Joe’s first visit was to the livery stable, where he told the proprietor of the accident.
“Hum! Well, I s’pose he was driving reckless like,” said Mr. Munn, who hired out old horses and older vehicles to such few of the townspeople as did not have their own rigs.
“No, he was going slowly,” said Joe. “I guess that wheel was pretty well rotted.”
“Mebby so. I’m glad I charged him a good price, and made him pay in advance. Yes, I’ll send out and get the rig. Much obliged to you, Joe. Did he pay ye for bringin’ him back?”
“No, I didn’t want anything,” and with this parting shot the young pitcher went on his way.
And, while he is jogging along to Birchville, musing over the recent happenings, I will, in a paragraph or two, tell you something more about our hero, since he is to occupy that place in these pages.
Those of you who have read the previous books in this series, need no introduction to the youth. But to those who pick up this volume to begin their acquaintance, I might state that in the initial book, called “Baseball Joe of the Silver Stars,” I related how he first began his upward climb as a pitcher.
Joe Matson lived with his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. John Matson, in the town of Riverside, in one of our New England states. Mr. Matson was an inventor of farming machinery, and after a hard struggle was now doing well financially.
Joe’s ambition, ever since he began to play baseball, had been to become a pitcher, and how he made the acquaintance of Tom Davis, the boy living back of him; how they became chums, and how Joe became a member of the Silver Stars nine is told in my first book.