Mr. Potter heaved a vast sigh of relief. “Well, I hope so. I want to put this thing through now that I’ve started, Lovering. I’ll breathe easier, though, when I hear for certain. If he changes his mind again about Wednesday we’ll be in a worse pickle than ever!”
“I don’t think he will, Mr. Potter. I guess he’s concluded to let us use the field. If he hadn’t Mullin would be at work this minute. If I were you, though, I’d hear what Mullin says.”
“I will, just as soon as he gets home.” Mr. Potter looked at his watch and jumped to his feet. “I must be off. Say, that’s a load off my mind, all right! Now I’ll go ahead and close with Nagel for the music. He wants twenty dollars for two hours. I guess that’s fair enough. By the way, can you let me have your batting-list to-morrow? We want to print those score-cards about Wednesday. And, say, if you hear anything more call me up at the office. If I’m not there they’ll take a message. Bye!”
“I wonder,” mused Gordon when Dick met him at practice an hour later, “what he wants to see me about.”
“Well, it’s about the field, I suppose,” said Dick. “Don’t look so frightened, Gordie. He won’t eat you!”
Gordon laughed and then shook his head ruefully. “I know, but that man scares me to death. I don’t know why, either. He’s always been as nice as pie to me. I guess it’s his eyes. They sort of go right through you and come out the other side!”
There was a big crowd of onlookers there that afternoon and the Clearfield Baseball Club performed to enthusiastic applause. Dick had sought to arrange a game for Wednesday afternoon but had found no team that could or would play them, which was a matter of regret since Clearfield needed harder practice than it could get without an opponent. Rutter’s Point, which had been playing two games a week steadily, was to meet Logan on Wednesday at the Point.
“I wish we had got them,” said Dick. “They’d give us just about the sort of a game we need.”
“Maybe,” suggested Jack Tappen, “they’d swap dates with us if we asked them. They won’t get any money at the Point, you know.”
“Yes, they will,” piped up Harold, who had come over to watch practice at Dick’s invitation. “They pass a hat around and sometimes get ten or twelve dollars.”