It was a hard hit ball, that even Sheffield, Lakeville's regular third baseman, would have done well to knock down, much less to field cleanly for an out. S. S. missed it altogether. Under the circumstances, this was a pardonable error. But his sudden leap, backward and to one side, which threatened a collision with the Belden runner coming from second, made the play look bad.
The runner halted instinctively for a fatal moment. S. S., now between him and the plate, lunged awkwardly for the ball, without getting his hands anywhere near it, and it shot between his legs against the Belden boy.
"Out!" boomed the umpire; "hit by batted ball."
The Belden coacher on third clucked, just clucked. He did not say a single word. But when S. S. identified him as Bonner, whom he had already twice offended, he realized what the boy was thinking. And it was ridiculously wrong! S. S. had not missed the grounder deliberately; he had tried with all his scant skill to get his hands on the ball.
What was the use, anyhow?
S. S. did not bat in the last half of the fifth, which proved a quick inning. There was a caught fly, a screaming single that kindled hope, and a fast double play that snuffed it as abruptly as it had flamed. Then Belden came to bat again.
Bunny disposed of the first two batters by forcing them to hit weak flies to the infield, but the third lined far out to right, and pulled up at third before Prissler retrieved the ball. Playing deep for the next batter, S. S. saw the Belden captain stroll up to the plate, grinning cheerfully. He hoped with all his heart that Bunny would fan him; if he did, S. S. resolved to take revenge for Bonner's implied insults by making some casual remark about the way not to hit 'em out. He was beginning to hate that complacent, smiling youngster.
As S. S. waited for Bunny to pitch, his keen eyes, trained to observe by scoutcraft, detected something that made him chuckle outright. The bat which Bonner was waving belligerently over the plate was the same one Bunny had used in the preceding inning, when he hit into a double play. At the time, S. S. had marveled at the weak grounder his usually reliable captain dribbled to the shortstop's waiting hands, and he had found the answer in the broken bat, which had cracked in its impact against the ball. And now, blissfully ignorant of the defect, Mister Blue Eyes expected to drive in a run with that decrepit bit of ash. Why, he couldn't hit it out of the diamond in a thousand years!
Bunny pitched a ball just wide of the plate. The batter eyed it without swinging.
S. S. chuckled again. But suddenly, without any reason at all, the gurgle died in his throat. Something stronger than his own desire seemed to yank him out of himself, and words that came quite without bidding formed on his lips and were spoken.