Under Boy Scout Colors

by Joseph Bushnell Ames

The latter part of the speech, especially, was typical of the handsome Ranleigh. He ran the ball-team as he did a good many other things, reaching decisions more often through impulse and prejudice than from a mature judgment. There could be no question of his knowledge of the game or his ability as a pitcher. The latter was really extraordinary for a fellow of his age and experience, and this, perhaps, was what made him so intolerant of less gifted players. At all events, he had a little trick of sarcasm which did not endear him to those on whom it was exercised. Most fellows take the ordinary sort of “calling down,” especially if it has been earned, with a fair amount of grace, but it rarely does any good to rub it in, as Ranny so often did.

“You’d think he was a little tin god on wheels the way he struts up and down, digging into the fellows in that uppish, sneering way,” Court Parker heatedly remarked one afternoon late in the season. “You might think he never made any errors himself.”

“I don’t suppose he really means anything by it,” returned Dale Tompkins, rather deprecatingly. For some time that day he had been watching Phelps and wondering rather wistfully whether Ranny was ever going to entirely forget that impulsive flare-up of his so many months ago. For a long time, to be sure, there had been few signs of active animosity from the blond chap. It would be well-nigh impossible for any boy to long maintain that excessive coldness toward a fellow with whom he was so often and so intimately thrown. Especially since the beginning of baseball practice there had been a good deal of intercourse between them, but always Dale was conscious of a deep reserve looming up between them like some invisible, insurmountable barrier. And there were times when he would have given the world to break that barrier down.

Parker sniffed. “Then why does he do it? It only gets the fellows raw without doing a scrap of good. You’re a great one to stand up for him, Tommy! He’s treated you mean as dirt. Didn’t he promise to let you pitch in some of the games?”

“Why, n-o; it wasn’t exactly a promise.”

“It was the same thing. He made you think he was going to put you in, and all spring you’ve worked your arm nearly off, pitching to the bunch. Then when a regular game came along he stepped into the box himself and hogged the whole thing nine innings. It’s been the same ever since, except last week when you went in for one miserable inning after we’d won the game. I call that a–a–an insult. It looked as if he thought you weren’t any good.”

Dale shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe he does,” he returned quietly. “He’s a lot better pitcher than I am.”

“Is he? Humph! He’s nowhere near as steady, let me tell you. Wait till he gets up against a real team, and I shouldn’t wonder a bit if he blew up. He did last year, and we mighty near lost the series. He can’t stand being joshed, and Troop One is just the bunch to do it.”

Dale laughed a little and set down his companion’s disparaging remarks to temper rather than to any real belief in what he was saying. He had never seen Ranny pitch before this season, but he could not imagine him losing his superb control and “blowing up.” He would have given anything for a chance to pitch against Troop One, but he had long ago given up hoping, Ranny made it only too clear that he meant to keep that honor for himself, just as he had monopolized the pitching in all the other games. Dale couldn’t quite make up his mind whether this was from a deliberate desire to shut him out, or because the team captain really lacked faith in his ability and was afraid to trust him. Feeling as he did toward the other–liking, admiring him still, almost in spite of himself, Tompkins rather hoped it was the latter case. In either event, however, he was obliged to content himself with the cold comfort that with Ranleigh Phelps pitching his best Troop Five was practically certain to win.

The inter-troop baseball series had been arranged so that the two strongest teams were matched together on the concluding day. Both had won every game they had played so far, and the result this Saturday afternoon would decide the championship.