"I am sorry," she said in a low, hurt voice, "but I am afraid we can't play the game, after all. The team is—is not coming."
For the message read:
Tell Horace Hibbs, baseball park, that no train will leave Elkana for Belden before night. Too far and too late to use automobile. We are getting ready to start back home.—Leland.
If the Belden boy spoke to her, Molly did not hear him. For a time, indeed, the measured pound-pound-pound of her heart tolled so loudly that it deafened her to all else. Not till her quickening ears counted the three strokes of some belled clock in town did she become conscious of the babel about her.
It was time for the game to begin. To the rhythm of thousands of stamping feet, the fans were dinning, "Start the game! Start the game!" Off down the road, outside the park, a muffled roar grew and doubled in volume, like distant thunder coming closer and closer. It rumbled to the very gate; it died to a faint putter. As the great swinging doors flung wide, it belched forth once more, nerve-racking, ear-rending.
Then Molly gasped and stared.
Into the ball park rolled the queerest contrivance she had ever seen—a great engine, running on broad, endless belts instead of wheels, and towing behind it a half-loaded hayrack.
"It's a farm tractor!" said a startled voice below her.
"It's the Lakeville baseball team!" screamed Molly watching Bunny Payton and Bi Jones jump from the hayrack, with at least seven other boys ready to spill over the sides.
She experienced a sudden absurd pity for the man who wanted to forfeit the game, that he might make a speech, and for the blue-eyed, freckled Belden captain who was about to lead his team to defeat, and for all those fans who counted confidently on a Belden victory.