“I hear the new league is coming after you hotfoot. But I’m betting on you, Joe.“McRae.”
“I hear the new league is coming after you hotfoot. But I’m betting on you, Joe.
“McRae.”
“McRae.”
He handed it over to Jim who read it with a smile.
“Betting on me, is he?” said Joe. “Well, Mac, you win!”
32CHAPTER IVTHE TOP OF THE WAVE
While they were still discussing the telegram, Joe’s father came home to lunch from the harvester works where he was employed. He seemed ten years younger than he had before the trip to the World’s Series, which he in his quiet way had enjoyed quite as much as the rest of the family.
He greeted the young men cordially.
“I met a man a little way down the street who seemed to have come from here,” he said, as he hung up his hat. “He had his hat jammed down on his head, and was muttering to himself as though he were sore about something.”
“He was,” replied Jim with a grin. “He laid twenty-five thousand dollars on the table, and he was sore because Joe wouldn’t take it up.”
Mr. Matson looked bewildered, but his astonishment was not as great as that of Clara, who at that moment put her head in the door to announce that lunch was ready.33
“What are you millionaires talking about?” she asked.
“What do millionaires usually talk about?” answered Jim loftily. “Money—the long green—iron men—filthy lucre—yellowbacks——”
“If you don’t stop your nonsense you sha’n’t have any lunch,” threatened Clara, “and that means something, too, for mother has spread herself in getting it up.”
“Take it all back,” said Jim promptly. “I’m as sober as a judge. Lead me to this lunch, fair maiden, and I’ll tell you nothing but the plain, unvarnished truth. But even at that, I’m afraid you’ll think I’m romancing.”
The merry group seated themselves at the table, and Clara, all alive with curiosity, demanded the fulfilment of Jim’s promise.
“Well,” said Jim, “the simple truth is that that fellow who was here this morning offered Joe sixty-five thousand dollars for three years’ work.”
Mrs. Matson almost dropped her knife and fork in her amazement. Mr. Matson sat up with a jerk, and Clara’s eyes opened to their widest extent.
“Sixty-five thousand dollars!” gasped Joe’s father.
“For three years’ work!” exclaimed Mrs. Matson.34
“Why,” stammered Clara, “that’s—that’s—let me see—why, that’s more than twenty-one thousand dollars a year.”
“That’s what,” replied Jim, keenly relishing the sensation he was causing. “And it wasn’t stage money either. He had brought twenty thousand dollars with him in bills, and he laid it down on the table as carelessly as though it was twenty cents. And all that this modest youth, who sits beside me and isn’t saying a word, had to do to get that money was to put his name on a piece of paper.”
“Joe,” exclaimed Clara, “do tell us what all this means! Jim is just trying to tantalize us.”
“Stung!” grinned Jim. “That’s what comes from mixing in family matters.”
“Why, it’s this way, Sis,” laughed Joe. “That fellow traveled a thousand miles to call me a hick. I wouldn’t stand for it and made him take it back and then he got mad and skipped.”
“Momsey,” begged Clara in desperation, “can’t you make these idiots tell us just what happened?”
“Them cruel woids!” ejaculated Jim mournfully.
“Do tell us, Joe!” entreated his mother. “I’m just dying to know all about it.”
Teasing his mother was a very different thing from teasing Clara, who was an adept at that art herself, and Joe surrendered immediately.35
They forgot to eat—all except Jim, who seldom carried forgetfulness so far—while he told them about Westland’s call and his proposition to Joe to break his contract and jump to the new league.
Sixty-five thousand dollars was a staggering amount of money, a fortune, in fact, in that quiet town, and yet there was not one of that little family who didn’t rejoice that Joe had turned the offer down.
“You did the right thing, Joe,” said his father heartily; “and the fact that lots of people would call you foolish doesn’t change things in the least. A man who sells himself for a hundred thousand dollars is just as contemptible as one who sells himself for a dollar. I’m proud of you, my boy.”
“I could have told beforehand just what Joe would do,” said Mrs. Matson, wiping her eyes.
“You’re the darlingest brother ever!” exclaimed Clara, coming round the table and giving him a hug and a kiss.
The thought of Clara being a sister to him had never appealed to Jim before, but just at that moment it would have had its advantages.
For the rest of the meal all were engrossed in talking of the great event of the morning—that is, all but Joe, who kept casting surreptitious glances at the clock.36
“Don’t get worried, Joe,” said his sister mischievously, as she intercepted one of his glances. “Mabel’s train doesn’t get in until half-past two, and it isn’t one o’clock yet.”
Joe flushed a little and Jim laughed.
“Can you blame him?” he asked.
“Not a bit,” answered Clara. “Mabel’s a darling and I’m crazy to get hold of her. After Joe, though, of course,” she added.
Joe threw his napkin at her but missed.
“Sixty-five thousand dollars for a baseball player who can’t throw any straighter than that,” she mocked. “It’s a lucky thing for the new league that you didn’t take their money.”
“Maybe I had better take their money after all!” cried Joe tantalizingly.
At these words Clara threw up her hands in mock horror.
“You just dare, Joe Matson, and I’ll disown you!”
“Ah-ha! And now I’m disowned and cast out of my home!” exclaimed the young baseball player tragically. “Woe is me!”
“I don’t believe any decent player would ever have anything to say to you, Joe, if you did such a mean thing as that,” went on Clara seriously. And at this Joe nodded affirmatively.
An hour later, all three, chatting merrily, were on their way to the train. But their progress was37slow, for at almost every turn they were stopped by friends who wanted to shake hands with Joe and congratulate him on his presence of mind the night before.
“One of the penalties of having a famous brother,” sighed Clara, when this had happened for the twentieth time.
“You little hypocrite,” laughed Jim. “You know that you’re just bursting with pride. You’re tickled to death to be walking alongside of him. Stop your sighing. Follow my example. I’m tickled to death to be walking alongside of you and you don’t hearmesighing. I feel more like singing.”
“For goodness’ sake, don’t,” retorted Clara in mock alarm. “Oh, dear, here’s another one!”
“Were you addressing me when you said ‘dear’?” asked Jim politely.
Clara flashed him an indignant glance, just as Professor Enoch Crabbe, of the Riverside Academy, stepped up and greeted Joe. He was earnest in his congratulations, but his manner was so stilted that they looked at each other with an amused smile, as he stalked pompously away.
“I wonder if he believes now that I can throw a curve,” laughed Joe.
“He ought to ask some of the Red Sox who whiffed away at them in the World Series,” said38Jim with a grin. “They didn’t have any doubt about it.”
“Professor Crabbe had very serious doubts,” explained Joe. “In fact, he said it was impossible. Against all the laws of motion and all that sort of thing. I had to rig up a couple of bamboo rods in a line, and get Dick Talbot, a friend of mine in the moving-picture business, to take a picture of the ball as it curved around the rods, before I could prove my point.”
“Did it convince him?” queried Jim.
“It stumped him, anyway,” replied Joe. “But sometimes I have a sneaking notion that he thinks yet that Dick and I played some kind of a bunco game on him by doctoring the film.”
“Well, I hope that nobody else stops us,” remarked Clara. “It seems to me that almost everybody in Riverside is on the street this afternoon.”
“It wouldn’t be such an awful mob at that,” replied Jim. “But it’s a safe bet that one man at least won’t stop Joe to shake hands with him.”
“Who is that?” asked Clara.
“The fellow who yelled ‘Fire’ in the hall last night,” answered Jim with a grin.
“I hope I didn’t hurt him,” observed Joe, thoughtfully.
“Perish the thought,” replied Jim. “You just caressed him. He was a big fellow, and he39probably sat down just to take a load off his feet.”
“I’m glad he wasn’t a Riverside man, anyway,” remarked Joe, loyal to his home town. “I never saw him before. Probably he came from some place near by.”
“Oh, then, of course he won’t mind it,” chaffed Jim.
“Of all the nonsense——” Clara was beginning, when her eye caught sight of a figure she recognized on the station platform which they had nearly reached.
She nudged her brother’s elbow.
“There’s the man you were talking to this morning,” she said in a low voice.
“By George, so it is!” replied Joe, as he followed her glance. “And he’s talking to Altman. Trying to make him a convert.”
“A renegade, you mean,” growled Jim.
40CHAPTER VLUCKY JOE
Westland saw the party coming, and with a scowl turned his back upon them.
Altman, however, greeted Joe with a smile and, excusing himself to Westland, went over to meet him with extended hand.
“How are you, old scout?” he exclaimed. “You sure batted .300 last night.”
Joe greeted him cordially, while Jim and Clara strolled on toward the end of the platform. It was astonishing what good company those two were to each other, and how well they bore the absence of anybody else from their conversation.
“I’m feeling fine as silk,” was Joe’s response to Altman’s question.
“Didn’t sprain your salary wing, or anything like that?” grinned Altman. “You fetched that fellow an awful hit in the jaw.”
“I hated to do it, but it was coming to him,” laughed Joe.41
“Well, if there are any doctors’ bills, I guess the Riverside people will be willing to take up a collection to pay them,” replied Altman. “It’s mighty lucky for the town that you happened to be in the crowd last night.”
“I suppose you’re off to keep your next engagement,” said Joe, to change the subject. “By the way, Nick, that was a mighty nifty skit of yours at the hall last night. It brought down the house. It ought to pull big everywhere.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” replied Altman. “I’m booked for twenty weeks and I’m drawing down good money.”
“I suppose you’ll be with the White Sox next year, as usual,” said Joe.
Altman hesitated.
“W-why, I suppose so,” he said slowly. “My contract with them has another year to run. To tell the truth, though, Joe, I’m somewhat unsettled.”
“Why,” said Joe, “you’re not going to give up the game for the stage, are you?”
“Oh, nothing like that,” replied Altman. “I’d rather play ball than eat, and I’ll stick to the game as long as this old wing of mine can put them over the plate. But whether I’ll be with the White Sox or not is another question.”
“Some other team in the American league trying to make a dicker for you?” asked Joe.42
“Not that I’ve heard anything about,” responded Altman. “But the American League isn’t the whole cheese in baseball—nor the National League, either, for that matter.”
“I see Westland has been talking to you,” said Joe. “I don’t want to butt in, Nick, but don’t let him put one over on you.”
“The new league seems to have barrels of money,” replied Altman, evading a direct answer. “This fellow Westland seems aching to throw it to the birds—he’s got a wad in his pocket that would choke a horse.”
“Yes,” said Joe dryly, “I’ve seen that wad before. But take a fool’s advice, Nick, and stick to the old ship.”
“That’s all very well,” said Altman. “But a man’s worth all that he will bring in any other line of work—and why shouldn’t it be so in baseball? Who is it that brings the money in at the gate, anyway? We’re the ones that the public come to see, but it’s the bosses that get all the money.”
“Lay off on that ‘poor, down-trodden slave’ talk, Nick,” said Joe earnestly. “You know as well as I do that there are mighty few fellows who get as well paid for six months’ work as we ball players do. But, leave that out of the question for a minute—don’t you suppose the backers of this new league are just as eager to make money43out of us as anybody else? Do you think they’re in the game for the sport of it? And don’t you know that the coming of a new league just now is likely to wreck the game? You know how it was in the old Brotherhood days—they did the same crooked work then that they’re trying to do now—bribing men to jump their contracts by offers of big money. The game got a blow then that it took years to recover from, and there wasn’t a single major league player that in the long run, didn’t suffer from it. Play the game, Nick—and let’s show these fellows that they can’t buy us as they would so many cattle.”
Altman was visibly impressed, and Westland, who had been watching proceedings out of the corner of his eye, thought it time to intervene. He strolled down toward them and without looking at Joe, spoke directly to Altman.
“Train’s coming, Nick,” he said. “I just heard the whistle. I’ll stay with you so that we can get seats together in the smoker.”
“Well, good-bye, Joe!” said Altman. “I’m glad to have seen you again, anyway, and I’ll promise not to do anything hastily.”
And as Jim and Clara came hurrying up at that moment, Joe had to be content with the hope that, at least, he had put a spoke in Westland’s wheel.
The train was in sight now, and all thoughts44of baseball were banished for the moment at the thought of what that train was bringing to him.
With a rush and a roar the train drew up at the station. The colored porter jumped down the steps of the parlor car to assist the descending passengers.
Joe uttered an exclamation, and Clara gave a little squeal of delight as two young people, whom a family resemblance proclaimed to be brother and sister, came hurriedly down the steps.
In a moment they were the center of an eager and tumultuous group.
“Mabel!” exclaimed Joe,—at least that was all that they heard him say just then. What he said to her later on is none of our business.
The girls hugged and kissed each other, much to the aggravation of the masculine contingent, while Reggie Varley extended his two hands, which were grasped cordially by Joe and Jim.
The romance which had culminated in the engagement of Mabel Varley and Joe dated back two years earlier. Joe had been in a southern training camp, in spring practice with his team, when one day he had been lucky enough to stop a runaway horse which Mabel had been driving, and thus saved her from imminent danger and45possible death. The acquaintance, so established, rapidly deepened into friendship and then into something stronger.
Mabel was a charming girl with lustrous brown eyes, wonderful complexion and dimples that came and went in a distracting fashion, and it was no wonder that Joe before long was a helpless but willing captive. She, on her part, developed a sudden fondness for the great national game to which she had hitherto been indifferent.
They had met many times during the season, and with every meeting her witchery over Joe had become more potent. He had stolen a glove from her during one of his visits to Goldsboro, her home town in the South, and during the exciting games of the last World’s Series he had worn it close to his heart when he had pitched his team to victory.
And when he told her this on the night following the famous game that had set the whole country wild with excitement, and told her too, that victory meant nothing, unless she shared it with him, she had capitulated and promised to become his wife.
Reggie, her brother, had formed Joe’s acquaintance earlier than Mabel and in a less pleasant way. He was a rather foppish young man who cultivated a mustache that the girls called46“darling,” and affected what he fondly believed to be an English accent.
In a railway station he had left his valise near where Joe was sitting, and, on his return, found that the valise had been opened and some valuable jewelry stolen from it. He had rashly accused Joe of the theft, and had narrowly escaped a thrashing from that indignant young man, in consequence.
The matter had been patched up at the time, and afterward, when Joe learned that he was Mabel’s brother, had been forgiven entirely. The men were now on the most cordial of terms, for Reggie, despite his peculiarities and though he would never “set the river on fire” with his intellectual ability, was by no means a bad fellow.
There was a merry hubbub of greetings and exclamations while the men arranged for the baggage and the girls asked each other twenty questions at once and then the party paired off for the walk to the Matson home—that is, Joe and Mabel and Jim and Clara, formed the pairs, while Reggie was, so to speak, a fifth wheel to the coach!
Not that this bothered Reggie in the least. He ambled along amiably, dividing his talk and attentions impartially, serenely unconscious that each pair was willing to bestow him upon the other.47
“We ought to have a band playing ‘See, the Conquering Hero Comes,’” remarked Jim to Mabel, who was walking in front with Joe.
“I know he’s a hero,” said Mabel, her eyes eloquent as she looked at Joe. “I can hardly pick up the paper but what it calls him the hero of the World’s Series.”
“I don’t mean a baseball hero,” said Jim, “but a real, honest-to-goodness hero—the life-saver and all that kind of stuff, you know.”
“Yes,” joined in Clara, “you came a day too late, Mabel. You ought to have seen Joe at the Opera House last night. He was simply great.”
“At the Opera House?” Mabel repeated, in some bewilderment.
“Sure,” chaffed Jim. “Didn’t you know Joe’d gone on the stage?”
“Yes,” said Clara, carrying out the mystification. “He made a hit, too.”
“There was at least one man in the audience he made a hit with,” chuckled Jim.
“Don’t let them fool you, Mabel,” said Joe, tenderly. “There was just a little excitement at the Opera House last night and Jim and I took a hand in stopping it. They’re making an awful lot of a very simple matter.”
“You’ve no idea what a voice Joe has for public speaking,” persisted the irrepressible Jim. “Last night he was a howling success.”48
“Clara, dear, tell me all about it,” entreated Mabel. “We girls are the only ones who can talk sense.”
Thus appealed to, Clara told about the circumstances of the night before, and, as may be imagined, Joe did not suffer in the telling. If the latter had needed any other reward for his exploit he found it in Mabel’s eyes as she looked at him.
“I thought I knew all about you before,” she said, in a half whisper, “but I’m learning all the time!”
49CHAPTER VICIRCLING THE GLOBE
When the party reached the Matson home, motherly Mrs. Matson took Mabel into her arms as she had long since taken her into her heart. Then Clara took her up to her room to refresh herself after the journey, while Jim and Joe took care of Reggie and his belongings.
“Oh, I’m so glad that you’ve got here at last!” exclaimed Clara, as she placed an affectionate hand on Mabel’s shoulder.
“And you may be sure that I’m glad that I am here,” was the happy response. “I declare, this place almost feels like home to me.”
“Well, you know, we want it to feel like home to you, Mabel,” answered Joe’s sister, and looked so knowingly at the visitor that Mabel suddenly began to blush.
In the meantime, Joe had taken Reggie to the room which the young man was to occupy during his stay. Joe carried both of the bags, which were50rather heavy, for the fashionable young man was in the habit of taking a good share of his wardrobe along whenever he left home.
“Some weight to one of these bags, Reggie,” remarked Joe good-naturedly, as he deposited the big Gladstone on the floor with a thud. “You must have about three hundred and fifteen new neckties in there.”
“Bah Jove, that’s a good joke, Joe, don’t you know!” drawled Reggie. “But you’re wrong, my boy; I haven’t more than ten neckties with me on this trip.”
“Say, I’m glad to know you’ve got so many. Maybe I’ll want to borrow one,” went on Joe, continuing his joke.
“Of course you can have one of my neckties if you want it, Joe,” returned the fashionable young man quickly. “I’ve got a beautiful lavender one that ought to just suit you. And then there is a fancy striped one, red and green and gold, which is the most stunning thing, don’t you know, you ever saw. I purchased it at a fashionable shop on Fifth Avenue the last time I was in New York. If you wore that tie, Joe, you would certainly make a hit.”
“Well, you see, I’m not so much of a hitter as I am of a pitcher,” returned Joe; “so I guess I’d better not rob you of that tie. Come to think of it, I got several new ties myself last Christmas51and on my birthday. I think they’ll see me through very nicely. But I’m much obliged just the same. And now, Reggie, make yourself thoroughly at home.”
“Oh, I’ll be sure to do that,” returned Mabel’s brother. “You’re a fine fellow, Joe; and I often wonder how it was I quarreled with you the first time we met.”
“We’ll forget about that,” answered Joe shortly.
Naturally the men returned to the living room first, and while they were waiting impatiently for the girls to rejoin them, Joe caught sight of a letter resting against the clock on the mantelpiece.
He took it up and saw that it was addressed to himself, and that it bore the postmark of New York. He recognized the handwriting at once.
“It’s from McRae,” he said. “The second message I’ve received from the old boy to-day, counting the telegram this morning. Excuse me, fellows, while I look it over.”
He tore it open hastily and read with glowing interest and excitement.
“The World Tour’s a go!” he cried, handing the letter over to Jim. “Mac’s got it all settled at last. When we said good-bye to him in New York it was all up in the air. But trust Mac to52hustle—he’s got enough promises to make up the two teams and now he’s calling on us, Jim, to keep our word and go with the party. We’re all to meet in Chicago for the start on the nineteenth of the month.”
“Gee!” exclaimed Jim. “That doesn’t give us very much time. Let’s see,” as he snatched up a newspaper and scanned the top line. “To-day’s the sixteenth. We’ll have to get a wiggle on.”
“Bah Jove,” lisped Reggie. “It’s bally short notice, don’t you know? How long will you fellows be gone?”
“Just about six months,” said Joe, his face lengthening as he reflected on what it meant to be all that time away from Mabel.
“What’s all this pow-wow about?” came a merry voice from the door, as the girls tripped in, their arms about each other’s waist.
“I’m glad we girls aren’t as talkative as you men,” said Clara, mischievously.
“When we do talk we at least say something,” added Mabel. “What is it, Joe?”
“I’m afraid it’s rather bad news in a way,” said Joe. “I’ve just got a letter from McRae in which he tells me that he’s completed all arrangements for a baseball tour around the world. You know, Mabel, that I spoke to you about it just before we left New York. But it was only a vague idea then and something of the kind is53talked about at the end of every baseball season. Usually though, it only ends in talk, and the teams make a barnstorming trip to San Francisco or to Cuba. But this time it seems to have gone through all right. And now Mac is calling upon Jim and me to go along.”
“My word!” broke in Reggie, “anyone would think it was a bally funeral to hear you talk and see your face. I should think you’d be no-end pleased to have a chance to go.”
To tell the truth, neither Joe nor Jim seemed elated at the prospect. Joe’s eyes sought Mabel, while Jim’s rested on Clara, and neither one of those young ladies was so obtuse as not to know what the young men were thinking.
“When do you have to go?” asked Clara, soberly.
“We have to be in Chicago by the nineteenth,” answered Joe, “and we’ll have to leave here the day before. To-day’s the sixteenth and you can see for yourself how much time that gives us to stay in Riverside.”
“No rest for the wicked,” said Reggie, jocularly. “’Pon honor, you boys have earned a rest after the work you did against the Red Sox.”
Clara was very far from her vivacious self as she thought of the coming separation, but Joe was surprised and the least bit hurt to see how lightly Mabel seemed to regard it.54
“It’s too bad, of course,” she said, cheerfully, “but we’ll have to make the best of these two days at least. It’s a pity, though, that it wasn’t November nineteenth instead of October.”
“We could have started a bit later if it were only for the foreign trip,” explained Jim, “but we’re going to play a series of exhibition games between here and the Coast, and we’ve got to take advantage of what good weather there is left. If we can only get to the Rockies before it’s too cold to play, we’ll be all right, because in California they’re able to play all the year round.”
“My word!” exclaimed Reggie, “I don’t see why they don’t cut out the exhibition games altogether. I should think this country had had baseball enough for one season.”
“Not when the Giants and an All-American team are the players,” replied Joe. “The people will come out in crowds—they’ll fairly beg us to take their money.”
“And it will be worth taking,” chimed in Jim. “Do you know how much money the teams took in before they reached the coast on their last World’s Trip? Ninety-seven thousand dollars. Count them, ladies and gentlemen—ninety-seven thousand dollars in good American dollars!” he added grandly.55
“That sounds like a lot of money,” said Reggie, thoughtfully.
“And they’ll need every cent of it too,” said Joe. “It’s the only way a trip of that kind can be carried on. The teams travel in first-class style, have the finest quarters on the ship, and stay at the best hotels. In the games abroad there won’t be money enough taken in, probably, to cover expenses. Then the money we’ve taken in from the exhibition games will come in handy.”
“How many men are going in the two teams?” inquired Clara.
“I imagine each team will carry about fourteen men,” replied Joe. “That will give them three pitchers, two catchers, an extra infielder and outfielder, beside the other members of the team. That ought to be enough to allow for sickness or accident.”
“How much do you fellows expect to get out of it for yourselves?” asked Reggie.
“That’s just a matter of guess work,” Joe replied. “I understand that what is left after all expenses are paid will be divided equally among the players. On the last World’s Trip I think it amounted to about a thousand dollars apiece. But then again, it may not be a thousand cents. All we really know is that we’ll have a chance to see the world in first-class style without its actually costing us a dollar.”56
“Oh, you lucky men!” said Clara, with a sigh. “You can go trotting all over the world, while we poor girls have to stay at home and look for an occasional letter from your highnesses—that is, if you deign to write to us at all.”
“I’ll guarantee to keep the postman busy,” said Jim, fervently.
“Same here,” said Joe, emphatically, as his eyes met Mabel’s.
“Do you know just what route you’ll follow?” Reggie asked.
“Our first stop will be at Hawaii,” replied Joe, consulting his letter. “So that the first game we play outside of the States will still be under the American flag. We’ll see Old Glory again, too, when we strike the Philippines. But that will come a little later. After we leave Hawaii, we won’t see dry land again until we get to Japan.”
“I fancy we’ll get some good games there, too,” broke in Jim. “Those little Japs have gone in for the game with a vengeance. Do you remember the time when their Waseda and Keio University teams came over to this country? They gave our Princeton and Yale fellows all they could do to beat them.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “they’re nifty players when it comes to fielding and they’re fleet as jack rabbits on the bases—but they’re a little light at the57bat. When it comes to playing before their home crowds they’ll be a pretty stiff proposition.”
“Do you take in China at all?” asked Reggie.
“We’ll probably stop at Shanghai and Hongkong,” replied Joe. “I don’t imagine the Chinks can scrape up any kind of a baseball team, but there are big foreign colonies at both of those places and they’ll turn out in force to see players from the States. Then after touching at Manila, we’ll go to Australia, taking in all the big towns like Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. While of course the Australians are crazy about cricket, like all Englishmen, they’re keen for every kind of athletic sport, and we’re sure of big crowds there. After that we sail for Ceylon and from there to Egypt.”
“I’d like to see Egypt better than any other place,” broke in Clara. “I’ve always been crazy to go there.”
“It’s full of curiosities,” remarked Jim. “There’s the Sphinx, for instance—a woman who hasn’t said a word for five thousand years.”
Clara flashed a withering glance at him, under which he wilted.
“Don’t mix your Greek fable and your Egyptian facts, Jim,” chuckled Joe.
“Huh?”
“Fact. Since this trip’s been in the wind, I’ve been reading up. Those Egyptian sphinxes—those58that haven’t a ram’s or a hawk’s head—have a man’s, not a woman’s, head.”
“That’s why they’ve been able to keep still so long, then!” exclaimed Jim.
“You mean thing!” cried Mabel.
“Don’t lay that up against me,” he begged, penitently, “and I’ll send you back a little crocodile from the Nile.”
“Oh, the horrid thing!” cried Clara with a shudder.
“I’m doing the best I can,” said Jim, plaintively. “I can’t send you one of the pyramids.”
“That’s the last we’ll see of Africa,” went on Joe. “After that, we set sail for Italy and land at Naples. Then we work our way up through Rome, Florence, Milan, Monte Carlo, Marseilles, Paris and London. We’ll stay about a month in Great Britain, visiting Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin. Then we’ll make tracks for home, and maybe we won’t be glad to get here!”
The vision conjured up by this array of famous cities offered such scope for endless surmise and speculation that they were surprised at the flight of time when Mrs. Matson smilingly summoned them to supper.
Of course, Joe sat beside Mabel and Jim beside Clara. If, in the course of the evening meal, Joe’s hand and Mabel’s met beneath the table, it was purely by accident. Jim, on his side would59cheerfully have risked such an accident, but had no such luck.
Joe was happy, supremely happy in the presence by his side of the dearest girl in all the world. Yet there was a queer little ache at his heart because of the apparent indifference with which Mabel had viewed their coming separation.
“You haven’t said once,” he said to her in a low tone, with a touch of tender reproach, “that you were sorry I was going.”
“Why should I,” answered Mabel, demurely, “since I am going with you?”
60CHAPTER VIITHE GATHERING OF THE CLANS
If Mabel had counted on creating a sensation, she succeeded beyond her wildest hopes.
For a moment, Joe thought that he must have taken leave of his senses.
“What!” he cried, incredulously, half rising to his feet.
This sudden ejaculation drew the attention of all the others seated at the table.
“Land sakes, Joe!” expostulated his mother, “you almost made me upset my tea cup. What’s the matter?”
“Enough’s the matter,” responded Joe, jubilantly. “That is, if Mabel really means what she said just now.”
“What was it you said, Mabel dear?” asked Clara.
“Come, ’fess up,” invited Jim.
“I guess I’ll let Reggie tell the rest of it,” said Mabel, blushing under the battery of eyes turned upon her.61
“All right, Sis,” said Reggie, affably. “Bah Jove, I give you credit for holding in as long as you have. The fact is,” he continued, beaming amiably upon all the party, “the governor asked me to take a trip to Japan and China, and Mabel put in to come along. I didn’t twig what the little minx was up to, until she said we could go on the same steamer that took the baseball party. Lots of other women—wives of the managers and players and so on—will go along, I understand. So there’s the whole bally story in a nutshell. Rippin’ good idea I call it—what?”
“Glory hallelujah!” cried Joe, grasping Mabel’s hand, openly this time.
“It’s simply great!” cried Jim, enthusiastically.
“You darling, lucky girl!” exclaimed Clara, while Mr. and Mrs. Matson smiled their pleasure.
“Had you up in the air for a minute, didn’t it, old top?” grinned Reggie.
“I should say it did,” Joe admitted. “I thought for a minute I was going crazy. Somebody pinch me.”
Jim reached over and accommodated him.
“Ouch!” cried Joe, rubbing his arm. “You needn’t be so literal.”
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my friends,” said Jim, piously.
Questions poured in thick and fast.
“How can you possibly get ready in time?”62asked Clara. “It’s the sixteenth now, and the teams leave Chicago on the nineteenth.”
“Oh, we’re not going to make the trip across the country,” explained Mabel, flushed with happiness. “Reggie and I will join the party in San Francisco or Seattle, or wherever they start from. So that will give us nearly a month, and I’m going to spend most of that right here—if you can stand me that long.”
Clara came round the table and gave her an impulsive hug.
“I’d be glad to have you stay here forever,” said Mrs. Matson fervently.
Just here a thought struck Joe.
“It’s the greatest thing ever that you’re going as far as Japan,” he said. “But why can’t you keep on with us and swing right around the circle?”
“You greedy boy!” murmured Mabel.
“We’ve thought of that too,” explained Reggie. “The governor promised Mabel a trip round the world as soon as she got through with the finishing school. She could have gone last year if she had chosen, but she got so interested in baseball——”
“Reggie!” murmured Mabel, warningly.
“Well, anyway,” said Reggie a little lamely, “she didn’t go, and so I put it up to the governor that there was no reason she couldn’t go now.63He saw it the same way—he’s a rippin’ good sort, the governor is—and he’s left it to us to make the trip all the way round—that is, if I can get through my business in Japan in time.”
“If you don’t get through in time, there’ll be murder done,” threatened Joe.
In the animated talk that ensued all took a part. But toward the end of the meal, Joe noticed that Jim was a little more subdued than was usual with him, and that some of the sparkle and vivacity had vanished from Clara’s eyes and voice.
He glanced from one to the other and knew the reason. He knew how deep the feeling was growing between the two and realized what the coming six-months’ separation would mean to them. A generous impulse came to him like a flash.
“Listen folks,” he said. “Surprises seem to be in fashion, so here’s another one. Clara’s going along with us.”
Astonishment and delight held Clara speechless—then she rose and flung her arms impulsively about her brother’s neck, and for the second time that day Jim would have been willing to let her be a sister to him also.
Jim reached his brawny hand across the table.
“Put her there, Joe, old boy!” he said. “You’re the finest fellow that ever wore shoe leather.”64
“Won’t it be just glorious!” exulted Mabel.
“There never was such a boy in all the world,” murmured Joe’s mother.
“But, Joe dear, won’t it be too great an expense?” suggested Clara. “You know it’s less than a month since you sent us that thousand-dollar bill that took us to the World’s Series.”
“That’s all right, Sis,” reassured Joe, patting her hand. “Remember I cleared nearly four thousand dollars extra in the World’s Series, and this won’t put much of a dent in that. You just go ahead and doll yourself up—and hang the expense.”
And so it was settled, and it is safe to say that a group of happier young people could not be found anywhere than those who discussed excitedly, until late into the night, the coming trip with all its marvelous possibilities.
The next two days flew by all too rapidly. The girls, of course, had plenty of time, but Joe and Jim had a host of things to attend to and a very limited time to do them in. But somehow, Joe made time enough to say a lot of things to Mabel that, to lovers at least, seem important, and Jim, though not daring to go quite so far, looked and said quite enough to deepen the roses in Clara’s cheeks and the loveliness in her eyes.
It was hard to part when the time for parting came, but this time there was no long six-months’65separation to be dreaded—that is, as far as the young folks were concerned.
Mr. and Mrs. Matson had counted on having their son with them throughout the fall and winter, but they had been accustomed for so long to merge their own happiness in that of their children that they kept up bright faces while they said good-bye, although Mrs. Matson’s smile was tremulous.
A day and night of traveling and the ball players reached Chicago, where, at the Blackstone, they found McRae awaiting them—the same old McRae, aggressive, pugnacious, masterful, and yet with a glint of worry in his eyes that had not been there at the close of the World’s Series.
Robbie was there too, rotund and rubicund, but not just the Robbie who had danced the tango with McRae before the clubhouse on the occasion of the great victory.
But if worry and anxiety had set their mark upon the manager and trainer of the Giants, it had not affected the players, who were lounging about the corridor of the hotel.
A bunch of them, including Burkett and Denton and good old Larry, gave the newcomers a tumultuous welcome.
“Cheer, cheer, the gang’s all here!” cried Larry.66
McRae clasped Joe’s hand in a grip that almost made him wince.
“So the new league hasn’t got you yet, Joe?” he cried.
“No,” laughed Joe, returning his clasp; “and it never will!”