The Red Book Magazine/Volume 32/Number 2/The Dummy

by Harold MacGrath

HERE'S a case where love was not blind but deaf—and
in which Harold MacGrath writes his delightful best.

 

“THAT girl back of the cigar-stand is Nellie Milliken. She's the whitest little skirt that ever rooted for baseball or church.”

 

The
DUMMY

By HAROLD
MACGRATH

who wrote “The Man on the Box”

Illustrated by
R. F. SCHABELITZ

“PEG” McGUIRE clipped the end of his cigar and eyed it thoughtfully. McGuire was unhappy. He had a stone wall for an infield, and only Texas leaguers could get by the boys in the outfield. What he lacked was a third pitcher, and he needed that man badly. Seven try-outs, and all of them more or less fizzles—not a big-league man in the bunch! In two weeks the spring training would be over, and he would be going north with only two reliable pitchers on his string, to do battle. He saw how it would be. He'd have to pay through the nose for the third man—cash and players he could not spare.

He was turning away from the cigar counter when a hand, touching his elbow, detained him. He wheeled and saw a total stranger, young, handsome, a healthy tan on his cheeks, the whites of his eyes like china, and a smile that was genial and unafraid.

“Mr. McGuire, I understand that you are in need of a pitcher.” It was not a query; it was a statement. The voice was rather low.

“That may be,” replied McGuire. Having noted the physical assets, his glance absorbed the sartorial. Nice-looking chap, well set up, and big-city clothes.

A singular thing happened. The young man took from a pocket a small pad and pencil and pushed them along the glass top of the cigar-counter.

“My name is Lynn. I'm stone-deaf; but I can pitch baseball.”

Deaf! McGuire took the pad and pencil and wrote: “Nothing doing.” He underscored it vigorously. He shook his head. There was sympathy in his expression. Tough for a young chap like this to be handicapped by deafness. But he had sworn he would never have any freaks warming his benches.

“Can't you give me a try-out—your best batter and catcher, in the morning?”

McGuire wrote again: “Sorry; your affliction is a tough thing. But I've always drawn the line at anything like deafness. Nothing doing.” McGuire moved away rapidly. It was an embarrassing situation, and he wanted to get away from it.

The young man who said his name was Lynn sighed and restored his pad and pencil to his pocket. He strolled over to the nearest lobby chair and sat down.

As McGuire reached the line of lounging-chairs by the windows, an elderly but agile man jumped up.

“Ready?”

“Yep. Let's go and see Charlie Chaplin throw pie. I want to see if he can shoot 'em as straight as that bunch of blind men you turned loose on me, after all your horn-blowing.”

“Aw, Mac, the kids are choked up! I tell you they can pitch.”

“Quoits, maybe, but not big-league ball. Murph, as a scout you're a corking good Kelly-pool shark. You rounded up seven tin cans for me. There isn't a pitcher in that bunch.” The two passed out into the street. “And say, it seems the whole country knows I haven't a real string of pitchers this season. While I was lighting my cigar, a lad touches my arm and asks me for a job as pitcher. Then he takes out a tab and pencil and shoves 'em along to me. Deaf as a post!”

“What name?”

“Lynn, I think he said.”

“Lynn.” The scout repeated the name, not to memorize it but to jog his recollection. “Lynn?.... Holy Mackerel!”

“What's the matter?”

“Where is he?”

“Left him by the cigar-counter.”

The scout whirled and ran back to the lobby. McGuire continued on slowly. Three minutes later the scout rejoined him.

“Mac, let's cut out this movie stuff. I've got something to tell you—big! Come along to my room, where I can lay hands on that scrapbook of mine.”

“What's the dope?” jeered McGuire.

“On the level, I've got a whale of an idea. If it doesn't work, I'll scout this summer for board and fare. All you got to do is to come up to my room. There's two shows; the second begins at nine-fifteen. Come on.”

“All right,” agreed McGuire resignedly. “I'll listen to the dope. But I'll hold you to that bet.”

Murphy dug up his scrapbook and began thumbing the pages. “Ha! Here it is. Listen, Mac! This Lynn is the college guy I told you about last summer. 'Member?”

“But you never told me he was a dummy!”—indignantly.

“Mac, he wasn't when I first lamped him. Here's the dope. I trailed this lad three separate times. He was a wonder—speed, control, brains! I saw him shut out Yale two out of three games; same with Princeton. And don't you fool yourself, Mac. Outside the majors, these college boys are the grand ball-players.”

McGuire nodded. “But you finally wired me this Lynn was no good, that he blew up.”

“Listen: These college lads are always on the hunt for queer stunts. It entered their beans one day to stand on the foul line and yodel like Fritz-Emmet used to, and then to caterwaul—not the players, mind you, but the regular college boys. They did it just as a lark—nothing behind it. But gee, somehow it got to this boy Lynn. Two men on bases, one out. He ups and throws the first wild ball I'd seen him pitch. The man on second romps home. But that was the match to the powder. The Willie boys surged to the whitewash, yodeling and caterwauling; and this Lynn blows up to Mars and roosts there. I went the next day. If he got over the surprise of it, why, I was going to have a little business talk with him. They had to take him out in the third. Those fool kids had accidentally found the hole. I went back to the hotel, feeling blue.”

“And the man downstairs is Lynn?”

“Yep.”

“But how did he become deaf?”

“I went to New Haven the next day. He pitched again. Nothing yellow in him. Just one of them psychological things professors gab about. You see, when I take a fancy to an amateur, I look up the family history. These Lynns have been licked, but they never laid down. Well, he pitched three corking innings and got a three-bagger. But he went high-sky in the fourth. It was a darned shame. Here was the making of a great pitcher, gone wrong. He was the first man up in the last of the fourth. The first ball—zowie! He lammed it over to Hartford and jogged around the bags. No yellow boy could have done that. This bucked me up. He could stand up there and lam the ball when he knew they were going to yodel him off the mound. The other team got five runs off him, next inning. His mates were good sports. They let him stay. The next time he came to bat, he lammed another homer, but the wind carried it outside. And then the pitcher beaned him—knocked him cold, down and out. I hung around until they got him into the clubhouse; then I left the lot.”

“I begin to see. That ball busted his ears. Tough luck!”

“Tougher than you know! Listen: It hit him smack on the left ear, busted the drum; and the right ear went along in sympathy. That was the dope in the morning papers. Mac, this was a real tragedy. Seems he was a rich man's son, youngest of four. Wanted to play professional ball; didn't want to work under his brothers in the steel-mills. He had fallen out with the old man; and his busted ears left him high and dry. Get it? A great pitcher, with a big future in front of him—knocked out like that. And no home to go back to, and no money in his jeans.”

“That's mighty tough. I feel sorry for the boy, but I don't see—”

“Wake up! I tell you he's a great pitcher already. Can't you get it? They can't blow him up now. He's deaf. He wont see anything but the plate and Slatterly's fingers. And on top of this, he's a natural hitter, a rare thing in a pitcher. Give him a try-out, for the love o' Mike!”

McGuire got up and began to pace the room. He smoked rapidly.

“All right,” he said at last. “I'll try him out in the morning, just to prove if you know what a pitcher is. Mind, I'll give him a grueling. I'll have the boys use every trick in the bag to fuss him. If he comes through, if he gets by Jenkins' bat—well, maybe I'll put him on the bench.”

“You've said something! I've got a hunch. You're paying for my hunches. And I'll eat my hat if this boy doesn't surprise you. Come on. Le's go down and hunt him up.”

McGuIRE fussed and fumed the following morning. He sat cross-legged on the grass, chewing the sugary ends of the blades. He was angry. He had sworn all his life that he would never sign up a freak, no matter how good a ball-player he might be. Boneheads he couldn't escape, but he could side-step individuals who weren't “all there.” He, McGuire, would have to learn to talk with his fingers, or forever and eternal be sticking out his hand for the tab and pencil. How could he bawl out a dummy?

Nevertheless, McGuire watched the stranger carefully. True to his orders, the boys were cutting up and running races around the spot where young Lynn was warming up with Slatterly. The boy was just lobbing them over easily. There wasn't a thing on the ball, so the catcher covertly indicated to the manager. Suddenly McGuire got up and waved his hand toward the diamond. Young Lynn walked toward the mound, and Murphy ran out to him, indicating that he wanted the pad.

He wrote: “I'm backing you. Show 'em all you've got. Soak it to 'em!”

Lynn smiled; and Murphy trotted back to the line, feeling confident. That boy had given him a real smile, nothing forced about it.

Now, the most terrible moment in a pitcher's life is the first try-out on a big-league team, a try-out before professionals, always coldly critical and resentful. No crowds about, no chance to lift the fans off the bleachers. You put it over or you don't, in cold blood. You leave the lot a ball-player of the first magnitude, or you go back to the bushes, a break in your heart that will never heal up.

“Play ball!” shouted McGuire, walking over to the bench, “You, Jenkins, see if you can tap this wonder of Murphys Knock the cover off the ball, the first pitched, and I'll donate a box of cigars.”

A BIG, rangy man came out of the clubhouse and plumped down beside Murphy.

“What's goin' on here?” he asked.

“A new pitcher, Swan.”

“Another one of your gold-bricks?” jeered Swan. “He looks lonesome.”

“He's deaf.”

“What—a dummy?”

“Oh, he aint dumb; he can talk as well as anyone; but he's stone-deaf.”

“Has Mac quit? I thought he drew the line on freaks?”

“Wait a few minutes.”

“I'm willing to wait a month. You've been a lot of help Four o' the bums you sent in have been given the chute. Bill an' me'll have to pitch every other day all summer. Fine chance for the pennant, unless Mac opens up an' buys a pitcher. Hey, Jenkins! Put it over the fence so we can get down to practice,” Swan yelled.

The outfield moved back as Jenkins, the star hitter, tapped the plate with his stick.

“Play ball!”

A slow wind-up, and almost instantly there followed a smack you could hear all over the lot. But it came from the catcher's glove.

“Strike!” called the impromptu umpire.

McGuire leaned forward. Speed, he thought. You couldn't fake that smack; nothing but speed could produce that. Another deliberate wind-up. Jenkins balanced his bat aggressively. If there was one thing he liked it was a straight, speedy ball. The first had got by because he hadn't been expecting it. Smack! Leather against leather. Jenkins had swung and missed.

“Gee!” said Slatterly.

“Slatt, I tried for that!” Jenkins laughed and stooped for some dust. Jenkins was one of the best-loved men in the baseball world. A thorough sportsman, kindly and intelligent, he had already made imperishable history on the ball-field. “He'll send me a twister this trip—if he knows his business. Let 'er come!”

But the ball was exactly like the other two, straight as a draughtman's line. Jenkins' bat hadn't swung fully over the plate when the third smack came. He stepped back, smiling.

“Hey, you!” cried McGuire. “You stay there and hit that ball! Hear me?”

Murphy poked Swan in the ribs. “Huh? Some gold-brick; huh?”

“Jenkins was stallin'.”

“Well, he wont stall now,” said Murphy.

The whole team—those infield and back of the lines—began to show interest. Young Lynn was all on his own. No signals of any kind were to be given him. He was to shoot over anything and all he had, as long as McGuire thought necessary. Jenkins returned to the slab, his eyes sparkling, his mouth grim. The ball that came toward him this time had a jump on it. He fouled it into the press-stand. He fanned the next. The third he hit; but it dribbled a few feet in front of the plate, and Lynn had it before Jenkins thought to run.

McGuire came out stormily. “You big stiff, are you laying down on me?”

“Mac, this boy can pitch. Why didn't you tell me? I thought he was one of the bushers. He has the edge on me because I don't know what he's got. I never saw three faster balls than those first ones. That's on the level. His in-shoot is a bird. I'll find him in a few minutes.”

McGuire faced the infield. “You big boobs, didn't I tell you to keep moving and cutting up didoes? This fellow can't hear, but he can see. I promised him a job if he made good, and I don't want him to make good. Get that? Now, wake up!”

THEREAFTER the bystanders saw a very unusual thing—men jumping and running and dancing—without sound! Lynn threw sixteen balls. Those that Jenkins did not foul cut the plate. The seventeenth ball, however, Jenkins sent out to left, where it was easily caught. He threw his bat toward the bags and walked to the mound. He smiled and held out his hand.

Illustration: Immediately Lynn began to talk. He told stories of baseball life, of the hardships which underlay the glory. He was the life of the party.

“Thanks!” said Lynn, his voice choky.

“You're all right, boy!” Then Jenkins blushed, remembering suddenly that the boy could not hear.

“Why didn't you kiss him?” cried McGuire furiously.

“Aw, forget it, Mac,” said Jenkins, reaching for the dipper. “I know, and I don't blame you. It'll be hard work to coach him. But that boy is a pitcher. That fly to left was donated. I couldn't put it anywhere else. A clean-looking chap. It's a tough world.”

“Give him a bat, Mac, and let me shoot him a few,” pleaded Swan.

“You'll have your chance,” growled McGuire.

He did rather a cruel thing because he was angry. He switched the players all over the lot so that each might have a swing at the dummy's ball. In all, Lynn pitched eighty-three balls, which would be grueling work for an old hand among friends. And all they got was one safe hit.

Lynn waited on the mound for further orders. McGuire went out to him.

“Get a bat and step up to the plate.” Then, remembering, he made a gesture, signifying he wanted the pad and pencil. Heavily he wrote his order.

With a smile Lynn ran over to the bats.

“Leave the dummy to me!” cried Swan as he started for the mound. “Here's where he packs his satchel for home.”

“Didn't I tell you?” said the jubilant Murphy. “Eighty-three balls, and still willing, and his shirt as dry as yours! I guess I'm a bum scout!”

“I'd like to wring your neck for getting me into this deal,” replied McGuire. “But he gets no contract until after the first exhibition game. That goes.”

“Hey, you!” yelled Swan to the field. “Lie down out there. You wont have anything to do.”

The man on second laughed, relayed the order to center; and shortly after the players were squatting or lying full-length on the grass.

“Fine sport!” said Murphy.

“I'm running this show,” retorted McGuire sourly.

“You'll be ashamed of it to-morrow.”

“I'm ashamed of it now, Murph; but I can't have a dummy on the team, if there's any way of preventing it.”

A very interesting phase of the game took place immediately. Pitcher and batter both acted in a peculiarly logical manner. Swan was a top-notcher. He was rough and bullying in his manner, a trouble-maker, but he could pitch ball. He was the last man in the world you'd suspect of being a thinking ball-player, and yet that's just what he was.

In a case like this, what would be the natural procedure? Here was a young fellow who had just thrown eighty-three balls across the plate or at it. He would be tired. He would let the first ball go by merely to get a line on what his opponent had. So Swan sent in a thunderbolt, straight as a fiddle-string. He would hang one up before this dummy busher knew what had happened. The next two balls would be like taking candy away from the children.

Illustration: He was turning away when a hand detained him. “Mr. McGuire, I understand that you are in need of a pitcher.”

On his side, Lynn had already thought out what Swan was most likely to do. When he saw the ball start, he stepped up and laid the trade-mark on it. The ball struck center-field fence before Williams in center was fully alive.

To knock a homer on these grounds you had to hoist it over the fence. But Lynn ran like a whippet and made the home plate by the prettiest slide imaginable, in a three-second margin,

As Lynn turned away from the plate, dusting himself, Murphy looked at McGuire, who grinned.

“I don't say I'll give him a contract, Murph; but that was pretty work. He outthought Swan; and yet Swan pitched a perfectly logical ball. But a deaf man, handing you a pad and pencil every time you want to talk to him!”

“You'll get over that.”

“I'll put him in Tuesday's game. If he makes good in a regular game, my word goes. I'll put him on the bench.”

“Now you're talking pennant-stuff. The boy's waiting for further orders.”

McGuire waved his hand toward the bench, and Lynn trotted over and sat down. The suit he had on was his collegiate uniform.

Lynn had accomplished three important things that morning. He had gained a friend in Jenkins, an enemy in Swan and a grudging admiration from McGuire. From then on they spoke of him as the Dummy. It was by no means contemptuous. It was handy. Ball-players talk in drops, fade-aways and inshoots; straight English, somehow, seems to lack punch.

When Lynn took his place on the bench Tuesday, McGuire approached and indicated that he wanted the pad.

“Where the devil did you get that new uniform?” McGuire wrote.

“I had it made to order before I came South,” said Lynn in his pleasantly modulated voice.

McGuire laughed. If there was one thing that got to him quicker than anything else it was nerve, the real article. He wrote on the tab again:

“All right! Win this game, and we'll talk business after supper to-night.”

And this is the way Robert Lynn, scion of a distinguished family,son of a millionaire, broke into big-league baseball.

AFTER the fourth exhibition game, McGuire, who was a thorough sportsman for all his rough ways, handed Lynn a contract. He hated to do this, but he had given his word. The young man was to receive fifteen hundred for the season. If he made good against the big fellows, McGuire informed him that he would have no cause to worry about the future. He added frankly that he was sorry to have a deaf man on the team. The whole fighting machinery would have to be readjusted; he and Lynn would have to invent a series of signals. The last thing in the world McGuire purposed to do was to run out to the mound and ask for Lynn's pad and pencil.

Late in May the whole baseball world was watching McGuire's remarkable find. The players, from Mississippi to Boston Harbor, called Lynn the Dummy. But the newspapers chose a nickname of their own—the Iron Man. They dug up the phenomenon's record, the peculiar story attached to his misfortune, and the fact that he was a rich man's son at outs with his family. They worked the human-interest stuff until there wasn't a drop in the bucket. It made good reading for a while.

To take the short-cut, this isn't a baseball story at all. The sport is only a hinge to a door. Lynn pitched great ball, but he didn't win the pennant by a wonderful play in the last half of the ninth. He just did his share; that was all. A ball-player of the first class; but his fame was based upon his good looks and romantic misfortune rather than his ability as a pitcher.

Jenkins, while kindly and likable, was rather a quiet man, flocking by himself. Naturally he gravitated toward Lynn, whom he genuinely liked. In the home town he took Lynn to his own hotel and introduced him to everybody; and Lynn decided to live there. It was a first-class hotel, old and respectable.

Illustration: “Will you come into the living-room for a moment?” the Dummy added. Much astonished, Nellie followed him out of Tommy's room.

On the day of the team's arrival home, Jenkins took Lynn's pad. “You put up here,” he wrote. “They'll treat you right. Come along, and I'll introduce you.” Jenkins kept the pad. As he introduced Lynn, he wrote down the name of the party of the second part, as they say. Lynn did a lot of handshaking. Jenkins suddenly scratched his chin, grinned and wrote two full pages on the tab.

“That girl back of the cigar-stand is Nellie Milliken,” he wrote. “She's the whitest little skirt that ever rooted for baseball or church—no nonsense, no lallygagging. She likes you or she don't, and you find it out the moment the game is called. She cottons to me because I'm married and got a couple of kids; and she and the Missus are great pals. She works because she has to. Paralytic father, and a shrimp of a brother who's always getting in Dutch. The girl hunts him up a job, and he goes and loses it regularly. She's game and loyal. All the free yaps on the team have tried to lure her out to shows and dinners, and nothing doing. Of course, she's homely, but she's the goods.”

“Homely! Why, she's the prettiest girl I ever saw.”

“Uh-huh! Come on—Nellie, this is Lynn.”

The girl smiled brightly and offered her hand; her grip was warm and firm.

“He can't hear, Nellie; and it's a rotten shame. But mind your step; he's a wiz at reading lips. That cauliflower ear—the ball hit him there. They carried him off the lot, stone-deaf. Tough!”

“I'm so sorry!”

“Here,” said Jenkins, offering the pad. “Write down here that he pitched great ball Saturday.”

Nellie scribbled: “Great work, Saturday.”

“Thanks. I'm human, and I like pats on the back,” replied Lynn, smiling.

The girl stared at him; dumfounded, then turned to Jenkins.

“Gee, I forgot! He can talk like anybody,” Jenkins explained. “Fusses you up at first. It gives you the jump sometimes when he answers you like he could hear. But he's a born pitcher, Nellie; and there's going to be series-dough for the Missus next winter.”

“It must be dreadful,” said the girl in an aside. “He's the nicest-looking ball-player I ever saw.”

That was the beginning. The girl went thoughtfully back to her work, and Lynn played a very poor game of Kelly. Thereafter, when the team was home, you were likely to find Lynn at the cigar-stand from ten-thirty to ten-forty in the morning and from five-fifty to six at night. He talked, and the girl scribbled on the pad between sales or talked so he could see her lips plainly. And always her heart swelled with pity and admiration. He was what Nellie Milliken called a hero.

ONE morning, just after Lynn had left the stand, Swan approached.

“What's going on here?” he demanded with elephantine amiability.

“What do you mean?” Nellie shot back, for she hated this man, and with reason.

“Why, this Dummy stuff. He hangs around here like he was spoonin'.”

“He can, if he wants to. It would be clean spooning.”

“Uh-huh! Sure! But you aint aimin' to marry a guy like him, are you?”

“I'd rather marry a deaf man who was a gentleman, than a man who could hear, and wasn't.”

“Meanin' me?”

“Meaning you.”

“Aw, Nellie! Don't be so hard on a fellah. I've played the game straight. I asked you to marry me.”

“And I declined, Mr. Swan. You asked me to marry you—after you found I wasn't the kind of a girl you thought I was. I have to work for my living, in the open. So I have to put up with a lot. I stand for it because the counter is between. But off duty, no. And my name is is Milliken—Miss Milliken.”

“All right, if you feel like that about it. But I'm goin' to knock that deaf guy's block off before we stack our bats.”

“You might be disagreeably surprised.”

“Is that so! What's the idea? Sure—I forgot! His old man's rotten with money. Sure—business is business! I'd hook up with a deaf-mute, if she had money enough. But this guy aint goin' to get any o' Pa's iron boys. He's been dumped because he's a four-flusher.”

And he turned away before Nellie could think up a retort sufficiently hot to wither the brute. When her rage subsided, an idea came into her shapely head; and she applied this idea the following morning. She wrote on Lynn's tab: “Come up and have supper with us to-night.”

“Do you mean that?”

She nodded.

“What time?”

“Seven,” she wrote. “Don't come before, because I'm the cook.”

“I'll be there! It's mighty fine of you. I'd like to step inside a real home. Seven o'clock! My, but it's going to be a long day for Bobby Lynn!”

Fate uses strange instruments. Without Swan's insolence to fire her, I doubt if Nellie would have had the courage to invite the Dummy up to supper. It would be a very hard evening to put over—her paralytic father on one side of her and a deaf man on the other!

Lynn wanted this girl to like him. It wasn't her beauty; it was the way she accepted life. He had picked up a few facts from Jenkins. Old man Milliken had about four hundred a year on some insurance. That paid the rent. Nellie's fifteen and her brother Tommy's twelve fed and clothed them.

PROMPTLY at seven Lynn rang the bell of the Milliken flat, and Nellie herself opened the door, her face flushed from her exertions in the kitchen. She took his hat and hung it on the rack and led him in to her father, who sat in a wheel-chair, dead from his thighs down.

“This is Mr. Lynn, Father. He's deaf; so don't try to talk. Just smile and nod. That's it. He seemed so all alone that I couldn't resist asking him up. Besides, Bill Jenkins thinks he's the nicest young man he ever met.”

“That's enough for me, Nellie,” said her father, holding out a white, shaky hand. The warmth of the hand which closed over his sent a kind of glow over him. “Everybody has some kind of a cross; and you're always the angel of mercy. Tommy come in yet?”

“I think that must be Tommy now,—Tommy?”

“All right, Sis. M-m! Supper ready? Lead me to it.”

The boy came in with a rush, but paused abruptly.

“The Dummy!” he gasped.

“I asked him in to supper. Be careful how you talk. He reads the lips.”

“Well, you're a queer bird!” Tommy stepped forward and awkwardly offered his hand. He was pulled two ways: admiration for a great pitcher and tolerant contempt for the affliction. “How'll I talk to him?”

“You don't have to talk,” said Nellie, wondering if Lynn had caught anything of this dialogue.

“Gee! But this flat is an asylum. Broken-down cats and dogs, and now deaf ball-players. Well, that let's me out. But this guy can pitch ball. That game to-day was a sizzler.”

“Did you leave the office?”

“I was uptown on an errand and saw the last half.”

“Tommy!”

“Can the reproach stuff. Let's get to the eats. I've got a date.”

“I don't know what we'll do if you lost that job. It's the best chance you ever had of making something of yourself.”

“Sure! And I'm not going to lose it.” Tommy marched into the dining-room.

Lynn stepped behind the father's chair. “Shall I wheel Mr. Milliken in?”

She nodded and pointed to the left of the table. Lynn pushed the chair to the place designated, while Nellie ran out to the kitchen, to return with a huge tray.

“Let me handle that carving-knife,” urged Lynn. “I'm ace-high at carving.”

“Say, Sis, you wouldn't think he was deaf, to hear him talk.” Tommy sent a puzzled glance at Lynn, who had stepped around to the head of the table.

“It is already carved,” said Nellie—then blushed. She was always forgetting when he talked.

“Beat me to it,” laughed Lynn as he saw the cover removed. He pulled back Nellie's chair for her; and it struck the girl that it was the first time in months anyone had shown her an attention like that.

Immediately Lynn began to talk. He recounted all the droll things that had happened at the game that day. He told stories of baseball life, of the hardships which underlay the glory. In fact, he was the life of the party. By the time supper was over there wasn't a wisp of embarrassment anywhere.

The girl clearly understood the high quality of this tact. She had been a little worried after she had asked him; but she was glad in her heart now. The poor young man! How bravely he faced it!

“Well, I'm off,” said Tommy. He offered his hand to Lynn, and rushed for the hall.

But Nellie started after. “Remember your promise!”

“Sure! Anybody, to hear you talk, would think I was a lush. Sometimes I get tired.”

“It's only because I love you, Tommy.”

“Aw, Sis—you're the best ever. I'm a measly pup. I wont touch even a beer to-night. Honest!”

“Where shall I roll the chair?” asked Lynn when Nellie returned to the dining-room.

She crooked a finger, and he pushed the chair in her wake to the living-room table. Nellie turned up the reading-lamp and laid the evening papers on her father's knees. Once more she beckoned to Lynn. The most difficult part of the evening was before her. She reached out her hand, palm upward, and Lynn gave her the pad and pencil. Truth is, he wanted to kiss that brave, reliant little hand. The father helpless, the brother at that age when a strong hand was needed, and never a whimper out of her.

“You're just splendid!” he said.

“So are you,” she wrote. “It's wonderful the way you overcome it. No one would dream you couldn't hear, when you talk.”

“Would you mind if I told you a little about myself? The reporters have garbled the story a lot, but the main facts are true. I didn't fit into my father's schemes. I hated the mills, with their grinding racket. I hated the idea of starting under three brothers. The kid brother is always the kid. To work up through that unconscious prejudice would have been impossible. My father couldn't see it. And he's the squarest old sport in the world. People have got the idea that he cut me off, disowned me, because I wanted to play baseball. We just had a difference of opinion, and I walked out of the house. I had an idea that I knew best what Bobby Lynn was capable of doing. If Mother had been alive, she would have backed me up.”

“Bobby!” she mused. His mother had called him that.

“When I told Dad that I wanted to play professional ball, he let out a roar. He contended that so long as a man played games of sport for fun, it was healthy, but to make a business of it was not. The amateur sportsman can go anywhere into any life; but the professional suddenly finds himself something of a pariah And the life is short. I didn't think it good advice then, but I can get his angle now.”

“And you regret it?” went the pencil.

“No. We Lynns stick; we're bull-headed. When we make a serious mistake, we rectify it. But I still refuse to consider that I've made a mistake. I purpose to play ball until my arm gives out.”

“And then?”

He laughed. “I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I wonder,” he said, looking at his watch. “I'm a movie-fan. I saw a good theater a couple of blocks down. We can get back by nine or so. Or don't you leave your father in the evening?”

“I'll be glad to go,” she scribbled. “He reads until ten.”

She hurried away for her hat.

Lynn inspected the room. Simple and in good taste, like the girl herself. He frowned suddenly and stared at a pattern in the carpet without seeing it. He brushed his forehead vigorously and stood up. Odd, but it had never come to him until this moment that he was an infernal scoundrel.

IT was the tail-end of the season—the last series on the home lot. McGuire had only one thing left to do, and that was to take the big end of the world series money. The Dummy and Swan had cleaned up all the heavy hitters in the league. As a pitcher, Swan was quite as good as Lynn. As a man, however that was another matter. Swan had a low, mean streak to him, and he hated Lynn. With a pleasant, smiling countenance he often spoke vilely to his rival. This made the thoughtless weep with laughter—until Jenkins, the most capable of the team, had put a stop to it by the threat of his fists.

“Lay off that, Swan; this boy is my friend.”

“Thanks, Bill,” said Lynn later. “I got that. The last time I was home, I noted Tommy going around with Swan a lot.”

“The big stiff!” wrote Jenkins. “Can't get to the girl, and so he's trying to put the skids under the brother, who'd be all right if he had a man's hand.”

“Jenkins, just as soon as the season closes, I'm going to knock that lout's head off.”

Jenkins scribbled: “Forget it. Swan is a tough one. While he's a low dog in some respects, there's nothing yellow in him as a fighting man. He'd like nothing better than to beat you up and then tell Nellie about it.”

“Bill, there's nothing yellow in me either. He can't any more than lick me. I've got to do it, Bill.”

Jenkins pulled Lynn about-face. Lynn met his glance unflinchingly. Jenkins frowned. Lynn understood that frown. It meant that to Jenkins, Lynn was a fine chap and all that, but Nellie Milliken had two crosses already.

The night after the last home game—the end of the season—Lynn succeeded in getting Nellie to go to a movie with him and have a bite to eat in a fashionable restaurant before they went home. It was still summery weather; and Nellie, in her pretty, inexpensive gown, looked as fresh and dainty as a rose. Lynn could not have told you what the movie was about. His actions throughout the evening puzzled her mightily. She vaguely sensed that he was tremendously excited about something. Arriving at the door, he did not loiter as usual. He caught both her hands, pressed them violently and dashed off.

The truth is, Lynn was afraid. He wanted to smother her with kisses; and his only safety lay in the nimbleness of his heels. Nellie Milliken, Nellie Milliken! Well, to-morrow things would be different. And yet he carried back to the hotel as much terror as love—terror, because she was the honestest little woman in the world. Transports that carried him to the skies and then to the bottomless pit. Win or lose, he would tell her the whole story to-morrow.

HE reached the hotel at eleven; and feeling more than ordinarily awake, he strolled into the pool-room, hoping he would find Jenkins there. Instead, he found Brother Tommy playing Kelly with Swan. Two empty champagne-bottles stool on the stand. The boy was in a bad way, and Swan was fairly sober. As the latter looked up and saw Lynn, he scowled. Lynn walked over to the boy; he was only eighteen.

“Come home with me, Tommy.”

The boy wrenched himself loose and appealed to Swan.

With a grim laugh, Swan caught his rival by the shoulders and turned him. Then he pointed to the door.

“You git out o' here! This is my party. I'll take Tommy home when he wants to go.” Swan spoke so Lynn could read his lips.

Lynn, without replying, took off his coat and dropped it onto the table, and rolled up his sleeves. Swan observed these movements with wonder. A fight? Something he'd been hunting for since June!

“Well, well!” he cried, rolling up his sleeves and patting his brawny arms.

“Swan, you're a low skunk. You're trying to hurt Nellie through this half-grown boy. You've heaped insults on me all summer. I stood it because I wanted the team to pull through. Now I'm going to ram every word down your pig's throat!”

Swan laughed. This moment was worth a thousand dollars to him. They would have to carry this dude to his room when Johnny Swan got through with him.

There were no other players in the room. The attendant stepped behind one of the tables. He was a fight-fan, and he wanted to see this scrap. Two of the best pitchers in the world were going to pommel each other because Tommy was Nellie Milliken's brother.

The basic principle of all success is this: never wait; go out for it. Swan's tactics were based upon this principle. With his weight and his boxing-skill he generally smothered his opponent before that unfortunate could get set. He would punish this Dummy so badly that Nellie Milliken wouldn't ever think him handsome again.

But Lynn had ideas too; and he possessed a subtle advantage over Swan: the latter had never seen him in action off the field. He ran straight into Swan's sledge-hammers. Swan, having started his motion, could not stop it; and the sight of this slender young man rushing to meet him confused him, broke up his offensive, made him dodder for a brief moment as to which hand to lead with The result was that Lynn's blow landed and Swan's beat the air. It wasn't a chance blow; Lynn had his eye on the mark, and had driven through.

Swan described a half-circle and went sprawling among the chairs. He did not get up at once. He wasn't knocked out, but he was seeing a thundering lot of stars. When he did get up, he blindly resumed his rushing tactics, which was just what Lynn wanted. Four times Lynn sent his opponent to the floor. The fourth time Swan rolled over on his face and lay still.

Lynn spoke to the attendant. “Tell him, when he comes around, there's a lot more in the bag. And if he thinks what has happened was an accident, he'll find me in this room to-morrow morning. Now I'm going to see this boy home. If you ever let him have a drink in here again, I'll wring your neck.”

NELLIE always slept lightly when Tommy was out. Consequently the click of the door lock and the scuffle of feet in the hallway awoke her. She swung out of bed, put on her cotton kimono and slippers and stepped out into the hallway. The sagged figure in Lynn's arms was sufficient.

“Oh, Tommy, Tommy!”

“Where's the bathroom and Tommy's bedroom?” asked Lynn. “Just point them out, and then run back to bed. I know just what to do. Run along, Nellie. This is old stuff to me. At college I was always putting some one to bed. The boy wasn't to blame to-night, Nellie. It was Swan. There, that's a good girl. Leave it all to me.”

A quarter of an hour later the boy was in bed, with an ice-pack on his head. Lynn stood back, to find Nellie at his elbow, unmindful of her loveliness. Suddenly she dropped beside the bed.

“Oh, Tommy, how could you shame me before this man?”

“Aw, Sis! I didn't mean to. Swan made a bet—”

“That you couldn't drink a quart of something in ten minutes. No thought of me! What am I going to do? Father helpless. You break all your promises and hobnob with a brute who has insulted your sister. And on top of all this, something has come into my heart that is breaking it, breaking it! Because it can't be! Not a staff anywhere to lean on! You're always saying you love me, and yet you can shame me and hurt me like this!”

Tommy began to weep.

“Better let him get to sleep, Nellie,” said Lynn.

She got up and indicated she wanted the pad. She wrote: “Tommy lost his situation to-day. It's very hard. I'm sorry you saw this. What happened?”

“Never mind that,” he answered, stuffing the pad into a pocket. “I've got a new job for the boy in a strange town, where there wont be any such influences. Will you come into the living-room for a moment?” the Dummy added.

MUCH astonished, Nellie followed him out of Tommy's room. As she was about to pass the hall-rack, she saw her reflection in the mirror, and it was then that she recollected that she was practically in her nightie. She took down Tommy's light coat and put it on, collar up and buttoned. She turned on the center-table light and sat down, a forlorn little figure in all her beauty.

First, Lynn took out of his pocket a document and spread it out. “Know what this is?” She shook her head. “Well, it's a transfer of stock. One thousand shares at two-hundred and fifty the share. At eight per cent a year, it's a tidy sum for a ball-player. It's my inheritance, Nellie..... Swan is a low rat, and so am I. But I didn't know I was a sneak until I met you. That first day I saw you and you said you were sorry—I must have fallen in love with you then. I love you with all I am, Nellie. Will you marry me?”

For a full minute the girl, wide-eyed, stared at the handsome, eager face leaning across the table. Slowly she gave a negative sign. Then she flung her arms upon the table, buried her face in them and began to sob wildly.

“Lord, what a lunkhead I am!” He ran around and knelt beside her, taking her hands in his. “When I started out to play this game, it seemed fair and square enough to me. I was fighting for a big stake, bigger than anybody dreamed of—a fortune and the right to live my life the way I wanted to. Dad—the squarest, whitest father a boy ever had!—made a proposition to me. He gave me a year. If I made a major-league reputation in that time,—got a full-fledged job on a big-league team,—he would give me outright what would be equivalent to my inheritance. If I failed, I took the job he had picked for me. I agreed.

“Then those boys found the hole in the wall. I can't even explain to-day, but that yodeling got me. I blew up. The whole college world heard of it. Understand, this was after I'd made the compact with Dad. When they yodeled, I blew up. My heart nearly broke. I saw myself in the mills, which I hated. No real ball-team would take a man who blew up when some one yodeled. Then that Princeton pitcher beaned me. Broke my left ear all to smash. For three or four days I was stone-deaf, Nellie. Then my right ear came around; and except you're on the wrong side of me, I can hear as well as anybody. And then the idea came to me: It didn't matter how I got into the big league, so long as I got there. Nobody would yodel at a man who couldn't hear it. Outside of that kink in my cosmos, I was a good pitcher, good as the average. So I played up to the world that I was deaf, to everyone except Dad. He knew. And I was lucky. McGuire needed a pitcher. His stock-holders wouldn't give him money to buy one, and he didn't dare exchange players. That's why I went to him. Murphy knew what I could do, and he backed me. It seemed all fair and square until I met you. I had to play the sneak to the girl I loved! Lord, but it hurt! Yet I didn't dare tell you, until I'd won or lost. Tommy'll go into the office where Dad and my brothers can watch him. He will have my job there. Oh, Nellie, will you forgive me?”

“Bobby, Bobby!” was all she said.

But the way she said it was enough for any man with one good ear.