"Haw! Haw!" roared Bo. "They've got a hole at short. Hit fer the hole, fellers. Watch me! Jest watch me!"
And he swung hard on the first pitch. The ball glanced like a streak straight at Grace, took a vicious jump, and seemed to flirt with the infielder's hands, only to evade them.
Malloy fouled a pitch and the ball hit Sam Wickhart square over the eye. Sam's eye popped out and assumed the proportions and color of a huge plum.
"Hey!" yelled Blandy, the rival catcher. "Air you ketchin' with yer mug?"
Sam would not delay the game nor would he don the mask.
Daddy sat hunched on his soap-box, and, as in a hateful dream, he saw his famous team go to pieces. He put his hands over his ears to shut out some of the uproar. And he watched that little yarn ball fly and shoot and bound and roll to crush his fondest hopes. Not one of his players appeared able to hold it. And Grace had holes in his hands and legs and body. The ball went right through him. He might as well have been so much water. Instead of being a shortstop he was simply a hole. After every hit Daddy saw that ball more and more as something alive. It sported with his infielders. It bounded like a huge jack-rabbit, and went swifter and higher at every bound. It was here, there, everywhere.
And it became an infernal ball. It became endowed with a fiendish propensity to run up a player's leg and all about him, as if trying to hide in his pocket. Grace's efforts to find it were heartbreaking to watch. Every time it bounded out to center field, which was of frequent occurrence, Tom would fall on it and hug it as if he were trying to capture a fleeing squirrel. Tay Tay Mohler could stop the ball, but that was no great credit to him, for his hands took no part in the achievement. Tay Tay was fat and the ball seemed to like him. It boomed into his stomach and banged against his stout legs. When Tay saw it coming he dropped on his knees and valorously sacrificed his anatomy to the cause of the game.
Daddy tried not to notice the scoring of runs by his opponents. But he had to see them and he had to count. Ten runs were as ten blows! After that each run scored was like a stab in his heart. The play went on, a terrible fusilade of wicked ground balls that baffled any attempt to field them. Then, with nineteen runs scored, Natchez appeared to tire. Sam caught a foul fly, and Tay Tay, by obtruding his wide person to the path of infield hits, managed to stop them, and throw out the runners.
Score—Natchez, 21; Madden Hill, 3.
Daddy's boys slouched and limped wearily in.