CHAPTER XIII WORK IN THE CAGE

March came blustering in with cloudy skies and cold winds. But in a week it had quite changed its tune. One morning Dan awoke to find the sunlight streaming through the front windows and a new quality in the air. For a moment he lay under the covers and wondered sleepily what it was that brought the strange stirring to his heart. Then he was out of bed, had thrown the window wide open, and was leaning forth in his pajamas breathing in the warm, moist air. Spring had come in the night. All about him were signs. Above was a mellow blue sky dotted with little feathery white clouds. In the roadway beneath the snow was melting fast and the gutters were astream with trickling water. Even the stone window coping under his hands seemed somehow to hint of Spring; it was warm to his fingers and moist where a little rim of ice had melted. There was a faint, heart-cheering aroma of brown earth and greening sod released from their winter coverings.[146] Dan gave a shout and drew his head in long enough to awaken Gerald.

“Get up!” he cried. “It’s Spring, Gerald! Get up and hear the birdies sing!”

And the birds really were singing; or, at least, they were chattering happily and noisily, which, as they were only little brown sparrows, was about all that could be expected of them. Gerald put a sleepy head alongside of Dan’s and sniffed the air greedily.

“Doesn’t it smell great?” he sighed. “Let’s get dressed and go out. What time is it?”

“Ten minutes to seven,” answered Dan. “Let’s go for a walk before Chapel. What do you say?”

For answer Gerald raced to the washstand and was soon splashing busily, and in ten minutes they were flying down stairs with Spring in their veins. Once off the stone walks it was gloriously soft and “mushy,” as Dan said. They had to keep to the sod so as not to go into the brown soil to their ankles. They crossed the bridge, waiting there a minute to watch a long freight train rumble past beneath them. A brakeman, sitting on a car roof, smoking his pipe, looked up at them, grinned and waved as he went by. Then they took the wood path and went down toward the beach, finding here and there new evidences,[147] if any were wanting, of the advent of Spring.

In the shaded places the snow, rotted and granular, still lay in little banks fringed with ice. But tiny green spikes and leaves were pushing their way through the litter of dead leaves, while, at the edge of the beach, the grass in one sunny spot, was actually green. Even the Sound seemed to look different. The water, reflecting the clear sky, was as blue as sapphire. The sun shone radiantly on the few white sails in sight. A steamer, far out, left a mile-long trail of soft gray smoke behind it. A bird—Gerald declared joyfully that it was a robin, but Dan contradicted it—sang sweetly somewhere behind them in the woods. Dan began throwing stones into the water from sheer exuberance of spirit. Then they hurried back to school, racing half the way, and reached Oxford just in time for Chapel. Even here the new influence was apparent; there was an unaccustomed restlessness in evidence; fellows scuffled their feet and glanced longingly toward the big windows which, partly opened, let in the softly appealing scent of Spring. All that day fellows lingered about the steps of the buildings and sighed when recitation time came, and there was much talk of tennis and baseball and track work. Two enterprising chaps got a canoe out[148] of the boathouse in the afternoon and paddled up the river.

And a week later Spring industries had really begun. In the gymnasium the track and field candidates were going through the preliminary work, the tennis courts were being rolled and raked and mended, and in the basement of the gymnasium, inside the big cage, the baseball candidates were toiling mightily. Although the outdoor season for baseball at Yardley never opens until after Spring recess is over, a full fortnight of indoor work precedes it. This indoor work is in charge of the captain, for the coach doesn’t appear until the candidates get out. This year there was an unusually large number of entries for the team, and Captain Millener had his hands full. Luckily, more than half of last year’s team remained in school, and from these fellows Millener obtained assistance.

Stuart Millener was a tall, lanky, black-eyed First Classman, with a shock of black hair and enough energy to run half a dozen baseball teams. Millener had never distinguished himself in his studies, but he had worked hard at them and had always managed to remain at peace with the Faculty. He was a fellow who was now and always would be better able to work with his hands than with his brain. And there are plenty of[149] places for that sort in the world. As a first-baseman he was a huge success, and there seemed no reason why he should not turn out to be an excellent leader. He was highly popular and fellows believed in him. The Kingdon Gymnasium at Yardley is still one of the finest in the country and its baseball cage is roomy and light. Here every afternoon from half-past three until after five the baseball candidates practised. Fifty-seven fellows reported for work, and they were divided into three squads and each squad was given a half-hour’s work. There was five minutes’ hard work with the dumb-bells for all hands as a starter, and then the pitchers got busy under Colton’s direction, and Millener and his assistants looked after the batting and fielding. In order to leave the cage free for the latter branches of the art of baseball, the pitchers and catchers used the bowling alleys upstairs. Fielding practice was confined to the handling of grounders and slow hits, but there was plenty of room in the cage for this work, as well as for throwing and sliding to bases.

Dan was one of the first candidates to report and during the two weeks that intervened between that time and the beginning of Spring recess he toiled hard and enthusiastically. At home, on his school team, he had played at second[150] base and had never had any trouble in keeping his place. How he would compare with the other claimants for infield positions here at Yardley remained to be seen, but Alf declared that he was sure to make the nine, if not as a baseman, at least in the outfield.

Gerald, long since released from probation, had bothered Mr. Bendix, the Physical Director, until that autocrat had given Gerald another examination, had congratulated him on his physical improvement and had finally grudgingly given him permission to play class baseball. And Gerald was mightily pleased. He bought a book of rules over in Greenburg and read it through from one blue cover to another, and asked so many questions that Dan’s head was in a whirl half the time. When Spring recess began Gerald was without a doubt the best read youth in school on the subject of baseball.

Spring recess and the month of April began almost together. Of the former there was to be just a week. Gerald’s father, writing from Berlin a fortnight before, had suggested that the two boys spend the vacation in New York. Both Gerald and Dan were delighted at the idea. Had it not been for this invitation Dan would have had to spend the recess at school, since it was hardly practicable to journey out to his home in Ohio[151] for so short a time. He wrote to his father and received permission to accept Gerald’s hospitality. And with the permission came something quite as welcome, a check for ten dollars.

“You’ll want some money to spend,” wrote Mr. Vinton, “and so I enclose herewith check for ten dollars. You mustn’t let your friend pay for everything, you know. Have a good time, and write and tell us what you do in New York. Your mother says you are to be very careful about crossing streets and riding in the subway. I say the same. The papers are full of accidents to folks in that town. You must try and get young Pennimore to come out and visit you this summer. It won’t do to let him do all the entertaining. If you think well of this, I will write to Mr. Pennimore about it when the time comes. Your mother and sister send their love. Your mother will write Sunday. Mae says I’m to tell you to send her lots of postcards from New York, and they must be colored ones, and you are to write on them all. My regards to Gerald. Your loving father.”

“I’d just love to go out and visit you,” said Gerald, when Dan read that portion of the letter to him, “but I don’t suppose father will let me. He will be afraid that the Indians will get me.”

“Oh, the Indians are quite peaceable in Graystone[152] now,” laughed Dan. “You just show your father that you know how to look after yourself, and I guess he will let you go. Why, a year ago he wouldn’t have thought of letting you stay in New York with just the servants, Gerald!”

“That’s so! But he thinks you’re so grand, Dan; I guess that’s why.”

“Well, I’ll be just as ‘grand’ next summer,” replied Dan cheerfully. “I’ll bet he will let you go. If he does, we can have a dandy time at home.”

But meanwhile they were looking forward to a dandy time in New York. And they had it. When they arrived at the house there was a good dinner awaiting them, a dinner which Mr. Pennimore’s chef fashioned for the delectation of two hungry boys. Strange soups and unpronounceable entrees and fancy dishes in general were omitted, and all the time they were there they had just the sort of things they liked. They were not, all of them, the things usually prescribed for schoolboys, however, and if Spring recess had lasted two weeks instead of one, it is probable that they would have had to go under the doctor’s care.

“Gee!” exclaimed Dan on one occasion, “this cream pie is simply swell, Gerald! I suppose if I make the baseball team I’ll have to go in training.[153] So I’m going to make the most of my chances now.”

“So am I,” replied Gerald. “There won’t be much more pie for us after we get back, will there?”

“Oh, you won’t have to train if you make the class team,” said Dan. “It’s just the Varsity, you know.”

“Won’t I?” asked Gerald disappointedly.

“Well, I guess I’ll go in training, anyway. It’s good for you.”

Those were seven splendid days, and yet when the last one came neither of the two was sorry. Theaters and picture galleries and drives and walks were jolly enough, but, as Gerald sagely remarked, a fellow soon gets tired of them.

“I’d a heap rather play baseball or tennis than go to the theater,” said Gerald. “Wouldn’t you?”

Dan replied that he would, but he said it hesitatingly, for theaters and such things were more of a novelty to him than to Gerald. But he was quite as contented as Gerald when the train set them down at Wissining again. They went over to Dudley after dinner and called on Alf and Tom. Every one talked vacation for a while, and then the conversation turned to baseball and school sports.

[154]

“Payson’s coming next Monday,” announced Alf. “I saw Millener a while ago. He said that if the ground dries up enough we’ll get out on the field the first of the week.”

“Well, it’s soppy enough now,” said Dan. “And it looks like rain again.”

“Is Payson the coach?” asked Gerald.

“Yes,” Dan replied. “You remember him last Fall, don’t you? The chap that coached the football team?”

“Oh! Does he coach in baseball, too?”

“You bet he does!” said Alf. “And he’s a dandy, too. He used to catch for Cornell when he was there, and they say he was the best ever. By the way, Gerald, Dan says you’re going in for baseball.”

“Yes, Mr. Bendix said I might. Do you think I’ll stand any show for the Fourth Class team, Alf?”

“Ever played much?” Gerald shook his head sadly.

“I never played at all in a game. But I can throw a ball pretty well and catch; and I can bat a little. I had a tutor last year who used to play with me, and he said I did pretty well.”

“I dare say you’ll do as well as most of them,” said Tom. “Don’t let them think you’re a duffer, though; put up a front; tell ’em you’re[155] one of the finest young baseball players that ever struck the Hill.”

“I guess they wouldn’t believe that,” laughed Gerald. “Don’t you play, Tom?”

“Baseball? I rather guess not! It’s a silly game.”

Alf laughed maliciously.

“No,” he said, “Tom doesn’t care for baseball, especially the batting part of it, do you, Tom?” Tom growled.

“You see,” Alf continued, smiling reminiscently, “Tom went out for the team last Spring. They thought he was big enough to be promising material. So Payson let him stay on a while. One day, just after we got out of doors, we had batting practice at the net. Colton was pitching. You know, he has about everything there is, Colton has, and he thought he’d have some fun with Tom. So the first ball he sent Tom swiped at so hard that he fell over himself and tumbled into the net.”

“Didn’t either,” laughed Tom.

“That made him mad. So he spit on his hands, got a good grip on the bat, and tried the next one. That was an in-shoot, and Tom didn’t know it. It took him plumb in the ribs. We all laughed at that, and Tom got madder than ever. ‘Put it where I can hit it!’ he yelled to Colton. ‘I dare[156] you to!’ So Colton did it, but he sent it so fast that Tom didn’t see it until it was by him.”

“It was over my head,” protested Tom, indignantly.

“Then Colton just let himself loose, and the rest of us, standing around waiting for our turns, just laughed ourselves sick! Once Tom lost hold of his bat, and it went about fifty feet into the field, just missing Colton by a foot. Another time Tom reached out so far that he fell on his face. Then another in-shoot took him in the arm, and that was enough. Tom threw down the bat and walked off.

“‘Here, where are you going?’ asked Payson.

“‘Home,’ said Tom. ‘What’s the good of standing up there and letting him slug me with the ball? I’ve got a smashed rib and a busted shoulder, and that’s all I want. I’m no hog!’”

“It makes a good story, the way he tells it,” said Tom, when the laughter had ceased. “It’s a fact, though, that he did give me two awful whacks with that fool ball. Pshaw, I couldn’t hit it in a thousand years! I knew that, so I got out. Afterwards I tried to get Colton to stand up at the net and let me throw a few balls at him, but he wouldn’t do it. I told him he could have all the bats he wanted, too, but that didn’t seem to satisfy him.”

[157]

“I’ll bet you couldn’t have hit him,” jeered Alf.

“Couldn’t I? If he’d let me try he’d have gone to the hospital!”

“But you’re on the Track Team, aren’t you?” Gerald asked.

“Yes. There’s some sense to that.”

“Tom’s happy if you give him a sixteen-pound shot or a lump of lead on the end of a wire,” said Alf. “He won eight points for us last Spring. But you ought to see the crowd scatter when he gets swinging the hammer around.”

“Oh, you dry up,” said Tom.

“Fact, though,” laughed Alf. “Once last year when he was practising, the blamed thing got away from him and tore off about ten feet of the grandstand. Andy Ryan said it was a lucky thing the framework was of iron, or else he’d have smashed the whole stand up.”

“You fellows are having lots of fun with me,” growled Tom, good-naturedly, as he arose and took up his cap, “and I hate to spoil your enjoyment, but I promised to look up Rand this evening.”

“That’s all right,” Dan assured him, “we can have just as much fun with you when you’re not here.”

“Well, what you don’t know can’t hurt you.[158] By the way, Gerald, want to come around to Oxford with me Saturday night? We’ve got a fellow coming over from Greenburg after the debate to do some sleight-of-hand for us.”

“I’d like to,” replied Gerald, “but—” He glanced anxiously at Dan and Alf.

“Sure,” said Alf. “Go ahead. We’re glad to have you. The more you see of Oxford, the better you’ll like Cambridge. You see, Gerald, the only way they can get the fellows to attend Oxford is by supplying them with vaudeville entertainments. In another year or so they’ll have to have brass bands and free feeds if they want fellows to go there!”

“That’s all right,” replied Tom. “We know who won the last debate. I’ll call around for you Saturday, Gerald, if I don’t see you before. Good night.”

“We gave it to you!” shouted Alf as the door closed behind his chum. “Why you haven’t got a debater in your whole society.” But the challenge was wasted, and Alf turned to Dan. “We’ll have to win the debate this Spring,” he grumbled, “or there won’t be any living with Tom!”