“I’ll bet you would, Dickums! Why, you know more baseball and more football than most of the fellows who play.”
“Why not?” laughed Dick. “They don’t have as much time to study it as I do. They have to get out and play. I can watch and learn. But never mind about me. What’s this Billings chap say?”
“Oh!” Gordon pulled another sheet of paper from the envelope and read its contents. “‘Mr. Bert Cable, Captain Clearfield High School Baseball Club, Dear Sir: A lot of us fellows at the Point are getting up a ball team and we want games. Will you play us? We’ll play on our own field or on yours, just as you say. Any date after July 10th will suit us, Wednesdays or Saturdays preferred. Our fellows will average about the same as your team, I guess. Please let me hear from you, and if there are any other teams around Clearfield we could play with I wish you’d let me know and send managers’ addresses. Very truly, Caspar Billings, Captain, Rutter’s Point Baseball Association.’”
“Caspar Billings,” mused Dick. “Which one of the Silk Stocking Brigade is he, Gordon?”
Gordon smiled. “I don’t remember him particularly. He’s a sort of chum of Morris Brent, though.”
“That all you can say for him?” asked Dick. “I suppose Morris will play with the Pointers?”
“I guess so. He won’t be much of a help, though. He plays ball like—like a turtle!”
“Morris says,” replied Dick with his slow smile, “that he can play a lot better than most of you fellows and that if Bert and Tom Haley and some of the others weren’t down on him he’d have made the team last spring.”
“Guff! He can’t catch a ball. He’s not a bad sort, Morris, if his dad does own the town, but he’s no Ty Cobb! Well, what do you think about getting up a team, Dickums?”
“Why not? You’ve got plenty of fellows. Most of the school team are still around, aren’t they?”