“Well, we’ll see what next year will bring forth,” said Spike to Joe, at the wind-up of the baseball season. “You’re coming back; aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything now. Though, as a matter of fact, I didn’t expect to. I thought I’d take one year here, and if I could get on the ’varsity nine long enough to say I had been on it, I’d quit, and go in for the professional end of it. But, since I can’t, I’ll come back and make another stab at it.”
“That’s the way to talk. Well, I hope to be here, too.”
The Summer vacation came, and Joe had passed his examinations. Not brilliantly, but sufficiently well to enable him to enter the Sophomore class.
“And if I don’t make the ’varsity next Spring, it will be my own fault!” he cried, as he said good-bye to his chums and packed up for home.
The Summer passed pleasantly enough. Joe’s family took a cottage at a lake resort, and of course Joe organized a ball team among the temporary residents of the resort. A number of games were played, Joe pitching in fine style. One day a manager of one of the minor leagues attended a contest where Joe pitched, and when word of this was carried to our hero he had a nervous fit. But he pulled himself together, twirled magnificently, and was pleased to see the “magnate” nod approvingly. Though later, when someone offered to introduce Joe to him, the lad declined.
“I’ll wait until I’ve made a better reputation,” he declared. “I want the Yale Y before I go looking for other honors;” and he stuck to that.
“Joe seems to care more for college than you thought he would, father,” said Mrs. Matson, when it came time for her son to go back as a Sophomore for the next Fall term. “I think he’ll finish yet, and make us all proud of him.”
“Joe will never do anything that would not make us proud of him,” said his father. “But I rather fancy the reason he is so willing to go back to Yale is that he didn’t make the ’varsity baseball nine last season. There’s a rule against Freshmen, you know.”
“Oh dear!” lamented Mrs. Matson. “I did hope he would like college for its own sake, and not for baseball.”