[“Again the crowd went wild.”]
After the game Hal’s team mates crowded around him. They were wild with joy. In the dressing room they kept on cheering him.
“Had a first baseman all the time,” said Hughie, “and didn’t notice it.”
“Told him the first day I saw him he would make a first baseman,” said Honus, “made a pretty good guess, didn’t I, Hal?”
“I guess it was an accident,” said Hal, at the same time knowing that he had found his place.
“Accident nothing,” chimed in Robb and Everson in chorus.
Just then in walked good old Fred Penny. They were busy for a few seconds shaking hands with the old boy. Penny had come over to the game with a lot of other old Lowell graduates. “I want to see Case,” said Penny. “I want to ask him where he learned to play first base.” Then when they introduced him to Hal, he said: “I’d just like to have been the office boy for about six months around the place where they teach that kind of baseball.”
“Well,” said Hal, “I suppose after this, I’ll have to give up the pitching business. I’m willing to tackle this first-base job on one condition, Penny, and that is that you come down to Lowell for a week and teach me a little of what you know about playing that position.”
“That’s a go,” said Penny. “I feel like getting into practice myself to get a little of the stiffness out of my arms and legs.”
That evening they all went to the theater as the guests of the Armour boys, and after the show took the sleeper at midnight for home. Hal and Hans therefore didn’t get a chance to see much of the city, not as much as they would have liked to.