CHAPTER XXII

AT THE END OF THE SIXTH

If you are so fortunate as to be occupying a seat in the stand running parallel with the line to first base, and if you are about midway between that base and the home plate, you may congratulate yourself upon being in the best place of all from which to watch the game. Under ordinary conditions you have a clear view of every player, the batsman, unless he is left-handed, is facing you, and the run to first base is made directly in front of you. Make yourself as comfortable as the narrow board seat and uncompromising back will permit, be grateful for the clear sky and warm sunlight, which, if it beats a little too ardently upon your cheek, makes up for it by limbering the joints and muscles of the players and urging them to their best efforts, and watch the game, prepared to applaud good work, joyfully if performed by your side, ungrudgingly if by the other, and to accept victory with gratitude and defeat with equanimity.

From where you sit you see first the Erskine players on their bench at the foot of the sloping stand, their purple caps thrust back on their heads or held in their hands. You can’t see their faces, but their broad shoulders suggest the best of physical condition. Beyond them to the right a white deal table is occupied by four men who are busy writing the history of the contest.

At the feet of the players the field begins, a level expanse of closely cropped turf, which stretches away for a quarter of a mile like a great green carpet. Beyond the field is a thicket of trees, elms, chestnuts, and maples. Beyond that, again, the warmly red roof of the gymnasium peers forth, the forerunner of many other roofs and turrets and towers set sparsely at first amid the foliage, but quickly grouping together about the campus. There lies Robinson College. To the left, where the white spire pierces the tree-tops and glistens against the blue sky, the village of Collegetown commences and straggles away to a tiny river, no wave or ripple of which is from here visible.

But you have wandered far afield. About you the tiers are gay with purple flags and ribbons, but farther along to your left the purple gives place grudgingly to brown, and from there on in a long sweep of color the brown holds sway even beyond third base. Four hundred among four thousand is as a drop in a bucket. Yet the four hundred is massed closely together, and every unit of it flaunts a purple banner, and is tireless in cheering and in song. Across the diamond the Robinson band plays lustily between the innings; you can see the leader swinging his little black wand, the cornetist’s cheeks rising and falling like a pair of red bellows, the player of the base drum thumping away with his padded stick; but you hear nothing--nothing save an occasional muffled boom from the big drum; how can you when all about you cheers are thundering forth for “_Erskine! Erskine! Erskine!_” Your throat is dry and parched, the perspiration is trickling down your cheek, and your eyes are dazzled with the sunlight; but you’re as happy as a clam at high tide, for the sixth inning has begun, neither side has yet scored, Erskine is at bat, and your heart’s in your mouth!

Five innings without a tally doesn’t sound exciting, and yet, if we except the second, every one of those five innings had kept the audience on the edges of the seats. In every inning save the second Robinson had placed men on bases, and at the end of each the supporters of the Purple had heaved sighs of heartfelt relief, finding sufficient satisfaction in the fact that the Brown had not scored. Only once had Erskine dared hope for a tally. That was in the third. The tally didn’t come. It had been a pitcher’s battle, and the palm had gone to Vose, the tall, thin fellow whose spindle-shanks were encased in brown stockings. Not a single hit had been made off him, while Gilberth had been struck freely, yet had frequently managed to puzzle the batsman when a single would have brought in a run, or possibly two. When summed up it came to this: Erskine had been outplayed, and that Robinson did not now lead by several tallies was due to her inability to make her hits at the right time. The players of each college, in batting order, were as follows:

ERSKINE Perkins, catcher, captain. Motter, first base. Gilberth, pitcher. Bissell, center-field. Knox, shortstop. King, left-field. Northup, right-field. Stiles, second base. Billings, third base.

ROBINSON Cox, first base. Condit, catcher. Hopkins, third base. Morgan, shortstop. Devlin, left-field. Wood, center-field, captain. Richman, second base. Regan, right-field. Vose, pitcher.

At the beginning of the sixth inning it was anybody’s game. Billings, the tag-ender, went to bat. On the Erskine stand the cheering died away and the purple flags ceased waving and fluttering in the still afternoon air. Across the diamond the band laid aside its instruments, and the shadow of the western stand crept along the turf until its edge touched the line of white that marked the coacher’s box. On the players’ benches the men leaned forward anxiously and watched Billings thrust his cap back and grip his bat determinedly.

But it was soon evident to the watchers that Erskine was not to score. Billings hit a short grounder to first-baseman who scooped it up and tagged the bag before the batsman was half-way toward it. Joe Perkins had two strikes called on him ere he found the ball, and sent a high foul into the hands of left-fielder. He tossed aside the bat with a look of disgust and paused on his way back to the bench to whisper into the ear of Motter, the next victim to the deceptive curves of the merciless Vose. Joe crowded into a space between Billings and Tracy Gilberth.

“_I_ can’t find him,” he sighed.

“No, hang him,” growled Tracy, “he’s too much for any of us. But I’ll bet he’ll let down before the game’s over; and then--well, then we want to be ready, Joe!”

“Do you think he will? It doesn’t look like it.”

Tracy nodded knowingly.

“His arm’s getting stiff. I know the signs. So’s mine, for that matter, and I’ve pitched perfectly rotten ball, Joe!”

“Nonsense, you’ve done good work. But let me know as soon as you want to quit, Tracy. How about the next inning?”

“That’s for you to say,” answered Tracy. “But I guess I can hold out through the seventh, if you don’t mind.”

“All right; I’ll put King in for the eighth. Oh, hang! Come on, fellows! Out on the run!”

Motter had struck out, and was trotting to his position at first, drawing on his glove and looking wofully sad. The Robinson band struck up again, and the Erskine contingent, not to be outdone, started the cheers once more, while the purple-sleeved players spread out over the diamond.

Joe thumped his big mitten and Tracy picked up the ball. The umpire, a rotund little man in a navy-blue blouse shirt, ran nimbly to his position.

“First man!” cried Joe confidently.

The batsman was the Robinson captain and center-fielder, Wood. Tracy was not greatly afraid of Wood, and so saved his arm by pitching a few slow balls, none of which the Robinson captain was able to touch. When he struck out the Erskine cheers rang across the field. Richman came next. He was the first of the Brown’s tail-enders on the batting list, and he followed the way of his captain, while the purple flags fluttered joyously.

Perhaps Tracy was overconfident, for when Regan, the enemy’s right-fielder, stepped to the plate, he shook his head at Joe’s signal for an outshoot, and sent a straight, slow ball over the corner of the base. And Regan got it on his bat and sent it arching in easy flight toward second, and raced for the bag.

“Mine!” called Stiles.

“Take it!” shouted little Knox, backing him up.

But Stiles didn’t take it. Instead he let it slip through his fingers, and so when Knox had recovered and fielded it to Motter the runner was safe.

“Twenty minutes!” yelled the Robinson coach derisively. Then he began a desperate effort to rattle Gilberth. “On your toes!” he shrieked. “Go on, go on! He daren’t throw it! Way off now! I’ll look out for you! Way off! Now! _Now!_ NOW!”

Tracy was disgusted because he had allowed Regan to hit him, and the shrieks of the coacher annoyed him. Earlier in the game he would not have minded twenty coachers, but now his arm was aching and growing stiff and tired and his temper and nerves were not so well in command. The next batsman was Vose, the Robinson pitcher. Vose was the poorest performer with the stick of any of his team, and in the natural order of things should have been struck out without difficulty. But this time he found the second ball that came to him and hit it safely into right-field, and Regan took second. Then came Cox, the head of the batting list, and swung his ash wickedly while he waited.

There were coaches behind both first and third now, and their shrieks hurtled back and forth across the diamond. Tracy looked bothered, and Joe strove to hide his anxiety under a show of confidence.

“Next man, fellows!” he called cheerily. Motter took his cue from him and added his voice. “He’s a goner, Tracy! Strike him out, old man!”

And for a while it seemed that Tracy would do it. But when the little fat umpire had called two strikes and two balls on him Cox managed to find something that suited him, and cracked it out past shortstop. Regan reached third, and, with two out, the bases were full. Joe and Tracy had a whispered consultation, while the Robinson stands hooted derisively, and then took their places again. Condit, the Brown’s catcher, and one of the best batters, tapped the plate and looked as though he meant to bring in a run. The coachers kept up their medley of taunts and warnings, but Tracy had found his head again and paid not the slightest attention.

The first ball went wide, and Joe’s brilliant stop brought forth a burst of applause. Tracy hurried up, apologetic, keeping an eye on the bases. “Sorry, Joe,” he said.

“All right, old man,” answered the captain cheerfully. “Now let’s put him out.”

Two strikes followed.

“Good eye, Tracy!” “Fine work, old man!” “That’s the pitching!” encouraged the infielders. Then the batsman elicited laughter and applause from his supporters by crossing the plate and suddenly becoming a left-handed batter. Tracy looked surprised, and his next two efforts were pronounced balls. Joe leaned far to the left and squeezed his hands between his knees. Tracy nodded. But the batsman was an old hand, and was not deceived by the inshoot that followed. “Three balls!” cried the umpire. Everything depended on the next pitch. Tracy straightened his arms, swung his foot, and hurled a straight ball waist high for the plate. Condit met it with his bat, but failed to hit it squarely, and it went high into the air, and the men on bases raced toward home.

When the sphere came down it was undeniably second-baseman’s ball, and Stiles stood ready for it. Regan reached home, and the next man, Vose, swung around third. Suddenly a shout of joy burst from the Robinson stands and the coachers were screaming like mad. Stiles had muffed!

Vose, with a coacher racing along beside him, sped for home. But Knox had seized the ball almost before it had touched the ground, and now he threw it straight and sure toward the plate. Vose hurled himself forward when fully ten feet distant, and slid for his goal, but the ball was there before him, and Joe’s right hand swept down and tagged him. The side was out. The Erskine players hurried in to the bench, and Gilberth picked out his bat.

It was the beginning of the seventh inning, but the score was no longer a blank; Robinson led 1 to 0. The band played wildly. Jack Weatherby, on the bench, felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to find Hanson speaking.

“You cover second, Weatherby,” said the coach.