Why didn"t you?"
"Martin, you"re all wind," growled another keenly disappointed North. "You talked a lot about what you"d do with the nine---and what have you done? Left us the b.o.o.bies of the league. We"re the winners of the leather medal."
"Why didn"t you play yourself, then?" snarled Hi.
"I wish I had. But we Norths were fooled by the talk you gave us about how baseball really ought to be played and managed.
You"re the school"s mascot, you are, Hi Martin. Not!"
In the meantime d.i.c.k Prescott was being surrounded by anxious Central Grammar boys.
"d.i.c.k," said one of them, while others listened eagerly, "you beat the Norths. But you didn"t give them any such drubbing as the Souths did to-day. Are they a better nine than ours?"
"No," Prescott answered promptly.
"Yet they whipped the Norths worse than we did. Can we down the Souths?"
"Yes," nodded Prescott.
"Why can we?"
"For the simplest reason in the world, Tolman. We"ve got to.
Isn"t that a fine reason?"
"It sounds fine," remarked another boy doubtfully. "But can you whip another crowd just because you want to?"
"If you want to badly enough," d.i.c.k smiled.
"Hm! I"ll be surer about that when I see it done."
"It"ll happen next Friday afternoon, if rain doesn"t call the game," Prescott promised.
"What do you say to that, Darrin?" demanded another Central boy.
"Just what d.i.c.k said."
"What"s your word, Tom!"
"You heard what our captain said," Reade laughed. "I always follow orders. If d.i.c.k Prescott tells me to pile up seven runs against the Souths I"m going to do it."
"I hope you do," murmured another boy. "Yet it seems against us---after the way we saw the Souths play to-day."
"Or rather," added d.i.c.k quietly, "the way the North Grammars didn"t play. They"d have put up a lot better game if their captain hadn"t lost his nerve and his head."
As the Central Grammar boys left, most of them in one crowd, there was a rather general feeling that d.i.c.k was just a bit too confident.
Or, was he simply "putting it on," in order to bolster up the courage of his players?
d.i.c.k Prescott, at least, was qualified to know what he really expected. He really was confident of victory in the game that should decide the league championship.
"If you feel that you can"t be beaten, and won"t be beaten, but that you"ve got to win and are going to win, then that"s more than half the points of a game won in advance," he told his chums.
"Fellows, in baseball or anything else, we won"t say die, either now or at any later time in life. We"ll make it our rule to ride right over anything that gets in our way. That way we can"t know defeat."
"Unless, finally, we ride to our deaths," laughed Tom.
"What of it?" challenged d.i.c.k. "That wouldn"t be defeat. The man who rides to death in the search for victory has won. He has carried the winning spirit with him to the very finish. Or else the history we"ve been studying at school is all a mess of lies."
"There"s a lot in that idea," nodded Dave thoughtfully.
"There"s more in it every time that you think of it," d.i.c.k contended.
Thus d.i.c.k was starting, in d.i.c.k & Co., the never-give-up spirit which made them almost invincible later as High School boys.
Wednesday and Thursday were days filled with eagerness for the Central Grammar boys. The members of the baseball squad were not by any means the only ones on tenterhooks. Every boy in the upper grades of the school was waiting impatiently to learn who would be the winners of the championship.
Somewhat to the astonishment of the Central Grammar boys Captain d.i.c.k, on Wednesday afternoon, gave his team only a brief half hour of diamond practice. Thursday afternoon they didn"t play at all. Instead, the nine and its subs. went off on a tramp through the woods.
"What we want to-morrow above all," d.i.c.k explained, as he marshaled his forces, "is steady nerves. There"s nothing like a good walk in the cool and shady spots for tuning up a schoolboy"s nerves for an ordeal. A walk is good whether you"re facing an exam.
or a championship game."
"May the rest of us go with you!" called one of the Central boys outside the squad.
"We can"t stop you," d.i.c.k replied, "but we"d rather you let the ball squad go by itself."
"All right, then," cried three or four. The fourteen of the squad marched away, unhampered by any followers.
Once outside the town and halted under a grove of trees, d.i.c.k turned to his teammates.
"Fellows," he said quietly, "I believe some of you have been anxious to know what the man on the clubhouse steps said."
"It"s coming, at last!" gasped Tom Reade. "Well, let us hear what the man on the clubhouse steps said. It must be one of the choice pieces of wisdom of all the ages."
"It is," d.i.c.k replied quietly.
"Then let us hear shouted Dave.
"Not now," Prescott answered, shaking his head solemnly. "But, fellows, you win to-morrow"s game and you shall all hear just what the man on the clubhouse steps said."
"Win?" retorted Tom Reade. "d.i.c.k Prescott, with a bribe like that before us, we"re bound to win! We couldn"t do anything else."
Then they went further into the woods. d.i.c.k had brought his players here in search of peace, quiet and nerve rest. Had he had even one prophetic glimpse of what was ahead of some of them that afternoon it would have been far better to have remained in town.
Chapter XIII
"BIG INJUN---HEAP BIG NOISE"
"Say, we don"t want to just go on walking. There"s no fun in that," objected Spoff Henderson.