The cheering of the small boys and the excited comments of the still smaller girls, however, proved infectious. One would think that a great battle had been fought, and that victory was already assured to the household troops. The dry-goods man laid down his yard-stick; the carpenter dropped his plane, and even the old bridge-tender forsook his post long enough to stroll into the nearest barber-shop and ask for the news from "the boys" in Sandy Key.
"Another bulletin!" cried Hank Jackson, the burly short stop of the Dean County Nine, as the tall form of Mr. Heaton emerged from the telegraph office. This time, the face of the ardent champion of Catalpa's prowess was not illuminated by a smile. Mounting a convenient dry-goods box, he announced that two more innings had been played and that the score then stood two and two, the Black Hawks having made two runs, and the Catalpas having added nothing to their score. A blank silence fell on the assemblage and Henry Jackson vengefully planted his big fist, with a tremendous thud, upon the short ribs of a side of beef that hung from the doorway of Adee's butcher shop. "That for the Black Hawks," he muttered, with clenched teeth.
But a great triumph was in store for the friends of the absent sons of Catalpa. Even while Alice Howell was trying to cheer her despondent friend Ida with the suggestion that the game was "yet young," the Editor of The Leaf, whose despatches were sent to him across the street in a flying box attached to a wire, put his dishevelled head out of his office window and excitedly cried, "Three cheers for the Catalpa Nine! Fifth inning, Catalpas, five; Black Hawks, one!"
There was something like a little groan for the discomfited Black Hawks and then a wild yell broke out for the home nine. The small boys hurrahed shrilly and lustily, and even the street dogs, sharing in the general joy, barked noisily and aimlessly around the edges of the crowd. Miss Anstress Howell, scanning the joyful mob from the windows of her brother's office, remarked to herself, with aggravated sourness, that it was perfectly ridiculous to see Alice mixing herself up there in the street with a lot of lunatics who were making themselves absurd over a pesky base ball game, away down in Sangamon County. It was unaccountable.
Judge Howell, sitting on his judicial bench in the court-house on the hill, heard the pother in the town below and covertly smiled behind his large white hand to think that the home nine was undoubtedly doing well in Sandy Key.
Once more the traditional enterprise of the daily press vindicated itself with the earliest news, and Editor Downey put out of his office window his uncovered head, every hair of which stood up with excitement, as he bawled, "Sixth inning, Catalpas, none; Black Hawks, two. Seventh inning, no runs scored."
"Now you yoost keep your big fists out of my beef!" said Jake Adee, with his wrathful eye fixed on Hank Jackson, who was looking around for some enemy to punch. There was depression in the crowd, but Alice Howell smiled cheerfully in the rueful face of Mr. Heaton and said that she felt her spirits rising. She was getting more confident as the rest of the party became despondent.
"THREE CHEERS FOR THE CATALPA NINE."—Page 78.
The innings had been made rapidly. Scarcely an hour had passed, and, so intense was the interest in the game, that everybody thought the despatches had trodden upon each other in their hurry to tumble into Catalpa. It was a warm, bright day, and the prairie wind blew softly down the hill above the town. To look into the knots of people standing about the street corners, one would suppose that it was an August noon. Everybody was perspiring. It was a warm engagement down there in Sandy Key where the boys were vigorously doing battle for the honor of old Catalpa. But it seemed even hot in the town where the people waited for the news.