Mr. Perkins looked kind of suspicious. He said:
“I thought I saw you miss one swing in the ditch.”
“Miss one!” said Mr. Conklin. “Of course I did. But it was practice.”
“Well, then,” said Mr. Perkins, “we’re alike as we lay. I’ve had four strokes without any practice.”
So I said:
“I don’t see how you could put two balls so close together in the river without some practice.”
“You’re too fresh!” said Mr. Perkins. “This is the last time you’ll caddy in a game I’m in.”
So I said: “I knew that the minute we left the first tee.”
They were both nervous now. While Mr. Conklin was getting ready to approach, I was scared to death that his knees would knock each other out and maybe cripple him for life. He finally dribbled his ball six feet, and when Mr. Perkins accidentally approached to about four feet from the can I thought we were gone. We were still off of the green yet. Mr. Conklin took his putter and stopped five feet from the cup. He shot again and missed by a foot. Mr. Perkins could cop the hole by going down in three putts from four feet away. The idear got the best of him and pretty near choked him to death. He didn’t have anything for his Adam’s apple to hide behind, and I could see it bobbing up and down like one of those there bell buoys. His arms were shaking so that he couldn’t control his club, and he hit the ball while he was still trying to aim. Then he leaned over it again and this time he was all right, except his direction and distance. The ball stopped off to one side, behind Mr. Conklin’s and about a foot farther away.
“I’ve got you stymied,” said Mr. Conklin. “I’ll putt and get out of your road.”
But Mr. Perkins leaned over and picked up both balls.
“We’ll halve the hole,” he said. “We’re both down in seven.”
Seven’s his favorite number, I guess.
Mr. Conklin thought he had a kick coming and started to say something, but Mr. Perkins was walking off the green. If they’d both putted it out I bet neither one of them would of gone down in less’n sixteen, the way they were wabbling.
Our last hole’s a funny one. You can’t see the green from the tee on account of what we call the Airline. It’s a kind of a hill, about fifteen or twenty feet high, that runs all the way acrost the course, thirty yards from the tee. On both sides of it there’s long grass and marsh, and everything else; and over to the right there’s another part of the jungle that you’re liable to get into on the eighth.
After you leave the eighth green the caddies always give the guys their drivers, and then go up and stand on top of the Airline, so’s they can see where the drives light. When a man has played the hole a few times and gets to know it, he can drive for it just as accurate as if he could see the green. The distance is only about two-fifty, and Mac’s often made it in three, and once in a while in two. He can drive right on the green once in five or six times.
I and Jake left our men and took the shortcut through the woods to the top of the Airline. Jake said:
“There’s no use of us going up there. They’ll both flivver and fall short.”
I ast him if he had anything on his bird.
“Have I!” he said. “Say, when he was laying against the woods on the eighth, before that midiron shot, he kicked the ball five feet toward the middle of the course, so’s he could get a real whack at it. And, at that, he whiffed before he belted it.”
“Don’t forget to remind him of that,” I said.
“Do you think I’m Davy?” said Jake.
It was Mr. Perkins’ honor, if you could say that about him. Anyway, he shot first and topped into the rough at the left, short of the hill. Mr. Conklin made just as good a drive, and they laid close together. We ran down to give them their mashies.
“Now is our chance!” I whispered to Jake.
“You start,” he said.
So, while I was changing my man’s clubs, I said kind of offhand:
“Play easy now. Be sure you hit the ball. You remember, when we were in the ditch on the eighth—”
He had a coughing spell and I waited till he was through with it. Then I begun again:
“When you’re trying to loft a ball up over something you’re liable to be nervous and miss it entirely. You did it on—”
That’s as far as I got. He didn’t know what to say; but he had to say something. So he ast me to give him his niblick instead of a mashie.
I said:
“I wouldn’t change if I were you. It was a niblick you tried to get out of the ditch with, on the eighth, and—”
He interrupted me.
“Say, boy,” he said; “I’m forgetful sometimes. Before we wind up, I better settle with you, or I’m liable to walk off without doing it at all.”
“Go ahead and shoot,” said Mr. Perkins. “I’ve got to be getting home.”
“I’m going to settle with the boy here first,” said Mr. Conklin, and he dropped his club and begun going through his pockets.
He came up with a two-dollar bill.
“It’s a quarter a round, ain’t it?” he ast me.
“Yes, sir,” I said; “and the ball I gave you is twenty cents. You’ll find that’s a mighty good ball. It don’t even hurt it to lay in the water, like when we were—”
He interrupted me again.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I owe you forty-five cents. This is the smallest I’ve got; but it don’t make any difference. I guess you can find some use for the rest of it.”
And he slipped
