Chapter XIV: Jerry Goes Along

Still looking on the bright side of Tom’s misadventure, Jerry might have added that it had supplied North Bank School with a new interest, for within a week a plainly discernible trail had been worn through the woods to the mouth of the old iron mine, and, lest some other boy might emulate Tom’s exploit, the faculty had a barrier built around the shaft opening. Neither Tom nor Jerry, however, returned there that spring. They had seen quite enough of it. Besides, there were too many other matters compelling their attention. On Tuesday, by which time Tom was up and around without any ill effects from his plunge into the shaft, Jerry and Tom made a hurried trip to Annapolis and replaced the caps lost in the adventure. And Jerry, who had a well-nigh overdeveloped sense of responsibility, purchased also a tin lantern to take the place of the one which now lay under twenty feet of water at the bottom of the shaft. As it proved an awkward task to tie paper around it he told the clerk he would take it without wrapping, and on the way to the station and thereafter he was an object of much interest, and an elderly gentleman, emerging from a bank as they hurried by, stopped Jerry to ask gravely: “My boy, are you emulating Diogenes?” And Jerry, missing the allusion and not wishing to miss the train, answered innocently and courteously: “No, sir, I’m Jerry Benson.” And a minute later, having reached the local just as it moved from the platform and tumbled into a seat, turned to Tom’s convulsed countenance and remarked in puzzlement: “What you-all laughing so at? What did he mean by asking me was I Émile Diogenes?”

Tom was back at practice on Friday, apparently no worse for his injury. And, by Friday, though scarcely before, Jerry’s muscles had recovered from their lameness and stiffness. He had put in a poor week at The Poplars, as Major Laurence’s place was called, for on Monday and Tuesday those same muscles had protested so loudly at the bare sight of a spading fork that he had had to humor them. The Major, to whom he made explanation and apology, had, however, heard of his exploit and showed no offense. Instead, he said several very nice, if embarrassing things to the boy and even called him a hero. For that matter, several others had called him the same thing; Doctor Heidler and Mr. Ledyard and Mr. Hiltower, for instance; and he was becoming inured to it, although he didn’t really care much for the plaudits.

Saturday afternoon, rather to his surprise and not altogether to his liking, Jerry was taken away with the first team and substitutes to Warnerston, where North Bank was to play Bayside Academy. I think that Jerry’s plucky exploit had more to do with his inclusion in the party than his playing ability, for both Coach Keegan and Captain Lord were human and willing to bestow honor where it was deserved. But what troubled Jerry was the fact that if he was at Warnerston he couldn’t be in Major Laurence’s garden, and of the two ways of spending the afternoon, spading at fifty cents an hour appealed to him far more than sitting on a wooden bench watching his schoolmates play baseball. However, it was his first experience of the kind and he began to enjoy it the moment the seventeen boys and Coach Keegan boarded the train. Everybody was in holiday mood, and even the coach had lost his martinet ways for the time. Jerry shared a seat with Hal Thacher, the substitute pitcher, who was slated to start the game for the Light Blue, and they talked baseball most of the way. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that Hal Thacher talked and Jerry listened, for Jerry didn’t know much about baseball and Hal did. The train journey was brief, and at its end they climbed into four dust-covered motor cars and sped wildly over lumpy roads to their destination. Bayside was a small school picturesquely nestling amidst ancient trees on the edge of the Bay. The team and substitutes had changed into playing togs before leaving North Bank and so they stepped from the automobiles to the field, a broad expanse of well-kept turf, already green, that sloped slightly to the sparkling water. There was a long practice for all hands, toward the last of which the low wooden stands began to be sprinkled with spectators. Then Bayside appeared, an even score of clean-looking youngsters in white uniforms with cherry-and-black stockings that made North Bank’s gray-and-light-blue look rather faded.

The game started at half past two, at which time there was much warmth in the April sunshine. Jerry, relegated to an unshaded bench with the substitutes, would gladly have traded his gray cap for a wide-brimmed straw just then. Forrest Birkenside, the manager, copied the batting order in his big score book, and Jerry, beside him, read the names as he set them down: Jackson, ss; Lord, 1b; Conway, rf; McGee, 2b; Hartley, 3b; Sortwell, lf; Beech, cf; Keller, c; Thacher, p.

“Reckon it’s right hard keeping score, ain’t it?” asked Jerry.

Birkenside pursed his lips as he began to enter the opposing players on the opposite sheet. “N-no, not when you know how, Benson. You watch and you’ll see how it’s done.” The manager looked at his watch and set down some figures lightly on a corner of the page.

“What’s that?” asked Jerry interestedly.

“That’s the time we start, two-thirty-one. Have to put the length of the game down here when it’s over. Come on now, Andy! Let’s start something!” The latter exclamation was directed at Andy Jackson, the Light Blue’s shortstop, who, having pulled his cap to a satisfactory angle and rubbed his hands in the yellow dust of the box and then on the sides of his pants, now faced the Bayside pitcher confidently and awaited his fate.

Jerry had never yet witnessed a real game through, from start to finish, in the rôle of spectator, and he was very soon absorbed in the varying fortunes of the contesting nines. He found the gyrations of the opposing batter, a slight, earnest-looking youth, most fascinating, and mentally decided that both Grinnel and Thacher of his own team were sadly lacking in style. Embauer, the cherry-and-black-hosed youth, veritably tied himself into a knot each time that he pitched, so long, that is, as the bases were empty. When, however, Jackson having flied out to shortstop, Pop Lord drove a screaming single between first and second bases, Embauer showed a new method and pitched from the shoulder, and word traveled along the bench that the best he had was a drop when men were on bases. Conway advanced Lord on a sacrifice bunt that the pitcher handled easily, and then McGee brought a whoop of joy from the North Bank bench by sending a long and high one into deep center. But, while Pop sped across the plate, the Bayside center fielder pulled down the fly and the teams changed places.

Thacher put himself in a hole at the outset and was finally forced to offer two straight balls, the second of which the Bayside batsman met squarely and lined into left field. It was a safe single and the Bayside audience, several hundred in number, cheered joyfully. Thacher struck out the next man and kept the runner on first. Then another hit came, one that McGee almost reached as it whizzed past him, and when the ball traveled back to the pitcher there were runners on first and third. A foul fly settled into Captain Lord’s glove at the edge of the seats, and, with two gone, North Bank breathed easier. But she was not to escape unscathed, for, after the man on first had taken second unchallenged, a Texas Leaguer managed to get out of Conway’s hands. Since he had raced hard and far, the error was excusable, but it let in one run and would have let in a second if Conway hadn’t recovered quickly and hurled to the plate. As it was, the runner from second was finally put out on the base line after most of the Light Blue’s infield had taken a hand in his extermination.

North Bank went to bat in the second with the score 1 to 0 and retired with the score unchanged. Embauer, so long as he could tie knots in himself was a puzzling pitcher with a wide range of delivery. His fashion of changing pace when least expected netted him eight strike-outs ere the game was over. In the second inning he sent Hartley, Sortwell and Keller back to the bench ignominiously, while Beech owed his life to an infield error that enabled him to slide into first a brief instant before the ball got there. That decision caused dissatisfaction in the stands, but it didn’t affect the result of the game, for the Light Blue’s center fielder never got any further.

Hal Thacher recovered his effectiveness when Bayside came to face him and not a runner reached first. And in such manner the game went to the fifth inning. It was a contest of pitchers, and not an outfield player had a chance. There were four errors, two on each side, and three hits, one of them a palpable scratch. But in the fifth the game broke. Tub Keller, first up for North Bank, caught the first offering of the hitherto well-nigh impregnable Embauer and sent it screeching over first baseman’s head for two bases. Thacher went out, third baseman to first. Jackson walked. Captain Lord, gripping his bat determinedly, waited until the score was two and three and then pounded a liner through the pitcher’s box and scored Tub, putting Jackson on third and himself on first. Conway flied out to right field and Jackson brought in North Bank’s second tally. McGee bunted down the third base line and beat the throw, and Pop Lord worked a delayed steal to perfection and was safe on third when the baseman dropped the ball. It was up to Tom to bring Pop in then, and Tom waited out two deliveries, a strike and a ball, while McGee went on to second. After that he fouled to left field, scoring the second strike, and fouled twice more, the second time barely escaping an out when the ball bounced out of the catcher’s mitt. But luck was with him, and when Embauer had tried to fool him on a drop that he wouldn’t even consider he reached out for a hook and got it fairly on the end of his bat for a low fly that sailed gracefully over first base and dropped to earth a few inches inside the foul line, well out of the reach of any one. Jerry joined his cheer to that of the others on the North Bank bench as McGee followed Lord across the plate and scored the fourth tally! Tom went to second on the throw home, but he died there when Wayne Sortwell popped a short fly to third baseman.

“Reckon we’ve got the old ball game on ice,” chuckled Birkenside as he worked deftly with his fountain pen on the score. “Three runs ought to hold those chaps safe, eh?”

“Reckon so,” agreed Jerry, “but, as they say down where I come from, there ain’t no telling which way a pig’ll run. Reckon I’d feel a heap easier in my mind if this was the last inning, neighbor!”

The manager laughed. “Oh, well, I reckon we can hold ’em. Hal’s right there with the stuff to-day.”

“He’s surely pitching a nice game,” said Jerry.

But events soon proved the similarity between a ball game and a pig. In the last of the sixth Bayside suddenly bewildered her opponent by hitting Thacher hard and freely. When three clean hits had been registered and one run had crossed the rubber, Coach Keegan signed to Jack Grinnel, and he and Crocker retired behind the stand and the former warmed up. With one out and men on second and third, Thacher took command again and struck out the Bayside third baseman, one of the opponent’s most dangerous hitters. Then, however, there came a soul-sickening whack and the ball went speeding far afield, and though Sortwell and Beech both did their utmost to get under it, it dropped safely to earth and went rolling toward the water as though it meant never to stop!

That was the only home run of the game and it cleared the bases and gave Bayside a lead of one tally. Thacher was hustled out of the pitcher’s box and Grinnel was hustled in, but the damage was done! The stable door was being locked after the horse was gone! Even Grinnel had his troubles in that inning, for there was still another out to secure and Bayside, having tasted blood, was not willing to eat meekly out of Grinnel’s glove. The next batsman waited cannily until the blue-stockinged pitcher had secured one strike and had three balls against him――for Grinnel was pretty wild at first――and then landed on one that came to him in the groove and smashed it at Tom Hartley so hard that the very best Tom could do was knock it down. It was Jackson who snatched it up and pegged it to first, but by that time the runner was safe. Followed a second hit that went between Lord and McGee, and there were two on and the Bayside stands were howling lustily. But the suspense ended a minute later when Grinnel induced the Bayside captain to send up a long fly to left that fell gently into Wayne Sortwell’s hands. So ended a glorious or a tragic inning, depending whether you wore the cherry-and-black or the light blue.

But here was the “lucky seventh,” as Pop cheerfully proclaimed, and North Bank went after the game again. Jackson tried hard to deliver a hit, but only struck an easy one into shortstop’s glove, and Pop, loudly cheered from the bench, faced Embauer with the visage of an avenging Fate. After fouling off two, Pop unwisely went after a drop and Embauer put up a lazy hand and snuffed his candle. Conway struck out.