A shout arose from the group of baseball men that swelled into a perfect yell of delight. They surrounded Joe and pounded and mauled him hilariously until he laughingly protested that they’d make him a cripple anyway if they didn’t let up. The medical men looked on, smiling understandingly, as they packed up their testing instruments and prepared to leave.
Good news travels fast, and the anxious crowd of Giants waiting below stairs for the verdict knew perfectly well the significance of the happy tumult above. They tore upstairs and piled into the room with little ceremony, a laughing, noisy, rapturous bunch, lifted in a moment from the depths of gloom to the heights of joy. They could scarcely have been more elated if they had just won the championship.
It was some time before the hullabaloo subsided and his teammates filed out of the room, filled with new heart and hope, leaving Joe with those who had been there during the examination.
“What the doctors say has lifted a thousand tons from my mind, Joe,” said McRae. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night worrying over it.”
“Same here,” echoed Robbie. “It seemed as if bad luck had handed us a knockout blow right at the beginning of the season. But, glory be, we were only borrowin’ trouble after all. You’re dead sure about it, doctor,” he added, appealing to Doctor Wilson, who was standing next to him.
“As sure as we can be of anything,” replied the doctor. “All Mr. Matson has to do is to let his arm rest for two or three days until the inflammation has wholly disappeared, and he’ll be ready to go in and pitch the game of his life. He had, of course, better let Doctor Templeton dress the arm. But there is nothing seriously wrong.”
“I hope you gentlemen will have a chance to see him pitch,” said McRae. “If you should be in New York or in any city of the circuit when the Giants are playing, just ring me up and I’ll see that you have the best box in the stand.”
They thanked him and, after shaking hands all around, departed, each of the specialists with a handsome check in his pocket that McRae made out on the spot. Had it been ten times as much he would not have cared, so jubilant was he at their verdict in the case of his star pitcher. Doctor Templeton’s check would come later.
“Now let them bring on their Pirates and their Cubs and all the rest of them,” exulted Robbie, as he and McRae went out on the veranda, which had a much more cheerful aspect for them now than it had had the night before. “An’ say, John, I was just thinking—” He hesitated. “Just thinking——”
“Well, go ahead and spill it, you big stiff,” said McRae jovially, as he settled down in his seat.