“And do you still think Hagedorn’s goin’ to join us?” the boss ast me.
“I certainly do,” I says. “I wouldn’t be surprised to get a wire from him any day.”
But we went along another week without hearin’ from Bill. Mr. Edwards kept gettin’ more and more nervous. And I guess I was beginnin’ to get nervous too.
About the second day o’ the third week down there, a letter come to me from Hagedorn’s wife. It hit me right in the eye.
Bill, she told me, didn’t know she was writin’ and would probably kill her if he found it out. She’d been beggin’ and beggin’ him all winter to take what we offered, and she’d just about had him coaxed when the papers begin printin’ the swell reports about Lahey. Those reports had took all the zip out o’ Bill. Instead o’ frightenin’ him into signin’ at our figure, they’d convinced him that he wasn’t wanted on our club. And Bill was worse than broke. He was over three months behind with the rent and the meat bill and so forth, and coal was a hundred dollars a ton, and they wasn’t no coal even at that price, and she was afraid he’d do somethin’ desperate. And she thought if I’d just send Bill a wire and tell him that we’d carry him as an extra man, or if I’d try and trade him somewheres where he could make some kind of a salary, he’d be so tickled that he’d come to us or go wherever we sent him at whatever price he could get. And she begged me to not tell anybody that she’d wrote.
Mr. Edwards had just left us to run down to Dallas for a few days. O’ course I wouldn’t of let him know about the letter anyway. But him bein’ away give me the idear o’ keepin’ Bill’s comin’ a secret. I was goin’ to surprise him by havin’ Bill blow in unexpected, because it was a cinch the old man’d be back before Bill could get there. So I didn’t wire Dallas, but just sent a telegram to Bill, sayin’, If you’ll sign for $4,000, first-base job is yours. Answer.
The answer come the same night. It said all right, that he’d join us the followin’ Thursday.
On Wednesday Mr. Edwards come back to the Springs. And that afternoon Charles C. Lahey give the funniest exhibition I ever seen on a ball field. The whole practice was a joke, because Gould and Berner and Marsh and the rest o’ them was laughin’ so hard they couldn’t do nothin’. But the windup come near not bein’ a joke. It’d of been a tragedy if Lahey wasn’t the awkwardest guy in the world.
We was tryin’ the double play, first base to second base and back. I hit a ball pretty close to the bag and it took a nice hop, so they wasn’t no chance for Charley to boot it. He pegged down to Berner, and then turned round and started lookin’ for his own bag. Berner took the throw and sent it back as fast as I ever seen a ball pegged. Well, sir, Lahey found out where first base was by trippin’ over it. But just before he tripped he turned his head to look for the throw. If he hadn’t tripped and went sprawlin’, that ball would of cracked him right in the temple, and if it had, good night! To show you how much Berner had on it, it hit the grandstand on the short hop and made a noise like somewheres in France.
“That’ll do, boys!” I hollered to them.
“We’ll quit. The express rates on caskets between here and Davenport is somethin’ fierce.”
I walked back to the hotel with Mr. Edwards. I never seen a guy so blue.
“He’s impossible,” he says.
“Never mind,” says I. “He won’t be with us long. One o’ these days his luck’ll desert him and he’ll get killed.”
“I think we’d better send for Hagedorn,” says the boss.
“Oh, no,” I says. “He’ll show up before long.”
“Yes,” says Mr. Edwards; “but he’d ought to be here right now to get used to playin’ with Gould and Berner. And I ain’t so sure he’ll show up, neither.”
“I’d like to make you a little bet,” I says. “I’d like to bet you five that we hear from him before the end o’ the week.”
“I’ll just take that bet,” says Mr. Edwards, “and I’ll be glad to pay if I lose.”
Well, knowin’ him pretty well, I didn’t hardly believe that. But I told him the bet was on.
The first train into the Springs from the North is supposed to arrive at nine in the mornin’ and it don’t hardly ever get in later than 3 p.m. On this Thursday it come at one thirty. I snuck down alone to meet it, and there was Bill. “Mighty glad to see you, Hagedorn,” I says.
“I’m glad to get here,” says Bill.
“You don’t need to work today if you don’t want to,” says I, “but we want you out there as soon as you feel like it.”
“Why, what’s happened to this wonderful Lahey?” says Bill.
“Not a thing,” I says; “but, as you pointed out, he’s a left-hand hitter, and we’re overloaded with ’em.”
“I suppose you’ll play him when they’s right-hand pitchin’ against us,” says Hagedorn.
“No,” I says, “I don’t believe in switchin’ on the infield. Still, you’ll have to keep hustlin’ to hold him on the bench. He’s one o’ the most remarkable first sackers in baseball.”
“I’m just as good as he is,” says Bill.
“You’ll have to show me,” I says.
“That’s just what I’m goin’ to do,” says Hagedorn.
“And how’s everything at home?” I ast him.
“Well, Frank,” he says, “it’s been a tough winter—the toughest I ever put in. I’m in debt so far that it scares me to think of it.”
“Where was that $2,000 you had saved?” I says.
“I was just stringin’ you about that,” says Bill.
