the Mutuals of New York, the Haymakers of Troy, the Forest Cities of Rockford, that we boys used to read and talk about all the time. We had our special heroes, too, just as you have to-day.

"Of course," he went on, "the game has improved a great deal, like everything else. The pitching is better now. My, how those old timers used to bat the pitchers all over the lot! You don't see any scores of two hundred runs in a game these days."

"Two hundred runs!" exclaimed Fred. "You don't mean to say that any team ever made as many as that?"

"Not often, I'll admit," smiled the other. "Still, the Niagaras of Buffalo won a game once by 201 to 11."

"Whew!" ejaculated Tom, who had been sitting on the arm of the seat, listening to the talk. "There must have been some tired outfielders when that game was over."

"I'd have hated to be the scorer," laughed Fred.

"Of course that was unusual," said the other, "but big scores were a common thing. The first game between college teams was won by 66 to 32.

"There was a time," he continued, "when a man could make two or three home runs on a single hit. The diamonds were only vacant lots as a rule and the ball would get lost in the high grass. Then the runner, after reaching the plate, could start round the bases again and keep on running until the ball was found or until he was too tired out to run any longer. Of course that was in the very early days of the game. We used to put a man out then by throwing the ball at him and hitting him with it."

"I'd hate to have one of them catch me between the shoulders nowadays!" exclaimed Tom.

"The ball was soft then and didn't hurt much," explained the other. "Oh, the game is better now in every way. We didn't know anything about 'inside stuff' as you call it, 'the squeeze play,' 'the delayed steal' and all that."

"I'll bet you got just as much fun out of it though as we do now," said Fred.

"I suppose we did," assented the other. "You can trust boys to get fun out of anything. But in those days it was mainly sport. Now it's sport and skill combined."

The lads were to get off at the next station, and there was a general stir as they got their things together.

"I'm very glad I met you," said Fred, as he shook hands with his chance acquaintance. "I've learned a lot about the game that I didn't know before."

"It does me good to brush up against you young fellows," the man replied warmly, returning the handshake. "I hope you wax the other team this afternoon. I'll be rooting for you to win."

"We'll do our best," promised Fred. "Thanks for the good wishes. It would be jolly if you could stop off and see the game."

"I'd like nothing better, but business won't let me. Good-bye and good luck."

"Who's your friend that you were talking to so long?" asked Ned, as the crowd got off the train.

"I never saw him before," answered Fred. "But he's a good old scout, whoever he is. He sure is fond of baseball and he knows the game. I'd like to have him in the stands this afternoon. I'll bet he'd be a mascot for us."

The nine was in fine fettle, and felt that they would have no excuses to offer if they failed to win.

"But we're not going to lose!" exclaimed Granger. "I feel it in my bones!"

"It'll be the score and not your bones that'll tell the story," jibed Slim.

"Scots wha' hae with Wallace bled, Scots wha' Bruce has often led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory,"

chanted Tom Eldridge.

"And it's going to be victory," affirmed Teddy, "The other fellows will be the dead ones."

But the "other fellows" had views of their own on that subject, and from the time the first ball was pitched the Rally Hall boys knew that they had their work cut out for them.

Ned was in the box at the start, and Fred, who was ready to take his place if needed, played right field.

The pitchers on both sides were in good form, and for the first three innings neither side scored a run, although a two-base hit by Melvin and a daring steal had gotten him as far as third. Two were out at the time, however, and Ward made the third out on a high fly to left.

The pitcher on the Mount Vernon team was a big, sandy-haired, freckle-faced youth who did not look at all like a student, and the boys noticed that when his nine was at the bat, he sat apart from the others, almost as though he were a stranger. Slim Haley had a suspicion, and strolled over to have a chat with him, while he was resting.

"Mount Vernon is a pretty good school," said Slim, trying to start a conversation.

"Yep," said the other shortly.

"Nice bunch of fellows," continued Slim affably.

"Good enough, I s'pose," said the other.

"What studies are you taking?" asked Slim, his suspicions deepening.

The other hesitated a moment.

"Voconometry and trigoculture," he got out, with an effort.

"What?" asked the puzzled Slim.

But just then the inning ended, and the sandy-haired pitcher had to go to the box.

Slim made his way back to his own crowd.

"Did you fellows ever hear of voconometry and trigoculture?" he asked.

"What are you giving us?" jeered Tom, with a grin.

"Stop stringing us, Slim," added Ned.

"Honest, I'm not fooling," protested Slim, "I asked that pitcher what studies he was taking, and he said 'voconometry and trigoculture.'"

The boys pondered a moment.

"I've got it!" shouted Fred, a light breaking in on him. "That fellow's a 'ringer.' He isn't a Mount Vernon student at all. There's something the matter with their regular pitcher, and they've picked up this fellow somewhere and rung him in on us as a regular school player. They've been afraid we might tumble to it and ask him questions, and so they told him what to say."

"But why did they tell him to say any nonsense like that?" asked Slim, perplexed.

"They didn't," explained Fred. "He's got mixed up. What they told him to say if any one asked him was that he was studying trigonometry and vocal culture.' He got stuck and called it 'voconometry and trigoculture.'"

There was a roar of laughter, but this was quickly followed by indignation.

"It's a dirty trick to play on us," growled Billy Burton.

"Sure it is," agreed Tom. "But it's too late to protest now. Let's go in and lick them anyway."

In the fifth inning, a scorching liner struck Ned on his pitching arm. He picked it up and got his man at first. But the blow had bruised his muscles badly, and he became wild. He could not control the sphere, and gave two bases on balls. These, with an error and a hit sandwiched in, yielded two runs before the side was out.

"You'll have to take my place, Fred," he said as they came in for their turn at bat. "My arm is numb and I can't get them over."

So Fred took up the pitching burden with a handicap of two runs against him to start with.

"All over but the shouting," yelled the Mount Vernon rooters.

But they changed their tune as Fred shot his curves and benders over the plate. He pitched his prettiest, and only once was in danger. Then, with a man on first and one out, a rattling double play started by Teddy pulled him out of the hole.

But the other fellow, too, was pitching magnificently.