John tossed his battered cap high in the air in a sudden access of spirits. "One for scrub," he shouted. "First raps for the first game of scrub. Go home and get your league ball and bat, Sid. I'll bring my first baseman's glove. Silvey'll find his catcher's mitt. Beat you home! Beat you home!"

They were off. Down the cement sidewalk they darted, their quick breaths showing ever so slightly in the crisp air. John stamped up the steps and into the front hall.

"Mother!" he called. "Mother!"

"Yes, son?" came the voice from the big second floor sewing room.

"Where's my baseball glove?" He kicked against the bottom step of the stairway impatiently.

"Did you wipe your feet when you came in?" came the disconcerting inquiry. "I don't want the carpets all over mud."

"Y-yes."

"Go back and wipe them right away. Then come up and tell me what you want."

He gave his offending shoes a half-rub against the fiber mat on the porch, and was up by her side in another moment. She looked up from the basket of ragged stockings she was sorting.

"Now, what is it?"

"My first baseman's glove. The one dad gave me for my birthday. Know where it is?"

"Where did you leave it?"

"Why, don't you know?" His surprise was genuine. Usually his mother picked up his boyish belongings and stored them in a place of safety.

"Is that the glove which laid in the coat closet all last November? the one that I kept telling you to put away before it became lost?"

He nodded. "Please tell me, Mother. The boys are all down at Silvey's, and I've got to get it quick!"

Mrs. Fletcher yielded with a smile. "Seems to me I saw it on your closet shelf, the other day."

A moment later, a shout told that her memory had served her rightly. The door slammed, eager feet sprang down the wooden porch steps, and her son dogtrotted north toward his chum's, as fast as his legs could carry him.

When he arrived, Silvey scaled the stout wire fence on the railroad property, and hunted three white stones of fair and flat proportions.

"Here's your bases," he called as he heaved the objects into the yard with a recklessness which threatened destruction to the turf. "Johnny was first at bat, wasn't he?"

They took their positions in the order of the numbers which they had called earlier. Silvey stood behind the home plate, Sid DuPree was in the pitcher's box, Red played first base, and Skinny Mosher stood near the fence to cover the outfield, second, and third as best he could. Sid ground the ball into the heel of his heavily padded mitt, as he had seen professional pitchers do, bent forward, and threw the ball over Silvey's head against the back wall of the house. "Ya-ah," taunted John as the catcher scrambled for the ball. "'Fraid to put 'em near me. 'Fraid to put 'em near me."

Again a window creaked, and again a maternal voice showed that attention had been drawn to the "Tigers" latest recreation.

"What are you boys trying to do?" fretfully. "Don't you know this house has windows in it?"

"Go easy," cautioned Bill in an undertone. "Remember, Sid, you haven't thrown a ball since last summer. I don't want any 'penny lectures' 'cause you smashed some glass."

Sid drew his arm back for the second time. John leaned forward, caught the slowly moving ball with the full force of the bat, and tore for first base.

"Over the fence is out, over the fence is out," came the chorus. "Silvey's turn next."

The ex-batsman took up the position near the fence in disgust. Skinny moved forward to the pitcher's box, and Sid replaced Bill as catcher. The muscles of Skinny's long, thin arms tightened as he grasped the ball for his first pitch of the season.

Suddenly the subdued afternoon babel of the city was dwarfed by a humming of factory whistles, some long drawn and of deep bass, others quicker and higher pitched, rising and dying away in succession as they were supplanted by the distance-mellowed notes of other establishments with lagging time clocks. Dismay robbed John's face of the grin of a moment before.

"Five o'clock," he cried as he threw the baseball glove into the quickening grass. "Jiminy, kids, and the paper wagon comes at ten of!"

Inquiry at the little dingy-windowed delicatessen and milk depot confirmed his fears. The cart had arrived on time, and his customers would expect their news sheets that evening.

What a pest the business was growing to be. It wasn't half-bad in winter when the afternoons were short, but now that spring had arrived, there were so many delightful demands on a boy's time. He counted the coins in his pocket, and made a mental calculation of the number of papers actually needed.

"Give me all you've got," he demanded of the astonished delicatessen proprietor. That thin-haired, shaky-fingered gentleman counted the papers on the black news stand.

"There's one for ol' Miss Anderson, an' one for—"

"Never mind them," John broke in excitedly. "Give me all your papers! You've got to!"

At that, the number was pitifully inadequate for his demands. He retraced his steps to the corner and hurried over to the suburban railroad station. There, the leader of the "Jefferson Toughs" was trying to dispose of the last of his wares.

"Let's have 'em all," said John. His rival gazed at him in amazement.

"Quit your kiddin'," he ejaculated finally.

"Honest 'n truth," John assured him. "Missed the paper wagon, and I've got to fix my customers, somehow."

Next, he ran westward to the little school store to beg Miss Thomas to disappoint her steady patrons for just this once. The search led him far beyond the university buildings and the gray-stone flat which had marked the limits of their hitching trip in February, down to the business street with its rattling surface cars which lay a full mile west of John's home. He returned by a side street, four blocks to the north, stopping at the numerous little stationery and notion shops on the way. Even with that, certain staid and substantial customers were horrified to find that the yellowest of yellow newspapers had supplanted their conservative favorite, that evening.

He came home tired and footsore, and went wearily to bed after a half-eaten supper. The business which he had built up so zestfully in the autumn had enfettered him, and was shaping his leisure moments like an inexorable machine, and the realization of it gave him moodily thoughtful moments during the remainder of the week.

Sunday, blessedly work free, was warm and sun-shiny. As soon as he had eaten dinner, he grabbed his battered cap from the hall chair and started for the door.

"Going for a walk," he explained to Mrs. Fletcher as she looked up from the Sunday paper.

"Louise going with you?"

"Not much! Silvey'n me are going on a real walk. We don't want to feed squirrels on an afternoon like this."

It was as if the entire city's population had turned out to welcome the arrival of spring. The street leading from the car terminal was thronged with a constantly moving procession bound for the park. White-faced stenographers and anaemic clerks came from the dingy boarding-house districts to the north. Stockily built mechanics swaggered along with their simpering, gaudily dressed lady loves. Here and there were entire families of substantial Germans and Swedes, and occasionally, swarthy Italians and beady-eyed, voluble Jews. Sooner or later, they all lost themselves in the winding gravel paths of the park, or made their way to the broad walk along the lake front, where the air was filled with their polyglot babel.

"Isn't it peachy?" asked John as the boys passed the long, parallel rows of poplars which marked the edge of the park. "Come on, Bill. Let's go to the island."

The path led them by the boat landing. All traces of the warming house which had sheltered so many numbed skaters during the winter had been removed. In its stead, were piled rows upon rows of yellow, flat-bottomed boats, one on top of another, with boards separating them.

"Look!" John pointed them out. "That means summer's coming soon, and fishing, and school vacation." On the island, they found two severely dressed, angular students from the university who stood beneath a small brown bird in the branch of a budding maple. As he sunned himself happily, the taller of the two consulted a book which she held in one hand in a manner vaguely suggestive of Miss Brown and school recitations.

"It is a little smaller than Wilson's thrush, Maria," she admitted. "Still——"

John chuckled; "Nothing but a sparrow." He brushed past a bench on which was squatted a be-shawled, unwashed, immigrant grandmother. "Come on down this little path, Bill. Perhaps we can find some birds if we look."

But the season was still a little too early for the arrival of the robins, the yellowhammers, and the elusive kinglets and thrushes from the southland. Though the boys stalked in and out the winding, bush-beset trail, their search startled only nervous-tailed squirrels and dozens of the feathered gamins which had so sorely puzzled the two schoolmams. But the dandelions were poking their green shoots through the deposit of snow-packed autumn leaves, and the moss on the tree trunks lightened the somber gray of the bark. In one inlet of the lagoon, John caught a gleam in the water which was not a ripple reflection of the sun's rays.

"Sunfish," he whispered to Bill.

A bungling pair of grown-ups crashed down the path and drove the wary feeders to cover in deeper water. The boys waited a few futile minutes for their return, then dashed noisily over the wooden south bridge, past the golf links with its dense mass of patiently waiting enthusiasts, and down the gently sloping road to the stone bridge which marked the entrance to the yacht harbor.

There, where the black, bobbing buoys marked the moorings of the summer fleet of skiffs and schooners, of noisy little open motorboats, and long, heavily powered gasoline cruisers, Silvey found an empty bottle on the graveled shore. John looked at it reflectively.

"Got some paper?"

Bill found an old spelling sheet in his pocket. John tore off the cleanest end and, with the curving side of the bottle for a writing board, scribbled a laborious note.

"Lat 57, Long 64," he began, remembering the inevitable heading of the missives in sea-faring novels. "Nancy Lee sank this date, August 3, 1872. All hands lost but me. Frank Smith."

"What's that for?"

He worked the note down the narrow glass neck and plugged it with a bit of driftwood. "Maybe somebody, 'way across the lake, will find this," he explained, as he threw the receptacle far out on the water. "Then they'll think a ship's sunk."

"What's 'lat' and 'long'?" asked Silvey, as they watched it bobbing up and down with the ripples.

"The checkerboard lines on the geography maps," his chum answered evasively, as they retraced their steps northward.

At the macadam road they hesitated. On the other side lay the smaller golf course, which offered excellent amusement because of its many enthusiastic novices at the sport, and the lure of an occasional shrubbery-hidden ball which might be found by keen eyes. Ahead, stretched the lake and the broad walk, thronged with laughing, friendly humanity.

"Let's go the beach way," said John suddenly. Indeed, no spring jaunt could be complete without a stroll over the clinging, weather-beaten sand.

They halted first at the long pier, and walked out to the end to catch the invigorating freshness of the water-kissed south wind. There, a persistent fisherman, the first of that season's nimrod tribe, leaned against the life-preserver post.

John leaned cautiously over to see if captive perch were floating back and forth. Only ruffled water met his gaze.

"Biting any?" he asked.

The fisherman shook his head. "A mite early, I guess."

"Oh, I don't know," John encouraged. "Come on, Sil, let's sit down and watch. Maybe he'll catch something soon."

So the boys dangled their feet over the edge of the pier until the lengthening shadows told that it was time to leave for home. They rose regretfully and resumed the saunter along the broad walk with its many, occupied benches. Down on the sand, children hazarded spring colds as they fashioned hills and castles by the lake. Further along, an ardent youth serenely disregarded photographic rules and pointed his kodak at a group of laughing girls who stood between him and the setting sun. As the boys left the park, they passed a group of gray-suited ball players, which had been using one of the park diamonds near the golf links. John watched them a minute.

"Most time for our team to get together again," he said.

Silvey nodded. "Sid was talking about it after the game of scrub the other day. Wants to be captain this year."

John laughed scornfully. As Silvey well knew, he, himself, intended to be re-elected to that important office. "Let's go home by the big lot and see what it's like," he suggested.

A few minutes later they clambered over the shaky fence which separated the field from the sidewalk and neighboring dairy pasturage. Silvey dug his foot into the yielding turf, which had formed the scene of that football scrimmage between the "Jeffersons" and the "Tigers."

"'Most dry enough to play on," he observed.

John nodded. The flat, white stone which had been used for a home plate during the summer had been removed as a hindrance to the gridiron sport, and the base lines which had been worn into the turf by frequent boyish footsteps, were almost obliterated by the winter's debris and the rank, quickening grass. Not an inspiring view by any means, yet John gazed upon it in dreamy satisfaction.

"Let's make 'er a real home grounds," he said suddenly. "Soon as it gets drier, we'll bring our rakes over and get this stuff out of the way;" he kicked a rusty tin can to one side. "Then we'll cut the grass and make cinder base lines, and everything'll be just peachy."

Silvey beamed, enthralled as usual by John's fertile imagination.

"Then," went on John, as he retraced his steps to the walk, "we'll get some lumber from new flat buildings and put up a grand stand and call it 'The Tigers' Baseball Park.'"

They halted some minutes later in front of the Silvey house. John's watch told of at least a quarter of an hour before supper time, and they perched themselves on the top step to talk of fishing, of the May vacation of a week which would soon be upon them, of the leaky roof in the shack, and lastly of the baseball team.

"Joe Menard's folks had to move," said Silvey, as he thought over the roster of last year's organization.

"We'll get a pitcher somewhere," said John, a trifle impatiently, as he changed the subject. "So Sid wants to be captain, does he?"

Silvey smiled, as does an adult listening to the vagaries of a child. "You know him as well as I do."

"But who'll vote for him? There's Red and Skinny and you and me and Perry and the Harrison kids, all don't like him. If it wasn't for that baseball and bat, and those gloves of his, he couldn't a' played with us last year."

Silvey shrugged his shoulders. "He's going around school, saying that he's going to be captain of the 'Tigers' this year."

"You're president of the club, aren't you?" said John, thoughtfully.

His chum nodded.

"I'll go around and see all the fellows. Any of 'em who won't vote for me, you tell 'em they'll be dropped from the club. We'll have a meeting when everything's fixed, and Mr. Sid DuPree won't think himself so smart."

Never was precinct canvassed more thoroughly by a municipal candidate than was the membership of the "Tigers" by the two boys during the week which followed. John dropped the usual walk home with Louise, one day, that he might talk to Skinny Mosher, and hung around the school yard another noon, that he might reassure himself of Brown's loyalty. With a clear majority of six assured over Sid's lone vote, code notices were sent back and forth between the different members until Miss Brown threatened to send the responsible parties to the principal's office.

With victory certain, John raced across the school yard and caught up with a certain maiden whom he had neglected sorely of late.

"We're going to have a ball team election tomorrow," he explained, as he took possession of her school books. "I've been awfully busy."

"I know," she replied absently. "Sid told me. Says he's going to be captain."

"Guess not!" John was too pleased with the surprise prepared for his rival to realize the revelation in her words. "Smarty DuPree hasn't much show when six of the fellows are going to vote for me."

Conversation lagged. Miss Martin was nervously alert lest she encounter a friendly greeting from Sid while her escort was with her, and John became absorbed in the affairs of the morrow. Strangely enough, he experienced a feeling of relief when he left her at the apartment building and was able to race back to the shack where Silvey was waiting.

There the two planned and boasted of combats to take place under his leadership on the renovated baseball field, until a warning conscience reminded John that it was nearing paper time.



CHAPTER XVI

MORE ABOUT "THE GREATEST GAME IN THE WORLD"

One by one, the boys filed in through the Silvey gateway, to squat outside the club-house entrance until their roster was complete. Bill glanced nervously at Sid and cleared his throat.

"It's baseball time," he began abruptly. "And we've got to elect our captain and manager. Any—" he paused and looked at John.

"Nom'nations?" said the latter promptly.

There was an awkward silence. Sid tightened his grasp on a handful of the fresh, green turf. John looked meaningly at Red Brown, who spoke up as he had been instructed.

"I nom'nate John Fletcher. He was captain last year 'n he ought to be this."

"Any one else?" asked Silvey.

"I want to be captain," said Sid, curtly.

"Can't nom'nate yourself," ruled the president. "Somebody's got to do it for you."

"Somebody's got to second it, too," supplemented John.

Sid gazed helplessly about. Truly this newly made maze of parliamentary law was bewildering. "Nobody's seconded John's," he said at last.

"Second John's nom'nation," said Skinny Mosher promptly.

"All those in favor of John as captain—"

Sid sprang to his feet. "Wait a minute," he snapped. "You fellows think you're smart, but let me tell you something. I said I was going to be captain, and I am."

"You!" sneered John. "Why, you lost the game with Room Six's team 'cause you couldn't stop an easy grounder. Let it roll between your legs, you did."

"Don't care," was the stubborn reply. "I'm going to be captain. Whose league ball did the team use last year?"

"Yours," admitted Silvey, reluctantly.

"And the two bats, the second baseman's glove, and two fielders' mitts were mine, too, weren't they? Didn't my dad buy 'em for me? Well, go ahead and have Johnny for your old captain if you want. But if I can't run the team, the team can't use my things!"

There was an astounded silence. Those astute politicians, John and Bill, had never dreamed of such a barefaced threat. They sat looking blankly at him, while Red Brown laughed disagreeably.

"And you're the kid who went home crying 'cause you were hit on the shin with a baseball. Fine captain, you'll make."

"Captain and the gloves, or you play without 'em," came the arrogant ultimatum. "Which do you want?"

He could see by the thoughtful faces around him that his words were not without effect. Last year, the team had owned a reputation for being blessed with proper equipment, and to go back to the cheap, undersized balls, and scantily padded private mitts would be no small privation. John sighed wearily.

"Guess you can be captain if you want to," he said, finally.

A reluctantly assenting chorus sanctioned his consent. Bill broached the subject of the baseball park improvements, and Sid shook his head emphatically. The idea was his rival's and therefore to be fought.

"The park diamonds are lots better," he argued. "Take us all year to fix the lot up."

"But it'd be our own," Red broke in enthusiastically. "Think of playing the 'Jeffersons' on the 'Tigers' Home Grounds.' 'Tain't every team could say that, could it?" Which was the truth, for the vacant lots of the neighborhood were being rapidly supplanted by flat buildings and room for boyish playgrounds was becoming more and more scarce.

Sid considered the matter a moment. Certainly it would add to the team's, and his, prestige.

"Well, maybe," he said, with seeming reluctance that his change of front might not seem too obvious. "Let's go over and see what the place is like."

"First across the tracks," shouted Red, as he sprang to his feet. In a moment, the whole tribe was up and after him, climbing the wire railroad fence with a vigor which threatened destruction to the meshes. They scampered across the expanse of cinders and rails, broken here and there by a struggling bit of plant life, and scrambled out on the untidy field.

The broken glass and old milk-bottle tops from the dairy had crept further out from the low, tar-paper building during the winter. Boards from the boxes and barrels which had formed the fortress for the cucumber fight were scattered to the four corners of the field, and the sparse, fresh grass blades sprang up to sunlight and life through the dead, gray-brown vegetation of the preceding autumn. Neither trace of baseball diamond nor football gridiron could be found. Yet the "Tigers" purposed to make the place the talk of the juvenile population and they turned to their captain for advice.

"Oh, fix 'er up someway," said that gentleman vaguely. John glared at him in futile anger.

"Get the rubbish out of the way, first," he broke out.

Sid shrugged his shoulders. "John'll tell you what to do. I'm captain, but so long as the park's fixed up, I don't care who does it."

"Get your rake, Bill, and you, too, Skinny. I'll go after ours. Rest of you kids pick up the tin cans and wood and things while we're gone. Come on, fellows. Beat you over the tracks."

John dropped his rake over the fence on his return, and glanced at his watch as a precaution. It was nearly five! Blame the paper business anyway! Never did he start some important project but what time flew so swiftly that he had to leave just when things were getting interesting. He called an explanatory "paper time!" to his team mates, turned his implement over to Red, and left for the little delicatessen store.

All the next Monday afternoon the boys labored while their captain stood around with his hands in his pockets and watched condescendingly. John picked up Bill on his return from the paper route, and went over to the lot to inspect the carefully combed playing area. The broken glass, rain-soaked paper caps, sticks, boards, and dead grass had been carefully assembled in conical heaps near the railroad fence, and he beamed his approval.

"It's going to be peachy, Silvey," he broke out.

"Yes, and Sid'll say he did it," his chum commented bitterly.

"What do we care? We'll put the home plate here," he indicated a spot some fifty feet north of the dairy buildings. "Then the sun won't get in our eyes. I'll borrow dad's big tapeline to measure off the other bases, and the grand stand can go here. It'll be big enough to hold 'most fifty people!"

Silvey listened in amazement. He could run a football team as quarter-back to perfection, or break through the opposing line time and again, as he had done last autumn, but this fertile foresight was something beyond his comprehension.

"You talk as if you see it," he said finally.

"Why, I do." John dismissed the matter as worthy of no further comment. "But before we do any of these things, we've got to cut the grass and see where the bumps in the ground are."

For two afternoons the whirr of lawnmowers was heard over the "Tigers' Home Grounds." When the many hollows and hummocks in the uneven turf came to light, the youthful construction boss ordered that shovels be brought, and another day passed in transporting dirt and leveling the obstructions off. Pail after pail of water was carried from the dairy buildings to wet down and harden the new, loose earth, and it was Saturday morning before the distances between the various bases and the pitcher's box could be measured off.

"We'll start filling in the paths with cinders now," said John, as Silvey drove a peg into the ground to mark the location of the home plate.

"Won't they hurt when you slide on them?" drawled Perry Alford.

"But there's nothing else to use, is there?"

"They're starting a flat building next old lady Meeker's on Southern Avenue," the boy suggested. "Why not get sand from there?"

John shot him a glance of approval and called to the team members. "Everybody get a pail and meet at Silvey's," he concluded, as they started for the railroad tracks.

"I'll sit here and watch the tools," said Sid, brazenly.

"Aren't you going to work at all?" broke out Silvey impatiently.

"Don't have to," was the unperturbed reply. "I'm the captain."

They left their nominal leader to do as he desired and scattered to commandeer the various family buckets and fiber pails. Skinny, who lived farthest from the Silvey's, came up at last with his utensil, and they set off, single file, past Neighborhood Hall and the corner grocery stores, and around to quiet, sedate Southern Avenue, beating a crude marching rhythm on the tins as they went. At the sight of the ten-foot sandhill which the excavations for the apartments had formed, John broke into a run.

"Beat you there!" he shouted.

Away they went after him, pell-mell, and dashed up the yielding sides to bury their pails deep in the golden particles. Silvey braced himself, tugged his load free, and staggered along the walk for perhaps thirty feet. John caught up with him and also halted for a rest.

At last they started again, but it was no light-hearted, carefree, return trip for the "Tigers." The sand-filled buckets weighed too much to be used as drums, and they retraced their steps slowly, dropping them every few minutes to ease their aching wrists. In front of Neighborhood Hall, Skinny found a blister on one of his hands.

"Think we'll ever get back?" he asked, despairingly.

"It isn't so far now," John encouraged him. "We've only got to go another block before we turn. Then it's a half-block down to the hole in the fence. Come on. I'll stump you to carry yours as far as the railroad tracks."

Thus by making it a matter of athletic prowess the boys carried their loads to the destination. But the little heaps on the dusty earth looked pitifully insignificant. Skinny borrowed a pin and lanced the white protuberance at the base of his second finger.

"Jiminy," he mourned, as he squeezed the water out. "It's going to be an awful lot of work, fellows."

They raked the sand level along the path from the plate to first base. Not by the wildest stretch of imagination could they seem to reach even a quarter of the distance, and protruding grass blades showed that the covering was far too scanty.

"Where's your wagon, John?" asked Red Brown suddenly.

"Busted," said John, reproachfully. "Have you forgotten?"

During the summer preceding, a fever of wagon building had seized the boys. Every spare wheel and tricycle frame in the block had been requisitioned for the construction of a half-dozen little vehicles which suddenly appeared to scud down the sidewalks and over the smooth macadam street. There had been discussions and disputes as to speed, and John's wagon, a long, well-oiled affair with a coat of red, discarded house paint on its framework, had come to grief in a collision with Brown's, one sunny afternoon. Even Silvey, the optimist, who had furnished the motive power, had looked at the wreckage in well-founded despair.

"Where's yours?" Red turned abruptly to the Harrison boys.

"In the basement."

Skinny Mosher's, too, was still in existence. All the rest of the morning and afternoon, the two wagons ran merrily toward the Southern Avenue sand hill, or creaked slowly and laboriously back to the "Tigers' Home Grounds," with such good effect that but a scant ten feet of path remained to be filled in when John's paper route called him.

Silvey and he sauntered over that evening after supper to make the final inspection of the work.

"Just like the park diamonds, isn't it?" he asked, as Silvey stretched a pair of weary arms.

"And Sid said he was glad he thought of it. And we worked like everything while he stood around!"

John scarcely heard him as he stood, eyes a-dream, looking over the even, carefully raked turf. "The grand stand comes next, Bill. Do you think we ought to tear down the shack for lumber?"

Bill demurred. That shaky building occupied too great a place of importance in the boys' lives to justify such a sacrifice. Surely there were enough new buildings being erected in the neighborhood without that.

Sid made an announcement on the following Monday which made the postponement of that last bit of construction work imperative.

"Saw the captain of the 'Jeffersons,'" he beamed as the little group gathered about him on the baseball diamond. "We're going to play 'em this Saturday."

"What?" John exploded. Sid nodded his head.

"They've got the best team around," Silvey broke out. "And they've been practicing in the park ever since the snow melted. How can we lick 'em now?"

Sid shrugged his shoulders aggravatingly.

"Haven't you any brains at all?" John stormed.

"I'm captain," Sid snapped back at the insurgents. "I'm running this team. If you don't like it, you can quit!"

The voice of Skinny Mosher, the peacemaker, broke in: "Aw, kids, never mind. 'Tain't so bad as it looks. Let's start practicing now, and maybe we can beat 'em anyway."

It was excellent advice, and the boys scampered over the tracks for home, to return singly and in pairs with their baseball paraphernalia. John took up his old position at first, and Silvey donned his catcher's mitt to receive and return imaginary balls thrown by the other players. Red Brown and Perry Alford stationed themselves at second and shortstop respectively, while the Harrison boys stood around and waited until duty should call them to the outfield.

"Where's Skinny and Sid?" asked John as he glanced around.

"There's Mosher, now," exclaimed Silvey, as a tall and diminutive figure made their way down the railroad embankment. "Kid brother with him as usual."

"Had to bring him," the unfortunate elder boy exclaimed when he reached the diamond. "Ma wouldn't let me come unless I did."

They accepted the affliction resignedly. "He can watch," said Silvey. "Come on, John. Toss up your little ball while we're waiting."

Accordingly, the first baseman brought out a lopsided ten-cent ball and threw it toward third. Skinny Mosher dropped the sphere as if it were a hot coal.

"Go easy," he cautioned. "Sid hasn't brought my glove yet."

The elder Harrison boy who aspired to fill Joe Menard's place, ran over to the pitcher's box, and the tossing was resumed. From third to first, second to pitcher, and then to Silvey, and back again. Muscles became limbered and arms more certain of their mark. Skinny misgauged a swift throw from John and caught the ball on the tip of his fingers.

"Jiminy!" he yelled. "What you think you're doing?"

"Butter fingers, butter fingers!" came the taunting reply.

"Don't care. I'm going to wait for my glove. Here's Sid now."

The team turned as one man and stared in astonishment. Their captain had delayed his return to don his new baseball suit, and from the spikes on his shoes to the visor of his red-trimmed cap, he was a perfect miniature of a professional player. Even John was unable to restrain an envious stare at the natty flannel shirt and knickerbockers, and the maroon and white stockings.

"Cost eight dollars, it did," Sid announced, as he acknowledged the unconscious homage with a satisfied smile. "Dad gave it to me 'cause I was captain. Here's the gloves and the ball and the bat. Let's start practice."

They ran back to their positions. Sid, bat in hand, stood by the plate, tossed the league ball high in the air, and knocked the sphere easily toward third base. Skinny, with the confidence engendered by a well-padded hand, scooped the ball with surprising accuracy and returned it. Again Sid repeated the process.

Red pranced impatiently up and down on the sand path. "Give me one this time," he begged. "Don't send 'em all to Skinny."

The captain of the "Tigers" nodded and hit the descending ball with all his force a little too far for Red to reach. A quick glance showed the impending catastrophe.

"Hey, kid, get out of the way," he yelled. The warning came too late. The ball skimmed over the grass, struck a hummock which had been overlooked by the builders of the diamond, and ricochetted upward into the hapless Mosher youngster's stomach.

Yells filled the air. Skinny, unwilling slave, stooped over his prostrate brother. "Hurt much?" he queried anxiously. John glanced at his watch in boredom, for such occurrences had lost their novelty long months ago.

"Paper time," he called, as he made for the tracks. A last glance back before the dairy buildings cut off the view, showed the wailing infant trudging sturdily toward the walk. Every line of his figure indicated maddened determination to tell his mother on the whole team.

Tuesday and Wednesday sped past. It became more and more apparent that a substitute for Joe Menard must be found if the "Tigers" were to have even a fighting chance of holding their own with the ancient enemy. Time and again Haldane Harrison took his place to whip a few slightly curving balls down to the critical Silvey, only to realize that his knowledge of the art was sadly deficient. They all had a try at it, eventually, while Sid stood by with a sarcastic grin on his face and watched their futile efforts.

The next noon, John walked home with Louise, a custom sadly broken since the baseball season had begun, and passed a stockily built lad who was bouncing a baseball against the side of a house but a few doors from the Martin's apartment. On the way back, he stopped to watch. The newcomer returned his stare with equal interest.

"'Lo," said John, as he walked nearer.

"'Lo," said the boy with an ingratiating smile.

"My name's John Fletcher."

"Mine's Francis Yager," spoken with equal curtness.

"Live here?" asked the first baseman of the "Tigers." The boy admitted that such was the case. "There's my house," explained John, pointing with an inkstained finger.

There was an awkward silence. Francis bounced his ball against the side of the house a few times.

"Ever play baseball?" asked John, as the boy made a difficult catch of an erratic return from a drain pipe. The newcomer turned, his face lighted with interest.

"Just bet you!" he beamed. "Back home we had a team and I played—"

"Pitcher?" asked John, breathlessly. The new boy nodded. Truly the fates were proving kind to the "Tigers" that day.

"What can you throw?"

"An 'in,' and an 'out,' and a 'slow ball.'" The expert paused in the summary of his attainments. "Last year, I was just getting so's I could pitch a drop. But it didn't work very well."

Dinner, maternal lectures, all were forgotten as John poured out the tale of the "Tigers'" woes to his new friend. Arm in arm, they made their way up to Silvey's house. That catcher tried out the new recruit, while John watched eagerly, and pronounced him all and more than he had claimed for himself.

"We'll fix the 'Jeffersons' now," John shouted confidently. "You can hold 'em, Francis, old boy."

He marched the new member over the tracks to the ball grounds, that afternoon, and introduced him to the delighted team. Sid heard Silvey's tale of the pitcher's prowess with ill-disguised resentment.

"He can play in the outfield," he said shortly. "I'm going to do it myself."

"You!" shrieked John.

"Yes, me!"

"You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a baseball. Pitch! Only reason we let you play at all last year was because—" He checked himself suddenly. Sid only smiled.

"I'm captain," he replied, as John finished. "I'm running this team. I'm going to pitch, and if you don't like it, you can quit." He walked over to the position, leaving a dazed and resentful first baseman behind him.

That evening, John returned from the paper route to eat supper listlessly and skip up to Silvey's as soon as he had finished. The team, his team which he had built up with such care last year, was going to the dogs, and he craved sympathy from Bill about it.

"He's crazy," his chum sighed when John's outburst had slackened. "You should a' seen him when you'd gone for the papers, today. First he threw over my head, and then to one side, 'most out of my reach. He hit the ground twice before he could throw a fast one over the plate, and Francis laughed at him. 'Well,' says Sid, 'I guess I can learn before Saturday. I've got a book at home that tells all about it.'"

"Maybe—" said John, thoughtfully.

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe the 'Jeffersons' 'll make so many runs in the first inning that he'll have to quit. Then Francis can play, and perhaps we can catch up with them."

"But he won't let Francis learn my signals," Silvey complained. "Says he's captain and we've got to do just what he says."

"Get Francis to come down to your yard tomorrow noon," John counseled, as he stood up and stretched himself. "Teach him then."

Thus it came about that, unknown to Sid, two small figures rehearsed for a good hour, such intricacies as "Two fingers against the glove means a swift one," "when I pound like this, it means an 'out,'" and "this means an 'in'" until Francis became letter-perfect in them.

That Friday afternoon, the "Tigers" gathered for the final practice before the first and most important game of the season. Silvey knocked grounders innumerable to the different members of the infield who handled them with uncanny dexterity, or sent long flies out to the waiting players until he grew tired and Sid supplanted him. Red Brown and one or two of the fleeter spirits of the team raced from base to base, practicing a little trick of sliding which Red had noticed at a park baseball game, and Sid took his position as pitcher for a few minutes' erratic practice with Silvey. John left them for the night, wavering between confidence and despair as to the result of the morrow. Everything had gone marvelously well with the exception of Sid.

"If he quits early," Silvey consoled him as they sat on the Fletcher front steps just before bed time, "we'll win after all."

"We'll have to," said John, stubbornly, as he rose in answer to his mother's call. "So-long, Bill."



CHAPTER XVII

HE'S "THROUGH WITH GIRLS"

Nine o'clock in the morning saw the "Tigers" assembled in front of the Silvey home. Sid wore his elaborate outfit; Bill, the ragged football trousers which had done duty in the autumn, and John sported a battered cap. Other uniforms among them there were not, but the team made a brave showing, nevertheless, as it trooped lustily toward the corner. No scampering across the railroad embankment this time for the members. A baseball game demanded a more ceremonious arrival on the grounds. They neared the viaduct and Red and Perry Alford began a tattoo on the cement walk with the baseball bats. The other players broke into that time-honored refrain,

Hip! Hip! I had a good job And I quit. My name is Sam And I don't give a—[pause] Hippetty hippetty, hip!

With the corner and adult ears left behind them, Sid, in a spirit of bravado, filled in the tabooed expletive and aroused the awed admiration of his subordinates.

Past the long, low, red art shops they swaggered, keeping perfect time to the chant as they rounded the corner. John who was a little ahead of the others, broke into a sharp cry of dismay.

"Look! Our grounds!"

The consternation which was on his face spread to theirs. The shaky, weather-beaten fence by the sidewalk had been torn down before their arrival. At intervals, load after load of building stone rumbled over hastily formed paths of heavy planks. Further in, on the field, from the home-plate northward over the painstakingly levelled earth, harnessed horses sweated and tugged at the traces as scoop after scoop bit into the turf and came up filled with dirt to be emptied against the railroad tracks.

"Flats," gasped Silvey, as they drew nearer. John said nothing, but his lower lip trembled as the last trace of the beautifully sanded base lines disappeared under the excavators' devastating hands.

"'Tis a pity," said the kindly Irishman, who noted their approach, "but it has to be, I guess, kids. Yis, the other team went home, fifteen minutes ago. Said they didn't guess there'd be a game today."

They stopped in dazed bewilderment to watch the progress of the foundation work. At last, John, sick at heart, slunk away. He wanted to be home, away from everyone until he could get control of his feelings. As he came down the street with his baseball glove dangling aimlessly in one hand, he stumbled over the Mosher youngster who was intent upon some childish pursuit in the dust of the gutter.

"Get out of the way," he stormed angrily. To vent his disappointment upon even so small an offender was a relief. The infant smiled maliciously.

"Johnny an' Louise, Johnny an' Louise," he chanted, reviving the cry of the autumn before.

"Well, what about it," demanded John belligerently.

"Louise had a soda with Sid. Saw her, saw her!"

"When?" Had Louise, too, forsaken him in this hour of grief?

"Yesterday. Sidney an' Louise, Sidney an' Louise," came the taunting revision.

John's face set. All the wrongs which Sid had perpetrated since the Halloween party—the earlier sodas, the persistence which had culminated in the theater affair, the baseball election, and his arrogance since that time—clamored for revenge. He'd get even, he would. He'd go back and punch Sid's face in, and muss that new suit, and throw his baseball gloves up on a house roof. Then Mr. Sid would quit monkeying with his girl.

The appearance of that gentleman around the corner put a stop to his meditations. John waited until he sauntered unsuspectingly up to him.

"Say, Sid!"

"Yes?" A note in the voice put the captain of the "Tigers" on his guard.

"What's this I hear about Louise?"

"N-nothing."

"Been drinking sodas with her again, have you?"

"Who told you?" Sid made a futile effort to edge past the inquisitor.

"Never mind who. Promise not to do it any more or I'll—" He clenched one fist and drew it back threateningly.

"Guess I won't," retorted Sid with sudden spirit. "Guess I've got as much right to drink sodas with her as anybody. Who's going to stop me?"

"I am!"

"You," scornfully.

At this moment, the very cause of the dissension came skipping along with the inevitable package from the grocery under one arm. Feminine intuition told her that trouble was lurking in the air, and she would have passed but John held up a detaining hand.

"Louise, you've been drinking sodas with Sid again."

"Haven't either," in the same breath came the admission, "who told you?"

John gave her a searching glance. "Tell this guy," he said with infinite scorn, "that you won't have anything more to do with him. Tell him you're my girl, Louise," he added incautiously.

The lady's head went back to a warning angle.

"Go on!" John ordered.

"Guess I won't!" she snapped, angered by his persistence. "Guess I won't!" she repeated angrily. "'Cause I'm not anybody's girl. So there!" With nose held regally in the air and knees strangely jointless, she walked away from the pair.

"Ya-a-a-h," jeered Sid incautiously.

John drove out, full strength, with his right fist upon his adversary's nose. Sid stepped back in dismay. It wasn't fair, punching without the preliminary tilt of words and wary skirmishing. Again John set upon him and he turned, dodged behind a tree, and fled for home. Down the street they tore at top speed. Inch by inch, the space between the two diminished as they passed the Alfords, the Harrisons, and finally arrived at the DuPree iron gate.

"Ma-a-a-a!" yelled Sid, as he struggled with the handle. "Come quick, come quick."

The gate suddenly yielded. Sid sprang inside, up the front steps, and into the hallway. There he turned, locked the screen door, and stuck out his tongue at his adversary.

"Ya-a-a-a!" he taunted.

John contemplated an attack upon the flimsy screening, but a remnant of wisdom withheld him.

Fletcher, The Fletcher, The old fly-catcher!

came the cry from the porch.

"Think you're smart," John glared. "Just dare you to come down here! Just dare you to!"

"The old fly-catcher" continued. John opened his lips for a reply in kind.

Sid DuPree Went out on a spree And never got back 'Til half-past three.

The hero of the verse was struck suddenly dumb by this display of poetical ability. Again John repeated his latest composition. He was beginning to enjoy himself immensely. At the third repetition of the adventures of Sid, a window creaked noisily up.

"John Fletcher," came the harsh voice from the upper window. "You're a nasty little boy, and if you don't leave Sidney alone, I'll telephone your mother."

"Ya-a-a-ah," jeered Sid in an undertone. John looked and longed.

"Go on," urged Mrs. DuPree. "The telephone's right here in the hallway."

He decided that discretion was the better part of valor and crossed over to his own porch. Once up in his room, he threw himself on the bed, and as the excitement of the chase wore off began to realize the extent of the morning's losses.

The athletic field upon which they had labored so long and carefully, was torn to pieces—gone forever. Worse than that, Louise wasn't his girl any more. She'd said so herself. No more samples of cookery, no more confidential little walks to and from school, no more squirrel-feeding excursions. And the glorious dream of the future was as completely demolished as the "Tigers' Home Grounds." There could be no thousand dollars and a home when he reached his majority now.

He lay staring at the pattern in the ceiling paper, sobbing ever so little now and then, for some minutes, then wrenched himself miserably over on his side.

There he found that horrid old bank staring him in the face, that same pig bank which stood a grinning monument to his industry of the past months. But what good was the paper route now? or where the pleasure in dropping his weekly income into that long, narrow slot? Louise wasn't his girl any more. She'd said so, herself.

In a sudden fit of spite, he sprang up and seized the heavy, sneering bit of pottery in both hands. The next moment, it crashed to the floor and pennies, nickels, dimes, and even half-dollars rolled out on the carpet or mingled with the shattered bits of china. He stood astounded at the number for a moment, then gathered them up on his bed, and took careful count.

Thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents? He could scarcely believe his eyes.

Then he lay back, not quite so grief-stricken, and stared thoughtfully into space until Mrs. Fletcher called him for dinner.



At the table, that evening, he was unusually quiet. As he finished his last slice of bread and butter, he looked up at his father.

"Dad, if a fellow earns a lot of money, all by himself, he can spend it any way he wants, can't he?"

Mr. Fletcher nodded. "Why, son?"

"I was just wondering. That's all."

A week later, Louise was sitting on the street curbing in front of her apartment building, when a crimson-clad baseball warrior on a new bicycle sped over the macadam and came to a sudden halt beside her. She raised her eyes in astonished recognition. It was her late fiance.

"'Lo."

"'Lo."

"Like my new wheel?"

"Uhu."

"Bought it out of the money I was saving so's we could get married. Cost me twenty-one dollars, and it's got puncture-proof tires and a real coaster brake. Just watch me ride it!"

He sped off, rode free for a moment, threw the brake on and came to a sudden stop, then cut a figure eight over the paving. The clear spring sun made miniature rainbows in the shining, rapidly revolving spokes, and an early robin warbled his approval of the performance from his seat in a linden's top.

"I can ride without touching the handles, too," he boasted, as he guided the wheel back to her. "Isn't it peachy?"

She nodded. The long, curving bars bore a suggestion of possible rides on this beautiful steel-and-rubber creation, if their quarrel could be healed, and she held out a tentative olive branch.

"Want to play jacks?"

John shook his head. "Going over to the park baseball diamond with the 'Tigers.' We're going to play the 'Jeffersons,' this afternoon."

"But your paper route?"

He laughed joyously. "Sold it to the newspaper man. He gave me three dollars and twenty-five cents for the customers."

"Oh!" There was a pause.

"Like my baseball suit?" he asked.

She gazed at the flaming horror and nodded enthusiastically.

"You ought to see me run that team!"

"You?" she exclaimed. "Why, I thought Sid was captain."

"He was," with zestful emphasis on the verb. "But I bought nine baseball dollar uniforms and a lot of gloves and two bats, and a real league ball out of my money, so the kids fired Sid and elected me. He isn't even on the team any more."

"O-o-oh!" Truly John was becoming an important figure in the juvenile world.

"And I've got a dollar and thirteen cents left for candy and peanuts," he concluded.

Louise studied the confident, freckled face before her, the sparkling bicycle with its glossy saddle and acetylene lamp, the heavily padded baseball glove on the nickeled handle bars, and then their owner again. She took the last remnant of her pride and stamped it under foot in a wave of regret.

"John," she said, shyly.

"Yes?"

"I won't have anything more to do with Sid."

The captain of the "Tigers" only laughed. "You can go with Sid all you want, and drink all the sodas he'll pay for. I don't care, because—" he leaned his weight forward on the pedals and started for the park so suddenly that she barely caught his parting words, "I'm through with girls. I'm going to be a bachelor!"

THE END