Baseball Joe at Yale.

by Lester Chadwick.

CHAPTER I

JUST IN TIME

"Joe Matson, I can't understand why you don't fairly jump at the chance!"

"Because I don't want to go--that's why."

"But, man alive! Half the fellows in Riverside would stand on their heads to be in your shoes."

"Perhaps, Tom. But, I tell you I don't think I'm cut out for a college man, and I don't want to go," and Joe Matson looked frankly into the face of his chum, Tom Davis, as they strolled down the village street together that early September day.

"Don't want to go to Yale!" murmured Tom, shaking his head as if unable to fathom the mystery. "Why I'd work my way through, if they'd let me, and here you've got everything comparatively easy, and yet you're balking like a horse that hasn't had his oats in a month. Whew! What's up, Joe, old man?"

"Simply that I don't believe I'm cut out for that sort of life. I don't care for this college business, and there's no use pretending that I do.

I'm not built that way. My mind is on something else. Of course I know a college education is a great thing, and something that lots of fellows need. But for yours truly--not!"

"I only wish I had your chance," said Tom, enviously.

"You're welcome to it," laughed Joe.

"No," and the other spoke half sadly. "Dad doesn't believe in a college career any more than you do. When I'm through at Excelsior Hall he's going to take me into business with him. He talks of sending me abroad, to get a line on the foreign end of it."

"Cracky!" exclaimed Joe. "That would suit me down to the ground--that is if I could go with a ball team."

"So you haven't gotten over your craze for baseball?" queried Tom.

"No, and I never shall. You know what I've always said--that I'd become a professional some day; and I will, too, and I'll pitch in the world series if I can last long enough," and Joe laughed.

"But look here!" exclaimed his chum, as they swung down a quiet street that led out into the country; "you can play baseball at Yale, you know."

"Maybe--if they'll let me. But you know how it is at those big universities. They are very exclusive--societies--elections--eating clubs--and all that sort of rot. A man has to be in with the bunch before he can get a show."

"That's all nonsense, and you know it!" snapped Tom. "At Yale, I warrant you, just as at every big college, a man has to stand on his own feet.

Why, they're always on the lookout for good fellows on the nine, crew or eleven, and, if you can make good, you'll be pitching on the 'varsity before the Spring term opens."

"Maybe," a.s.sented Joe with rather a moody face. "Anyhow, as long as I've got to go to college I'm going to make a try for the nine. I think I can pitch a little----"

"A little!" cried Tom. "Say, I'd like to know what sort of a showing we'd have made at Excelsior Hall if it hadn't been for your pitching!

Didn't you win the Blue Banner for us when it looked as if we hadn't a show? Pitch! Say if those fellows at Yale----"

"Spare my blushes," begged Joe, with a laugh. "Don't worry, I'm going to college for one reason, more than another, because mother wants me to.

Dad is rather set on it, too, and so I've said I'll go. Between you and me," whispered Joe, as if he feared someone would overhear him, "I have a faint suspicion that my respected mother wants to make a sky pilot of me."

"A minister!" cried Tom.

"That's it."

"Why--why----"

"Oh, don't worry!" laughed Joe, and then his face grew a bit sober as he continued: "I'm not half good enough--or smart enough. I'm not cut out for that sort of life. All I want is baseball and all I can get of it.

That's my one ambition."

"Yes, it's easy to see that," agreed Tom. "I wonder you don't carry a horsehide about with you, and I do believe--what's this?" he demanded, pulling a bundle of papers from his chum's pocket. "Some dope on the world series, or I'm a June bug!"

"Well, I was only sort of comparing batting averages, and making a list of the peculiarities of each player--I mean about the kind of b.a.l.l.s it is best to serve up to him."

"You're the limit!" exclaimed Tom, as he tried unsuccessfully to stop Joe from grabbing the papers away from him. "Do you think you might pitch to some of these fellows?"

"I might," replied Joe calmly. "A professional ball player lasts for some time, and when I come up for my degree on the mound at some future world series I may face some of these same men."

"Go to it, old man!" exclaimed Tom enthusiastically. "I wish I had your hopes. Well, I suppose I'll soon be grinding away with the old crowd at Excelsior, and you--you'll be at--Yale!"

"Probably," admitted Joe, with something of a sigh. "I almost wish I was going back to the old school. We had good times there!"

"We sure did. But I've got to leave you now. I promised Sis I'd go to the store for her. See you later," and Tom clasped his chum's hand.

"That reminds me," spoke Joe. "I've got to go back home, hitch up the horse, and take some patterns over to Birchville for dad."

"Wish I could go along, but I can't," said Tom. "It's a fine day for a drive. Come on over to-night."

"Maybe I will--so long," and the two friends parted to go their ways, one to dream over the good fortune of the other--to envy him--while Joe himself--Baseball Joe as his friends called him--thought rather regretfully of the time he must lose at college when, if he had been allowed his own way, he would have sought admission to some minor baseball league, to work himself up to a major position.

"But as long as the folks want me to have a college course I'll take it--and do my best," he mused.

A little later, behind the old family horse, he was jogging over the country road in the direction of a distant town, where his father, an inventor, and one of the owners of the Royal Harvester Works, had been in the habit of sending his patterns from which to have models made.

"Well, in a few weeks I'll be hiking it for New Haven," said Joe, half talking to himself. "It's going to be awful lonesome at first. I won't know a soul there. It isn't like going up from some prep school, with a lot of your own chums. Well, I've got to grin and bear it, and if I do get a chance for the 'varsity nine--oh, won't I jump at it!"

He was lost in pleasant reflections for a moment, and then went on, still talking to himself, and calling to the horse now and then, for the steed, realizing that he had an easy master behind him, was inclined to slow down to a walk every now and then.

"There are bound to be lessons, of course," said Joe. "And lectures on things I don't care any more about than the man in the moon does. I suppose, though, I've got to swallow 'em. But if I can get on the diamond once in a while it won't be so bad. The worst of it is, though, that ball playing won't begin until April at the earliest, and there's all winter to live through. I'm not going in for football. Well, I guess I can stand it."

Once more Joe was off in a day-dream, in fancy seeing himself standing in the box before yelling thousands, winding up to deliver a swiftly-curving ball to the batter on whom "three and two" had been called, with the bases full, two men out and his team but one run ahead in the final inning.

"Oh! that's what life is!" exclaimed Joe, half aloud, and at his words the horse started to trot. "That's what makes me willing to stand four years at Yale--if I have to. And yet----"

Joe did not complete his sentence. As he swung around a bend in the road his attention was fully taken by a surprising scene just ahead of him.

A horse, attached to a carriage, was being driven down the road, and, just as Joe came in sight, the animal, for some unaccountable reason, suddenly swerved to the left. One of the wheels caught in a rut, there was a snapping, cracking sound, the wheel was "dished," and the carriage settled down on one side.

"Whoa! Whoa!" yelled Joe, fearing the horse would bolt and that perhaps a woman might be in the carriage, the top of which was up. The lad was about to spring from his own vehicle and rush to the aid of the occupant of the other, when he saw a man leap out.