Читать книгу The Arrival of Jimpson, and Other Stories for Boys about Boys - Barbour Ralph Henry - Страница 5

Martin – more familiarly “Marty” – Brown’s connection with the Summerville Baseball Club had begun the previous spring, when, during a hotly contested game with the High School nine, Bob Ayer, Summerville’s captain, watching his men go down like nine-pins before the puzzling curves of the rival pitcher, found himself addressed by a small snub-nosed, freckle-faced youth with very bright blue eyes and very dusty bare feet:

“Want me ter look after yer bats?”

“No.”

“All right,” was the cheerful response.

The umpire called two strikes on the batsman, and Bob muttered his anger.

“I don’t want nothin’ fer it,” announced the boy beside him, insinuatingly, digging a hole in the turf with one bare toe.

Bob turned, glad of something to vent his wrath upon. “No! Get out of here!” he snarled.

“All right,” was the imperturbable answer.

Then the side was out, and Bob trotted to first base. That half inning, the last of the seventh, was a tragedy for the town nine, for the High School piled three runs more on their already respectable lead, and when Bob came in he had well-defined visions of defeat. It was his turn at the bat. When he went to select his stick he was surprised to find the barefooted, freckle-faced youth in calm possession.

“What – ?” he began angrily.

Marty leaped up and held out a bat. Bob took it, astonished to find that it was his own pet “wagon-tongue,” and strode off to the plate, too surprised for words. Two minutes later, he was streaking toward first base on a safe hit to center field. An error gave him second, and the dwindling hopes of Summerville began to rise again. The fellows found the High School pitcher and fairly batted him off his feet, and when the side went out it had added six runs to its tally, and lacked but one of being even with its opponent. Meanwhile Marty rescued the bats thrown aside, and arranged them neatly, presiding over them gravely, and showing a marvelous knowledge of each batsman’s wants.

Summerville won that game by two runs, and Bob Ayer was the first to declare, with conviction, that it was all owing to Marty. The luck had changed, he said, as soon as the snub-nosed boy had taken charge of the club’s property.

Every one saw the reasonableness of the assertion, and Marty was thereupon adopted as the official mascot and general factotum of the Summerville Baseball Club. Since then none had disputed Marty’s right to that position, and he had served tirelessly, proudly, mourning the defeats and glorying in the victories as sincerely as Bob Ayer himself.

Marty went to the grammar-school “when it kept,” and in the summer became a wage-earner to the best of his ability, holding insecure positions with several grocery and butcher stores as messenger and “special delivery.” But always on Saturday afternoons he was to be found squatting over the bats at the ball-ground; he never allowed the desire for money to interfere with his sacred duty as mascot and custodian of club property. Every one liked Marty, and he was as much a part of the Summerville Baseball Club as if one of the nine. His rewards consisted chiefly of discarded bats and balls; but he was well satisfied: it was a labor of love with him, and it is quite probable that, had he been offered a salary in payment of the services he rendered, he would have indignantly refused it. For the rest, he was fifteen years old, was not particularly large for his age, still retained the big brown freckles and the snub nose, had lively and honest blue eyes, and, despite the fact that his mother eked out a scanty living by washing clothes for the well-to-do of the town, had a fair idea of his own importance, without, however, risking his popularity by becoming too familiar. The bare feet were covered now by a pair of run-down and very dusty shoes, and his blue calico shirt and well-patched trousers were always clean and neat. On his brown hair rested, far back, a blue-and-white baseball cap adorned with a big S, the gift of Bob Ayer, and Marty’s only badge of office.

To-day Marty had a grievance. He sat on a big packing-box in front of Castor’s Cash Grocery and kicked his heels softly against its side. Around him the air was heavy with the odor of burning paper and punk, and every instant the sharp sputter of fire-crackers broke upon his reverie. It was the Fourth of July and almost noon. It was very hot, too. But it was not that which was troubling Marty. His grief sprung from the fact that, in just twenty minutes by the town-hall clock up there, the Summerville Baseball Club, supported by a large part of the town’s younger population, would take the noon train for Vulcan to play its annual game with the nine of that city; and it would go, Marty bitterly reflected, without its mascot.

Vulcan was a good way off – as Marty viewed distance – and the fare for the round trip was $1.40, just $1.28 more than Marty possessed. He had hinted to Bob Ayer and to “Herb” Webster, the club’s manager, the real need of taking him along – had even been gloomy and foretold a harrowing defeat for their nine in the event of his absence from the scene. But Summerville’s finances were at low ebb, and, owing to the sickness of one good player and the absence of another, her hopes of capturing the one-hundred-dollar purse which was yearly put up by the citizens of the rival towns were but slight. So Marty was to be left behind. And that was why Marty sat on the packing-case and grieved, refusing to join in the lively sport of his friends who, farther up the street, were firing off a small brass cannon in front of Hurlbert’s hardware store.

Already, by ones and twos, the Vulcan-bound citizens were toiling through the hot sun toward the station. Marty watched them, and scowled darkly. For the time he was a radical socialist, and railed silently at the unjust manner in which riches are distributed. Presently a group of five fellows, whose ages varied from seventeen to twenty-one, came into sight upon the main street. They wore gray uniforms, with blue and white stockings and caps of the same hues, and on their breasts were big blue S’s. Two of them carried, swung between them, a long leather bag containing Marty’s charge, the club’s bats. The players spied the boy on the box, and hailed him from across the street. Marty’s reply was low-toned and despondent. But after they had turned the corner toward the station, he settled his cap firmly on his head and, sliding off the box, hurried after them.

The station platform was well filled when he gained it. Bob Ayer was talking excitedly to Joe Sleeper, and Marty, listening from a distance, gathered that Magee, the Summerville center-fielder, had not put in his appearance.

“If he fails us,” Bob was saying anxiously, “it’s all up before we start. We’re crippled already. Has any one seen him?”

None had, and Bob, looking more worried than before, strode off through the crowd to seek for news. Of course, Marty told himself, he didn’t want Summerville to lose, but, just the same, if they did, it would serve them right for not taking him along. A long whistle in the distance sounded, and Bob came back, shaking his head in despair.

“Not here,” he said.

A murmur of dismay went up from the group, and Marty slid off the baggage-truck and approached the captain.

“Say, let me go along, won’t yer, Bob?”

Bob turned, and, seeing Marty’s eager face, forgot his worry for the moment, and asked kindly: “Can you buy your ticket?”

“No.” Marty clenched his hands and looked desperately from one to another of the group. The train was thundering down the track beside the platform. “But you fellows might buy me one. And I’d pay yer back, honest!”

“Say, Bob, let’s take him,” said Hamilton. “Goodness knows, if we ever needed a mascot, we need one to-day! Here, I’ll chip in a quarter.”

“So’ll I,” said Sleeper. “Marty ought to go along; that’s a fact.”

“Here’s another.” “You pay for me, Dick, and I’ll settle with you when we get back.” “I’ll give a quarter, too.”

“All aboard!” shouted the conductor.

“All right, Marty; jump on,” cried Bob. “We’ll find the money – though I don’t know where your dinner’s coming from!”

Marty was up the car-steps before Bob had finished speaking, and was hauling the long bag from Wolcott with eager hands. Then they trooped into the smoking-car, since the day-coaches were already full, and Marty sat down on the stiff leather seat and stood the bag beside him. The train pulled out of the little station, and Marty’s gloom gave place to radiant joy.

The journey to Vulcan occupied three-quarters of an hour, during which time Bob and the other eight groaned over the absence of Magee and Curtis and Goodman, predicted defeat in one breath and hoped for victory in the next, and rearranged the batting list in eleven different ways before they were at last satisfied. Marty meanwhile, with his scuffed shoes resting on the opposite seat, one brown hand laid importantly upon the leather bag and his face wreathed in smiles, kept his blue eyes fixedly upon the summer landscape that slid by the open window. It was his first railway trip of any length, and it was very wonderful and exciting. Even the knowledge that defeat was the probable fate ahead of the expedition failed to more than tinge his pleasure with regret.

At Vulcan the train ran under a long iron-roofed structure, noisy with the puffing of engines, the voices of the many that thronged the platforms, and the clanging of a brazen gong announcing dinner in the station restaurant. Marty was awed but delighted. He carried one end of the big bag across the street to the hotel, his eager eyes staring hither and thither in wide amaze. Vulcan boasted of a big bridge-works and steel-mills, and put on many of the airs of a larger city. Bob told Marty that they had arranged for his dinner in the hotel dining-room, but the latter demurred on the score of expense.

“Yer see, I want ter pay yer back, Bob, and so I guess I don’t want ter go seventy-five cents fer dinner. Why, that’s more’n what three dinners costs us at home. I’ll just go out and get a bit of lunch, I guess. Would yer lend me ten cents?”

Marty enjoyed himself thoroughly during the succeeding half-hour: He bought a five-cent bag of peanuts and three bananas, and aided digestion by strolling about the streets while he consumed them, at last finding his way to the first of the wonderful steel-mills and wandering about freely among the bewildering cranes, rollers, and other ponderous machines. He wished it was not the Fourth of July; he would like to have seen things at work. Finally, red-faced and perspiring, he hurried back to the hotel and entered a coach with the others, and was driven through the city to the ball-ground. This had a high board fence about it, and long tiers of seats half encircling the field. There were lots of persons there, and others were arriving every minute. Marty followed the nine into a little dressing-room built under the grand stand, and presently followed them out again to a bench in the shade just to the left of the home plate. Here he unstrapped his bag and arranged the bats on the ground, examining them carefully, greatly impressed with his own importance.

The Vulcans, who had been practising on the diamond, trotted in, and Bob and the others took their places. The home team wore gray costumes with maroon stockings and caps, and the big V that adorned the shirts was also maroon. Many of them were workers in the steel-mills, and to Marty they seemed rather older than the Summervilles. Then the umpire, a very small man in a snuff-colored alpaca coat and cap, made his appearance, and the men at practise came in. The umpire tossed a coin between Bob and the Vulcans’ captain, and Bob won with “heads!” and led his players into the field. A lot of men just back of Marty began to cheer for the home team as Vulcan’s first man went to bat.

It were sorry work to write in detail of the disastrous first seven innings of that game. Summerville’s hope of taking the one-hundred-dollar purse home with them languished and dwindled, and finally faded quite away when, in the first half of the seventh inning, Vulcan found Warner’s delivery and batted the ball into every quarter of the field, and ran their score up to twelve. Summerville went to bat in the last half plainly discouraged. Oliver struck out. Hamilton hit to second base and was thrown out. Pickering got first on balls, but “died” there on a well-fielded fly of Warner’s.

Vulcan’s citizens yelled delightedly from grand stand and bleachers. Summerville had given a stinging defeat to their nine the year before at the rival town, and this revenge was glorious. They shouted gibes that made Marty’s cheeks flush and caused him to double his fists wrathfully and wish that he were big enough to “lick somebody”; and they groaned dismally as one after another of the blue-and-white players went down before Baker’s superb pitching. Summerville’s little band of supporters worked valiantly against overwhelming odds to make their voices heard, but their applause was but a drop in that sea of noise.

The eighth inning began with the score 12 to 5, and Stevens, captain and third-baseman of the Vulcans, went to bat with a smile of easy confidence upon his face. He led off with a neat base-hit past short-stop. The next man, Storrs, their clever catcher, found Warner’s first ball, and sent it twirling skyward in the direction of left field. Webster was under it, but threw it in badly, and Stevens got to third. The next batsman waited coolly and took his base on balls. Warner was badly rattled, and had there been any one to put in his place he would have been taken out. But Curtis, the substitute pitcher, was ill in bed at Summerville, and helpless Bob Ayer ground his teeth and watched defeat overwhelm him. With a man on third, another on first, and but one out, things again looked desperate.

Warner, pale of face, wrapped his long fingers about the ball and faced the next batsman. The coaches kept up a volley of disconcerting advice to the runners, most of it intended for the pitcher’s ear, however. On Warner’s first delivery the man on first went leisurely to second, well aware that the Summerville catcher would not dare to throw lest the runner on third should score. With one strike against him and three balls, the man at bat struck at a rather deceptive drop and started for first. The ball shot straight at Warner, hot off the bat. The pitcher found it, but fumbled. Regaining it quickly, he threw to the home plate, and the Vulcan captain speedily retraced his steps to third. But the batsman was safe at first, and so the three bases were full.

“Home run! Home run, O’Brien!” shrieked the throng as the next man, a red-haired little youth, gripped his stick firmly. O’Brien was quite evidently a favorite as well as a good player. Warner and Oliver, Summerville’s catcher, met and held a whispered consultation to the accompaniment of loud ridicule from the audience. Then the battery took their places.

“Play for the plate,” cried Bob at first base.

Warner’s first delivery was a wide throw that almost passed the catcher. “Ball!” droned the umpire. The men on bases were playing far off, and intense excitement reigned. On the next delivery Warner steadied himself and got a strike over the plate. A shout of applause from the plucky Summerville spectators shattered the silence. Another strike; again the applause. O’Brien gripped his bat anew and looked surprised and a little uneasy.

“He can’t do it again, O’Brien!” shrieked an excited admirer in the grand stand.

But O’Brien didn’t wait to see. He found the next delivery and sent it whizzing, a red-hot liner, toward second. Pandemonium broke loose. Sleeper, Summerville’s second-baseman, ran forward and got the ball head high, glanced quickly aside, saw the runner from first speeding by, lunged forward, tagged him, and then threw fiercely, desperately home. The sphere shot like a cannonball into Oliver’s outstretched hands, there was a cloud of yellow dust as Stevens slid for the home plate, and then the umpire’s voice droned: “Out, here!”

Summerville, grinning to a man, trotted in, and the little handful of supporters yelled themselves hoarse and danced ecstatically about. Even the Vulcan enthusiasts must applaud the play, though a bit grudgingly. For the first time in many innings, Marty, squatting beside the bats, drew a big scrawling 0 in the tally which he was keeping on the ground, with the aid of a splinter.

It was the last half of the eighth inning, and Bob Ayer’s turn at the bat. Marty found his especial stick, and uttered an incantation beneath his breath as he held it out.

“We’re going to win, Bob,” he whispered.

Bob took the bat, shaking his head.

“I’m afraid you don’t work as a mascot to-day, Marty,” he answered smilingly. But Marty noticed that there was a look of resolution in the captain’s face as he walked toward the box, and took heart.

Summerville’s admirers greeted Bob’s appearance with a burst of applause, and Vulcan’s captain motioned the field to play farther out. Vulcan’s pitcher tossed his arms above his head, lifted his right foot into the air, and shot the ball forward. There was a sharp crack, and the sphere was sailing straight and low toward center field. Bob touched first and sped on to second. Center field and left field, each intent upon the ball, discovered each other’s presence only when they were a scant four yards apart. Both paused – and the ball fell to earth! Bob, watching, flew toward third. It was a close shave, but he reached it ahead of the ball in a cloud of dust, and, rising, shook himself in the manner of a dog after a bath. Summerville’s supporters were again on their feet, and their shouts were extraordinary in volume, considering their numbers. Vulcan’s citizens, after a first burst of anger and dismay, had fallen into chilling silence. Marty hugged himself, and nervously picked out Howe’s bat.