“Isn’t it awful!” David muttered to Katharine, when after the last failure Lester walked with hanging head to his seat.
“Yes, I feel so sorry for him. I suppose he’s just overcome with the responsibility—having Ruth here, and their engagement just out, and everybody expecting him to do great things.”
Overcome by the responsibility; yes, that was it, David knew, and he knew that Lester would interpret his failure in this game as another manifestation of incurable weakness. Of course Ruth would not so regard it, but David found himself concerned now with Lester’s own soul and the damage that would be done to it should that self-confidence which had been already so shaken be destroyed.
When Harvard came to bat in the last half of the ninth inning, Yale was leading by a score of 6 to 3. People were already leaving the stands, and moving languidly toward the gate, admitting defeat. Then suddenly the whole complexion of the game changed; a base on balls, an error, a scratchy little infield hit; the bases were filled, with none out, and the spectators were on their feet, cheering and shouting.
“He can’t strike out now; he can’t!” murmured David.
For it was Lester that advanced to the plate.
“Why don’t they put some one in to bat for that fellow!” exclaimed a man standing behind David.
He had hardly finished the remark when the pitcher delivered the last ball of the game. There was the resounding crack of a clean and solid hit; there was a tumultuous outburst of sound from the crowd; the ball flew far over the head of the center fielder, who went sprinting after it to no purpose. “The longest hit ever made on this field,” affirmed the ground keeper afterward. The centerfielder was just picking up the ball when Lester crossed the plate with the fourth run of the inning, the winning run of the game.
Before he could make his escape a mob of shouting classmates bore down upon him. Hundreds of Harvard men swarmed over the fences and in an instant had possession of the field. Lester was hoisted to the shoulders of a group who clung to him firmly despite his struggles and appeals. “Right behind the band!” they shouted; and right behind the band they bore him, up and down the field, at the head of the ever-lengthening, joyously serpentining, and wildly shouting procession. All the other members of the team had been allowed to slip off to the locker building; but the crowd clung to Lester; they bore him proudly, like a banner. They carried him past the stand in which Ruth sat; he looked up at her; she waved to him; and probably Katharine and David were the only persons who saw the tears running down her cheeks.