But Gerald shook his head and refused to compromise, and all Dan’s arguments failed to shake his determination to stand or fall by Cambridge. Nothing more was said about currying favor with Thompson. After all, Dan scarcely approved of it himself; it savored too much of what, in school parlance, was known as “swiping.”
Perhaps it would have been just as well if Dan had not suggested it to Gerald at all, for the latter fearing in his pride that Thompson might think he was trying to ingratiate himself, went to quite the opposite extreme, and, whereas hitherto he had responded to Thompson’s careless, good-natured nods of greeting, he now refused to notice that youth at all! The first time this occurred Thompson thought nothing of it. The second time he scowled and confided to the fellow he was walking with that “that Pennimore kid was a stuck-up little chump.”
Meanwhile May came softly in and all Yardley was out of doors. The field and track team was preparing for another victory over Broadwood, golf enthusiasts were holding tournaments on the slightest provocation, and the baseball teams, almost a dozen of them in all, were disputing every foot of the field. Besides the Varsity nine, there were four Class teams, as many dormitory teams, and several “scrub” nines. Yardley would have seemed to a stranger to be baseball-mad that Spring.
The Varsity had a schedule of eleven games. Of these, four had been played by the end of the first week in May, and the Blue had three victories and one defeat to her credit. The defeat had come at the hands of Forest Hill School, and it had been such a drubbing for Yardley that it quite took the fellows’ breath away. Fourteen to three was the score. Most of the enemy’s tallies had been made during a tragic three innings in which Reid, a substitute pitcher, had occupied the box. Reid had subsequently steadied down, but for three innings more Forest Hill had added an occasional run to her score, and when, at the beginning of the sixth, Colton had stepped in to the rescue the game was past recovery. One result of the game had been to greatly endanger Condit’s position at third base, and now Dan was holding down that bag quite as often as the Second Class boy. It was not, however, until the contest with St. John’s Academy, which took place on a Saturday toward the middle of May, that Dan found himself starting a game at third.
St. John always brought down a strong team, and Yardley always did her level best to win the contest, which was looked upon as being a test of the Yardley team’s ability. A week later St. John’s would meet Broadwood, and so it was possible to make a comparison between Blue and Green. Colton started the game in the box, it being planned to use him until the game was safely “on ice.” Then Reid or Kelsey was to replace him. As it happened, though, neither of the substitute twirlers got into the game, for St. John’s proved to be a hard-hitting lot, and it was not until the last of the eighth inning that the Yardley supporters breathed easy. Then a lucky streak of batting, inaugurated by Captain Millener, and continued by Left-fielder Loring and Shortstop Durfee, added three runs to the Blue’s tally, and the scorebook showed the home team leading by two runs. But it wouldn’t do to take risks even then, and so Colton pitched the game out, managing to blank St. John’s in the half-inning that remained.
Dan played a good game at third, accepting three chances and making good each time. He had three assists and one put-out to his credit when the game was over, while his batting record, if not startling, was creditable for a first game. He made one hit, struck out twice, and reached first once on four balls and once on fielder’s choice. There was a good deal of luck mixed up with this showing, but Dan didn’t worry about that. Taken altogether, he had made good, and Payson as much as said so later in the gymnasium. And Dan was so elated that he actually forgot to yell when the cold water struck him in the shower!
On the following Monday the invitations came out from Cambridge and Oxford. The lists were posted in Oxford Hall at noon. Cambridge had issued twenty-one invitations and Oxford twenty-six. Gerald Pennimore’s name was on the Oxford list, but not on the other. The expected had happened.