“W-well, I’ll play first, then. I don’t care.”
Thus an adjustment was reached.
A proud moment for you was it when your merits as a ball-player were recognized, and you were engaged for center-field. Of course, secretly you nourished the strong conviction that you were cut out for a pitcher. Next to pitcher, you preferred short-stop, and next to short-stop, first base. But these positions, and pretty much everything, in fact, had been preempted; so, after the necessary haggling, you accepted center-field.
Speedily the North Star make-up was complete, and disappointed applicants—those too little, too big, too late, or not good enough—were busy sneering about it.
BILLY LUNT
The equipment of the North Star Base-Ball Club consisted of Fat’s “regular league” ball, six bats (owned by various members, and in some cases exercising no small influence in determining fitness of the same for enlistment as recruits), and four uniforms.
Mother made your uniform. To-day you wonder how, amidst darning your stockings and patching our trousers and mending your waists, she ever found time in which to supply you with the additional regalia which, according to your pursuits of the hour, day after day you insistently demanded. But she always did.
SPUNK CAREY