“Any Errands to Run,” He Asked of the Proprietor of the Flower Shop.
“Say, I am having luck to-day!” thought the boy as he put the box of roses under his arm. “This is thirty cents I’ve earned. We’ll soon have our back-stop built, and then I’m going to see if we can’t play some regular teams. Do you know any team of our size?” he asked the florist.
“Humph! Not in town. I once had an errand boy who lived in Freeport; that’s the next village, you know. He belonged to a small nine there, I heard him say.”
“What was his name?” asked Tommy, eagerly. “I wonder if I couldn’t write to him? Maybe his team would play ours.”
“It’s worth trying,” suggested the florist. “His name was Joe Forker, and he was the pitcher, I believe. Just address him at Freeport. Everyone goes to the post-office there for their mail, and he’ll be sure to get the letter. It isn’t so far but what the team there could come over here to play, or you could go there.”
“I’ll do it!” decided Tommy, “and I wish, if we do have a game, that you’d come to see it. We can’t charge any admission,” he added, “as we haven’t any fence around the lot. But we are going to take up a collection, and you needn’t put anything in the hat when it’s passed around,” Tommy said, generously.
“Thanks!” exclaimed the florist. “Now, you’d better hurry on with the roses.”
As Tommy was going out of the store he looked down in an alleyway and saw a number of packing boxes. At once he had an idea.
“Are those boxes yours?” he asked of Mortimer’s uncle.
“Yes, and I don’t know what to do with ’em. Guess I’ll have to pay a man to clear them out of the way.”