“But, papa, the crops can wait a day or two for the fall rains, I am sure, and I should be willing to give up a whole winter’s skating if the Catalpas would only beat the Jonesville Nine—the horrid fellows! And I am sure they would beat them, if they only played them today, for they are in capital form now.”
“Hush! hush! my daughter,” said Judge Howell, with a little shudder, “that is slang that you are using, and I shall have to curtail your baseball amusement if you are so ready to pick up the jargon of what they call, I believe, ‘The Diamond Field,’ for I do not want my daughter to mingle the slang of the game with her mother’s mode of speech.”
The Judge was somewhat prosy and not at all in love with the noble game which his daughter, in common with all of the girls of Catalpa, and of the whole Stone River country, for that matter, followed with so much enthusiasm.
The baseball club of Catalpa was made up of some of the finest young fellows in the town. Catalpa was situated on both sides of Stone River, in northern Illinois. It was a busy manufacturing and milling community, and from its homes had gone many a stalwart young chap to fight his country’s battles in the southwest. The survivors of the company that went out and came back, decimated as to numbers and not all sound in body, founded the first baseball club of the region. The members of the club called themselves “The Catalpas,” after their town. Most of the players lived on the north side of the river, and were soon dubbed “The North Catalpas” by their rivals who, living on the other side of the stream, and in the main portion of the town, and forming another club, arrogated to themselves the title of “Catalpa’s Champions.”
Gradually, the membership of the two organizations changed. The old soldiers retired in favor of their sons and nephews. The club on the south side of the river was reorganized and an entirely new set of young men came into it. The name of “The Dean County Nine,” was given to the southside club, and, as it was largely composed of young men who worked in the flouring mills and the lumberyards along the river front, it was famous for the brawn and muscle of its players.
The Catalpa Nine, on the other hand, was made up of students in the Seminary, young fellows in the law and county offices of the town, and sons of gentlemen of leisure. There was a chasm as wide as Stone River fixed between the Dean County Nine and the Catalpa Nine, so far as social relations were concerned. The Dean County players called the Catalpas “Aristocrats” and the Catalpas retorted with the epithet of “Stalwarts” applied to their town rivals. When it is added that the finest residences were built on the north side of the river dividing the town, and that the men of more moderate means dwelt on the business side of the stream, the reason for the imaginary line of separation betwixt the two ball clubs will be more apparent.
After repeated and not always friendly matches between the rival clubs, they were drawn together by the appearance of a common enemy. From the little town of Jonesville, situated eighteen miles down the river, came the Jonesvillians, as they called themselves, a powerful and well-trained nine. They had challenged and vanquished the nine of Dry Plains, the Blue Falls Nine, and their own Home Club, commonly known through the Stone River region as “The Jonesville Scrubs.” Flushed with victory, the Jonesvillians had challenged and played two games with the Catalpas, contesting the championship of northern Illinois. It must be admitted that the record of neither of the two Catalpa clubs was one of which the people of the town had any right to be proud. Both clubs, while closely contesting with each other, had been repeatedly beaten by visitors from the surrounding region. Naturally the sympathies of the “Stalwarts” was with the “Aristocrats” when an out-of-town club came to try conclusions. Every true son and daughter of the town of Catalpa was hotly enlisted for the home nine in any contest that might be fought out for the championship. It was aggravating that the Jonesville Nine, most of whom were rough and loud-talking fellows, should conquer the whole country, from the Wisconsin line to Lasalle, and from Chicago to the Mississippi River.
That was the reason why Miss Alice Howell, the only daughter and the spoiled child of the eminent and widowed district Judge, should be downcast and fidgety when she looked out and saw, on this fateful morning, that the weather gave signs of being unfit for the decisive game for the championship. The Jonesville Nine had won the first game. The Catalpas were victors in the second game. Today, if all went well, would give the championship to the Catalpas. The Catalpas had regularly whitewashed the Dean County Nine, in spite of their stalwart strength. But they had failed to hold their own against many another club from other portions of the country roundabout. In the first game for the championship, the Catalpas had beaten the Jonesvillians by a score of 24 to 13—an overwhelming defeat for the downriver club. But the Jonesville men had carried off the second game with a score of 14 to 13, which was a close game, and was lost by the Catalpas, as their friends all said, by the Catalpas being in bad condition. Albert Heaton, the catcher, was afflicted with blistered hands and could do very little effective work behind the bat; and George
