Under Boy Scout Colors

by Joseph Bushnell Ames

With the opening of the ninth it looked as if Tompkins was right. Troop Five had failed to score further, but Ranny entered the box apparently as cool and self-contained as he had been at the beginning of the game. Quietly and efficiently he took the first batter in hand, and in spite of the joshing that at once began on the other side, he lured the boy into popping up a little infield fly that was easily smothered by the second baseman.

The next fellow up, however, sent out a long fly to right-field which Blair unaccountably muffed. Instantly the shrill, nagging voice of “Red” Conners pierced the din.

“Up in a balloon!” he yelled. “Little Lambie’s ready for the stable. He’s done. I knew he couldn’t stand up before a regular team once we got his number.”

Irritating as a mosquito’s buzz, the strident voice rasped Dale Tompkins’s spirit like a file, and a rush of sympathy for the pitcher swept over him. He knew how annoying it is to be blamed for another’s fault, and the error was distinctly Blair’s for muffing that fly. If only Phelps wouldn’t pay any attention to the nagging! He had only to put out two more men and win the game. Surely he must realize that the fellows didn’t mean anything they said; that they were only trying–

He caught his breath with a swift, anxious intake as the ball left Ranny’s fingers and an instant later went sailing over the infield. It was a clean hit and brought forth a roar of delight from Troop One’s adherents, who at once redoubled their efforts to tease the angry pitcher. It wasn’t baseball, in its better sense, nor did it show the real scout spirit, but it was human nature. Seeing the game slipping from them, they took the only way they had been able to discover to turn the tables. Ranny, plainly furious, pitched hastily to the next batter and hit him in the arm. The bases were filled, with only one out.

“They’ve rattled him, all right,” said the regretful voice of Paul Trexler at Tompkins’s elbow. “Great Scott! He can’t be going to stick it out!”

For a moment it looked that way. Flushed and furious, his snapping eyes sweeping the circle of grinning faces, Ranny stood motionless for a moment or two in the middle of the diamond. He even toed the slab and took a signal from Ted MacIlvaine. Then, of a sudden, his arm dropped to his side, and he stalked across the infield toward the bench. By the time he reached it his face was white, save where the grip of teeth had left little crimson dents in his under lip. His level, almost hostile, glance fixed Dale Tompkins coldly.

“Go in, Tompkins,” he said curtly, and tossed him the ball.

Dale caught it instinctively, and, scrambling to his feet, pulled off his sweater mechanically. His chance had come, but somehow he did not want it now. He would infinitely rather have had Ranny keep his head and his control and finish the game he had started off so well. The hurt and shame in that white face smote on him with a sense of physical pain, made him feel in a curious, involved fashion as if he were in some manner responsible for the humiliation of his hero.

A moment later all this vanished from his mind as he crossed the diamond, his heart beating unevenly, every sense concentrated in the task before him. He was greeted by a burst of joshing from Conners and the others, but he scarcely heard it. Quite without self-consciousness as he was, the remarks of the crowd, with most of whom he was on friendly terms, meant nothing to him. It was merely an obvious attempt to rattle him to which he paid no heed, so intent was he on gaging the boy who stood, bat in hand, a little to one side of the plate.