Third Base Thatcher

by Everett Scott

A real practice it proved to be, the fellows cavorting on the diamond until dinner time. And whatever mental disquietude remained was dispersed next morning when the marks were announced from the chapel platform, and it was made evident that every fellow on the baseball squad passed with flying colors. That meant that none of them would be disqualified or dropped from the team because of a poor scholastic record, and the way was wide open for the team to prepare itself for the big contest.

Thursday afternoon practice was just as good as Wednesday’s had been, and Friday the team warmed up in its preparations by playing a sizzling five-inning game with the Penguins, who were brought together again for the especial purpose of giving the big team a good work out. There was a mass meeting in chapel on Friday evening at which the cheer leaders stirred the student body into a perfect frenzy of cheer and song, and made them so worked up to have the scalp of Lawrencetown that it began to look as if the baseball diamond would be the scene of a mob encounter or something equally as dreadful. New school yells were developed for the occasion, and practiced until the chapel rafters rang. All the members of the team were brought up on the platform one by one (much to the consternation of Jeff and a number of other more or less bashful spirits), and as each appeared they were roundly cheered by the enthusiastic and thoroughly excited students. Altogether it was really a thrilling scene and Jeff became as excited as any of the rest of them.

Jeff and Wade went to bed that night so thoroughly keyed up that it was some time before either of them could get to sleep. And when they did finally drop off it seemed to them as if they had only had their eyes closed about five minutes when the seven o’clock bell sounded, and they awoke to the realization that it was Saturday morning and that the day of the big contest of the year was actually at hand.

Attendance at chapel was the only school work required of the boys that day, and after the morning services were over the students flocked to the campus, where in the fine warm June sunshine, for the day was perfectly wonderful, they gathered in little groups to discuss the game. Some dashed off to the railroad station to meet the eleven o’clock train which would bring in loads of parents, friends and bright-eyed, prettily frocked girl friends, eager to attend the game and the “hop” after.

Jeff and Wade, having no friends of this sort to greet them, mingled with the fellows on the campus or on the steps of the school buildings until noon time when the call for dinner stirred them to action.

The noonday meal in the big mess hall proved to be more than a meal; it resembled a continuation of the mass meeting the day before in which the cheer leaders stirred up the boys to the point of singing enthusiastically, and “Pennington, old Pennington” swelled forth in such a mighty chorus that little prickles raced up and down Jeff Thatcher’s spine as he heard the chorus roared, and just at that moment he, and doubtless every other boy in the room, would have laid down his life if need be for the honor of the school.

The fellows piled out of the dining hall still singing and then, because it was one o’clock and the game was called at two-thirty, they all scattered to their rooms to “doll up” for the benefit of the horde of pretty girls who would be present, as indicated from the number who already had appeared and were strolling across the campus, with boy companions or with attentive parents.

Jeff and Wade, with a peculiar, nervous feeling, in the vicinity of their belts, for want of something better to do, went down in the locker room and got out their fielding mitts, which they proceeded to “work” into better shape by generous applications of saliva, soap suds, oil and other “dope” that had been recommended to them from various quarters. They meant to have their gloves in the pink of condition.

The call to get into uniform was sounded at one o’clock, but that was hardly necessary for by that hour the entire squad was in the locker room getting into their duds. Shortly after the head coach appeared there was a blare of brass out on the campus, and a ringing cheer, and the fellows all crowded to the basement windows to peer out at a line of fifteen yellow automobile busses that came careening up the long gravel drive, to come to a stop in front of the Administration Building. This was the Lawrencetown team and rooters, arriving for the fray.

Led by the band the rooters gathered in a column four abreast and started to parade around the campus, later turning in the direction of the baseball diamond where they took up their section of the bleachers and forthwith began to hurl challenges at the now crowded buff and blue stands along third base line. Cheer for cheer was hurled across the diamond while the rooters waited for the teams to appear.