“I’m afraid those Boston fellows are due to get their revenge, all right,” said Bill Brady, on the morning of the Fourth of July, the day for the game in which Briggs, of Harvard, and Jim Phillips, of Yale, were again to measure their abilities as pitchers. “We’ve had a little too much on our minds this last week to do much practicing.”
“We’ll give them a fight for it, anyhow,” said Dick Merriwell. “We’ll be off for Sweden, pretty soon, those of us that are going, and I’d like to celebrate the glorious Fourth here first in the right way. I suppose it’s Harvard’s holiday just as much as it is ours, but I remember that our ancestors did pretty well in spite of difficulties and things that were enough to discourage most people. If they hadn’t stuck to their guns through anything that came up, we wouldn’t have much celebrating to do nowadays, you know.”
The fact that the game with the Boston team was scheduled for the great national holiday insured an enormous crowd to witness it. Not enormous, perhaps, compared with some games that Jim had pitched in, for he had seen the Polo Grounds, in New York, crowded more than once when he played there, but still very large for New Haven. And the news that Dick Merriwell himself was to take part had added enormously to the attractiveness of the game. Dick had not been seen in a regular game for a long time, but his reputation had endured and had, naturally, only been enhanced by his remarkable success as a coach. Old Yale men had come up for the game, and a great crowd had also come down from Boston to cheer the team from the cradle of independence on to victory.
“Those Harvard men are doing a lot of talking about the way Harvard men started the revolution,” said Bill Brady, with a grin. “But we Yale men can remember Nathan Hale and a few others that did their share. So I guess we can just arrange to fight this game out on the line of what is going to happen to-day, rather than of what the old fellows did a hundred years ago or so. We were even with them then, but I think we’re a little ahead of them this year.”
Dick Merriwell, by unanimous consent, was acting as captain of the New Haven team, and in the practice before the game it was at once evident that this contest was likely to be a much more scientific one than the first meeting between the two teams. The presence of so many of the players of the two best college teams of the year insured a well-played game, and as the cheers went up from the crowded stands at every good play, the crowd settled itself down in anticipation of a rattling game, close, and fought out to the last minute.
Jim Phillips, as he warmed up, felt that he was in good condition. He felt that he had taken the measure of Briggs, and, while he had an intense respect for the powers of the noted Harvard pitcher, he was sure that he was his master. Confidence is half the battle in any sport, and there was nothing boastful about Jim’s feeling. He knew just what he could do, and he thought he knew, also, what Briggs could do.
But when the game began, he found himself in difficulties at once. The first inning was easy. The Harvard men went out in one, two, three order, but he saw Reid, who had batted first, looking curiously at him after he had been retired on a screaming line drive, that Harry Maxwell caught, and he knew the reason.
“I don’t know what’s the matter,” he said to Brady, as they sat on the bench, “but my arm seems to have gone back on me altogether. I feel all right, but I couldn’t get the ball breaking right. Did you notice it?”
“There wasn’t any jump on the ball,” admitted Brady. “I couldn’t make it out. Never mind—you’ll be all right when the game gets going.”
“I hope so,” said Jim. “It’s a good thing those Harvard people didn’t get on to me in that inning, though. If they’d only known it, they could have knocked those balls I pitched all over the lot. They just thought I was pitching the way I had before. But that won’t keep up. I’m due for an awful lacing unless I can get that ball going right pretty soon. Reid is on to it already. Did you see him edge right over to Bowen after he sent that fly to Harry?”