Part 45 (1/2)
”He got just what was coming to him,” declared Sid vindictively. ”He'd have thrown the game for a drink of liquor and a cigarette. Pah! I've no use for such a chap.”
”Well, maybe he didn't mean to do it,” replied Tom, who could afford to be generous. ”He may have taken some to steady his nerves and it went to his head.”
”Rats! It ought to have gone to his pitching arm. But I've got to bone away. Exams are getting nearer and nearer every day, and the closer they come the less I seem to know about Latin. From now on I'm going to think, eat, sleep and dream in Latin.”
The following Sat.u.r.day the team went to the Indian school at Carlisle and played a game with the red men. It was a hard-fought battle and the aborigines made the mistake of putting in a lot of subst.i.tutes for the first few innings, for they had a poor opinion of Randall. But the visitors rolled up a good score and Tom was a whirlwind at pitching, holding the red men down to a low score. Then the Indians awakened and sent in some of their best players, but the Randalls had the game ”in the refrigerator,” as Holly Cross said, and took it home with them, despite the war cries of the redskins and their efforts to annex the scalp-locks of the palefaces.
The winning of this game against what was generally considered to be a much stronger team than that of Randall did much to infuse an aggressive spirit into the latter players. The trip, too, acted as a sort of tonic.
”Boys, I think we're fit to make the fight of our lives a week from to-day,” declared Captain Woodhouse as he and the team were on their way back to college. ”We'll wipe the diamond up with Fairview and then maybe that banner won't look fine at the top of our flagstaff.”
”That's what!” cried Phil Clinton. ”I'm ready to play 'em now.”
”Same here!” cried Pete Backus, giving a great jump up into the air, seemingly to justify his t.i.tle of ”Gra.s.shopper.”
”My uncle says----” began Ford Fenton, but Holly Cross gave such an imitation of an Indian war whoop that what the former coach had said was lost ”in the shuffle.”
”Great work, old man!” cried Phil Clinton to Tom as he linked his arm in that of the new 'varsity pitcher.
”That was a fine catch of yours, to return the compliment,” said Tom with a laugh.
”Don't go forming a mutual admiration society,” advised Mr. Lighton.
”Play ball--that's the thing to do.”
”It's queer what's become of Langridge,” remarked Tom to Sid when they were in their room a few nights later, talking over the approaching final game with Fairview. ”He seems to have dropped out of sight.”
”That's where he'd better stay,” declared Sid. ”He'll never be any more account to the team. We'll have a new manager when we whip Fairview.”
”If we only do!”
”Oh, we will. I only hope I can play.”
”Why, is there any chance that you won't?”
”Well, I'm pretty shaky in Latin, and Pitchfork has warned me that if I slump, it's me to the bench for the rest of this term. I'm going over and see Bricktop Molloy. He's a fiend at Latin. Rather study it than eat. He's been coaching me lately, and I want to get the benefit of it.
So I'll just go and bone with him a bit.”
”Go ahead, old man. Wish I could help you, but I've got to look after my own rations. I'm none too safe.”
Sid went out and Tom was left alone with his books. But somehow he could not study. He took no sense of the printed page. There was an uneasiness in his mind and he could not put his thoughts into form.
”Hang it all!” he exclaimed. ”I guess I'm thinking too much of baseball.”
He got up to take a turn in the corridors to change the current of his thoughts when there came a knock at the door.
”Come!” he cried, thinking it would prove to be some of his chums. The portal slowly swung and Tom, looking at the widening crack, saw the pale face of Langridge.
”May I come in?” asked the former pitcher, and his voice trembled.