A Son of the City Part 45

"But who'll vote for him? There's Red and Skinny and you and me and Perry and the Harrison kids, all don't like him. If it wasn't for that baseball and bat, and those gloves of his, he couldn't a' played with us last year."

Silvey shrugged his shoulders. "He's going around school, saying that he's going to be captain of the 'Tigers' this year."

"You're president of the club, aren't you?" said John, thoughtfully.

His chum nodded.

"I'll go around and see all the fellows. Any of 'em who won't vote for me, you tell 'em they'll be dropped from the club. We'll have a meeting when everything's fixed, and Mr. Sid DuPree won't think himself so smart."

Never was precinct canva.s.sed more thoroughly by a munic.i.p.al candidate than was the members.h.i.+p of the "Tigers" by the two boys during the week which followed. John dropped the usual walk home with Louise, one day, that he might talk to Skinny Mosher, and hung around the school yard another noon, that he might rea.s.sure himself of Brown's loyalty. With a clear majority of six a.s.sured over Sid's lone vote, code notices were sent back and forth between the different members until Miss Brown threatened to send the responsible parties to the princ.i.p.al's office.

With victory certain, John raced across the school yard and caught up with a certain maiden whom he had neglected sorely of late.

"We're going to have a ball team election tomorrow," he explained, as he took possession of her school books. "I've been awfully busy."

"I know," she replied absently. "Sid told me. Says he's going to be captain."

"Guess not!" John was too pleased with the surprise prepared for his rival to realize the revelation in her words. "Smarty DuPree hasn't much show when six of the fellows are going to vote for me."

Conversation lagged. Miss Martin was nervously alert lest she encounter a friendly greeting from Sid while her escort was with her, and John became absorbed in the affairs of the morrow. Strangely enough, he experienced a feeling of relief when he left her at the apartment building and was able to race back to the shack where Silvey was waiting.

There the two planned and boasted of combats to take place under his leaders.h.i.+p on the renovated baseball field, until a warning conscience reminded John that it was nearing paper time.

CHAPTER XVI

MORE ABOUT "THE GREATEST GAME IN THE WORLD"

One by one, the boys filed in through the Silvey gateway, to squat outside the club-house entrance until their roster was complete. Bill glanced nervously at Sid and cleared his throat.

"It's baseball time," he began abruptly. "And we've got to elect our captain and manager. Any--" he paused and looked at John.

"Nom'nations?" said the latter promptly.

There was an awkward silence. Sid tightened his grasp on a handful of the fresh, green turf. John looked meaningly at Red Brown, who spoke up as he had been instructed.

"I nom'nate John Fletcher. He was captain last year 'n he ought to be this."

"Any one else?" asked Silvey.

"I want to be captain," said Sid, curtly.

"Can't nom'nate yourself," ruled the president. "Somebody's got to do it for you."

"Somebody's got to second it, too," supplemented John.

Sid gazed helplessly about. Truly this newly made maze of parliamentary law was bewildering. "n.o.body's seconded John's," he said at last.

"Second John's nom'nation," said Skinny Mosher promptly.

"All those in favor of John as captain--"

Sid sprang to his feet. "Wait a minute," he snapped. "You fellows think you're smart, but let me tell you something. I said I was going to be captain, and I am."

"You!" sneered John. "Why, you lost the game with Room Six's team 'cause you couldn't stop an easy grounder. Let it roll between your legs, you did."

"Don't care," was the stubborn reply. "I'm going to be captain. Whose league ball did the team use last year?"

"Yours," admitted Silvey, reluctantly.

"And the two bats, the second baseman's glove, and two fielders' mitts were mine, too, weren't they? Didn't my dad buy 'em for me? Well, go ahead and have Johnny for your old captain if you want. But if I can't run the team, the team can't use my things!"

There was an astounded silence. Those astute politicians, John and Bill, had never dreamed of such a barefaced threat. They sat looking blankly at him, while Red Brown laughed disagreeably.

"And you're the kid who went home crying 'cause you were hit on the s.h.i.+n with a baseball. Fine captain, you'll make."

"Captain and the gloves, or you play without 'em," came the arrogant ultimatum. "Which do you want?"

He could see by the thoughtful faces around him that his words were not without effect. Last year, the team had owned a reputation for being blessed with proper equipment, and to go back to the cheap, undersized b.a.l.l.s, and scantily padded private mitts would be no small privation.

John sighed wearily.

"Guess you can be captain if you want to," he said, finally.

A reluctantly a.s.senting chorus sanctioned his consent. Bill broached the subject of the baseball park improvements, and Sid shook his head emphatically. The idea was his rival's and therefore to be fought.

"The park diamonds are lots better," he argued. "Take us all year to fix the lot up."

"But it'd be our own," Red broke in enthusiastically. "Think of playing the 'Jeffersons' on the 'Tigers' Home Grounds.' 'Tain't every team could say that, could it?" Which was the truth, for the vacant lots of the neighborhood were being rapidly supplanted by flat buildings and room for boyish playgrounds was becoming more and more scarce.

Sid considered the matter a moment. Certainly it would add to the team's, and his, prestige.

"Well, maybe," he said, with seeming reluctance that his change of front might not seem too obvious. "Let's go over and see what the place is like."

"First across the tracks," shouted Red, as he sprang to his feet. In a moment, the whole tribe was up and after him, climbing the wire railroad fence with a vigor which threatened destruction to the meshes. They scampered across the expanse of cinders and rails, broken here and there by a struggling bit of plant life, and scrambled out on the untidy field.

The broken gla.s.s and old milk-bottle tops from the dairy had crept further out from the low, tar-paper building during the winter. Boards from the boxes and barrels which had formed the fortress for the cuc.u.mber fight were scattered to the four corners of the field, and the spa.r.s.e, fresh gra.s.s blades sprang up to sunlight and life through the dead, gray-brown vegetation of the preceding autumn. Neither trace of baseball diamond nor football gridiron could be found. Yet the "Tigers"

purposed to make the place the talk of the juvenile population and they turned to their captain for advice.

"Oh, fix 'er up someway," said that gentleman vaguely. John glared at him in futile anger.

"Get the rubbish out of the way, first," he broke out.

Sid shrugged his shoulders. "John'll tell you what to do. I'm captain, but so long as the park's fixed up, I don't care who does it."

"Get your rake, Bill, and you, too, Skinny. I'll go after ours. Rest of you kids pick up the tin cans and wood and things while we're gone. Come on, fellows. Beat you over the tracks."