“No,” says Crosby. “I ain’t interested in no newspaper talk. As long as I give the club the best I got, they can write anything they please.”
“Yes,” says Childs; “but this is a nice little boost and they’s no man can tell me he don’t like encouragement.”
“But readin’ papers on the train always puts my eyes on the bum,” says the kid.
“I’ll read it to you,” says Harry. “I don’t think your ears’ll be hurt.”
So Childs pulled somethin’ about like this:
“One o’ the most promisin’ recruits is Lefty Crosby, that was drafted from the Texas League last fall. Though this boy only had one year’s experience in the minors, he already handles himself like a veteran. His speed is terrific and his control a whole lot better than the average young left-hander’s.
“Manager Cahill’s only fear about him is that the female fans o’ Chicago and New York will bother him to death with telephone calls and sweet notes. In appearance, Crosby is a great deal like Francis X. Bushman. It is a certainty that he will take the fair sex by storm, provided he gives them the slightest encouragement.”
Crosby was redder’n an undershirt.
“That’s bunk!” he says. “Who wrote that?”
“The guy didn’t sign his name,” says Childs.
“I shouldn’t think he would,” says Crosby.
“I don’t know why not,” says Childs. “He was tellin’ the truth. A fella as handsome and young-lookin’ as you can just about take his pick of any dame in New York or Chi.”
“I wasn’t thinkin’ about gettin’ married,” says Crosby. “I’m satisfied the way I am.”
“Cahill’d rather have you married, though,” says Harry. “He figures a man’s liable to behave himself better if he’s tied down.”
“I’ll behave all right,” says the kid. “I got no bad habits.”
“But if they’s a beautiful bride for you to support, you’ll work harder and improve faster,” Childs says.
“I always work as hard as I can,” says the kid.
“Maybe you already got a girl here in Texas,” says Harry. “Maybe it’s some little black-eyed peacherita from acrost the Border.”
“I haven’t no girl at all, and don’t want none,” says Crosby. “I don’t see why a man can’t get along without thinkin’ about girls all the while.”
“But,” says Harry, “the Lord wouldn’t of made you so beautiful if he thought you was goin’ to be a woman hater.”
“I ain’t beautiful or nothin’ o’ the kind,” says Crosby, blushin’ harder’n ever.
Childs started to tell him he was too modest; but the kid got up and moved away.
In the hotel at Fort Worth, Harry got one o’ the telephone girls to call up Crosby’s room and tell him she’d love to meet him. He hung up on her. In Oklahoma City, Childs had one o’ the local papers print a picture o’ Crosby in action. He brought the paper into the dinin’ room and flopped down at the same table with the kid.
“Did you see this?” he ast him. “It’s pretty fair; but it don’t hardly do you justice.”
“What do I care!” says Crosby.
“I’d care a whole lot if I was you,” says Harry. “If I had your looks I wouldn’t allow no picture to be printed that didn’t give me a square deal. And you ought to read what it says under it. But maybe it affects your stomach to read while you’re eatin’. I’ll read it to you.”
“I don’t care what it says,” says Crosby.
“It’s only a few words,” says Childs. “I don’t mind readin’ it at all.” And he handed him this kind o’ stuff: “Above is showed a likeness o’ Lefty Crosby, one o’ Manager Cahill’s recruits from Texas. They expect him to not only break a few strikeout records in the big circuit, but also the hearts of all the girls that gets a good look at him. Crosby promises to be the Adonis o’ baseball.”
I guess the kid didn’t know Adonis from Silk O’Loughlin; but that didn’t keep him from blushin’ like a beet. Childs leaned over and whispered to him.
“They’s a queen over there by the window,” he says, “and she’s done nothin’ only look at you for five minutes. Maybe if I leave you alone she’ll come over and introduce herself.”
“I don’t feel like eatin’ no more lunch,” says Crosby; and he beat it out o’ the room. He hadn’t hardly gargled half his soup.
From then on the kid tried to duck Harry all he could. But he didn’t have the nerve to offend nobody, and lots o’ times Childs’d corner him where he couldn’t escape without makin’ it too raw.
Crosby’s best pal on the club was Joe Martin. Joe’s always the bushers’ friend because he don’t believe in ridin’ ’em. Crosby tried to set with Joe at the same table on the diners and in the hotels, because Martin’d read pretty near the whole bill o’ fare out loud and Crosby could pick out what he really wanted to eat. Martin, o’ course, done this on purpose, knowin’ Crosby couldn’t read and was generally always hungry.
It’s pretty tough on a kid with a good appetite to not be able to tell what’s listed unless somebody reads it off to him.
But Joe couldn’t spend all his time makin’ things easy for Crosby, and whenever Childs could manage to set with the kid he was meaner to him than a snake. For instance, after we’d had a tough workout and everybody was starvin’, Childs’d pick up the bill and begin crabbin’ about how many things had been scratched offen it.
“We’re gettin’ a fine deal,” he’d say. “They’s nothin’ left only salad and ice cream.” Then he’d say to the waiter: “Bring me salad and ice cream.”
And Crosby’d have to say that he’d take the same. Childs was willin’ to go hungry himself for the sake o’ puttin’ it over.
The last day we was on the spring trip, Harry bought a rule book and brought it on the train.
“They’ve certainly made some radical changes this year,” he says to Crosby. “A left-handed pitcher can’t throw
