CHAPTER XV OUTDOORS AT LAST

The boys came rushing back for the final lap of the school year. Already on the train most of them had heard the startling news: "Carle isn't going to pitch! Carle has left school!" These brief statements of undeniable truth were not all they heard; there were additions through wild rumors and bold surmises transformed to positive facts in the repeating: Carle left because he wasn't allowed to play ball; Carle was proved a professional and had to go; Carle was fired because he left town without permission, because he cut chapel too often, because he didn't do any work, because he had a row with a teacher, because he was a scholarship man and smoked, because he had been drinking, because he played poker. For two whole days Owen was kept busy denying these rumors. Then the tongues gradually ceased to wag; and Carle faded in[Pg 156]gloriously away into the limbo of the suddenly departed, whose names when mentioned in the Seatonian always bear the significant "ex" before the numeral of the class which once claimed them.

With the returning boys, to Poole's great relief, came the baseball coach, Mr. Lyford. The ground on the upper campus was already hard enough for practice; the regular diamond was drying. Cutting though the winds and raw and chill the atmosphere, Rob yet found it an immense relief to escape from the confining walls of the little cage into the open, where there was room to throw, and honest, abundant daylight. He had never taken kindly to the practice in the cage. When he tried to bat there, he had always been awkwardly conscious of those close lines of netted wall pressing upon him, of the low ceiling, of the treacherous shadows, of the impossibility of driving the ball anywhere, of the whole sham of the situation compared with the open field, where the sunlight pours down through fifty miles of atmosphere, and the wide horizon challenges the batsman to his hardest drive. Perhaps this[Pg 157] feeling was responsible for his lack of success as a cage batsman; perhaps he hated the cage because he couldn't hit there. At any rate, the facts were connected, and he welcomed his release with the heartiness of the landlubber when, after his first voyage, he exchanges the narrow, malodorous, unsteady forecastle for solid, familiar earth.

Not so poor Patterson. He felt as a timid pupil would if snatched suddenly from a gentle tutor's care and thrust into a lively school, where independence must be fought for and honors won unaided. His courage failed him; he dreaded to go forth into public view and face the test, with eager batters trying for real base hits, and every error of judgment or delivery counting in the score. The cage was familiar ground to Patterson. Here he had acquired whatever skill he possessed. With Owen behind the plate to explain just what to throw and how to throw it, with no one else at hand to molest or make afraid, he could handle the ball as well as another. His wrist had the master snap that yields sharp curves; his shoulder the sweeping swing that makes speed.[Pg 158] But outside—alas! outside was a strange land in which he feared to trust himself.

"Foolishness!" laughed Owen, when Patterson frankly confided to him these misgivings. "You'll do better outside. There's all the inspiration of the game to spur you on, and the fun of working your man,—putting your wits against his, you know, and making him do things he doesn't want to do."

"But I don't feel as if I had any wits," said Patterson, "or shouldn't have any if I got into a close, hard game."

Owen stopped short in his walk and fixed his eyes disapprovingly on his companion's face. "Look here, Pat," he said sternly, "you've got to cut that kind of talk and that kind of thinking too. We're going out to play ball, not to help fight a battle or swim for our lives or anything like that, but just play ball. There's absolutely nothing to worry about; we aren't the captain or the coach. We'll do as well as we can, and if our best is good enough, we'll make the nine. If we don't make it, it'll be because there are others better, and we shan't have any responsibility.[Pg 159] So there's nothing to worry about in either case. But if you're all the time scared that you'll do something wrong, you'll never do anything right. That's as sure as the multiplication table."

Patterson did not answer.

"Isn't that good sense?" demanded Owen.

Patterson drew a long breath. "It's good sense all right, but I don't know whether I can do it."

Owen snorted. "You can if you've a mind to. Just settle it that you'll do your best and be satisfied with whatever turns up. Why can't you let Poole and Lyford do the worrying?"

"I suppose I can," said Patterson, humbly.

"I should hope you could! I tell you, man, you've got the goods! You have speed and good control and all the curves you need. If you give yourself half a chance they'll recognize it. If they don't, what do you care? There are other teams in the country, and this isn't the only year you're going to play. Just stop thinking, and play your game, and be satisfied if you make the second!"

"That's all I expect to do," answered Patterson,[Pg 160] nettled. He felt for the moment angry with himself and vexed with Owen, but the talk did him good. He faced the first practice with an outward show of composure that did very good duty for confidence.

The coach made no significant comment on the batteries. He had kept in touch with the work of the winter through Poole's letters, and doubtless shared the captain's view that with Carle eliminated from the list, O'Connell must be the chief reliance of the season. At all events, on the first rally of forces in the open, he spent most of his time on Borland and his mate. O'Connell did better than usual, having got at least this measure of good from Borland's browbeating, that he was more cautious in his delivery, and made better aim for the plate.

Owen exerted himself on the occasion to put his pitcher through his paces, and give the coach some inkling of what he fondly believed to be Patterson's great promise. But unfortunately, either from the novelty of the new conditions or from nervousness, the pitcher was slow in steadying down; and by the time he was delivering the[Pg 161] balls as the catcher expected, Poole called Owen away to join the outfielders, who were catching flies, and put Foxcroft in his place. And Foxcroft blighted the pitcher's inspiration as a hoar-frost blights a hothouse plant.

"How did it go?" asked Owen, coming in some time later for a brief batting practice before the net.

Patterson gave a doleful shake of the head. "To pieces," he answered laconically. "I never could pitch to that fellow!"

"What did Lyford say?"

"Nothing. He didn't need to say anything."

"Owen!" called Poole, and Rob, picking up his bat, took the place before the net which Peacock had just vacated. He felt disappointed and irritated; disappointed because, having made Patterson's cause his own, he was himself hurt by the failure; irritated because he was sure that if Poole had only left him alone another ten minutes he could have pulled his friend safely through. He stood at the plate with his jaw set, and his eyes shining bright, ready to hit and hit hard. O'Connell was pitching for the batsmen, and O'Connell[Pg 162] asked nothing better than the privilege of striking out this arrogant freshie, who had presumed to offer instruction to him in the cage, and had dropped him so contemptuously for not receiving it. So he tried a deceiver in the shape of a hot outcurve—O'Connell's strongest card—which starts wide and swings over the plate. Owen felt savage, but not savage enough to lose his wits. He had learned long since from McLennan that the great batsmen study the pitcher's motive and try to guess in advance the ball that he will pitch. Knowing O'Connell's strong and weak points, he had no difficulty in recognizing the ball that came spinning threateningly toward him. So he waited unmoved, and swung at it as it broke over the plate as if the ball itself were the animate cause of his disappointment.

Bat and ball met squarely with a crash; the ball sped away, not in a high parabola that gives the lazy outfielder an easy put out, nor in the regular sharp bounds which a clever baseman may handle, but well above the reach of any infielder, and striking the ground too soon and with too hot a pace to be held by the outfield. A hard[Pg 163] hit like this, if it passes between the outfielders on a deep, smooth field, rolls forever.

"A bully hit!" exclaimed Durand, as Owen, his frown transformed into a smirk of satisfaction, took his place with the rest. "That's good for three bases sure."

"I don't know about that," Owen replied modestly, mentally resolving, however, that if he ever made such a hit in a real game he wouldn't stop to look round till he had passed third.

"Too hard," was the comment of the coach to Poole, "but good form."

"I'm hoping to get a good hitting outfielder out of him," replied Poole. "Carle told me Owen's batting average was always high. I suppose Borland will do all our catching."

Patterson came up for his trial. O'Connell, angry with himself for having let Owen get a long drive out of him, set himself to fool the pitcher at least.

"Don't try for big hits!" warned the coach. "Just watch the ball and make sure you hit it. Wait for the good ones!"

And Patterson watched the ball and waited,[Pg 164] letting the good ones go by and striking at the poor ones. He finally succeeded in poking a feeble bounder over to the pitcher's position, and thus obtained the privilege of retiring. Altogether Patterson's first day out gave little promise that his ambitions would ever be realized.