T. Haviland Hicks Senior Part 19

"Home-run Hicks--he made a home-run--on a strike-out!"--"Put Hicks in the game, Captain Butch--he will win it."--"Watch Hicks--he'll pull some bonehead play!"--"Bring home the Championship, but--lose Hicks somewhere!"

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as the battered engine of the jit. yielded to old Dan's cranking, and kindly consented to start, surveyed the yelling students, seized a bat, and struck an att.i.tude which he fatuously believed was that of Ty Cobb, about to make a hit; taking advantage of a lull in the tumult, the lovable youth howled at the hilarious crowd:

"Just leave it to Hicks! I will win the game and the Championship, for my Alma Mater, and--I'll do it by my headwork!"

CHAPTER XVIII

T. HAVILAND HICKS, JR'S. HEADWORK

"Play Ball! Say, Bannister, are you afraid to play?"

"Call the game, Mr. Ump.--make 'em play ball!"

"Batter up! Forfeit the game to Ballard, Umpire!"

"Lend 'em Ballard's bat-boy-to make a full nine!"

Captain Butch Brewster, his honest countenance, as a moving-picture director would express it, "registering wrathful dismay," lumbered toward the Ballard Field concrete dug-out, in which the Gold and Green players had entrenched themselves, while from the stands, the Ballard cohorts vociferated their intense impatience at the inexplicable delay.

"We have got to play," he raged, striding up and down before the bench.

"The game is ten minutes late now, and the crowd is restless! And here we have only eight 'Varsity players, and no one to make the ninth--not even a sub.! Oh, I could--"

"That brainless Skeet Wigglesworth!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., who, arrayed like a lily of the field, reposed his splinter-structure on the bench with his comrades. "In some way, he managed to miss that train from Baltimore! They didn't come on the noon C, N. & Q. train, and there isn't another one until night. My directions were as plain as a German war-map, and it beats me how Skeet got befuddled!"

Gloom, as thick and abysmal as a London fog, hovered over the Bannister dug-out. On the concrete bench, the seven Gold and Green athletes, Beef, Monty, Roddy, Biff, Ichabod, Don, and Cherub, with Team Manager T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., stared silently at Captain Butch Brewster, who seemed in imminent peril of exploding. Something probably never before heard of in the annals of athletic history had happened. Bannister College, about to play Ballard the big game for the State Championship, had lost a short-stop and five subst.i.tutes, in some unfathomable manner, and it was impossible to round up one other member of the Gold and Green baseball squad. True, a hundred loyal alumni were in the stands, but only bona fide students, of course, were eligible to play the game, and--the Faculty ruling had kept them at old Bannister!

"Here comes Ballard's Manager," spoke Beef McNaughton, as a brisk, clean-cut youth advanced, a yellow envelope in hand. "Why, he has a telegram. Do you suppose Skeet actually had brains enough to wire an explanation?"

"Telegram for Captain Brewster!" announced the Ballard collegian, giving the message to that surprised behemoth. "It was sent in my care--collect, and the sender, name of Wigglesworth, fired one to me personally, telling me to deliver this one to Captain Butch Brewster, and collect from Team Manager Hicks--he surely didn't bother to save money! I've been out of town, and just got back to the campus; of course, the telegrams could not be delivered to anyone but me, hence the delay."

Big Butch, thanking the Ballard Team Manager, and a.s.suring him that the charges he had paid would be advanced to him after the game, ripped open the yellow envelope, and drew out the message. Like a thunder-storm gathering on the horizon, a dark expression came to good Butch's countenance, and when he had perused the lengthy telegram, he transfixed the startled and bewildered T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., with an angry glare:

"Bonehead!" he raged, apparently controlling himself with a superhuman effort. "Oh, you lunatic, you wretch, villain--you--you--"

To the supreme amazement and dismay of the puzzled Hicks, Beef, next in line, after he had scanned Skeet's telegram, followed Butch's example, for he glowered at the perturbed youth, and heaped condemnations on his devoted head. And so on down the line on the bench, until Monty, Roddy, Biff, Ichabod, Don, and Cherub, reading the message, joined in gazing indignantly at their gladsome Team Manager, who, as the eight arose en ma.s.se and advanced on him, sought to flee the wrath to come.

"Safety first!" quoth T, Haviland Hicks, Jr. "'Mine not to reason why, mine but to haste and fly,' or--be crushed! Ouch! Beef, Monty--have a heart!"

Captured by Beef and Monty Merriweather, as he frantically scrambled up the steps of the concrete dug-out, the grinning Hicks was held in the firm grasp of that behemoth, Butch Brewster, aided by the skysc.r.a.per Ichabod, while Cherub Challoner thrust the telegram before his eyes. In words of fire that burned themselves into his brain--something his colleagues denied he possessed--T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., saw the explanation of Skeet Wigglesworth's missing the train from Baltimore that A. M. Dazed, the sunny youth read the message on which over-charges must be paid:

"Hicks--you bonehead! The time-table of the C.N. & Q. you gave me was an old one--schedule revised two weeks ago! Train now leaves Balto. at 6.55 A.M.! When we got to station at 7.05 A.M. she had went! No train to Ballard till night! I and subs, had to wire Bannister for money to get back on!

You mis-manager--the head-work you boasted of is boneheadwork! Pay the charges on this, you brainless insect! I'll send it to Butch, for you'd never show it to him if I sent it to you! Indignantly--

"SKEET."

"Mis-manager is right!" seethed Captain Butch, for once in his campus career really wrathy at the lovable Hicks. "We are in a fix--eight players, and the crowd howling for the game to start. Oh, I could jump overboard, and drag you with me!"

"Bonehead! Bonehead!" chorused the Gold and Green players, indignantly.

"Gave Skeet an out-of-date time-table--never looked at the date! Let's drag him out before the crowd, and announce to them his brilliant headwork!"

Captain Butch, "up against it," to employ a slightly slang expression, gazed across Ballard Field. In the stands, the students responding thunderously to their cheer-leaders' megaphoned requests, roared, "Play ball! Play ball! Play ball!" Gay pennants and banners fluttered in the glorious sunshine of the June day. It was a bright scene, but its glory awakened no happiness in the heart of the Bannister leader, as his gaze wandered to the somewhat flabbergasted expression on the cheery Hicks'

face. That inevitably sunny youth, however, managed to conjure up a faint resemblance of his Cheshire cat grin, and following his usual habit of letting nothing daunt his gladsome spirit, he croaked feebly: "Oh, just leave it to Hicks! I will--"

"Play the game!" thundered Butch, inspired. "Beef, see the umpire and say we'll be ready as soon as we get Hicks into togs-show him the telegram, and explain our delay! I'll shift Monty from the outfield to Skeet's job at short, and put this diluted imitation of something human in the field, to do his worst. Come to the field-house, you poor fish--"

"Oh, Butch, I can't--I just can't!" protested the alarmed Hicks, helpless, as the big athlete towed him from the trench, "I--I can't play ball, and I don't want to be shown up before all that mob! It's all right at Bannister, in cla.s.s-games, but--Oh, can't you play the game with eight fellows?"

"That is just what we intend to do!" said Butch, with grim humor.

"But--we'll have a dummy in the ninth position, to make the people believe we have a full nine! Cheer up, Hicks--'In the bright lexicon of youth there ain't no such word as fail,' you say! As for your making a fool of yourself, you haven't brains enough to be cla.s.sed as one! Now--you'll pay dearly for your bonehead play."

Ten minutes later, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as agitated as a prima donna making her debut with the Metropolitan: Opera Company, decorated the Bannister bench, arrayed in one of the subst.i.tutes' baseball suits. It was too large for his splinter-structure, so that it flapped grotesquely, giving him a startling resemblance to a scarecrow escaped from a cornfield.

With the thermometer of his spirits registering zero, the dismayed youth, whose punishment was surely fitting the crime, heard the Umpire bellow:

"Play ball! Batter up! Bannister at bat--Ballard in the field!"

Hicks, that sunny-souled youth, had often daydreamed of himself in a big game of baseball, for his college. He had vividly imagined a ninth inning crisis, three of the enemy on base, two out, and a long fly, good for a home-run, soaring over his head. How he had sprinted--back--back--and at the last second, reached high in the air, grabbing the soaring spheroid, and saving the game for his Alma Mater! Often, too, he had stepped up to bat in the final frame, with two out, one on base, and Bannister a run behind. With the vast crowd silent and breathless, he had walloped the ball, over the left-field fence, and jogged around the bases, thrilling to the thunderous cheers of his comrades. But now--

"Oooo!" shivered Hicks, as though he had just stepped beneath an icy shower-bath. "I wish I could run away. I just know they'll knock every ball to me, and I couldn't catch one with a sheriff and posse!"

However, since, despite the blithesome Hicks' lack of confidence, it was that sunny Senior, after all, whom fate--or fortune, accordingly as each nine viewed it--destined to be the hero of the Bannister-Ballard Championship baseball contest, the game itself is shoved into such insignificance that it can be briefly chronicled by recording the events that led up to T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, self-prophesied "head-work."

Without Skeet Wigglesworth at shortstop, with the futile Hicks in right-field, and the confidence of the nine shaken, Captain Butch Brewster and the Gold and Green players went into the big game, unable to shake off the feeling that they would be defeated. And when Pitcher Don Carterson, in his half of the frame, pa.s.sed the first two Ballard batters, the belief deepened to conviction. However, a fast double play and a long fly ended the inning without damage, and Bannister, likewise, had failed to make an impression on the score-board. In the second, Don promptly showed that he was striving to rival the late Cy Morgan, of the Athletics, for he promptly hit two batters and pa.s.sed the third, whereupon, as sporting-writers express it, he was "derricked" by Captain Butch.

Placing the deposed twirler in left field, Captain Brewster, as a last resort, believing the game hopelessly lost, with his star pitcher having failed, and his relief slabmen, thanks to Hicks, mislaid en route, sent out to the box one Ichabod Crane, brought in from the position given to Don Carterson. This cadaverous, skysc.r.a.per Senior, who always announced, himself as originating, "Back at Bedwell Center, Pa., where I come from--"

was well known to fame as the "Champion Horse-Shoe Pitcher of Bucks County," but his baseball pitching was rather uncertain; like the girl in the nursery jingle, Ichabod, as a twirler, "When he was good, he was very, very good, and when he was wild, he was horrid!" Like Christy Mathewson, after he had pitched a few b.a.l.l.s, he knew whether or not he was in shape for the game, and so did the spectators. With terrific speed and bewildering curves, Ichabod would have made a star, but his wildness prevented, and only on very rare days could he control the ball.

Luckily for old Bannister's chances of victory and the Championship, this was one of the elongated Ichabod's rare days. He ambled into the box, with the bases full, and promptly struck out a batter. The next rolled to first, forcing out the runner at home, while the third hitter under Ichabod's regime drove out a long fly to center-field. Thus the game settled to one of the most memorable contests that Ballard Field had ever witnessed, a pitchers' battle between the awkward, bean-pole youth from "Bedwell Center, Pa.," and Bob Forsythe, the crack Ballard twirler. It was a fight long to be remembered, with hits as scarce as auks' eggs, and runs out of the reckoning, for six innings.

At the start of the seventh, with the Ballard rooters standing and thundering, "The lucky seventh! Ballard--win the game in the lucky seventh!" the score was 0-0. Only two hits had been made off Forsythe, of Ballard, whose change of pace had the Bannister nine at his mercy, and but three off Ichabod, who had superb control of his dazzling speed. T.

Haviland Hicks, Jr., cavorting in right field, had made the only error of the contest, dropping an easy fly that fell into his hands after he had run bewilderedly in circles, when any good fielder could have stood still and captured it; however, since he got the ball to second in time to hold the runner at third, no harm resulted.

"Hold 'em, Bannister, hold 'em!" entreated Butch Brewster, as they went to the field at their end of the lucky seventh, not having scored. "Do your best, Hicks, old man--never mind their Jokes. If you can't catch the ball, just get it to second, or first, without delay! Pitch ball, Ichabod--three innings to hold 'em!"

But it was destined to be the lucky seventh for Ballard. An error on a hard chance, for Roddy Perkins, at third, placed a runner on first. Ichabod struck out a hitter, and the runner stole second, aided somewhat by the umpire. The next player flew out, sacrificing the runner to third; then--an easy fly traveled toward the paralyzed T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., one that anybody with the most infinitesimal baseball ability could have corralled, as Butch said, "with his eyes blindfolded, and his hands tied behind him!"

But Hicks, who possessed absolutely no baseball talent, though he made a desperate try, succeeded in doing an European juggling act for five heartbreaking seconds, after which he let the law of gravity act on the sphere, so that it descended to terra firma. Hence, the "Lucky Seventh"

ended with the score: Ballard, 1; Bannister, 0; and the Ballard cohorts in a state bordering on lunacy!

"Oh, I've done it now--I've lost the game and the Championship!" groaned the crushed Hicks, as he stumbled toward the Bannister bench. "First I made that bonehead play, giving Skeet an old time-table I had on hand, and not telling him to get one at the station. How was I to know the old railroad would change the schedule, within two weeks of this game? And now--I've made the error that gives Ballard the Championship. If I hadn't pulled that b.o.n.e.r, Skeet would be here, and the regular right-fielder would have had that fly. What a glorious climax to my athletic career at old Bannister!"

Hicks' comrades were too generous, or heartbroken, to condemn the sorrowful youth, as he trailed to the dug-out, but the Ballard rooters had absolutely no mercy, and they panned him in regulation style. In fact, all through the game, Hicks expressed himself as being butchered by the fans to make a Ballard holiday, for he struck out with unfailing regularity at bat, and dropped everything in the field, so that the rooters jeered him, whenever he stepped to the plate, and--it was quite different from the good-natured ridicule of his comrades, back at old Bannister.