Johnny knew that voice. It was Meggy Strawn. Johnny could not quite remember when he first played with Meggy. Many summers he had visited at Grandfather Thompson’s old-fashioned house, and Meg was always there. She lived only three doors away. He remembered her in rompers, short dresses and knickers. Now she was sixteen. Her bright orange sweater and skirt of brilliant blue somehow matched her sharply turned-up nose and freckled cheeks. Meg was real. Johnny thought her the realest girl he had ever known. “Not soft,” was the way he had expressed it, “Just gloriously old-fashioned, no painted lips, nor cheeks either, and no cigarets—nothing like that; just all girl! And pep! Say, there’s not a girl with half her get-up-and-go, not in the whole big city of Chicago, or anywhere else!”
Yes, Johnny liked Meg. And now as he smiled at her he said, “Burt Standish will pitch, and we’ll lose the game.”
“Lose! Johnny—” Meg grabbed his arm. “Why do you say that? I just heard we were to have a marvelous pitcher, a real star.”
“Yes,” Johnny agreed slowly. “Guess I know as much about that as—well, as anyone, except Colonel Chamberlain. All the same, we’ll lose. You’ll see!”
“Crepe hanger!” Meg gave him a shake. “Just you watch our smoke!” Seizing a megaphone, she sprang out upon the turf to shout:
“Yea! Yea! Yea! Team! Team! Team!” Then, as her lithe young body swayed in rhythmic motion there came back from a hundred throats:
“Yea! Yea! Yea! Team! Team! Team!”
All the same, as Meg dropped to a place beside him on the grass, Johnny repeated solemnly, “We lose. Tao Sing knows.”
“What?” Meggy gave him a sharp look. “Who is Tao Sing?”
Johnny did not reply.