"He's about the craziest specimen of a t.o.s.s.e.r I ever stacked up against.

He'll never make the Yale scrub!"

"Hush! Haven't I told you not to talk so about my friend?" insisted the girl, but there was still laughter in her tones.

"All right Miss Mabel. I'll do anything you say. Wow! That was a pretty hit all right. Go it, old man! A three-bagger!" and in the enthusiasm over the game the Yale man dropped Joe as a topic of conversation.

Our hero, with burning cheeks, got up and strolled away. He had heard too much, but he was glad they did not know he had unintentionally been listening.

The game ended with the Silver Stars winners, but the score was not as close as seemed likely in the seventh inning. For the Resolutes, most unexpectedly, began hitting Joe, though he managed to pull himself together in the ninth, and retired his opponents. .h.i.tless. The last half of the ninth was not played, as the home team had a margin of two runs.

"Well, we did 'em," remarked Tom, as he and Joe walked off the field.

"But they sort of pulled up on us. Did they get on to your curves?"

"No," spoke Joe listlessly. "I--er--I got a little tired I guess."

"No wonder. You're not in trim. But you stiffened up at the last."

"Oh, yes," but Joe knew it was not weariness that accounted for his being hit so often. It was because of an inward rage, a sense of shame, and, be it confessed, a bit of fear.

For well he knew how little it would take, in such a college as Yale, to make or mar a man. Should he come, heralded perhaps by the unfriendly tongue of the lad who had watched him pitch that day--heralded as one with a "swelled head"--as one who thought himself a master-pitcher--Joe knew he could never live it down.

"I'll never get my chance--the chance for the 'varsity--if he begins to talk," mused Joe, and for a time he was miserable.

"Come on over to grub," invited Tom. "Sis and her latest find will be there--that Yale chap. Maybe you'd like to meet him. If you don't we can sneak in late and there'll be some eats left."

"No, thanks, I don't believe I will," replied Joe listlessly.

"Don't you want to meet that Yale fellow? Maybe he could give you some points."

"No, I'd rather not."

"All right," a.s.sented Tom quickly. Something in his chum's tones made him wonder what was the matter, but he did not ask.

"I've got some packing to do," went on Joe, conscious that he was not acting very cordially toward his old schoolmate. "I may see you later."

"Sure, any time. I'll be on hand to see you off for Yale, old man."

"Yale!" whispered Joe, as he swung off toward his own home, half-conscious of the pointing fingers and whispered comments of a number of street urchins who were designating him as "dat's de pitchin'

guy what walloped de Resolutes!"

"Yale!" thought Joe. "I'm beginning to hate it!"

And then a revulsion of feeling suddenly came over him.

"Hang it all!" he exclaimed as he stumbled along. "This is no way for a fellow to feel if he's going to college. I've got to perk up. If I am to go to Yale, I'm going to do my best to be worth it!"

But something rankled in his heart, and, try as he might he could not help clenching his teeth and gripping his hands as he thought of Ford Weston.

"I--I'd like to fight him!" murmured Joe. "I wonder if they allow fights at Yale?"

Several days later you might have heard this in the Matson home.

"Well, Joe, have you got everything packed?"

"Don't forget to send me a flag."

"You've got your ticket all right, haven't you?"

"Write as soon as you get there."

"And whatever you do, don't go around with wet feet. It's coming on Winter now----"

"Mother! Mother!" broke in Mr. Matson, with a laugh at his wife and daughter on either side of Joe, questioning and giving advice by turns.

"You're like hens with one chicken. Don't coddle him so. He's been away before, and he's getting big enough to know his way around by this time."

Well might he say so, for Joe had grown fast in the past three years, and, though but nineteen, was taller than his father, who was not a small man.

"Of course he's been away," agreed Mrs. Matson, "but not as far as New Haven, and going to Yale is some different from Excelsior Hall, I guess."

"I _know_ so," murmured Joe, with a wink at his father.

"I'm going to the station with you," declared Clara. "Here comes Tom. I guess he's going, too."

"Well, I'll say good-bye here," said Mrs. Matson, and her voice trembled a little. "Good-bye, my boy. I know you'll do what's right, and make us all proud of you!"

Joe's answer was a kiss, and then, with her handkerchief much in evidence, Mrs. Matson left the room.

"Come! Come!" laughed Mr. Matson. "You'll make Joe sorry he's going if you keep on."

"The only thing I'm sorry about," replied the lad, "is that it'll be a good while until Spring."

"Baseball; eh?" queried his father. "Well, I suppose you'll play if you get the chance. But, Joe, just remember that life isn't all baseball, though that has its place in the scheme of things. You're not going to Yale just to play baseball."

"But, if I get a chance, I'm going to play my head off!" exclaimed the lad, and, for the first time in some days there came a fierce light of joy into his eyes.

"That's the spirit, son," exclaimed Mr. Matson. "And just remember that, while you want to win, it isn't the only point in the game. Always be a gentleman--play hard; but play clean! That's all the advice I'm going to give you," and with a shake of his hand the inventor followed his wife from the room.

"Well, I guess I'm going to be left alone to do the honors," laughed Clara. "Come on now, it's almost train time. Oh, h.e.l.lo, Tom!" she added, as Joe's chum entered. "Did you bring any extra handkerchiefs with you?"

"Say I'll pull your hairpins out, Clara, if you don't quit fooling!"

threatened her brother.

Joe's baggage, save for a small valise, had been sent on ahead, and now, calling a good-bye to his parents, but not going to them, for he realized that it would only make his mother cry more, the young collegian, escorted by his sister and chum, started for the station.

Our hero found a few of his friends gathered there, among them Mabel Davis.

"And so you're off for Yale," she remarked, and Joe noticed that she too, like his sister, seemed to have "grown up" suddenly in the last year. Mabel was quite a young lady now.

"Yes, I'm off," replied Joe, rather coldly.