CHAPTER XXVIDISSENSIONS
Dejected and discouraged, but still bravely giving a cheer for their victorious rivals, the Boxwood Hall team left the field. The military rooters were singing their songs, but the blue and yellow pennants of the defeated ones drooped sadly.
“They didn’t do a thing to us, did they?” said Bart, somewhat cheerfully under the circumstances.
“Well, they mightn’t have done so much if you hadn’t muffed that long fly,” snapped Frank, for Bart had done that.
“The sun——” he began.
“Same old excuse,” sneered the captain. “You’d better get a pair of green goggles.”
“I didn’t think you were going to tell me to try for that steal,” observed the lad who had been caught at second.
“You should have had your wits about you!” complained Frank, though really it was his fault that the misplay had been made.
“We’ve got to do a whole lot better if we want the championship,” said Jake Porter.
“Guess you’d better get another pitcher,” remarked Jim. “I couldn’t seem to get ’em over to-day.”
“Well, I’ve seen you do better,” admitted Frank, with less bitterness in his voice than he had used toward the others. “But you sure have got to perk up, and so have the rest of us. We want the next two games, and we’ve got to get ’em!”
“So say we all of us!” chanted Bart. “Say, Frank, why don’t you give Jerry, Ned or Bob a show in the next game?” he asked. “They have been doing some swell playing against the other scrub nines, and you know what a tussle they gave us.”
“It might be a good idea to put them in a couple of games,” added Bill. “I’m not saying anything against Jim,” he went on, “but Ned sure has a swift ball.”
“Those fellows don’t play on the varsity while I’m captain,” said Frank sullenly. “They’ve got too good an opinion of themselves now, and if they played on the first team they’d think they owned the college. They can’t come in!”
“That’s right!” cried some of Frank’s closest friends. “With their auto and their boat they’ll think they’re too good for Boxwood after a bit.”
“They can play ball all right, and better than some of us,” declared a centre fielder who had muffed a ball, letting in a run. “And when I say that I include myself,” he admitted frankly. “I did rotten work to-day.”
“You’re right, you did!” snapped Frank. “And don’t let it happen again.”
“If I do, will you put in one of the three inseparables?” was the question, for so Ned, Bob and Jerry were called at times.
“Not in a hundred years!” cried Frank.
“Oh, give ’em a chance!” pleaded some, including Bart and Bill.
“Don’t you do it! Too much swelled head!” insisted others.
From this discussion there came a dissension among some members of the nine, as well as among the supporters of the team. The three chums were made the subject of a not very pleasant discussion, and they begged those who favored their playing to desist. But Bart and Bill led a faction which insisted that our heroes be allowed to play.
But Frank was stubborn and refused to consider the matter.
“Our nine is all right as it is,” he said. “Just because we lost one game to Kenwell doesn’t mean we’ll lose more. I’m not going to change my mind. Those fellows can’t play on the varsity,and that settles it,” and he banged his bat down hard on the floor of the auto-truck in which the defeated team was returning.
The subject was dropped for the time being, and was not mentioned to Frank again for several days by those favoring Jerry and his chums. But those opposed to them, on no good grounds whatsoever, nagged Frank into keeping firm in his determination.
The baseball season waxed. Because of the playing of Jerry, Ned and Bob the scrub nine won game after game, succumbing only to teams much their superior. They were doing much better than the varsity, which lost a number of games to institutions it had beaten easily the previous years. But there were still the two games with Kenwell, and by getting both of these the reputation of Boxwood could be maintained.
“But the team is in a slump,” said Bart. “It’s in a slump, and Frank knows it.”
“Only he’s too pig-headed to admit it,” agreed Bill Hamilton. “If he would let those motor boys in even for a couple of easy games, it would show what they can do and inspire confidence.”
“Yes, and it would give the regulars a rest,” went on Bart. “That is what some of us need—a rest. We’re overtrained, and it’s showing. Kenwell will walk away with us next time, you see.”
“I hope not, but I’m afraid so,” agreed Bill.
But when once more Frank’s closest friends ventured to plead with him for the three chums he got so angry that they decided it was no use.
Thus matters stood about a week before the second game with the military academy.
“Fellows, I’ve a feeling in my bones that something is going to happen,” remarked Bob one afternoon, as he tossed aside the book he had been trying to study, while Ned was plunking away at a banjo on which he announced he was going to become an expert player.
“What is going to happen?” asked Jerry. “Are you going to bang Ned over the head or put your foot through that perfectly rotten instrument he’s torturing?”
“I’d like to see him try it!” exclaimed Ned, but he took the precaution to retreat to his own room, for they were in Jerry’s, as usual.
“No, I rather like that music,” Bob said. “It is so soothing.”
“Soothing!” howled Jerry. “I’d rather live next to a boiler factory! But if it isn’t that, Bob, what is it? Tell us, Mr. Endman, what am gwine t’ happen?” and Jerry imitated a negro minstrel.
“Let’s have another feed happen,” suggested the stout lad. “It’s been a long while since we’ve done anything but play ball. Let’s have a spread.”
“And get caught again?” asked Ned. “Not for mine!”
“We won’t get caught,” said Bob. “We’ve been so noble and upright lately that the proc won’t suspect us. And I don’t believe any one will squeal now. We haven’t done anything worth mentioning since the picture racket. By the way, Ned, have you found out who wrote the card that gave us away?”
“No, but I’m on the track. I’ve eliminated all but two typewriters now. It was written on either one of them. I’ve had specimens of writing from every machine in the building but two.”
“And whose are those?” asked Jerry.
“Frank Watson’s and Proxy’s—or the one his clerk uses.”
“Great fish-cakes!” cried Bob. “You don’t suspect Proxy; do you?”
“Of course not. It may have been his clerk, but I don’t guess so. The only other one is Frank, and I’ll get the goods on him yet!”
“Well, about the feed,” resumed Bob, “shall we have it?”
“Sure! Go ahead!” assented Jerry. “Things have been a bit dull of late.”
“Count me in,” added Ned.