“I’ll see you to-night,” he called to his chum, as they parted, “and we’ll arrange for some more practice. I think it’s doing you good.”
“I know my arm is a bit sore,” complained Joe.
“Then you want to take good care of it,” said Tom quickly. “All the authorities in the book say that a pitching arm is too valuable to let anything get the matter with it. Bathe it with witch hazel to-night.”
“I will. So long.”
As Joe had not many lessons to prepare that night, and as it was still rather early and he did not want to go home, he decided to take a little walk out in the country for a short distance. As he trudged along he was thinking of many things, but chief of all was his chances for becoming at least a substitute pitcher on the Silver Stars.
“If I could get in the box, and was sure of going to boarding school, I wouldn’t ask anything else in this world,” said Joe to himself. Like all boys he had his ambitions, and he little realized how such ambitions would change as he became older. But they were sufficient for him now.
Before he knew it he had covered several miles, for the day was a fine Spring one, just right for walking, and his thoughts, being subject to quick changes, his feet kept pace with them.
As he made a turn in the road he saw, just ahead of him, an old building that had once, so some of the boys had told him, been used as a spring-house for cooling the butter and milk of the farm to which it belonged. But it had now fallen into disuse, though the spring was there yet.
The main part of it was covered by the shed, but the water ran out into a hollowed-out tree trunk where a cocoanut shell hung as a dipper.
“Guess I’ll have a drink,” mused Joe. “I’m as dry as a fish and that’s fine water.” He had once taken some when he and Tom Davis took a country stroll.