LEFTY O’ THE BUSH
LEFTY O’ THE BUSH
BY
BURT L. STANDISH
Author of “Lefty o’ the Big League,” “Lefty o’ the Blue
Stockings,” “Lefty o’ the Training Camp.”
ILLUSTRATED
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1914, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
LEFTY O’ THE BUSH
CHAPTER I
OUT IN THE BUSH
After running his eye over the Kingsbridge batting order, Mike Riley, manager of the Bancroft “Bullies,” rolled the black cigar well into the corner of his mouth, lifted himself ponderously to his feet, and walked across toward the bench of the home team.
Kingsbridge had taken the field for practice, the visitors having warmed up already. The Northern League, a genuine “bush” organization, had opened two days earlier in Bancroft and Fryeburg, but this was to be the first game of the season in Kingsbridge, a hustling, crude, though ambitious pulp-mill town.
As it was Saturday afternoon, when the mills closed down at three o’clock, there was certain to be a big crowd in attendance, double assurance of which could be seen in the rapidly filling grand stand and bleachers, and the steady stream of humanity pouring in through the gates.
As Riley approached, a lean, sallow man, with a hawk-beak nose, rose from the home bench and nodded, holding out a bony hand, which, cold as a dead fish, was almost smothered in the pudgy paw put forth to meet it.
“Hello, Hutch!” gurgled the manager of the Bullies, with a show of cordiality, although he quickly dropped the chilling hand. “How’s tricks? See you took a fall outer Fryeburg yistidday.”
“Yes, we got away with it,” answered the local manager, in a monotonous, dead-level voice, lacking wholly in enthusiasm. “But the ‘Brownies’ are a cinch; nothing but a bunch of raw kids.”
“Uh-huh!” grunted Riley, twisting his thumb into the huge watch chain which spanned the breadth of his bulging waistcoat; “that’s right. Still, you didn’t have much leeway to spare, did ye?”
“Put it over by one measly run, that’s all. Deever’s arm went on the blink in the seventh, and the greenhorns came near hammering out a win. Locke managed to hold ’em.”
“Who is this Locke? I see he’s down to wing ’em for you to-day. Where’d you find him, huh?”
“Don’t ask me who he is. I never heard of him before. He’s some green dub of a port-side flinger old man Cope picked up. You know Cope used to play the game back in the days of the Deluge, and he thinks he knows all about it. As he’s chairman of the Kingsbridge Baseball Association, and one of the heaviest backers of the team, folks round here let him meddle enough to keep him appeased. All the same, long as they’ve hired me to manage, I’m going to manage, after I’ve shown ’em how much Cope don’t know about it.”
“That’s the talk, Hutch,” chuckled the Bancroft manager. “You’ve got some team, and you oughter be able to make it interestin’ for the rest of us, if the rubes let you have your swing. It was that old fox, Cope, who got Deever away from me arter I had Pat as good as signed, which makes me feel a bit raw, natural. Outside of Deever, and Locke, and a few others, I s’pose the team’s practically your make-up?”
“Then you’ve got another guess coming,” returned Bob Hutchinson. “Skillings, Lace, Crandall, and Hickey make the whole of my picking; Cope practically got together the rest of the bunch. But wait; some of ’em won’t hold their jobs long, between you and me, Mike.
“Perhaps we hadn’t better chin any longer, for I see we’re being watched, and the people of this town are so hot against Bancroft, and you in particular, that they might get suspicious, and think there was something crooked doing if we talked too long.”
“Guess that’s right,” admitted Riley. “They ain’t got no love for me in Kingsbridge, ’count of our rubbing it inter them last year. Makes me laugh, the way they squealed. They were so sore they swore they’d have a team to beat us this year at any cost. That’s how you got your job; they decided to have a reg’ler manager, who could give all his time and attention to handlin’ the team. Sorry for you, Hutch, but if they beat Bancroft under the wire with the bunch they’ve scraped together, I’ll quit the game for good. So long.”
Having learned that Hutchinson was not wholly responsible for the make-up of the Kingsbridge nine, Riley did not hesitate to express himself in this manner, thus betraying the disdain in which he really held his opponents of the day.
Only once since the organization of the so-called Northern League, which really had very little organization whatever, being run, like many small, back-country “leagues,” in a loose, hit-or-miss fashion—only once had Bancroft failed to win the championship; and that year Riley, a minor leaguer before age and avoirdupois had deposited him in the can, had not handled the club.
Bancroft was a city, and it cut her fans deeply to be downed on the diamond by a smaller place, besides severely wounding in their pockets some of the sports who had wagered real money. Hence the former successful manager was called back to the job, at which he was always prepared to make good through any means available.
Kingsbridge had entered the league the previous season, filling the place of a town that, loaded with baseball debts, and discouraged by poor success, had dropped out. Owing its existence to Cyrus King, lumberman and pulp manufacturer, Kingsbridge was barely four years old, yet its inhabitants already numbered nearly five thousand.
Furthermore, it was confidently looking forward to the time, believed to be not far distant, when it should outstrip the already envious city of Bancroft, and become the “metropolis” of that particular region.
While pretending to scoff at the “mushroom village,” Bancroft was secretly disturbed and worried, fearing the day when Kingsbridge, through the enterprise of its citizens, the interest and power of its founder, and the coming of a second railroad, which was seeking a charter, would really forge to the front, and leave the “big town down the river” in the lurch. Therefore, quite naturally, the rivalry between the two places was intense in other things besides baseball.
There is nothing like the game, however, to bring to the surface the jealousies and rivalries existing between towns having contending teams; something about the game is certain to tear open old sores and stir up ancient animosities apparently long forgotten.
Especially is this true in minor leagues and “out in the bush,” where not infrequently it appears to the chance stranger that whole towns—men, women, and children—have gone baseball crazy.
It is in such places that one may see the game, as a game, at its best—and its worst. Here victory or defeat assumes a tragic importance that must seem laughable to the ordinary city fan; the former being frequently the cause of rejoicing and celebrating, sometimes with fireworks and brass bands, while the latter will cast over the community a cloud of gloom which could be equaled only by an appalling catastrophe.
This intensity of feeling and emotion may scarcely be understood by a person who has never followed with individual interest the fortunes of a backwoods team, tasting the sweet intoxication of triumph, hard earned and contested to the last ditch, or the heartbreaking bitterness of defeat and shattered hopes.
CHAPTER II
UNDER COVER
Kingsbridge, with its pulp-mill and saw-mill laborers, was precisely the sort of a place to back a team to the limit, and to demand a winning club, regardless of expense.
On Saturdays, because of the early shutting down of the mills, nearly all the laborers could get out to witness the contests, and few there were who failed to attend, unless sickness or imperative necessity kept them away. In fact, on the last day of the week, the attendance in that town was as large as the average turnout in Bancroft.
The mill town’s initial experience had been most unsatisfactory and discouraging. Starting out with a nine made up of youngsters, among whom were college men and high-school boys, it had made a promising beginning, actually standing at the head of the league for almost three weeks, and then fighting Bancroft for first place for an equal length of time.
But the youngsters did not seem to have staying qualities, and this, combined with poor management and the “fair-or-foul” methods of the Bullies, had eventually sent Kingsbridge down the ladder to finish the season at the very foot of the list.
This failure, however, simply aroused the town to grim determination, bringing about the organization of a baseball association which included many of the leading citizens, Henry Cope, who kept the largest general store in town, being chosen chairman. The association pledged itself to put a winning team on to the field, and Cope, having considerable knowledge of baseball and players, set to work in midwinter preparing for the coming campaign. He was given a comparatively free hand by his associates, although, in order that Bancroft might not hear and get wise, the purpose of his movements was kept secret until it was almost time for the league to open.
Then it became known that Bob Hutchinson, a manager who had handled teams in one of the well known minor leagues, had been secured to take charge of the “Kinks.” It was also made public that a team of fast and experienced players throughout had been signed, and the names of several of these players were printed in the sporting column of the Bancroft News.
Hope flamed high in Kingsbridge. The topic of the street corners was baseball. It was freely proclaimed that the town was prepared to take a heavy fall out of Bancroft, and would begin by downing the “hated enemy” in the very first clash, which was scheduled to occur in the down-river city.
Of course a few pessimistic killjoys, of whom every community must have its quota, scoffed at the efforts and expectations of the enthusiasts, declaring it was not possible for a place no larger than Kingsbridge, no matter how earnestly it might try, to defeat a city with Bancroft’s record and resources. These croakers were not popular, yet their gloomy prophecies awakened misgivings in many a heart.
In Bancroft the midwinter silence of Kingsbridge had aroused some alarm lest the mill town, troubled with cold feet, should fail to come to the scratch when the season opened, which would make it necessary to lure some other place into the fold, or run the league three-cornered, something most unpleasant and undesirable.
Even when Kingsbridge sent a representative to attend the usual annual meeting of the league association, the quiet declination of that representative to give out any particulars concerning the personnel of the up-river team had left a feeling of uneasiness, despite his repeated assurance that there would be such a team.
Later, on the appearance of the newspaper report that Kingsbridge had engaged Bob Hutchinson as manager, and the publication of an incomplete roster of the mill-town players, Bancroft’s relief and satisfaction had been tempered by alarm of a different nature. For it now became apparent that the city’s ambitious rival had all along been quietly at work preparing to spring a surprise in the form of an unusually strong nine that would make the other clubs go some, right from the call of “play.”
Mike Riley had not sought to allay this final feeling of apprehension; on the contrary, for purely personal reasons, he fostered it. For would it not encourage the backers of his team, believing as they did in his sound baseball sense, to give him even greater liberty in management? And when he should again win the championship, as he secretly and egotistically felt certain of doing, the luster of the accomplishment must seem far more dazzling than usual.
After Bancroft’s opening-day success, when she had rubbed it into the Kinks to the tune of 8 to 4, Riley became completely satisfied that the Kingsbridge nine was a false alarm.
Aware of Hutchinson’s particular weaknesses, he had never really feared the man; but let this much be said to Riley’s credit: whenever possible, he preferred to capture victory by the skill and fighting ability of his team, rather than through secret deals and shady, underhanded methods. And he always developed a team of aggressive, browbeating fighters; hence the far-from-pleasing appellation of “Bullies.”
In her second game, Kingsbridge’s victory over Fryeburg had come as a surprise to Manager Riley, whose judgment had led him to believe that the Brownies would also open the season with a triumph on their own field. Hence his desire to question Hutchinson about it.
Tom Locke, the new pitcher who had relieved Pat Deever when the Fryeburgers took Deever’s measure in the seventh, was an unknown to Riley, and, the chap being slated to go against Bancroft this day, Mike had sought information concerning him.
Hutchinson, however, could tell him nothing save that the young man had been signed by Henry Cope; but, holding Cope’s baseball judgment openly in contempt, this seemed sufficiently relieving, and, complacently chewing his black cigar, he confidently returned to the Bancroft bench.
CHAPTER III
THE MAN TO PITCH
To the left of the bench, which was set well back against the railing in front of the third-base bleachers, on which a carload of Bancroft fans were bunched, Jock Hoover, the star slabman of the team, was warming up with Bingo Bangs, the catcher.
Hoover, speedy, pugnacious, with an arm of iron, the face of a Caliban, and the truculence of an Attila, was well calculated to inspire respect and fear when on the mound; and his mid-season acquirement by Bancroft the year before had doubtless fixed that team in first position, and marked the assured downfall of Kingsbridge, against whom he was most frequently worked.
In Bancroft, Hoover was admired and toadied; in Kingsbridge he was most cordially hated. More than once his intimidating methods on the latter field had come perilously close to producing a riot, which, had it ever started among the mill men, must have been a nasty affair.
Never in the most threatening moments of the rough crowd’s clamoring, however, had Hoover turned a hair. Always through it all he had sneered and grinned contemptuously, apparently inviting assault, and showing disappointment when the better element among the crowd, who cared for the sport as a sport, and knew the harm to the game that a pitched battle must bring, succeeded in holding the hot-headed and reckless ones in check.
Biting off the end of his cigar, Riley stood watching Hoover meditatively. Out on the field the locals were getting in the last snappy bit of preliminary practice, and the game would begin in a few minutes. The manager’s eyes had left Hoover and sought “Butch” Prawley, one of the other two pitchers, when a hand touched his arm, and some one spoke to him. Rolling his head toward his shoulder, he saw “Fancy” Dyke standing on the other side of the rail.
Francis Dyke, a young sporting man of Bancroft, was one of the backers of the team. To him a baseball game on which he had not placed a wager worth while was necessarily slow and uninteresting, even though well fought and contested to the finish. Son of a horseman who had won and lost big sums on the turf, Fancy, apparently inheriting the gaming instinct, had turned to baseball with the decline of racing. His nickname came through his taste for flashy clothes.
“Don’t you do it,” said Dyke, vapory bits of bluish cigarette smoke curling from his thin lips as he spoke.
“Do what?” grunted Riley in surprise.
“Run in Prawley. You were thinking of letting Hoover squat on the bench.”
“How’d you know that?” asked the manager, still more surprised.
“Saw it on your face.”
“If my mug gives me away in that fashion, I’ll trade it for another,” growled Mike, in displeasure. “But why not pitch Prawley? He can swaller that bunch, one after another, without greasin’. This is our first game here, and Jock ain’t so pop’ler in this town.”
“What do you care about that? It’s our first game here, and we want it, to hold first place. If they should happen to trim us to-day, they’d have us tied.”
With the mutilated and lifeless cigar gripped in his coarse teeth, Riley pulled down the corners of his big mouth disdainfully. “Trim us—with that bunch of scrubs and has-beens! Why, they couldn’t do it if I went in and pitched myself.”
“Take it from me, ’tain’t wise to be so cocksure. I’ve been watching their new pitcher warm up. He’s a southpaw.”
“And a green one from the scrub pastures somewhere. The boys will send him to the stable in about three innin’s.”
“Perhaps. But I walked over in range while he was limbering his flinger, and he’s got a few good benders, not to mention some speed. You don’t want to forget that we’ve got five left-hand batters, and a southpaw that can really pitch may bother ’em some. I reckon that’s just why they’ve raked in this feller Locke.”
“Don’t you b’lieve it. Just spoke to Hutch about him, and Hutch don’t know no more’n you or me. Old Cope signed Locke and the most of the team, and he’d never figger on a lefty worryin’ us because we’ve got so many left-hand hitters.”
“That,” persisted Dyke, “don’t alter the conditions any. This Locke stopped Fryeburg after they blanketed Deever, and Kingsbridge wants this game to-day—bad. I’ve heard some of the Bridgers talkin’, and they’re plenty confident, thinking they’ve got a wiz in this southpaw kid.
“To-morrow’s Sunday, and Hoover can rest,” he added. “He’s hard as nails, and you won’t hurt him, even if you have to use him again Monday. Always play the game safe when you can—that’s my motto. I’ll take chances, all right, if I have to, but I’ve never yet let my conscience fret me into ducking a bet on a sure thing. Hoover is the Kinks’ hoodoo, and it ought to be pretty safe with him handing ’em.”
“Safe,” gurgled Riley, highly amused. “I should guess yes. They think they’ve got some players, but, with Hutchinson furnishin’ only four out of the ’leven men they have, as he told me, and Cope diggin’ up the rest, most of ’em holdovers from last year, it’s a joke.
“Why, I let old Cope have Pat Deever, though he thinks he got Deever away from me. Just as I was about to close with Pat, I got it straight that he’d put his wing on the blink for fair, and, by pretendin’ I was hot after Deever all the time, I helped him make a fancy deal with Cope.
“Pat was batted out by the Brownies after fooling ’em along to the seventh with a slow ball that made him sweat drops of blood ev’ry time he boosted it over the pan; but he’s foxy, and he’ll manage to hang on by bluffing ’em that his arm’ll come round soon, see if he don’t,” added Riley. “The only pitcher they’ve got is Skillings, and even he’s frappéd his wing, pitchin’ the drop all the time, which he has to, as he’s a mark when he lets up on it.”
“You’re manager,” said Fancy, “and I’m not trying to show you; but I hope you’ll play safe by sending Hoover out to start with. If it proves so easy, you can pull him out when you see the game is clinched.”
“All right. Jock’s name is on the battin’ order, and I’ll let him start her off.”
CHAPTER IV
THE PARSON’S DAUGHTER
Dyke expressed satisfaction, and the hazelnut sparkler in his blazing red tie reflected varicolored gleams from its many facets, as his cupped hands held a burning match to light a fresh cigarette.
As he flung aside the match, and chanced to glance past the far end of the bleachers, his black eyes glinted on beholding a girl in a light dress, shading herself with a pale-blue parasol, and seated in a carriage that had just drawn up in line with others out there. A span of spirited and extremely restless bays were attached to the carriage. At the girl’s side, wearing a light suit, straw hat, and tan driving gloves, sat a square-shouldered young man.
“Hel-lo!” breathed Fancy. “There’s old man King’s cub, with the parson’s daughter. I don’t blame him, for she certainly is some peach. She must be getting independent; last year I offered to get her a season ticket, but she said her hidebound old man wouldn’t let her come to the games, which he considered sinful and poisonous to the morals of the community.”
“Huh!” grunted Riley, eyeing the girl in the carriage. “She’s a year older now, and mebbe she’s given the old pulpit pounder notice that she proposes henceforth to do about as she pleases. I’ve heard she’s ruther high-strung and lively.”
“Well, she’s taking a chance with Bent King, ’cording to his college record. He cut it out so hot that he was fired the second year, and then his old man, feeling somewhat peeved, set him to work in the big mill here. Now the brat’s foreman of the mill, though I reckon it was his father that put him there over better men, and not his ability.”
“Oh, you’re jealous,” chuckled the manager. “She turned you down when you tried to git gay, that’s what’s the matter. You oughter considered, Fancy, that your record was agin’ ye, and that you was known by reputation in Kingsbridge, just as well as in Bancroft. I’ve noticed the right sorter gals don’t travel in your society extensively.”
Dyke’s thin cheek took on a faint flush, and he gnawed with his sharp white teeth one corner of his close-cropped, small black mustache.
“I reckon she’d be as safe with me as with Bent King,” he retorted. “Of course, I know what her old man would think of me; but in these days girls don’t tell their folks about every man they’re friendly with.”
“There’s old Cope speakin’ to her now,” said Riley. “Looket him take the cover off that skatin’ rink of his. There’s real swagger gallantry for ye, Flash.”
A stout, red-faced, jolly-looking man in a somewhat soiled snuff-colored suit had paused beside the carriage to lift his hat and speak to the girl, who greeted him with a charming smile and a show of fetching dimples.
“Howdy-do, Janet,” said the man on the ground. “I’m s’prised to see you here, though I b’lieve you did tell me you was crazy over baseball. Your father’s so set agin’ it that I didn’t s’pose he’d let you come. Howdy-do, Benton. Fine day for the opening.”
“Oh, father is as bad as ever,” laughed the girl; “but I told Bent how much I wanted to come, and he drove round and used his persuasion with daddy, who finally consented, after getting a promise that I would sit in the carriage and not step out of it. It was jolly nice of Benton, for I am crazy over the game, and I’d go to see one every day if I could.”
She was fresh and girlish and unaffected, yet, somehow, she did not give one the impression of crudity and silliness so often shown by a vivacious, blue-eyed blonde. Although very pretty, she was not doll-like, and one who studied her mobile, changeful face would soon discover there, as well as in her voice and manner, unmistakable signs of good breeding and character. Her eyes were unusual; one could not look into their depths without feeling irresistibly attracted toward her.
The young man at her side, a well-set-up chap a trifle above medium height, was the only son of Cyrus King. He was not more than twenty-four, and had a somewhat cynical, haughty face, with a pair of flashing dark eyes and petulant mouth. Nevertheless, when he laughed, which he did quite frequently, he was attractive, almost handsome.
“Yes, Cope,” he nodded, as the older man brought forth a handkerchief and mopped his perspiring bald head; “it certainly is a good day for the opening, and there’s a cracking crowd out to see it. They’re beginning to overflow the seats. Suppose we have any show at all to win?”
“Hey?” cried the chairman of the baseball association. “Any show to win? You bet we have! We’re goin’ to win. We’ve got to have this first game at home.”
“But we’re up against Bancroft, and I see Jock Hoover has just finished warming up to pitch for them.”
“That’ll jest make it all the more interestin’. We’ve got a pitcher, too, I want you to know. I signed him myself, and he’ll make ’em set up and take notice. You jest watch Tom Locke when he goes inter the box.”
“I’ve heard something about him. Who is he? And where did you get him?”
Running the handkerchief round the sweatband inside his soiled straw hat, Henry Cope winked shrewdly, and covered his shining dome.
“Why, didn’t I tell ye his name is Tom Locke? Never mind where I picked him up. He’s got the goods, and he’ll deliver ’em. If he don’t jest naturally make them Bullies break their backs poundin’ empty air to-day, I’ll be the most s’prised man in the county.”
“Oh, I hope he is good!” exclaimed the girl. “Everybody in town was disappointed over the way Bancroft beat us last year. They all said we needed one corking good pitcher to put up against Bancroft’s best man.”
“We’ve got him,” assured Henry Cope. “We’ve got the very feller in this here Locke. You watch and see.”
“There goes the umpire,” said King. “They are going to start the game.”
“Excuse me,” said Cope hastily. “I think I’ll git over by our bench, where I can watch Locke work. That’s him—that tall, slim chap goin’ inter the box now. Jest keep your eye on him. So long.”
He hurried away as the umpire called “play” and Bancroft’s first batter rose and trotted out from the bench.
CHAPTER V
A BAD BEGINNING
A yell rose from the crowd which now almost completely encircled the field. It was not a cheer, such as may sometimes be heard at the beginning of a Big League game; it was a sudden, sharp, nerve-shocking combination of bellow and shriek, primitive in its methodless manner of expressing joyous satisfaction and elation that the moment had arrived for the contest to begin. Thus may have a gathering of primordial mankind, assembled to witness some sort of sanguinary gladiatorial contest, voiced its fierce emotion at the sight of trained warriors charging upon one another in the arena.
This burst of sound died away in a few scattering whoops and yelps as the umpire, body protector adjusted, mask held ready, lifted his hand for silence.
“Game t’-day,” he shouted hoarsely, “Bancrof’ ag’inst Kingsbridge. Bat’ry f’r Kingsbridge, Locke ’n’ Oulds; bat’ry f’r Bancroft, Hoover ’n’ Bangs. Pla-a-ay ball-ll!”
“Ye-ee-ee!” shrieked the crowd, and then settled down to enjoy the struggle.
Bill Harney, clever sticker and captain of the Bancroft team, was ready at the plate. “Hunchy” Oulds, breastplated and masked, spat into the pocket of his catching mitt, rubbed the moisture about on the dented leather with his fingers, and then squatted behind the pan to signal. The umpire, celluloid recorder held behind his back, leaned forward on his toes to get a clear view over Oulds’ head. Tom Locke toed the slab.
“Git th’ fust one, boy!” roared a voice from the crowd. “Show what y’ c’n do. Breeze him!”
The tall young man on the mound gave a shake of his head as he tossed back a lock of brown hair. His clean-cut face was a bit pale, and he seemed somewhat nervous, which was not strange, considering his apparent youth and the nature of the tumultuous, rough-and-ready crowd whose eyes were fastened upon him. He wore a glove on his right hand, and it was his cleat-tipped right shoe that touched the slab. Leaning forward, he nodded a bit as he caught the catcher’s signal, swinging immediately into his delivery.
“Ball!” bellowed the umpire, as the sphere went shooting over, high and wide, a white streak in the air.
“Aw-w, get ’em down!” brayed the coacher back of first, while the one on the opposite side of the diamond whooped derisively, and the batter, having flung a glance skyward, grinned in a taunting way. “He ain’t on stilts. He can’t reach ’em in the clouds,” added the coacher.
“Stiddy, boy,” gurgled Oulds, returning the ball. “Make him hit.”
That first wide one brought a mocking shout from the Bancroft bunch on the bleachers, and apparently Locke grew still more nervous, for his second pitch forced Harney to do a lively dodge to avoid being bored in the ribs.
“Ball tuh!”
“Wow-wow!” barked one coacher. “He’s wild as mountain scenery.”
“Take a ramble, Cap; he’ll walk ye,” cried the other coacher.
The Bancroft rooters scoffed again; the Kingsbridge crowd was anxiously silent.
“Never mind that, kid,” soothed Oulds. “Take your time; don’t hurry. Make him hit.”
The backstop returning the ball, Locke attempted to catch it with his gloved hand, dropped it, turned hastily, struck it with his toe, and sent it rolling toward second.
Larry Stark, covering that sack, sprang after the sphere, scooped it up, and held it in both hands against his chest while stepping swiftly toward the pitcher to speak a few low, reassuring words. Then he tossed the ball, and danced back to his position.
There was no doubt about it now; plainly Locke was nervous. Seeing this, the coachers and the visiting spectators did what they could to rattle him. Even though he tried to steady himself, the next ball from his fingers whiffed up a pop of dust two feet in front of the plate.
“Ball three!”
“The ascension begins early to-day,” laughed the coacher near third; and the Bancrofters behind him began to sing: “Up in a Balloon, Boys.”
On the home bench, Manager Hutchinson leaned forward, his elbow on his knee, his hand propping his chin, eyes narrowed and fixed on the disturbed pitcher.
Standing behind the bench, Henry Cope removed his old straw hat to mop his bald head and flushed face, trying all the while to preserve a calm and confident smile.
The crowd in the stand and along the right side of the field stirred restlessly. Murmurs were heard: “What’s the matter with him?” “Punk!” “Rotten!” “He can’t find the plate!” “He’s no good!”
“Take your time, Locke,” begged Captain Stark. “Don’t hurry. Put it straight over, and let him hit. We’re behind you.”
Harney, sneering, twiddled his bat and made a bluff of turning his back to the plate. Although he did not turn, his indifferent pose spoke his disdain and belief that he would receive a pass.
The assurance was justified. Seeking to get a grip on himself, Tom Locke strove to whip over a straight one. Then—
“Take y’ur base!” croaked the umpire as the horsehide plunked into Oulds’ reaching mitt.
CHAPTER VI
“TAKE HIM OUT!”
Flinging his club toward the bench, Harney jogged lazily down the line, grinning into the faces of the dissatisfied and sullen Kingsbridgers on the bleachers. The chortling coacher hailed him hilariously:
“Too bad! Too bad! That pudding is scared stiff. He won’t last an innin’. Back to the pastures for him.”
The murmurs of the home crowd became louder: “Who ever heard of him, anyhow?” “He can’t pitch!” “Who picked him up?” “He’s Hen Cope’s find.” “What’s old Cope know about baseball?” “That dub never saw a real game before.”
Cope put a hand on Hutchinson’s shoulder. “The boy’ll settle down in a minute,” he said, trying to speak in a confident and undisturbed way. “He’s just a bit shaky to start with, but he’ll git into gear soon.”
“He’d better—in a hurry,” retorted the manager in that same dead-level, colorless voice. “Four straight balls to begin a game is some rotten pitching.”
“I don’t s’pose he’s uster this sort of a crowd,” admitted Cope apologetically, coming round and seating himself beside Hutchinson. “He’s a gentleman, and he’s usually played with—er—well, gentlemanly comp’ny.”
“He’s out of his element here. This is real baseball, played by scrappers who are ready to fight every inch of the way. Tell me, Mr. Cope, where did you discover that worthless piece of excess baggage?”
The elder man’s face became still redder. “Never you mind about that. I’ve watched his record, and it’s a good one. I didn’t buy no pig in a poke. Didn’t he stop Fryeburg arter Deever blew up?”
“They’re marks. Deever made monkeys of them until his sore wing pegged out. Anybody with a straight ball and a little speed could have held ’em.”
“Mebbe so: but, all the same, I know this feller can pitch.”
“If he don’t show some signs of it pretty soon, I’ll bench him and send Skillings in.”
“Now, you give him a show; you give him a chance. He’ll straighten out, and show you somethin’. I’m backin’ him, and I want you to listen to me.”
“I had an idea,” said Hutchinson icily, “that I was engaged to manage this team.”
“You was, but I’ve got somethin’ to say, and I insist that that boy has a good, square show.”
“Ball!”
Andy Trollop, following Harney at bat, stood lounging, with the club on his shoulder, and watched the first wide one pass, laughing as Oulds, reaching, growled beneath his breath.
“If you try to stop ’em all, Hunchy,” said Andy, with pretended solicitude, “you’ll strain yourself, and have a doctor’s bill to pay. Better let ’em go to the net.”
“You go to blazes!” retorted Oulds; which caused Andy to laugh still more.
Instead of throwing the ball to Locke, the catcher suddenly lined it to first base, causing Harney to lunge back under Hinkey’s arm to the sack.
Then Oulds removed his mask, and pretended to fuss with the elastic strap, which gave Stark an opportunity to run up to the pitcher and softly urge him to go slow and force Trollop to swing.
“He thinks you can’t get ’em over,” whispered the captain, “and mebbe he won’t strike at the first one or two you put across. Keep it close, and take a chance. Don’t use a bender till you have to. Now, do steady down, son.”
Locke’s only reply was a nod. His lips were pressed together, and his face was gray. He could hear the crowd growling everywhere save in the section occupied by the laughing, scoffing Bancrofters; try as he might, he could not deafen his ears to those unpleasant sounds.
“Play ball!” yelled a coacher.
“Play ball, and stop chewin’ the rag,” roared a man from the third-base bleachers. “I come here to see a game.”
“Don’t look like you’d see much of a one to-day,” said another man. “I’d like to git my money back now.”
Hinkey tossed the ball to Locke. The youngster was deliberate enough in his movements, but still, seeking to put a straight one over on the inside, he compelled the second batter to make a hasty get-away. Oulds popped up from behind the batsman, ready to throw, but Harney had taken no chances.
“Don’t have to do it with this duck pitchin’,” laughed the captain of the Bullies. “He’ll walk us all. It’s a shame.”
Now not a few of the local players were beginning to betray annoyance and disgust, and the complaints of the home crowd grew louder. Henry Cope perspired from every pore; but Bob Hutchinson, still with his palm propping his chin, his cold eyes fixed on Locke, did not stir. The harassed pitcher walked in a small, complete circle round the slab.
“Say eeny, meeny, miney, mo, Lefty,” advised one of the coachers. “That’ll sure break the hoodoo.”
“For the love of Mike, do put one over!” entreated a Kingsbridger piteously—so piteously that a few, who had not permitted their sufferings wholly to rob them of their sense of humor, laughed.
But Locke actually handed up the seventh straight ball in succession! This despite the fact that he had never tried harder in all his life to find the plate.
The clamor swelled; the crowd began to hurl insults at the unfortunate twirler. The Bancroft players, waiting on the bench to bat, were choking with laughter. One coacher did monkey-shines, and the other pretended to weep, boring his knuckles into his eyes and bellowing lustily.
Oulds held the ball until ordered to throw it, by the umpire. Locke made a two-handed muff of that easy toss, and the insults came thicker. Harney, dancing off first, sought to draw a throw, knowing the pitcher in his present state of mind might put the ball into the bleachers.
Locke did throw to first, but he took so much care that the runner was lounging on the sack when Hinkey got the sphere.
“You couldn’t throw out a sick cat in four million years, Lefty,” mocked the coacher.
The local players looked at Captain Stark; Stark looked at Hutchinson on the bench; Hutchinson did not move a muscle.
“Don’t delay the game,” begged Harney. “Let the lobster pitch, if you’re going to.”
Skillings, chewing gum, in anticipation of the call every one seemed to believe must come directly, was keeping his arm limbered by throwing to Deever, the latter sparing his sore wing by tossing the sphere back with his left hand.
Locke’s forehead was knotted as he once more toed the slab. This time he came near getting the ball across, but it missed the corner by an inch, and the umpire, now back of the pitcher, made a sweeping signal with his left arm for Trollop to go down.
“Here we go round the mulberry bush,” sang Harney, jogging to second; but his words were drowned by the catcalls, whoops, and jeers of the spectators.
“Oh, you left-handed lobster!”
“You’re on the blink!”
“Go die somewhere!”
“You can’t pitch!”
“You never could pitch!”
“Take it away and bury it!”
“Chase yourself, you skate!”
Eight balls without a break had Tom Locke thrown, passing the first two men to face him. And this was the great southpaw man Kingsbridge had heard so much about lately, the left-handed wizard who was to make the hated Bullies bite the dust!
“Take him out!” shrieked a voice above the clamor.
Instantly the crowd took it up on all sides. “Take him out!” they roared. “Take him out! Take him out!”
Bob Hutchinson lifted his chin from his hand, sat up straight, and turned to Henry Cope.
“Well?” he said.
CHAPTER VII
HIMSELF AGAIN
Among the spectators, doubtless, the performance of Tom Locke gave no one keener disappointment and chagrin than that experienced by Janet Harting. She almost writhed, her fair forehead knotted and her rosy mouth puckering and pouting. Once she stood up, but the horses, possibly getting a glimpse of her parasol, started, and young King, quieting them, suggested that it would be best for her to remain on the seat.
“Oh, isn’t it just mean!” the girl cried, as Locke continued to search in vain for the pan. “Everybody expected him to do so much. Mr. Cope was so sure about him, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” said Bent. “For the last few days the whole town has been talking about the wonderful new pitcher and what he would do.”
“It’s a shame! Why, he can’t pitch at all!”
“It doesn’t seem so, but perhaps he may steady down. I once saw a pitcher pass three men straight, and then strike out the next three without a break.”
“Oh, but this one never could do a thing like that. He can’t put even a straight one over; he hasn’t a bit of control.”
“You talk like a fan, Janet. Your father is such a crank—er, excuse me!—that he wouldn’t let you see the games last year. Where did you pick up your knowledge?”
“Boarding school. Some of us girls used to get to the college games on Saturday. I declare, I do believe he’s going to walk this batter, too! Why don’t they take him out and let some one pitch who knows how?”
“There’s Cope talking to the manager on the bench. The old man is stubborn, and I presume he’s set on giving the great pitcher he signed all the show possible. It hurts his pride to see the fellow fizzle this way.”
Janet’s blue eyes flashed. “It’s simply dreadful!” she panted. “Every day last year I got the score of the games, and it made me ill when our team went to pieces at last, the way it did. And everybody has been saying we’d surely beat Bancroft this year. Hear them mocking us over there! Oh, I’m sorry I came to-day!”
“Cheer up; the game isn’t lost just because a false alarm is unmasking himself in the first inning. The home crowd is getting hot now, and they’ll demand that the fellow be benched directly. We’ve got other pitchers, you know.”
“Other pitchers! Don’t call this one a pitcher! He’s a—a—”
“A flash in the pan,” laughed King. “It’s a good thing he has betrayed himself right off the reel, for that will give us all the more time to recover from the shock. There, there goes the second batter to first. Now hear the crowd rub it into the poor dub. Oh, say! they’re soaking him. There’ll be a riot if he isn’t sent to the stable pretty quick. Listen to that! I knew it!”
The exasperated Kingsbridgers were howling for the removal of Locke, the cry to take him out immediately swelling into a roar from all sides of the field. Forgetting the cautioning words of her companion, Miss Harting again sprang to her feet.
“Take him out!” she cried; but her voice was drowned in the mighty volume of sound.
“Steady, Janet,” said Bent, taking hold of her arm with one hand and gently drawing her back to the seat. “This racket is making the nags nervous, and I’d hate to spill you out, after promising your grudging father to look after you and see that nothing happened. They’ll have to put the blanket on Lefty now. The crowd won’t stand for any more of him.”
On the Kingsbridge bench Henry Cope and Manager Hutchinson were arguing over it, the former hot and insistent, the latter cold and unemotionally scornful.
“One chance more—give him another show,” demanded Cope. “I tell ye I know he can pitch.”
“Perhaps he can pitch hay,” returned Hutchinson; “but not baseball. Listen to that howling mob. They’ll murder him pretty quick. I don’t want the responsibility on my shoulders.”
“I’ll take all the responsibility; he’s my man, and I’ll shoulder it. Let him try the next feller.”
“When the whole town gets to kicking at me, will you stand up and say you insisted on it against my wishes?”
“Didn’t I jest say I’d shoulder it! Nobody shan’t put the blame on you.”
“Oh, all right. They’ll mob him on the diamond if he hands out another pass, and that’s just what he’ll do. He’s white as a ghost with fear. He couldn’t get the ball over now if his life depended on it.”
Indeed, the wretched pitcher was ghastly white, the pallor of his face making his dark-brown eyes seem almost black; and into the depths of those eyes had come a light like a dull-red flame, flaring up swiftly.
A few moments before he had felt his own nerves unsteady, and fought in vain for control of them; now, with the howling demand for his removal hammering into his ears, he suddenly found himself steady as a foundation rock. His resentment and anger was of the white-hot variety that transmutes. A man serene and calm it might unnerve; one doubtful and wavering it might turn to iron.
Slowly he turned until he had faced every side of the field, and all that mass of snarling humanity, yelling at him, jeering, insulting, shaking their fists, their faces red and wroth, their eyes full of contempt, their lips hurling forth threats of bodily violence—and he smiled at them.
“Howl away,” he said, but no one save himself heard the words. “I’ll show you some pitching yet.”
Never before had he pitched in the presence of a crowd of such crude, seemingly ferocious, human beings; but many a time, as he well knew, he had faced batters as skillful and dangerous as these raw, would-be professionals and broken-down cast-offs from minor leagues.
At no time had he feared the hitting ability of his opponents, but, as sometimes happens to the headiest and most seasoned veteran, the moment he toed the slab some incomprehensible thing had taken possession of him, and made him a mockery for the crowd and a sickening shame to himself.
Now, however, he knew the unmanning spirit had been exorcised; he was himself again, clean and fit.
CHAPTER VIII
STEADYING DOWN
Tom Locke did not turn his eyes toward the bench; he did not dare, lest a glance should be interpreted as a supplication, and bring about his removal from the field. He saw Oulds, ball in hand, standing squarely on the plate, while “Wop” Grady, the next batter, eager to keep things going and gain as much advantage for Bancroft as possible before another pitcher was sent in, was seeking to push him back into his position.
His manner entirely changed, although his face continued ashen, Locke beckoned to the catcher, and ran forward. Oulds, scowling, sour, sullen, met him five feet in front of the pan.
“Give me that ball,” said Locke, taking it from the catcher’s hand. “Call the curves: a drop or a high inshoot for a strike-out, whichever you happen to know this man is weakest on. I’m going to get him.”
“Yes, you are!” sneered Oulds. “Why, you can’t—”
“Get ready to catch me,” Locke cut him short. “I tell you I’m going to get this man.”
Then, seemingly deaf to the continued howling of the crowd, he turned and walked back, apparently disregarding the taunting base runners, who were dancing off the sacks to lure a throw.
Larry Stark, doubtless wondering that Hutchinson had not signaled for a change, stood listless, twelve feet off second; but, without betraying the fact, Locke observed that Jim Sockamore, the Indian center fielder, apparently hoping to work an old trick in the midst of the excitement, was walking swiftly, but unobtrusively, in toward the sack. Indeed, Sockamore was not twenty feet from the bag when the pitcher faced Grady at the plate.
Only for an instant were Locke’s eyes turned toward the batsman; like a flash, he whirled again to face second, and the ball shot from his fingers as he turned.
He had not received a signal to throw, but he did so on the chance that the foxy Indian player would sneak all the way to the hassock, if for no other purpose than to show up what might have been pulled off with a live pitcher on the slab.
Sockamore was within five feet of the cushion when Locke turned, and, seeing the ball was coming, he leaped forward. Harney, not a little surprised, lunged back. Like a bullet the scarcely soiled ball sped straight into the eager hands of the young redskin, who met Harney and jabbed it on to him viciously as the Bancroft captain weakly sought to slip under.
The howling of the angry and dissatisfied crowd was instantly cut short. The sudden silence was ruptured by a single hoarse word shot from the lips of the umpire, who had been so surprised that for a moment he had faltered in giving the decision:
“Out!”
The spectators gasped; Harney choked and rumbled weakly. Sockamore grinned into the face of the tricked and chagrined man. At the bench, Henry Cope brought his hand down with a resounding slap upon his thigh, crying jubilantly:
“There! He got him!”
After a few moments of dazed silence, some scattered persons ventured to applaud and cheer faintly, while, apparently struck by the seeming incongruity of the unexpected performance, many others laughed.
“Oh, what an accident!” groaned one of the coachers, as Harney, his face red with mortification, rose to his feet and gave Locke a stare.
“How’d you ever happen to think of it?” sneered the Bancroft captain.
Chuckling, Sockamore threw the ball to the pitcher, and capered back into center field. Harney, his mouth twisted and his cheeks burning, made slowly for the Bancroft bench.
“Accidents will happen,” came from a coacher. “Never mind that. Take a constitutional, Wop; he’ll accommodate ye.”
Grady idled at the pan, laughing silently over the discomfiture of his captain. He was still idling when Locke, seeing Oulds ready, shot over a scorcher that clipped the inside corner.
“Strike!” declared the umpire.
“What’s that? What’s that?” cried the coacher. “It can’t be poss-i-bill? Another accident!”
Surprise was general, but still, like the coacher, the spectators on the bleachers and in the stand fancied it related in a way to something “accidental,” and not one in a hundred thought it probable that the left-hander could put over another without wasting several.
Oulds, wondering, called for an out-drop, but Locke, knowing the batter had not yet been egged into a condition that would make him easy to “pull,” shook his head. The signal was changed to one requesting a straight drop, and the pitcher swung into a snappy, quick delivery.
The ball seemed to be too high, and not looking for the despised twirler to “put much on it,” Grady permitted himself to be caught again. Down past his shoulders shot the sphere, to the instant croaking of “Strike tuh!” from the umpire.
“Hey, hey! What’s comin’ off here?” bellowed an uncoated, unshaven, collarless man back of first base. “Lightnin’s hit agin in the same place.”
CHAPTER IX
SOME PITCHING!
There was a change in the aspect of the crowd and its behavior, for this was more like something worth while, and a few were beginning to think it possible they might have underestimated the ability of the southpaw slabman. Yet, lost confidence had not been wholly restored, and they waited to see what the final result would be, the Kingsbridgers silent, the Bancroft crowd still laughing and scoffing.
“Never mind, Wop,” called the coacher at third. “He can’t do it agin. If he does, give it a ride. Come on, Trollop; git off that mattress—tear yourself free. On your toes! Ready to scorch if Wop biffs it. Git away, away, away off! More than that! I’ll watch the ball. Come on! Come on!”
Locke drove Trollop back to the sack once, following which he quickly pitched the third ball to Grady. He had a way of throwing every one in almost precisely the same manner, which prevented a batter from judging what was coming by his style of delivery. It looked like another high one that might turn into a drop, but it proved to be a fancy inshoot, and Grady, doing his prettiest to connect, made a clean miss.
“Y’u’re out!” barked the umpire.
Then the crowd did cheer, for, in amazing contrast to the manner in which he had opened up, Tom Locke had whiffed Grady without wasting one.
Henry Cope poked the silent Hutchinson in the ribs. “What’d I tell ye? What’d I tell ye?” he spluttered delightedly. “Now I guess you’ll see I ain’t such a bonehead in pickin’ pitchers. I played this game myself once.”
“Wait,” said the manager without a flutter, or the slightest variation of intonation. “Strikin’ out one man that’s looking to walk don’t make a pitcher. He’s got to show me more’n that.”
“He’ll show ye, all right,” asserted Cope. “I knew what he c’d do.”
Gus Mace followed Grady at the pan. The right fielder of the Bullies, he was regarded as their heaviest hitter, and his batting the year before had caused the Kingsbridgers to groan with grief. He was boiling over with confidence as he faced Locke, but, getting a signal from Riley, he let the first one pass, in order that Trollop, grown weary of camping on first, might try to steal.
It was a strike, and Oulds winged it to second in the effort to nail the runner, who had made a flying start and was burning up the ground. Trollop slid, spikes first, and Stark, who seemed to have him nipped, dropped the sphere in the attempt to avoid those spikes and tag the man at the same time. Trollop was safe.
“Now’s the time, Mace!” cried the coacher back of third. “Hit it out. Give it a long sail, and let Andy walk home.” He had dropped his chatter about waiting for a pass.
Mace gripped his trusty war club and waited, crouching a little. It was plain that the Kinks’ new pitcher had recovered his control, and the batter meant to hit anything that came across. He struck left-handed, and the next one pitched looked good to him. It dragged him almost across the pan, and he did not even foul it lightly.
A sharp yell went up from the once-more vibrant and excited crowd, but this time it was a yell of satisfaction. Choking, agitated men began to predict that Lefty would fan Mace, also.
“If he does,” said one, “I’m goin’ to throw a fit right here! I’ll own up honest that I’m the biggest fool that ever barked like a sore-eared pup at a good man.”
The Bancrofters were still trying hard to rattle Locke, but now, absolutely cool, self-possessed, and confident, he gave no more heed to their racket than he might to the buzzing of a single fly. There was something in his clean-cut face, his steady eyes, firm mouth, and deliberate manner which proclaimed him absolute master of himself, and predicted that he also would show himself master of the situation.
Oulds, his confidence completely restored, grinned through the meshes of the wire mask. “I reckon you was jest monkeyin’ with ’em boy,” he said. “They’ll all look alike to ye from now on. This one’s jest as easy as any.”
And so it proved, for Big Mace slashed again, and found nothing but empty air; whereupon the Kingsbridge crowd rose in a body and roared a splendid salvo for the man they had been reviling and threatening a short time before.
As that burst of applause died away, a Neapolitan laborer, standing on the bleachers, his shirt open at the throat, the oily, blue-black hair of his bared head shining in the sun, his kindled eyes almost popping, and his teeth flashing like scimitars, shook his grimy fists in the air, and screamed:
“What’s-a da mat’ with-a da Lefty?”
The answer was a great shout of laughter, and another hearty round of applause, which told how suddenly and completely the humor of that recently raging and reviling assemblage had altered. He whom a few minutes before they were deriding and threatening, had, by his amazing performance, become the admired idol of the moment, the Horatius at the bridge, the Moses to find the promised land.
They were more than willing to accept him as king of warriors and savior of wilderness wanderers, but to retain his scepter he must still further demonstrate his prowess in battle or his ability to smite a dry-shod pathway across a mythical Red Sea.
CHAPTER X
A PITCHERS’ BATTLE
As Locke walked calmly toward the bench he found Captain Stark at his side, laughing. “You pulled outer that hole in great shape, old man,” said Larry; “but you sure had us all leery to start with. I reckoned you was plumb up in the air.”
“I was,” admitted the pitcher unhesitatingly; “but I managed to get my feet under me after a while.”