Nobody knew; but Jason Elderkin, the storekeeper, leaned over his counter, pausing in his occupation of measuring off a yard of Kentucky jean, and said:
"I tell you what it is, Judge, that's the likeliest young fellow in these parts. He lives with his mother over to Sugar Grove, and started in to read law with 'Squire Welby, over to Dean Center; but he had to give it up on account of his father's being killed by being crushed under a tree that he was felling. Awful blow to the boy, likewise to his ma. The Jonesvilles pay him something for playing with them; so I've hearn tell."
"WHAT WE WANT, GENTLEMEN, IS MUSCLE AND TRAINING."—Page 37.
This suggestion created a momentary stir in the congress, for the gathering had by this time assumed such a character. Two or three of the speakers did not see how anybody could think of making a professional club out of an amateur, such as the Jonesville Nine pretended to be. If Larry Boyne was paid a salary, why were not others? And if salaries were paid to the men, it was a professional club, wasn't it?
"I don't know enough about what we may call the etiquette of the game to decide what is an amateur and what a professional club," remarked Judge Howell, in slow and dignified accents. "But if we are in earnest in this proposition to organize a really creditable base ball club in Catalpa, and I take it that we are,"—and here he glanced at "Rough and Ready," who had slid forward into sight again,—"and I take it that we are, I say, we may as well make up our minds to put our hands into our pockets and help the boys a little, otherwise we shall go down again."
"Right as a trivet, Jedge," cried Rough and Ready. "Right as a trivet; for unless we take hold all together, we shell go down to where flour is nine dollars a bar'l and no money to buy it at that; 'scuse me, gen'lemen, but I'm rough and ready, you know. I allow that the Jedge here speaks the senterments of the community." And the old man retreated into the depths of his 'coonskin cap.
The oracle of the grocery store was right in saying that Judge Howell spoke the sentiments of the community in regard to the necessity of taking hold in earnest and organizing a base ball club, if anything serious was to be accomplished. The project took definite shape at once.
"Why," said Weeks, the bridge-tender, who, from his position, came into contact with half of the townspeople, nearly every day, as they crossed and recrossed the river. "Why, every town north of Bloomington, as far as I know, has got a champion base ball nine, and why should Catalpa be behind the rest? That's what I want to know. And if we are to have champions, we have got to take hold and help the boys, like they do in other towns. And the very first thing I want to see done is the licking of them Jonesvilles. They are so everlastingly set up by their carrying off the pennant that they are ready to challenge all creation. So I'm told."
Around many an evening fire and in many a lounging-place in the town, the question was animatedly discussed, as autumn waned into winter, and most outdoor sports became a little unseasonable. It was decided, in that informal and irregular way with which a western community settles its internal affairs, that there must be in Catalpa a first-rate base ball nine, and that it must be organized before the spring opened.