CHAPTER XVALL OUT FOR BASEBALL
But in spite of the efforts of the fellows to keep Pell’s accident in the pool a secret it became known throughout the school in a matter of hours.
Every fellow in the locker room realized that Pell had been breaking a rule,—a very strict rule, and while none of them approved of this and in their hearts felt that he deserved punishment, they were not willing to go back on him to the extent of making his misdemeanor and the resulting accident known. Indeed, while there were few among them who really cared very much for Pell they all felt that under similar circumstances they would want the fellows to stand by them and they tried to cover up the little Sophomore’s difficulties as much as possible.
Thatcher and Buck Hart, along with Wiggins and Dixon, were the most concerned about trying to get Pell out of the locker room and back to his room in Newkirk Hall. The rest of the fellowsof the baseball squad left the gym. in twos and threes or larger groups and went to their rooms, while these four lingered behind with Pell, who was still weak and trembling from exhaustion. The accident had taken a greater toll of his strength than most of them realized.
“Are you feeling all right now?” asked Buck Hart.
Pell forced a smile and tried to stand up. But his legs refused to obey and he sat down weakly.
“Thought I was, but I guess I’d better rest a little longer,” he said, a little ashamed of his weakness.
“All right. Rest a bit longer,” said Buck. Then turning to Honey Wiggins and Dixon, he said: “Honey, you and George needn’t wait. Jeff and I will get him over to Newkirk. Fact is, I don’t think you’d better wait. Four of us helping him back will look mighty funny. I think Jeff and I can get him over and be less conspicuous about it.”
“Well, maybe so,” said big George Dixon. “All right, Hon and I will blow, then. Sure you don’t need us?”
“No, Buck and I can manage,” said Jeff.
Pell looked around the locker room and then back at Jeff and Buck.
“Where’s Gould?” he asked curiously.
“Gould? Oh, he went out with the bunch,” said Jeff, and in spite of himself he could not repress all the scorn that he held for the Sophomore for deserting his supposed chum.
“Huh,” grunted Pell, after a moment’s silence. He evidently intended to say more but reconsidered. Still in that grunt Jeff detected the fact that Pell’s eyes were opened to the value of Gould’s friendship.
“How about it now? Feeling any stronger?” asked Buck as he heard the doors upstairs slam behind George Dixon and Honey Wiggins.
“Try to stand now,” urged Jeff; “we’ll support you between us and get you over to Newkirk and to bed. You’ll get an hour’s rest before the supper bell and that will brace you up.”
Pell got to his feet once more and walked slowly, but steadily, to his locker, where he managed to get into his overcoat and hat. Then with Jeff and Buck partly supporting him, yet not being conspicuous about it, they helped him up thestairs and out of the building into a fast gathering March twilight.
Across the campus they hurried, as fast as the weak and still trembling Pell could move. And under the cover of the half light they managed to reach Newkirk Hall and get Pell into his room without encountering any one.
Pell’s teeth were chattering when they bundled him into his blankets and turned on the steam radiator in his room. Jeff paused and looked at him a minute.
“Jiminy, old fellow, you’re shivering so you shake the bed. Think we had better call Dr. Stout?”
“No, don’t do that,” protested Pell; “I’ll be all right by supper time, I think.”
But when Jeff and Buck left him they did not agree with him in that respect.
“I’m afraid the shock and exposure and everything has just about done him up,” said Jeff to Buck.
“I don’t like to see him have chills that way. Looks bad to me. But we won’t call the Doctor unless he doesn’t show up for supper,” said Jeff.
Both boys went to their rooms and made themselves ready for the evening meal. Wade Grenville burst into the room, late as usual, and began to tumble into clean clothes.
“How’s Pell?” he asked, between splashes in the wash basin in the corner of the room. “Get him to his room all right?”
“Yes, we got him there all right without any one seeing us, but I think he’s a mighty sick kid. If he don’t show up for supper we’ll have to call Dr. Stout,” said Jeff.
“Oh, nonsense; he’s a tough little rooster. He’ll show up, all right. There goes the bell. Jiminy. Wait up, Jeff, till I put on my collar.”
Both boys made a wild, last minute dash down the hall toward the dining room, only to almost bump into Dr. Livingston at the dining room door.
“Well, what’s the matter. Can’t you fellows shave time just a little closer than this?” asked the Headmaster sarcastically, the humor of which was not lost on both of them.
But as they stepped inside the big room, the door opened behind them and Pell walked in. Dr. Livingston turned to see who the late comer was.
“Well, Pell,” he said, still with a suggestionof sarcasm, “you are nearly as late as Thatcher and Grenville. Can’t you— Why, what’s the matter, boy?”
Pell had closed the dining room door behind him and started on obviously unsteady legs toward his table. Two spots of color burned in his cheeks and his eyes were strangely bright. As he started to step past the Headmaster, he paused momentarily and tried to steady himself. Then as he stepped out again he suddenly collapsed. His trembling legs gave way under him and he dropped in a heap on the floor.
Dr. Livingston and Jeff reached down and lifted him to his feet. Then, with the whole school looking at them, the Headmaster gathered the boy up in his arms, exclaiming:
“Why, you’re sick, Pell—terribly sick, with a high fever. Thatcher, call Dr. Stout.”
But there was not need for Jeff to call the physician. When the little Sophomore collapsed, Dr. Stout had jumped up from his place at the head of the junior school table and hurried through the crowd of boys to the side of the Headmaster.
Together they carried the boy out of the buildingand across the campus to the infirmary, while Professor Reisenberg brought order in the dining room and made the students start on their meal.
Neither Dr. Stout nor the Headmaster returned to the dining room while the students were eating, and when the boys left the hall the conclusions they reached among themselves were that Birdie Pell was very ill.
And such proved to be the case, for in the morning it was announced from the chapel platform that the boy had developed a slight case of pneumonia and that Dr. Stout had spent the night fighting to keep it from getting any more serious. The shock of the accident along with the exposure had proved too much for Pell.
For two weeks he lingered in the infirmary, with Jeff and Wade and Buck Hart and many other boys frequent visitors to his room, when he was permitted to receive them. Meanwhile, however, indoor practice had continued with increasing enthusiasm among the members of the squad of sixteen. Honey Wiggins, big George Dixon and Cy Gordon, the pitching candidates, were warming up to their task of working out their arms, and with Tad Sloan, the captain and regular catcherof last year, and Al. Canner and Mickey Daily acting as substitutes, the three slabmen were shooting balls across the gym. with real vigor, sometimes even trying curves and shoots when Mr. Rice would permit them to unlimber all they had for a brief period.
A batting cage, almost entirely surrounded by corded netting, was installed at one end of the gym., too, and the fellows began to discover how pleasant it was to swing a bat once more. With the corded netting draped all around the room to enmesh a stray ball, the candidates were permitted to slug as hard as they cared to, and they went at the work of finding their batting eye with a will.
Jeff was particularly keen for this batting cage practice, for he had long ago developed that co-ordination of eye, brain and muscle that makes a three hundred batter, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than proving to a pitcher that there were few curves or jumps that could fool him. He noticed, too, with a certain eagerness, that Mr. Rice had watched him while he occupied the batting cage, and he felt certain that he saw approval in his eye as he watched his freedom of swingand the way he put his shoulders and body behind some of the smacks that sent the horse hide against the corded netting with a thump.
Indeed, the coach even went so far after one slashing wallop of the ball as to remark his approval.
“That’s real stick work, Thatcher. Great stuff. Wish some of the rest of the fellows would get the hang of the thing the way you have it. All you need is to correct your feet a little more and you’ll be a three hundred hitter some day.”
Jeff was thoroughly pleased to have won that much praise from the coach and he could not help smiling with a sense of satisfaction as he stepped out of the cage to give his place to another batter. He smiled more, too, when he noted an expression of jealous hate on the face of Gould.
“That sort of thing gets his goat, I guess,” he said to himself as he walked over to relieve Mickey Daily of his catcher’s mitt and his job of catching the curves of Honey Wiggins. Daily was next in line for practice in the batting cage.
And so the indoor practice progressed satisfactorily enough through the last week in March and the first week in April. The weather was fast developinginto an ideal spring. The cold weather that had lingered all too long in March disappeared completely with the first day of April and spring seemed to sweep down upon the country with a rush. Budding trees began to show a fresh greenness, shrubbery about the campus showed color that was a source of cheer after the bleakness of winter. Robins appeared on the broad lawns of the campus and searched diligently for worms that were crowding toward the surface in the damp and rapidly warming loam, blue birds were awing and their soft, almost delicate song could be heard from the maples and elms that lined the driveway. Song sparrows were tuning up in the woods across the river and the colony of barn swallows that nested under the eaves of the library building returned in force.
“Oh, boy, this is swell baseball weather,” exclaimed Jeff one day as, hurrying across the campus he encountered Coach Rice and Tad Sloan, the captain, moving toward the baseball diamond.
“Great, isn’t it?” said Tad Sloan, who was a short, stocky chap of a quiet but forceful type, and a senior at Pennington.
“I’ll say so,” said Jeff, wondering with interest why the captain and the coach were walking toward the diamond.
Tad evidently noticed the look of inquiry Jeff shot at them, for he smiled and spoke.
“We’re going over to see how wet the ground is. If the sun has dried the diamond out sufficiently Mr. Rice says he will call for outdoor practice beginning this afternoon.”
“Oh, boy, that will be swell,” exclaimed Jeff, delighted with the prospects.
He hurried on to his classes then, eager to spread the glad possibilities, and for the rest of the morning each time he and Wade and several other baseball enthusiasts passed the bulletin board in the hall they looked eagerly for the posting of a new notice there.
And at the end of the last period that morning they were not disappointed. There it was in big letters.
“All out for baseball! Squad and new candidates will report for practice at 3 o’clock. North field.”