“Hello!”
“Babe” Linder, the big catcher of the Holman’s School nine, turned in the operation of pulling on his huge mitt and observed the speaker with mild interest. “Hello, son,” he returned gravely. “Is it natural or did science achieve that brilliant result?”
“What yer mean?” asked the other, earnest and anxious.
“Your hair, son. How did you get it that way?”
“It’s always been red,” answered the smaller youth, unoffended, but dropping his steady gaze a moment while he dug in the dirt in front of the bench with one scuffed shoe.
“You can’t beat Nature, can you?” sighed Babe.
The boy looked doubtful, but after a moment of hesitation gave a nod of agreement. Three or four other members of the team came around the corner of the stand, followed by the coach, Gus Cousins, and, subsequently, by Cicero Brutus Robinson, pushing a wheelbarrow containing base sacks, bat bag, protector, mask and the daily paraphernalia[177] of practice. Cicero, who was extremely black, very squat and interestingly bandy-legged, deposited his vehicle at the end of the bench and, wiping his glittering ebony forehead with the sleeve of a faded blue shirt, lifted the base sacks from the wheelbarrow and ambled leisurely away with them. A smallish, attenuated boy who had entered on Cicero’s heels, dragged the bat bag forth and unstrapped it. More players arrived, accompanied by a studious looking senior in street attire who clutched a large score-book in one hand and a box of balls in the other. Babe Linder gave greetings to the newcomers and, thudding the big mitten approvingly, even affectionately, moved along the bench. Unnoted by him, the red-haired youth kept close beside him. Babe selected a discolored baseball from among the dozen in the bottom of a fiber bucket and—
“Say!”
Babe looked down. “Son,” he asked gently, “do I owe you money, or what?”
“No, sir.” Two deep blue eyes looked appealingly up from a tanned and freckled face. “Say, do you want a bat boy?”
“A bat boy? No. I couldn’t use one.”
“I mean the team, sir.”
“Oh! Why, we’ve got one, son. That’s he over there.”
[178]
“Yeah, I seen him.” There was much contempt in the boy’s tone. “He ain’t no good, sir.”
“Eh? Well, confidentially, I agree with you, but there he is, what?” Dave Cochran, dean of the pitching staff, joined them and Babe addressed him gravely. “This young gentleman, Davy, seeks a position on the team.”
Dave studied the boy smilingly. “Well, we sure do need a catcher,” he said. “Can you catch, kid?”
The boy nodded, digging his toe again. “Yeah, but he’s just kiddin’, Mister. I want to be your bat boy.”
“Oh, that’s it? Well, you’re about a month late. We already have young Cecil acting in that capacity.”
“Is that his name, honest?” inquired the boy with what might be called hopeful disgust.
“No, not honest, but that’s what he’s called,” replied Babe. “After all, what’s in a name? And, speaking of names, son, what is yours?”
“Gi——” He swallowed and started fresh. “Robert Burke.”
“Fine! And what do they call you?” asked Dave.
“Ginger.” The boy smiled for the first time, a smile that lighted up his homely countenance and won both members of his audience instantly.
“Son,” said Babe, “if this was my outfit I’d engage[179] you like a shot, but it isn’t. You see, we’ve got a bat boy—”
“I can lick him easy,” remarked Ginger Burke conversationally. Then he added, hopefully: “If that guy wasn’t around could I have his job?”
Babe and Dave exchanged amused glances. “Ginger,” said Babe, “we’d hate to have anything happen to Cecil, but it’s my private hunch that—” Babe coughed deprecatingly—“that if—er—Cecil was non est, so to speak, your chance of filling his shoes would be excellent. Am I right, Dave?”
Dave grinned as he reached for the ball that Babe was juggling. “Them’s my sentiments, Mr. Linder. Come on and let me warm up the old wing.”
With none challenging him, Ginger climbed into the stand and became an interested observer of what followed. Ever and anon his glance strayed from Babe or Dave to the person of Cecil. That Cecil was not the thin youth’s correct name bothered Ginger not at all. He felt that it should have been his name even if it wasn’t, and he disapproved of it thoroughly, just as he disapproved of the bat boy’s lack of interest in his professional duties and his laggard movements when he retrieved a ball. “He’s a dumb-bell,” was Ginger’s verdict. “He ain’t got no license around here, that kid!” As a matter of fact, Cecil was to all appearances quite as old as Ginger, and fully as tall, even if, as happened, he[180] was built on a more niggardly style, and therefor the use of the term “kid” by Ginger was unconscious swank.
Afternoon practice ended at last and the field emptied, the players walking back across the football field and past the tennis courts to the big gymnasium whose long windows were crimson in the light of the sinking sun. To the gymnasium also meandered Cicero Brutus Robinson, pushing his wheelbarrow, and Coach Cousins and Manager Naylor, the latter pair in earnest converse. Thither, also, strolled the few students who had by ones and twos joined Ginger Burke in the stand during the progress of the afternoon’s proceedings. Of all those at the field two alone turned townwards at the last. These were Cecil—whose real name, by the way, happened to be William James Conners—and Ginger Burke. They did not go together. Indeed, a full half block separated them on their journey to Warrensburg, and to an observer it might have appeared that that distance was being intentionally maintained by the latter of the two, who was Ginger. Observers, however, were few, for the half mile between school campus and town was at that hour practically deserted, and the few, their thoughts doubtless fixed on the evening meal, paid small heed to the two youths, nor guessed that the first was cast in the r?le of Vanquished and the last[181] in the r?le of Victor in an impending drama. At the border of town Cecil turned to the left. So did Ginger.
The next afternoon when Babe swung around the corner of the stand, pulling on his mitten, and turned toward the bucket of practice balls a voice arrested him.
“Here y’are!”
Babe glimpsed something grayish arching toward him and instinctively shot out his mitt.............