The High School Pitcher Part 16

Then, when too late to count, the young man understood and drove the ball for the coach.

"Not quick enough on judgment," admonished Mr. Luce. "Now, we'll take another look at the style of an ambitious pitcher or two.

Ripley, suppose you try?"

Fred started and colored. Next, he looked pleased with himself as he strode jauntily forward.

"May I ask for my own catcher, sir?" Fred asked.

"Yes; certainly," nodded the coach.

"Rip must have something big up his sleeve, if any old dub of a catcher won't do," jeered some one at the back of the crowd.

"Attention! Rip, the ladylike twirler!" sang out another teasing student.

"Let her rip, Rip!"

A good many were laughing. Fred was not popular. Many tolerated him, and some of the boys treated him with a fair amount of comradeship. Yet the lawyer's son was no prime favorite.

"Order!" rapped out the coach, sharply. "This is training work.

You'll find the minstrel show, if that's what you want, at the opera house next Thursday night."

"How well the coach keeps track of minstrel shows!" called another gibing voice.

"That was you, Parkinson!" called Mr. Luce, with mock severity.

"Run over and harden your funny-bone on the punching bag. Run along with you, now!"

Everybody laughed, except Parkinson, who grinned sheepishly.

"Training orders, Parkinson!" insisted the coach. "Trot right over and let the funny-bone of each arm drive at the bag for twenty-five times. Hurry up. We'll watch you."

So Mr. Parkinson, of the junior cla.s.s, seeing that the order was a positive one, had the good sense to obey. He "hardened" the funny-bone of either arm against the punching bag to the tune of jeering laughter from the rest of the squad. That was Coach Luce's way of dealing with the too-funny amateur humorist.

Fred, meantime, had selected his own catcher, and had whispered some words of instruction to him.

"Now, come on, Ripley," ordered Mr. Luce, swinging his bat over an imaginary plate. "Let her come in about as you want to."

"He's going to try a spit ball," muttered several, as they saw Fred moisten his fingers.

"That's a hard one for a greenhorn to put over," added another.

Fred took his place with a rather confident air; he had been drilling at Duxbridge for some weeks now.

Then, with a turn of his body, Ripley let the ball go off of his finger tips. Straight and rather slowly it went toward the plate.

It looked like the easiest ball that had been sent in so far.

Coach Luce, with a calculating eye, watched it come, moving his bat ever so little. Then he struck. But the spit ball, having traveled to the hitting point, dropped nearly twenty inches.

The bat fanned air, and the catcher, crouching just behind the coach, gathered in the ball.

Luce was anything but mortified. A gleam of exultation lit up his eyes as he swung the bat exultantly over his head. In a swift outburst of old college enthusiasm he forgot most of his dignity as a submaster.

"_Wow_!" yelled the coach. "That was a _bird_! A lulu-cooler and a scalp-taker! Ripley, I reckon you're the new cop that runs the beat!"

It took the High School onlookers a few seconds to gather the full importance of what they had seen. Then a wild cheer broke loose:

"Ripley? Oh, Ripley'll pitch for the nine!" surged up on all sides.

CHAPTER X

d.i.c.k & CO. TAKE A TURN AT FEELING GLUM

"What's the matter with Ripley?" yelled one senior.

And another answered, hoa.r.s.ely:

"Nothing! He's a wonder!"

Fred Ripley was unpopular. He was regarded as a cad and a sneak.

But he could pitch ball! He could give great aid in bringing an unbroken line of victories to Gridley. That was enough.

By now Coach Luce was a bit red in the face. He realized that his momentary relapse into the old college enthusiasm had made him look ridiculous, in his other guise of High School submaster.

But when the submaster coach turned and saw Parkinson b.u.t.ting his head against the punching bag he called out:

"What's the matter, Parkinson?"

"Subbing for you, sir!"

That turned the good-natured laugh of a few on Mr. Luce. Most of those present, however, had not been struck by the unusualness of his speech.

d.i.c.k and Dave looked hard at each other. Both boys wanted to make the team as pitchers. Yet now it seemed most certain that Fred Ripley must stand out head and shoulders over any other candidates for the Gridley box.

d.i.c.k's face shone with enthusiasm, none the less. If he couldn't make the nine this year, he could at least feel that Gridley High School was already well on toward the lead over all competing school nines.

"I wish it were somebody else," muttered Dave, huskily, in his chum's ear.

"Gridley is fixed for lead, anyway," replied d.i.c.k, "if Ripley can always keep in such form as that."

"Can Ripley do it again?" shouted one Gridley senior.

"Try it, and see, Ripley," urged Mr. Luce, again swinging his bat.

Fred had been holding the returned ball for a minute or two.

His face was flushed, his eyes glowing. Never before had he made such a hit among his schoolmates. It was sweet, at last, to taste the pleasures of local fame.

He stood gazing about him, drinking in the evident delight of the High School boys. In fact he did not hear the coach's order until it came again.