AN ALARM OF FIRE
Palms propping his chin, elbows braced on knees, Specs McGrew squatted on the family's front steps, staring out at the street.
"I wish it was over," he grumbled. "Why don't Roundy and Jump come? Say, Bunny, if I had a five-dollar bill in my pocket, I'd give it to anybody who could pick me up right out of this morning and set me down somewhere to-morrow morning."
Bunny laughed. "Oh, the game won't be as bad as all that. Still, if you don't want to play, I guess we can persuade S. S. to take your place at short."
"Huh?" Specs twisted his head round. "Let S. S. play against Belden instead of me! Not if I know it! Just the same, I wish it was over, and down in your heart I bet you do, too."
The peace of a June morning hung over Lakeville, a quiet that was even deeper than usual; for not only was this the day when the Lakeville High baseball team went to Belden to play the last game of the season, but it was also the day of Dunkirk's great Home Coming Picnic; and a long excursion train, crowded to the platforms, had left the village at 7:30. The town was deserted. As Specs put it, "A cyclone or a fire could walk right down Main Street without having a chance to say 'hello' to anybody." In spite of the quiet, though, there were at least a generous baker's dozen of boys in and around Lakeville whose hearts beat hippety-hop whenever they stopped to think of the game that afternoon.
For the baseball season had gone well. The whole school year, indeed, had been a procession of athletic triumphs, first in football, then in basketball, and finally in baseball. Best of all, every last boy and girl in Lakeville High was ready to admit that the Black Eagle Scouts had done their share and more. In the beginning, of course, the patrol was a target for scorn; but gradually, as its members proved that the Scout way of doing things was a good way, and made for harmony and loyalty and the pull-together spirit that won victories, sentiment began to swing toward the organization until, in the end, it was pretty generally agreed that to be a Boy Scout was to be somebody worth while in high school.
With two championships stowed safely away, it was only natural that the baseball season should have begun with a hip-hip-hurray. With but two exceptions, every boy in school had tried for the team, and the lucky candidates had won their places only after the hardest kind of struggle. Of the Scouts, Roundy was at first base, Jump at second, and Specs at short. Bunny and Bi alternated in the pitcher's box. For the rest of the school, Barrett caught, Sheffield held down third base, and the outfield was made up of Collins, Kiproy and Turner.
Professor Leland had proved a most enthusiastic coach, and the lively competition for places on the team had kept all the players on tiptoe. The nine, moreover, had run on greased rollers. Buck Claxton himself had nominated Bunny for captaincy of the team, and by the best sort of example had shown that the leader's orders were law. With this spirit and discipline, the team had progressed steadily from victory to victory. Its one setback had come from a semi-professional outfit of Dunkirk, and that score had been only seven to four against Lakeville. They had beaten Dunkirk High, Grant City, Deerfield, Mason, Harrison City and Elkana. Belden, slated for the last game of the season, was not only the one team in the district that remained undefeated, but also it could and did lay claim to the championship of the State. To beat Belden, therefore, meant to round out the school year with pennants in three major sports.
"Why didn't Bonfire try for the baseball team?" Specs asked suddenly. "I've never understood that. He tried for everything else."