“Then we’ll treat him right,” decided Tommy. “I’m glad he’s digging those holes, for we never could do it.”
Old Johnny Green proved that he knew how to do other things besides dig the holes, for he showed the boys the best way in which to nail the boards on the posts.
“You’ll need more nails, though,” he said when the bottom layer of boards had been put on, and when the back-stop was really beginning to look like something.
“I’ll go buy some,” volunteered Tommy. “We can take the money out of the treasury later.”
But he did not have to spend any of his change for nails, for the hardware man, true to his promise, supplied all that were needed.
“We’re getting on fine!” thought Tommy on his way back to the lot.
The back-stop was not finished that night, but Old Johnny Green rather surprised the boys, and other people too, by working on it all the next day, so that it was completed late in the afternoon. Tommy told his mother about the queer character, and she sent him a big basket of victuals, which Old Johnny Green said more than paid him for his work for the boys.
“And now we’re ready for games!” exclaimed Tommy, as they looked at the completed back-stop.
“Have you heard from those fellows in Freeport yet?” asked Billie.
“No, but I expect to in a few days,” replied the young captain. He got a letter from Joe Forker the next morning. Joe was captain of the Freeport Ramblers now, and he wrote that they would play Tommy’s team, which had been named the Riverdale Roarers, on the following Saturday.