“Oh, it’s all in the game!” Reggie had answered, assuming a cheerfulness he was far from feeling. “I have a hunch that I’ll run across him yet and bring him to a show-down.”
“I’ll keep my eyes wide open, too,” Joe assured him, “and if I find out anything that will be of the slightest help I’ll let you know at once.”
But it was not of Reggie that Joe was thinking, as he hurried home through the dusk of the short winter afternoon. For he carried in his hand a big official-looking letter that bore on the upper left-hand corner the name of the New York Baseball Club.
He felt sure that it contained the contract, concerning which there had been so much speculation in the Matson home for the last few days. But eager as he was to know what it contained, he had restrained himself until he reached home, so that all could read it together.
“Here it is at last, Momsey!” he shouted, as he burst into the warm bright sitting room waving the envelope above his head.
“Oh, I’m so glad!” began his mother fondly, while Clara was across the room like a whirlwind and snatching at the letter.
“Open it up, open it up!” she pleaded. “I’m nearly crazy to know what’s in it.”
“Little girls should be seen and not heard,” teased her brother, as he held it tantalizingly out of her reach.
But she tickled him under his arm so that he dropped it with such undignified haste that she got possession of the letter, and like a flash had put the table between them.
Into the laughing group came Mr. Matson, just returned from the Harvester Works.