CHAPTER III

CANDIDATES FOR THE NINE

Rather hard luck for you, after listening to prosy descriptions of Clif, Tom and Loring, to have Wattles come on the scene! But Wattles may be disposed of more briefly. Wattles was about thirty, tall, rather lacking in flesh, with pale brown eyes――a sort of parchment brown they were――a long nose and a retiring chin. Wattles was English. That is to say he had been born in England, and, although he had spent the last ten years in this country and no longer owed allegiance to the King, he was still――and always would be――English in everything save the right to vote! Wattles acted as nurse, valet, companion, secretary and in numerous other capacities for Loring. He was so eminently respectable that Tom, when in his society, felt positively raffish. Wattles wore black on all occasions and never appeared without his square-crowned black derby. When he walked to church in the village on Sunday morning he encased his capable hands in dark-gray gloves, carried his prayerbook and hymnal and looked far more sacerdotal than the minister himself. Tom frequently declared that Wattles was “a scream and a bully sort.” As to that the reader may judge for himself later.

Wattles’ present return was to prepare Loring for study hour, and after the visitors had hurried away to their respective rooms for their books he proceeded methodically to his task. Loring was carefully lifted from the arm chair in which he had been seated to the wheel chair. Then Wattles selected the proper books from the table, together with a scratch pad and a fountain pen, and laid them on a shelf that stretched in front of Loring from one arm of the chair to the other. The rug was laid across the boy’s knees and lightly tucked into place. After which, with a final glance around, Wattles said: “Right, sir?”

“Right-o,” replied Loring, and Wattles laid hold of the handle-bar across the back and propelled the chair through the door and along the corridor to where, at the farther end, wide portals gave a glimpse of the big hall. En route Loring said: “Wattles, I wish you’d look around when you go back to the library and see what you can find about baseball. There are probably some books there. Bring what you can, will you?”

“Baseball, Mr. Loring. Right, sir.”

“Yes. I suppose you don’t know much about that game, do you, Wattles?”

“I am not, Mr. Loring, what you might call well informed on the subject. I have, though, witnessed several contests of professional baseball and observed it closely, and while there are numerous points――”

“I get you. Well, we’ll have to send for some books, I guess. You see, Wattles, we’re going to play the game this spring.”

“We, sir?” asked Wattles with a trace of surprise.

“Oh, well, I mean Clif and Tom. You and I are going to look on, though, and so it’s up to us to study the game thoroughly and get so we understand the――the fine points, eh?”

“Undoubtedly,” agreed Wattles. “A most interesting pastime, I’ve no doubt, if one possesses a thorough knowledge of the intricacies.”

“Sure! Don’t forget those books from the library.”

Wattles looked almost pained as he pushed the chair to its customary location at one side of the doorway and retired. Wattles never forgot.

Two days later candidates for the Wyndham School Baseball Team assembled in the gymnasium. While the rest of the school was contained under one roof, with East, Middle and West Halls forming three sides of a quadrangle, the gymnasium, new and well appointed, was set at a little distance behind East Hall, with which it was connected by a covered walk. This afternoon, since it was raining with the dogged persistence of February rains in the Connecticut hills, the roofed passage was much in vogue. Clif and Tom made use of it, as, a little later, did Loring and Wattles. The candidates gathered in the baseball cage on the ground floor, a big, well-lighted inclosure in which almost any feat of the game might be accomplished save the hitting of anything better than a single. Since the furnishings of the cage were meager, consisting as they did of three backless benches along one side, most of the fellows who had responded to the call stood either inside the cage or in the corridor that bordered it, and conversed with such sang froid as their relations with the team warranted. New candidates spoke in low tones, or not at all, while they viewed curiously and sometimes enviously the veterans of last year’s nine. Loring didn’t arrive until Mr. Connover had made his appearance and was addressing the assembled throng. The partition between cage and corridor was a wall, well padded on the inner side, to a height of three and a half feet. Above that a strong wire netting continued to the high ceiling. By sitting very erect in his wheel chair and stretching just a little Loring could see over the wall. Having set the chair in an inconspicuous place near one corner of the cage, Wattles removed his black derby, wiped the sweat-band with an immaculate handkerchief, returned the hat to his head and the handkerchief to a pocket and set himself to a grave and intent study of the proceedings.

Mr. Connover said nothing particularly new nor inspiring. He dwelt rather strongly on the fact that the candidates were due for a fortnight or so of somewhat drudging drill and suggested that any who wanted to withdraw had best do so before the squad reassembled. “If,” proceeded the coach, “I find you here to-morrow I shall expect you to stick for the duration. Last year we were fortunate enough to get outdoors on the twentieth of March. This year it may be later, or earlier. There’s no way of telling. But it’s safe to say that you’ve got a good three weeks of indoor work ahead of you, and any of you who can’t stomach that had better quit to-day.”

Mr. Connover was not a large man, nor was he particularly impressive in any way as viewed this afternoon. He had donned an old suit of blue serge and a pair of stained white sneakers. “Steve” in charge of a physics class and “Steve” speaking to a bunch of baseball candidates were different persons. With the single exception of “Lovey” McKnight, chemistry instructor, Mr. Connover was the youngest member of the faculty, being twenty-nine. He had coached the baseball teams for two years before this and had turned out at least average good teams. The fact that only one of them had managed to secure the best two out of three games with Wolcott was no reflection on the coach.

“We have arranged a schedule for this spring that is two games longer than last year’s,” Mr. Connover was saying now. “It’s a mighty good schedule, and Manager Longwell and his assistants deserve praise for working it up.” There was a faint, repressed cheer, and “Bi” Longwell, hugging a large pad of paper to him on a bench, grinned. “We’re down to meet some good teams, fellows, and we’ve simply got to play real ball right from the start if we’re to make a decent showing by the end of the season. Of course, it’s the Wolcott series we’re after, but we aren’t going to throw any games away before we get to the big ones. I’d like to see this spring a Wyndham team that will take three-fourths of its games. We’ve got twenty-two scheduled. Probably four at least won’t be played, because of weather conditions. I want this team to end the season with fourteen victories, and if it doesn’t I’m going to be disappointed in it.

“We’ve got a lot of good material left over from last year to build on, and we’ve got a fine captain.” There was a real cheer this time. “Captain Leland is going to say a few words to you presently, and I want you to give him strict attention. And we’ve got, I am sure, a fine lot of new material to build with. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get off to a running start and find our stride early. One thing I must caution you about, fellows, and I say this earnestly. Don’t think because you’re busy with baseball that you can neglect your studies. The surest way to prove to me that you aren’t deserving of a position on the team is to let down in class. If you do that you can’t be depended on to finish out the season, and there’s no use wasting time now on fellows who aren’t going to last and who won’t be on hand when they’re needed most. Now, fellows, Captain Leland.”

Leland, already standing, wrapped his hands more tightly in the hem of an old gray sweat-shirt and faced the forty-odd boys while the chorus of “A-a-ay!” died away. He was plainly embarrassed, but “Hurry”――he had been christened Horace――wasn’t the sort to allow embarrassment to keep him from doing what he had to do. Nor even to make him hesitate. He began speaking before the shout of recognition and approval had quite ceased, and Loring, listening and watching from beyond the wire screening, lost the first few words.

“――A few things I’d like to tell you about what we intend to do this year. Coach Connover has spoken of the schedule and said that it’s good. And it is. But it’s hard, too. We’ve got teams like Toll’s and Broadmoor this year to buck against, and they’re good. And plenty of hard teams that we’ve played before: Murray, Hoskins, Horner, Cupples. We’re playing two games with Horner, and two with Highland and Freeburg. And maybe only two with Wolcott, if we fight hard!”

That called for applause and it was forthcoming. Hurry didn’t look at first glance like a captain of baseball, or, for that matter, any sort of a captain. He was of medium height, rather thin, with very light-brown hair and a somewhat colorless complexion. Rather a wisp of a chap as athletes go. But a moment’s observation corrected first judgment. His steel-blue eyes were keen, his mouth was determined and his countenance as a whole was, save when he smiled that infrequent and oddly crooked smile of his, seriously intent. His movements were abrupt, and when he started away his head always dropped until his chin nearly rested on his chest. Some one had once said that Hurry did that to decrease resistance to the wind! As a matter of fact, he was of the nervous, quick-thinking and quick-acting type, a fellow who went into a thing with, as the expression is, “all four feet,” and the lowered head merely indicated that Hurry, having started for some other place, was earnestly concentrating on how to get there as speedily as possible and what to do when he arrived.

“We’ve got thirteen home games and nine away, and some of the visits are going to keep us busy! But that doesn’t matter. I mean it isn’t going to matter if we just make up our minds to one thing; to be the best baseball team that ever trained on the Wyndham field. Coach has talked sense about――I mean――well, he always talks sense, of course――” Hurry’s one-sided grin appeared momentarily, while the audience laughed――“but he said a mouthful when he spoke about keeping in right with faculty. I’ve been here three years, fellows, and I’ve seen teams hurt more than once because some poor prune who should have known better got in wrong at the Office and wasn’t there when he was needed. Coach says we don’t want fellows with us who won’t study and keep their end up in class, and that goes for me, too.

“About this indoor stuff, now. Well, it won’t hurt you a bit, and I’d hate to see any of you duck just because there’ll be a couple of weeks of calisthenics. You won’t have to work any harder than Mr. Babcock makes you work in gym class. And it’s necessary, too. I don’t want to see any of you fellows quit without getting a fair try-out. Some of you will quit later, because there’s only two teams to fill, but you leave that to Coach Connover. He’ll tell you quick enough when he’s through with you! Well, I guess that’s everything,” ended Hurry as the audience chuckled in appreciation of the dry jest. “Just stick as long as you’re needed, fellows; and do your best for the Team and the School. I know your best will be good enough!”

Somewhat to the surprise of the candidates, Mr. Connover announced that nothing more was required of them that day. “Be sure to give your names to the Manager before you go,” he added. “And that means all of you, old or new. To-morrow we’ll meet on the floor at four-thirty.”

Returning to West Hall, Tom remarked: “I wonder how Leland and I will get on together around second. You know, Clif, second baseman and shortstop have simply got to work together smoothly, and that guy doesn’t look like a fellow who would take kindly to advice.”

“From you?” jeered Clif. “I should hope not! Anyway, you and Hurry Leland aren’t likely to see much of each other. He’s on the first, you know.”

“Meaning that I’ll only make the second, eh?”

“Meaning you’ll be plaguy lucky if you make the bench! Say, I was sort of looking around back there,” continued Clif as he followed Tom into Number 34, “and I’ll bet there were twenty last year fellows on hand.”

“What of it?” asked Tom, plumping himself into a chair.

“What of it? Well, what chance have a couple of dunderheads like you and me got, I’d like to know.”

“Dunderhead yourself,” responded Tom, unruffled. “Dunderhead, me no dunderhead, young feller. Listen. I’m an experienced ball player. I was even a captain once.”

“Who else was on the team?” laughed Clif. “Your old nurse?”

“Well, of course, that was some time ago; when I was a mere lad of twelve. Just the same we weren’t so rotten. We had a pitcher who could strike out fellows weighing twenty pounds less than he did!”

“What’s weight got to do with it?” asked Clif, puzzled.

“I’m just telling you.” Tom chuckled. “We used to call him ‘Skel’; short for Skeleton, you know. He was about ten years old, I guess, and when he came on the field you couldn’t tell for sure whether he was walking forwards or backwards. He was the same all round. And round is just the word, too!”

“And what did you play on the ‘Morristown Giants’?”

“Wrong. We were the ‘Red Sox.’ I played catcher sometimes, and sometimes I played third base and sometimes――”

“You picked up bats. I know. Well, all that’s mighty interesting, Tom, but I can’t just see it helping you much in the present crisis. Of course you might tell it to Steve, but he’s sort of hard-boiled and――”

“No, sir,” interrupted Tom determinedly, “I won’t attempt to influence him. I propose to win the honor of playing second base by working up from the ranks, like the rest of you.”

“Very high-minded,” said Clif approvingly. “And, speaking of ranks, I’ll bet you’ll be ranker than any.”

“Say, joking aside, Clif, we _have_ got rather a cheek to try for that team and hope to get anywhere. I didn’t see more than five or six other third class fellows there.”

“Glad you acknowledge it. Still, it isn’t going to do us any harm to make a stab at it. We might cop something. You, anyway. You’ve played more than I have.”

“Well, heck, nothing venture, you know. Cheer up, old timer. You never can tell. One of us may be saving the day yet with a timely clout. Speaking of timely clouts, when I captained the old Red Sox――”

“Brakes!” said Clif rudely.