Paul Grayson had not attended Mr. Morton’s school a fortnight before every one knew that ball was his favorite game. This preference on the part of the new boy did not entirely please Benny Mallow, who preferred to have his new friend play marbles, and with him alone, because then he could talk to him a great deal; whereas at ball, even “town-ball,” which needed but four boys to a game, there was not much opportunity for talking, while at baseball the chances were less, even were Benny not so generally out of breath when he met Grayson on a “base” that conversation was impossible.
But Grayson clung to ball; he did not seem to care much for it in the school-yard, which, indeed, was rather small for such games, but after school was dismissed in the afternoons he always tried to get up a game on the new grounds, and he generally succeeded. Even boys who did not care particularly for the sport had been told by Mr. Morton that about the only diversion of the wretched men in the jail was to look out the window while ball-playing was going on; and as Mr. Morton had begun to attain special popularity through his work among the prisoners, the boys who liked him, as most of them did, were glad to help him to the small extent they were able.
“I really can’t see why Grayson should be so fond of ball,” said Canning Forbes one afternoon, as he and several other boys lay under the big elm-tree behind the court-house and criticised the boys who were playing. “He isn’t much of a pitcher, he doesn’t bat very well, and he often loses splendid chances, while he’s catcher, by not seeming to see the ball when it’s coming. I wonder if his eyes can be bad?”
“I don’t believe they are,” said Will Palmer; “he is keen-sighted enough about everything else. Absent-mindedness is his great trouble; every once in a while he gets his eyes fixed on something as if he couldn’t move them.”
“He gets into a brown-study, you mean,” suggested Forbes.
“That’s it,” assented Will.
“He’s thinking about the splendors of the royal home that he is being kept away from,” said Napoleon Nott. “You just ought to read what sort of a place a royal home is,” continued Notty. “I’ll bring up a book about it some day, and read it aloud to all of you fellows.”
“No you won’t, Notty,” said Canning Forbes; “not if we have any legs left to run away with.”
Some internal hints that supper-time was approaching broke up the game, and the boys moved off the ground, by twos and threes, until only Paul and Benny remained. Paul seemed in no particular hurry to start, and as Benny never seemed to imagine that Paul could see himself safely home from any place, he remained too.
“Benny,” said Paul, suddenly, “did you ever see any one in jail?”