Jack Borden had made the mistake of entering Maple Ridge in January at the beginning of the Winter Term, for the boy who enters school after his fellows seldom quite catches up. By the time of his arrival friendships have been formed, elections have been held and the school has shaken itself down, and the late arrival finds himself in the position of a frog in a strange puddle. Jack had meant to enter Maple Ridge in the autumn, but events had prohibited. One stroke of luck had, however, befallen him. Sam Phillips’s room-mate, Storey, had been forced to give up school because of illness, and Sam was in undisputed possession of Number 12 South when Jack arrived on the scene. Therefore Jack was put in with Sam, an arrangement that didn’t please Sam at all. At first Sam, like most every other fellow at Maple Ridge, every one of whom hailed from the Eastern States, and the most of them from New England, viewed the Kansan with mingled curiosity and alarm. Jack was the very first Westerner to invade Maple Ridge, and his coming seemed revolutionary, a veritable shattering of precedent. There was absolutely no telling what wild and gruesome things a Westerner might do!
It wasn’t snobbishness that caused Maple Ridge to at first look askance at Jack. It was rather a spirit of clannishness, due to the fact the school was essentially New England, and that in almost every case when a new student entered the other fellows either knew him personally or knew who he was. Very likely he was fresh from one of the four or five lower schools that fed Maple Ridge; quite possibly he was the second or third or even fourth of his name to enter. Jack was an outsider whom nobody had ever heard of, who had attended no school that anybody knew of and who, as though to emphasize his oddity, came not only from a place outside New England but from the West, a region treated of in geographies and occasionally briefly visited by adventurous youths, but a region quite outside the philosophy of Maple Ridge! And so at first Jack was accorded an uneasy curiosity not unlike that which might have been displayed toward an Indian or a cowboy.
Eventually, however, as the Kansan neither scalped Doctor Benedict, indulged in war-whoops or behaved vastly different from themselves, the others got over their alarm and accepted the newcomer if not unreservedly at least with toleration and a display of respect. For a time the name of Kansas had been applied to him, not at all in a sense of ridicule, however, but that appellation was gradually being dropped. In a manner Jack was, I fear, something of a disappointment to his schoolmates. They were quite prepared to be shocked and scandalized by the Westerner, and when no shocks were forthcoming they doubtless lost much of their faith in the stories they had read about the Wild West.
Sam Phillips held his new and undesired room-mate at arms’ length for quite a week. Sam was the third of his line who had attended Maple Ridge and he was thoroughly imbued with the traditions of the school. That the West should, as he slangily put it, “butt in” there filled him with alarm and disgust. But Jack, who had far more tact than is usually possessed by a boy of his years, refused to show that he was aware of the school’s doubts and aloofness, went about his work and play in a quiet, self-possessed manner and made no overtures to any one, even Sam. He was never fresh, didn’t talk about the West or Kansas unless questioned, and accepted the customs and manners of the school without the lifting of an eyelash. In short, he showed himself to be a thoroughly likeable chap, good-looking, wide-awake, self-respecting, and not without a certain half-serious sense of humor that made a big hit with Sam. At the end of the week Sam capitulated and, being a warm-hearted, good-natured youth, his capitulation was thorough. At the end of a fortnight the two were fast friends. It was that fact that helped Jack with the rest of the school. Sam vouched for him and that went a long way, for Sam was more or less of a school idol. You can’t pitch your school nine to victory over its rival without being placed on a pedestal, you see. If Sam liked Kansas and said so, why, Kansas must be a pretty good sort, after all. Doubtless the wild and woolly West wasn’t so wild and woolly as it was painted in the story books. Secretly Jack was at first a trifle angry and later not a little amused over the attitude of the school toward him. But at no time did he lose either his temper or his sense of humor; a fact which proves him at the outset an extremely level-headed, sensible chap!
After practice Jack and Sam returned together to the gymnasium, pausing a moment on the terrace to watch a game of tennis that was in progress.
“How did you get on?” asked Sam as they continued up the path.
“All right, I think,” replied Jack. “I only had two chances in the field and got them both.”
“That’s good, but let me tell you something, Jack. When you threw to the plate on that short fly that time, you sent the ball to the right. Never do that, my boy. Always put it to the left of the plate; that is, your left. It’s better to put it yards too far to the left than three feet too far the other way. You’ve got to consider the catcher, you see. It’s a heap easier for him to step to his right for a throw-in than to his left. Get that?”
“Yes. But the trouble is, Sam, that when you’re in a hurry and you’ve got a long throw you can’t always put the ball just where you want it.”
“No, but the oftener you do the better chance you stand of making the team. That’s the point, Jack. Every fielder slips up sometimes, but it’s the fellow that slips up oftenest that sits on the bench when the real games come along. When you throw in to the plate—which isn’t very often, of course, since you’ll usually throw to an infielder—just glue your eye to the catcher’s left and put your mind on getting the ball there. And, by the way, never take your eye away from where the ball’s going until it’s left your hand. Some fellows shift their eyes while they’re throwing, and those chaps are never sure. We had a fellow on the team last year named Crowder. Shay was trying him at third. He was a hustling chap, all right, and a good batter; could stop almost any ball within ten feet of his position, too; and about four times out of five he threw to first as straight as a die; used to do some of the prettiest throwing I ever saw. But when the fifth time came along, why, the ball would go ten feet to one side or the other or six feet over first baseman’s head; and by the time the ball was found the runner would be sitting on third! Shay couldn’t make out what the trouble was at first, but after awhile he found out. It seemed that Crowder would get the ball, turn and find first and then throw like the mischief, and always as his arm shot out he’d turn his head away. Ever play golf, Jack?”