Jeff was particularly keen for this batting cage practice, for he had long ago developed that co-ordination of eye, brain and muscle that makes a three hundred batter, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than proving to a pitcher that there were few curves or jumps that could fool him. He noticed, too, with a certain eagerness, that Mr. Rice had watched him while he occupied the batting cage, and he felt certain that he saw approval in his eye as he watched his freedom of swing and the way he put his shoulders and body behind some of the smacks that sent the horse hide against the corded netting with a thump.
Indeed, the coach even went so far after one slashing wallop of the ball as to remark his approval.
“That’s real stick work, Thatcher. Great stuff. Wish some of the rest of the fellows would get the hang of the thing the way you have it. All you need is to correct your feet a little more and you’ll be a three hundred hitter some day.”
Jeff was thoroughly pleased to have won that much praise from the coach and he could not help smiling with a sense of satisfaction as he stepped out of the cage to give his place to another batter. He smiled more, too, when he noted an expression of jealous hate on the face of Gould.
“That sort of thing gets his goat, I guess,” he said to himself as he walked over to relieve Mickey Daily of his catcher’s mitt and his job of catching the curves of Honey Wiggins. Daily was next in line for practice in the batting cage.
And so the indoor practice progressed satisfactorily enough through the last week in March and the first week in April. The weather was fast developing into an ideal spring. The cold weather that had lingered all too long in March disappeared completely with the first day of April and spring seemed to sweep down upon the country with a rush. Budding trees began to show a fresh greenness, shrubbery about the campus showed color that was a source of cheer after the bleakness of winter. Robins appeared on the broad lawns of the campus and searched diligently for worms that were crowding toward the surface in the damp and rapidly warming loam, blue birds were awing and their soft, almost delicate song could be heard from the maples and elms that lined the driveway. Song sparrows were tuning up in the woods across the river and the colony of barn swallows that nested under the eaves of the library building returned in force.
“Oh, boy, this is swell baseball weather,” exclaimed Jeff one day as, hurrying across the campus he encountered Coach Rice and Tad Sloan, the captain, moving toward the baseball diamond.
“Great, isn’t it?” said Tad Sloan, who was a short, stocky chap of a quiet but forceful type, and a senior at Pennington.
“I’ll say so,” said Jeff, wondering with interest why the captain and the coach were walking toward the diamond.