MAKING THE NINE

Phil did not walk in from the field.–Page 321.

PREFACE

The cordial welcome given to Following The Ball by boy readers and parents—severe critics both, though from very different standpoints—has led to the writing of this second story, in which baseball has a sufficiently important part to suggest the title.

The author’s purpose in each case has been to produce a readable story true to the life of a distinctly American school, true to athletics in their better spirit and character, and teaching—not preaching—a manly and reasonable ideal. If he has not succeeded in this, the failure can certainly not be charged to lack of experience with athletics or school life or the ways of boys.

Hearty acknowledgments for expert advice on the technicalities of baseball training and play are due to Dr. Edward H. Nichols of Boston, who, as player, head coach, and graduate adviser, has probably contributed more to Harvard victories on the diamond than any other one man. The play marking the climax of the game described in Chapter XXVI is a historic one, borrowed from a Yale-Harvard contest. Its hero was Mr. George W. Foster, of a champion Harvard nine.

ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY.

CHAPTER I AN UNWELCOME PROPOSITION

“How they do yell! Where’s your patriotism, Phil, to be hanging round in this gloomy crowd when all your friends are howling their heads off outside? Don’t you know Yale won the game? Why aren’t you out there with the rest?”

Philip Poole looked up with a smile, but did not reply.

“He’s comforting the afflicted,” said Dick Melvin, who shared with Poole the ownership of the room. “You don’t want to gloat over us poor Harvardites, do you, Phil? Thank you much for your sympathy.”

“That isn’t the reason,” said the lad, after a pause, with the sober look in his big, wide-open eyes that made him seem serious even when his feelings inclined in the opposite direction. “I just don’t see any cause for such a racket. A Yale football victory over Harvard is too ordinary an occurrence to get wild over.”

The chorus of hoots and groans that greeted this explanation brought a smile of satisfaction to the boy’s face. He was the youngest of the company, only in his second year at Seaton; the others were mostly seniors. As Melvin’s room-mate, however, and in a measure still under the senior’s care, Poole was thrown as much with the older students as with his own classmates; and the intimacy thus developed had served both to sharpen his wits and to give him practice in self-defence.

Melvin himself had not been at Seaton much longer than Phil. He had entered at the beginning of the Middle year, an unknown boy, green, sanguine, eager to win a scholarship and so relieve his father of some of the expense of his schooling. Soon, however, fascinated by football and the glamour of the school athletic world, he had failed to subordinate his sport to the real objects of school life. How he made the school eleven and went down with it to defeat; how he lost his scholarship; how the care of young Phil, suddenly offered him by the lad’s uncle, sobered and steadied him and enabled him to stay in school; how he and John Curtis fought the long uphill fight to develop a strong team, and finally defeated the rival school,—all this has already been told in another book, and can only be referred to very briefly here. The great game which marked the climax of the struggle was still a recent event.

“You didn’t take it so calmly when Seaton won the victory two weeks ago, and your beloved Dick spent the afternoon kicking the ball over the Hillbury goal-posts,” said Varrell, a tall, quiet boy, with keen, restless eyes that followed the conversation from face to face.

“That’s different,” replied Poole. “I’m first for Seaton and afterwards for Yale. The college can wait until I get there—and that will be a long time yet,” he added ruefully, “if what I was told in the algebra class to-day holds true.”

The others laughed patronizingly, as befitted those who had “points” to their credit on preliminary certificates, and knew Cæsar and algebra only as outgrown acquaintances—friends they had never been.

“He’s playing off,” said Todd, suspiciously. “I don’t doubt he drew an ‘A’ on his last examination.”

For one member of the group, the conversation was taking an unpleasant turn. John Curtis talked as unwillingly about examinations or entering college as the family of a convict on prison discipline. John had been captain of the football team, a player with a record, already courted by college committees on the lookout for good material for Varsity elevens. The glory of victory still rested full and bright upon him, but neither the adulation of comrades nor his own consciousness of achievement could make up to him for his failure to be recommended for preliminaries at the last college examinations, and his present gloomy outlook.

“Let’s see what they’re doing out in the yard,” he said abruptly, lifting his two hundred pounds from a creaking chair.

Bang, bang, bump, bang! went a heavy object down the stairs. Melvin jerked the door open in season to hear a scurry of feet at the end of the corridor, and the slam of two or three doors.

“This thing must stop, do you hear?” he shouted in the direction from which the sound had come.

The corridor was silent. No one answered; no one appeared. Yet behind the cracks of doors ajar were uttered low chucklings that the monitor rather suspected than heard. From a door at the end emerged an innocent head adorned with a green shade.

“Who are you bawling at, anyway? A fellow can’t study in this place, however much he tries. First a chump fires a bowling ball downstairs, and then the monitor curdles your blood with his Apache yells. I’d rather hear the ball, a good sight. It isn’t so hard on the nerves.”

“You tell those fellows to stop that thing right off, or I’ll report every one of them.”

“Tell them yourself!” retorted the green shade; “I’m not their grandmother.”

Inside Number 9 the company roared with laughter. “There’s no more fun for the poor fellows in this hall since Dick was put over it,” said Curtis.

“No, he takes his duties seriously,” commented Todd. “What did you do to them, Mr. Monitor,” he asked, as the official returned, “put ’em on probation?”

“Warned them,” replied Melvin, with good humor undisturbed.

“Who was that you were laboring with?”

“Tompkins.”

“What!” cried Curtis, “that wild-looking, shaggy-haired man from Butte, who looks as if he had just escaped from the menagerie?”

“That’s the one,” replied Dick; “though he isn’t as bad as all that. He’s a bit freakish, I’ll admit.”

“Not so much of a freak as he looks,” said Todd. “You ought to have seen him open the safe down at Morrison’s. They’d lost the combination, and the clerks had been guessing, and twisting, and pulling at the knob all the morning. Then this Tompkins happened in and took a try at it. He had the door open in two minutes. Just listened at the lock till he heard the right sound.”

“Couldn’t have been much of a lock,” said Curtis. “Come on; let’s see what’s doing outside.”

The big fellow went whistling downstairs, followed by Todd and Poole. Varrell and Dickinson the runner still remained, the latter too much incapacitated by the sprain he had received in the great game to make any unnecessary movements, the former apparently uninterested. The Harvard sympathizers had rallied, and, making up in numbers what they lacked in righteous cause, were shouting across the yard to the Yale band, drowning cheers of exultation with more vociferous cheers of loyalty.

“The fools!” exclaimed the misanthropic Dickinson.

“Who?” cried Varrell, suddenly roused from revery.

“Why, those fellows out there wasting their time and strength on something that does not concern them at all.”

“Oh!” said Varrell, and sank back again into his chair.

Dickinson and Melvin exchanged a glance of surprise. They knew that at one time Varrell had had serious trouble with his ears, and was still a little deaf; but he got on so well, both in the class room and among the boys, that it seemed hardly possible that he was unable to hear these boisterous shouts outside.

They sat a few minutes longer in silence, listening to the cheers hurled back and forth across the yard. Soon throats grew weary, and the mood changed. The enthusiasts, beginning to be conscious, as they stamped their feet and dug their hands into their pockets, that the November night was really cold, bethought themselves of warm rooms and work still to be done, and scattered to shelter. The scamper of feet was heard on the stairs; good nights were exchanged in the entries and shouted from the windows. Then the natural quiet again prevailed.

“Dick,” said Dickinson at last, “you know that Saville has left school.”

“Yes, I have heard so,” replied Melvin. “He was your track manager, wasn’t he? Who will take his place?”

“You,” answered Dickinson, calmly.

Melvin laughed. “I see myself in that job.”

“I mean what I say,” went on Dickinson. “When I took the captaincy of the track team, it was only on condition that I should have no trouble about business matters. So they appointed Saville. Now that he’s gone, I must have another man just as trustworthy.”

“That’s mere flattery,” replied Dick, still jesting. “I’m too old a fish to nibble at that kind of a bait.”

Dickinson grew indignant. “I’m not flattering. I know that if you undertake the thing, it will be well done.”

“But I don’t want it,” pleaded Melvin, serious at last. “There are twenty fellows who would be delighted to serve, who would do just as well as I. Besides, I play football, and who ever heard of a football player acting as manager?”

“I played too, didn’t I, but that doesn’t release me from the captaincy. I’m sure I’d like to get out of the thing as much as you.”

“A man who can do a quarter in fifty seconds can’t expect to get out of it.”

“Say forty!” exclaimed Dickinson, angrily. “You may as well.”

Dick laughed. There was nothing so certain to arouse Dickinson’s ire as the assumption that he was a marvelous runner whose records could be counted on to move in a sliding scale downward with no particular limit in sight. This sensitiveness, due partly to the boy’s extreme modesty, partly to his fear of disappointing such high expectations, his comrades had played on to their amusement more than once.

“I think I’ll get out altogether,” said the runner, gloomily.

“You can’t,” said Melvin; “the school wouldn’t let you.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I will do,” Dickinson declared, giving the arm of the chair a blow with his fist. “I’ll insist that you run the mile again as you did last year.”

“No, sir!” said Melvin, and set his lips.

“You’ll have to if I insist upon it. You don’t play baseball, and you have nothing at all to do in the spring. I can bring so much pressure to bear upon you that you simply can’t resist.”

To this Melvin made no immediate reply, but quietly pondered.

“What do you think, Wrenn?” said Dickinson, turning to Varrell, who had been a silent witness to the conversation. “Isn’t he just the man to hold the confidence of the school? And he couldn’t be expected to run if he were manager, could he?”

“Of course not,” replied Varrell, promptly.

“Then will you be my assistant and help me collect the money?” demanded Melvin, turning to the last speaker.

But Varrell was not easily caught. “You don’t need any assistant,” he replied, with a grin. “You’re equal to it all yourself. The Athletic Association wouldn’t elect me, anyway.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” remarked Dickinson.

The trio parted with the question still unsettled. “That was great generalship,” said Dickinson to himself, exultantly, as he limped downstairs. “He’s scared as death of the mile run. I guess I’ll land him.”

CHAPTER II ON THE ICE

As Dickinson foresaw, Melvin yielded to the pressure brought to bear upon him, and resigned himself to the thankless task of managing the track team. The election was held a week after Thanksgiving, arousing but a lukewarm interest. With fine ice on the river, and the Christmas holidays close at hand, few had more than a thought for the distant spring. Even the problems of the baseball season were as yet but lightly mentioned. There was a general optimism in the air that year at Seaton which carried everything before it, like the high tides of confidence which sometimes sweep over the stock-market. It made little difference who were captains or managers; this was Seaton’s year; the teams were bound to win. Only a few of the wiser heads—perhaps not all the captains and managers themselves—understood fully the danger of such a mood.

If the task of athletic manager proved to Melvin for the time being a sinecure, another office which was suddenly thrust upon him was quite the opposite. No one knew exactly how the hockey rivalry started, or who were the first to fan it into flame. It was just the kind of contest most likely to arise where boys gather from every part of the country, each loyal to his home and state, and each ready to boast superiority, and defend the boast with tongue and muscle. Dick had hardly been twice on the ice when the hockey players began to pair off into New England and Western teams. By some natural agreement the Hudson River was made the boundary line,—a rather unfair division, as it afterwards proved, for the New Englanders included considerably more than half the skaters. At first the rivalry was general and unorganized; then teams were more carefully picked; and finally, as the victory wavered from East to West in these miscellaneous engagements, and enthusiasm and pugnacious patriotism spread, the school was sifted for experts, champion teams were chosen, and a

day set for a single decisive contest. It was then that Dick found to his surprise that he was appointed captain of the Western team.

Sands, the captain of the school nine, who lived in Chicago, brought him the news.

“How absurd!” cried Dick, aghast. “Why, I’m no hockey player. There must be a dozen fellows better than I.”

“They think you’ll be the best leader, anyway,” returned Sands; “and as there’s no one else eligible whom the fellows will follow, you’ll just have to take it. When a man handles a football as you did last fall, he’s supposed to be capable of anything. Don’t try for the nine, please. You can’t play ball on a reputation, and I should hate to have to fire you from the squad.”

Sands threw himself on the sofa, and waited for an answer.

“There’s no danger of that,” replied Melvin, unruffled. “I don’t play ball. As for the hockey business, I’m quite willing to act as leader, if it’s understood that I make no pretensions to being a crack.”

He pondered a moment and then went on: “What material is there? Curtis and Toddy don’t live in New England. That gives us four solid men for a nucleus.”

“You’re out there,” Sands answered gloomily. “Curtis lives in New York and Todd in Brooklyn, and both are east of the Hudson.”

Melvin looked serious. “Then they’ll be on the other side. I don’t like that. I’ve stood side by side with John Curtis in so many hard fights that it seems like treachery to play against him. I really don’t want to do it.”

Sands laughed. “That’s you all over. You tackle everything big and little in deadly earnest as if you were fighting the battle of Gettysburg all by yourself. This isn’t a Hillbury game; it’s a kind of lark.”

“Oh, yes, I know all about that kind of a lark. When you begin, it’s a joke; before you’re through, it’s a fight for blood.”

“What do you think of my case?” replied Sands. “I have one brother in Yale and another in Harvard, and both on the teams.”

“I’ve heard of them,” said Melvin. “How do they contrive to avoid scrapping?”

“They never discuss college matters at all. When I’m with one, he urges me to go to Yale; when the other gets hold of me, he talks Harvard; when we are all together, they cut the subject.”

Dick still meditated. Sands tried another tack.

“The New Englanders are talking big. Curtis says the Greasers will wish they’d stayed on the plains when his team’s through with them.”

“Did he really say that?” asked Dick, straightening up.

“He did, and Toddy told Marks the Yanks would clean us off the ice so quickly you’d think they’d used Sapolio.”

“He must consider us either sandless or mighty green,” said Dick.

“And he’s more than half right, too,” replied Sands, “as far as the greenness is concerned. It’s one thing to play with a mob in the old-fashioned go-as-you-please way, and quite another to run a regular team of seven, with complicated rules, and lifts and shoots and body checks and passes and on-side and off-side play, and all the tricks of the new game.”

“I don’t believe he’ll find us as simple as we look,” replied Melvin, as he opened a drawer and took out a sheet of paper. “I’ll take the captaincy, provisionally at any rate; and we’ll call out candidates this very afternoon. I’ll post the notice as soon as I can write it. See all the fellows you can; tell them the Yanks are crowing, and we’ll have a big push and lots of zeal. Do you know any hockey experts on our side of the river?”

“The only crack I’ve heard of is a fellow named Bosworth, but he’s on the other side.”

“I’m glad of it,” said Melvin; “I don’t like him.”

In answer to the captain’s call a score of enthusiasts gathered on the upper river. Varrell was among them, and Sands, and Burnett, and several heavy men who seemed promising for forwards, and a little, wiry, dark-haired fellow from Minneapolis named Durand, whom Dick immediately picked out as likely to prove a steady player on the second team. The first task was to find who were well used to the game, and who needed special instruction; the second, to set the experienced to coach the inexperienced; the third, to divide the men into squads, set several games going, and watch the work. Finally, the captain chose a trial seven, gave the scrub an extra man, and tried a ten-minute half.

Little Durand and Varrell, who had never impressed his classmates as an athlete, found themselves on the scrub. Varrell took coverpoint and Durand put himself among the forwards. The puck was faced and started on its erratic, whimsical journey, darting like a wild thing back and forth, up and down. Before the game seemed really well begun, the circular piece of rubber came within Varrell’s sweep, and clung to the heel of his stick. He whirled to the right to dodge Barnes, passed across to little Durand when Melvin blocked his way, took the puck again from Durand as the latter was stopped in his turn, and then, with a swing and a snap, shot it hard at the posts. The goal-tender brought his feet together as quickly as he could, but not quite quickly enough; the puck was already past him, flying knee-high over the ice like a swallow skimming the ground.

“Centre again!” cried Melvin, surprised and vexed at the ease with which the thing was done. “Brace up, Sands,” he called encouragingly to the goal-keeper. “Accidents will happen; they won’t do it again.”