CHAPTER XX.WINNING HIS WAY.
What he had seen and heard that day wrought a change in Dick Merriwell. Although he had never witnessed a game of baseball, he began to feel an intense longing to see one. He pictured it in his mind, and the picture was far from correct, but it served to add to his growing desire.
He heard Frank say that he had written to several of his friends, and the trio of young athletes began to discuss the possibility of getting enough of the old crowd together to form a ball-team. They spoke of the excitement of the games and the sport they could have, and Dick Merriwell’s interest increased steadily as he listened.
“I’d give anything to see one of those games!” he told himself.
When the three went out to practise Dick accompanied them, and, after that first day, he did not hesitate to try to catch the batted balls. To him it seemed that these efforts were rather discouraging, for he often muffed or misjudged them; but he did not know that both Ready and Hodge had told Merry that the way in which he handled himself and clung to the ballwas astonishing for a chap of his years who had never seen a ball before.
Inwardly Frank was well pleased about the interest Dick was taking, but he did not betray his feelings, nor did he praise the boy. Instead of praising, he sometimes criticized. However, he did not permit his criticism to savor of ridicule.
Merry well knew that some natures can be much better spurred on by criticism than by praise, and it is often the case that praise seems positively harmful to a growing boy or a developing youth. He had seen many good ball-players spoiled by praise, while few had been harmed, to his knowledge, by criticism.
Occasionally a lad may be able to stand praise, which may serve to spur him on; and, once in a while, severe criticism is absolutely harmful. Once in a while a boy may be ridiculed into doing his best, but always ridicule is a last resort, for it generally does more harm than good.
Frank knew that a proud and sensitive lad like Dick could not stand ridicule, although what seemed like honest criticism would arouse his nature and lead him to persistent effort. So Merry avoided any show of ridicule when he spoke freely of Dick’s failings.
Ready would have praised the lad openly, but Merriwell took care to warn Jack against doing so. Hodge did not need such a warning, as he was not in thehabit of praising anybody, with the single exception of Frank.
Merry’s critical words cut Dick deeply, seeming to arouse a tempest of anger within him.
“He thinks I’m not as smart as the boys who go to schools!” the indignant lad told Felicia one day.
“What makes you think that?” she asked.
“Oh, I know—I can tell! He doesn’t think me very smart. He doesn’t think I could ever play ball if I tried, but I’d like to show him!”
Now this was the very feeling that Frank had sought to awaken in his spirited brother, for he knew it would serve to spur the boy on.
Sometimes Frank, Bart, and Jack talked of old times and the excitement of the baseball-games in which they had participated, and then, if he fancied himself unobserved, Dick would linger near and listen, though he pretended to take no interest whatever in what they were saying.
More and more the desire grew within him to witness a regular ball-game. He was a boy who loved excitement, and he pictured the dashing, desperate struggle of two baseball-nines, with the cheering spectators to urge them on.
One day Frank left the valley, with Dick for a companion, and rode to Urmiston. They were mounted ontwo spirited horses, and the lad took delight in giving Merry a hard race to the little town, but found that the “tenderfoot” was pretty nearly a perfect horseman.
At Urmiston, Merriwell received two letters which seemed to give him considerable satisfaction, but, after reading them, he thrust them both into his pocket, saying nothing at that time of their contents. On the way back to Pleasant Valley, however, Merry suddenly observed:
“Well, Dick, I am going away soon.”
“Are you?” said the boy. “That is good!”
“I thought you would be glad of it. A number of my friends are coming from the East, and we are going to organize a baseball-team. We’ll play such clubs as we can get games with, and so pass the summer.”
Dick said nothing.
“We’ll have lots of sport this summer,” Merry went on. “It’s too bad you can’t see some of the games. But, then, I don’t suppose you care anything about them?”
The heart of the boy gave a strange throb. Then Frank had decided to go away and leave him behind!
“Why won’t I see any of them?” he asked. “You are going to make me go with you, aren’t you?”
“No,” was the quiet answer.
“But—you—said——” Then Dick choked andstopped, his mixed emotions getting the mastery of him.
“I might have taken you with us if I had not found that you were so set against it,” Frank said. “But I have come to the conclusion that it will be better to leave you behind. Then I shall not be bothered with you.”
The face of the lad flushed with angry indignation, and his dark eyes flashed.
“Oh, that is it!” he cried scornfully. “You pretended at first that you were so greatly interested in me that you were ready to do anything for me, but now I know that it was all pretense, and that you simply wanted to make me uncomfortable. Father said that you were to take care of me and see that I received proper training, but, just as soon as you think I may be a little bother to you, you are ready to drop me. That shows what kind of a brother you are! I’m glad I’ve found out! I wouldn’t go with you now if you wanted me to! You couldn’t make me go with you!”
“It’s true,” said Frank quietly, “that father wanted me to take care of you, but it may be that he did not know the kind of a task he was imposing on me. If you were the right kind of a boy, I’d do everything in my power to your advantage, no matter how much trouble it cost me; but it is evident that you prefer torun wild and come up in any old way. You choose your ignorance in preference to all the advantages I could give you. I fear I could not make much of a man of you, anyhow, so why should I try?”
The lad trembled from his head to his feet with the intensity of his rage. Then, all at once, he savagely cried:
“You can’t throw me over that way! I won’t let you! You’re getting tired of me, but I’ll make you do just what father said you were to do! You shall not go away and leave me here! I’ll go with you! I will! I will! I will!”
“Don’t get so excited about it,” advised Frank. “That’s where you show a weak spot. If you ever become a successful man in this world, you must learn to govern your temper. You let yourself——”
But Dick refused to listen longer, and, fiercely cutting his horse with his quirt, he went dashing madly toward the distant valley, Frank following behind.
There was a satisfied smile on Merriwell’s face, for he felt that he was winning in his struggle with the obstinate spirit of the boy. But he took care not to let Dick see that smile.
When they arrived at the cabin home of Juan Delores, Old Joe Crowfoot was there, sitting with his back against the wall, grimly smoking his pipe.
He did not even look up as they approached.