THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS
If Mabel had counted on creating a sensation, she succeeded beyond her wildest hopes.
For a moment, Joe thought that he must have taken leave of his senses.
“What!” he cried, incredulously, half rising to his feet.
This sudden ejaculation drew the attention of all the others seated at the table.
“Land sakes, Joe!” expostulated his mother, “you almost made me upset my tea cup. What’s the matter?”
“Enough’s the matter,” responded Joe, jubilantly. “That is, if Mabel really means what she said just now.”
“What was it you said, Mabel dear?” asked Clara.
“Come, ’fess up,” invited Jim.
“I guess I’ll let Reggie tell the rest of it,” said Mabel, blushing under the battery of eyes turned upon her. 61
“All right, Sis,” said Reggie, affably. “Bah Jove, I give you credit for holding in as long as you have. The fact is,” he continued, beaming amiably upon all the party, “the governor asked me to take a trip to Japan and China, and Mabel put in to come along. I didn’t twig what the little minx was up to, until she said we could go on the same steamer that took the baseball party. Lots of other women—wives of the managers and players and so on—will go along, I understand. So there’s the whole bally story in a nutshell. Rippin’ good idea I call it—what?”
“Glory hallelujah!” cried Joe, grasping Mabel’s hand, openly this time.
“It’s simply great!” cried Jim, enthusiastically.
“You darling, lucky girl!” exclaimed Clara, while Mr. and Mrs. Matson smiled their pleasure.
“Had you up in the air for a minute, didn’t it, old top?” grinned Reggie.
“I should say it did,” Joe admitted. “I thought for a minute I was going crazy. Somebody pinch me.”
Jim reached over and accommodated him.
“Ouch!” cried Joe, rubbing his arm. “You needn’t be so literal.”
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my friends,” said Jim, piously.
Questions poured in thick and fast.
“How can you possibly get ready in time?” 62 asked Clara. “It’s the sixteenth now, and the teams leave Chicago on the nineteenth.”
“Oh, we’re not going to make the trip across the country,” explained Mabel, flushed with happiness. “Reggie and I will join the party in San Francisco or Seattle, or wherever they start from. So that will give us nearly a month, and I’m going to spend most of that right here—if you can stand me that long.”
Clara came round the table and gave her an impulsive hug.
“I’d be glad to have you stay here forever,” said Mrs. Matson fervently.
Just here a thought struck Joe.
“It’s the greatest thing ever that you’re going as far as Japan,” he said. “But why can’t you keep on with us and swing right around the circle?”
“You greedy boy!” murmured Mabel.
“We’ve thought of that too,” explained Reggie. “The governor promised Mabel a trip round the world as soon as she got through with the finishing school. She could have gone last year if she had chosen, but she got so interested in baseball——”
“Reggie!” murmured Mabel, warningly.
“Well, anyway,” said Reggie a little lamely, “she didn’t go, and so I put it up to the governor that there was no reason she couldn’t go now. 63 He saw it the same way—he’s a rippin’ good sort, the governor is—and he’s left it to us to make the trip all the way round—that is, if I can get through my business in Japan in time.”
“If you don’t get through in time, there’ll be murder done,” threatened Joe.
In the animated talk that ensued all took a part. But toward the end of the meal, Joe noticed that Jim was a little more subdued than was usual with him, and that some of the sparkle and vivacity had vanished from Clara’s eyes and voice.
He glanced from one to the other and knew the reason. He knew how deep the feeling was growing between the two and realized what the coming six-months’ separation would mean to them. A generous impulse came to him like a flash.
“Listen folks,” he said. “Surprises seem to be in fashion, so here’s another one. Clara’s going along with us.”
Astonishment and delight held Clara speechless—then she rose and flung her arms impulsively about her brother’s neck, and for the second time that day Jim would have been willing to let her be a sister to him also.
Jim reached his brawny hand across the table.
“Put her there, Joe, old boy!” he said. “You’re the finest fellow that ever wore shoe leather.” 64
“Won’t it be just glorious!” exulted Mabel.
“There never was such a boy in all the world,” murmured Joe’s mother.
“But, Joe dear, won’t it be too great an expense?” suggested Clara. “You know it’s less than a month since you sent us that thousand-dollar bill that took us to the World’s Series.”
“That’s all right, Sis,” reassured Joe, patting her hand. “Remember I cleared nearly four thousand dollars extra in the World’s Series, and this won’t put much of a dent in that. You just go ahead and doll yourself up—and hang the expense.”
And so it was settled, and it is safe to say that a group of happier young people could not be found anywhere than those who discussed excitedly, until late into the night, the coming trip with all its marvelous possibilities.
The next two days flew by all too rapidly. The girls, of course, had plenty of time, but Joe and Jim had a host of things to attend to and a very limited time to do them in. But somehow, Joe made time enough to say a lot of things to Mabel that, to lovers at least, seem important, and Jim, though not daring to go quite so far, looked and said quite enough to deepen the roses in Clara’s cheeks and the loveliness in her eyes.
It was hard to part when the time for parting came, but this time there was no long six-months’ 65 separation to be dreaded—that is, as far as the young folks were concerned.
Mr. and Mrs. Matson had counted on having their son with them throughout the fall and winter, but they had been accustomed for so long to merge their own happiness in that of their children that they kept up bright faces while they said good-bye, although Mrs. Matson’s smile was tremulous.
A day and night of traveling and the ball players reached Chicago, where, at the Blackstone, they found McRae awaiting them—the same old McRae, aggressive, pugnacious, masterful, and yet with a glint of worry in his eyes that had not been there at the close of the World’s Series.
Robbie was there too, rotund and rubicund, but not just the Robbie who had danced the tango with McRae before the clubhouse on the occasion of the great victory.
But if worry and anxiety had set their mark upon the manager and trainer of the Giants, it had not affected the players, who were lounging about the corridor of the hotel.
A bunch of them, including Burkett and Denton and good old Larry, gave the newcomers a tumultuous welcome.
“Cheer, cheer, the gang’s all here!” cried Larry. 66
McRae clasped Joe’s hand in a grip that almost made him wince.
“So the new league hasn’t got you yet, Joe?” he cried.
“No,” laughed Joe, returning his clasp; “and it never will!”