“Can’t you see me?” chuckled Dick. “Suppose, though, I got nabbed for exceeding the speed limit? I guess, Lanny, if that field gets rolled this spring it will be done by old-fashioned man-power. We might borrow a roller somewhere and get a lot of the fellows out and have them take turns pushing it.”
“It would take a week of Sundays,” replied Lanny discouragingly. “You wait. I’m not finished with that other scheme yet.”
“Borrowing a roller from the town, you mean? Well, I’ve no objection, but don’t ask me to run it. I’d be sure to put it through the fence or something; and goodness knows we need all the fence we’ve got!”
“Yes, it’ll be a miracle if it doesn’t fall down if anyone hits a ball against it!”
“If it happens in the Springdale game you’ll hear no complaint from me,” said Dick, adding hurriedly, “That is, if it’s one of our team who does it!”
“Ever think of putting a sign on the fence in center field?” asked Lanny. “‘Hit This Sign and Get Ten Dollars,’ or something of that sort, you know. It might increase the team’s average a lot, Dick.”
“You’re full of schemes to-day, aren’t you? Does that fence look to you as if it would stand being hit very often?” They had turned into A Street and the block-long expanse of sagging ten-foot fence stretched beside them. “I’ve about concluded that being presented with an athletic field is like getting a white elephant in your stocking at Christmas!”
“Gee, this field is two white elephants and a pink hippopotamus,” replied Lanny as he jumped out in front of the players’ gate. Dick turned off the engine and thoughtfully removed the plug from the dash coil, thus foiling youngsters with experimental desires. His crutches were beside him on the running-board, and, lifting them from the wire clips that held them there, he deftly swung himself from the car and passed through the gate. They were the first ones to arrive, but before they had returned to the dressing-room under the nearer grandstand after a pessimistic examination of the playing field, others had begun to dribble in and a handful of youths were arranging themselves comfortably on the seats behind first base. But if the audience expected anything of a spectacular nature this afternoon they were disappointed, for the practice was of the most elementary character.
There was a half-hour at the net with Tom Nostrand and Tom Haley pitching straight balls to the batters and then another half-hour of fielding, Bert Cable, last year’s captain and now a sort of self-appointed assistant coach, hitting fungoes to outfielders, and Curtis Wayland, manager of the team, batting to the infield. The forty or fifty onlookers in the stands soon lost interest when it was evident that Coach Lovering had no intention of staging any sort of a contest, and by ones and twos they took their departure. Even had they all gone, however, the field would have been far from empty, for there were nearly as many team candidates as spectators to-day. More than forty ambitious youths had responded to the call and it required all the ingenuity of Dick Lovering and Captain Warner Jones to give each one a chance. The problem was finally solved by sending a bunch of tyros into extreme left field, under charge of Manager Wayland, where they fielded slow grounders and pop-flies and tested their throwing arms.
It was while chasing a ball that had got by him that Way noticed a fluttering sheet of paper near the cinder track. It had been creased and folded, but now lay flat open, challenging curiosity. Way picked it up and glanced at it as he returned to his place. It held all sorts of scrawls and scribbles, but the words “William Butler Shaw,” and the letters “W. B. S.,” variously arranged and entwined, were frequently repeated. Occupying the upper part of the sheet were six or seven lines of what, since the last words rhymed with each other, Way concluded to be poetry. Since many of the words had been scored out and superseded by others, and since the writing was none too legible in any case, Way had to postpone the reading of the complete poem. He stuffed it in his pocket, with a chuckle, and went back to amusing his awkward squad.