Then Durfee and Alf went over to Mr. Payson. The latter, elbows on knees, was watching events in what appeared to be an absolutely disinterested condition of mind. He heard what Alf had to say without a change of countenance, although Alf thought he detected the tiniest ghost of a smile about the coach’s lips for a moment.
[CHAPTER XVII]
WHAT HEAD WORK DID
When Alf had finished the Head Coach nodded.
“I was wondering,” he said, dryly, “how long it would take you fellows to find that out. I might have told you about it after the first inning, but I thought I’d just wait and see how much baseball sense you all had. So far, Loring, you appear to be the only one with enough gumption to study the situation.” Durfee blinked and colored. Payson turned to him quizzically. “Durfee, couldn’t you have made that discovery just as well as Loring? Seems to me it would have come better from you, as captain. But the trouble was that you lost your temper just as soon as you found you couldn’t hit Holmes, and instead of looking around to see where the trouble lay you just went up there and hit out blindly at anything he offered you. Isn’t that about the way of it?”
“I guess so,” acknowledged the captain, looking not a little chagrined. At that instant Dan connected with the ball and sent a long fly out to center fielder, and the discussion ceased until the ball had been caught and Dan walked dejectedly back to the bench.
“Wheelock at bat!” called the scorer.
“That’s a whole lot better, Vinton,” said Payson, as Dan joined the group at the end of the bench. “How did you do it?”
“Durfee said I’d been swinging too soon,” answered Dan, “so I waited. If I’d pushed that a little harder he wouldn’t have got it,” he added, regretfully.