[CHAPTER XXII]
AT THE END OF THE SIXTH
If you are so fortunate as to be occupying a seat in the stand running parallel with the line to first base, and if you are about midway between that base and the home plate, you may congratulate yourself upon being in the best place of all from which to watch the game. Under ordinary conditions you have a clear view of every player, the batsman, unless he is left-handed, is facing you, and the run to first base is made directly in front of you. Make yourself as comfortable as the narrow board seat and uncompromising back will permit, be grateful for the clear sky and warm sunlight, which, if it beats a little too ardently upon your cheek, makes up for it by limbering the joints and muscles of the players and urging them to their best efforts, and watch the game, prepared to applaud good work, joyfully if performed by your side, ungrudgingly if by the other, and to accept victory with gratitude and defeat with equanimity.
From where you sit you see first the Erskine players on their bench at the foot of the sloping stand, their purple caps thrust back on their heads or held in their hands. You can’t see their faces, but their broad shoulders suggest the best of physical condition. Beyond them to the right a white deal table is occupied by four men who are busy writing the history of the contest.
At the feet of the players the field begins, a level expanse of closely cropped turf, which stretches away for a quarter of a mile like a great green carpet. Beyond the field is a thicket of trees, elms, chestnuts, and maples. Beyond that, again, the warmly red roof of the gymnasium peers forth, the forerunner of many other roofs and turrets and towers set sparsely at first amid the foliage, but quickly grouping together about the campus. There lies Robinson College. To the left, where the white spire pierces the tree-tops and glistens against the blue sky, the village of Collegetown commences and straggles away to a tiny river, no wave or ripple of which is from here visible.
But you have wandered far afield. About you the tiers are gay with purple flags and ribbons, but farther along to your left the purple gives place grudgingly to brown, and from there on in a long sweep of color the brown holds sway even beyond third base. Four hundred among four thousand is as a drop in a bucket. Yet the four hundred is massed closely together, and every unit of it flaunts a purple banner, and is tireless in cheering and in song. Across the diamond the Robinson band plays lustily between the innings; you can see the leader swinging his little black wand, the cornetist’s cheeks rising and falling like a pair of red bellows, the player of the base drum thumping away with his padded stick; but you hear nothing—nothing save an occasional muffled boom from the big drum; how can you when all about you cheers are thundering forth for “Erskine! Erskine! Erskine!” Your throat is dry and parched, the perspiration is trickling down your cheek, and your eyes are dazzled with the sunlight; but you’re as happy as a clam at high tide, for the sixth inning has begun, neither side has yet scored, Erskine is at bat, and your heart’s in your mouth!
Five innings without a tally doesn’t sound exciting, and yet, if we except the second, every one of those five innings had kept the audience on the edges of the seats. In every inning save the second Robinson had placed men on bases, and at the end of each the supporters of the Purple had heaved sighs of heartfelt relief, finding sufficient satisfaction in the fact that the Brown had not scored. Only once had Erskine dared hope for a tally. That was in the third. The tally didn’t come. It had been a pitcher’s battle, and the palm had gone to Vose, the tall, thin fellow whose spindle-shanks were encased in brown stockings. Not a single hit had been made off him, while Gilberth had been struck freely, yet had frequently managed to puzzle the batsman when a single would have brought in a run, or possibly two. When summed up it came to this: Erskine had been outplayed, and that Robinson did not now lead by several tallies was due to her inability to make her hits at the right time. The players of each college, in batting order, were as follows:
Erskine
Perkins, catcher, captain.
Motter, first base.
Gilberth, pitcher.
Bissell, center-field.
Knox, shortstop.
King, left-field.
Northup, right-field.
Stiles, second base.
Billings, third base.
Robinson
Cox, first base.
Condit, catcher.
Hopkins, third base.
Morgan, shortstop.
Devlin, left-field.
Wood, center-field, captain.
Richman, second base.
Regan, right-field.
Vose, pitcher.
At the beginning of the sixth inning it was anybody’s game. Billings, the tag-ender, went to bat. On the Erskine stand the cheering died away and the purple flags ceased waving and fluttering in the still afternoon air. Across the diamond the band laid aside its instruments, and the shadow of the western stand crept along the turf until its edge touched the line of white that marked the coacher’s box. On the players’ benches the men leaned forward anxiously and watched Billings thrust his cap back and grip his bat determinedly.