“There isn’t a crooked bone in his head,” laughed Clara, making a face at him as he threatened her with his fist.
“The contract is enough,” said Joe; “but even if I were a free agent, I wouldn’t go with the new league and leave McRae in the hole. I feel that I owe him a lot for the way he has treated me. He took me from a second-string team and gave me a chance to make good on the Giants. He took a chance in offering me a three-year contract in place of one. I’m getting four thousand, five hundred a year, which is a good big sum whatever way you look at it. And you remember how promptly he came across with that thousand dollars for winning twenty games last season.” 7
“We remember that, don’t we, Momsey?” said Clara, patting her mother’s hand.
“I should say we did,” replied Mrs. Matson, while a suspicious moisture came into her eyes. “Will we ever forget the day when we opened that letter from the dear boy, and the thousand-dollar bill fell out on the table? It gave us all the happiest time we have had in all our lives.”
Jim, too, mentally blessed that big bill which had brought the Matson family to witness the World’s Series games and so had enabled him to meet Joe’s charming sister. Perhaps that vivacious young lady read what was passing in his mind, for her eyes suddenly dropped as they met Jim’s eloquent ones.
Joe flushed at this reference to his generosity, and Clara was quick to cover her own slight confusion by rallying her brother.
“He’s blushing!” she declared.
“I’m not,” denied Joe stoutly, getting still redder.
“You are so,” averred his sister in mock alarm. “Stop it, Joe, before it gets to your hair. I don’t want a red-headed brother.”
Joe made a dash at his tormentor, but she eluded him and got into another room.