Bases full!

After that, while they walked up the curving drive, between rows of leafless trees, Tom was unusually silent. Nearing West Hall, Clif suggested continuing on and paying a call on Loring, but Tom shook his head. “Let’s go up to your room,” he said.

Number 17 looked out on the court formed by the old building, known as Middle Hall, and the two wings, East and West, and even at midday was none too well lighted. Now, at half-past four, it was decidedly gloomy, and Clif would have turned on the light had not Tom protested. “Lights hurt a fellow’s eyes,” he said. “Besides, I like twilight, anyway.”

“Sounds so,” said Clif. “You’re as cheerful as an undertaker!” Walter was still absent and the window-seat and the floor beside it were littered with Sunday newspapers. Tom swept them from the cushion and stretched himself out and Clif drew up a chair so that he might rest his feet beside Tom’s. Across the court, the wall of East Hall was in purple shadow. On the slates of the roof three pigeons walked pompously to and fro, cooing softly, while below, in the shrubbery, sparrows chirped in noisy argument.

“Fathers,” observed Tom after a moment, “are a great institution, aren’t they?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” answered Clif. “But how do you mean?”

Tom didn’t elucidate. Instead: “Say, remember how mad you were with me the day you came?” he asked. “You were saying good-by to your father down there at the car and I was sitting on the steps. Remember? You wanted to fight.”

“Why not?” inquired Clif warmly. “You sat there, grinning like a Hindoo idol, and told me to go and have a cry and I’d feel better. Of course I wanted to fight!”

“Sure,” said Tom soberly. “I don’t blame you. I did act sort of rotten.”

“You sure did,” agreed Clif, but without animus. “And I certainly did dislike you a lot. But, of course, you were funking a date with Alick, who was going to tell you whether you were to beat it back home or stick around awhile—”

“Yes, but that wasn’t the reason I was nasty,” interrupted Tom. “I said, that night in recreation room, that maybe I’d tell you about it some time, and I guess I’d like to do it now. I feel sort of melancholy and—and confiding. Maybe I’ve got a touch of indigestion. Or maybe it’s the effect of the twilight.”

“Let’s light up and forget it,” offered Clif cheerfully.

“No, I want to talk. Listen, Clif. The real reason I was nasty that time was because I was—was—heck, I don’t know just how to put it. Guess I was sort of jealous.”

“Jealous!” echoed Clif.

“Well, envious then. I could see what corking pals you and your dad were, and what a lot you thought of each other and how you were both kind of choked up about saying good-by, and it made me feel like the dickens. You see, I never had any father, Clif.”

“Never had—” gasped Clif.

“None that I can remember,” said Tom gloomily. “He—went away when I was five years old.”

“Oh,” murmured Clif. “I wondered. You never spoke of him, although you did tell me that your mother was dead and that you had a guardian.”

“Mother died when I was about ten. From what I can make out we’re a queer lot, us Kembles. As far as I know I haven’t a relation living, and about all I’ve learned of the family is what old Winslow has told me; and he’s not much of a talker. He’s a lawyer; one of the sort who hates to say anything unless you pay ’im a fee first. But I do know that my mother was born in this country and my father in England. He met her over here and they were married. He had something to do with cotton; represented an English firm and traveled around for them. Mother traveled with him. I was born in Mobile, Alabama. Then, five years later, my dad up and beat it. Of course I don’t know the rights of it, Clif. Mother never spoke of him more than a couple of times that I can remember, and Winslow didn’t know him. I suppose he was a rotter. Still—”

Tom relapsed into silence. Then, after a moment or two he went on. “I was pretty fond of my mother, Clif, although I was only a kid when she died, but when I look back and remember things it seems to me that perhaps it wasn’t all his fault; my father’s I mean. A fellow hates like the dickens to say anything against his mother, and—well, I’m not going to. She was always a corker to me. But what I mean is—well, father might have found her trying. Heck, I don’t know! I ought to hate him, and sometimes I do, but maybe he had some excuse for lighting out.”

“He never came back?” asked Clif.

“No. I don’t know whether mother ever heard from him again, but Winslow says he provided decently for her and me. Put some money in a bank, you know, and mother received so much every month. She was sort of extravagant, though, I guess, because a couple of years before she died she tried to get hold of the—whatyoucallit—principal. That’s when old Winslow came into it. She got him to try to get the money for her. He didn’t succeed, but he kept on trying, and he was still at it when mother died. That’s how she came to make him my guardian. She thought he was the eel’s whiskers.”

“I’ve heard,” said Clif when Tom had been silent a space, “that the English are great folks for traveling about. Englishmen especially. Maybe your father was like that, Tom. Wasn’t contented to stay put, you know.”

“I’m pretty sure of it,” answered Tom. “I’m that way myself, worse luck. I can’t hear a train whistle or a steamship toot without getting a thrill, I can be happy for hours looking at a map and I never see a road that I don’t feel my feet itching to find out what’s at the end of it. Ever feel that way? Well, I guess I get all that from my father. Oh, I could forgive him for leaving my mother, because, as I’ve told you, there might have been some excuse, but what I can’t forgive him is not showing up or sending some word after she died. You’d think he might be at least faintly interested in me, Clif. That’s what I’ve got in for him, and I’d like mighty well to see him some day just long enough to tell him what I think of him!”

“But, Tom, doesn’t it seem probable that—that he’s dead? It’s—how long?—eleven years, isn’t it, since he went off?”

“Yes, he may be dead. I suppose he is. That is, sometimes I do, and other times I’m plumb certain he isn’t. Winslow wanted to spend a lot of money and find out about him; who he was and what had become of him; but I wouldn’t let him. Told him if he did he’d have to spend his own money. He wasn’t keen for that. Oh, I don’t really care now. I’ve got along without a father for nearly twelve years and I guess I can keep on. Only—only sometimes—when I see other fellows with theirs—”

Tom relapsed into silence. Clif, searching for words that would express the sympathy he felt without offending the other’s pride, said nothing. Presently Tom broke the silence with: “Well, that’s that. Sorry to have bored you, old scout, but I rather wanted you to know the real reason why I acted so like a bounder that day. I’ve wanted to tell you ever since, but a fellow sort of hesitates to talk about his private affairs.”

“I’m very glad you did tell me,” answered Clif through the dusk. He wanted to say more, but again the right words eluded him. After a moment or two Tom swung his feet to the floor with a bang.

“Heck, let’s have some light,” he exclaimed. “This is enough to give a fellow the willies!”

On Tuesday the second team came into official existence, and Mr. Wadleigh took charge as coach. Mr. Wadleigh lived in Greenville, some twenty miles distant, and made the daily pilgrimage to Freeburg in a dilapidated Ford car whose mudguards were so loose that they flapped up and down like wings and gave the battered vehicle the appearance of flying. As Mr. Wadleigh seldom drove under thirty-five miles an hour—his record between the two villages was alleged to be thirty-two minutes—the illusion was enhanced. Many years before he had played baseball on the Wyndham team. No one could discover that he had distinguished himself, however. He was in business of some sort in Greenville—real estate, rumor had it, and for several years past had donated his services to his old school, doubtless at some sacrifice. He was a tall, awkward-looking man of perhaps thirty-three or -four years with a very prominent nose set in a long face. He was rather bald, a fact especially noticeable because he was never seen wearing a hat. Some held that the hair had been blown from the front and top of his head by the wind during his wild, careening flights over the road. He constantly wore an amiable smile which exposed a number of long teeth below a ragged mustache of a faded brown. That smile, however, was not to be taken—no pun is intended—at its face value. It persisted even when “Tusks” was not pleased with things. The nickname implied no disrespect, for, while Mr. Wadleigh was not beautiful to look upon, nor possessed graces of manner, he was, in school parlance, “a wow of a coach.”

Tusks took over twenty-four candidates from Coach Connover, conducted them to the second-team diamond, looked them over in thoughtful, if smiling, silence and set them to work. Three days later, still smiling amiably, he dismissed seven of the twenty-four. Through some, to them, inexplicable miracle, Clif and Tom survived the cut. The next day, Saturday, the second shortened practice and watched the first play six innings of its game with the local High School nine. The day was a miserable one from a baseball viewpoint, with cloudy skies and a brisk north wind, a day far too chill to permit of good playing had either of the contesting teams been capable of it, which they apparently were not. The five pitchers, of which three wore the dark blue of Wyndham, were hit hard at all times, and hits coupled with numerous errors and many misplays which didn’t appear in the error column fattened the score of each side. The bulk of the audience survived the last of the seventh inning, by which time the home team had a five-run lead, but after that it disintegrated rapidly. When, in the first half of the ninth, High School staged a rally only a corporal’s guard of devoted adherents remained in the stand to witness it.

Erlingby, who had taken Ogden’s place in the box for Wyndham at the beginning of the eighth inning, started out with a pass to the visitor’s third baseman. He followed that with a wild throw in an effort to catch the runner off the bag, and the High School player went all the way to third. That worried Erlingby and heartened the visitors. The next man up laid a slow bunt down on the first base line and Erlingby handled it. The man on third faked a dash to the plate, delaying the pitcher just long enough to make his hurried throw to Van Dyke, at first, too late. The High School left fielder hit to short right and scored the first runner, the latter beating Coles’ shot to the plate by an eyelash. A pinch hitter batted for the next on the list and cracked the first ball pitched into deep left. Talbott made a pretty running catch, but another run tallied. The enemy’s catcher fouled off four balls before he straightened one out right across second base. That brought in the third score of the inning. In trying to reach second on Greene’s peg to the rubber, however, the Freeburg catcher was caught a yard off the cushion, and, with two down and the pitcher up, Wyndham breathed with relief. A second pinch hitter took the pitcher’s place, though, and several bad moments ensued. Erlingby failed twice to cut the corners and then scored a strike on a long foul down the left base-line. Another ball, and then a fast one across the platter and a second foul-strike. A third foul, back of the plate, just escaped Cobham’s glove. Then the batsman crashed against the next delivery and drove it high and far into left field. Once again Sid Talbott won applause from the remaining handful of spectators, this time by sprinting far to his right and getting under the ball just as it came to earth, foul by more than a yard.

That ended the rally and the game, giving Wyndham the contest, 13 to 11.

The following Monday the second team faced the first and wallowed through five innings of horrible baseball. Mr. Wadleigh smiled through it all, but none of his charges labored under the mistaken assumption that his smile denoted approval. About every second nine player made at least one error that afternoon. Burden, playing third base through three of the chapters, made four! Jones, who succeeded him, did a little better, although he managed to make himself accountable for one of the nine runs accumulated by the enemy. The one thing that kept the first from piling up twice nine runs was their inability to run bases. They had no difficulty in hitting Frost and Purdy, but, once on first, they didn’t seem to know what to do. Purdy caught runners off five times, and in the fourth inning Leland and Raiford couldn’t decide which of them was entitled to possession of second base, and pending a decision Carr tagged them both and then, to make certain, threw to third. Twice, too, headless running spelled disaster for the first, once when Al Greene sought to score from third on a bunt to pitcher and once when Pat Tyson, a slow runner, tried to stretch his single into a double and was caught ten feet from second.

Neither of the second team’s pitchers showed anything that day but willingness. Frost, a left-hander, went well for one inning and then became wild, allowing four hits, passing one man and landing the sphere against Cobham’s ribs. Purdy, who took over the job with two on bases, retired the side without further damage, but Billy only possessed a couple of good curves and a slow ball and after the first team batters got acquainted with him in the fourth inning he was hit hard.

Tusks tried out most of his talent before the fifth inning was over, and both Clif and Tom saw service. Tom played second base for half an inning and Clif center field. Tom made a good stop of a hard bounder and then fumbled it long enough to let the runner reach first safely. Clif had no chances. Neither of the two reached the plate with a bat. Afterwards, in the gymnasium, Mr. Wadleigh astounded all hands by smilingly remarking that although they needed practice they had the making of a fine team. At first they suspected him of bitter sarcasm, but later they agreed that he had meant just what he had said, and they hoped hard that he was right!