“All right,” says Joe, “if you won’t do it for me I’ll put it up to Cahill.”
And sure enough, in the clubhouse after the game, Martin told the M.G.R. just what had come off.
“Look here, Childs!” says Cahill. “That’ll be enough o’ that. I don’t care how much fun you have with him offen the field, but when we’re playin’ a game, lay off! If you don’t think I’m in earnest you may soon be takin’ a trip to Texas yourself!”
So Childs laid offen him entirely for a while, not even tryin’ to pester him when we went on our first trip. But I knew it wouldn’t never last. While it did last, though, Crosby done better work than any o’ the rest of our pitchers and had the whole league stood on their heads with that fast one o’ his.
III
We left Cleveland one evenin’, goin’ to St. Louis, and the boys started a game o’ cards. Childs was in it and Crosby was leanin’ over the back of a seat, watchin’. I was settin’ in the game, too, right where I could look at Crosby.
Well, Gilbert win three pots in a row, with aces one time, aces up the next time, and the third time he beat Childs with three o’ the big bulls.
“Come on, Gil!” says Harry. “Give the aces a chance to roam round the deck once in a while.”
“I can’t spare ’em, Harry,” says Gilbert.
“You put ’em in the deck!” says Childs, just kiddin’.
“You make me put ’em in the deck!” says Gil.
Well, Harry had a gun on his hip, with nothin’ in it but blanks, and he pulled it out and laid it on the table in front of him, just for a joke.
But Crosby didn’t see the joke. I happened to be lookin’ at him when Childs showed the gun. He turned white as a sheet and I thought for a minute he was goin’ to keel over. Then he grabbed the top o’ the seat to steady up, and the next thing we knew he was beatin’ it for the other end o’ the car as fast as he could navigate.
“What’s the matter with him now?” says Harry.
“Looks like he objected to the firearms,” says Gilbert.
“What the hell ain’t he scared of?” says Childs.
“Well,” I says, “Ty Cobb for one thing and Bob Veach for another.”
“Did he think I’d be monkeyin’ with a loaded gat?” says Harry. “I’ll have to try him out and see which he likes best, women or artillery.”
“Oh, leave him alone!” says I. “As long as he keeps winnin’ ball games for us, what’s the difference if he’s scared o’ wild cats or fishworms?”
But Harry’d been good long enough. The next mornin’, when we was crossin’ the bridge into St. Louis, he finds Crosby in the washroom. Without sayin’ nothin’, he just simply laid his gun on one o’ the sills, pointin’ it straight at the kid. And Crosby begin shakin’ like a leaf and staggered out o’ the room without even waitin’ to grab his collar.
Childs told us about it and seemed to think it was the funniest thing ever pulled off. But some o’ the rest of us didn’t think it was so funny, especially when we had to put Crosby to bed the minute we got to the hotel, and then get along without him all through the series with the Browns.
And Cahill made the remark, so as Childs could hear him, that the next guy that pulled a gun where Crosby was, or left one where he would see it, was through with our ball club for life.
IV
For a while after that, Harry was satisfied to just pull the girl stuff on his victim. He begin writin’ fake love letters, like the guy’d done down in the Texas League. Some o’ them was wonders. I know, because I read ’em to Crosby myself, he tellin’ me that the different handwritin’s was so funny that he couldn’t make ’em out. But this wasn’t much joy for Childs, because you can bet he wasn’t never ast to read ’em.
Crosby wouldn’t only let me get so far when he’d make me stop, and then he’d take the letters and tear ’em up.
“I wisht all girls would leave me alone,” he’d say.
“What have you got against ’em?” I’d say to him.
“Bill,” he’d say, “I’d just as lief own up to you. I don’t feel comfortable round ’em. I’m just plain bashful. That’s what my sister used to tell me. She was the only one I could ever talk to without pretty near faintin’.”
“You’d get over that soon enough, if you’d try,” I’d tell him. “You won’t never know what livin’ is till you get married and have a home o’ your own. And they’s nothin’ about girls to be scared of, especially for as nice a lookin’ guy as you are. They wouldn’t never make fun o’ you.”
“I ain’t afraid o’ that,” he’d say to me. “I wouldn’t mind talkin’ to ’em if I thought they’d just laugh and joke with me or talk baseball. But girls is liable to get personal and begin makin’ eyes; and if they done that with me, I’d run a mile.”
“Wasn’t they no girls in the town you come from?”
“Too many o’ them,” he says. “They was only about two hundred people in the town and half o’ them was girls, seemed like to me.”
“How’d you get away from ’em?” I says.
“Just by runnin’,” he says. “I beat it from home when I was twelve years old and that’s why I didn’t get no schoolin’ to speak of. I joined in with a minin’ gang up North, where I was sure they wouldn’t be no skirts to bother me.”
“You was young to be mixed up with a crowd like that,” says I.
“Yes; but they treated me fine,” says Crosby. “I’d of been in
