There were two letters awaiting him when he reached his room. One was from Krag saying:
“Now is the time to be careful. It is harder, sometimes, to stand prosperity than it is to stand abuse.”
The other was a long, scrawly note from Helen Baldwin.
“I have heard of your good luck in being made captain,” she wrote. “Let me congratulate you. I do wish you would give Harry a chance.”
Larry whistled softly to himself as he read it, striving to guess how Helen Baldwin had heard the news so quickly.
CHAPTER XXI
Temptation
The next week was one of worry and apprehension for Larry Kirkland. He had feared, most of all, that he would arouse the enmity of some of the candidates when he reduced the size of the squad, but to his surprise he found this task easy. In the first three days more than half of the candidates voluntarily retired, discovering for themselves that they were not expert enough to hope to replace the others. Larry was compelled to issue an order that all candidates who desired to retire from the squad consult with him before quitting, for he feared losing some promising material because the players might grow discouraged, or think themselves poorer players than they really were. By the end of the first week, the squad was reduced to eighteen players, and after careful study, Larry chose his first team. The team was made up of Trumbull, cf; Winans, catcher; Katsura and Arksall, pitchers; Torney, 1b; Jacobs, 2b; Wares, ss; Allen rf; Dalmores, cf.
Larry had appealed to Krag for assistance in choosing his men and for the first time the big ex-pitcher had refused, declaring that from that time on Larry must exercise his own judgment, but warning him against “playing favorites.”
Of the team chosen, only Jacobs had elected to take a stand against Larry’s theories. He did not actively oppose the captain in anything, but constantly obeyed orders with a half-sneering smile, or a side remark directed to some other player, that told, more plainly than words, his idea that Larry’s plan of playing ball was wrong. The attitude of Jacobs, more than anything else, served to harass and annoy the young captain. He hesitated to force an open rupture, yet realized that the behavior of Jacobs was having a bad effect upon the team in general. He ignored the contemptuous looks and laughs for several days.
“I’ve got to do something about Jacobs,” he said to Clark. “He is against everything I do, and he is not getting into the spirit of the team.”