“I wasn’t there,” said Everson, “because it was two years ago, which was before my time, and there was a whole lot of luck about it, too, but it was this way. There were three on bases and Merry, our mighty slugger, at bat with two out. Score was 3 to 0 against us and it was our last half of the ninth, too; Merry hit the first ball pitched for a homer over the right field fence, and four runs would have scored, only for little Willie Keefer, right fielder for Biltmore, who was playing well out toward the fence.
“The grounds were down by the railroad and right field was down hill and rough. Inside, the fence sloped at an angle of 65 degrees, being straight on the outside and covered with signs. Willie started with the crack of the bat, leaped upon the slope of the fence and started to run along it, going higher and higher and [just as the ball was going over his head, straight as a bullet, he put up his right hand, and caught the ball] fairly; then Willie went over the fence with the ball in his mitt, rolling over in the dirt.
“Willie climbed back over the fence, and the runs didn’t count because while the umpire couldn’t see it plainly, our fellows in the right bleachers could see Willie all the time and they were, of course, square enough to say that the ball was fairly caught, even if it did lose the game for us.”
And so they talked and talked until long after time to be in bed, and told all the stories about the great Lowell clubs of the past, the great pitchers, the catchers and the fielders; and the fellows called it the first meeting of the Hot Stove League of Lowell University 19—. This talking League lasted through part of February, by which time the freshies who had done wonders on the high-school teams at home, and who had come to Lowell with high hopes of making the team, had a pretty good idea of the kind of enthusiasm and loyalty and, most important, the hard work they would have to show to get on the team at Lowell.
The night of Hughie Jenkins’ return a boyish-looking chap, who had come all the way from California to Lowell University, only five months before, wrote a long letter to his folks back home, and among other things he said the boys had begun to talk baseball, and he was going to try to be on the team and also that he was going to try for the position of pitcher. Further, that he was going to try for one of the Jerry Harriman Prizes. His name was Case.
[CHAPTER II]
THE LOWELL SPIRIT
Lowell University wasn’t one of those little colleges about which books for boys are often written, nor was it just a big college. It was the greatest University in the East. It had thousands of students and hundreds of teachers. It was a rich college with dozens of buildings. A great many hundreds of the boys who had been graduated from it, poor boys and rich boys and medium-fortuned boys, now held high positions in the big world outside.
Two of the boys who had attended school there years before and who had played on its athletic teams had become Presidents of the United States, and every year while these men were in the White House they came to attend the big football and baseball games, and acted just like boys again, while the games were going on at least. Other boys had been made members of the Cabinet and a great many had become Senators and Representatives in Congress while still others had become famous ministers, doctors and merchants.