Rival Pitchers of Oakdale | Page 4

"But he might acquire it."
"He might, if he only had the patience to try for it and work hard, but

you know he's no worker."
They had reached the gymnasium, and the discussion was dropped as
they entered and joined the boys in the dressing room, who were
hurriedly getting into their baseball togs. Hooker was there with the
others, for he had a suit of his own, which was one of the best of the
discarded uniforms given up at the opening of the previous season
when the team had purchased new suits. There was a great deal of
joshing and laughter, in which Roy took no part; for he was a fellow
who found little amusement in the usual babble and jests of his
schoolmates, and nothing aroused his resentment quicker than to be
made the butt of a harmless joke. He had once choked Cooper purple in
the face in retaliation for a jest put upon him by the audacious,
rattle-brained little chap; but later Chipper had accepted Roy's
apologies and protestations of regret, practically forgetting the
unpleasant incident, which, however, Roy never did.
"Ah-ha!" cried Sile Crane, bringing forth and flourishing a long, burnt,
battered bat. "Here's Old Buster, the sack cleaner. Haowdy do, my
friend? I'm sartainly glad to shake ye again."
"Up to date," said Cooper, tying his shoes, "I've never seen you do any
great shakes with Old Buster."
"Oh, ain't ye?" snapped Sile resentfully. "Mebbe yeou've forgot that
three-sacker I got with this club in the Clearport game."
"Um-mum," mumbled Chipper. "Now you mention it, I do have a faint
recollection of that marvelous accident. You were trying to dodge the
ball, weren't you, Sile? You just shut your blinkers and ducked, and
Pitkins' inshoot carromed off the bat over into right field and got lost in
the grass. If we all hadn't yelled for you to run, you'd be standing there
now, wondering what had happened."
"Yeou're another," flung back Crane. "I made a clean three-sacker, and
yeou know it."
"Well, anyhow, you got anchored on third and failed to come home

when I bunted on a signal for the squeeze. The Clearporters had barrels
of fun with you over that. I remember Barney Carney asking you if
you'd brought your bed."
"Oh, rats!" rasped Crane, striding toward the open gym door and
carrying his pet bat. "Some parts of your memory ought to be
amputated."
"What a cutting thing to say!" grinned Cooper, rising to follow.
The field, surrounded by a high board fence, was located near the
gymnasium, and in a few minutes all the boys were on it and ready for
business. Announcing that they would begin with a little plain fielding
practice, Eliot assigned them to their positions.
"Do you care to go into right, Roy?" he asked, turning to Hooker as the
last one.
"Not I," was the instant answer. "That's not my position. I'm no
outfielder. Right field, indeed!"
"Oh, very well," said Roger. "Tuttle, go ahead out."
"Sure," said Chub agreeably, waddling promptly away to fill the
position assigned him.
"Springer will bat to the outfield and Grant to the in," directed the
captain. "After we warm up a little, we'll try some regular batting and
base running, using the old system of signals."
Hooker, who had a ball of his own, turned away, and found Fred Sage,
whose sole interest in the line of sports lay in football, and who,
therefore, had taken no part in baseball after making a decided failure
on one occasion when, the team being short, he had allowed himself to
be coaxed into a uniform.
"There's an extra mitt on the bench, Fred," said Roy. "If you'll catch me,
I'll work a few kinks out of my arm."

"Can't you find somebody else?" asked Sage reluctantly. "I came out to
look on."
"Oh, come ahead," urged Hooker. "Get your blood to circulating. Who
would ever think you were the quarter back of the great Oakdale eleven?
Here's the mitt, take it."
"Come over by the fence," requested Fred. "I'll let that do most of the
backstopping."
Over by the fence they went, and Hooker began limbering up, calling
the curves he would use before throwing them. He had them all; but, as
usual, he was wild as a hawk, and Sage would have been forced to do
some tall jumping and reaching had he attempted to catch the ball more
than half the time.
"You've got some great benders, Roy, if you could ever put them over,"
commented Fred.
"I can put them over when I want to," was the retort. "It's only a chump
pitcher who keeps the ball over the pan all the time."
Satisfied after a time, he decided to stop, not a little to the relief