"Well, you know the old saying to the effect that the fellow laughs hardest who laughs last; and Mark, believe me, we're going to have that privilege. But I hope you won't give it away by jeering the unlucky batter when he nearly kills the air swiping at one that is away beyond the end of his stick."
"I'll try and keep a straight face, Elmer," chuckled Mark. "Got a piece of alum in my pocket right now, and before the game begins I mean to rub it over the side of my mouth, so as not to be able to crack a smile. There go our boys out in the field for practice."
"Well, perhaps we'd better get a move on, then, and pass a few, though after our morning work I don't feel much in need of it, Mark."
As Fairfield had already taken the field, and there was now only fifteen minutes left before game would be called, the battery of the rival team was also hard at work when Elmer and Mark started in.
Of course, neither pitcher tried his best in that preliminary bout. Well did they know that eager eyes were watching them for points connected with their delivery, and that these would be quickly seized upon for an advantage. Hence they contented themselves, as a rule, in sending in swift, straight balls simply to warm up.
Hickory Ridge had batted against Matt Tubbs for several seasons, and yet never had a game been actually finished. Up to the present they had always broken up in a beautiful row, in which both sides claimed victory.
Elmer had pitched part of a game the preceding summer. At the time he had proven so much of a mystery to his opponents that, seeing prospective defeat staring his team in the face, Matt Tubbs had found some pretext for disputing a decision of the umpire to end the battle.
But since that time the Fairfield team had been greatly strengthened, and in all their games thus far this season they had beaten their opponents easily.
On a neutral field, with a firm umpire directing matters and with all the participants members of the Boy Scouts, it was believed that for once a game between these old rivals might be threshed out to a conclusion.
Many shook their heads, remembering the Matt Tubbs of old and prophesying all manner of evil things that might spring from this bitterly contested game. Others, who knew something of the principles governing true scouts, tried to take heart of hope and believe that there must have been a great awakening in the former bully. But even they admitted that "the proof of the pudding lay in the eating of it," and that they would be better satisfied when the end came without a riotous demonstration on the part of Fairfield and Cramertown.