The car slowed down with much clanging of gong, and pushed its way through the crowd before the entrance to the field. Then, with a final jerk, it came to a stop. “All out, fellows!” cried Hovey; and Ned followed the others through the throng, noisy with the shouts of ticket and score-card venders, to the gate and dressing-room.
II
Ned sat on the bench. With him were Hovey, the manager, who was keeping score, Hill and Kesner, substitutes like himself, and, at the farther end, Simson, the trainer, and Page, the head coach. Page had pulled his straw hat far over his eyes, but from under the brim he was watching sharply every incident of the diamond, the while he talked with expressionless countenance to “Baldy.” Back of them the grand stand was purple with flags and ribbons, but at a little distance on either side the purple gave place to the brown of Robinson. Back of third base, at the west end of the stand, the Robinson College band held forth brazenly at intervals, making up in vigor what it lacked in tunefulness. In front of the spectators the diamond spread deeply green, save where the base-lines left the dusty red-brown earth exposed, and marked with lines and angles of lime, which gleamed snow-white in the afternoon sunlight. Beyond the diamond the field stretched, as smooth and even as a great velvet carpet, to a distant fence and a line of trees above whose tops a turret or tower here and there indicated the whereabouts of town and college.
Ned had sat there on the bench during six innings, the sun burning his neck and the dust from the batsman’s box floating into his face. In those six innings he had seen Erskine struggle pluckily against defeat—a defeat which now, with the score 12-6 in Robinson’s favor, hovered, dark and ominous, above her. Yet he had not lost hope; perhaps his optimism was largely due to the fact that he found it difficult to believe that Fate could be so cruel as to make the occasion of his first appearance with the varsity team one of sorrow. He was only seventeen, and his idea of Fate was a kind-hearted, motherly old soul with a watchful interest in his welfare. Yet he was forced to acknowledge that Fate, or somebody, was treating him rather shabbily. The first half of the seventh was as good as over, and still he kicked his heels idly beneath the bench. Page didn’t seem to be even aware of his presence. To be sure, there were Hill and Kesner in the same box, but that didn’t bring much comfort. Besides, any one with half an eye could see that Stilson should have been taken off long ago; he hadn’t made a single hit, and already had three errors marked against him. Ned wondered how his name would look in the column instead of Stilson’s, and edged along the bench until he could look over Hovey’s shoulder. The manager glanced up, smiled in a perfunctory way, and credited the Robinson runner with a stolen base. Ned read the batting list again:
Billings, r. f.
Greene, l. f.
Milford, 2b., Capt.
Lester, p.
Browne, ss.
Housel, c.
McLimmont, 3b.
Levett, 1b.
Stilson, c. f.
There was a sudden burst of applause from the seats behind, and a red-faced senior with a wilted collar balanced himself upon the railing and begged for “one more good one, fellows!” The first of the seventh was at an end, and the Erskine players, perspiring and streaked with dust, trotted in. “Lady” Levett sank down on the bench beside Ned with a sigh, and fell to examining the little finger of his left hand, which looked very red, and which refused to work in unison with its companions.
“Hurt?” asked Ned.
“Blame thing’s bust, I guess,” said “Lady,” disgustedly. “Oh, Baldy, got some tape there?”
The trainer, wearing the anxious air of a hen with one chicken, bustled up with his black bag, and Ned watched the bandaging of the damaged finger until the sudden calling of his name by the head coach sent his heart into his throat and brought him leaping to his feet with visions of hopes fulfilled. But his heart subsided again in the instant, for what Page said was merely: