“You may—if you don’t go to pieces the way you once did.”
“Say, what you talking about?” demanded Sam, with some warmth. “I can pitch all right, and don’t you forget it.” He seemed unnecessarily aroused.
“Oh, I know you can pitch,” spoke Darrell easily, “only I don’t want you to be too sure about it. You know the Resolutes of Rocky Ford have a strong team this season, and their pitcher is——”
“Oh, I know what Hen Littell is as well as you,” broke in Sam. “He thinks he’s a whole lot, but you wait. I’ve got a new drop ball, and——”
“Well, then, you’d ought to have been out on the diamond this morning, practicing with Bart Ferguson. He’s got a new catching glove, and if you and he can connect on the curves we may do some good work. But I wish you’d had some practice this morning.”
“So do I, but dad made me help him, and I couldn’t very well get off. I tried to sneak away, but he got on to my game and put a stop to it.”
“Oh, well, of course if you had to help your father that’s different,” spoke Darrell, who was a manly young chap, somewhat in contrast to Sam, who was not as upright as he might have been. Sam had a boastful and confident air that caused many to dislike him, but as he was the best pitcher the Silver Stars had had in some seasons his short-comings were overlooked.
And certainly Sam had been pitching pretty good ball thus far. True, at times, he “went up in the air,” but all pitchers are likely to do this on occasions. Sam had great belief in his own ability.
There was considerable baseball feeling in the little town of Riverside, located on the Appelby River, in one of our New England States. Though the nine was an amateur one, and composed of lads ranging from fourteen to nineteen years of age, yet many fast games had been seen on the village diamond, which was kept in good shape by volunteers. A small admission sum was charged to view the contests and from this the boys were able to buy their uniforms, balls, bats, and other things. With some of the money the grounds were renovated from time to time, and the fences, bleachers and grandstand kept in order.
There was a sort of informal county league existing among several nines in the towns surrounding Riverside, and perhaps the bitterest rivals of the Silver Stars were the Resolutes of Rocky Ford, a place about five miles farther up the stream than Riverside. To-day one of the games in the series was to take place, and the occasion, being Saturday, was a gala one in the home town of the Silver Stars, on whose grounds the contest was to take place.