“Oh! But I thought you were making a heap of money now, sir. You went and took that other room and—and all.”
“That’s why I’m still poor, Four-Fingered Pete. Earning an honest living is hard work. Sometimes I think I’ll go back to train-robbery.”
“Aren’t you ever going to forget that?” wailed Fudge.
Baseball was now well into mid-season. Seven games had been played, of which two had been lost, one tied and the rest won. A Second Team, captained by Sprague McCoy, was putting the regulars on their mettle three afternoons a week and was playing an occasional contest of its own with an outside nine. Dick Lovering was fairly well satisfied with his charges, although it was too early to predict what was to happen in the final game with Springdale, nearly a month distant. The pitching staff was gradually coming around into shape now that warm weather had arrived. Tom Haley, still first-choice box-artist, had pitched a no-hit game against Locust Valley and of late had gone well-nigh unpunished.
The Templeton game had been somewhat of a jolt, to use Captain Jones’ inelegant but expressive phrase, inasmuch as Templeton had been looked on as an easy adversary, and Joe Browne, in process of being turned into a third-choice pitcher, had started in the box against them. Joe had been literally slaughtered in exactly two-thirds of one inning and had thereupon gone back to right field, yielding the ball to Nostrand. But Nostrand, while faring better, had been by no means invulnerable. Even if he had held the enemy safe, however, Clearfield would still have been defeated, for her hitting that day was so poor that she was unable to overcome the four runs which Templeton had piled up in that luckless first inning. The First Team had to stand a deal of ragging from the Second Team fellows when they got back, for the Second had gone down to Lesterville and won handily from a hard-hitting team of mill operatives who had claimed the county championship for several years. To be sure, the Second Team fellows had returned rather the worse for wear, Terry Carson having a black eye, Howard Breen a badly spiked instep and McCoy a bruised knee, but still they had conquered!
The first game with Springdale—they played a series for two games out of three—was scheduled for the fourth of June at Clearfield. The second contest was to be held at Springdale a week later, which was the date of the dual meet, and the third, if necessary, was to take place at Clearfield on the seventeenth. Just now it was on the first of these contests that the eyes of Dick and Captain Warner Jones and the players themselves were fixed. Dick was anxious to get that first game, whatever happened afterwards. In the second contest Clearfield was to do without the services of Lanny as catcher, for Lanny was due on that day to stow away some thirteen or fourteen points for the Track Team, and while Pete Robey could be depended on to catch a good game, Lanny’s absence from the line-up was bound to be felt. So Dick was out after that first encounter, realizing that with that put safely on ice he would be able to accept a defeat the following Saturday with a fair degree of philosophy. Perhaps, fortunately for the nine, two other members who had tried for the Track Team had failed, and Lanny was the only one who stood to make history in two branches of athletics this spring.
Bert Cable, last year’s captain, labored indefatigably and was of much assistance to Dick who, handicapped as he was by his infirmity, was forced to do most of his coaching from the bench. That was an extremely busy week for the Clearfield High School Baseball Team, and Gordon Merrick confided to Lanny on Thursday that if Dick sent him to the batting-net the next day he would probably go mad and bite someone. “Why, last night,” he said, “I dreamed that Tom and Nostrand and Joe Browne and two or three others were all pitching to me at once! My arms are still lame from that nightmare!”
“Well, there won’t be anything very strenuous to-morrow,” Lanny comforted. “In fact, you’ll get off easier than I shall, for I’ve got to do track work.”
“You’re an idiot to try both,” said Gordon. “What’s going to happen to us next week, I’d like to know, with Robey catching.”