The Rival Pitchers Part 5

"Yes, I understand, but I don't mind being 'rigged,' as you call it. I fancy I can do some 'rigging' on my own hook."

"All right, it's your funeral. I've warned you."

"Thanks. But if you think it's all right for me to go right to your room, and bunk, without telling Dr. Churchill--excuse me, Moses--why, I'm willing."

"That's all right. Come on, we'll go to my room. There may be some excitement after a bit."

"How?"

"Well, the sophs may try to get the clapper back. They generally do.

We'll have to help fight 'em in that case."

"Of course. By the way, what do you fellows do with the bell tongue, anyhow?"

Sid told about the watch charms.

"You'll get one," he added. "That was a good throw you made."

"Well, maybe. It was hard to see in the dark. I guess What's-his-name could have made it, only he tired himself all out."

"Oh, you mean Langridge."

"Is that his name?"

"Yes. I don't like him very well, but he's got lots of dough, and the fellows hang around him. He's manager of the baseball team."

"He is?"

"Yes. Got the election because he's willing to spend some of his money to support the team."

"Well, that's white of him."

"Oh, yes, Fred's all right, only for what ails him. He's got some queer ways, and he thinks some of us ought to bow down to him more than we do.

But I won't, and I guess Kerr is getting sick of him. Some fellows think he got to be manager, and keeps the place, because he used some money.

There's been talk about it."

"Who's Kerr?"

"The fellow with the black hair. He's catcher on the nine."

"I see."

"Are you going to play ball?" asked Henderson as they entered the room Tom was to share.

"I'd like to. Is there any chance?"

"Guess so. The nine's not all made up yet. They're going to have a meeting to-morrow, or next day, and try out candidates. You'll have as good a chance as any one. Where do you play?"

"I've been pitching."

Henderson uttered a low, long whistle.

"What's the matter?"

"That's Langridge's pet place. He thinks he's a regular Christy Mathewson."

"Well, I haven't disputed it," replied Tom quietly. "But if you don't mind, I'm going to take off my shoes; my feet are tired. Think any sophs will come?"

"It isn't likely now. They'd been here some time ago if they were coming. Guess I'll turn in. I've got to get up early and do some boning on my trigonometry. It's rotten stuff, ain't it?"

"Oh, I rather like it."

"Um!" was all the answer Sid made, as he prepared for bed, while Tom also undressed.

Tom Parsons had come to college, not because he wanted to have "a good time," nor because it was the fas.h.i.+on, nor because his father had the money to send him. Tom came because he wanted to gain knowledge, to fit himself for a place in life, and he earnestly wanted to learn. At the same time he did not belong to the cla.s.s known as "digs." Tom was a sport-loving lad, and it needed but a look at his well-set head, on broad shoulders, his perfectly rounded neck, his long, lithe limbs, small hips and deep chest, to tell that he was an athlete of no little ability.

Tom's hair was inclined to curl, especially when he was warm from running or wrestling, and when it clung about his bronzed forehead in little brown ringlets, he was an attractive figure, as more than one girl had admitted. But Tom, to give him his due, never thought about this.

He was tall and straight, and he could do more than the regulation on the bars, or with dumbbells, while on the flying rings, or at boxing, you would want to think twice before you challenged him.

But Tom's specialty, if one may call it such, was on the baseball diamond. He had played in all the positions ever since he was a little lad, and he and the other country boys laid out a diamond in a stubble field, with stones for bases, and a hickory club for a bat. But Tom had a natural bent toward pitching, and he gradually developed it, princ.i.p.ally by his own unaided efforts, together with what he could pick up out of athletic books, or what was told to him by his companions. In twirling the ball Tom's muscles, hardened by work on the farm, served him in good stead.

For Tom Parsons was a farmer lad, though, perhaps, not a typical one.

His father was fairly well-to-do, and had a large acreage in the town of Northville. Tom was an only son, though there were two sisters, of whom he thought the world.

When Tom had finished his course at the village academy, and had expressed a wish to go to college, his father consented. He furnished part of the money, and the rest Tom supplied himself, for he was an independent sort of lad, and thought it his duty to take part of his savings to gain for himself a better education than was possible in his home town.

So Tom, as you have seen, came to Randall, and of the manner of his arrival, due to a combination of circ.u.mstances, you have been duly informed. He made two resolutions before coming. One was to stand well in his cla.s.ses, and the other--well, you shall learn the other presently.

Tom slowly undressed. He was not used to change, for he had been a "home boy" for years, though he was no milksop, and did not in the least mind roughing it. But, after the reaction of the night, when he was in the little room with the lad who was to be his chum, he felt a bit lonely.

It was new and strange to him, and he thought, not without a bit of regret, of the peaceful farmhouse in Northville, with his mother and father seated in the big, comfortable dining-room, talking, and the girls reading books, or sewing, under the light of a big lamp.

Tom looked slowly about the little room that was to be his "home" for some time to come.

Randall was not a rich college, and, in consequence, the dormitories and study apartments were not elaborately furnished. There was a sufficiency, and that was all. Of course, there was nothing to prevent the students from adding such articles to their rooms as they wanted, or thought they desired, and some, whose parents were wealthy, had nicely furnished studies.

But the one occupied by Sid and Tom was quite plain. There was a worn rug on the floor, so worn, in fact, that the floor showed through it in several places. But Sid remarked that it was a virtue rather than otherwise, for it obviated the necessity of being careful about spilling things on the rug, and also did away with the necessity of a door mat.

"They can't harm the rug, no matter how much mud they bring in," Sid had said, when Tom suggested getting a new one.

There were two small iron cots or single beds in the apartment, a bureau for each lad, a closet for clothes, but which closet contained b.a.l.l.s, gloves, bats, sweaters, old trousers and other sporting "goods," almost to the exclusion of clothes. And then the closet did not contain it all, for many articles overflowed into the room, and no amount of compression sufficed to get things entirely within the closet. There was always something sticking out. Several old chairs, one a lounging one with a broken set of springs in the seat, a sofa that creaked in every joint, like an old man with rheumatism, a table with a cover spotted with ink, a shelf of books, an alarm clock, some cheap pictures, prints from sporting papers, and water pitchers and bowls completed the furnis.h.i.+ngs.

Tom wondered, as he fell asleep, whether the soph.o.m.ores would make a further attempt to regain the clapper, but they did not, and the night was undisturbed by further pranks. At chapel next morning Dr. Churchill, after the usual devotions, announced with a twinkle in his deep-set eyes that the reason there was no bell to call the students to wors.h.i.+p was because the tocsin was clapperless.

"It mysteriously disappeared during the night," went on the president, "and--er--well, ahem! I think matters may take their usual course," he finished quickly, trying hard not to smile.

It was always this way. By "usual course" Dr. Churchill and the students understood that the freshmen would meet, make up by contributions enough to buy a new clapper, and the incident would be closed until another year brought new freshmen to the college.