Part 20 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIX.
POISON SPLEEN.
Phil Springer returned to Oakdale in a wretched frame of mind. Barely had the train carried him out of Clearport before he began to regret his hasty action in running away, but it was then too late to turn back.
”I suppose some of the fellows will think it rotten of me to sneak,” he muttered, ”but the game was practically over, and there was no reason why I shouldn't get back home as soon as I could. Why should I hang round just for the pleasure of making the return trip with the rest of the bub-bunch and being forced to listen to their praise of Rod Grant for his fine work! They'll s...o...b..r over him, all right. He's the star now, and I--I who taught him everything he knows about pitching--I am the second string man! I won't be that! I won't be anything! I'm done!”
He was not a little surprised as he stepped off the train to find it was not raining, although the sky was still heavy and threatening, as if the downpour might come at any moment.
”It certainly is coming down in Clearport, just the same. It had begun before I hiked. Hiked! I hate that word; Grant uses it. Clearport is nineteen miles away, and it frequently rains there when it doesn't here.”
He hurried over the bridge and up through the village toward his home.
”Hi, there, Phil!” cried a voice as he was pa.s.sing the postoffice, and a wondering looking youngster came running out. ”What are you doing here--at this hour? Saw you start for Clearport with the team, and----”
”Game's over,” cut in Springer. ”Rain sus-stopped it.”
”Rain? Why----”
”Yes; it's raining over at the Port.”
”Rotten! How many innings----”
”Five; just finished the fif-fifth when the clouds started to leak.”
”Oh, then it counts as a game,” palpitated the interested boy. ”How did the score stand? Who was ahead?”
”Oakdale, six to one,” answered Springer over his shoulder as he hurried on up the street.
”Hooray!” came the elated shout of the rejoicing lad. ”Then you trimmed 'em! Jinks! that's fine. But, say--say, who pitched?”
Springer quickened his stride, seemingly deaf of a sudden. He had felt the question coming, and he had no heart to answer it. It would be asked by every fellow in Oakdale who had not attended the game, and, on learning the truth, they would join in one grand chorus of acclamation and praise for the Texan. For the time being Grant would be the king pin of the town.
Reaching home, Phil slipped in quietly without being seen by his mother and tiptoed up to his room, where, in sour meditation, he spent the intervening time until supper was ready. In a vague way he realized that he had, by deserting the team, betrayed himself to all his comrades as a fellow swayed by petty jealousy; but this thought, which seemed trying to force itself humiliatingly upon him, he beat back and thrust aside, persisting in dwelling on the notion that he had been most shabbily treated by Captain Eliot.
”He led me to believe he meant to give me a chance to-day, and then he let me warm the bench while Grant went out to win all the glory. It wasn't a square deal. I'll show him he can't treat me that way! I'll never pitch again as long as he is captain.”
This resolution, however, gave him anything but a feeling of satisfaction; it was poor retaliation, indeed, for him, who loved the game so dearly and had looked forward so confidently to this season when he would be the star pitcher of the nine, to ”get square” with Eliot by refusing to play at all. It would have seemed somewhat better had he felt certain that his withdrawal must seriously cripple the nine, but, judging by recent events, it appeared that Oakdale could get along very well without him--might, indeed, succeed fully as well as it could with him on the team.
Grant was to blame for it all. No, not Grant; he himself was to blame.
Had he not been such a blind fool he might have foreseen what would happen, for had not Rodney Grant displayed beyond doubt since appearing in Oakdale the natural qualifications of mind and body which would make him a leader at anything he might undertake with unbridled vim and enthusiasm? The fellow who had been so completely misjudged by almost everyone during his early days at the academy, had demonstrated later that he was a thoroughbred, with nerve, brains, courage and the will to step into the front ranks wherever he might be. His one great fault, a fiery and unreasoning temper, he was fighting hard to master, and in this, as in other things, he had already shown that he was destined to succeed.
”I was a Jack!” growled Phil, walking the floor of his room and savagely kicking an inoffensive chair out of his way. ”I should have known. If I had taken Hooker in hand and coached him, instead of Grant---- But I never did like Roy very much, and somehow Rod Grant got on my sus-soft side.”
His mother, hearing him prowling around, called up the stairs and was somewhat surprised to find him home.
At supper he tried to hide the disturbed state of his mind, but his father, who seldom took any interest at all in such matters unexpectedly attempted to joke him a bit.
”Got beat to-day, I see,” said Mr. Springer. ”Did you up pretty bad, didn't they?”