“Oh, well, you’re an exceptional case,” said Gordon gently. “When a fellow shows criminal tendencies like yours, Fudge – ”
“Yes, writing stories at your age! You ought to be ashamed!” Lanny spoke with deep severity. Fudge only chuckled.
“Some day,” he announced gleefully, “I’m going to write a story and put you fellows all into it. Then you’ll wish you hadn’t been so fresh. The only thing is” – and his voice fell disconsolately – “I don’t suppose, if I told what I know about you, I could get it published!”
“Deal gently with us, Fudge,” begged Dick humbly. “Remember, we used to be friends. I must be getting along, fellows. Coming over to-morrow, Gordie?”
“Yes, I’ll drop around in the morning. We’ve got to get busy and send out some challenges. Who can we get to play with us, Lanny, besides Lesterville and, maybe, Plymouth?”
“I don’t know. I think there are plenty of teams, though, if we can find them.”
“They have a team at Logan,” said Fudge, “but I guess they’re older than we are.”
“What do we care?” asked Gordon. “Logan’s a good way off, though, and I suppose it would cost like the dickens to get there.”
“Make them come over here,” suggested Lanny.
“Yes, but then they’d want their expenses guaranteed.”
“Look here,” observed Dick, “why couldn’t we charge admission to some of the games after we got started? I dare say quite a lot of folks would pay a quarter to see a good game.”
“They might,” conceded Lanny. “We could try it, anyway. If we could get, say, a hundred admissions, we’d have twenty-five dollars, and then we could pay the expenses of any team around here. That’s a bully idea, Dick. As a manager you’re all to the good.”
“I thank you,” replied Dick, setting his crutches under his arms. “We’ll talk it over to-morrow. You come over, too, Lanny; and Fudge if he is not in the throes of literary composition.”
“I’ll walk around with you,” said Lanny. “It’s too bully a night to go to bed, anyway. Good-night, fellows.”
“Good-night,” responded Gordon and Fudge. “Good-night, Dick.”
They watched the two as long as they were in sight in the white radiance of the moon, and then:
“They’re two of the finest fellows in the world,” said Fudge warmly. “And wouldn’t Dick be a wonder if he was like the rest of us, Gordie?”
“Y – yes,” replied Gordon thoughtfully, “only – sometimes I think that maybe if Dick was like the rest of us, Fudge, he might not be the splendid chap he is.”
Fudge objected to that, but afterward, returning home by way of the back fence, he thought it over. “I suppose,” he told himself, as he paused on his porch for a final look at the moon, “what Gordie means is that tribulations ennoble our characters.” That struck him as a fine phrase, and he made a mental note of it. Still later, as he lay in bed with the moonlight illumining his room, he began to plan a perfectly corking story around the phrase, with Dick as the hero. Unfortunately, perhaps, for American literature, sleep claimed him before he had completed it.
CHAPTER V
DICK VISITS THE POINT
On Wednesday the Clearfield Baseball Club reported for practice. There was a full attendance, with the exception of Tom Haley. Gordon confined the hour’s work to fielding, however, and Tom’s absence was not felt. Fudge had purchased a brand-new High School uniform and Pete Robey had been lucky enough to borrow one from a boy who had played on the team several years before. As the shirts and caps held only the letter “C,” there was nothing misrepresentative about the gray uniforms. Of course, the fact that the C was purple and that the stockings were of the same royal hue might lead one to mistake the team for the High School nine; but Gordon had consulted the principal, Mr. Grayson, in the matter, and Mr. Grayson had given it as his opinion that, so long as they did not pretend to be the High School team, there could be no harm in wearing their school uniforms.
Most of the fellows had not played since the final game with Springdale, nearly a month before, and were consequently rather out of practice. Muscles were stiff, and that first day’s work only produced soreness. But by Saturday the fellows were pegging the ball around with their old-time ginger and running and sliding with their accustomed agility. Tom pitched to the batters on Friday, and the result proved that batting practice was far from being a waste of time. Even Gordon, who had headed the batting list that Spring, found that his eye was bad and that he could connect with Tom’s easy offerings scarcely better than the tail-enders.
Fudge plunged into the business with heart and soul, determined to make himself not only a useful member of the outfield but a regular Ty Cobb or Home-Run Baker at the bat. I regret to have to state that for some time Fudge’s fielding was not at all spectacular and that he never – or at least never that summer – threatened to dispute Mr. Cobb’s supremacy with the stick. But they didn’t expect great things from Fudge; and as time went on he developed a very clever judgment in the matter of fly balls and even became able to throw with some accuracy to the infield.
Meanwhile, Dick had entered into correspondence with some half dozen baseball teams in not too distant towns, and already a game had been scheduled with Lesterville, who, to Dick’s surprise and satisfaction, offered to pay Clearfield’s expenses if it would visit Lesterville. Manager Lovering promptly agreed and the date of the contest was fixed for the second Saturday following the Rutter’s Point game. On Friday morning Dick and Caspar Billings again met and completed arrangements. Caspar, a boy of Dick’s own age, took a great liking to the Clearfield manager, and insisted on his staying to luncheon with him on that occasion, and it was on the Billings’ veranda, within a stone’s throw of the waves, that the two talked it all over.
Caspar was a fine-looking youth, rather large but well conditioned, with dark hair and eyes, a ready smile, and a jovial laugh. He lived in New York, but had been spending his summers at the Point for several years. Dick met Caspar’s mother and two older sisters at luncheon, but Mr. Billings was not present, and Dick gathered that he remained in New York save for an occasional week-end. When Caspar explained that Dick was tutoring Harold Townsend, Mrs. Billings shook her head pessimistically.
“I’m afraid,” she said, “you’ll find him rather difficult. He isn’t exactly what I’d call a nice-dispositioned boy.”
“Come, mother, don’t discourage Lovering at the start,” laughed Caspar. “We all know that the kid’s horribly spoiled, but then Lovering isn’t going to be a governess to him!”
“I don’t want to discourage him, dear, but I thought it only right he should know that – well, if he isn’t very successful, it won’t be altogether his fault. Mrs. Townsend is a dear woman, but I can’t admire the way she has brought up that boy.”
“His brother has already warned me,” replied Dick, with a smile. “I’m prepared for the worst. So far, Harold has behaved very well. He doesn’t like to study much, but he hasn’t – well, lain down in the shafts yet.”
“He will, though,” laughed Caspar. “And if you don’t keep a tight rein he will bust the shafts! That brother of his is a nice chap, though. By the way, he’s going to play first base for us, Lovering.”
“Who is your pitcher?” asked Dick.
“I – we aren’t quite sure. We expect it will be Mason, but he hasn’t come yet. If he doesn’t show up we’ll have to find some one else. You know Morris Brent, don’t you? He’s on the team, too. Then there’s Pink Northrop and Jim House and Gilbert Chase and Charlie Leary and – let’s see; oh, yes, Billy Houghton. And Mason, if he gets here in time. How many’s that? Never mind. I dare say I’ve forgotten one or two. I guess we’ll average a year or so older