JACK WINTERS’ BASEBALL TEAM
CHAPTER I
THREE BOYS OF CHESTER
“No use talking, Toby, there’s something on Jack’s mind of late, and it’s beginning to bother him a lot, I think!”
“Well, Steve, you certainly give me the creeps, that’s what you do, with your mysterious hints of all sorts of trouble hanging over our heads, just as they say the famous sword of that old worthy, Damocles, used to hang by a single hair, ready to fall. Look here, do you realize, Steve, what it would mean if Jack went and got himself rattled just now?”
“Huh! guess I do that, Toby, when, for one thing, we’re scheduled to go up against that terrible Harmony nine day after tomorrow.”
“And if Jack is getting cold feet already, on account of something or other, I can see our finish now, Steve.”
“Still, we beat them in that first great game, don’t let’s forget that, Toby, and take what consolation we can from the fact.”
“Oh! rats! we know how that came about. They’d never been beaten the entire season by any team in the county, and had grown a bit careless. Because they had a clean record they believed they could just about wipe up the ground with poor old Chester, a slow town that up to this year had never done anything worth while in connection with boys’ outdoor sports.”
“That’s right, Toby. Never will I forget how humiliated I felt when they struck town on that glorious day. They came in a lot of cars and motor-trucks, with the Harmony Band playing, ‘Lo, the Conquering Hero Comes,’ and with whoops and toots galore from the crowds of faithful rooters. Why, bless you, they felt so confident of winning that they even left their star battery at home to rest up, and used the second string slab-team. But, oh! my eye! it was a saddened lot of Harmony fellows that wended their way back home, everybody trying to explain what had struck them to the tune of eleven to five. Wow!”