“Yes,” she replied softly.
“And help me to pitch to win,” added Tom, and he tried to look into her face, but she averted her eyes.
There was great celebrating in Randall that night. Some of the boys wanted to light historic bonfires along the river, which blazes were always kindled on great occasions, but Mr. Lighton reminded the lads that they had still to win the contest with Fairview before they would be champions, and he urged that the game was no easy one. So milder forms of making glad were substituted. Tom was the hero of the hour, and he felt that there had been made up to him everything that he had suffered in being kept so long on the scrub.
It was dark in the apartments of Langridge. No one had seen him since the game and few cared about him.
“He got just what was coming to him,” declared Sid vindictively. “He’d have thrown the game for a drink of liquor and a cigarette. Pah! I’ve no use for such a chap.”
“Well, maybe he didn’t mean to do it,” replied Tom, who could afford to be generous. “He may have taken some to steady his nerves and it went to his head.”
“Rats! It ought to have gone to his pitching arm. But I’ve got to bone away. Exams are getting nearer and nearer every day, and the closer they come the less I seem to know about Latin. From now on I’m going to think, eat, sleep and dream in Latin.”
The following Saturday the team went to the Indian school at Carlisle and played a game with the red men. It was a hard-fought battle and the aborigines made the mistake of putting in a lot of substitutes for the first few innings, for they had a poor opinion of Randall. But the visitors rolled up a good score and Tom was a whirlwind at pitching, holding the red men down to a low score. Then the Indians awakened and sent in some of their best players, but the Randalls had the game “in the refrigerator,” as Holly Cross said, and took it home with them, despite the war cries of the redskins and their efforts to annex the scalp-locks of the palefaces.
The winning of this game against what was generally considered to be a much stronger team than that of Randall did much to infuse an aggressive spirit into the latter players. The trip, too, acted as a sort of tonic.
“Boys, I think we’re fit to make the fight of our lives a week from to-day,” declared Captain Woodhouse as he and the team were on their way back to college. “We’ll wipe the diamond up with Fairview and then maybe that banner won’t look fine at the top of our flagstaff.”