“Let me try to throw a ball across the room,” the pitcher begged of Tom about nine o’clock. “I want to see if I can move it.”
“Not a move!” sternly forbade the nurse. “You just keep quiet. If you can pitch in the morning you’ll be lucky.”
At intervals until nearly midnight Tom rubbed the arm and then, knowing that Joe must have rest, he installed himself on a couch in his chum’s room, and let Joe go to sleep, with his arm wrapped in hot towels saturated with witch hazel, a warm flat iron keeping the heat up.
“Well, how goes it?” Joe heard some one say, as he opened his eyes to find the sun streaming in his room. The young pitcher tried to raise his arm but could not. It seemed as heavy as lead and a look of alarm came over his face.
“That’s all right,” explained Tom. “Wait until I get off some of the towels. It looks like an Egyptian mummy now.”
Tom loosed the wrappings and then, to Joe’s delight, he found that he could move his arm with only a little pain resulting. He was about to swing it, as he did when pitching, but Tom called out:
“Hold on now! Wait until I rub it a bit and get up the circulation.” The rubbing did good, and Joe found that he had nearly full control of the hand and arm. They were a bit stiff to be sure, but much better.
“Now for a good breakfast, some more rubbing, then some more, and a little light practice,” decided Tom, and Joe smiled, but he gave in and ate a hearty meal.
Once more faithful Tom massaged the arm, and rubbed in a salve designed to make the sore muscles and tendons limber. Not until then would he allow Joe to go down in the yard and throw a few balls.
The delivery of the first one brought a look of agony on the pitcher’s face, but he kept at it until he was nearly himself again. Then came more rubbing and another application of salve and liniment, until Joe declared that there wouldn’t be any skin left on his arm, and that he’d smell like a walking drug store for a week.