“Two fingers,” said Dud to himself. “But that won’t do, Ed. He wants to dump one down toward third.” Dud shook his head and Brooks laid three fingers across his mitt. Dud nodded. Yes, a drop was the best. If he could make it go, he added doubtfully to himself. But he did make it go. And the batsman professed intense astonishment when a strike was called. Brooks signaled for the same thing again, and again Dud essayed it, and again he earned the decision, for this time the batter swung viciously at it without, however, any result. Dud breathed easier. With two strikes across he could waste a couple and perhaps fool the batsman with a hook. Brooks showed two fingers and Dud served a curve waist-high but wide of the plate. Then another, a little closer, but still not tempting. Dud refused two signals and at last got Brooks to show four fingers. Then Dud nodded, glanced behind him to where Murtha and Blake were running the blue-legged youth back to base whenever he tried to steal a start, and wound up. Forward shot his arm and away sped the ball, straight for the plate and fairly high, and around swung the bat and swept through empty air! For the ball had been a slow one and the batter had hit inches ahead of it!
Dud stopped slipping then, brought up with a round turn, in fact! If he could still make that slow ball of his go right he could fool any of them! He wondered what had got into him! Why, he was just as good as ever! What a silly fool he had been to think anything else! They were shouting shrilly and triumphantly over in the corner of the stand and Brooks was grinning all over his round, freckled face. Dud spread his hand in the dust and fondled the ball and waited calmly for the next batsman. He was no longer afraid, no longer doubtful. He had, he told himself exultantly, come back!
Brooks asked for a curve and Dud refused it. A fast, straight ball instead was what the batter saw speed past him. Perhaps, though, he didn’t really see it, for it fairly sizzled with the “steam” that Dud put on it. After that a low curve broke badly and then a second one barely trimmed the outer corner of the rubber, but the batsman swung at the latter and missed it. A foul back of the plate just escaped Brooks and spoiled what Dud had intended for a third strike. Two-and-two now, and the Corliss coachers shouting imploringly for a hit and the runners dancing on their toes, eager to be off. Dud might still waste one if he liked, but his fingers, when the ball came back to him, curved themselves around the ball cunningly in response to the catcher’s signal and Dud stepped forward and pitched, and every ounce of speed he had went into that delivery. Straight as an arrow it flashed to the plate, cut it squarely in halves and thumped into Ed Brooks’ mitt. The batter never even offered at it and his bat was still at his shoulder when the umpire waved him aside!
Dud, walking across to the bench, heard the cheers of the tiny band of Grafton rooters and smiled a little. Those cheers sounded awfully good to him just then! He had come through and the only desire in his heart now was to be allowed to finish!
And finish he did, and went straight through to the end of the ninth without further punishment. In those four succeeding innings the enemy made just three hits, one of them a two-bagger that netted nothing beyond a journey to second base. Six strike-outs were added to his credit and he made two assists. And in the meanwhile Grafton sweetened her total with three more runs, so that when Dud ended the game by causing a Corliss pinch hitter to fly out to Boynton in left the score stood 9 to 3.
CHAPTER XXIII
BEN TELLS A SECRET
The team missed connection at North Taunton coming back and had to kick their heels about the platform there for more than an hour, reaching school finally just before eight, a very tired lot. There was a cold supper awaiting them in the dining-hall, and after that had been demolished few of the fellows had inclination for anything but bed.
Jimmy, who had remained on the bench all the afternoon, was in a particularly pessimistic frame of mind, and Dud’s last conscious memory was of Jimmy, pajama-clad, seated on the edge of his bed, muttering dire threats against Star Meyer.
Thursday was a busy day for Dud, with examinations beginning in real earnest. In the corridor of School Hall at noon he was hailed by Roy Dresser. “Say, Baker, Myatt’s looking for you. Told me to tell you to drop around to his room if I saw you.”