Читать книгу Dick Merriwell's Heroic Players; Or, How the Yale Nine Won the Championship - Burt L. Standish - Страница 5

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Jim Phillips, his reputation firmly established as the best college pitcher in the East, and, since his defeat of the Michigan team, in the whole United States, was hardly surprised when, the day after the conference between Parker and the two sophomores, of which, of course, he knew nothing, he was asked by the captain of the team of the New Haven Country Club to pitch for that nine against the Boston Athletic Association nine the next day.

Jim, like many other Yale athletes, had been elected an honorary member of the country club, and so was eligible to play on any of its teams. But he had not taken the time to make use of the club since his election, as he had been busy in practice for Yale teams. His first impulse was to decline outright Captain Hasbrook’s request, and he even started to do so. But Hasbrook pleaded so hard that Jim finally agreed to reconsider and to consult Dick Merriwell on the subject.

“I’m under Mr. Merriwell’s orders, of course,” said Jim, “and I can’t do anything of this sort without his permission. Frankly, I don’t think he will let me play for you. This game with Harvard is pretty important, you know, and we aren’t going to have an easy time with them, by any means.”

“I’ve thought of that, of course,” said Hasbrook. “I’m an old Yale man myself, you know, and I played on the team when Merriwell was captain. So I think I may have some weight with him. I’ll try, anyhow. And I really think it will do you good to run up against that Boston bunch. They’ve got a lot of old Harvard men on their team, and I’ve heard that there will be one or two of this year’s team. They won’t have this man Briggs that they’re counting on so heavily, but they’re better off than we are in pitchers. Holmes, the only man I could count on to do any really good pitching, has hurt his arm, and that’s why I’m so keen about getting you. Winston’s a member of the club and I suppose there’ll be no difficulty about getting him to pitch, if you can’t help us out. But I’d rather have you, naturally, because old Winston, while he’s willing enough, wouldn’t last three innings against that bunch of sluggers that’s coming down from Boston.

“They’ve got to look on this game every year as a sort of alumni game between Yale and Harvard, you know, and, of course, they’ve got a lot more men to draw on than we have—Boston being big enough to swallow New Haven and a couple of other towns our size. So they’ve been beating us for the last three years.”

Jim, as he had told Hasbrook, had little hope of being allowed to play. But he was anxious enough to do so. He remembered Hasbrook well as a member of the good-government party that had helped the Yale students mightily when the city had tried to stop the cheering at Yale Field, and the idea of giving Harvard men a chance to crow, even if they were out of college, was displeasing to him.

Brady, it seemed, had received a similar invitation from Hasbrook. He came, soon after the country club man had left Jim, to tell him about it. He, it seemed, had accepted, making only the provision that Merriwell’s consent would have to be obtained. But Bill was a horse for work, and there was not the same reason for saving him that tended to make it unlikely that Jim would be allowed to play.

They went to see Merriwell together, Jim’s anxiety to play being greatly increased when he found that Bill Brady would be his catcher. The idea of pitching to a strange catcher had been one of the things that had prompted his first refusal.

Hasbrook was an old friend of Dick Merriwell’s, and when the two sophomores found the universal coach they learned that he already knew their errand. He seemed a little doubtful.

“I think the game would do you both lots of good,” he said. “This Boston team is made up altogether of old Harvard varsity men, and they’ve been playing baseball on a system at Cambridge for fifteen years. When you play one Harvard team, you know them all. That’s one reason I was willing to consider this matter. But I’d rather have had the game come at least a week before the big match. I’m only afraid you’ll overdo things, Jim.”

“I won’t let him work himself to death, Mr. Merriwell,” promised Brady. “He’ll do just what I signal him, you know, and I’ll see that he saves his arm. We don’t have to take chances in this game, because it doesn’t really matter whether we win or not. If we can win, without hurting ourselves, why we’d like to do it, of course. But every one will understand that we can’t take chances for the country club when we’ve got to play for Yale against Harvard. Even Hasbrook and the others out at the club wouldn’t like that. They’d rather lose themselves than see Yale licked, if it came to a choice.”

“All right, then,” said Dick. “I’ll give my consent—on one condition. If you feel tired during the game, Jim, and as if you were putting any sort of a strain on your arm, you’ve got to promise to make Hasbrook take you out, no matter what the score is. And I count on you, too, Brady. If you see that Jim is hurting himself, you’ve got to see that he gets out of the game. You may be able to tell better than he can himself. I’d be at the game, but I’ve got some important business to attend to in New York, and it won’t be possible for me to get there. That’s why I’m hesitating so much. Winston can go out to the game with you, and if Jim has to go out, he can take his place. I think he’d do better than Hasbrook expects, too. He’s improved a lot since the beginning of the season, and I’ve seen a lot of college teams that would be glad to have him.”

“I guess that’s right,” said Brady. “But then any man who knows how to curve a ball at all would turn into a good pitcher with you to coach him, Mr. Merriwell.”

The news of Merriwell’s permission to the two sophomore stars to form the battery for the country club against the famous amateur team from Boston, caused great excitement. The country club members were overjoyed. They saw a chance to get revenge for the defeats of the last few years. With quiet confidence, they made up a purse and sent it posthaste to Boston, to be bet on their team, with its powerful reënforcements. The newspapers printed the story. And from Cambridge came rumors that every effort was being made to induce the Harvard coach to allow Briggs to pitch for the Bostonians.

Dick Merriwell shook his head when he heard that.

“I hope he won’t,” he said. “If I’d thought there was any chance that Briggs would pitch for them, I wouldn’t have consented to let Jim go in. It would be too much like letting the Yale-Harvard game be played ahead of time.”

But those rumors were speedily set at rest. There was no chance for Briggs to play, and, moreover, as the Boston men saw it, they needed no undergraduate pitcher to give them the victory. For Hobson, the famous Hobson, who had pitched Harvard to a championship in three successive years while he was still in college, was back in America from a trip abroad, and in the very pink of condition for any sort of a game. And he had been promptly drafted by his old club.

“Now you will have your work cut out for you, Jim,” said Dick Merriwell, with a smile. “I know Hobson well, of old, and if you beat him, you certainly need have no fear of Briggs or any one else that’s in college now. Also, if he beats you, you needn’t feel disgraced. You know his record, of course.”

Out at the country club, Jim Phillips and Brady practiced for the first time with Hasbrook and the other men who made up the team, arranging signals and other details for the game. A new batting order had to be made up, too, and Hasbrook, who knew how formidable a batter Brady was, put him in as fourth man, with Jim Phillips to follow him. A great many members, going out to play golf or tennis, decided to watch the baseball practice instead, and the big porch of the country club was deserted. Almost deserted—not quite, for in a corner, hidden by some plants, sat Parker and his new sophomore friends, Carpenter and Shesgren.

“It’s worked, so far,” said Parker, drawing in luxuriously on a straw that protruded from a long, fizzy glass. “He walked right into it, and even his friend Merriwell couldn’t see the danger. I don’t blame him. He thinks our little friend Phillips is all he should be. He’ll have quite a shock when he wakes up and finds out.”

“What have you got against Merriwell, Parker?” asked Carpenter.

He, like almost every other Yale man, both liked and respected the universal coach, who had certainly done great things for the blue since his Alma Mater had called him back to take general charge of all her athletic teams; supervising all of them, and coaching the more important teams himself. Carpenter was unable to understand why Parker, himself an athlete, and, therefore, better able to understand than most of his fellow students just how much the universal coach had done for Yale, should be so bitter against Merriwell.

Parker was more genial than usual with his sophomore allies, whom, as a matter of fact, he secretly despised. He had been drinking iced drinks all afternoon, and they had had a distinct effect upon him.

“Why, I’ll tell you, Carpenter, my boy,” he said. “I’m likely to be captain of the football team here next fall, see, and I want to be the real captain. Look at old Tom Sherman. What’s he got to say about the baseball team? It’s all up to Merriwell. Same way with Murchison. He was elected captain of the crew. Has he got anything to do with the way the crew is run? Not so you could notice it. It’s Mr. Richard Merriwell who dictates everything.”

“Well, that’s because they let him do it, isn’t it?” asked Shesgren.

“They haven’t any choice,” said Parker. “Every one here thinks he’s just about right on everything. He can’t do anything wrong. If he falls down hard once, and gets shown up in this business, he may have still enough to keep on being universal coach, but he won’t be a dictator, the way he has been. Anyhow, Phillips won’t captain the baseball team, and that will reduce Merriwell’s pull a little.”

He finished his drink and ordered another.

“Now, then,” he said, “are you two friendly with Phillips?”

“Hardly,” said Carpenter. “He simply lets us alone. He started to act as if he wanted to be friendly with me once, but I soon saw that he was doing it just to make it easier for him to beat me out in the work, and I dropped him.”

“Same here,” said Shesgren. “He talks a lot of sickening rot about how all the men in the class ought to stick together and be friendly—and then goes and does mean things behind our backs. That’s the only way he ever gets a good stand in his studies. Why does he try to hog everything, anyhow? We don’t mind how prominent he is in athletics. We came here to get good degrees. My father promised me a thousand dollars if I was one of the first two men in the class—and the way things are going now I won’t be able to get that. Phillips and Brady work together all the time, and just because they are way up in athletics the faculty favors them all the time.”

“Never mind all that,” said Parker. “Have to drop your personal feelings for a while if you want to get square. I want you two fellows to go back to New Haven this evening and call on Phillips. Make any excuse you like. Say you came in to talk over your work or something. Be chummy with him. Make him ask you to come again.”

The two sophomores protested violently. “Why should they?” they asked.

But Parker had returned to his stern and superior manner. He had had enough to drink to make him ugly, and his overbearing manner so frightened the sophomores, since they were weaklings, physically, no matter how bright they might be mentally, that they gave in.

“You go do as I say,” growled Parker. “Then come to my room and tell me how you got along. I’ll tell you then what to do next. Got a little business to attend to here.”

He shooed them away, and then sat down again to wait until a stranger appeared, looking around to see if he were observed.

“Safe enough,” said Parker. “Been waiting for you.”

“Are you sure you are right in this?” asked the other. “It doesn’t seem like Phillips at all to do a thing like that. I must say I was surprised when you told me.”

“Well, you’ve got proof, haven’t you?” asked Parker. “He refused to play at first, didn’t he? Then, after I saw him, he agreed. He’s out here now, practicing with the team. You go back on your agreement and see how long he stays out here.”

“I don’t like it a bit,” said the other. “However—we want to win, and I don’t see any other way to do it. I’ll stick to the agreement. I guess your plan is the safest. I’ve got to have some sort of a receipt, of course, in case there’s any trouble. But that will be the simplest. It won’t attract any attention, and I don’t see how it could get out, anyhow.”

“No,” said Parker. “I don’t see how it can get out unless one of us splits—and I don’t suppose you’re going to do that, are you?”

“I should say not,” exclaimed the other, so fervently that Parker laughed, which made the man who had just handed him a letter start, as he noticed for the first time that Parker, owing to the drinks he had taken, was far from being himself.