The Lucky Seventh

Barbour Ralph Henry

The Lucky Seventh

CHAPTER I

GORDON GETS A LETTER

When Gordon Merrick neared the corner of Troutman Street he slowed down his bicycle and finally drew in at the curb, putting out a foot to hold himself in the saddle while he deliberated. So deep in thought was he that when the yellow watering cart trundled up, the driver half asleep under the blue and white umbrella, he never knew of it until the sprinkler had drenched him from foot to knee. The driver awoke at that moment and, looking back, saw Gordon.

“Hi, there!” he shouted. “Look out!”

Gordon, aroused from his thoughts by the unexpected bath, smiled.

“Why?” he asked. “Are you coming back?”

The joke was lost on the driver of the watering cart, however. He only scowled and settled back to slumber again. Gordon chuckled, and glanced ruefully at his drenched trouser-leg. Except for the looks of that no harm had been done, for it was a hot morning in early July and the feeling of the cool water against his leg had been decidedly pleasant. Evidently the incident had brought a decision in the weighty problem which had confronted him, for with no more hesitation he turned his wheel to the left and peddled on down E Street.

“I’ll talk to Dick about it,” he said to himself. “He always knows what to do.”

The Loverings lived in the third house from the corner, one of a half-dozen modest abodes occupying that side of the block. All the houses were painted white, although differing slightly in the simplicity of their architecture, and all were more or less hidden from view by hedges of lilac or arbor-vitæ. Old-fashioned white picket fences peeked out between the leaves of the hedges. The street itself was old-fashioned. Ten years before it had been in the desirable part of Clearfield, but since then the residential center had worked westward and the row of quiet, green-shuttered cottages was being closed in by such unsavory neighbors as livery stables and dye works and tenements.

Dick Lovering hailed Gordon from the vine-screened porch as the latter jumped from his bicycle and leaned it against the hitching-post in front of the little gate. “Hello, Gordie! Come on up.”

Dick was seated at the cool end of the porch, which stretched the width of the house. There was a table beside him which held a few flowers in a quaint old green vase and many books and magazines. Dick’s crutches stood against the wall within reach, for Dick, as he put it, was “very fond of his crutches and never went anywhere without them.” He was seventeen, a tall, nice-looking boy with dark hair and eyes and just the smallest suggestion of pallor on his lean cheeks. As Gordon came up the steps Dick laid down the magazine he had been reading and smiled his pleasant smile.

“Been in the pond?” he asked, viewing the other’s wet trousers.

“Watering cart soused me at the corner. How are you, Dickums?”

“Fine. Swell weather, isn’t it? You look warm, though.”

“So would you if you’d been riding all over town. Say, I got a letter from Bert Cable this morning and I want you to see what you think about it. I’ve got it here somewhere.”

“Where is Bert?” asked Dick as Gordon searched his pockets.

“Bridgeport, Connecticut. He’s working for his uncle in some sort of a factory over there. He told me he was going to get eight dollars a week. Here it is. You’d better read it.”

“You do it,” smiled Dick. “I’m lazy to-day.”

“Well, he says – Where is it? – Here we are. ‘I’m sending a letter that came the other day from Caspar Billings. He thinks we’re still playing ball and wants a game with us. I haven’t answered it. What I was thinking was why don’t you and Lansing and Fudge Shaw and some of the fellows get a team together and play the Point? You could have a lot of fun. Those fellows at the Point aren’t anything to be scared of. You could get up a team that would wallop them easy. Tom Haley would pitch for you and Lansing could catch and you could play first. Why don’t you? Anyway, you answer the letter. I’m awfully busy here and don’t have much time for writing letters. This is a swell town, lots going on all the time and plenty of baseball. Remember me to all the fellows and tell Harry Bryan when you see him that he’s got my glove and is to send it to me because I may need it. We’re getting up a team here at the factory. We’ve got a dandy pitcher and I guess they’ll put me at short. Don’t forget to write to Billings anyway. Yours truly, Bert.’”

Gordon looked inquiringly across at Dick. “What do you think?” he asked.

“Why, I dare say they will.”

“Dare say who will? Will what?”

“Put Bert at short,” chuckled Dick.

“Oh, you know what I mean! What do you think of the scheme?”

“Good, I’d say. I suppose,” with a humorous glance at his crutches, “you came around to see if I’d play third base for you.”

“Wish you could, Dickums. Gee, I don’t see how you can always be so cheerful about – about it! I couldn’t.”

“Well, it isn’t hard, Gordie, when you’ve had seventeen years’ practice. Of course, if I’d been able to get around like other fellows and then – then had this happen I guess it would be different. Anyhow, a chap might as well be cheerful as anything else. After all, I don’t miss much fun. I can’t play games or run or skate or – or do a lot of things I’d like to, but I can watch the rest of you and I can make believe that if I could– well, play third base, say, I’d do it better than the next chap. The beauty of it is that you can’t prove I wouldn’t!”

“I’ll bet you would, Dickums! Why, you know more baseball and more football than most of the fellows who play.”

“Why not?” laughed Dick. “They don’t have as much time to study it as I do. They have to get out and play. I can watch and learn. But never mind about me. What’s this Billings chap say?”

“Oh!” Gordon pulled another sheet of paper from the envelope and read its contents. “‘Mr. Bert Cable, Captain Clearfield High School Baseball Club, Dear Sir: A lot of us fellows at the Point are getting up a ball team and we want games. Will you play us? We’ll play on our own field or on yours, just as you say. Any date after July 10th will suit us, Wednesdays or Saturdays preferred. Our fellows will average about the same as your team, I guess. Please let me hear from you, and if there are any other teams around Clearfield we could play with I wish you’d let me know and send managers’ addresses. Very truly, Caspar Billings, Captain, Rutter’s Point Baseball Association.’”

“Caspar Billings,” mused Dick. “Which one of the Silk Stocking Brigade is he, Gordon?”

Gordon smiled. “I don’t remember him particularly. He’s a sort of chum of Morris Brent, though.”

“That all you can say for him?” asked Dick. “I suppose Morris will play with the Pointers?”

“I guess so. He won’t be much of a help, though. He plays ball like – like a turtle!”

“Morris says,” replied Dick with his slow smile, “that he can play a lot better than most of you fellows and that if Bert and Tom Haley and some of the others weren’t down on him he’d have made the team last spring.”

“Guff! He can’t catch a ball. He’s not a bad sort, Morris, if his dad does own the town, but he’s no Ty Cobb! Well, what do you think about getting up a team, Dickums?”

“Why not? You’ve got plenty of fellows. Most of the school team are still around, aren’t they?”

“All except Bert and Warner Jones and Joe Browne.”

“Where’s Warner?”

“I don’t know. Gone away with his folks somewhere for the summer. Wish my folks would do that.”

“Well, get out your pencil, Gordie, and let’s make up the team. Haley, pitch, and Lanny, catcher – ”

“I’ll play first and Harry Bryan second – ”

“How about Will Scott?”

“Third. Then for shortstop – ”

“Jack Tappen?”

“N-no, he’d better play in the outfield. I’ll put him down for right. I guess Pete Robey’s the chap for short. That leaves us Way for left field and I guess Fudge will do for center. He can’t hit much, but he can pull down a fly.”

“There you are, then. What will you call the nine? You can’t be the High School team, I suppose.”

“N-no, we’ll have to find a name. The Clearfield – what, Dickums?”

“Rovers?”

“Sounds like a troupe of trained dogs,” laughed Gordon. “We might call ourselves the Purple Sox, only it’s sort of hard to say.”

“Shorten it,” suggested Dick. “Call yourselves the ‘Purps.’”

“That’s worse than the Rovers! Why not just the Clearfield Ball Club?”

“Why not? That’s settled. Now you want a manager – ”

“Got one.”

“You have? Who?”

“You.”

“Me!”

“Surest thing you know. That’s partly why I came. To tell you. You see, I thought you’d want to know it.”

“Very thoughtful of you,” Dick laughed. “But will you tell me how I can manage a ball team, you idiot?”

“Why can’t you? All you have to do is to arrange games for us and look after the expenses and see that we behave ourselves. If they make me captain – ”

“Which they will, as it’s your scheme!”

“It’s really Bert’s. But if they do I’m going to tell the other fellows that they’ve got to do just as you say. You know more baseball than I do and you’re going to be the real thing.”

“Nonsense!”

“No nonsense about it. That’s settled, then.”

“But, look here, I’d have to go to places with you and – and – well, you know, Gordie, I can’t afford to do that very often.”

“It won’t cost you anything. Your expenses will be paid by the club. Besides, we’ll only go over to the Point and places like that, I guess. Now I’m going to see Lanny and talk it over with him.”

“Well, all right. I’ll be manager if you really want me to. I’d like it. Only, if you change your mind, or the other fellows think – ”

“You know very well the other fellows will be tickled to death,” replied Gordon severely. “And it will be a good thing for you, too. Take you off this porch now and then. You don’t get enough sunshine and fresh air.”

“Considering that I’m outdoors all day and sleep with my head through the window,” laughed Dick, “that’s a bit of a joke. But have your own way, Gordie. You always were a masterful brute. Going?”

“Yep. I want to catch Lanny. I’ll come over again after dinner. Rah for the Clearfield Ball Club, Dickums! So long!”

CHAPTER II

DICK CONSENTS

“The only th-thing is,” said Fudge, “it’s going to co-cost a heap, isn’t it?”

Fudge, whose real name was William Shaw, was fifteen years of age, had sandy-red hair and blue eyes and was short of stature and round of body. His habitual expression was one of pleased surprise, due probably to the fact that his blue eyes were very blue and very big. When Fudge was the least bit excited he stammered, but the habit was too slight to be an affliction, and his friends sometimes got Fudge upset in order to enjoy his facial contortions when the word wouldn’t come promptly. It was Lansing White who, several years before in grammar school, had dubbed him Fudge. Lanny declared that “pshaw” and “fudge” meant the same thing and that “fudge” was more novel. At the present moment Fudge was seated in the apple tree which grew by the fence where the Shaws’ side-yard and the Merricks’ back-yard came together. It was a favorite retreat with Fudge, and he had built a shelf handy to the comfortable crotch he affected on which to place books and papers when, as was customary, he was studying his lessons there. To-day, however, as school was over for the summer, there were no books about and the shelf bore, instead, a tennis racket which Fudge had been mending when Gordon found him.

“I don’t see why,” replied Gordon, leaning his arms on the top of the fence. “We’ve all got our High School uniforms and we’ve all got bats and mitts and things. All we’d need to spend money on would be balls, I guess. Of course, when we went away every fellow would have to pay his transportation.”

“M-meaning carfare?” queried Fudge. “Say, it’s a peach of a scheme, Gordie! I wish I could bat better, though. Maybe I’ll get on to it, eh? I guess what I need is practice.” And Fudge, swinging an imaginary bat at an invisible ball, almost fell off the branch. “Who’s going to be captain?” he asked when he had recovered his equilibrium.

“We’ll vote, I suppose,” replied Gordon.

Fudge grinned. “Then it’ll be me. I’m awfully popular. Have you told Lanny yet?”

“Yes, and he says if you play center there’s got to be a rule that a hit to center field is good for only three bases.”

Fudge snorted indignantly. “If he ever hit a ball as far as the outfield he’d fall in a faint! When do we start?”

“I’ve got to see the other fellows yet. Harry is working in his father’s store and I don’t know whether his dad will let him play.”

“That’s so. We need him, too. He’s a peach of a baseman. Who’s going to play short?”

“I want Pete Robey to,” replied Gordon doubtfully. “Think he’d do, Fudge?”

“We-ell, Pete isn’t so much of a muchness. Why don’t you p-put him in center and let me play short?”

“Because a fellow has to have brains to play in the infield, Fudge, and – ”

Fudge tried to reach him with the racket, failed and, composing his features to an expression of grave interest, asked: “Won’t it be awfully hard to find anyone to play first?”

Gordon smiled. “Never you mind about first. Get your wheel and let’s go around and see some of the fellows. We can catch Harry at the store if we hurry. I want to see Tom, too. If he won’t go into it and pitch for us we might as well give it up.”

“Oh, Tom’ll pitch all right,” answered Fudge, dropping from the tree, racket in hand. “He’d rather pitch a baseball than eat. I’ll meet you out front in two minutes.”

He wormed his way through the currant bushes to the garden path and disappeared toward the house, while Gordon, dodging the clothes lines strung near the rear fence, went along the brick walk and gained the side porch by the simple expedient of vaulting the railing. The Merrick house was new – most of the residences on that end of Troutman Street were – and was mildly pretentious. Mr. Merrick was a lawyer and comfortably well-to-do. The family had lived in Clearfield for six generations and had given its name to one of the principal streets in the downtown business part of the city. I refer to Clearfield as a city, and it really was, but it was not a very large city. The latest census credited it with something over 17,000 inhabitants. Like many New England cities of its kind, it owed its growth and prosperity to factories of various sorts. Mill River, which entered the bay two miles distant, flowed along the edge of the town and provided water-power for a number of large manufacturing plants, knitting mills, a sewing machine factory, a silverware factory and several others.

The knitting mills were largely owned by Mr. Brent, the Honorable Jonathan Brent, as the Clearfield Reporter usually referred to him, and while Gordon had spoken of Mr. Brent “owning the town,” he had, of course, exaggerated, but still had not been very far wide of the mark. Mr. Brent was Clearfield’s richest and its leading citizen. Besides the knitting mills he controlled two banks and the street railway and lighting service and had a finger – usually two or three fingers – in many other enterprises. The Brent residence, standing imposingly in a whole block of land, was visible, further along Troutman Street, from the Merricks’ porch. In this, the more recently developed part of the town, the wide streets were lined with maples as yet too young to afford much shade, but a giant elm tree, which had been old long before Clearfield even thought of growing away from the river, stood just inside the Merricks’ front gate and effectively screened the house from the hot sunlight.

Gordon contented himself with putting his head inside the screen door and announcing in a loud voice: “Mother, I’m going downtown. Is there anything you want?” Mrs. Merrick’s voice floated down from upstairs in reply: “No, dear; but please try to be on time for dinner. You know your father dislikes – ”

But Gordon didn’t hear the rest of it. He didn’t need to. He knew what his father disliked. His father disliked having him late for his meals, disliked his going out in the evenings, disliked – oh, so many things! Gordon sighed as he mounted his wheel. Life was really extremely difficult at times!

He was a well-built, athletic youth of fifteen years, with a pleasant, clean-cut face, dark brown eyes and hair and a well-tanned skin. He looked very much alive and rather enthusiastic, just the sort of a boy, in short, to undertake and carry through successfully such an enterprise as the formation of the Clearfield Baseball Club.

Fudge was waiting for him around the corner, and they set off together in search of Tom Haley. Tom lived in what folks called the East End, which was that section of the town near the railroad largely inhabited by workers in the mills and factories. Tom’s father was a foreman in the sewing-machine works, and the family occupied a tiny story-and-a-half cottage so close to the railroad tracks that it shook whenever the trains passed. Fortunately they found Tom at home, very busily engaged repairing the front steps, surrounded by carpenter’s tools and three junior members of the Haley family. He rescued the chisel from Tille, aged four, deprived the baby of a handful of nails, told George, aged six, to stop sawing the chair leg, and greeted his visitors.

Tom was sixteen, big, broad-shouldered and raw-boned, with an angular face and high cheek-bones liberally speckled with freckles. At present he was minus coat and vest and wore a pair of blue overalls. “You kids get in the house now,” he instructed the suddenly silent trio of youngsters, “and tell your mother to keep you in there, too. You’ve bothered me enough. Shoo, the whole lot of you!”

They went, with many backward glances, and Tom cleared a space on the edge of the unrailed porch for Gordon and Fudge. “Say, it’s some warm, isn’t it? What you fellows up to to-day? Going to the pond?”

“No, we’re calling on you,” replied Fudge.

“Much obliged. What’s the game?”

“Baseball,” said Gordon. “We’re getting up a team to play the Rutter’s Point fellows and we want you to join, Tom.”

“I don’t mind, if there isn’t much practice. There’s a lot to be done around the house here this summer. We’re going to shingle next week, and after that we’ll paint. Who’s on the team?”

Gordon explained all about it, read Bert Cable’s letter and Caspar Billings’ and told Tom the line-up of the nine as he had planned it.

“Sounds all right,” said Tom. “When are you going to start?”

“Right away. If you’ll pitch for us we’ll be all right. I’ll answer Billings’ letter and tell him we’ll meet him a week from Wednesday. That’ll give us a whole week for practicing.”

“All right, I’m with you, only don’t expect me to practice much, Gordon. I’m pretty busy. I’ll come out a couple of times, though; say – let me see – say Friday and Monday. Going to use the school field?”

“Yes. I don’t suppose anyone will object?”

“Don’t see why they should. You’d better see Mr. Grayson, though.”

“I will. No, that will be up to Dick. He’s going to be manager.”

“Dick Lovering?” asked Tom, in surprise. “Well, I don’t see why not. He can get around all right. Have you asked him?”

“Yes, and he said he would. The only thing is, Tom, we’ll have to pay his expenses if we go away from home very far. I told him we would. It wouldn’t be much if we shared it. You see, Dick doesn’t have much money. I guess they’re pretty hard-up. His father only left them that house they’re in and a little insurance money, and of course Dick can’t do much to earn any.”

“He told me the other day,” said Fudge, “that he was trying to get work tutoring this summer over at the Point. He could do that finely if he could find anyone to toot. Hope he does. Dick’s a peach.”

“Then we’ll have first practice Wednesday, the rest of us, and we’ll look for you Friday, Tom. I’ve got to catch Harry before he goes home. Maybe his father won’t let him off. If he won’t we’ll be in a bad way for a second baseman.”

“If you hold practice late – say, half-past four – I guess Harry could get there,” said Tom. “And we wouldn’t play more than twice a week, I suppose. Who else are you going after besides the Pointers?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Lesterville. They’ve got a pretty good club over there. I guess we can find games enough, Tom.”

“I suppose the Springdale team has disbanded,” said Tom. “I’d like to get another whack at those fellows!”

“So would I,” Gordon agreed. “We never should have lost that last game, Tom. We all played like idiots, though. Six errors is going some!”

“It was an off-day with me, all right,” grumbled Tom. “I couldn’t put ’em over the plate to save my life in the last four innings.”

“We’ll lick them at football this fall,” asserted Fudge.

“Bound to,” agreed Tom, with a sly wink at Gordon. “Fudge is going to play, you know.”

“You bet I am!” exclaimed Fudge. “I’m going to p-p-play end. I’m g-g-going – ”

“So am I,” laughed Gordon. “Right now. Come along, Fudge, and we’ll hunt up Harry. I’m glad you’ll come in with us, Tom. By the way, I suppose we ought to have a sort of meeting to organize pretty soon. How would it do if you all came to my house to-morrow evening? We’ll have to choose a captain and – and talk things over.”

“Oh, you’ll be captain,” said Tom. “It’s your scheme. Besides, who else is there?”

“You, or Harry, or Will Scott, or – ”

“Shucks, they’re not made for it. It’ll be either you or Lansing, I guess. Anyway, I’ll be over to-morrow, if you say so, about eight. So long. I’ve got to get these boards down before dinner.”

They found Harry Bryan in his father’s grocery. He, too, was very busy, but he stopped putting up orders long enough to hear Gordon’s tale, and was instantly enthusiastic.

“I’ll have to ask my dad, though,” he said doubtfully. “He’s keeping me pretty close to business,” he added importantly.

“What do you do, Harry?” asked Fudge. “Put the sand in the sugar?”

Harry treated the insult with silent contempt. “I’ll ask him to-night, though,” he continued, “and let you know.”

“Telephone me, will you? We’ll have practice late in the afternoon, Harry. You wouldn’t have to get away until after four.”

“I know. I guess he will let me. He ought to.” Harry observed the yellow slips in his hand somberly. “I’ve been working pretty hard, I tell you.”

“I should think,” suggested the irrepressible Fudge, “that if you worked late to-night you could sand enough sugar to last the week out!”

“Say, they’re not going to let you play, are they, Fudge?”

“How could they do without me?”

“It’ll be a peach of a nine!” jeered Harry. He was only a year older than Fudge, but pretended to regard that youth with amused toleration, and so caused Fudge deep annoyance at times.

“Well, we’ve got eight good ones,” responded Fudge sweetly. “If we could only find a fellow to play second base, we’d be all right.”

“It’s a wonder they don’t put you there.”

“Oh, I was offered the position, bu-but I didn’t want it. I prefer the outfield. There’s more re-re-responsibility there.”

“You’re a wonder!” said Harry. “What would you do if a ball came your way? Hold your mouth open and try to swallow it?”

“You wa-wait and see! If I co-co-couldn’t catch a b-b-ball better th-th-than you – ”

“Calm yourself, Fudge! You’re off your trolley again! I’ll be around to-morrow night, Gordon. Now I’ll have to get busy. Watch Fudge as he goes out, will you? Last time he was in he got away with three or four pounds of prunes.”

“I took three of the old th-th-th-things,” said Fudge bitterly, “and they n-n-nearly killed me!”

They left Harry surrounded by baskets, frowning over the order slips in his hand, and made their way back to the sidewalk and their wheels. As it was almost noon, Gordon decided not to risk his father’s displeasure by seeing any more of the fellows before dinner, and he and Fudge pedaled home, Fudge still sputtering about those prunes.

At a little after four that afternoon Gordon was back at Dick’s to report success. All the members of the Clearfield Ball Club had agreed to play and to attend the organization meeting the next evening – all, that is, save Harry Bryan, who was to telephone later.