“I guess that’s so,” Kid murmured. “I wish, though, that Ben would hurry up and start practice.”
“He’s going to start Monday,” replied Lanny. “He told me so yesterday. After that if we don’t win this it’s up to us, fellows.”
“Don’t you worry,” said Kid. “We’re going to win it. You just wait and see!”
Baseball practice didn’t start the following Monday for the reason that it began to rain on Sunday and kept it up for three days. By Tuesday afternoon disconsolate fellows were wondering how there could possibly be any more moisture left in the sky. Kid was exceeding wroth and said so many unkind things about the climate that it is really quite possible that the rain kept up just for revenge.
“If only we had a baseball cage indoors somewhere!” sighed Ben Holden, who was captain of the House Nine. It was Tuesday afternoon and Ben was in Stanley’s room.
“There wouldn’t be room for one anywhere,” said Stanley. “I should think, though, that the battery might practice in the gymnasium.”
“We tried that year before last. If you have the lights on you can’t judge the balls at all and if you don’t have them on you can’t see. Besides, George heaved a ball through a window and the Doc made us stop practicing in there. Last year the day fellows held pitching and batting practice in the old freight shed down at the station two weeks before we could get out to do anything. And I suppose they’re at it again this year.”
“I don’t believe so. I haven’t heard anything about it.”
“You wouldn’t. They don’t tell much.” He turned disgustedly to the window and looked out at the sodden, dripping world. “Even if it stops raining to-night it will be too wet to practice to-morrow.”