CHAPTER XVBUSTER DROPS OUT
The following day the team went to Crawford Mills and played a nine made up of the youths of that small but busy town. About half of the members were high school boys and the rest were from the offices of the steel mills, many of the latter youths of twenty or even twenty-two years. In the field the Crawford Mills aggregation presented a peculiar spectacle, for their shortstop was a chubby youth of no more than fifteen, while their catcher was at least twenty-one, and their pitcher, a sort of human bean-pole, wore a mustache! Lack of practice, however, was against the “Millers” and, although Amesville had difficulty with that pitcher, she nevertheless won out in the seventh inning with a mixture of hits, daring base running, and errors, the latter by the opponent.
Joe, who had had hopes since the day before of getting another chance at first base, was considerably disappointed at being left idle on thebench until the eighth inning, when he was put in to run for Tom Pollock, that youth having turned his ankle at first base. That was all the playing Joe did, and he sat disgruntledly during the rest of the game and watched Amesville hold her lead and ultimately emerge the victor, eight runs to six.
The “Millers” were good losers and cheered the visitors heartily when the contest was over, and their captain, the tall, mustached pitcher, shook hands with Tom Pollock and hoped his ankle wasn’t hurt much. Tom was able to reassure him. Then a request was made for a second game at Amesville, and Sam Craig agreed to see what could be done about one. High School journeyed home at dusk, very well satisfied with an almost errorless performance—Buster Healey had alone sinned—and very hungry. Joe was wedged in between Jack and Walter Cummings in the trolley car going back, with Frank Foley directly in front on the next seat. Jack, who had outshone himself that afternoon in left field, was feeling especially cheerful and, before they had been buzzing across country very long, began to heckle Handsome Frank, to the amusement of the others within hearing.
“Say, Frank,” he began, leaning over, “we’vegot a fellow working for us at the news-stand who makes you look like a faded leaf, old top. Honest, Frank, he’s got it all over you as a swell dresser. You’ll have to look to your laurels right smart. That’s no josh, either. Why, that fellow’s got a pink-and-green-striped shirt that would simply fill you with envy!”
“Hello, Jack,” was the response. “You jabbering again?”
“Yep, jabbering again, Frankie. Listen. You’re months behind the style, old chap. They’re not wearing those all-leather shoes any more. You want to get some with cloth tops. They’re the only proper dress for the Johnnies. I’m afraid you haven’t read your fashion journal this month!”
“The trouble with you and Faulkner,” replied Frank over his shoulder, “is that you dress so like tramps that when you see a fellow with a clean collar on you don’t know what to make of it!”
That produced chuckles from the nearby seats. Jack smiled serenely. “Yes, there’s something in what you say. That’s where you have it on the rest of us, Frank. Your collars are so plaguey high that no one can see whether they’re clean or not on top! But what I’m telling you aboutthe cloth-top shoes is right as rain. They’re positively the last cry. Get after ’em, Frank.”
“Don’t worry about my shoes,” was the reply. “Look after your own, Jack. There’s a place down town where you can get them shined for a nickel. You and your partner had better drop in there some day.”
“They’d never do Jack’s for a nickel,” remarked Buster. “His feet are too big.”
“Oh, I shine mine at home,” said Jack cheerfully. “I save a nickel every week or two, you see. When I get a quarter saved up I’m going to get one of those manicures like Frank’s. They’re great! Every time he puts his hand up you get blinded.”
“Every time you put your hand up,” chuckled Frank, “I think someone’s dead!”
“Now what’s he mean by that?” asked Jack, as the others laughed.
“You’d better dry up,” advised Joe amusedly.
“Good advice, Faulkner,” Foley commented. “Wash his hands when you get him home. Your own, too.”
“I’ll leave it to the crowd if my hands aren’t clean,” exclaimed Jack indignantly, holding them up for inspection. “I washed them only yesterday. Frank, you’re almost insulting. For twocents I’d disarrange your scarf and break your heart!”
“Oh, cut it out,” growled Foley. “You’re not smart; you just think you are. I wear whatever clothes I please, and it doesn’t concern you.”
“Doesn’t it, though? My word! It concerns me a lot, old chap. Many’s the time I’ve got up in the morning feeling blue and depressed and then seen you glide by in a pink shirt and a green hat and white spats and perked right up, Frank! Why, you’re our little blob of local colour, that’s what you are. We’re all better for you, Frank. Amesville would be pale and commonplace without you. Why, just the other day I walked along a block or two behind you inhaling the aroma that floated back, and life seemed different right away. That was the day everyone was calling up the gas company and complaining of leaks!”
This sally brought a burst of laughter that dissipated the final remnant of Foley’s good-temper, and he turned to face Jack with an angry countenance. Unfortunately, he caught the grin on Joe’s features and straightway transferred his attention to that youth.
“What are you smirking about, you fresh kid?” he demanded. “You go and sell your five-centcigars and let me alone. You’re a joke, anyway, and you’re the biggest joke when you try to play ball. You grin at me and I’ll reach back there and wipe it off!”
“Cut it out, Frank,” said Tom Pollock from the seat behind Joe’s. “Keep your temper, old man. No one’s hurting you.”
“Well, those cheap guys can keep their mouths closed, then. I wasn’t saying anything to them, was I?”
“You began it,” retorted Jack mendaciously. “You’re jealous because I told you there was a fellow in town with cloth-top shoes. I only said it for your own good, and——”
“Dry up, Jack,” commanded Tom. “You’re tiresome.”
“All right,” grieved Jack. “That’s all the thanks I get for trying to be kind and helpful!”
Just then they had to pile out and change to another trolley, and when they were reseated Jack discovered that Foley had placed himself the length of the car away. He sighed. “No more fun,” he murmured. “I shall go to sleep.”
That incident, unimportant as it seemed, bore results. Frank Foley evidently reached the conclusion that it was Joe and not Jack who was atthe bottom of the heckling, for whenever they met Joe was regarded with scowling dislike. It didn’t bother Joe much, but it amused Jack immensely. “Honestly, Joey,” he would chuckle, “you oughtn’t to put me up to saying things about Frank. It isn’t nice. If he speaks to me about it I’ll just have to tell him that I don’t approve of it a bit.”
“I wish you and your Frank were at the bottom of the river,” replied Joe vigorously. “It’s bad enough being after a fellow’s position without having a lot of ill-feeling besides. If I should beat him out, either this year or next, he’d always think I did it unfairly, I suppose.”
“I’m afraid he would,” grieved Jack. “Try and be decent to him, Joey. Don’t make fun of him the way you do. The things you say——”
“Oh, dry up!” muttered Joe. Jack obeyed, chuckling wickedly.
High School continued to win most of her games, coming a cropper now and then, however, as when she received a decisive beating at the hands of Lima. Amesville was shut out for the first time that season, while her opponent managed to get seven runs. Toby Williams started for Amesville, but lasted only three innings. By that time Lima had four runs to her credit. TomPollock kept her at bay until the sixth inning, when an error by Healey, coming on the heels of a dropped fly by Cummings, let three more runs across. Amesville was utterly unable to bunch the few hits she managed to make off the Lima pitcher and so travelled home with banners trailing. The direct outcome of that game was the replacing of Buster Healey at second base with young Farquhar. Farquhar, however, only lasted through three days of practice and was then relegated to the Scrubs. In his place Coach Talbot requisitioned George Peddie, and Peddie was tried at third while Hale went to second. Healey was heartbroken. It was understood that he was to have his position again as soon as he recovered from his present slump, but Buster viewed the situation hopelessly.
One afternoon when he and Joe were together on the bench during the first inning of a game with the Scrubs he confided his perplexities. “I don’t know what the dickens is the matter with me, Joe,” he said. “I didn’t use to have any trouble. Last year I played through with only fourteen errors all season, and that’s not so bad, is it? But this spring”—he shook his head puzzledly—“I can’t even seem to bat any more. It’s funny, too. I hit where the ball looks to beand never touch it. Same way in fielding. I see the old thing shooting along to me and make a grab for it and as often as not it gets clean past. The other day, when I plugged to Frank that time, I aimed as straight as you please and got the ball away all right. Iknowthat! But when it got to first it was two yards to the left!” He examined his hands as if seeking a solution to his trouble there. Joe, interested in the new batting arrangement that Mr. Talbot had introduced that afternoon, heard Buster’s lamentations with but half an ear. He nodded sympathetically, though, when young Peddie had been retired at first, making the third out.
“It’s too bad,” he said. “What do you suppose the reason is?”
“I’m telling you I don’t know,” replied Buster a trifle impatiently. “Maybe I’m not well. I—I have headaches sometimes.” He made the acknowledgment rather shamefacedly. Buster didn’t have much sympathy for fellows with ailments.
For the first time Joe’s interest was really aroused. “Whereabouts?” he asked quickly.
“Whereabouts what?”
“Whereabouts are the headaches?”
“In my head, of course! Oh, you mean—Well,sort of up here.” He placed his hands over his temples. “Maybe,” he added with a grin, “maybe I’m studying too hard.”
“You get a ball,” said Joe, “and come over here with me.”
“What for?”
“Never mind what for, Buster. Come on.”
Buster borrowed a baseball from the bag and followed Joe across to the stretch used by pitchers when they warmed up. “What’s the big idea?” he asked.
“Shoot it to me,” said Joe. He held his hands in front of his chest. “Don’t curve it, Buster. Just put it to me straight.”
“It’s got to curve some,” objected Buster. “Here you are.”
Joe made a stab well to the left of him and saved himself a trip down the field.
“Try again,” he said, throwing the ball back. “Try to hit my hands, Buster. See if you can’t throw right into them.”
“Come a little nearer. I can’t see your hands so well. That’s better.”
Buster sped the ball off again, and again it went wide, although not so wide as before. When the ball came back to him he made rather an awkward task of catching it. Joe followed the ball.
“Let’s have it,” he said quietly. Buster yielded it, troubledly. “Catch,” said Joe and tossed the ball to the other from some four feet away. Buster put up his hands quickly, his forehead a mass of wrinkles and his eyes half-closed, and the ball tipped his fingers and struck his chest.
“What are you scowling for?” asked Joe.
“Scowling?”
“Yes, your forehead’s all screwed up. Your eyes, too. Can’t you catch a ball without doing that?”
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“Try it.” This time Buster caught, but, as before, he frowned and squinted terrifically over the operation.
“That’ll do,” said Joe. “You go and see an oculist, Buster.”
“Oculist!”
“Surest thing you know. Something’s wrong with your eyes. You can’t see, Buster!”
“Great Scott!” murmured the other. “I—I believe you’re dead right, Joe!”
“I know I am. I had headaches like yours a couple of years ago and my mother sent me to a doctor. He snipped a couple of muscles and I was all right.”
“Snipped! Say, didn’t it hurt?”
“Mm, a little; not much. Maybe your trouble’s something else, though. Maybe you need glasses, Buster.”
“Glasses! Gee, wouldn’t I be a sight with glasses? Do you really think that’s what’s wrong, Joe?”
“Positive! You can’t throw a ball straight because you don’t see what you’re throwing at plainly. Now, can you?”
Buster considered a moment. Then: “I don’t believe I do, come to think of it. Things are—are sort of indistinct at a distance. You don’t suppose”—Buster faltered—“you don’t suppose I’m going to be blind, do you?”
“Blind your granny! You go and see an oculist and he will fix you up right as rain. Do it tomorrow, Buster. I’ll wager you’ll be playing second again in a fortnight.”
“Honest, Joe? Say, why didn’t I think of my eyes? Why, now when I think of it, I know mighty well that I don’t see like I did a year ago. Why, last Spring I could see to the end of the field as plainly as anything!”
“Can’t you today?” asked Joe.
“No, I can’t. I can see, all right, but things are sort of hazy. What’s a cataract like, Joe?”
“I never had one. Neither have you. Don’t be an idiot, Buster. Just do as I tell you.”
“You bet I will!” They were back on the bench now. “What gets me, Joe, is why I never thought it might be my eyes!”
“I guess a fellow thinks of his eyes the last thing of all,” replied Joe wisely. “I know when I was having those headaches——”
But a further account of his experiences was interrupted by the coach.
“Faulkner, you take first. That’ll do for today, Foley. Hale, you go back to third. Peddie, see what you can do at second.”
Joe played four innings at the first sack that afternoon, conscious all the time of Frank Foley’s malevolent glare from the bench. But he didn’t allow that to worry him much and covered the base in good shape. The following afternoon it was Joe who started at first and Foley who took his place later on. Perhaps the fear of being superseded began to wear on Foley, for he played poorly during the three innings he was on duty, and Jack exulted on the way home.
“You’ve got him on the run, Joey,” he said. “Keep it up, old man! Remember that bat-case is yours every Sunday!”
“Hang your old bat-case, Jack! I wish they’d put me on the second. This thing of taking a chap’s job away isn’t funny.”
“To the victor belong the spoils,” replied Jack untroubledly. “Frank won’t let sentiment interfere with getting his place back if he can, Joey, so why should you——”
“But he had it first.”
“And couldn’t keep it!”
“Just the same, I don’t like it. I think I’ll quit.”
“You think you’ll quit!” exclaimed the other in horrified tones. “You’re crazy underfoot like a radish! Quit nothing! What about that bat——”
Joe turned on him menacingly. “If you say ‘bat-case’ again I’ll punch you,” he threatened.
“Oh, all right. I won’t. I was only going to ask what about that receptacle for——”
Joe chased him half a block. When peace had been restored Joe asked: “Have you seen Buster Healey today?”
“No, he wasn’t out,” replied Jack.
“I know he wasn’t. I’m sort of worried about Buster. I didn’t say anything about it yesterday, Jack, but I’m afraid he’s got somethingwrong with his eyes.” He told of the incident of the day before, ending up with: “I don’t know much about cataracts, Jack, but I wouldn’t be awfully surprised if that was the trouble.”
“You’re a cheerful little chap, aren’t you? Fellows don’t have those things, Joey. Old ladies have ’em when they’re about eighty. My grandmother had ’em, and I know.”
“Well, maybe. I hope you’re right. Anyway, I’m going to call him up and find out what the oculist said.”
Events, however, proved that unnecessary, for when they turned into the Adams Building there was Buster leaning against the counter in conversation with the sprightly Mr. Chester Young.
“I was waiting for you, Joe,” he announced. “Thought you’d like to know you were dead right yesterday. I went to the doctor man this afternoon and he says I’ve got my—my——Oh, thunder, I’ve forgotten it!”
“Myopia?”
“That’s it! He says I’m so blamed near-sighted that’s it’s a wonder I can blow my nose! But it isn’t cataracts, anyway. Say, honest, Joe, I was scared blue last night. I told my motherwhat you’d said and she was certain sure I had cataracts!”
“I’m glad you haven’t. What’s the oculist going to do about it?”
“He says he can cure me in a few months. I have to go every day for a while and look through a sort of machine he has. And I may have to wear glasses, too. And”—and by this time Buster’s cheerfulness was ebbing fast—“he says I can’t play ball any more for a while. Isn’t that the limit?”
“Too bad, Buster. But if he can cure the trouble——”
“He says he can. Says when you catch them young, these myopias, you can chase ’em out of the system, or words like that. I suppose I oughtn’t to kick, because it might have been a heap worse, but it’s hard having to give up playing baseball.”
“No use troubling about that,” said Jack, who had joined them. “You couldn’t play anyhow, Buster, until you got your eyes fixed up right. Much better give it up this spring and go back to it next.”
“I suppose so. I haven’t any choice, anyway. Say, Joe, I’m certainly much obliged to you for tipping me off. What gets me——”
“Joe’s a wise guy,” said Jack. “What he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing.”
“Yes, but what gets me——”
“Oh, that was nothing for Joey! Solomon in all his glory had nothing on Joseph!”
“For the love of mud, Jack, shut up! Buster’s trying to tell you——”
“I was going to say,” began Buster patiently again, “that what gets me is why I didn’t realise myself what the trouble was. That’s what gets me! You’d think that when a fellow couldn’t see decently he’d take a tumble and——”
“Sure, it’s a wonder you haven’t tumbled lots of times,” agreed Jack solicitously.
“Oh, you make me tired,” grumbled Buster. “You can’t be serious a minute. If you had my—my——Say, what is it again, Joe?”
“Myopia, Buster.”
“From the Greek, Buster; myo, close, and opsis, sight. My word, I wish old Dennison could have heard me!”
“Yes, you’re a swell Greek scholar!” jeered Buster. “Well, I just thought you’d like to hear about it, Joe. And I hope you get my place at second—if you want it.”
“Give it to Foley,” said Jack. “Joe doesn’t need it. But, honestly, Buster, I’m dead sorryyou’re out of it this year. We’re going to miss you, old man. But you’ll be in better shape for next, eh?”
“If Frank’s going to have my place,” replied Buster dismally, “I’m sorrier than ever!”