READY FOR THE GAME
Never before had the Barville baseball
team brought such a crowd of supporters into Oakdale.
They came, boys and girls, wearing their school colors,
bearing banners, and bringing tin horns and cowbells.
The manner in which they swept into Oakdale and hurried,
eager and laughing, toward the athletic field, plainly
betokened their high confidence in the outcome of
the contest. Even a few older persons came over
from Barville on one pretext or another, and found
it convenient to spend a portion of the afternoon
watching the baseball game.
“Jinks!” chuckled Chipper
Cooper, as he watched the visitors pour in and fill
up the generous section of bleachers reserved for them.
“They certainly act as if they thought they
were going to have a snap to-day. Barville must
be depopulated. Never fancied so many people
lived over there.”
“Beyond question,” said
Roger Eliot quietly, “they believe their team
has at least an even chance for the game; otherwise,
not half so many would have made the journey to watch
it.”
“It must be on account of their
new ketcher,” muttered Sile Crane. “I
cal’late they think he’s the whole cheese;
but mebbe they’ll find août he ain’t
only a small slice of the rind. What’s
he look like, anyhaow?”
“There he is,” said Roger,
as the visiting team came trotting onto the field,
led by Lee Sanger, its pitcher and captain, “that
stocky, red-headed chap. See him?”
“My!” grinned Cooper.
“He’s a bird. Looks like he could
eat hardware without getting indigestion.”
The Barville crowd gave their players
a rousing cheer, although they did not yet venture
to blow the horns or jangle the cowbells. Those
noise-producing implements were held in reserve, with
apparent perfect assurance that an especially effective
occasion for their use must arise during the game.
Captain Eliot shook hands cordially
with Sanger, and suggested that he should at once
take the field for practice.
“Hello, Roger!” called
Bob Larkins, the Barville first baseman. “Great
day for the game. We’re going to make you
fellows go some. You won’t have the same
sort of a cinch you had last year.”
“I hope not,” answered
Eliot pleasantly. “There’s a big
crowd out to-day, and I’d like to see you fellows
make the game interesting.”
“Oh, don’t you worry,
it will be interesting enough,” prophesied Larkins,
getting his mitt and turning to jog down toward first.
At Eliot’s elbow Phil Springer
remarked, with a short laugh, in which there seemed
to be a trace of nervousness: “They certainly
have got their pucker up. They’re boiling
over with confidence.”
“And it’s a mistake to
boil over with anything confidence, doubt
or fear,” said Roger. “When the
kettle boils aver, the soup gets scorched. Come,
Phil, shake the kinks out of your arm with me, while
they’re taking their turn on the field.”
His calm, unruffled manner seemed
instantly to dissipate the nervousness which Phil
had felt a touch of.
The practice of the visiting team
was closely watched by nearly all the spectators,
and it became apparent that the Barville boys had profited
by the coaching of some one who had found it possible
to train them with good effect. They were swift,
sure and snappy in their work, displaying little of
the hesitation and uncertainty usually revealed by
an ordinary country school team, even in practice.
Copley, the stocky, red-headed catcher from Roxbury,
received the balls when they were returned from the
infield and the out, catching the most of them one-handedly
with the big mitt, although he seemed to do this without
flourish or any attempt at grand-standing. Now
and then he grinned and nodded over some especially
fine catch in the outfield or clever stop of a grounder
or liner by an infielder; nevertheless, he let Sanger,
who was batting, do all the talking to the players.
Roy Hooker, wearing the crimson colors
of his school, sat on the bleachers at the edge of
the group of Oakdale Academy students, endeavoring
to mask his feelings behind a pretext of loyal interest
in the home nine; but, nevertheless, in spite of his
inwardly reiterated assertion that he had been used
“rotten,” he was annoyed by a constantly
recurring sense of treachery to his own team.
The skill displayed in practice by the visitors in
a measure set at rest the doubts he had continued
to entertain concerning Rackliff’s wisdom in
backing Barville.
“I’ll win some money to-day,
all right,” he thought; “but, really, I’d
rather be wearing an Oakdale suit, even if we lose.”
As the Barville nine came in from
the field and Oakdale went out, Roy saw Herbert Rackliff
saunter forth and speak to Newt Copley, who shook
hands with him. Then Herbert drew Copley aside
and began talking to him in very low tones, and with
unusual animation. Still watching, Hooker beheld
Copley nodding his head, and even at that distance
Roy could see that he was grinning.
“Hey, old Rack!” Chipper
Cooper shouted from the field. “Brace him
up that’s right. Tell him he’s
got to win or you’re financially ruined.”
Herbert pretended that he did not
hear, and, after a final word with Copley, slowly
sauntered back into the crowd. He was not wearing
the Oakdale colors.
“I’m glad nobody knows
that part of the money he put up was furnished by
me,” thought Hooker. “He’s
got an awful crust. I couldn’t do a thing
like that, and be so cheeky and unconcerned.
Gee! but he’ll get the fellows down on him.”
And now, as the time for the game
to begin was at hand, the umpire, supplied with two
new balls in their boxes, called the captains of both
teams and consulted with them for a moment or two.
Directly Eliot sought the body protector and mask,
and Bert Dingley, standing at the end of the bench
on which the visitors had seated themselves, began
swinging two bats. There was a rustling stir
among the spectators as they settled themselves down
to watch the opening of the contest. The Oakdale
players took their positions on the field, Rodney Grant
going into right, while Chub Tuttle remained on the
bench as spare man. Phil Springer had peeled
off his sweater and was pulling on his light left-hand
glove as he walked toward the pitcher’s position.
“Ladies and gentlemen,”
called the youthful umpire, facing the crowd, “this
is the opening game of the high school league, Barville
against Oakdale. Battery for Oakdale, Springer
and Eliot. Play ball!”
With that command, he tossed a clean,
new baseball to Phil, who caught it with his gloved
hand, glanced at it perfunctorily, gave it an unnecessary
wipe against his hip, made sure his teammates were
ready, and placed his left foot on the slab.