CHAPTER XXVIIWINNING HIS GAME
Bases filled and only one out! Two balls and no strikes on the batsman! A hit meant two runs across! All this Guy Murtha explained in quick, troubled words to Dud. And Dud, tired of face but eager-eyed, nodded quite as though Guy had explained that it was a fine day and that the weather prediction was for a continuation of present conditions!
Then Guy went back to his place and the Grafton sympathizers stopped cheering and Dud sped his five balls to Brooks, each one just where he meant it to go.
Once more the batsman took his place and Dud pitched.
“Str-r-ike!” bawled the umpire, and waved an arm aloft. The batter thumped the rubber with his bat. Again Dud launched the ball forward. Again it sped straight and true across the platter and knee-high.
“Str-r-ike two!”
The batsman grew wary. He no longer fidgetedbut put his whole mind on the next delivery. Dud fumbled his cap, took his half wind-up and shot his arm to the right and around in a swing. The ball flashed to the plate and the umpire hurled his hand aloft with a mighty gesture.
“He’s out!”
Strident protest from the retreating batsman and from the Mount Morris bench! Cheers wild and triumphant from the Grafton seats and from the field! And another green-stockinged player faced his fate. A ball, a strike, another ball. Then a drop that was swung at and never touched. Two-and-two, and Mount Morris watching her opportunity slip from her grasp. Then, while Dud swung his arm up, came a quick cry from behind him:
“He’s off!”
The man at third was streaking to the plate! But so was the ball, and although the batsman swung at it, it lodged safely in Brooks’ mitt and Brooks, dropping to his knees, blocked the ambitious runner a foot from the plate!
“Can you keep it up?” asked Mr. Sargent wonderingly as Dud sank to the bench and Davy Richards flourished a towel in front of his face.
“I think so, sir. I’m going to try awfully hard,” answered Dud.
“Well, go easy on yourself this inning. Let themhit a little if you like. There’s another inning coming and maybe several.”
“Yes, sir.” Dud’s gaze, straying along the bench, caught sight of Jimmy, Jimmy dressed for play and with an anxious regard fixed on the coach. “If you could, sir,” said Dud, “I wish you’d let Logan in. It wasn’t our fault that we got left, sir; at least, not wholly; and Jimmy’s crazy to play!”
“Logan? Maybe in the next inning. I’ll see. Here! What’s this?”
This was Star Meyer picking himself up from the water bucket, having in some way tripped over one of Jimmy’s feet as he passed. Jimmy was all sympathy and apologies, but Star only muttered. His haughtiness was wholly lacking and the fellows viewed with real concern the almost abject manner with which he righted the empty pail and retired into the far end of the bench. But Jimmy, catching Dud’s eye, winked wickedly.
The eighth passed into history without witnessing a run for either side. Grafton got Ordway to first on a pass and he went on a base when Ayer lifted one to left for the second out. Then, while Boynton was at bat, Hugh was caught napping at second and another chance to score passed into oblivion.
Mount Morris’ first man got a hit and was thrown out at second on an attempted steal, Brooks making as pretty a peg to Murtha as one could hope to see.The next man struck out miserably. Then followed a scratch hit that came near to being an error for Blake. The next man, Saylor, flied out to Murtha and ended the eighth.
Boynton started for Grafton in the ninth by beating out a weak hit and the scarlet pennants waved again. Meyer, bat on shoulder and stepping to the plate, was recalled.
“Logan batting for Boynton!” called the umpire.
Jimmy swung at the first ball, disdained the next two, had a second strike called on him, started for the next and changed his mind and was glad of it and was finally passed when what Saylor had meant for a strike over the inner corner went wrong. With two on bases, Brooks was the man of the hour, but Brooks was no hitter and only stood there while Saylor fooled him on two slow ones that went for strikes, wasted a wide one on him and then made him bite at a drop that actually dusted the plate. Although Brooks played the game to the last and sped for his base the ball was recovered by the catcher and got there well ahead of him.
Dud had as much hope of hitting safely as he had of knocking out a home-run. And he knew very well that he would be doing only what was expected of him if he struck out as badly as Brooks. But he wanted very much to do something a little better than that. As he dug his toes and faced Saylor, herecalled Ben Myatt’s remark that a pitcher who could hit was pretty useful. And Dud wanted to make himself just that! And so he tried as hard as he knew how to keep his eyes on the pitcher and study him and then on the ball, and study that, and so see if—
“One ball!” said the umpire.
Dud took a breath. All right so far. It had been too high and he had known it. He wondered if Saylor would try it again or—
“Str-r-r-ike!”
Well, that had certainly fooled him! He thought surely it was going wide. Saylor had some curve on that one! Dud glued his eyes to the ball once more, swung and missed.
“Str-r-rike two!”
That was awful! He was as good as gone now! Unless—
“Two balls!”
Perhaps Saylor would miss it this time. Then it would be three balls and two strikes and Saylor would have to pitch! Just why Dud offered at the next delivery he didn’t know then and couldn’t have explained later. It had all the ear-marks of a fast one on the outside of the plate, but for some reason Dud let go at it, andthe ball, curving inward, met his bat fairly and screeched off into short center, low enough to have been speared by second-baseman hadhe been two yards nearer its path and long enough to send Boynton and Jimmy hustling home. Jimmy beat out that throw by inches only, but beat it nevertheless, while Dud, seeing his chance, streaked to second. And Grafton went fairly delirious with joy!
Nick hit safely and advanced Dud, Winslow fouled out to the catcher and Hugh Ordway, putting all his strength into a terrific swing, sent a screeching fly far into right field but not far enough to be out of reach of the guardian of that territory. A long hard run and a brilliant catch and the half-inning was over.
Mount Morris tried hard enough in that last period to catch up, but she had little chance. Dud had no trouble in striking out the first batsman. The next hit safely through second base territory. The third went out, Winslow to Ayer, and the fourth, Mount Morris’ last hope, swung at a high one, was fooled by a drop that he didn’t like and that was labeled a strike, fouled off another and at last, just as the shadow of the grandstand had reached the edge of the plate, slammed a straight, fast one directly at the pitcher’s box. Dud couldn’t make the catch; it was going too hard for that; but he knocked it down, found it leisurely enough and tossed to Ayer. And as the big first-baseman nestled the ball in his glove the stands flowed onto the field and the game was over!
Half an hour later, tired and very, very happy, Grafton was returning home. Dud, hero of the hour, but a very retiring, modest—even uncomfortable—hero, was wedged between Jimmy and a car window. There was much talk, much laughter, much noise, and James Townsend Logan was accountable for fully his share of it. Jimmy had just finished recounting the history of their hand-car adventure and the subsequent heart-breaking hike to Greenbank to as many fellows as could cluster within hearing. Blake, sitting on the arm of the seat, one hand fondling Jimmy’s damp locks, put a question.
“Where,” he asked, “is Star now, Jimmy?”
Jimmy grinned, felt carefully of a large lump under his left eye and made answer solemnly.
“He’s coming by the next train. He was—er—delayed.”
“I hope,” said Nick gently, “that you didn’t—didn’t damage him, Jimmy.”
Jimmy turned and smiled broadly up at the questioner.
“You wait till you see him!” he said in a deep, ecstatic whisper.
Mr. Crowley, pushing his way along the aisle, paused to thrust a hand over Jimmy’s shoulder.
“Baker, that was playing ball, my boy,” he said happily. “Shake hands! You pitched a fine threeinnings and, what’s more, you won your own game, boy!”
Dud murmured his thanks, aware of the kindly smiling looks from the clustered faces, and turned his own face to the window. It occurred to him just then that Mr. Crowley’s expression was capable of two meanings. Yes, he told himself contentedly, he had at last won his game!
Transcriber’s Notes:Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in The Illustrations.Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in The Illustrations.
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.