Chase strolled ’round a block and saw many fine brick residences and substantial frame houses with vine-covered, roomy porches and large lawns. Back on Main Street again, he walked along without aim. There was a hotel on the next corner, and a number of young men were sitting outside with chairs tilted back against the window, and also on the edge of the sidewalk.
Chase had sauntered into the ken of his fellow players. “Say, fellars, will you get onto thet!”
“It’s Chaseaway!”
“Hello, Chase, old sport, come an’ have a drink.”
“Dude Thatches; we can see your finish. Our new shortstop is some on the dress himself. He’ll show you up!”
“Would you mind droppin’ your lid over thet lame blinker? I don’t want to have the willies tonight.”
Then an incident diverted their attack on Chase. Someone kicked a leg of Enoch Winter’s chair, and being already tipped far back, it overbalanced and let Enoch sprawl in the gutter. Whereupon the group howled in glee.
“Cap’n, wasser masser?” inquired Benny, trying to help Enoch to his feet and falling over him instead. Benny was drunk. Slowly Enoch separated himself from Benny and righted his chair and seated himself.
“Now, ain’t it funny?” said he.
His slow, easy manner of speaking, without a trace of resentment, made Chase look at him. Enoch was captain of the team and a man long past his boyhood. Yet there remained something boyish about him. He had a round face and a round bullet head, cropped close; round gray eyes, wise as an owl’s, and he had a round lump on his right cheek. As this lump moved up and down, Chase presently divined that it was only a puffed-out cheek over a quid of tobacco. He instinctively liked his captain and when asked to sit down in a vacant chair near at hand, he did so with the pleasant thought that at last he was one of them.
Chase sat there for over an hour, intensely interested in all of them, in what they said and did. He felt sorry for Benny, for the second-baseman was much under the influence of liquor, had a haggard face and unkempt appearance. The fellow called Dude Thatcher was a tall youth, good looking, very quiet, and very well dressed. Chase saw him flick dust off his shiny shoes, and more than once adjust his spotless cuffs. Meade was a typical ball player, under twenty, a rugged and bronzed fellow of jovial aspect. Hicks would never see thirty again; there was gray hair over his temples; he was robust of build and his hands resembled eagles’ claws. He was a catcher, and many a jammed and broken finger had been his lot.
What surprised Chase more than anything was the fact that baseball was not once mentioned by this group. They were extremely voluble, too, and talked on every subject under the sun except the one that concerned their occupation. Under every remark lay a subtle inflection of humor. Mild sarcasm and sharp retort and ready wit flashed back and forth.
The left-fielder of the team, Frank Havil by name, a tall, thin fellow with a pale, sanctimonious face, strolled out of the hotel lobby and seated himself near Chase. And with his arrival came a series of most peculiar happenings to Chase. At first he thought mosquitoes or flies were bothering him; then he imagined a wasp or hornet was butting into his ear; next he made sure of one thing only, that something was hitting the side of his face and head. Whatever it was he had no idea. It came at regular intervals and began to sting more and more. He took a sidelong glance at Havil, but that young man’s calm, serious face disarmed any suspicion. But when Havil got up and moved away the strange fact that the stinging sensation ceased to come caused Chase to associate it somehow with the quiet left fielder.
“Chase, did you feel anythin’ queer when Havil was sittin’ alongside of you?” asked Winters.
“I certainly did. What was it?”
“Havil is a queer duck. He goes ’round with his mouth full of number ten shot, an’ he works one out on the end of his tongue, an’ flips it off his front teeth. Why, the blame fool can knock your eye out. I’ve seen him make old baldheaded men crazy by sittin’ behind them en’ shootin’ shot onto the bald spots. An’ he never cracks a smile. He can look anybody in the eye, an’ they can’t tell he’s doin’ it, but they can feel it blamed well. He sure is a queer duck, an’—you look out for your one good eye.”
“Thank you, I will. But I have two good eyes. I can see very well out—out of the twisted one.”
Chase went to his room and to bed. Sleep did not soon come. His mind was too full; too much had happened; the bed was too soft. He dozed off, to start suddenly up with the bump of a freight train in his ears. But when he did get to sleep, it was in a deep, dreamless slumber that lasted until ten o’clock the next morning.
After breakfast, which Mrs. Obenwasser had kept waiting for him, he walked out to the ball-grounds to find the gates locked. So with morning practice out of the question he returned to Main Street and walked toward the hotel.
He saw Castorious sitting in the lobby.
“Hello, Chase, now wouldn’t this jar you?” Castorius said in friendly tones, offering a copy of the Findlay Chronicle.
Could this be the stalking monster that had roared at him yesterday, and scared about the last bit of courage out of him? Cas laid a big freckled hand on the newspaper and pointed out a column.
BASEBALL NOTES
“Mac gave Morris his walking-papers yesterday and Stanhope his notice. This is a good move, as these players caused dissension in the club. Now we can look for the brace. Findlay has been laying down lately. Castorious’s work yesterday is an example. We would advise him not to play that dodge any more.
“The new shortstop, Chaseaway, put the boots on everything that came his way, but for all that we like his style. He is fast as lightning and has a grand whip. He stands up like Brouthers, and if we’re any judge of ball players—here we want to say we’ve always called the turn—this new youngster will put the kibosh on a few and ‘chase’ the Dude for batting honors”
Chase read it over twice, and it brought the hot blood to his face. After that miserable showing of his in the game—how kind of the reporter to speak well of him! Chase’s heart swelled. He had been wrong—there were lots of good fellows in the world.
“Make a fellow sick, wouldn’t it?” said Cas, in disgust. “Accused me of laying down! Say, come and walk over to the hotel where the Kenton fellows are staying.”
Chase felt very proud to be seen with the great pitcher, for whom all passersby had a nod or a word. They stopped at another hotel, in the lobby of which lounged a dozen broad-shouldered, red-faced young men.
“Say,” said Cas, with a swing of his head, “I just dropped in to tell you guys that I’m going to pitch today, and I’m going to let you down with two hits. See!” A variety of answers were flung at him, but he made no reply and walked out. All the way up the street Chase heard him growling to himself.
* * * *
The afternoon could not come soon enough for Chase. He went out to the grounds in high spirits. When he entered the dressing-room, he encountered the same derisive clamor that had characterized the players’ manner toward him the day before. And it stunned him. He looked at them aghast. Every one of them, except Cas, had a scowl and hard word for him. Benny, not quite sober yet, was brutal, and Meade made himself particularly offensive. Even Winters, who had been so friendly the night before, now said he would put out Chase’s other lamp if he played poorly today. They were totally different from what they had been off the field. A frenzy of some kind possessed them. Roars of laughter following attacks on him, and for that matter on each other, detracted little, in Chase’s mind, from the impression of unnatural sarcasm.
He hurriedly put on his uniform and got out of the room. He did not want to lose his nerve again. Cas sat on the end of the bleachers, pounding the boards with his bat.
“Say, I was waiting for you,” he said in a whisper to Chase. “I’m going to put you wise when I get a chance to talk. All I want to say now is, I’ll show up this Kenton outfit today. They can’t hit my speed,