“I suppose so,” returned Mabel, as Joe drew her closer. “But, oh, Joe, I didn’t want to distress you about it. I was afraid that it would weigh on your mind and affect your work this season, and I knew how your heart was set on making a record. It was just for your sake, dearest, that I kept it to myself. Of course I would have told you sooner or later.”
“Well, now Mabel, listen to me,” said Joe, as he placed a chair and sat down beside her. “I don’t know what fellow has done this. But whoever he is, he is a coward as well as a rascal, and will never dare to carry out his threats against me. And even if he should, you know that I am perfectly able to take care of myself. You know that others have tried to injure me, but I always came out on top. Fleming tried it; Braxton tried it, and you know what happened to them. Now what I want you to promise me is to banish this beastly thing entirely from your memory. Treat it with the contempt it deserves. Will you promise me this?”
“I will promise, Joe,” answered Mabel. “I’ll try to forget that it ever happened.”
“That’s the girl,” commended Joe. “And to set your mind at rest I’ll promise on my part to take especially good care of myself. That’s a bargain.”
But while Joe had secured the promise of Mabel to forget the letter, he had made no such promise himself, and he vowed that if he could ever get any trace of the writer of that letter he would give him the punishment he so richly deserved.
The train Baseball Joe and Jim Barclay would take was to leave late that afternoon.
Somehow general knowledge of that fact had got abroad, and the boys were dismayed, on reaching the station, to find that half the population of the little town had gathered there to say good-by and wish them luck. To many of the townspeople, Joe was a bigger man than the President of the United States. He had put Riverside “on the map,” and through the columns of the papers they followed his triumphs and felt that in a sense they were their own.
Of course Joe appreciated this affectionate interest, but just at the moment all he wanted was to be alone with Mabel. He had already bidden his mother a loving farewell at the house, as she was not well enough to go to the station. Jim also had eyes and thoughts only for Clara.
But there was no help for it, and they had to exchange greetings and good wishes with the kindly friends who clustered around them. At the last minute, however, the young folks had a chance to say a few words to each other, and what they did not have time to say was eloquent in their eyes.