House game they had astonished him with the way they suddenly seemed to break loose and deluge their opponents in a flood of hits and runs. He could not understand this streak of theirs—for they did the same thing every time they played—and he was too good a baseball student to call it luck.
He had never wanted anything in his life, not even to have two good legs, as much as he wanted to beat Natchez. For the Madden’s Hill boys had come to believe him infallible. He was their idol. They imagined they had only to hit and run, to fight and never give up, and Daddy would make them win. There was not a boy on the team who believed that Natchez had a chance. They had grown proud and tenacious of their dearly won reputation. First of all, Daddy thought of his team and their loyalty to him; then he thought of the glory lately come to Madden’s Hill, and lastly of what it meant to him to have risen from a lonely watcher of the game—a cripple who could not even carry a bat—to manager of the famous Hill team. It might go hard with the boys to lose this game, but it would break his heart.
From time out of mind there had always been rivalry between Madden’s Hill and Natchez. And there is no rivalry so bitter as that between boys. So Daddy, as he lay awake at night planning the system of play he wanted to use, left out of all account any possibility of a peaceful game. It was comforting to think that if it came to a fight Sam and Lane could hold their own with Bo Stranathan and Slugger Blandy.
In the managing of his players Daddy observed strict discipline. It was no unusual thing for him to fine them. On practice days and off the field they implicitly obeyed him. During actual play, however, they had evinced a tendency to jump over the traces. It had been his order for them not to report at the field Tuesday until two o’clock. He found it extremely difficult to curb his own inclination to start before the set time. And only the stern duty of a man to be an example to his players kept Daddy at home.
He lived near the ball grounds, yet on this day, as he hobbled along on his crutch, he thought the distance interminably long, and for the first time in weeks the old sickening resentment at his useless leg knocked at his heart. Manfully Daddy refused admittance to that old gloomy visitor. He found comfort and forgetfulness in the thought that no strong and swift-legged boy of his acquaintance could do what he could do.
Upon arriving at the field Daddy was amazed to see such a large crowd. It appeared that all the boys and girls in the whole town were in attendance, and, besides, there was a sprinkling of grown-up people interspersed here and there around the diamond. Applause greeted Daddy’s appearance and members of his team escorted him to the soap-box bench.
Daddy cast a sharp eye over the Natchez players practicing on the field. Bo Stranathan had out his strongest team. They were not a prepossessing nine. They wore soiled uniforms that did not match in cut or color. But they pranced and swaggered and strutted! They were boastful and boisterous. It was a trial for any Madden’s Hill boy just to watch them.
“Wot a swelled bunch!” exclaimed Tom Lindsay.
“Fellers, if Slugger Blandy tries to pull any stunt on me today he’ll get a swelleder nut,” growled Lane Griffith.
“T-t-t-t-t-te-te-tell him t-t-t-to keep out of m-m-m-my way and not b-b-b-b-bl-block me,” stuttered Tay-Tay Mohler.
“We’re a-goin’ to skin ’em,” said Eddie Curtis.
“Cheese it, you kids, till we git in the game,” ordered Daddy. “Now, Madden’s Hill, hang round and listen. I had to sign articles with Natchez—had to let them have their umpire. So we’re up against it. But we’ll hit this pitcher Muckle Harris. He ain’t got any steam. And he ain’t got much nerve. Now every feller who goes up to bat wants to talk to Muck. Call him a big swelled stiff. Tell him he can’t break a pane of glass—tell him he can’t put one over the pan—tell him it he does you’ll slam it down in the sand bank. Bluff the whole team. Keep scrappy all the time. See! That’s my game today. This Natchez bunch needs to be gone after. Holler at the umpire. Act like you want to fight.”
Then Daddy sent his men out for practice.
“Boss, enny ground rules?” inquired Bo Stranathan. He was a big, bushy-haired boy with a grin and protruding teeth. “How many bases on wild throws over first base and hits over the sand bank?”
“All you can get,” replied Daddy, with a magnanimous wave of hand.
“Huh! Lemmee see your ball?”
Daddy produced the ball that he had Lane had made for the game.
“Huh! Watcher think? We ain’t goin’ to play with no mush ball like thet,” protested Bo. “We play with a hard ball. Looka here! We’ll trow up the ball.”
Daddy remembered what he had heard about the singular generosity of the Natchez team to supply the balls for the games they played.
“We don’t hev to pay nothin’ fer them balls. A man down at the Round House makes them for us. They ain’t no balls as good,” explained Bo, with pride.
However, as Bo did not appear eager to pass over the balls for examination Daddy simply reached out and took them. They were small, perfectly round and as hard as bullets. They had no covers. The yarn had been closely and tightly wrapped and then stitched over with fine bees-waxed thread. Daddy fancied he detected a difference in the weight of the ball, but Bo took them back before Daddy could be sure of that point.
“You don’t have to fan about it. I know a ball when I see one,” observed Daddy. “But we’re on our own grounds and we’ll use our own ball. Thanks all the same to you, Stranathan.”
“Huh! All I gotta say is we’ll play with my ball er there won’t be no game,” said Bo suddenly.
Daddy shrewdly eyed the Natchez captain. Bo did not look like a fellow wearing himself thin from generosity. It struck Daddy that Bo’s habit of supplying the ball for the game might have some relation to the fact that he always carried along his own umpire. There was a strange feature about this umpire business and it was that Bo’s man had earned a reputation for being particularly fair. No boy ever had any real reason to object to Umpire Gale’s decisions. When Gale umpired away from the Natchez grounds his close decisions always favored the other team, rather than his own. It all made Daddy keen and thoughtful.
“Stranathan, up here on Madden’s Hill we know how to treat visitors. We’ll play with your ball.… Now keep your gang of rooters from crowdin’ on the diamond.”
“Boss, it’s your grounds. Fire ’em off if they don’t suit you.… Come on, let’s git in the game. Watcher want—field er bat?”
“Field,” replied Daddy briefly.
Billy Gale called “Play,” and the game began with Slugger Blandy at bat. The formidable way in which he swung his club did not appear to have any effect on Frank Price or the player back of him. Frank’s most successful pitch was a slow, tantalizing curve, and he used it. Blandy lunged at the ball, missed it and grunted.
“Frank, you got his alley,” called Lane.
Slugger fouled the next one high in the air back of the plate. Sam Wickhart, the stocky bowlegged catcher, was a fiend for running after foul flies, and now he plunged into the crowd of boys, knocking them right and left, and he caught the ball. Whisner came up and hit safely over Griffith, whereupon the Natchez supporters began to howl. Kelly sent a grounder to Grace at short stop. Daddy’s weak player made a poor throw to first base, so the runner was safe. Then Bo Stranathan batted a stinging ball through the infield, scoring Whisner.
“Play
