They sent him out to the outfield again in the afternoon, and after a lot o’ coaxin’ Leach got him to go after fly balls; but that’s all he did do—just go after ’em. One hit him on the bean and another on the shoulder. He run back after the short ones and way in after the ones that went over his head. He catched just one—a line drive that he couldn’t get out o’ the way of; and then he acted like it hurt his hands.
I come back to the hotel with John. He ast me what I thought of Elliott.
“Well,” I says, “he’d be the greatest ballplayer in the world if he could just play ball. He sure can bust ’em.”
John says he was afraid he couldn’t never make an outfielder out o’ him. He says:
“I’ll try him on the infield tomorrow. They must be some place he can play. I never seen a left-hand hitter that looked so good agin left-hand pitchin’—and he’s got a great arm; but he acts like he’d never saw a fly ball.”
Well, he was just as bad on the infield. They put him at short and he was like a sieve. You could of drove a hearse between him and second base without him gettin’ near it. He’d stoop over for a ground ball about the time it was bouncin’ up agin the fence; and when he’d try to cover the bag on a peg he’d trip over it.
They tried him at first base and sometimes he’d run way over in the coachers’ box and sometimes out in right field lookin’ for the bag. Once Heine shot one acrost at him on a line and he never touched it with his hands. It went bam! right in the pit of his stomach—and the lunch he’d ate didn’t do him no good.
Finally John just give up and says he’d have to keep him on the bench and let him earn his pay by bustin’ ’em a couple o’ times a week or so. We all agreed with John that this bird would be a whale of a pinch hitter—and we was right too. He was hittin’ way over five hundred when the blow-off come, along about the last o’ May.
II
Before the trainin’ trip was over, Elliott had roomed with pretty near everybody in the club. Heine raised an awful holler after the second night down there and John put the bug in with Needham. Tom stood him for three nights. Then he doubled up with Archer, and Schulte, and Miller, and Leach, and Saier—and the whole bunch in turn, averagin’ about two nights with each one before they put up a kick. Then John tried him with some o’ the youngsters, but they wouldn’t stand for him no more’n the others. They all said he was crazy and they was afraid he’d get violent some night and stick a knife in ’em.
He always insisted on havin’ the water run in the bathtub all night, because he said it reminded him of the sound of the dam near his home. The fellers might get up four or five times a night and shut off the faucet, but he’d get right up after ’em and turn it on again. Carter, a big bush pitcher from Georgia, started a fight with him about it one night, and Elliott pretty near killed him. So the rest o’ the bunch, when they’d saw Carter’s map next mornin’, didn’t have the nerve to do nothin’ when it come their turn.
Another o’ his habits was the thing that scared ’em, though. He’d brought a razor with him—in his pocket, I guess—and he used to do his shavin’ in the middle o’ the night. Instead o’ doin’ it in the bathroom he’d lather his face and then come out and stand in front o’ the lookin’-glass on the dresser. Of course he’d have all the lights turned on, and that was bad enough when a feller wanted to sleep; but the worst of it was that he’d stop shavin’ every little while and turn round and stare at the guy who was makin’ a failure o’ tryin’ to sleep. Then he’d wave his razor round in the air and laugh, and begin shavin’ agin. You can imagine how comf’table his roomies felt!
John had bought him a suitcase and some clothes and things, and charged ’em up to him. He’d drew so much dough in advance that he didn’t have nothin’ comin’ till about June. He never thanked John and he’d wear one shirt and one collar till someone throwed ’em away.
Well, we finally gets to Indianapolis, and we was goin’ from there to Cincy to open. The last day in Indianapolis John come and ast me how I’d like to change roomies. I says I was perfectly satisfied with Larry. Then John says:
“I wisht you’d try Elliott. The other boys all kicks on him, but he seems to hang round you a lot and I b’lieve you could get along all right.”
“Why don’t you room him alone?” I ast.
“The boss or the hotels won’t stand for us roomin’ alone,” says John. “You go ahead and try it, and see how you make out. If he’s too much for you let me know; but he likes you and I think he’ll be diff’rent with a guy who can talk to him like you can.”
So I says I’d tackle it, because I didn’t want to throw John down. When we got to Cincy they stuck Elliott and me in one room, and we was together till he quit us.
III
I went to the room early that night, because we was goin’ to open
