“Pitch up, pitch up!” he called out.
“Right over the pan!” retorted Ken, as quick as an echo. He went hot as fire all over. This fellow Graves had some strange power of infuriating him.
Ken took a different swing, which got more of his weight in motion, and let his arm out. Like a white bullet the ball shot plateward, rising a little so that Graves hit vainly under it. The ball surprised Dean, knocked his hands apart as if they had been paper, and resounded from his breast-protector. Ken pitched the second ball in the same place with a like result, except that Dean held on to it. Graves had lost his smile and wore an expression of sickly surprise. The third ball travelled by him and cracked in Dean's mitt, and Arthurs called it a strike.
“Easy there—that'll do!” yelled the coach. “Come in here, Peg. Out on the field now, boys.”
Homans stopped Ken as they were passing each other, and Ken felt himself under the scrutiny of clear gray eyes.
“Youngster, you look good to me,” said Homans.
Ken also felt himself regarded with astonishment by many of the candidates; and Ray ran a keen, intuitive glance over him from head to foot. But it was the coach's manner that struck Ken most forcibly. Worry was utterly unlike himself.
“Why didn't you tell me about this before—you—you—” he yelled, red as a beet in the face. He grasped Ken with both hands, then he let him go, and picking up a ball and a mitt he grasped him again. Without a word he led Ken across the field and to a secluded corner behind the bleachers. Ken felt for all the world as if he was being led to execution.
Worry took off his coat and vest and collar. He arranged a block of wood for a plate and stepped off so many paces and placed another piece of wood to mark the pitcher's box. Then he donned the mitt.
“Peg, somethin's comin' off. I know it. I never make mistakes in sizin' up pitchers. But I've had such hard luck this season that I can't believe my own eyes. We've got to prove it. Now you go out there and pitch to me. Just natural like at first.”