The young lady had rattled on in a random manner, as if she was giving time for Larry to recover himself. Certainly, he needed time. He was covered with blushes, not altogether becoming, for his natural color was quite deep enough for all artistic considerations. But as he stood there, cap in hand, the river breeze lightly lifting his brown curls and fanning his hot cheeks, the maiden’s bright eyes rested on the picture with a certain sense of satisfaction, and she said to her most secret and hidden inner self that there were very few handsomer young men in the region than he who stood before her.
Larry, laying his brown hand on the timber guard that capped the railing betwixt them, said, “You startled me so, Miss Alice, that I almost forgot my manners; and I haven’t much. Oh, you wanted to know about the prospects of the Catalpa Nine? Well, I do not think it would be wise to build many hopes on the future until we have met at least one of the best nines of the country about us. Some of our friends think we are going to sweep the deck. Excuse the expression. And some are even talking of our being the champion nine of the state.”
“Why,” said the girl, “don’t you hope for the championship? Is not that what you are going out to get?”
“Of course, Miss Alice, we hope for everything that is in sight, as the saying is; but we cannot expect, with any sort of reason, for so great success as that during our very first season. The matches are now nearly all made up for the coming season, and if we were never so good players, we should have no chance for the championship, I am afraid.”
“I never thought of that,” said Alice. “What an awful lot you know about baseball. But then that is because you are a man. My papa says that girls have no business learning about baseball. Now what do you think, Mr. Boyne?”
“I am not used to being called ‘Mr. Boyne’ for one thing,” replied Larry, gallantly, “and I should feel very much honored indeed if Miss Howell would remember that I am only ‘Larry’ the new third baseman of the Catalpa Nine.”
The heavy rumble of a farm wagon driving up on the town end of the bridge at that moment warned Larry that he must get out of the way. So, with a few concise words as to the all-absorbing topic of the day, he bowed, replaced his cap, and passed on to North Catalpa.
Sal Monnahan drove the sorrel horses that now came pounding along the wooden way. When she reached her home in Oneosho Village, that evening, she informed her nearest neighbor that she had seen “Larry Boyne lollygagging with that high-strung darter of Judge Howell’s, on the North Catalpa bridge, that arternoon, and then when the gal came off she looked as if she had been talking with her sweetheart, her eyes were so shiny, just like dimonds, and her cheeks were as red as a poppy in the corn. It do beat all how that young Irish feller gets on with folks in town. Gals and fellers—all the same.”
As for Larry, he went across the bridge, leading his nag, and walking so lightly that it seemed to him that his steps were in the air. While Armstrong was shoeing the horse and chatting the while with Larry, he thought within himself that this was a particularly fine young fellow, and that it was a pity that he was poor. Presently his thoughts took shape and he said:
“Don’t you think you are too smart a chap, Larry, to waste your time playing baseball?”
“I am not going to waste much time playing, Tom. I know enough about baseball to know that a player doesn’t last as a good player more than ten or twelve years. He is too young to play before he is seventeen years old, and he is done for and is dropped out by the time he is thirty. So if I had any notion of making ball-playing my calling in life, I should have that fact in view to warn me. Oh, no Tom, I am only making this a bridge to carry me over a hard place.”
“That’s good sense. I was afraid you were going off with the baseball fever, and so never be fit for anything else. That’s what will become of some of those young kids over in town who don’t think of anything, from morning till night, but baseball. I always thought you had more sense into you than most of the boys around here. You are older than your years, Larry,” and the plain-speaking blacksmith looked admiringly in the young man’s face, “older than your years.”
“Older than your years.” These words rang in Larry’s ears as he swung himself lightly into his saddle and ambled down the river road to Sugar Grove.
The blacksmith looked after him and muttered to himself, “He is smart enough to be anything in the way of a lawyer that there is in these parts. And if he were to cast sheep’s eyes on the Judge’s daughter, or on anybody else’s daughter, for that matter, I just believe he would win her in time. He’s got such a taking way with him.” And honest Thomas Armstrong resumed his work with a mild glow of pleasure stealing through him as he thought of Larry Boyne and his possibilities.
VII
In the Field
It was an impressive occasion when the Catalpa club started on their first pilgrimage. They had arranged a practice game with the Black Hawk Nine, of Sandy Key, in the
