“That’s just what he is!” exclaimed “The Lily,” bringing his somewhat battered fist down with emphasis on a convenient pillow. Bill had had hard luck in the late contest. His fingers had been badly sprained and twisted, and he had played with infinite difficulty on account of the battering that he had received in a game played with the Fulton City Nine, when the Catalpas were on their way to Bluford from Sandy Key. But he was still confident and determined.
“I suppose some of the folks at home think that we are going to get beaten right along, every day from this out,” he continued, with a scornful laugh. “They don’t know us, do they, Larry? They don’t know what we had to contend with in Bluford, what with being used up with that hard ride on the strap-iron railroad and the lame fingers of your humble servant. Oh, yes, I suppose there is downheartedness among the boys at home.”
“But I know one chap who is not downhearted,” said Larry Boyne, cheerfully, “and that is Al Heaton. He will never get discouraged, whatever happens. And then there is his father, his despatch shows where he stands. Al is clear grit and so is his father; you may depend on that, boys.”
Ben Burton, who had virtually lost the game in Bluford by his repeated muffing of the ball, as well as by his failure at the bat, sneered as he said, “I suppose a certain young lady in North Catalpa prompted the Judge’s despatch, didn’t she, Larry?”
Larry, with reddening cheeks, protested that he had no idea that Judge Howell needed any prompting from anybody to send a good word to the boys when they were away from home; he was too kindhearted a man, although a little stiff, to require any hint from outsiders to do the fair thing by the Baseball Club in whose welfare he had already shown great interest.
“I didn’t say ‘outsiders,’ Larry,” replied Burton, persistently. “I said that he was probably prompted by a young lady.”
At this, Larry deliberately rose and walked out of the room, without a word.
“I say, Ben, can’t you quit your everlasting nagging of Larry,” broke in Hiram Porter, as the door closed with a bang behind that indignant young man. “What’s the use of your getting into a debate, every day or two, about some mysterious young lady that you two fellows are thinking about? Let up! I wish you would.”
Ben muttered something about the Captain’s showing his little brief authority in matters that did not concern the club, when, by general consent, the meeting was broken up for the more important business of practice on the Galena Baseball Grounds, placed at the disposal of the visitors by the managers of the championship series.
IX
Hope and Suspense
It was the custom in Catalpa for the storekeepers to hang out at their doors a little blue flag when they wanted the services of an errand boy. Seeing this signal at the door of Jason Elderkin’s dry-goods store, Rough and Ready, wearing in the heats of summer as in winter his coonskin cap, shambled in and asked what was wanted. Jason lifted his spectacles from his nose and said, jocularly: “Why, Rough and Ready, I thought you had gone up to Galena to see the match between the boys and the Galena Club.”
“No sir-ee,” replied the old man, “I have stayed at home to keep the town in order. Me and Jedge Howell, we have to look after the boys at home, you know, or some of these frisky young colts like Jase Ayres would get away with the town whilst we were gone.” And the old man chuckled as he added, “Cap. Heaton, he and his boy Al have gone together, and they do say that Mrs. Heaton is just wild because she can’t keep the old man at home when baseball is going on. Well, it does beat all natur’, don’t it? Here’s Al kept out of the Nine because it isn’t high-toned enough for Mrs. Heaton; and here’s father and son gone a-galivanting up to Galena to see the show.”
“I hear that Al has sent a despatch to the Judge’s daughter saying that the Catalpas are going to carry off the honors this time, and no mistake,” said the storekeeper. “How’s that, Rough?”
“Seein’ as how this bundle is going over to Boardman’s, I’ll jest drop in at the Jedge’s house on my way back, and see if Miss Ally has got any news from the seat of war, as it were, and if she has, she’ll be sure to tell me. Oh, she’s clear grit, too, is that gal, and she knows that I set a heap by Larry. Larry! why, it was him what give my boy all the points he has got in the game, and you may lay your bottom dollar that that boy is goin’ to be the all-firedest batter in the Stone River country; and you put that down to remember.”
The garrulous old man shouldered his bundle as he spoke and plodded down Bridge Street and so across to the north side of the town. It was the day for the first game of the championship at Galena. The hot sun poured down into the Stone River Valley with great power, and the bleached surface of the old wooden bridge shimmered with undulating lines of heat as Rough and Ready toiled on his way. The roar of the dam had a cooling sound, and the group of cottonwoods and willows on the little island above were green and refreshing to the eye. But no breeze drew up the river, and all of the north side was steeped in liquid sunshine, the trees standing motionless and the yellow road glaring in the
