CHAPTER VIIHIMSELF AGAIN
Among the spectators, doubtless, the performance of Tom Locke gave no one keener disappointment and chagrin than that experienced by Janet Harting. She almost writhed, her fair forehead knotted and her rosy mouth puckering and pouting. Once she stood up, but the horses, possibly getting a glimpse of her parasol, started, and young King, quieting them, suggested that it would be best for her to remain on the seat.
“Oh, isn’t it just mean!” the girl cried, as Locke continued to search in vain for the pan. “Everybody expected him to do so much. Mr. Cope was so sure about him, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” said Bent. “For the last few days the whole town has been talking about the wonderful new pitcher and what he would do.”
“It’s a shame! Why, he can’t pitch at all!”
“It doesn’t seem so, but perhaps he may steady down. I once saw a pitcher pass three menstraight, and then strike out the next three without a break.”
“Oh, but this one never could do a thing like that. He can’t put even a straight one over; he hasn’t a bit of control.”
“You talk like a fan, Janet. Your father is such a crank—er, excuse me!—that he wouldn’t let you see the games last year. Where did you pick up your knowledge?”
“Boarding school. Some of us girls used to get to the college games on Saturday. I declare, I do believe he’s going to walk this batter, too! Why don’t they take him out and let some one pitch who knows how?”
“There’s Cope talking to the manager on the bench. The old man is stubborn, and I presume he’s set on giving the great pitcher he signed all the show possible. It hurts his pride to see the fellow fizzle this way.”
Janet’s blue eyes flashed. “It’s simply dreadful!” she panted. “Every day last year I got the score of the games, and it made me ill when our team went to pieces at last, the way it did. And everybody has been saying we’d surely beat Bancroft this year. Hear them mocking us over there! Oh, I’m sorry I came to-day!”
“Cheer up; the game isn’t lost just because afalse alarm is unmasking himself in the first inning. The home crowd is getting hot now, and they’ll demand that the fellow be benched directly. We’ve got other pitchers, you know.”
“Other pitchers! Don’t call this one a pitcher! He’s a—a—”
“A flash in the pan,” laughed King. “It’s a good thing he has betrayed himself right off the reel, for that will give us all the more time to recover from the shock. There, there goes the second batter to first. Now hear the crowd rub it into the poor dub. Oh, say! they’re soaking him. There’ll be a riot if he isn’t sent to the stable pretty quick. Listen to that! I knew it!”
The exasperated Kingsbridgers were howling for the removal of Locke, the cry to take him out immediately swelling into a roar from all sides of the field. Forgetting the cautioning words of her companion, Miss Harting again sprang to her feet.
“Take him out!” she cried; but her voice was drowned in the mighty volume of sound.
“Steady, Janet,” said Bent, taking hold of her arm with one hand and gently drawing her back to the seat. “This racket is making the nags nervous, and I’d hate to spill you out, after promising your grudging father to look after you andsee that nothing happened. They’ll have to put the blanket on Lefty now. The crowd won’t stand for any more of him.”
On the Kingsbridge bench Henry Cope and Manager Hutchinson were arguing over it, the former hot and insistent, the latter cold and unemotionally scornful.
“One chance more—give him another show,” demanded Cope. “I tell ye Iknowhe can pitch.”
“Perhaps he can pitch hay,” returned Hutchinson; “but not baseball. Listen to that howling mob. They’ll murder him pretty quick. I don’t want the responsibility on my shoulders.”
“I’ll take all the responsibility; he’s my man, and I’ll shoulder it. Let him try the next feller.”
“When the whole town gets to kicking at me, will you stand up and say you insisted on it against my wishes?”
“Didn’t I jest say I’d shoulder it! Nobody shan’t put the blame on you.”
“Oh, all right. They’ll mob him on the diamond if he hands out another pass, and that’s just what he’ll do. He’s white as a ghost with fear. He couldn’t get the ball over now if his life depended on it.”
Indeed, the wretched pitcher was ghastly white, the pallor of his face making his dark-brown eyesseem almost black; and into the depths of those eyes had come a light like a dull-red flame, flaring up swiftly.
A few moments before he had felt his own nerves unsteady, and fought in vain for control of them; now, with the howling demand for his removal hammering into his ears, he suddenly found himself steady as a foundation rock. His resentment and anger was of the white-hot variety that transmutes. A man serene and calm it might unnerve; one doubtful and wavering it might turn to iron.
Slowly he turned until he had faced every side of the field, and all that mass of snarling humanity, yelling at him, jeering, insulting, shaking their fists, their faces red and wroth, their eyes full of contempt, their lips hurling forth threats of bodily violence—and he smiled at them.
“Howl away,” he said, but no one save himself heard the words. “I’ll show you some pitching yet.”
Never before had he pitched in the presence of a crowd of such crude, seemingly ferocious, human beings; but many a time, as he well knew, he had faced batters as skillful and dangerous as these raw, would-be professionals and broken-down cast-offs from minor leagues.
At no time had he feared the hitting ability of his opponents, but, as sometimes happens to the headiest and most seasoned veteran, the moment he toed the slab some incomprehensible thing had taken possession of him, and made him a mockery for the crowd and a sickening shame to himself.
Now, however, he knew the unmanning spirit had been exorcised; he was himself again, clean and fit.