“Traveling bags!”
“—An’ trunks.” The captain paid no heed to the interruption. “An’ here’s another peculiar thing. You may be able to explain it, but I can’t, an’ I never heard anyone who could. Them hoki-moki trees has just as much affinity for a horse-hide as they has for the horse himself. Lay a horse-hide saddle twenty feet away from a hoki-moki tree an’ just as soon as you lets go of it it’ll begin to move right over to the tree and try to rub itself against it! Now you explain that!”
“But I can’t,” said Billy, wide-eyed. “It—it’s most—most extronry!”
“It surely is!” declared the Captain. “What you might call one o’ the marvels o’ Science. I ain’t never—That the lot, Joe? Well, I guess it’s most dinner time, ain’t it? Talkin’ always gives me a powerful appetite an’ I’m plumb famished. Sing out to Steve to start that galley fire an’ get a hustle on him!”
Billy’s thoughts dwelt a good deal for the rest of that day on Captain Ezra’s interesting discourse, and when he went to sleep it was to dream terribly complicated things about wild horses and hoki-moki trees and the fascinating inhabitants of Pirate Key who wore the scantiest attires but indulged themselves in traveling bags! Sunday was always a hard day to live through, for after church and Sunday school were past many empty hours stretched ahead. This Sunday, however, was not so bad, for Mr. Humbleton, the bank treasurer, came to call in the afternoon and brought Arthur Humbleton with him. Arthur was fourteen and a youth of affairs and position in the community, as became the son of a bank treasurer. For one thing, Arthur was captain of the Broadport Junior Baseball Team. Billy and Arthur were graciously allowed to retire from the front parlor and the society of their elders and found sanctuary on the little side porch where the chill of an easterly April breeze failed to penetrate. Billy was glad of the opportunity to talk to Arthur, for he had a request to make, and after several false starts he managed to make it.
“I wish,” he said, after swallowing hard a couple of times, “I wish you’d let me play on the nine this year, Arthur.”
Arthur Humbleton observed him frowningly. Then he shook his head. “I don’t see how I could, Billy,” he answered. “The team’s all made up, in the first place, and then you aren’t much of a player. Maybe next year——”
“I can play in the outfield all right,” defended Billy eagerly.
“Oh, most any fellow can catch a fly,” replied the other carelessly. “There’s more to baseball than just that, Billy. You’ve got to know how to run the bases and bat and lots of things.”
“I can run bases just as fast as——” Billy paused. He had been going to say “as you can,” but diplomacy came to his aid. “As fast as Tom Wallace can,” he substituted.