by Zane Grey
When the players’ shout of delight died away, Chase turned on the little manager.
“What d’you want for fifteen cents—canary birds?” he yelled, in a voice that rattled the windows. He flung his bat down with a crash, and as it skipped along the bench more than one player fell over himself to get out of its way. “Didn’t I say I had to learn the game? Didn’t you say you’d show me? I never had that play before. I didn’t know what to do with the ball. What d’ you want, I say? Didn’t I accept nine chances today?”
Mac looked dumfounded. This young lamb of his had suddenly roused into a lion.
“Sure you needn’t holler about it. I was only tellin’ you.”
Then he strode out amid a silence that showed the surprise of his players. Winters recovered first, and turned his round red face and began to bob and shake with laughter.
“What—did he—want for fifteen cents—canary birds? Haw! Haw! Haw!” In another moment the other players were roaring with him.
CHAPTER VIII
ALONG THE RIVER
Castorious blanked the Wheeling club next day, and the following day Speer won his game. Findlay players had returned to their old form and were getting into a fast stride, so the Chronicle said. “Three straight from Columbus” was the slogan! Mac had signed a new pitcher, a left-hander named Poke, from a nearby country village, and was going to develop him. He was also trying out a popular player from the high-school team.
Mac had ordered morning practice for the Columbus series of games. The players hated morning practice, “drill” they called it, and presented themselves with visible displeasure. And when they were all on the grounds, Mac appeared with a bat over his shoulder and with his two new players in tow.
Poke was long and lanky, a sunburned rustic who did not know what to do with his hands and feet.
“Battin’ practice,” called out Mac, sharply, ordering Poke to the pitcher’s box.
Poke peeled off his sweater, showing bare arms that must have had a long and intimate acquaintance with axe and rail-pile.
“Better warm up first,” said Mac. It developed that Poke did not need any warming. When he got ready he wound himself up, and going through some remarkable twist that made him resemble a cartwheel, delivered the ball towards the plate. Thatcher just dodged in time to save his head.
“Speed! Whew! Wow!” exclaimed the players.
“Speed!” echoed Thatcher. “Wait till you, get up there!”
Poke drove Thatcher away from the plate and struck Meade out. “Put ’em over,” said Benny, as he came up.
The first ball delivered hit Benny on the foot, and roaring, he threw down his bat. “You Rube! You wild Indian! I’ll git you fer thet!”
Enoch Winters was the next batter. “Say, you lean, hungry-lookin’ rubberneck, if you hit me!” warned Enoch, in his soft voice.
Poke struck Enoch out and retired Chase on a little pop-up fly. Then Cas sauntered up with his wagon-tongue bat and a black scowl on his face.
“Steady up, steady up,” said he. “Put ’em over. Don’t use all your steam.”
“Mister, I ain’t commenced yit to throw hard,” replied Poke.
“Wha-at?” yelled Cas. “Are you kidding me? Slam the ball! Break your arm, then!”
The rustic whirled a little farther ’round, unwound himself a little quicker, and swung his arm. Cas made an ineffectual attempt to hit what looked like a white cord stretched between him and the pitcher. The next ball started the same way, but took an upward jump and shot under Cas’s chin.
Cas, who had a mortal dread of being hit, fell back from the plate and glared at Poke.
“You’ve got his alley, Poke!” cried the amiable players. “Keep ’em under his chin!” Cas retired in disgust as Mac came trotting up from the field, where he had been coaching the high-school player.
“What’s he got?” asked Mac, eagerly.
“What’s he got!” yelled nine voices in unison. “Oh! Nothing!”
“Step up an’ take a turn,” said Mac to his new player. “No, don’t stand so far back. Here, let me show you. Gimme the bat.”
Mac took a position well up to the plate and began illustrating his idea of the act of hitting.
“You see, I get well back on my right foot, ready to step forward with my left. I’ll step just before he delivers the ball. I’ll keep my bat over my shoulder an’ hit a little late, so as to hit to right field. Thet’s best for the hit-an’-run game. Now, watch. See. Step an’ set; step an’ set. The advantage of gettin’ set this way is the pitcher can’t fool you, can’t hit you. You needn’t never be afraid of bein’ hit after you learn how to get set. No pitcher could hit me.” Then raising his voice, Mac shouted to Poke, “Hey, poke up a couple. Speed em over, now!”
Poke evidently recognized the cardinal necessity of making an impression, for he went through more wonderful gyrations than ever. Then he lunged forward with the swing he used in getting the ball away. Nobody saw the ball.
BUMB! A sound not unlike a suddenly struck base-drum electrified the watching players. Then the ball appeared rolling down from Mac’s shrinking person. The little manager seemed to be slowly settling to the ground. He turned an agonized face and uttered a long moan.
“My ribs—I—my ribs!—he hit me,” gasped Mac.
Chase, Poke, and the new man were the only persons who did not roll over and over on the ground. That incident put an end to the morning “drill.”
After dressing, Chase decided to try to find Mittie-Maru. The mascot had not been at the last two games, and this fact determined him to seek the lad. So he passed down the street where he had often left Mittie, and asked questions on the way. Everybody knew the hunchback, but nobody knew where he lived.
Chase went on until he passed the line of houses and got into the outskirts of the town, where carpenter-shops, oil refineries, and brick-yards abounded. Several workmen he questioned said they saw the boy almost every day, and that he kept on down the street toward the open country. Chase had about decided to give up his quest, when he came to the meadows and saw across them the green of a line of willows. This he knew marked a brook or river, along which a stroll would be pleasant.
When he reached the river, he saw Mittie-Maru sitting on a log patiently holding a long crooked fishing pole. “Any luck?” he shouted.
Mittie-Maru turned with a start, and seeing Chase cried out, “You ole son-of-a-gun! Trailed me, didn’t you? What yer doin’ out here?”
“I’m looking for you, Mittie.”
“What fer?”
Chase leaped down the bank and seated himself on the log beside the boy. “Well, you haven’t been out to the grounds lately. Why?”
“Aw! Nuthin’,” replied Mittie savagely.
“See here, you can’t string me,” said Chase, earnestly. “Things aren’t right with you, Mittie, and you can’t bluff it out on me. So I’ve been hunting you. We’re going to be pards, you know.”
“Are we?”
Chase then saw Mittie’s eyes for the first time and learned they were bright, soft, and beautiful, giving his face an entirely different look.
“Sure. And that’s why I wanted to find you—where you lived—and if you were sick again.”
“It’s my back, Chase,” replied Mittie, reluctantly. “Sometimes it—hurts worse.”
“Then it pains you all the time?” asked Chase, voicing a suspicion that had come to him from watching the boy.
“Yes. But it ain’t bad today. Sometimes—hol’ on! I got a bite. See! It’s a whopper—Thunder! I missed him!”
Mittie-Maru rebaited his hook and cast it into the stream. “Fishin’ fer mine, when I can’t git to the ball-grounds. Do you like fishin’, Chase?”
“Love it. You must let me come out and fish with you.”
“Sure. There’s good fishin’ fer catfish an’ suckers, an’ once in a while a bass. I never fished any before I came here, an’ I missed a lot. You see, movin’ ’round ain’t easy fer me. Gee! I
can walk, but I mean playin’ ball or any games the kids play ain’t fer me. So I take mine out in fishin’. I’ve got so I like sittin’ in the sun with it all lonely aroun’, ’cept the birds an’ ripples. I used to be sore—about—about my back an’ things, but fishin’ has showed me I could be worse off. I can see an’ hear as well as anybody. There! I got bite again!”
Mittie-Maru pulled out a sunfish that wriggled and shone like gold in the sunlight. “Thet’s enough fer today. I ain’t no fish-hog. Chase, if I show you where I live, you won’t squeal? Of course you won’t.”
Chase assured him he would observe absolute secrecy; and together they mounted the bank and walked up stream. The meadows were bright with early June daisies and buttercups; the dew had not yet dried from the clover; blackbirds alighted in the willows and larks fluttered up from the grass. They came presently to an abandoned brickyard, where piles of broken brick lay scattered ’round, and two mound-like kilns stood amid the ruins of some frame structures.
“Here we are,” said Mittie-Maru, marching up to one of the kilns and throwing open a rudely contrived door. A dark aperture revealed the entrance to this singular abode.
“You don’t mean you live in this oven?” ejaculated Chase.
“Sure. An’ I’ve lived in worse places. Come in, an’ make yourself to home.”
Mittie-Maru crawled into the hole, and Chase followed him. It was roomy inside. Light came in from the chimney hole in the roof, and also on one side where there was a crack in the bricks. The floor was clean and of smooth sand. A pile of straw and some blankets made MittieMaru’s bed. A fireplace of bricks, a few cooking utensils, and a box cupboard told that he was his own housekeeper.
“This’s not bad. How long have you lived in here?”
“Aw, I fooled ’round town fer a while last summer, spendin’ my money fer swell lodgin’s, an’ then I found this place. Makes a hit with me.”
“But when you’re sick, Mittie, what do you—how do you manage?”
“Out of sight, an’ I ain’t no bother to no one.”
And that was all Mittie-Maru would vouchsafe concerning himself. They came out after a while and Chase wanted to walk farther on up the river. Rolling meadows stretched away to the hills; there was a grove of maples not far off.
“It’s so pretty up that way. Can’t we go farther on and strike another road into town?”
“Sure. But them meadows an’ groves is private property,” said Mittie dubiously. “I used to fish up thet way, till I threw Miss Marjory down, then I quit. She lives in one of them grove houses. We ain’t likely to meet no one, though, so come on.”
They crossed several fields to enter the grove. The river was narrow there and shaded by big trees. Violets peeped out of the grass. A white house gleamed in the distance.
Suddenly they came ’round a huge spreading tree to a green embankment. A boat rode in the water, one end lightly touching the sand. And in the boat was a girl. Her eyes were closed; her head rested on her arm, which hung over the side. A mass of violets lay in her lap. All about the boat was deep shade, but a gleam of sunshine, filtering through the leaves, turned the girl’s hair to gold.
Mittie-Maru uttered a suppressed exclamation and bolted behind some bushes. Chase took a step to follow suit, when the girl opened her eyes and saw him. She gave a little cry, which rooted Chase to the spot.
Then because of the movement of the girl, the boat left the sand and drifted into the stream. Whereupon Mittie-Maru returned valiantly to the scene.
“Miss Marjory! Don’t be scairt. It’s all right. We’ll get you pulled in. Where’s the oars? Chase, you’ll hev to wade out. The water ain’t deep. Come here, the boat’s goin’ close to this sandbar.”
Chase became animated at Mittie’s words, and hurriedly slipping off his shoes and stockings, he jumped to the sand below and waded out. Deeper and deeper the water grew, till he was far over his knees. Still the boat was out of reach. He could tell by feeling with his foot that another step would plunge him over his head, and he was about to swim, when Mittie came to the rescue. He threw a long pole down to Chase.
“There! Let her grab that, an’ pull her in.”
Chase extended the pole, and as the girl caught it, he saw her eyes. They were dark blue and smiled into his.
“Careful!” shouted the pilot above. “Don’t pull so hard, Chase, this ain’t no tug-o’-war. There! All right.”
When Chase moored the boat, Miss Marjory gathered up the violets and lightly stepped ashore. Then an obvious constraint affected the three. She murmured a low, “Thank you,” and stood, picking the flowers; Chase bent over his shoes and stockings with a very flushed face, and Mittie-Maru labored with sudden and painful emotions.
“Miss Marjory, it ’peared like we pushed the boat out, me an’ Chase, but thet ain’t so. We was walkin’ this way—he wanted to go in the grove—an’ all to once we spied you, an’ I ducked behind the bushes.”
“Why? Are you afraid of me, Mittie-Maru?” she asked.
“Yes—no—it ain’t thet, Miss Marjory. Well, no use lyin’. I’ve been keepin’ out of your way fer a long time now, ’cause I know you’d have me in Sunday school.”
“Now you will come back, won’t you?”
“I s’pose so,” he said with resignation, then looked at Chase. “Miss Marjory, this’s my friend Chase, Findlay’s new shortstop.”
“I met the—new shortstop last week,” was the demure reply.
“Miss Marjory, you didn’t sell Chase none of them gold bricks at the church sociable?”
“No, Mittie, but I sold him five plates of ice-cream,” she answered with a merry laugh. “Your friend has forgotten me.”
Mittie-Maru regarded Chase with a fine contempt. Chase was tongue-tied. Somewhere he had indeed seen those deep blue eyes; they were like the memory of a dream. “Miss—Miss—” stammered Chase.
“Miss Dean, Marjory Dean.”
“I met—so many girls—I didn’t really have time to get to know anybody well”
Mittie-Maru watched them with bright, sharp eyes, and laughed when Chase broke into embarrassed speech again. “—finest time I ever had. I told Mittie about it, how they sold me a lot of old maid’s things. I sent some of them to my mother. And I asked Mittie if he could use a pincushion or two. I’ve been hunting Mittie all morning. Found him fishing down here. He’s got the cutest little den in a kiln at the old brickyard below. He lives there. It’s the cosiest place”
Mittie had administered to Chase a series of violent kicks, the last of which had brought him to his senses.
“Chase, you peached on me. You give me away, an’ you said you wouldn’t!”
“Oh! Mittie, I’m sorry—I didn’t think,” cried Chase in contrition.
“Is it true?” asked Marjory, with grave eyes.
“Sure. An’ I don’t mind yer knowin’. Really I don’t, if you’ll promise not to tell a soul.”
“I promise. Will you let me come to see you?”
“I’d be tickled to death. You an’ Chase come to call on me. I’ll ketch you a mess of fish. Won’t thet be fine?”
Marjory’s long lashes fell. The sound of a bell came ringing through the grove.
“That’s for me. I must be going. Good-bye.”
Chase and Mittie watched the slight blue-clad figure flit along the path, in and out among the trees, to disappear in the green.
“An I promised to go to Sunday school again,” muttered Mittie-Maru.
CHAPTER IX
ON THE ROAD
At six o’clock on the twelfth of June, the Findlay baseball club, fifteen strong, was assembled at the railroad station to begin a two weeks’ trip on the road. Having taken three games from Columbus, and being now but a few points behind that team, they were an exceedingly lively company of young men. They were so exuberant with joy that they made life a burden for everybody, particularly for Mac. The little manager had trouble enough at home, but it was on the road that he got his gray hai
rs.
“Sure, Cas, you ain’t after takin’ thet dog again?” asked Mac.
Castorious had a vicious-looking beast, all head and jaws, under his arm.
“Dog!” roared Cas, insulted. “This’s a blooded bull-terrier pup. ’Course I’m going to take him. We can’t win the pennant without Algy.”
“Algy? Is thet his name?” burst out Mac, who had already exhausted his patience. “Thet’s a fine name for a mongrel brute. He’s uglier than a mud fence.”
As Mac concluded, a rat ran across the platform. Algy saw it, and with a howl wriggled out of his master’s arms and gave chase. The platform was crowded with people, of whom ladies made up the greater part. Algy chased the rat from under the trucks and between the trunks right into the crowd. Instantly a scene of great excitement prevailed. Women screamed and rushed frantically into each others’ arms; some fell over their grips; several climbed upon trunks; all of them evinced a terror that must have had its origin in the movements of the escaping rat, not the pursuing pup. And the course of both animals could be marked by a zigzag line of violent commotion in the crowd.
Presently a woman shrieked and seemed to sit down upon a moving object only to slip to the floor. Algy appeared then with the rat between his jaws.
“It was a cinch he’d get it,” yelled Cas. He gathered up the pup and hid him under his coat.
“Line up! Line up!” shouted Mac, as the train whistled.
The players stepped into a compact, wedge-shaped formation; and when the train stopped in the station, they moved in orderly mass through the jostling mob. Ball players value a rest to tired legs too much to risk standing up, and even in the most crowded stations always board the train first.
“Through to the Pullman!” yelled Mac.
Chase was in the seventh heaven of delight. He had long been looking forward to what the players called “on the road.” and the luxurious Pullman suited his dreams of travel. He and Winters took a seat opposite a very stout old lady who gazed somewhat sourly at them. Havil and Thatcher were on the other side of the aisle; Cas had a seat in the forward end; Mac was behind; and the others were scattered about. There were some half-dozen passengers besides, notable among whom was a very tall, thin, bald-headed man sitting in front of Havil. Chase knew his fellow-players too well by this time to expect them to settle down calmly. “On the road” was luxury for ball players. Fast trains, the best hotels, all expenses paid—these for a winning baseball team were things to appreciate. Chase settled back in the soft cushioned seat to watch, to see, to enjoy every move and word of his companions.