He had his own followers, who toadied to him on account of the money he spent so freely; but none of them happened to be aboard the boat, so Lef felt that he was in one sense out of his element.
The beautiful home town faded out of sight up the river, and all eyes began to be turned toward the bow, as they anticipated catching a distant glimpse of Bellport at any moment.
“Better save your wind until later, Herman!” called out Tom Budd, the lithe shortstop, and a fellow who was a natural acrobat, doing stunts in and out of season; so that no one was ever surprised to see him spring into the air, catch a liner, turn completely over, and come up smiling, with the ball held up for the umpire to take notice.
“Plenty more left,” laughed the “best yeller Columbia ever had,” as he waved his megaphone in the air, and led the boys in another song.
It was a glorious day in June, and not one aboard that boat but felt the inspiration of the magical sunshine and soft air.
Half of the distance separating the rival towns had been covered by this time, and the gallant little launch was making fine speed down the current.
“Looks like Clifford meant to be represented at the game, too,” remarked one of the boys, pointing to the shore.
Clifford was above Columbia, and on the other bank of the river. A road led down to the vicinity of Bellport, where a ferry took farm wagons across. And on this road a cloud of dust told that all sorts of vehicles had been impressed into service to carry the baseball-mad people to the scene.
Fine cars shot along, blowing their horns, and steady-going farm horses trotted evenly by the side of the road, all heading in the one direction. It was enough to thrill the boys belonging to the team to realize that all this excitement in the county was caused by their crossing bats with the Bellport High nine.
“Poor old Clifford never got a peep in this year,” mocked Jack Comfort, said to be the best chaser after flies the school had ever known, and who guarded center field.