“Can you get that ball, boy?” he ast me.
“Not me!” I said. “I’m no U-boat.”
“Well, give me another,” he said; and I hauled out the one he had left, the blackest one of the Whizzes.
Jake whispered to me. He said:
“That’s the one he ought to of given the bath to.”
Mr. Perkins claimed it was his shot before Mr. Conklin drove again. So he teed his ball and sliced into the orchard.
“You oughtn’t to use a tee for an iron,” said Mr. Conklin; and then he laid his ball on the ground and sliced to the same place.
Well, we didn’t have to do any fancywork to let Mr. Perkins cop this hole. It took him only three to get out of the woods and onto the edge of the green. And, of course, Mr. Conklin was charged with one stroke for his fish ball and had to get clear of the rough in two to be even with Mr. Perkins. There was one thin thorn-apple tree in the line between the cup and where Mr. Conklin’s ball laid; so naturally he hit it right in the middle and it bounded back into the thickest part of the orchard. He was seven before he ever begun to putt. His nerves were a little shaky, and he finally went down in eleven, or only eight over par. Mr. Perkins holed out in six—his count. They were all even and two to go.
“We’ll see that they halve the eighth,” said Jake.
Now about this eighth: If the seventh’s dangerous for a dub, the eighth’s a whole lot worse. It’s bad enough for the good ones. You can’t make a real long drive without going into the Grand Canyon, that lays about thirty yards this side of the green. And on the right, all the way down, there’s a regular jungle. On the left there’s the river again; and though it ain’t any closer to the fairway than it is on the seventh hole, still there’s no bushes or shrubbery to hide it from you. You can see it perfectly plain, and that makes you wonder whether a ball would make much of a splash if it lit in there; and the next thing you know, you find out for sure.
Our fellas got away to an even start. Mr. Perkins hooked into the middle of the river and Mr. Conklin sliced into the forest preserves. Mr. Perkins teed another ball, and this time he come about ten feet from the opposite shore. Then he made some remark that he never sprung at the Friday-night talks to the young men, and waited for Mr. Conklin to take another shot. But Mr. Conklin couldn’t see it that way. He said he thought we could find his first one.
“How about it, boy?” he ast me.
“It’s gone,” I told him.
“The Woodmen of the World couldn’t never locate that baby!” said Jake.
“Well,” said Mr. Conklin, “I’ll have to borrow a ball.” And he looked toward Mr. Perkins.
But Mr. Perkins was admiring the ripples that his last plunger had stirred up. So I dug down in my pocket and pulled one out.
“Here,” I said. “Here’s one that I’ll sell you for twenty cents.”
“Twenty cents!” said Mr. Conklin. “Why, it’s secondhand. I couldn’t play with that one.”
“It’s the oldest I’ve got,” I said. “After you’ve driven it into a couple of ditches you won’t know the difference between it and your Whizzes.”
Well, he started to argue and I started to put the ball back into my pocket; and then he said he’d take it and settle after the game. So I gave it to him and it seemed to bring him luck. Anyway, he managed to lift it out to the middle of the fairway, pretty near a hundred yards down the course. Mr. Perkins’ third attempt was too close to the woods for comfort, but it was playable.
“Now go easy,” I said to my man. “You’re a stroke better off than he is. Try and run her up to the edge of the ditch on this one, and next time you can pitch onto the green. Take a mashie,” I told him.
But no! He insisted on using his brassy, and the ball scooted along the ground and plump into the bottom of the Canyon. And Mr. Perkins, with a midiron, managed just to clear the ditch and stop on the high ground this side of the green.
I and Mr. Conklin beat the other two to the gully, and there was our ball, laying in about two inches of water, at the bottom of the bank that’s away from the green.
So Mr. Conklin said:
“I can’t play it there. What am I going to do?”
“You can pick it up and toss it back on top of the bank,” I told him. “It’ll cost you one stroke.”
He looked round to see how close Mr. Perkins was. Then he looked at his ball again. Then he said:
“If she only just lay out of the water, on the other side, I could lift her onto the green with a mashie or niblick.”
And then he looked at me.
Well, I can take a hint, and I didn’t have any hesitation about pulling rough stuff on Mr. Perkins. Warder or no warder, he’d been pretty raw himself. So I fished the ball out of the creek and tossed it to the other side, from where it was a pipe to loft it to the green—that is, provided you hit it. Mr. Conklin missed it the first time, and as Jake and Mr. Perkins were getting pretty close to us he made his next attempt in a hurry. He connected, but didn’t get under the ball good, and it just did manage to roll up to the top of the bank and stop alongside of Mr. Perkins’.
Mr. Perkins ast us how many we’d shot.
“Let’s see,” said Mr. Conklin. “How many is it, boy?”
“Let’s see,” I said. “There was your first tee shot, into
