CHAPTER XXI

RETURNING HOME

At midnight the Lowell special started on the return trip, with another special train, bearing the Jefferson team and her faithful rooters, trailing them.

The celebration after the game had been glorious but pretty strenuous, and the boys were tired. They all tumbled into their berths and went promptly to sleep.

Early in the morning, however, they were awakened by the noise of cheering, and looking out of the windows of the car they could see they had stopped at a station crowded with people. It was hardly six o’clock, but the platform was crowded with an enthusiastic mob, giving the Lowell yell and calling on the boys to get up and show themselves. The train pulled out before they could do this, but they got up and dressed and had an early breakfast.

Then they prepared themselves for the all-day ride to the East. Presently they stopped again. A still larger crowd was at the station with the familiar green flags and banners. This time the boys went out on the platform and joined the chorus of Lowell songs and yells.

So it went all day. Wherever they stopped there were cheering crowds and songs and yells. Every once in a while they called on Hughie for a speech and he would do his best in reply. It was almost the kind of a ride which the President makes on his occasional swings around the circle. Certain it is that no President ever got a more enthusiastic reception than did the Lowell boys that day.

During the course of the morning when there was about an hour’s run to the next stop, Johnny Everson and Arthur Delvin found Ty Robb in the far corner writing busily.

“Writing to the folks?” asked Johnny.

“Don’t bother me,” said Ty, “I have an inspiration.” So they left him alone, but presently he came up to where Hughie, Larke, and Everson were sitting and talking things over, and said: “I’ve made a brief report of the game for the boys at home. I saw a peach back there at the last station, and whenever I see peaches I think of ’Gene Field’s little poem.” Then he started to sing.

A baseball team out at Jefferson grew, A pretty good team it was they drew, Managed by Church and captained, too, It grew. It grew. Listen to this tale of woe.

They challenged the team of the Emerald hue That had beaten the Eastern teams very blue; They were captained by Larke and managed by Hugh, Too true. Too true. Listen to the tale of woe.

The Lowell boys came on the fast choo choo, They began to play the game at two to 2.02 And soon the trouble began to brew, Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Listen to their tale of woe.

Then Tommy came along with his mind in a stew And placed to his credit a bagger-two While Larry brought Church home and Black began to rue, But they were through. Listen to their wail of woe.

Johnny got his base and Larke got two, This was in the sixth and brought Johnny through, The eighth saw Cap. make another accrue, Score two. Score two. Listen to our lack of woe.

The rest of the innings showed us nothing new, Each side to bat and each side withdrew, The batters the pitchers couldn’t subdue, Hip Huroo. Hip Huroo. Listen to that tale of woe.

What of the team that Jefferson grew? Licked by Lowell of Emerald hue, Another game and its mission is through. They 1, We 2, Wait for the next tale of woe.

As Ty sang the other boys gathered round him and as most of them knew the tune they were presently crowding close, looking over his shoulder at the words and joining in. Then they made copies of it and sent them by the porter into the other cars of the train. Pretty soon everybody on the train either had a copy or had learned the thing by heart and whenever they stopped at a station they would all get out on the platforms or lean out of the windows and introduce the new song to the crowds at the stations, always leaving a few copies behind. By the time they reached Lowell, early in the evening, Robb’s doggerel song had been sung from Cleveland to Lowell and found its way the next day into most every big paper in the country, so that almost every Lowell man in the land knew it within twenty-four hours after it was composed.

Presently the train pulled into the station at Lowell. The boys looked out at the mob that was there to welcome them. Hal and Hans thought of the former return to Lowell when Hans had brought him back. This was a different kind of home coming. There was no walking or riding in carriages that night. It was shoulders for the team, surely, and they prepared for it.

The crowd at the station was singing the Lowell songs and yelling and cheering, but presently as the team and the others on the train appeared, the latter began singing Robb’s “Peach Song” again, and the crowd stopped to listen. They heard it, they seemed to drink it in, they learned it all at once, it seemed, for presently they were all singing this rather dirge-like chant of a Lowell victory.

Hughie tried his best to get the team away from the crowd, for they had a hard game ahead of them next day, but he gave it up finally, saying only, “All right boys, do as you please with us but don’t hurt us; we’ve got to lick them again to-morrow.”

Then they grabbed Hughie, lifted him upon strong shoulders, corralled the rest of the boys in a similar way and through the streets of the old college town they took them, a happy, joyous procession, the band in front playing, and the horns blowing. Finally they were let go to their homes where they could get another refreshing sleep in preparation for the second and perhaps final struggle which would take place on the morrow.

The crowd that welcomed Jefferson, which arrived an hour later, was not so large but it gave them a rousing welcome just the same. They knew that Jefferson had fought hard and bravely, and it had been no easy task to beat them; but Lowell had won, and they could afford to give the losers a generous welcome. They let the Jefferson team ride in carriages, however, contenting themselves with singing a few of the Jefferson songs, mingled with their own loved ones. They didn’t sing Ty’s “Peach Song” but Jefferson had heard it all along the route and they were determined to make Lowell sing an entirely different one before another twenty-four hours had passed.