Two thousand new weapons, I calculated. Did Cait know about them? In my heart I didn’t think so. I was half-tempted to go back and show her. Watch her reaction. But what then? For now it seemed better to find out all I could about the plans of Mr. Fearghus O’Donovan.
We took the Bostona southeast along the Ohio to Portsmouth, covering the hundred or so miles in six hours. The hometown Riverside team didn’t figure to be much competition; Cleveland had recently demolished them, 48-12.
Everybody except Brainard and Sweasy seemed in good spirits. Allison gave Gould a hotfoot. George fashioned what he called a “Yankee contraption,” a sort of wire spider, and dangled it in our faces while we dozed. He even tried it on Brainard, who challenged him to fight. George—big, muscular, unintimidated—merely grinned.
The mood shifted when Harry told us that Champion, not along on this trip, wanted all of us to sign a temperance pledge. There was an ominous silence. I sneaked a glance at Brainard, whose face showed nothing. I could understand Champion’s viewpoint: first Hurley and now Brainard had come close to disgracing the club.
“Hell no!” said Waterman. “Is this a damn milk-and-water club? I’d go back to the Mutes first.”
“If they’d take you,” George needled.
“Poke it up your ass!” Waterman snapped.
Harry looked somberly at Waterman during the exchange. I could roughly guess his thoughts: he couldn’t risk losing his star third baseman and splitting the team at this point. But I sensed that Waterman wouldn’t last forever with Harry. Nor Brainard.
“The true problem here,” he said, interrupting a rambling commentary by Allison on the rights of individual freedom, “is that Mr. Champion would wish it announced that the nine had taken such a pledge.” Harry looked at us, his eyes deceptively gentle. “I see that it would embarrass some of you.”
“That’s right,” said Waterman.
“He wants to stifle rumors,” Harry went on. “Rumors of drunkenness and gambling—the worst threats to our business, gentlemen.”
There was silence. Again I glanced at Brainard, who remained impassive, as if the topic were only of abstract interest.
“Anticipating your reaction, I tried to convince him that a signed pledge is unnecessary. He finally agreed, but only with the understanding that further transgressions will bring drastic measures.”
That night, when Andy and I talked about prevailing currents on the team, we drew a blank on Brainard. I suggested that maybe he’d cleaned up his act. Andy doubted it. I asked what was with Sweasy.
“He’s meaner than ever,” Andy said. “Nearly mixed with Mac over some fool thing at our place. Called Allison a fool to his face. Those two are fixing to find new lodging. Sweaze is hardly even civil to me anymore.”
“Any idea what’s eating him?”
“No, but one of his worst spells was after he found you were sparking Cait. I thought he’d explode!”
“What’s that to him?”
“Don’t know exactly. I mean, he knows he wouldn’t stand a Chinaman’s chance with her himself. I guess he thinks your standing’s shot up with me ‘n’ Cait, while his own has dropped.”
“What should I do about it, Andy?”
“Nothin’ to do.”
Brainard was sensational, striking out four—one for each hit he allowed—and whitewashing the unlucky Riversides in all nine innings. Although we had only one homer—a line shot by George in the ninth—our thirty-six hits were good for forty runs. The Riversides were actually pretty good fielders, but nobody could have held us that afternoon.
Our record was now 37-0.
All the way home on the train I pictured all those wooden cases with their deadly contents. Back in Cincinnati Thursday evening, I took a long soak in my room and got a shave in the barber shop. In the papers I read that Clara Barton, the famous war nurse, was sailing for Europe as things worsened between France and Prussia.
I took my time over supper. Around ten, wearing dark clothes, I cautiously approached the boardinghouse. Streetlamps were fortunately sparse in this part of town. I edged along the wall outside the brightly lit parlor and heard voices arguing inside.
“—won’t keep till next spring!” O’Donovan’s brittle, urgent tones.
An older man’s voice responded, “We have no alternative but the St. Patrick’s Day Circular.”
Wedging myself into thick shrubbery beside a window, I raised up by slow degrees until I could see inside with my right eye. O’Donovan’s buttocks were inches away. He faced a man with bags under his eyes who looked to be in his midforties and wore a green uniform resembling O’Donovan’s. He sat erect, pulling at his goatee, his gaze fixed on O’Donovan. I dropped down and listened.
“But everything’s set,” O’Donovan said. “In Chicago, St. Louis, here, we’ve got stores for nearly twelve thousand. Add Troy and Buffalo, Nashville and Louisville—my God, man, we’re ready across the nation!”
“Mind yourself, Captain!”
“Sorry, sir.” O’Donovan sounded anything but apologetic. “It’s that I fear we’ll lose momentum if we don’t act soon. We have twenty thousand lads at the ready, two-thirds veterans. We have at least that many stands of arms, two million rounds of ammunition, thousands of breech loaders—”
“You’ve briefed me exhaustively on our military stores,” the older man cut
