Joe did not get to chapel that morning. He was all ready to go with Tom and the others after making a hasty toilet, when a messenger came to the door.
“Dr. Fillmore wants to see you in his office, Joe,” said the messenger—a nice lad who did this work to help pay for his tuition.
“Wants to see me—what for?” demanded our hero. “Are you sure that’s right, Georgie?”
“Sure, and a teacher’s there with him. I’m not sure but I think it’s something about the overthrown statue. I heard them mention it as they called me to go for you.”
“The overturned statue? I don’t know anything about it!” exclaimed Joe. “I only just this moment saw it—from my window.”
“Well, the doctor wants you, anyhow,” repeated the messenger lad. “You’d better go.”
“Oh, sure,” assented Joe, and he started forthe doctor’s study with wonder in his heart and a puzzled and rather an ominous look on his face. His companions regarded him seriously.
“What do you s’pose is in the wind?” asked Peaches.
“Give it up,” remarked Teeter. “Areyouon, Tom?”
“Nary a bit. First I knew of it was when you fellows came and told me.”
“Was Joe out last night?” asked Peaches.
“That’s so, he did go into town,” replied Tom. “He left a note to tell me—but that was all straight—he had permission. It can’t be that.”
“Well, we’ll hear in chapel,” said Teeter.
“Ah, it’s you is it, Matson?” asked the doctor, as our hero entered the study. There was a curious note in the master’s voice, and he glanced narrowly at Joe. “Come in. I am sorry to have to summon you on such an unpleasant and important matter, but I have no choice. As you probably know, the Founder’s Statue was overturned last night.”
He looked questioningly at Joe.
“I just saw it from my window,” was the simple answer.
“It was done last night,” went on the doctor with a look at a teacher who acted as proctor. “Itwas a disgraceful, vile piece of vandalism. The guilty one will be severely punished. Doubtless you are wondering why we sent for you. It was on account of this, which was picked up by one of the janitors in front of the statue, when he discovered its fallen position this morning.”
Dr. Fillmore held out to Joe the telegram our hero had received from his father the night previous!
“Is this yours?” asked the doctor.
“Ye—yes, it came to me last night. It’s from my father.”
“What did you do after you got it?”
“Put it in my pocket and went out to answer it. I had permission from the proctor.”
“That is right,” assented that official. “But I did not see you come in.”
“No, I was late. The telegraph office was not open, and I had to rouse the operator.”
“When did you last see this telegram?” asked the doctor.
“I missed it soon after I started, but I concluded that I had dropped it,” said Joe. Then it all came to him. The school authorities believed that the telegram had dropped out of his pocket when he was at the work of overturning the statue, in which vandalism he had no hand.
“It was picked up near where the vile work went on,” said the doctor bitterly. “It is evidence that even if you had no actual hand in the dastardly horseplay, that you might have witnessed it, and you can tell us who did it. That is what we now call on you to do, Matson. Tell us who did it.”
“But I don’t know!” cried poor Joe. “I didn’t see anything of it. I got in a little late, and went at once to my room. That telegram may have dropped from my pocket at any time, someone may have picked it up and put it—I mean dropped it—as they were passing the statue—either before or after it was pulled from the base.”
“That is hardly likely,” said the doctor. “I am very sorry, Matson, but I must conclude that even if you had no hand in the vandalism, that you know who did it, or suspect.”
“But I don’t!” cried Joe eagerly. “Someone may have put this telegram there to make it look——”
He stopped in some confusion. He never had been a “squealer,” and he was not going to begin now.
“I think I know what you mean,” said the proctor quietly. “You mean that some enemy of yours may have had an object in making it appearas if you had a hand in this work.” He looked narrowly at Joe.
“I—I, well, it might have happened that way.”
“And of the students here, whom would you regard as your enemy?” asked Dr. Fillmore quickly.
“I—I—I must refuse to answer,” said Joe firmly. “It would not be fair.”
“You mean you won’t tell?”
“I can’t, Doctor. I haven’t any right to assume that the telegram came there that way. I know that I didn’t pass very near the statue, either on leaving or coming back to school. The message dropped from my pocket, I’m sure of that, but the wind may have blown it near the statue.”
“There was no wind last night,” said the proctor severely.
“Then—then——” stammered Joe.
“That will do, Matson,” said the doctor quietly, and there was sorrow in his voice. “I will not question you further. I am convinced that if you had no hand in the actual overturning of the statue, that you know something of how it was done, or who did it. Are you prepared to tell us?”
“No, sir, I am not. I—can’t.”
“I think I understand,” said Dr. Fillmore. “Very well. Understand, we do not accuse you of anything, but under the circumstances I must put you on probation.”
“Probation?” murmured Joe.
“Yes,” added the proctor as the doctor turned away. “That means that you will not be allowed to leave the school grounds. You will report to your classes and lectures as usual, but you will not be allowed to take part in athletic contests.”
“Not—not baseball?” gasped Joe.
“Not baseball,” replied the proctor. “I am sorry, but that is the rule for one who is on probation. When you make up your mind to make a complete confession, and tell whom you saw at the work of tearing down the statue——”
“But I didn’t——” began Joe.
“That will do,” interrupted the proctor gently. “You are on probation until then. And you will not be allowed to play baseball.”
Joe felt his heart wildly thumping under his coat. Without a word he turned aside and went back to his room. And that is why he missed chapel that morning.
The anticipation of Teeter, Peaches and the others that there would be a sensation in chapel that morning was borne out. Never, in all their experience, had the boys recalled Dr. Fillmore being more bitter in his denunciation of what he characterized as “sensational vandalism.”
He liked boys to have good, clean healthy fun, he said, and an occasional prank was not out of order, but this pulling the statue from its base passed all bounds. More and more bitter the good doctor became. Perhaps part of his feeling was due to the fact that the Founder had written a book on Cæsar that the head of the school considered an authority, and you remember how fond Dr. Fillmore was of the writer of the “Commentaries.”
The boys looked at each other as the denunciation proceeded, and there were whispers of:
“Who did it? Why doesn’t he name some one?”
The doctor came to that part in a moment.
“We are unable to say who perpetrated this act of sensational vandalism,” he went on, “but I may say that once the students are discovered they will be instantly dismissed from Excelsior Hall—this is no place for them. I say we do not know who did it, but we have reason to suspect——”
Here the good doctor paused and there was an uneasy movement among several lads.
“We have reason to suspect that some one knows who did it, but will not tell. I am sorry to say that we have been obliged to inflict the usual punishment on this—ahem—student and he is now on probation. The usual exercises will now be held.”
They went on, but it is doubtful if the lads were in a very devotional spirit. Joe’s absence was at once noted, and of course it was guessed why he was not there, though being on probation did not bar one from chapel or classes.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Tom, when they were on their way to first lectures. “It’s Joe! Who’d ever dream it?”
“So that’s why he was wanted in the office,” added Peaches.
“I don’t believe he had a thing to do with it!” declared Teeter vehemently.
“Of course not!” chorused the other two.
“But they evidently think he does,” went on Tom. “Here he comes now; let’s ask him.”
“Say, what does it all mean anyhow?” inquired Teeter when he had warmly clasped Joe’s hand.
The young pitcher told of the finding of the telegram, and its result.
“But, hang it all, that’s no evidence!” burst out Tom.
“The doctor thinks so,” replied Joe grimly.
“Some one who has a grudge against you—Say!” exclaimed Teeter with a sudden change of manner. “I’ll bet it was Luke or Hiram who did it—pulled the statue down and then tried to blame it on you.”
“Sure!” chorused Tom and Peaches.
“Wait!” cried Joe. “It’s bad enough for me to be suspected of knowing something that I don’t, but we can’t go to accusing even Hiram or Luke on mere guesswork. It won’t do.”
“But hang it all, man!” cried Peaches. “Youcan’t play ball.”
“No,” answered Joe quietly.
“And the league season is closing! How are we going to win without you in the box?”
“You’ll have to—that’s all. Brown or Akerswill have to twirl—they’re pretty good at it now.”
There were sorrowful shakes of the heads, but so it had to be. It may well be imagined that there was a sensation in Excelsior Hall when it was known that Joe was the one on probation, and he was urged by more than one to tell all he knew, no matter on whose shoulders the guilt would fall.
“But I don’t know!” he insisted again and again. “And it wouldn’t be fair to guess.”
The days went on. Frank Brown was tried out in the box and did fairly well, thanks to the efficient coaching Joe had given him. Excelsior even won a game with him twirling, though by a narrow margin, and against a weak team.
But there were dubious shakes of the heads of the students—especially those on the team—when they thought of the games to come—the important final with Morningside. Still there was no help for it, and Brown and Akers redoubled their practice in anticipation.
There was no objection to Joe practicing, or in coaching the two substitute pitchers, and he did this every day. Our hero did not write home about the disgrace that had come so undeservedly upon him, merely telling general news, and assuring his father that he had kept a lookout, andmade inquiries, but had neither seen nor heard anything of Mr. Holdney.
Meanwhile the affairs of Mr. Matson—due to the theft of the models—were in anything but good shape. Still nothing could be done.
Joe bitterly felt his position. So did his chums, and they even tried their hand at amateur detective work, endeavoring to discover who had pulled down the statue and put Joe’s telegram where it had been found. That it was put there was certain, for Joe, on the night in question, had not gone near the statue. In the meanwhile the bronze had been put back in place and repaired. Among the students there were those who thought they knew the guilty ones, but nothing definite was disclosed.
The school term was drawing to an end. After the hard work of getting the ball team into shape for championship honors it was hard to see it begin to slip back. Yet this is what took place. Brown and Akers could not keep up the pace set by Joe, and several games were lost.
By hard work, and more due to errors on the part of their opponents, Excelsior won victories over Trinity and the preparatory school. This made her percentage just high enough so that if she should win from Morningside in the final gamethe Blue Banner would come to her. But could Excelsior win? That was what every lad there asked himself.
It was rumored that Morningside was never in better shape. Ted Clay, the pitcher, was twirling in great form it was said, and Sam Morton, as substitute, was sure to go in for several innings in the final contest.
“They say he’s a wonder for a short time,” Peaches confided to Joe.
“He is,” frankly admitted our hero. “I know his style. He can’t last, but he’s good for part of a game. With him and Ted against us I’m afraid it’s all up with our chances.”
“Oh, Joe, if you could only play!”
“I want to as much as you want me, Peaches, but it’s out of the question.”
“Maybe if we were to put it up to the doctor—that we would lose the Blue Banner without you—he’d let you play.”
“I couldn’t play that way, Peaches—under a ban. I want vindication—or nothing.”
“Yes, I suppose so—only it’s hard.”
At last came the night before the final game with Morningside. There was a spirit of unrest and a sense of impending disaster abroad in Excelsior. Every student was talking of it, evenHiram and Luke. The latter, for some days past had not been his usual self, and his crony could not understand it.
“What’s the matter with you, anyhow?” Hiram asked. “Aren’t you glad we did that chump Matson up good and brown?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know,” answered Luke slowly. “I didn’t think it would mean that we’d lose the Blue Banner.”
“How do you know we are going to lose it?”
“Of course we are. Morningside will win, with no good pitcher to hold her down, and Joe is a good pitcher, no matter what hand he had in getting us out of the nine. I’m sorry I got out anyhow. I’d like to be on it now.”
“You’re sorry?” gasped Hiram.
“Yes, I wouldn’t have resigned only you made me.”
“Imade you! Say, what’s eating you, anyhow? You were as hot against Matson and his crowd as I was.”
“No, I wasn’t, and while we’re on this subject I’ll tell you another thing. I’m mighty sorry I had a hand in that statue business.”
“You didn’t do anything—Sam and I yanked it down.”
“I know, but I put Joe’s telegram there—I’mresponsible for him being on probation, so he can’t play to-morrow.”
“Oh, you are; eh?” sneered Hiram. “Then you’d better go tell the doctor that.”
“By Jove I will!” suddenly exclaimed Luke with a change of manner. “I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I did it. I am going to tell. I can’t stand it any longer. I want to see Excelsior win the Blue Banner. I’m going to tell the doctor!”
“Hold on!” Hiram fairly hissed. “If you squeal I’ll make it so hot for you that you’ll wish you’d never seen me—and so will Sam.”
“I’m not afraid! Besides I’m not going to tell on you—only on myself. I’ll say I put the telegram there. The doctor can think what he likes about who pulled down the statue. He can put me on probation for I won’t tell, but it doesn’t matter, for I don’t play ball. But that will let Joe play, and it’s not too late for him to get in shape—in fact, he’s at top notch, for I saw him practice to-day. I’m going to tell, and you can do as you like, Hiram.”
“I say you shan’t tell. I’ll——”
But Luke slipped from Hiram’s room, where the talk had been going on, and made his way to the doctor’s office.
Dr. Fillmore, as may well be imagined, was surprised to see Luke at that late hour, for it was past eleven. He laid aside a book on the immortal Cæsar, looked over his glasses at the conscience-stricken lad, and asked in his kind voice:
“Well, Fodick, what is it?”
“I—I—Doctor Fillmore, I’ve come to—confess. I put that telegram by the statue. Joe Matson didn’t do it. He dropped it—I picked it up. He had nothing to do with pulling down the statue and doesn’t know who did it. But he’s got to play ball to-morrow or we’ll lose the Blue Banner again. I’m the guilty one, Doctor—not of pulling the statue down—I won’t tell who did that, no matter what you do to me. But I want Joe to play. Oh, I—I couldn’t stand it any longer. I haven’t slept, and—and——”
Poor Luke burst into a fit of weeping—hot, passionate tears of real sorrow—the best thing he had done in many a long day—and Dr. Fillmore, understanding a boy’s heart as few heads of schools do, put his big arm over Luke’s shoulder. Thus was the confession made, and of its effect you shall soon hear.
That night Luke slept soundly.
It was the morning of the day of the big game—the final contest between Morningside and Excelsior for the possession of the Blue Banner. So far the two nines were tied as regards their percentage of victories, and the banner would go to whoever won the diamond battle on this occasion.
Dr. Fillmore, after hearing Luke’s confession, had sent a messenger to Joe’s room with instructions to see if our hero and Tom were asleep. The apartment was in darkness and quiet reigned when the messenger listened, so he reported that both lads were slumbering. But he was not altogether right, for Joe tossed restlessly on his pillow and thought bitterly of the morrow.
“Well, as long as he is asleep,” remarked the good doctor to the coach whom he had summoned, “we won’t tell him the good news until to-morrow.He’ll need his rest if he is to pitch against Morningside.”
“Then you’re going to remove the probation ban, Dr. Fillmore?” asked Dr. Rudden eagerly.
“Of course. I shall make the announcement at chapel, and wish Matson and the others of the nine all success.”
“And you don’t yet know who pulled down the statue?”
“No. It was manly of Fodick to confess, and though I shall have to suspend him, of course, I didn’t even ask him to inform on the guilty ones. I really couldn’t, you know.”
“No, I suppose not. But I’m glad Joe is going to play. I think we shall win.”
“I hope so,” murmured Dr. Fillmore.
The surprise and gratification of the students may easily be surmised when the next morning at chapel, Dr. Fillmore made his announcement, stating that Joe had been on probation under a misapprehension, and that now the ban was removed he could play ball.
“And I hope that he and the others of the nine play their very best,” concluded the head of the school, “and win!”
There was a spontaneous cheer, and neither the doctor nor any of the teachers took the troubleto stop it. Joe’s face was burning red, his heart was thumping like a trip hammer, but he was the happiest lad in school.
“Oh, it’s great! Glorious! I can’t talk! Whoop!” yelled Teeter, once out of chapel, as he balanced himself on his toes.
“Say, old man, it’s too good to be true!” cried Peaches, yelling and capering about until his usually fair complexion was like that of a beet.
“We’ll make Morningside look like thirty cents!” declared Tom.
“Come on, you and Ward get in all the practice you can,” ordered Peaches.
The game was to be played on the Morningside diamond, this having been decided by lot, the choice having fallen to the rivals of Excelsior.
“Well, we’ll beat ’em on their own grounds!” declared Peaches, when he and the others of the nine, with some substitutes, and a host of “rooters” and supporters, departed for the contest.
What a crowd was there to see! What hosts of pretty girls! Men and women, too; old graduates, students from both schools, many from other schools in the league, for this was the wind-up of the season.
Out on the diamond trotted the Morningside nine, to be greeted with a roar of cheers. Theybegan practice at once, and it was noticed that Sam Morton was “warming up.”
“They’re going to use two pitchers all right,” observed Tommy Barton. “Guess they heard that Joe was going to be on deck again.”
A noisy welcome awaited the Excelsior nine as they trotted out, and they, too, began batting and catching practice. Then, after a little delay and the submitting of batting orders, the details were completed, and once again the umpire gave his stirring call:
“Play ball!”
Morningside was to bat last and so George Bland was the first of the Excelsior players to face Pitcher Clay. The two nines were the same as had met a few weeks previously.
“Play ball!” called the umpire again, and the game was on.
It was a memorable battle. They talk of it to this day at Excelsior and Morningside. For three innings neither side got a run, goose eggs going up in regular succession until, as is generally the case “pitchers’ fight” began to be heard spoken on the stands and side lines. And truly it was rather that way. Both Joe Matson and Ted Clay were at their best, and man after man fanned theair helplessly, or stood while the umpire called strikes on them.
But there had to be a break, and it came in the fourth inning. In their half of that Excelsior again had to retire without a run, and the four circles looked rather strange on the score board.
Then something happened. Joe was delivering a puzzling drop, but his hand slipped, the curve broke at the wrong moment and the batter hit it for three bases. That looked like the beginning of the end for a little while, as the Morningside lads seemed to have struck a winning streak and they had three runs to their credit when Joe, after having struck two men out, caught a hot liner himself and retired the third man.
“Three to nothing,” murmured Captain Ward as his men came in to bat again. “It looks bad—looks bad.”
“That will only give us an appetite,” declared Joe. “You’ll see,” and it did seem as if he were a prophet, for the rivals of Morningside, evidently on desperation bent, “found” Ted Clay, rapped out five runs, putting them two ahead, and then the crowd went wild.
So did Joe and his mates. They fairly danced as they took the field again; danced and shouted,even jumping over each other in the exuberance of their joy.
“We’ve got ’em going! We’ve got ’em going!” they yelled.
Glumly, and almost in a daze, the Morningside players looked at the figures. Their rivals were two ahead in the fifth inning and Baseball Joe, the pitcher on whom so much depended, was “as fresh as a daisy,” as Tom declared.
“But we haven’t won the game by a whole lot!” warned Captain Ward to his enthusiastic lads. “Play hard—play hard!”
Morningside managed to get one run in their half of the fifth, but when Excelsior came up for her stick-work again she easily demonstrated her superiority over the other lads. Four runs went to her credit, and only one to the rival team, and then, as Peaches said, “it was all over but the shouting.”
“The game is in the ice box now, all right,” Teeter added.
And so it was. Two runs for Excelsior in the seventh to one for her opponent; four in the eighth, while Joe held the enemy hitless in their half of that inning, brought the score to the tally of fifteen to six in favor of our friends.
“Let’s make it an even 20 fellows!” proposedTeeter when they came to have their last raps in the ninth. “We can do it!”
“Sure!” his mates assured him, and it did seem possible, for Morningside appeared to have gone to pieces. Ted Clay was being batted all over the field, his support was poor, while the Morningside lads could not seem to find the ball.
In desperation, that last inning, Sam Morton was sent in, and he faced Joe with a scowl on his face. But Sam could not stem the winning tide, and he was batted for five runs, making the even twenty.
“Now, hold ’em down, Joe—don’t let ’em get a run!” urged Teeter, when Morningside prepared to take her last chance to retrieve her falling fortunes.
And Joe did. Amid a riot of cheers he struck three men out in quick succession, and a final goose egg went up in the last frame, the score reading:
Excelsior, 20; Morningside, 6.
“The Blue Banner is ours! The Blue Banner comes back where it belongs!” yelled Joe, and then, amid a silence, the banner was taken from in front of the Morningside stand, where it had flaunted in the breeze, and presented to Captain Ward Gerard, who proudly marched about the diamond with it at the head of his victorious lads.
There were the usual cheers first by the victors and then by the vanquished, and it would be hard to say which were the heartiest. For Morningside was a good loser and next to a well-beaten rival, she loved a staunch victorious one.
“You fellows certainly did us up good and proper—the worst beating we ever got,” admitted Captain Dalton to Ward.
“That’s what we came here for,” was the reply. “It was Joe’s twirling that did it.”
“Get out!” cried the modest pitcher.
“Yes, that certainly held us down,” went on Dalton. “We couldn’t seem to find you. I’ll need some new pitchers next season, I guess, for you certainly batted Ted and Sam all over. But I’m not kicking. How are you fixed for next year, Joe? Don’t you want to come to Morningside?” and he laughed.
“I don’t know,” answered our hero. “Ihaven’t quite made up my mind what I shall do. I’m going to play ball, I know that much, anyhow.”
“I should think you would—any fellow who can twirl the horsehide as you can. Well, might as well get off these togs,” spoke Dalton. “I won’t need ’em here any more this season, though I’m going to join some amateur team for the vacation if I can.”
The cheering and yelling kept up for some time; and then with the glorious Blue Banner, that meant so much to them in their possession, the Excelsior Hall lads started back for the school.
“So you don’t know what you are going to do next season, eh, Joe?” asked Tom, as he and his chum were riding back. “I thought you’d stick on here.”
“Well, I’d like to, first rate but I don’t know how dad’s business is going to be since this second robbery. I may have to leave school.”
“Oh, I hope not. So they haven’t any trace of the missing papers and models?”
“Not according to what I last heard. I’m going to get on the trail of that scamp, Holdney, this vacation, though.”
As might have been guessed, there was a big banquet for the baseball team that night. Andsuch a spread as it was, held in the big gymnasium. Every player came in for his share of praise, and there was so much of it for Joe; and his health was drunk in soda and ginger ale so often that his complexion was like that of Peaches’—red and white by turns. But nearly everyone felt that he deserved all the nice things that were said about him, not only for his share in the victory, but for what he had suffered.
There were two absentees at the banquet—and only two. One was Hiram Shell and the other Luke Fodick. Luke humbly told Dr. Fillmore that he thought it best to leave the school after what had happened. The good doctor thought so, too, for it would have been hard for Luke to live down what he had done.
As for Hiram, he said nothing, but when he knew that Luke had made his confession, the bully, after using harsh language to his former crony, quietly packed his things and went also. He sent word to Sam, at Morningside, that “the jig” was up, and there was a pre-vacation vacancy on the books of that institution.
It was never definitely stated who had pulled down the statue, but the withdrawal of Hiram, Luke and Sam was confession enough.
It was in the midst of the banquet, when Joehad been called upon to respond to the toast, “The Baseball Nine,” that a messenger was seen to enter with a telegram.
“It’s for Joe Matson,” the boy announced loudly enough for all to hear. “Gee, but he’s de stuff; eh? I’d like to shake hands wit a pitcher like dat! I’m goin’ t’ be one mysel’ some day. Here’s de tick-tick, sport,” and he passed the message to Joe, at the same time regarding our hero with worshipful eyes.
Joe read the message at a glance, and a change came over his face.
“No bad news, I hope,” murmured Tom, who stood near him.
“No, it’s the very best!” cried the young pitcher, and he showed Tom the telegram. “I wired dad that we’d won the game,” Joe stated.
Mr. Matson said in his telegram:
“Best of congratulations. Models and papers recovered. Everything all right.”
“Best of congratulations. Models and papers recovered. Everything all right.”
“Hurray!” yelled Tom, waving the message above his head. “Three cheers for Baseball Joe!” and, when the cheers had subsided he briefly informed his mates what the telegram meant to our hero. Mr. Matson would still retain his fortune, and probably make more money than ever out of his patents.
“Gee! Dis is great!” murmured the diminutive messenger, as he listened to the cheers and watched the jolly crowd of students. “I wish I was studyin’ here!”
Joe shook the messenger’s hand and left in it a crisp bill, to show his appreciation of the good news the lad had brought. And the toasting, the cheering and singing went on again.
“Now you can continue your studies,” said Tom to Joe.
“Yes, I suppose so,” was the answer.
“Maybe I’ll even go to college.”
What were his further fortunes on the diamond I shall tell you in the next book of this series, to be called: “Baseball Joe at Yale; or Pitching for the College Championship.” In that we shall see him in adventures as strenuous as any he had yet encountered.
“One last song, fellows, and then we’ll quit!” called Peaches. “I want you all to join with me in singing: ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,’ and by ‘He’ I mean Joe Matson—Baseball Joe!”
And as the strains of that ever-jolly, and yet somewhat sad, song are dying away, we will take our leave for a time of Baseball Joe and his friends.
THE END
THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES
ByLESTER CHADWICK
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Baseball Joe
BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARSor The Rivals of Riverside
Joe is an everyday country boy who loves to play baseball and particularly to pitch.
BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINEor Pitching for the Blue Banner
Joe’s great ambition was to go to boarding school and play on the school team.
BASEBALL JOE AT YALEor Pitching for the College Championship
Joe goes to Yale University. In his second year he becomes a varsity pitcher and pitches in several big games.
BASEBALL JOE IN THE CENTRAL LEAGUEor Making Good as a Professional Pitcher
In this volume the scene of action is shifted from Yale college to a baseball league of our central states.
BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUEor A Young Pitcher’s Hardest Struggles
From the Central League Joe is drafted into the St. Louis Nationals. A corking baseball story all fans will enjoy.
BASEBALL JOE ON THE GIANTSor Making Good as a Twirler in the Metropolis
How Joe was traded to the Giants and became their mainstay in the box makes an interesting baseball story.
BASEBALL JOE IN THE WORLD SERIESor Pitching for the Championship
The rivalry was of course of the keenest, and what Joe did to win the series is told in a manner to thrill the most jaded reader.
BASEBALL JOE AROUND THE WORLD(New)or Pitching on a Grand Tour
The Giants and the All-Americans tour the world, playing in many foreign countries.
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Y.M.C.A. Boys
This new series relates the doings of a wide-awake boys’ club of the Y. M. C. A., full of good times and every-day, practical Christianity. Clean, elevating and full of fun and vigor, books that should be read by every boy.
THE Y. M. C. A. BOYS OF CLIFFWOODor The Struggle for the Holwell Prize
Telling how the boys of Cliffwood were a wild set and how, on Hallowe’en, they turned the home town topsy-turvy. This led to an organization of a boys’ department in the local Y. M. C. A. When the lads realized what was being done for them, they joined in the movement with vigor and did all they could to help the good cause.
THE Y. M. C. A. BOYS ON BASS ISLANDor The Mystery of Russabaga Camp
Summer was at hand, and at a meeting of the boys of the Y. M. C. A. of Cliffwood, it was decided that a regular summer camp should be instituted. This was located at a beautiful spot on Bass Island, and there the lads went boating, swimming, fishing and tramping to their heart’s content.
THE Y. M. C. A. BOYS AT FOOTBALLor Lively Doings On and Off the Gridiron
This volume will add greatly to the deserved success of this well-written series. The Y. M. C. A. boys are plucky lads—clean minded and as true as steel. They have many ups and downs, but in the end they “win out” in the best meaning of that term.
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CUPPLES & LEON CO. Publishers New York
Alive,Patriotic,Elevating
BANNER BOY SCOUTS SERIES
By GEORGE A. WARRENAuthor of the “Revolutionary Series”
12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 75 cents, postpaid.
The Banner Boy Scouts
The Boy Scouts movement has swept over our country like wildfire, and is endorsed by our greatest men and leading educators. No author is better qualified to write such a series as this than Professor Warren, who has watched the movement closely since its inception in England some years ago.
The Banner Boy Scoutsor The Struggle for Leadership
This initial volume tells how the news of the scout movement reached the boys and how they determined to act on it. They organized the Fox Patrol, and some rivals organized another patrol. More patrols were formed in neighboring towns and a prize was put up for the patrol scoring the most points in a many-sided contest.
The Banner Boy Scouts On A Touror The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain
This story begins with a mystery that is most unusual. There is a good deal of fun and adventure, camping, fishing, and swimming, and the young heroes more than once prove their worth.
The Banner Boy Scouts Afloator The Secret of Cedar Island
Here is another tale of life in the open, of jolly times on river and lake and around the camp fire, told by one who has camped out for many years.
The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound(New)or A Tour on Skates and Iceboats
The boys take a trip into the mountains, where they are caught in a big snowstorm and are snowbound. A series of stirring adventures which will hold the interest of every reader.
Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue.
CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers, New York
THE HARRY HARDING SERIES
By ALFRED RAYMOND
12mo. Cloth. Handsomely Illustrated. Beautiful jackets printed in colors. 75 Cents Per Volume, Postpaid.