“Sakes alive,” she said, “there ain’t anything you can do here, Tom. If a man’s needed, why, there’s John; not that I’m pretending he’s much use, though!” (This for the benefit of the hired man who had just stamped in with fire-wood and who only grinned and winked at Tom.) “Just you run along and play your games, Tom. You’ll come back again to-night, anyway, I s’pose?”
Tom hurriedly answered that he would, and sprinted for the station, just managing to catch the last train that might get him to Amesville in time to join the team on its trip to Petersburg. But the train, a slow one at best, took longer than usual to dawdle into Amesville, and when Tom, after stopping at Mrs. Tully’s to change into his uniform, reached the place from which the special car was to leave, there was no car in sight and inquiry elicited the fact that it had been gone a full ten minutes. The next regular trolley car for Petersburg was not due to leave until a quarter-past one. There was nothing for it but to make the best of a bad situation. Tom ate a hurried lunch at a small restaurant nearby, all the while keeping a close watch on the clock. When, finally, he dashed back to the trolley station he felt very uncomfortable inside. The car swung up and Tom climbed aboard. He was not fortunate enough to get a seat and so stood on the rear platform. The conductor, in reply to Tom’s inquiry, told him that the car would reach Petersburg at ten minutes past two, if it was on time. Tom silently hoped that it would be, because the game was to begin at two-thirty.
But that car seemed possessed of a spirit of procrastination and delay. At every siding, after it had passed into the country, it stood and waited interminable hours, as it seemed to Tom, while some car bound in the opposite direction appeared leisurely in the distance, bore down upon them and, finally, sidled past. A mile outside of Petersburg it seemed determined to take root. Tom asked what the trouble was—he had secured a seat by this time—and the conductor paused long enough to inform him that the south-bound car was twelve minutes late. It was already five minutes past two and Petersburg was a mile away. And, besides that, Tom hadn’t the least idea where the ball ground was. Another five minutes passed and still no car appeared. Tom’s nerves were getting panicky. The twelve minutes were already gone. He had only twenty minutes left before the game. He dropped off the car and started up the track.
Five minutes later a road appeared and he climbed a fence and reached it, hoping that a vehicle would come along and give him a lift. But no vehicle appeared and it was almost half-past when, much out of breath and very hot, he walked into the town. Luckily the ball ground was only a block or two away from where he made an inquiry and he actually reached the gate on the instant of half-past two. He had difficulty convincing the youth who presided at the entrance that he was a member of the visiting team, but finally succeeded and hurried in. The teams were still warming up as Tom appeared. Mr. Talbot caught sight of him and greeted him with a frown.
“Well, we thought you weren’t coming, Pollock,” he said. “What was the trouble?”
“I couldn’t leave home until late, sir, and when I got uptown the car had gone. I came along on the next one. I’m sorry, sir.”
He didn’t explain that he had walked a mile or more or that he felt about as little like pitching baseball as anyone could! Mr. Talbot viewed him doubtfully.
“Well, you’d better sit down and get cooled off. How’s your arm?”
“All right, sir.”
“Hm! We’d just decided to let Williams start. Perhaps he had better, anyway. Captain Warner!”