"Yes. This is exceedingly good of you. I----"

But he did not finish. Joe drove the horse up to the platform edge as the train came to a stop with a grinding of the brake shoes. The man leaped out almost before the horse had ceased running, and Joe was not a second behind him with the valise.

"Go on!" exclaimed the youth, as the man hesitated. He fairly flung himself up the car steps, and the train began to move, for Preston was little more than a flag station for the New York express.

"Thank you a thousand times!" cried the man as Joe handed up the valise. "I wish--I didn't ask your name--mine is--I ought to have a card--I--er----" he began fumbling in his pocket, and Joe half feared he was going to offer money again. But the man seemed to be hunting for a card.

However his search was unsuccessful. He waved his hand to Joe, and called:

"Thank you once more. Perhaps I may meet you again. I meant to ask your name--too much occupied--mine is----"

But just then the train gathered speed and the engineer, opening the exhaust, effectually drowned out all other sounds in the puffing of the locomotive. Joe saw the man's lips moving, and realized that he was calling out his name, but he could not hear it. Then, with a wave of his hand the stranger went inside the car. He had caught the train just in time.

CHAPTER II

A HOME CONFERENCE

"Well, I wonder if I'll ever see him again," mused Joe, as the train swung out of sight around a curve in the track. "It sure was a hustling time. I wonder who he was? Seemed like some sort of an athlete, and yet he didn't talk sports--nor much of anything, for that matter.

"I'm glad I could help him get his train. Funny he should want to pay me, and yet I suppose he isn't used to having favors done him. He seemed like a nice sort of fellow. Well, I've got to get over with these patterns. I'll be late getting home, I expect."

Joe's first visit was to the livery stable, where he told the proprietor of the accident.

"Hum! Well, I s'pose he was driving reckless like," said Mr. Munn, who hired out old horses and older vehicles to such few of the townspeople as did not have their own rigs.

"No, he was going slowly," said Joe. "I guess that wheel was pretty well rotted."

"Mebby so. I'm glad I charged him a good price, and made him pay in advance. Yes, I'll send out and get the rig. Much obliged to you, Joe.

Did he pay ye for bringin' him back?"

"No, I didn't want anything," and with this parting shot the young pitcher went on his way.

And, while he is jogging along to Birchville, musing over the recent happenings, I will, in a paragraph or two, tell you something more about our hero, since he is to occupy that place in these pages.

Those of you who have read the previous books in this series, need no introduction to the youth. But to those who pick up this volume to begin their acquaintance, I might state that in the initial book, called "Baseball Joe of the Silver Stars," I related how he first began his upward climb as a pitcher.

Joe Matson lived with his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. John Matson, in the town of Riverside, in one of our New England states. Mr. Matson was an inventor of farming machinery, and after a hard struggle was now doing well financially.

Joe's ambition, ever since he began to play baseball, had been to become a pitcher, and how he made the acquaintance of Tom Davis, the boy living back of him; how they became chums, and how Joe became a member of the Silver Stars nine is told in my first book.

The nine was a typical one, such as is found in many country towns, though they played good ball. After an upward struggle Joe was made pitcher, and helped to win some big games. He made many friends, and some enemies, as all boys will.

In the second volume, called "Baseball Joe on the School Nine," I told how our hero and his chum, Tom Davis, went to Excelsior Hall, a boarding inst.i.tution just outside of Cedarhurst, about a hundred miles from Riverside.

At school Joe found that it was more difficult to get a chance at his favorite position than he had imagined it would be. There, too, he had his enemies; but Joe was a plucky fighter, and would not give up. How finally he was called on to pitch in a great game, and how he, more than anyone else, helped to win the Blue Banner, you will find set down in my second book.

Three years pa.s.sed, all too quickly, at Excelsior Hall, with Joe doing the twirling for the school nine at all the big games. And now, with the coming of Fall, and the beginning of the new term, he was not to go back, for, as I have intimated, he was to be sent to Yale University.

The course at Excelsior Hall was four years, but it was found that at the end of the third Joe was able to take the Yale entrance examinations, which he had done successfully. He did not enter with flying colors, for Joe was no great scholar, but he was by no means at the foot of the ladder.

So he was to plunge at once into the turmoil of university life--his one regret being, as I have said, that he could not join the ranks of the professional baseball players. But he was willing to bide his time.

Another regret, too, was that he would be very much of a stranger at Yale. He did not know a soul there, and he wished with all his heart that Tom Davis could have gone with him, as he had to Excelsior Hall.

But Tom's parents had other views of life for him.

"It doesn't seem like three years ago that I first started for Excelsior," mused Joe, as he drove along. "I sure was nervous then, and I'm in a worse funk now. Well, there's no help for it. I've got to stick it out. No use disappointing dad and momsey. I only hope I make out half way decently."

His errand accomplished, he drove back home, arriving rather late, and, to his mother's anxious inquiries as to what kept him, he related the happening of the broken carriage.

"And you don't know who he was?" asked Clara, Joe's sister, curiously.

"No, sis. Say, but you're looking pretty to-night! Got your hair fixed differently, somehow. Somebody coming?" and playfully he pinched her red cheeks.

"Yes, Mabel Davis is coming to call," replied Clara, pretending to be very busy arranging some articles on the mantle.

"Oh, ho! So that's how the wind blows!" exclaimed Joe, with a laugh.

"But I'll wager someone besides Mabel is coming over. Tom Davis told me to come and see him, Mabel is going out, you're all togged up--say, sis, who's the lucky chap?"

"Oh, don't bother me!" exclaimed the blushing girl.

"That's all right. Tom and I will come around later and put a tic-tac on the window, when you and Mabel, and the two chaps, are in the parlor."

"I thought you had gotten all over such childish tricks--and you a Yale Freshman!" exclaimed Clara, half sarcastically.

"Well, I suppose I will have to pa.s.s 'em up--worse luck!" exclaimed her brother, with something like a groan. "Have your fun, sis. It'll soon be over."

"Oh, my! What a mournful face!" laughed the girl. "There, run along now, little boy, and don't bother me."

Joe looked at her for a moment, and the conviction grew on him that his sister was prettier than ever, with that blush on her face.

"Little sister is growing up," thought Joe, as he turned away. "She'll be a young lady soon--she's growing up. Well, I guess we all are," and our hero sighed as though he could scarcely bear the weight of responsibility on his own shoulders.

This was after supper, and as Joe left the room, and Clara hastened to her apartment, there to indulge in further "prinking," as Joe called it, Mr. and Mrs. Matson looked at each other.

"What's getting into Joe, I wonder?" spoke his father. "He's acting rather strange of late."

"Oh, I expect the responsibility of college life is making itself felt,"

said Mrs. Matson. "But I'm proud that I have a son who is going to Yale.

It is good you can afford it, John."

"Yes, Ellen, I am too. Education is a great thing, and a college course does a lot for a young fellow. I never had the chance myself, but perhaps it's just as well."

"I am determined that Joe shall have all the advantages we can give him--and Clara, too," went on the wife. "I think Joe should be very proud and happy. In a short time he will be attending one of the best colleges in the world."

"Yet he doesn't seem very happy," said Mr. Matson, musingly.