Holman’s School had won the first contest with Munson, and she wanted very much to win the second and do away with the necessity of playing a third on neutral territory. This warm, blue-and-gold June afternoon found them well matched and eager, how well matched is shown by the fact that until the sixth inning neither side scored. Then Prentiss got Holman’s first hit, a rather scratchy affair at that, and although Cummins was thrown out at first Prentiss reached second. Cross, Munson’s really remarkable twirler, let down long enough to pass Wilder and, with one down, Holman’s cheered hopefully. “Babe” Linder flied out to shortstop, however, and it remained for Cochran, Holman’s left-hand pitcher, to do the trick, or, rather, to bring it about. Cochran was no batsman, and he knew it, just as every one else did, but he had a wonderful faculty for getting in the way of the ball. I’m not prepared to say that it was intentional, but Cochran’s average was just about one base per game owing to being struck by a pitched ball. This time he got it on the thigh, started right off for[15] first and, it may be, decided the matter for an umpire who was inclined for an instant to be doubtful. That filled the bases and there was a good deal of noise from coaches and spectators, and Cross, disgruntled, sought revenge by trying to catch Stearns off second, or by pretending to. At all events the ball went over the shortstop’s head, Prentiss scored and Stearns raced for third but was caught when the center fielder pegged a swift one to the third sack. But Munson evened things up in the eighth, just when the home team had visions of a one-to-nothing victory, by getting two clean hits off Cochran and combining them with a clever steal. And at 1—1 the game dragged—no, it never dragged for an instant. But at 1—1 it stayed until the last of the eleventh. Holman’s had no hope of doing anything in that particular inning, for the tail end of her batting list was up: Wilder, Linder, Cochran. But you never can tell when the break will come. Wilder was passed, Babe Linder laid down a sacrifice bunt and Cochran, in spite of almost Herculean efforts, took the fourth ball pitched squarely on his shoulder! Cross complained bitterly when the rival pitcher was waved to first, and I think the incident affected his delivery. At all events, Torrey, left fielder and head of the batting list, rolled one toward third and after baseman and pitcher had each politely[16] left it to the other during a tragic moment the latter threw late to first. With bases filled, but one out and Hal Norwin swinging his two bats as he stepped to the plate, there could have been but one outcome. Cross had to pitch ’em and he knew it. Perhaps Cross already read the writing on the wall, for Hal said afterwards that that third delivery came to him with nothing on it but a sunbeam. He said that it looked so good he was almost afraid of it. Possibly Cross intended he should be. But Hal didn’t scare quite so easily as that, and so he took a fine healthy swing at it and it traveled. It went straight and far and came safe to earth yards out of reach of right fielder and to Cummins went the honor of scoring the winning tally!
Joe didn’t march back to the campus with the triumphant horde but cut across back of the gymnasium and made his way to Number 14 in a somewhat depressed frame of mind. He had watched the game from start to finish and was well satisfied at the outcome, but he hadn’t been happy. When you have worked hard from February on to win your position and have set your heart on playing in the Big Game, why, you just can’t help feeling a bit glum when the Big Game finds you perched among the noncombatants of the grandstand. I don’t think Joe really regretted what he had done. One can be sad without being sorry.[17] But there were moments when he was rather self-contemptuous, when he told himself that he had done a silly, quixotic thing for which no one thanked him.
They were still cheering and singing over in front of School Hall when he reached his room, and the sounds came to him around the corner of the building and floated in at the open window. Although it was nearly five o’clock the golden sunlight still streamed across the meadows beyond the little river and save for the disturbing and discordant sounds from the campus the world was dreamily silent. It was beautiful, too, with the fresh, new green of grass and leaves and the peaceful sky and the mellow sunlight, but he was glad that in a few more days he would see the last of it for a while. In fact, he wasn’t sure that he ever wanted to return to Holman’s. He felt so horribly like a failure.
The shadows lengthened and the sunlight became tinged with flame. The dormitory echoed to laughter and the tramp of feet and the slamming of doors. Then, presently, his own door opened and Hal came in, bustlingly, radiating triumph and high spirits. “Some game, Joe!” he cried. “By jiminy, though, I thought they had us for a while! Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Joe listlessly. “Cross was in great form.”
[18]
“Wasn’t he? I couldn’t get near him—until the last inning. Well, we won, thank goodness!”
Joe made no answer and Hal busied himself at the washstand. After a while: “You’re coming to the dinner, aren’t you?” asked the latter.
Joe hesitated. He had forgotten that the team would dine in state to-night in the visitors’ hall, with speeches and songs and at the end of the modest banquet, the election of a new captain. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I suppose I have a right to, but—”
“Of course you have. Any fellow who has played on the team during the season has. I asked because—” Hal hesitated, and Joe, looking across, saw him as near embarrassment as he ever got. “The fact is,” he began again, and again stopped.
“Don’t worry,” said Joe. “I intend to, anyway.”
“Intend to what?” asked Hal, looking puzzledly over the towel with which he was drying his face.
“Vote for you for captain.”
“Oh, that! Thanks, but you needn’t if you’d rather not. I sha’n’t mind if you don’t. That isn’t what I was going to say, though.” He tossed the towel aside and, hands in pockets, came over to the window. “Look here, Joe. I haven’t been feeling any too easy yesterday and to-day. I thought it was all right to let you take the blame for—for my foolishness because it might mean winning the[19] game to-day. And I guess it did mean that, as it’s turned out. But I’ve sort of hated myself, just the same, and I guess what I ought to have done was stand the racket myself and let the game look after itself. But I didn’t and post mortems don’t get you anything. But there’s no reason for carrying the thing any further. What we’ve got to do now is get you squared up with faculty and the school and—and every one. So I’m going to tell ’em the truth at dinner to-night.”
“That’s a brilliant idea!” scoffed Joe.
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because there’ll be at least two faculty there, and if you think they’ll let you accept the captaincy after ’fessing up to that stunt you’re all wrong.”
“I don’t. They’ll have me in probation to-morrow, of course. That isn’t the question.”
“Of course it’s the question,” said Joe impatiently. “You’re practically sure of the captaincy. I know it and so do you. If faculty gets this on you you’re a goner. Besides, what good’s it going to do any one? School’s over in three days, and just as long as they’re going to let me pass with my class I don’t mind three days in bounds.”
“That’s all right,” replied Hal stubbornly, “but right is right. I let you suffer because I wanted to win the game. The game’s won. Now it’s my turn to stand the gaff.”
[20]
“And lose the captaincy!”
Hal shrugged. “I know. I thought of that, though. It can’t be helped. Besides—”
“It can be helped!” said Joe angrily. “All you need to do is get this fool idea out of your head. You talk like a—a sick fish!”
“Just the same—”
“No, sir! I won’t stand for it! What sort of a silly fool do you think I’d feel like with you getting up before all that bunch and—and spouting all that rot? If you tell that yarn I’ll deny it!”
Hal smiled. “I can prove it, though. I can produce five fellows who will testify that I was in Gus Billing’s room at eleven o’clock that night.”
“Is that where you were?” asked Joe eagerly.
“Yes.”
“Oh! Why, that isn’t—there’s no harm—”
“Of course there’s no harm, but I stayed too late. Gus’s clock was about an hour slow and I never thought to look at my watch. Anyhow, it won’t do you any good to deny it, Joe.”
“Well, then—” Joe spoke slowly, frowning intently across the shadowy room. “Maybe you sort of feel that you—you owe me something. Of course I didn’t do it just for—just to oblige you, but you wanted to win, and I guess I helped—”
“Of course I owe you something. I’m trying to make you understand it. And I’m going to pay what I owe.”
[21]
“Not that way,” replied Joe firmly. “If you do want to—to square things there’s just one way you can do it.”
“How’s that?” asked Hal suspiciously.
“Forget it!”
“No, sir!”
“Yes, I mean it, Hal.” Their eyes challenged. After a moment Hal shrugged.
“All right,” he said, “but I don’t get your idea. It isn’t as if you’d done it for me—” He stopped and there was a long moment of silence. Then he asked brusquely: “You didn’t, did you?”
“No!” answered the other. Hal walked over, picked up his jacket and began to put it on. “And what if I did?” added Joe defiantly.
Hal stopped with one sleeve on. “I knew mighty well you did,” he growled.
“You know a lot, don’t you?” grumbled Joe sarcastically.
“I know that if you don’t wash up and get ready we’ll be late,” laughed Hal. “Get a move on, Grumpy!”
“Well—but no speeches, Hal!”
“Nary a spooch!”
Joe splashed and gurgled and Hal watched, grinning broadly. Presently he observed carelessly: “I say, Joe, we’ve only got two more days to get our application in if we want this room next year.”
[22]
Joe dried his face with unusual care. “That’s right,” he said at last. “Guess we’d better get busy, eh?”
Maynard fell in with Naylor, assistant manager, on his way out. Naylor was still figuring his totals in the official score book and Maynard peered over his shoulder.
“What did you give Kenton on that last play?” he asked.
“Kenton? Kenton wasn’t in it, you idiot! Wilder played—”
“Still,” said “Granny” soberly, “I think you should have credited him with a sacrifice.”
And he went on, leaving Naylor looking after him commiseratingly.