The New Boys at Oakdale. Scott Morgan
yet.”
“But it’s pretty well over,” cried Cooper gleefully. “It’s all over but the shouting.”
Cohen, who seemed never troubled by a weak heart, predicted that he would get a hit and begged Wolcott to advance him with a duplicate. Then the nervy young Hebrew stood forth and demonstrated that he had a good eye by refusing to bite at the coaxers and compelling Grant to put the pill across. When this was done, he hit it hard and fair, the resounding crack bringing a shout from the Wyndham crowd.
That shout was abruptly cut short when Cooper shot into the air and pulled Cohen’s drive down with one hand. From the opposite side of the field burst the sudden relieved shrieks of the Oakdalers, whose hearts had been choking them an instant before.
“Keep quiet, Charley,” said Osgood, placing a hand on his friend’s knee. “It looks like it’s really all over. Take your cue from me and pretend you’re happy.”
“You’re asking just a bit too much, Ned,” said Shultz huskily. “You know I’m a poor bluffer in any kind of a game.”
“But you’re usually lucky, just the same; I’ve seen you hold some great cards.”
“Some catch, Chipper – some catch,” Grant was saying happily. “You raked the clouds for that one.”
“I had to do something to make up for my last raw play,” returned the beaming little chap.
Nelson was laughing. “We’re backing you up now, Rodney, old boy. That kind of support ought to give you courage to take a fall out of Wolcott.”
To tell the truth, although he made a pretense of being undismayed and confident, there was really little hope left in Wolcott’s heart. Nevertheless, it was always Wyndham’s way to play a game out without let-up, and the batter showed that he was trying for a hit by fouling the ball several times. Presently, however, the Texan deceived him with one of his most effective drops, and Wolcott’s fruitless slice at the air brought the game to an end with the score 4 to 3 in Oakdale’s favor.
CHAPTER V – THE DIPLOMACY OF OSGOOD
Shultz sullenly watched his teammates giving the losers a complimentary cheer; he could not take his cue from Osgood and join with the slightest pretense of rejoicing in this cheering. And when the happy players gathered up their trappings and started for the adjacent academy, where in the basement gymnasium the Wyndhamites had given them a room in which to change their clothes, Shultz trailed along behind, listening with persistent bitterness to the chattering fellows who were still rejoicing over the result.
“Oh, Craney!” cried Cooper, as he playfully banged Sile with an open hand. “That measly little tap of yours in the last round was certainly a soporific wallop.”
“Here, yeou better let Sleuth slaughter the language that fashion,” grinned Crane. “Soporific! What’s it mean, anyhaow?”
“Why, soothing, sleep-producing; it’s what a prize-fighter hands his antagonist when he gives him a two-ton jolt on the point of the jaw. It put Wyndham down and out, all right.”
“Oh, that didn’t end the game by a long shot. If old Texas hadn’t pitched some in the last half – ”
“Great centipedes!” interrupted Grant. “If you fellows hadn’t given me Big League support they’d corralled the game after all. The way you raked down Cohen’s drive was sure some playing. And that little turn by Piper plugged their promising start right handsomely.”
“I was frightened when Hooker let Foxhall’s grounder get through him,” declared Ned Osgood; “but Sleuth was right on the job. It was a splendid victory.”
Jack Nelson shot the speaker a quizzical glance, but said nothing.
In the gymnasium they continued to discuss the game while peeling off their soiled uniforms and getting into the heavy clothes which would be so necessary to their comfort on the long homeward drive; and, unable to keep still, Shultz cut in with an occasional sarcastic remark. For a time no one seemed to notice him, but suddenly Grant, unable to hold himself longer in restraint, turned on the disgruntled fellow.
“Quit your beefing,” he exclaimed. “Why don’t you try to follow Osgood’s trail and make a pretense of being decent, whether you feel that way or not?”
The blood which suffused Shultz’s face turned it almost purple, and he glared at the Texan as if he longed to seize the fellow by the throat and smash his head against the wall.
“I’ve got a right to open my mouth,” he snarled, “and I propose to say what I please, regardless of any common, cow-punching – ”
They would have been at it in a twinkling had not Nelson promptly leaped between them.
“Stop, Grant! Hold up!” he cried, seizing the pitcher, whose face was beginning to take on that awesome and terrible look which indicated that his fiery temper was mastering him. “Don’t start a scrap. It will be bad – bad business.”
“I certainly won’t allow anybody to shoot off his mouth at me that fashion,” said Rodney, his voice vibrant with the passion he could scarcely restrain. “He’s been sneering and hollering like the sorehead he is, and it’s sure getting too much for me.”
“It’s my affair, if it’s anybody’s,” asserted the captain. “I’m the one’s he’s sore on.”
“And only for a lucky piece of work by Piper, you’d lost the game by putting Hooker in Osgood’s place,” said Shultz. “Just because he disagreed with you about sacrificing when he got the kind of a ball he knew he ought to hit out, you show your authority by benching him. Sacrificing in such a game, with one man down and a good hitter at bat, would be laughed at by – ”
“That will do for you,” Nelson cut him short. “No man on the team can talk to me this way, much less a new player like you. If you and Osgood came to Oakdale with the idea that you’re going to run the nine or ruin it, you may as well get that out of your noddles right away.”
By this time Osgood had his friend by the arm.
“Cool down, Charley,” he advised in his most pacifying manner. “You’re giving a wrong impression by letting yourself get excited. I’m sure we were both just as eager to help win that game as any one. In fact, I will assert that it was my eagerness which led me to try for a hit when Leach put the ball over just where I like ’em best. It’s true it seemed to me we’d be weakening ourselves by a sacrifice with one man down, but still, I meant to follow instructions when I went to the plate. It was only when I saw that ball coming across the pan so nicely that I forgot everything and tried to land on it for a safe drive. Even though in that moment I was led to forget instructions, I must insist that my heart was right. I’ve played the game ever since I was old enough to toss a ten-cent ball, and I learned something of its fine points at Hadden Hall. I’m not blaming Captain Nelson if his ideas and mine are not fully in accord, for baseball down here in this country can scarcely be as advanced as it is – ”
At this point Nelson suddenly threw back his head and laughed, although perhaps it was not a laugh of simple amusement.
“That has been your pose ever since you came to Oakdale,” he said. “Your pity for us poor, ignorant countrymen is wholly appreciated, Osgood. It may be that we’re very shortsighted in failing to perceive the splendid opportunity we have for learning something about real baseball from you and Shultz, but it seems that you might find a more delicate and less egotistical method of opening our sleepy eyes.”
For a single breathless moment it seemed that Osgood was on the verge of permitting this sarcasm to lead him into a touch of temper, at least; but he was crafty and far too clever not to realize that such a thing would be likely to put him at a disadvantage in the eyes of some members of the team whom he had reasons to think were inclined to sympathize with him.
“I didn’t come to Oakdale to teach baseball or anything else,” he asserted. “I think I’ve stated before this that Oakdale Academy was a school of my mother’s choice, not mine, and mothers who are fearful of the temptations which their