So, when the Judge, that night, drew his motherless child to his knee, she brought to him the list of players which she had made out.
"Perhaps you will think it mannish in me, papa," she said, "but I have made out a list of the players in the new Catalpa nine. I have a whim that this is about the way they will be placed."
The Judge took the crumpled and blurred paper, and running his eyes over it, said, "That is a good cast, as they say in the theaters, Alice; but don't you think you are a little premature? The new nine is not yet formed, and until they begin to practice they can hardly tell where each player should be placed. I don't pretend to know much about the game; not so much as my little daughter does, for example, but isn't that about the way it strikes you?"
Alice admitted that her father was right. But she had given a great deal of thought to the matter. Everybody in the town was discussing this absorbing topic. And, out of all that she had heard, she had evolved this cast of characters, so to speak. Anticipating the story of the Catalpa nine a little, it may be said that Alice Howell's list, although its features were known only to herself and her father, was adopted with two exceptions, Larry Boyne was chosen to the third base and Bill Van Orman took the position of catcher. But this was not done until far later in the winter, when the new nine was finally organized for the summer campaign.
NOTES OF PREPARATION.
On the ridge above the town of Catalpa stands a huge building known as "The Fair Building." When the Northern District Agricultural Fair was held in Catalpa, this structure was used for displays of mammoth squashes, women's handiwork, exhibits of flax, wheat, flour, and the other products of the fertile region of Northern Illinois. Now it was given over to desolation and neglect. The men who had helped to pay for its erection were not willing to signify by tearing it down that they had given up all hope of ever winning back to Catalpa the institution that had moved away up to the northern part of the state. Some of these days, they said, the Fair would come back to Catalpa, and then the building would be ready for the show, as of old.