Tommy Tiptop and his baseball nine

“No, you were up first the last time we played. It’s Sammie Small’s turn, if it isn’t mine,” and Tommy Tiptop, a sturdy, stout chap of ten years, looked around at his companions...

Well might he ask, for the house, that was usually in such trim order, was now in confusion. The chairs were scattered about, and his mother was up on a step-ladder taking down...

“Now, be careful of yourself, Tommy,” his mother stopped to call to him as he sat on the high seat of the moving van. “Don’t fall off, and don’t stop on the road. We’ll be there...

For a few moments Tommy Tiptop just stood there, staring at the moving man. The moving man looked into the dinner pail again, as if possibly there might be something hidden in i...

By this time Tommy had nearly caught up to the boy who had his bat, and Jakie, wondering at the footsteps behind him, turned around. Billie was so interested in what he feared w...

After the crash of the glass there came silence. The boys were waiting for something to happen. They knew what always followed the breaking of a window on the few occasions when...

“Well, youngster, you are a smart one! To think you upset the bull that way!” exclaimed the man who had called to Tommy, and who now stood near him on the other side of the fenc...

“Yes, and I believe I know who it was!” suddenly exclaimed Billie Ruggler. “It was that Jakie Norton. He did it to get even with Tommy for taking the bat away from him that time.”

“Oh, well, it just happened to come to me,” said Tommy, who blushed a bit at all this praise, though he could not help liking it. It was the day after he had had his idea about...

These were some of the cries that greeted Will Warnton’s first strike at the ball which Tommy had pitched him, and hit it Will did, sending the horsehide away out toward center...

“No, you don’t!” exclaimed the lad as the fish dropped off the hook to the grass and tried to flop toward the water. “I can’t lose you that way!” And he made a grab for his priz...

Tommy Tiptop was thinking quickly. He was a plucky lad, and he did not give up hope in the face of danger. But he could not seem to help himself.

Tommy told everything that had happened, from the time he went fishing until Sam and Jakie had chased him, and he had taken to the wheel for refuge, being caught there.

Tommy asked these questions of the lad, who lay so still and quiet on the grass at the side of the roadway. He tried to lift Jakie’s head, but it fell back, very limp at the neck.

“Say, momsey, this is great news! It’s a challenge from the Millton Junior Athletes! They’ve got a ball nine, and they want to play my team. Oh, say, this will be fun!”

“Play ball!” called the umpire, a tall lad, a bit older than any of the players. Tommy and Dan Danforth, the rival captains, had decided that an older lad’s decisions would stan...