The New Boy at Hilltop, and Other Stories

Across that base he sped, swung in a quick curve, and made for second. The center fielder had picked up the ball and was about to throw it in.

It was a narrow chance, but when Curly scrambled to his feet after his slide, the umpire dropped his hand. Curly was safe. From the bank and along the base line came loud cheers for Willard's.

But the following batsman struck out miserably. The next attempted a sacrifice, and not only went out himself, but failed to advance the runner.

Then Curly, seeing no help forthcoming, advanced himself, starting like a shot with the pitcher's arm and rising safe from a cloud of dust at third.

Apthorpe went to bat, weary but determined. Curly, on third, shot back and forth like a shuttle with every motion of the pitcher's arm. With two balls in his favor, Apthorpe thought he saw his chance, and struck swiftly at an outshoot.

The result—he swung through empty air—appeared to unnerve him. He struck again at the next ball, and again missed.

But he found the next ball, and drove it swift and straight at the pitcher.

Curly was ten feet from the base when ball met bat. He stopped, poised to go on or to scuttle back, and saw the pitcher attempt the catch, drop the ball as if it were a red-hot cinder, and stoop for it.

Then Curly settled his chin on his breast, worked his arms like pistons and his legs like driving shafts, and flew along the line.

Beside him scuttled a coach, shouting shrill, useless words. All about him were cries, commands, entreaties, confused, meaningless. Ten feet from the plate he launched himself through space, with arms outstretched. The dust was in his eyes and nostrils.

He felt a corner of the plate. At the same instant he heard the thud of the ball against the catcher's glove overhead, the swish of the down-swinging arm, and–

"Safe at the plate!" cried the umpire.

At second Apthorpe was sitting on the bag, joyfully kicking his heels into the earth. On the bench the scorer made big, trembling dots on the page. Everywhere pandemonium reigned. The home nine had won game and championship.

Curly jumped to his feet, dusted his bedraggled clothes, and walked into the arms of Harris.

"The best steal you ever made!" cried Harris, thumping him on the back. As he went to the bench he heard an excited and perspiring youth exclaim proudly, "I have him in Greek, you know!"

Two minutes later the cherry-colored banners of Durham departed, flaunting bravely in the face of defeat.

Willard's danced across the terrace, shouting and singing. In their possession was a soiled and battered ball, which on the morrow would be inscribed with the figures "9 to 8," and proudly suspended behind a glass case in the trophy room.

Curly and Harris sat together in the former's study. Supper was over. Curly held a sealed and addressed letter in his hands, which he turned over and over undecidedly.

"Then—if you were in my place—under the circumstances—you—you wouldn't hand this in?" he asked.

"Let me have it, please," said Harris, with decision. He tore the letter across, and tossed the pieces into the waste basket.

"That's the only thing to do with that," he said. And in the successful two years of teaching since then Curly has come to feel that Harris was quite right.

PATSY

He made his first appearance one afternoon a week or so before the Fall Handicap Meeting. Mosher, Fosgill, Alien, Ronimus, and several more of us were down at the end of the field putting the shot. Fosgill, who was scratch man that year, had just done an even forty feet and the shot had trickled away toward the cinder path. Whereupon a small bit of humanity appeared from somewhere, picked up the sixteen pounds of lead with much difficulty, and staggered back to the circle with it.

"Hello, kid," said Fosgill; "that's pretty heavy for you, isn't it?"

"Naw," was the superb reply; "that ain't nothin'!"

We laughed, and the youngster grinned around at us in a companionable way that won us on the spot.

"What's your name?" asked Ronimus.

"Patsy."

"Patsy what?"

"Burns."

"How old are you?"

"'Leven."

"You're a Frenchman, aren't yon?"

"Naw."

"You're not?" Ronimus pretended intense surprise.

"He's a Dutchman, aren't you, Patsy?" said Mosher.

"Naw."

"What are you then?"

"Mucker," answered Patsy with a grin.

For the rest of that day and for many days afterwards Patsy honored us with his presence. After each put he ambled forth, lifted the metal ball from the ground with two dirty little hands, snuggled it against the front of his dirty little shirt, and labored back with it. At the end of the week Patsy had become official helper.

He was a diminutive wisp of humanity, a starved, slender elf with a freckled face, wizened and peaked, which at times looked a thousand years old. It reminded you of the face of one of those preternaturally aged monkeys that sit motionless in a dark corner of the cage, oppressed with the sins and sorrows of a hundred centuries. And yet it mustn't be supposed that Patsy was either a pessimist or a misanthrope. Patsy's gray Irish eye could sparkle merrily and his thin little Irish mouth usually wore a whimsical smile. It was as though he realized that life was but a hollow mockery and yet had bravely resolved to pretend otherwise, that we, young and innocent, might still preserve our cherished illusions.

We made a good deal of Patsy. We pretended that he was very, very old and sophisticated—not a difficult task—and deferred to his judgment on all occasions. But in spite of this Patsy never became "fresh." To be sure, he speedily began calling Fosgill "Bull," but I don't think he meant the slightest disrespect; everyone called the big fellow "Bull," and it is quite possible that Patsy believed it to be a title of honor. He was attentive to all of us, but his heart was Fosgill's. He used to wait outside the Locker Building until we came out after dressing and then walk beside Fosgill until he reached the Square. Then Patsy would say:

"Good night, Bull."

And Fosgill would answer gravely:

"Good night, Patsy."

And Patsy would disappear.

But the evening of the Handicaps we took him back to the boarding house with us, and he sat beside Fosgill and ate ravenously of everything placed before him. We learned Patsy's life story that evening. He went to school—generally. He lived with Brian. Brian was his brother, eighteen years old, and a man of business; Brian drove for Connors, the teamster. Patsy wasn't sure that he had ever had a mother, but he was absolutely certain about his father. He still had vivid recollections of the night they broke down the door and put the handcuffs on father after father had laid out the lieutenant with a chair. Patsy didn't know just what father had done, but he had an idea it was something regarding the disappearance of numerous suits of clothes from a tailor's shop. Patsy was going into business himself just as soon as they let him stop school; he was going to sell papers. He had tried several times to wean himself from education, but each time they haled him back to the schoolhouse. Patsy thought the thing was terribly wrong.

When the snow covered the field we saw Patsy only occasionally. In the spring we got to work early. We believed we had a good show to win the Dual that year and a fighting chance at the Intercollegiate. We were strong on the sprints and distances, fair at the jumps and hurdles, and rather weak at the weights. We had a good man in Fosgill at the shot put, but that's about all. Along in May we had it doped out that if we could get first in the shot put we could win out by a point or two. But there wasn't anything certain about it, for our opponent was strong on second, near-"second," and third-place men.

Patsy appeared with the first warm day, looking thinner and littler and older than ever. That first day the assistant manager was holding the tape for us, and it occurred to him to pick up the shot and toss it back. But he did it only once. The next time Patsy was astraddle of that sixteen-pound lump and was looking the assistant manager sternly in the eye.

"I'm doin' this," said Patsy.