“I may not be home early,” he told her. “I’m going down to the fairgrounds.”
“What for?” she asked quickly. “There isn’t a show there, is there?”
“No, but I want to do a little baseball practicing, and that place is well out of the way.”
“Baseball practice on the fairgrounds. How——”
But she did not wait to finish her question for she exclaimed:
“My cake is burning in the oven. Good-bye, Joe!” and she ran to the kitchen.
“I wonder what Sam Morton will say?” Joe reflected as he walked along. “I certainly hope his arm isn’t lame, even if it was as much his fault as mine. I don’t want him to tell the fellows I’m to blame for him losing a game—if he should.”
Fearing that the same thing might happen to him as when Clara laughed at him for having the two baseballs in his pockets, Joe slipped to his desk as soon as he reached the school, and hid the balls away back among his books. The balls were two old ones he had used when on the Bentville nine, and they were still in fair condition.
“I’m not going to let the fellows get on to the fact that I’m practicing, until there’s more of a chance for me than there is now,” thought our hero, as he went out on the school grounds to watch the lads at play.