Читать книгу Round Up: The Stories of Ring W. Lardner - Lardner Ring - Страница 10

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You’ve saw Cap’s wife, o’ course. Well, her sister’s about twict as good-lookin’ as her, and that’s goin’ some.

Cap took his missus down to St. Louis the second trip and the other one come down from St. Joe to visit her. Her name is Dolly, and some doll is right.

Well, Cap was goin’ to take the two sisters to a show and he wanted a beau for Dolly. He left it to her and she picked Ike. He’d hit three on the nose that afternoon—off’n Sallee, too.

They fell for each other that first evenin’. Cap told us how it come off. She begin flatterin’ Ike for the star game he’d played and o’ course he begin excusin’ himself for not doin’ better. So she thought he was modest and it went strong with her. And she believed everything he said and that made her solid with him—that and her make-up. They was together every mornin’ and evenin’ for the five days we was there. In the afternoons Ike played the grandest ball you ever see, hittin’ and runnin’ the bases like a fool and catchin’ everything that stayed in the park.

I told Cap, I says: “You’d ought to keep the doll with us and he’d make Cobb’s figures look sick.”

But Dolly had to go back to St. Joe and we come home for a long serious.

Well, for the next three weeks Ike had a letter to read every day and he’d set in the clubhouse readin’ it till mornin’ practice was half over. Cap didn’t say nothin’ to him, because he was goin’ so good. But I and Carey wasted a lot of our time tryin’ to get him to own up who the letters was from. Fine chanct!

“What are you readin’?” Carey’d say. “A bill?”

“No,” Ike’d say, “not exactly a bill. It’s a letter from a fella I used to go to school with.”

“High school or college?” I’d ask him.

“College,” he’d say.

“What college?” I’d say.

Then he’d stall a wile and then he’d say:

“I didn’t go to the college myself, but my friend went there.”

“How did it happen you didn’t go?” Carey’d ask him.

“Well,” he’d say, “they wasn’t no colleges near where I lived.”

“Didn’t you live in Kansas City?” I’d say to him.

One time he’d say he did and another time he didn’t. One time he says he lived in Michigan.

“Where at?” says Carey.

“Near Detroit,” he says.

“Well,” I says, “Detroit’s near Ann Arbor and that’s where they got the university.”

“Yes,” says Ike, “they got it there now, but they didn’t have it there then.”

“I come pretty near goin’ to Syracuse,” I says, “only they wasn’t no railroads runnin’ through there in them days.”

“Where’d this friend o’ yours go to college?” says Carey.

“I forget now,” says Ike.

“Was it Carlisle?” ast Carey.

“No,” says Ike, “his folks wasn’t very well off.”

“That’s what barred me from Smith,” I says.

“I was goin’ to tackle Cornell’s,” says Carey, “but the doctor told me I’d have hay fever if I didn’t stay up North.”

“Your friend writes long letters,” I says.

“Yes,” says Ike; “he’s tellin’ me about a ball player.”

“Where does he play?” ast Carey.

“Down in the Texas League—Fort Wayne,” says Ike.

“It looks like a girl’s writin’,” Carey says.

“A girl wrote it,” says Ike. “That’s my friend’s sister, writin’ for him.”

“Didn’t they teach writin’ at this here college where he went?” says Carey.

“Sure,” Ike says, “they taught writin’, but he got his hand cut off in a railroad wreck.”

“How long ago?” I says.

“Right after he got out o’ college,” says Ike.

“Well,” I says, “I should think he’d of learned to write with his left hand by this time.”

“It’s his left hand that was cut off,” says Ike; “and he was left-handed.”

“You get a letter every day,” says Carey. “They’re all the same writin’. Is he tellin’ you about a different ball player every time he writes?”

“No,” Ike says. “It’s the same ball player. He just tells me what he does every day.”

“From the size o’ the letters, they don’t play nothin’ but double-headers down there,” says Carey.

We figured that Ike spent most of his evenin’s answerin’ the letters from his “friend’s sister,” so we kept tryin’ to date him up for shows and parties to see how he’d duck out of ’em. He was bugs over spaghetti, so we told him one day that they was goin’ to be a big feed of it over to Joe’s that night and he was invited.

“How long’ll it last?” he says.

“Well,” we says, “we’re goin’ right over there after the game and stay till they close up.”

“I can’t go,” he says, “unless they leave me come home at eight bells.”

“Nothin’ doin’,” says Carey. “Joe’d get sore.”

“I can’t go then,” says Ike.

“Why not?” I ast him.

“Well,” he says, “my landlady locks up the house at eight and I left my key home.”

“You can come and stay with me,” says Carey.

“No,” he says, “I can’t sleep in a strange bed.”

“How do you get along when we’re on the road?” says I.

“I don’t never sleep the first night anywheres,” he says. “After that I’m all right.”

“You’ll have time to chase home and get your key right after the game,” I told him.

“The key ain’t home,” says Ike. “I lent it to one o’ the other fellas and he’s went out o’ town and took it with him.”

“Couldn’t you borry another key off’n the landlady?” Carey ast him.

“No,” he says, “that’s the only one they is.”

Well, the day before we started East again, Ike come into the clubhouse all smiles.

“Your birthday?” I ast him.

“No,” he says.

“What do you feel so good about?” I says.

“Got a letter from my old man,” he says. “My uncle’s goin’ to get well.”

“Is that the one in Nebraska?” says I.

“Not right in Nebraska,” says Ike. “Near there.”

But afterwards we got the right dope from Cap. Dolly’d blew in from Missouri and was goin’ to make the trip with her sister.