“Don’t need them! You don’t mean to say that the game is over—you haven’t lost the championship; have you?” and the professor looked pained, for he was a lover of base ball, and in his journeyings he faithfully read the accounts of the games at Westfield, where his friends the Smith boys attended. “Have you lost the pennant?” asked the professor sadly.
“Not yet, but we’re in a fair way to if this keeps on,” murmured Cap, for the score was seven to nine in favor of Tuckerton.
“But why doesn’t Bill need his glasses then?” asked Mr. Clatter.
“Because I can see to pitch without them,” answered our hero. “A funny thing just happened, Professor,” and Bill told about his fall and the odd effect it had had on his vision. The traveling medicine man looked interested.
“Yes, that’s exactly how it may have taken place,” he declared, as Cap stated his theory. “Here, let me have a look at you, Bill.”
“Say,” angrily cried Burke, captain of the Tuckerton nine, “if this is a ball game let’s go on with it, and if it’s a hospital for injured players we’ll get off the field.”
“That’s right,” added Hedden, the pitcher. “We’re here to win the pennant, not to listen to fairy stories.”
“Play ball!” yelled Brower, the catcher.
“Easy now,” counseled Professor Clatter. “It won’t take me but a moment to look at Bill’s head, and then the game can go on. You don’t seem to realize that something extraordinary has taken place here.”
“It will be extraordinary if we ever play ball again,” remarked Burke, sarcastically. But the professor did not heed him. He was looking at the cut on Bill’s head.