After a hearty supper, at which the new hand met Mrs. Malone, Kennedy invited him out onto the veranda, where they sat while Jack puffed at his pipe.
“You don’t smoke?” said Kennedy.
“I don’t think so,” was the reply.
“Drink?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been a wild one in my day, pal. Hit the high places, and hit ’em hard. Cards were my trouble. I was thinking I’d like to find three or four good sports and get up a little game.”
“Well, you won’t find them round here,” growled old Jack, puffing savagely at his pipe. “Nothing doing, Left—er—Stranger.”
The other betrayed no disappointment.
“We’ll just sit and talk things over comfortable like,” said Kennedy, glancing at him sidewise. “How’d you get the notion you wanted to go to farming?”
“It wasn’t my notion; it was the pill slinger’s.”
“You don’t look like there’s been anything the matter with your health.”
“I’m pale. That comes from confinement.”
“You’re brown as an Injun—or a baseball player.”
Lefty rubbed his head. “I know what I’ve been told,” he said, with a slight touch of resentment.
“Well, don’t swaller everything the doctors hand out to you. How do you like my ranch?”
“It’s very comfortable. I like it here, only I seem to miss something. It’s quiet.”
“That’s the way I feel. You see, when a man has been in the hot of Big League baseball year after year, it’s a big change to settle down this fashion. But we all have to take up something after we’ve had our day at the game. If I’d ever married it might ’a’ seemed different.”
“You never married?”
“No,” said old Jack, a trifle sadly; “slipped up on that play. Made an error, and another fellow fanned me out. You know, it’s mighty easy to lose in a game like that if you don’t keep on your toes all the time. I don’t often talk about it, but I don’t mind telling you how it was.”
Lefty said nothing, and the old manager continued:
“She was the only dame I ever got really smashed on, a little, dark-eyed Irish girl by the name of Madge. Met her after a game in which I was pretty near the whole show, having made two homers, a three-bagger, and a single. She was just bubbling over with enthusiasm, and when she turned them eyes of hern on me, and handed me a smile with her teeth shining like polished chinyware, I just felt that it was all up with me. I was like a busher in his first Big League game, all cold and hot and shaky and queer clean down to my toes. I knew in a jiffy that she was the one for me.
“Well, there ain’t no need to string the story out,” he went on. “I rushed her for all I was worth when the team was playin’ to home. Things went along swimmin’, and we had it arranged somehow before I ever knowed just how it come round that we would play the big game together on the same team. That is, we was going to get spliced some time, and I didn’t care how soon the job was done. She had another guy that was rushing her, too, before I hove in on the horizon; but I had his groove, and he was fanning every time he stepped up to the plate.
“Now, listen to me, and hear how the whole game went wrong in the ninth inning. My sister Kitty comes on to see me unexpected, and, of course, I spreads myself to give her a good time. Madge didn’t know nothing ’bout it, and she sees me blowin’ Kit off to cabs and theaters and feeds, and a-kissin’ her good-by when I had to send her home one night sudden on account of an unexpected turn. What did that little hot-headed, black-eyed girl do? She just writ me a red-hot letter, tellin’ me what she thought of a deceivin’, heart-breakin’, double-dyed wretch like I was, and announcin’ that she was leavin’ town. She didn’t leave no address, either. At first I took it as a kind of joke, thinkin’ I could straighten things out all right with Madge. But next thing I heard, within a week, she was hooked to the other guy, and I was down and out in the series.
“I ain’t never struck one like Madge since, and I ain’t likely to; so, you see, here I am—an old bach. It’s tough on a man when a girl throws him that fashion, with no chance to explain; but I’ve always tried to console myself by sayin’ that one who’d do such a thing would likely keep a guy in hot water the most of the time when she got him. It’s poor consolation, but it’s all I’ve got.”
Lefty was frowning as he gazed through the faint purple shadows toward the little lake, on which the afterglow of the sunset was reflected, and he stirred uneasily, passing a hand across his forehead. After some moments of silence, he said:
“Seems to me I’ve heard of a similar case.”
“I s’pose there’s lot of similar cases,” replied Kennedy, giving a pull at his pipe, which had gone out during the narration. “I was young, and it broke me up bad. I played so rotten that my manager got sore, and put me on the bench. I took to hittin’ the bottle, too. Drank altogether too much until a friend gave me a talking to and showed me what a dumb fool I was. Then I tried to forget it and get back into form again. I succeeded, too, and I’ve stuck to baseball steady, saving my dollars, with the idea of having something to live on when my days at the game was finished. I am out of it now, though I’m managin’ this little Deering team. Kinder got pulled into that. I wouldn’t if it hadn’t been for Hank Bristol, who’s managin’ the Buccaneers. He sorter rubbed me the wrong way, and it’s my object now to beat him out if there’s any way to do it. To beat him, I’ve got to have another A-one pitcher, and I need a left-hander.” Lefty was silent.
“I know the very man I’d like to have,” Kennedy went on musingly. “He come out of the bush this year. Brennan, of the Hornets, had him in the South to start with; but Brennan also had another promisin’ young slabman by the name of Bert Elgin. It seems that the left-hander and Elgin had some sort of a mix-up at college, and they didn’t cotton to each other a great deal. Elgin put up some sort of a dirty job on the other chap, and made him look like a quitter and a useless pup. Brennan was fooled, and dropped him.
“I’d been after him before that, and he comes to me after being handed the can by Brennan. I sent him out into the bush with a team from which I could pull him in any time I wanted to, and he made good out there. My pitchers started cold, and didn’t get into the game just right, so I sent out a hurry call for the southpaw, and he joined the team just in time to pitch in our first game against the Hornets. I took a chance on spoiling him by shovin’ him into that game. Had to do it, you know, though I hated to. The proper way to break in a pitcher is to work him against a weak team, and give him confidence by a good chance to pull off a win to start with. It was hard on him, rammin’ him into that game against the Hornets, but he come through with flying colors, and he pitched against Bert Elgin, too.
“There was a reporter named Stillman who had it in his noddle that Elgin was responsible for what my left-hander got from Brennan, and he chased the thing down and got the proof, which he hands out to Brennan hisself. That was Mr. Elgin’s finish in Big League company. Brennan sent him down into class C company, but he didn’t last even there. Nobody seemed to have much use for him, and I dunno where he’s faded to.
“Now,” continued old Jack, squaring round until he could watch his companion without turning his head, “if I just had that left-handed man of mine for about two weeks I’d bury the Buccaneers. We beat the Boobs to-day, but they’re the weakest bunch in this league. After the game I heard that the Bucks had beat the Stars, and gone into first place by a small margin. We play Bristol’s team in Hatfield to-morrow. I’ve figgered the percentage out to-night, and if we could take a fall out of ’em we’d be tied with ’em to-morrow night.”
“I presume that’s all very interesting to you,” said Lefty, unmoved; “but, having never cared in the slightest for baseball, you’ll pardon me if I don’t enthuse.”
Kennedy made a queer sound in his throat. “Look a’ here,” he snapped, “was you ever in a railroad smash-up?”
“Never,” was the slow answer, coming after a moment or two of breathless silence.
Old Jack dropped his pipe, and groped for it.
“Why do you ask?” questioned the other.
“Oh, nothing—nothing,” mumbled Kennedy. “I’m going to turn in pretty soon. You can go to bed any time you want to. We get up ruther early here on the farm.”
“Think I’ll turn in now,” said the other, rising.
In his chamber, half an hour later, having made sure that Lefty had really gone to bed, Kennedy paced up and down a while, his forehead corrugated by a deep frown.
“It gets me!” he finally exclaimed, beginning to undress. “I can’t quite make up my mind whether he’s faking or really don’t remember. If that last is the case, he ought to have treatment by a doctor.”