“Strike!” snapped out the umpire.
“Oh you robber!” howled the crowd.
The next was a ball, and the next—well, they talk about it yet at Boxwood Hall. For Jerry with all his might and main smote the horsehide spheroid squarely on the “nose” and then he ran. And Bob spun around the bases too.
“Home run! Home run! Home run!” yelled the wild lads.
The ball Jerry knocked went deep into centre field, and the frantic fieldsman raced back after it. On and on ran Jerry. Ahead of him sped Bob. And [as Bob crossed home plate with his run, Jerry was not far behind him]. Nor was the ball a great way off, for it thumped into the hands of Ford Tatum, the catcher, with a vicious thump. But the umpire cried “Safe!” and Boxwood Hall had two more runs.
The score was thirteen to eleven, and only one man was out. But that was the best Boxwood Hall could do. “Sock” disposed of his next two rivals in short order.
“And now if we can hold ’em down—hold ’em down!” murmured Jerry as they went to the field, and Kenwell came up for its last raps.
It looked like another break when Ned gave two men their base on balls, but then his nerve asserted itself. Amid a riot of calls, designed to disconcert him, he stood his ground, and he and Frank put up a game that made a new record for efficiency. For not a man got a hit in the last half of the tenth, and a goose egg went up in that frame for Kenwell, while the score stood
Boxwood Hall, 13.
Kenwell, 11.