“Will you buy me a new arm to pitch with?” asked Rowley, with a rueful grin. “Mine is all wrenched to pieces with them cussed drops.”
“Isn’t there enough of it left to give this boy a week’s batting practice?” asked Melvin, anxious to secure the opportunity. “I’ll shack the balls.”
“There mightn’t be many to shack,” said Rowley, with a gleam of fun in his eyes.
He pondered some time, puffing vigorously, and shooting an occasional side glance at the waiting boy. “Well, I’ll try it once,” he said finally, “but mind ye, if me arm hurts, I’ll not do it, no,—not for ten dollars an hour. I was laid up a year with it once, and that’s enough for me.”
The boys had to turn out early next morning to keep their appointment at the practice ground, and they more than half expected to find that they alone kept it. But Rowley was there. He received them as before, with his pipe between his lips, but after a few throws into the net, he put the pipe away. As he warmed up, his thoughts returned to old channels, and with his shoots and drops he interlarded anecdotes of games and bits of shrewd counsel. He was unquestionably wild that first morning, and Phil’s practice was rather in waiting and dodging and facing courageously, than in picking out good balls.
“I’ll steady down in a day or two,” he said, as he pulled on his coat at the end of the half hour. So the boys knew that he had not thrown up the job.
The next day the pitching was better and the batting worse. It was not so easy to watch the ball when it took such sudden unexpected dives! Still Phil occasionally met them fairly, and each square hit gave him courage to wait for another. After a time Jack suggested trying bunts. “It’s a great thing for a left-hander to be able to bunt,” he said. “He has twice the chance to make first on one that a right-hander has.” And Phil tried this, too, with questionable success.
Day followed day and Rowley improved more than Phil, so that the progress of the latter did not show itself. “I’d like to have you for a month,” said the pitcher, as they settled their account at the end of the week. “I could teach you to bunt in a few lessons, and it’s a great thing to be a good bunter.”
Phil laughed. “You’ve said that fifty times. I want to be able to do something besides bunt. All the same, I’d like to have you pitch for me once or twice a week, Rowley. Can you do it?”
“Sure,” said Rowley, “but take my advice and learn to bunt.”