Craigskill Military College took a three-run lead in the first inning and maintained it throughout the remaining eight innings. The game was mainly a pitchers’ battle, with the enemy twirler having rather the better of the argument, and, from the point of view of the onlooker, was decidedly slow and uninteresting. Kewpie’s presence on the bench supplied a welcome diversion at such times as Hillman’s was at bat. Almost every one liked Kewpie, and his performance as center of the football team had commanded respect, but he came in for a whole lot of good-natured raillery that afternoon. So, too, did Laurie. And neither of them minded it. Elk glowered and slid in sarcastic comments when chance afforded, but they could afford to disregard him.
When the game was over the substitutes held practice, and the few spectators who remained were rewarded for their loyalty if only by the spectacle of Kewpie Proudtree sliding to first during base-running practice! Kewpie at bat was another interesting spectacle, for there was a very great deal he didn’t know about batting despite having played scrub ball to some extent. But Kewpie believed firmly in Kewpie, laughed with the others at his own expense, and stored up knowledge. He was, however, heartily glad when the brief session came to an end, for some of the requirements had been extremely novel to him.
Saturday’s game, played down the river at Melrose Ferry, resulted in a ten-inning victory for Hillman’s. To his surprise and chagrin, Kewpie was not taken with the team, but he went along nevertheless and viewed the contest with ironical gaze from a seat in the stand. It is probable that he felt no consuming grief when, in the fifth inning, Nate Beedle was forced to give way to Pemberton. It is equally likely that he would have managed to dissemble his sorrow had Pemberton been knocked out of the box and a despairing coach had called loudly for “Proudtree! Find Proudtree! We must have him! He alone can avert defeat!” Nothing of that sort happened, though. George Pemberton finished the game nicely, even bringing in one of Hillman’s four runs with a safe hit to the left in the eighth. It remained to Captain Dave himself, however to secure the victory in the tenth inning with a home run. Returning to Orstead, Kewpie attached himself to Laurie and was very critical of the team’s performance. Laurie, who had pinch-hit for Murdock in the eighth and had popped up a weak in-field fly, was gloomy enough to relish the conversation until Kewpie became too caustic. Then Laurie sat on him cruelly and informed him that instead of “panning” the team he had better be thinking up some way of persuading Pinky to let him pitch a couple of innings in one or other of the two games that remained before the Farview contest. Thereupon Kewpie subsided and gazed glumly from the car window. His chance of pitching for the team that season didn’t appear so bright to him to-day.
Sunday afternoon they took their accustomed walk, Polly, Mae, Ned, Laurie, and Bob, and as usual they stopped for a while at the Pequot Queen. The afternoon was fair and warm, and the Pequot Queen—or the Lydia W. Frye, if you prefer—made a very attractive picture. The new white paint and the golden yellow trim were still fresh, the gay red and white awning stretched above the upper deck, the flower-boxes were green and promising—there was even one pink geranium bloom in sight—and the beds that Brose Wilkins had made at each side of the gangway were filled with plants. Miss Comfort wore an almost frivolous dress of blue with white figures and her best cameo pin, the one nearly as large as a butter-chip, that showed a cheerful design of weeping willow-tree and a tombstone. A yellow and white cat sat sunning itself on the railing and submitted indifferently to the caresses of the visitors. The cat was a gift from Brose, and Miss Comfort who had lived some sixty-odd years without such a thing, had not had sufficient courage to decline it. She had however, much to her surprise, grown very much attached to the animal as she frequently stated. She had named it Hector.
To-day Miss Comfort had news for them. The letter she had written to her brother-in-law in Sioux City had returned. She handed it around the circle. It had been opened, and its envelope bore an amazing number of inscriptions, many undecipherable, the gist of them being that Mr. A. G. Goupil had not been found. The missive had now been sent back by the Dead Letter Office in Washington. It was, Miss Comfort declared, very perplexing. Of course, she had always written to her sister at her home address but the firm name was just as she had told it.
“He might have moved away,” suggested Bob, “after your sister died.”
Miss Comfort agreed that that was possible, but Laurie said that in that case he would certainly have left an address behind him, adding, “Well, if he didn’t get that letter he probably didn’t get our telegram, either!”
“Why, that’s so,” said Polly. “But wouldn’t they send that back, too, if it wasn’t delivered?”
“I reckon so. I’ll ask about it to-morrow at the office. Maybe you should have put the street and number on your letter, Miss Comfort.”
“Why, I never knew it. That’s the address my sister sent me. I supposed it was all that was necessary.”