Weatherby's Inning: A Story of College Life and Baseball

“I see.” Joe’s hopes of the other’s usefulness dwindled. He had seen a good many cases of ambitious freshmen whose belief in themselves as pitchers was not justified by subsequent events. Every year there reported for practise a dozen or so of hopeful youngsters, who firmly believed themselves capable of filling all such important positions as pitcher and catcher, merely on the strength of having played such positions with more or less success on some fourth- or fifth-rate team. Joe mentally assigned Jack to this class of deluded ones.

“Well,” he said, “of course you may count on having a fair trying-out, but I wouldn’t hope for too much. You see, a fellow has to be something of an expert to get in the box here; it’s different from playing on a high-school team. Besides, we’re rather well fixed for pitchers: there’s Gilberth and King and Knox, all of whom are first-class men. Of course, we want new material wherever we can find it, and if you prove that you can pitch good ball we’ll give you all the chance you want. But if I were you I’d try for something else this spring, for some position in the field. We’re long on pitchers and short on out-fielders. Of course, you could keep your hand in at twirling; there’d be plenty of opportunity for that at practise.”

“I’ll take whatever I can get,” answered Jack. “I don’t lay any claim to being a wonder at pitching. I was the best we had in Auburn, but, of course, that doesn’t mean very much.”

“Auburn, Maine? Do you live there?”

“Two miles outside of town.”

“Is that so? Maybe you know a cousin of mine there, Billy Cromwell? His father has a big tannery. He graduated from here three years ago this coming spring.”

“I know him quite well,” replied Jack, smiling for the first time since he had entered the study. “It was Billy who persuaded me to come here. He used to tell me about Erskine a good deal. Of course, he’s seven or eight years older than I am, but he was always very nice to me.”

“Think of that!” said Joe. “The idea of you being a friend of Billy’s! He’s fine chap, is Billy. What’s he doing now?”

“Why, he’s assistant superintendent. Every one likes him very much, and he’s awfully smart, I guess. Well, I’ll report again to-morrow. I’m glad I saw you, and – thank you.”

“Of course you’ll report. And if I can help you at any time, just let me know.” He opened the door and Jack passed out. “See you to-morrow, Weatherby.”

“Yes. Good afternoon.”

When Jack reached the head of the stairs he heard Joe’s voice again and paused.

“I say, Weatherby,” the baseball captain was calling, “come around and see me sometimes. I want to hear more about Billy.”

“Thank you,” was the non-committal reply.

Joe closed the door, took up a Greek book, and went back to the window-seat. When he had found his place he looked at it frowningly a moment. “‘Thank you,’ says he,” he muttered. “As much as to say, ‘I’m hanged if I do!’ That youngster is a puzzle; worse than this chump, Pausanias!”

The warm spell of Thursday and Friday had been succeeded by a drop in temperature that had converted the pools into sheets of ice. The board-walks and the paths still made treacherous going, and when, after leaving Sessons Hall, in which Joe Perkins roomed, Jack had several times narrowly avoided breaking his neck, he left the paths and struck off across the glistening snow toward the lower end of the yard. It was almost dusk, and a cold, nipping wind from the north made him turn up the collar of his jacket and walk briskly. There were but few fellows in sight, and he was glad of it. To be sure, by this time he should have been inured to the silently expressed contempt which he met on every side, to the barely audible whispers that greeted his appearance at class, to the meaning smiles which he often intercepted as they passed from one neighbor to another. Yet despite that he was schooling himself to bear all these things calmly, and with no outward sign of the sting they inflicted, he was not yet quite master of himself, and was grateful that the coming darkness and the well-nigh empty yard promised him present surcease from his trials.

Until he had entered Joe Perkins’s study a quarter of an hour before he had met with no voicing of the public contempt. He had managed to accept Tracy Gilberth’s veiled insult with unmoved countenance, yet it had required the greatest effort of any. He didn’t know who that man was; he only knew, from observation in the practise-cage, that he was the foremost candidate for the position of pitcher, and so must be, in view of Perkins’s remark, either Gilberth or King or Knox. Whoever he was, Jack vowed, some day he would be made to regret his words. For although Jack was accepting his fate in silence, he was very human, and meant, sooner or later, to even all scores.

When he had almost reached College Place and had taken to the board-walk again, footsteps crunching the frosty planks ahead of him brought his mind suddenly away from thoughts of revenge. He looked up and saw that the man who approached and in another moment would pass him was Professor White. Jack stepped off the boards and went on with averted eyes. The professor recognized him at that instant, and as they came abreast spoke.

“Good evening, Weatherby.”

There was no answer, nor did Jack turn his head. The professor frowned and stopped.

“Weatherby!” he called sharply. Jack paused and faced him.

“Well, sir?” he asked, quietly.

“What does this mean? Are you trying to add boorishness to – to your other failings?”

“No, sir, I was only trying to spare you the unpleasantness of speaking to a coward.”

“Very thoughtful of you,” said the other, sarcastically. “But allow me to tell you, sir, that if you want to remove the – ah – the sorry impression you have made you will have to adopt a less high-and-mighty manner.”

“It’s a matter of indifference to me what impression you hold, sir,” replied Jack simply. “Good night.”

The professor stood motionless and looked after the boy until he had crossed the street, the anger in his face slowly fading before a grudging admiration of the other’s clever, if extremely impolite, retort. Presently he swung his green bag of books under his arm again and trudged on.

“I wonder if I wasn’t too hasty the other day,” he muttered. “For a coward he’s got a surprising amount of grit, apparently. He’ll bear watching.”

Jack sped homeward, feeling rather pleased with himself. His score with the professor wasn’t by any means even, but the encounter had put something to his credit, and as he remembered the professor’s look of amazement and anger he chuckled.

There was a light in Tidball’s room as he crossed the corner of the Common, and as he looked a grotesque head showed in gigantic silhouette against the yellow curtain. Jack ran up the stairs and knocked at his neighbor’s door.

“Come in!” drawled the occupant of the western chamber, and Jack entered on a scene that caused him to pause just inside the door and stare in silent surprise.

CHAPTER VI

IN DISGRACE

Anthony Tidball confronted Jack with a pewter spoon in one hand and a small tin coffee-pot in the other. He was in his shirt-sleeves and a bath-towel was fastened around his neck, descending in wispy folds to his knees. On one end of the study table a second towel was laid, and upon it rested a plate of bread, a jar of preserves, a wedge of cheese, a can of condensed milk, a bowl of sugar, and cellars containing salt and pepper. Besides these Jack saw a plate appropriately surrounded by knife, fork, and spoon, and flanked by a cup and saucer. There was a perceptible, and not ungrateful, odor of cooking present. Anthony waved the coffee-pot hospitably, but carefully, toward the rocking-chair.

“Hello, Weatherby,” he said. “Sit down.”

“Wha – what are you doing?” gasped Jack.

“Cooking supper. Have some? You’re just in time.” He took the towel from his neck and, going to the gas-stove, used it to remove a pie-plate from above a tiny frying-pan.

“Supper?” echoed Jack. “Do you mean that you – cook your own meals?”

“Yes,” responded Anthony, calmly. He approached the table with the pan, and from it dexterously transferred six small sausages on to the empty plate. Then he put a spoonful of milk and two spoonsful of sugar into the bottom of the cup and filled it to the brim with steaming and very fragrant coffee. “Yes, I’ve been my own chef,” he continued, “ever since I came here. When Gooch and I were together it was a good deal simpler. I got breakfast and he got supper; our lunches were just cold things. You see, Weatherby, we’re poor folks, and I couldn’t stay in college three months if I had to pay four dollars a week for meals. As it is, it’s a close haul sometimes.”

“Everything looks very nice,” murmured Jack, taking the chair and observing the proceedings with frank curiosity.

“Well, if you don’t object, I’ll just begin operations while things are hot,” said Anthony. He tucked a corner of the bath-towel under his chin and began his repast. “There’s nothing sinful in poverty, they say, and of course they’re right; but it’s pretty hard sometimes not to be ashamed of it. I don’t tell every one that I cook my meals in my room. It wouldn’t do. But you were certain to find it out sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner. I say, would you mind turning off the gas over there? Thanks.”

“Do you mean that you can save money this way?” asked Jack as he sat down again.

“You better believe it. When Gooch and I kept house together our food cost us about one dollar and five cents apiece every week. I guess now it’ll cost me nearer two dollars.”

“But even then you’re saving two dollars by not going to a boarding-house,” said Jack reassuringly.

“Yes, I know,” replied Anthony, as he started on his second sausage, “but four dollars a week is my limit. And I’m paying more for this room than I did for my half of the other one. I guess I’ll have to retrench a while. Dad pays my tuition and I look after the rest myself. I earn enough in the summer taking out fishing parties and the like of that to last me. Last summer was a poor season, though; fish wouldn’t bite and folks wouldn’t go out with me. However, I got a scholarship, and that helped some. But I’m sailing a good deal nearer the wind than I did last year. And next week I’ve got to go over to Robinson, and I guess that will just about bankrupt me for a while.”

“What are you going there for?” Jack inquired.

“Debate.”

“Of course!” cried the other. “I remember now! I couldn’t think where I’d heard your name. Why, you’re the president of the Lyceum, aren’t you? and the crack debater? The fellow who won for Erskine last year when every one expected to be beaten?”

“Well, something of that sort,” replied the junior. “Anyhow, I’ve got to go to Robinson next week. If we’re defeated after I’ve gone and paid five dollars and eighty cents in railroad fares – !”

Words failed him and he finished the last of the sausages with a woful shake of his head.