“I won’t if I can help it, sis.”
Next morning, Joe was in two states of mind. He was delighted at being the regular pitcher for the Stars, but he was downcast when he thought that to go to the boarding school was now out of the question. And that it would be impossible for him to think of it under the present financial state of the family was made plain to him when he spoke of the matter to his mother.
“I’m sorry, Joe,” she said, “but you’ll have to give up the idea.”
“All right,” he answered, as cheerfully as he could, but he went out of the house quickly for there was a suspicious moisture in his eyes, and a lump in his throat that would not seem to go down, no matter how hard he swallowed.
“Oh, I’m a chump!” he finally exclaimed. “I shouldn’t want to go to an expensive boarding school when dad is in such trouble. And yet—and yet—Oh! I do want to get on a big team and pitch!”
In the days that followed Joe saw little of his father, for Mr. Matson was out of town trying to get matters in shape for the court proceedings. But Joe was kept busy at practice with the Stars, and in playing games.
The season was in full swing and the Silver Stars seemed to have struck a streak of winning luck. Some said it was Joe’s pitching, for really he was doing very well. Others laid it just to luck and talked darkly of a “slump.”
“There won’t be any slump if you fellows keep your eyes open, and hit and run,” said the manager.
The county league season was drawing to a close, and as it stood now the championship practically lay between the Stars and their old enemies the Resolutes. There was some talk of playing off a tie, if it should come to that, but when Darrell mentioned this to the Resolute manager he was told that the latter team had all dates filled to the end of the season.