Mystery Wings / A Mystery Story for Boys

A Mystery Story for Boys
By ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago
COPYRIGHT, 1935 BY THE REILLY & LEE CO. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
“Pardon, my young friend!”
Johnny Thompson started at the sound of these words spoken by someone close behind him. He had been seated in a corner of the park. It was early evening, but quite dark. He sprang to his feet.
“Pardon! Please do not go away.” There was something reassuring in the slow easy drawl of the stranger. Johnny dropped back to his place. Next instant as the light of a passing car played upon the stranger, he was tempted to laugh. He found himself looking into the face of the smallest Chinaman he had ever known. To Johnny the expression “Who’s afraid of a Chinaman?” was better known than “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?”
But what did this little man with his very much wrinkled face puckered into a strange smile, want? Johnny leaned forward expectantly.
“You think hard. You are worried. Is it not so?” The little man took a seat beside him. “All the time you think baseball. You do not play. But you think very much. Is it not so? This town, your team, they are everything just now. Is it not so? And you are troubled.” The wrinkles on the little yellow man’s face appeared to crinkle and crackle like very old parchment.
“Let me tell you,” he put a hand on Johnny’s arm. “You think of Centralia. A long time you have thought, ‘They will defeat us unless we find a pitcher, a very good pitcher.’ And you have found a pitcher. Perhaps he will do. You are not sure. Is it not so?”
Johnny started. All this was true. Centralia was the great rival of the little city he chanced to call home at that moment. He was thinking of the coming game. But this new pitcher! That was a closely guarded secret. Only three people knew and they were pledged to silence.
“Ah!” the little man leaned forward, “You are more greatly troubled now. You are thinking, ‘Someone has told.’ No, my young friend, it has not been told. It is given Tao Sing to know many things. Tao Sing can tell you much.”