CHAPTER XVIA SCRUB GAME
The following day proved to be rainy and the “trying out” of the prospective ball-players was consequently impossible. The day was filled, however, with novelty to Dan, who was assigned to the same class or form to which Walter belonged. This was as Mr. Borden had hoped and it may have been that a letter from him to the head master may have had something to do with his grading.
In the Tait School there were seven buildings. Four of these were dormitories; two were superb buildings arranged for classroom work and containing a great hall in which at eleven o’clock every morning the students assembled for chapel; the remaining building was the refectory or dining-hall. Beyond the buildings was the great athletic field. The football and baseball fields were surrounded by a cinder track. Tennis-courts were numerous and the entire plant had been deeply impressive to Dan when Walter first had led him to the field. The sight of the covered grand stand and of the tiers of “bleachers” that extended along either side of the field also had moved the new boystrongly. The sight had suggested the scene which a game would present. Dan thought he could see the excited spectators and even hear their shouts of approval. Was it possible that he could be the pitcher—the central figure in the nine toward which the eyes of all would be turned? For the first time the country boy had a feeling of depression. He had never been put to the test of facing experienced batters. It was true he had been phenomenally successful against the Benson and other local nines. But they were as inexperienced as he. Then he recalled the quiet and confident words of Moulton. “If you keep on, Dan, you are going to be one of the best college pitchers. I shall follow you for a year or two and keep watch of your work. If you do what I believe you will, we’ll be sure to fix your college course all right.”
Dan had not fully understood just what Moulton meant, but as he recalled his words now they were wonderfully comforting. He would do his best to show Moulton that all his aid had not been wasted.
“You’re a new boy too, aren’t you?”
Dan, who was walking across the campus on his way to his room, looked up as he heard the question and saw before him a slight delicate boy, apparently about fourteen years of age, though he was smaller than most boys of that age.
“Yes, I’m a new boy,” replied Dan smiling as he spoke and stopping to wait for the lad to join him. “Are you new too?”
“Yes. I just came last night. It’s the first time I have ever been away from home.” The lad’s eyes were moist and Dan’s sympathy was at once aroused. He understood the feelings of his companion, though he had different ways of expression.
“First time I’ve ever been away from home too,” he said with a smile.
“Is it?” inquired the lad, interested at once. “Which form are you in?”
“Second.”
“I’m only in the fourth. You’ll have only two years here.”
“And you’ll have four.”
“Yes,” the boy responded, as if the prospect was far from pleasing. “My name is Carlton Hall. What is yours?”
“Dan Richards. Where do you live?”
“Brooklyn.”
“I live away up in the country. I never expected to have a chance to come to this school——”
“Do you like it?” interrupted the boy.
“It must be a wonderful place,” replied Dan quietly. “You and I will both have to keep before us all the time what it means to be students in the Tait School.”
“Yes,” assented Carlton feebly. “Do you know I am glad I have to study with the teachers. I’d get lonesome if I didn’t. You see, I room alone——”
“Study with the teachers?” broke in Dan. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know? Why the first-form boys are allowed to do all their work in their rooms, unless they get too low a standing in their exams. Then the fellows in the second form who stand in the first division are allowed to study in their rooms too. All the rest have to study every afternoon and evening in one of the study rooms.”
“I didn’t know about that.”
“That’s the way it is. Won’t you come over and see me pretty soon?” inquired Carlton wistfully.
“Where do you room?”
“In Boyd Hall, number seven. It’s the single room at the head of the stairs, in the south entry.”
“I’ll be glad to come,” Dan promised readily. The unspoken appeal in the big blue eyes could not be resisted. “Come over and make a call on me. I’m in nine, Badger Hall—west entry.”
“Do you room alone?”
“No, Walter Borden rooms with me.”
When Dan entered his room he found Walter and Ned both there, and as soon as they saw him Walter exclaimed, “What do you think, Dan? We’ve got a proposition to form a school league.”
“Have you?”
“You’re right we have. I don’t understand why it hasn’t been done long ago. Four schools, St. John’s, the Greystone Military School, the Atlas High School, and the Military Academy at Dundee. Of course, we’ll find some muckers in the high-schoolnine, but they can play ball. It’ll be a great scheme. Whichever wins the championship of the league has got the State interscholastic championship too, for there isn’t another school in the State that can touch any one of the four. It’s too late to take in football, but we’ll have that next fall. It will bring us right into line for the baseball and track and tennis in the spring. Perhaps we can fix things up in time for hockey and basket-ball this winter——”
“Hold on, Walter,” interrupted Dan. “You go too fast for me. I guess I don’t quite understand.”
“Why, you see it’s this way,” explained Ned. “These four schools are near one another and they put up the best article in the way of athletics in the State. We have games every year anyway, but by this new arrangement we have a league, you see. There’ll be regularly scheduled games and the nine or the team that wins out will get a pennant. It will be able to claim too, the championship of the State. It’s a great scheme and there’s only one drawback; I don’t mean a drawback exactly, I mean there’s only one question——”
“What’s that?” demanded Walter.
“Why, it’s the question of Dan. If he can make good as the pitcher of the Tait School nine it will be all right——”
“You don’t want to go into the league unless you can get that pennant? Is that it?” asked Dan quietly.
“I’d rather go in if we can win,” laughed Ned.
“Somebody will have to come out last,” suggested Walter.
“‘Strange but true,’” laughed Ned. “I am aware of that marvelous fact, but after Red’s work last year—why, Dan, the Military Academy got only one hit and that was on account of an accident in the ninth inning——”
“So you’ve told us a million times or more,” broke in Walter irritably. “Don’t tell us that old story again. I’ll back Dan. He’ll give you all you want.”
“I’m sure, for the sake of the nine, I hope he will,” said Ned good-naturedly. “That’s all I want.”
“He’ll do it,” said Walter confidently.
“I’ve been talking with Samson,” said Ned, “and he says we can begin the inter-form games next week. The first game will be between the first and second forms, fellows. I’ll tell you, Dan, that Gus Kiggins—he’s the first-form pitcher—will put you on your mettle. He’s been substitute pitcher on the school nine two years, and he’s sore because Red Chandler came in last year and won out as the regular pitcher. He doesn’t know that you are here or that you can pitch——”
“He will at the end of the first inning,” declared Walter.
“I hope so, with all my heart.”
“Look here,” said Dan in a low voice, “youaren’t going to put me in as the pitcher of the second-form nine, are you?”
“Correct,” said Ned.
“But you haven’t tried me. You don’t know whether I can do it or not. I don’t know myself——”
“I do,” said Walter.
Dan shook his head as he said quietly, “Walter is not the best judge.”
“I’m captain of the second-form nine,” said Ned. “I’ll give you a chance to make good. If you don’t——”
“What then?” inquired Dan.
“Why, you’ll retire in favor of your successor, that’s all.”
“You must see what my work is first,” said Dan firmly.
“Just what I intend to do. It’ll be clear to-morrow and we will get up a scrub game on the campus at two-thirty. We’ll have the diamond all to ourselves, for most of the fellows will want to see what the prospects for the eleven are. They’ll be down watching the football practice and we’ll have the field to ourselves.”
“How about Gus Kiggins? Will he come out?” inquired Walter.
“No. He’s out for half-back on the eleven this fall. I guess he’ll make it too,” replied Ned. “All the better if he doesn’t show up.”
“He’ll pitch for the first form, won’t he?”
“You can rest easy about that,” laughed Ned. “Gus will be on deck then. He loves the spotlight.”
“He is all right too,” said Walter.
“Yes, he can play ball. He’ll be the pitcher of the school nine, unless Dan goes him one better.”
“Dan will do it all right,” asserted Walter, although even Dan somehow felt there was a slight note of anxiety in his roommate’s apparent confidence.
Promptly at half past two the following afternoon Dan and Walter went to the field. Ned had had his difficulties in securing sufficient players to make up two nines, so keen was the interest of the school in learning what the outlook for the eleven was likely to be. However, after a time, two nines were obtained and preparations for the scrub game were completed.
“Dan, you can’t pitch in those clothes!” protested Walter as his roommate seated himself on the bench. “Where’s your uniform?”
“What uniform?”
“Why, the one you used in Rodman.”
“I left that with that study gown you didn’t like.”
Walter’s face flushed slightly as he said: “But Dan, you don’t understand how much depends on the impression you make on Ned and the other fellows to-day. Let me get you——”
Walter rose abruptly to go to the dressing-room of the club-house, but as he did so Dan said quietly,“No frills to-day, Walter. This is only a scrub game anyway.”
“No, it isn’t, at least as far as you are concerned!”
“I’m going into the game just as I am,” said Dan in a low voice. “I notice that some of the boys are not wearing uniforms.”
“They don’t need to. They can’t play ball. But it’s different with you, Dan. I’ve been backing you up——”
“Never mind, Walter. If I don’t show any signs of greatness it will be all right, however it comes out. If I don’t show that I can do anything I’ll feel better——”
“All right. Have it your own way,” retorted Walter sulkily. “I can’t do anything more. You’d do better if you had the shoes——”
It was Walter’s turn at the bat and as his name was called he turned abruptly to the home plate.
“You’re next,” said Ned to Dan, as Walter made a hit and gained his base. “Can you bunt? If you can, let me see you sacrifice Walter to second.”
Dan’s “sacrifice hit,” however, consisted in a long high fly to deep center. The fielder, evidently an inexperienced player, misjudged the ball and Walter ran home, while Dan rested on third base.
“You ought to have done what I told you,” said Ned sharply when Dan came home a little later. “You would have been out if there had been a goodfielder in center and the chances are you’d have doubled up Walter too.”
“I took the chance,” said Dan quietly. “I knew the fellow couldn’t field.”
“Well, watch my signals now,” said Ned tartly, as the side was out and he and Dan started for their position in the field.