“Don’t worry, Fatty,” advised a Fairport spectator; “you will have all you want of it before this game is over.”
“Do tell!” grinned Obed. “Won’t that be just splendid! Anybody got a pie in his pocket? I’m hungry.”
“There is a pie in the box doing the pitching,” laughed the same spectator. “Our boys will feed off him before the game is over.”
“Dustan will get a hit now,” averred another watching youth.
Dustan was on his nerve. He set his feet firmly and gripped his bat, while he watched every move made by the Fardale pitcher. He saw Dick go through the motions of delivering a swift ball, and apparently such a ball followed. It came straight enough and seemingly just where the batter wanted it, whereupon he slashed at it. To his unspeakable surprise the ball seemed to halt and hang in the air in such a manner that he struck too soon. Too late he realized this, and his rage caused him to hurl the bat to the ground as he heard the ball strike with the usual plunk in the catcher’s big mitt.
Dustan had struck out for the first time that season.
Zona Desmond actually pounded her cousin on the shoulder.
“There, there!” she palpitated. “What do you think about it now?”
Bessie could not conceal her surprise[surprise] and dismay.
“Why, I don’t see how it happened!” she said.