CHAPTER IV
THE TELEGRAM
A flood of light and warmth assailed Joe as he hung up his hat and coatin the hall and burst into the living room.
"Hello, Momsey!" he cried buoyantly as he crossed the room and kissedhis mother. "Hello, Sis!" as he turned to greet in a similar fashion hissister Clara. "How are you, Dad?" and he smiled affectionately at hisfather, who was sitting by the fire pretending to read his paper, but inreality swelling with pride in this stalwart son who was the apple ofhis eye.
"Oh, Joe!" exclaimed his mother, happy tears welling up in her eyes asshe looked upon him fondly. "I'm so proud of you that I don't know whatto do or say."
"Why, what have I been doing now?" asked Joe in pretended ignorance ofwhat she meant.
"Isn't the dear boy innocent?" laughed Clara, a pretty, winsome girl, asshe slipped her arm about her brother. "Of course, he doesn't know whatwe mean. He hasn't set the whole town talking. He didn't save a babyfrom a madman. He never knew that there was anything unusual going on intown this afternoon at all," she mocked.
"Oh," said Joe, "you mean the matter of the Bilkins baby."
"Yes," mimicked Clara, "we mean the matter of the Bilkins baby."
They all laughed and Joe confessed. They plied him with all sorts ofquestions and though he sought to minimize what he had done, theysucceeded in getting a very fair idea of the almost tragic scene thathad been enacted.
"You're awfully stingy with your information," said Clara, tossing herhead. "Half a dozen of the neighbors have been in and told us all aboutwhat your high mightiness did. To hear them talk, I've got a brotherwith the brain of a Socrates and the arm of a Hercules. I'll almost beafraid to speak to you after this without knocking my head against thefloor first."
"Oh, cut it out, Sis," laughed Joe, a little sheepishly. "You'remaking an awful lot out of a very little. I just had the luck to beJohnny-on-the-spot, and I knew how to throw a snowball so that it woulddo the most good."
"It was a splendid bit of work, Joe," said Mr. Matson quietly, and Joefelt his heart warm; for praise from this grave, thoughtful father ofhis was very dear to him.
"I hope the man wasn't very badly hurt," said Mrs. Matson, her feelingof pity for the "under dog" asserting itself, now that her maternalpride had been satisfied.
"I don't think he is," remarked Joe. "Doctor Allison examined him andsaid that there were no bones broken. He'll come around all right,although his head is liable to ache for some time."
"Does anybody know who he is?" inquired Mr. Matson.
"He seems to be a stranger in town," answered Joe. "I heard some one saythat he had been staying at the Park Hotel. I never saw him in my lifebefore."
"What on earth did he want to take the Bilkins baby for?" asked Clara."Did he have any grudge against the Bilkinses?"
"No, Bilkins told me that he was an entire stranger to him and his wife.He looked at him when they brought him back to town unconscious, and shehad caught a glimpse of him when he snatched the baby from the cradle.Neither knew him at all. It must have been just some crazy whim thatcame into his twisted brain."
"Poor little lamb," murmured Mrs. Matson, softly. "It must have beenfrightened to death."
"Not a bit of it," maintained Joe. "It didn't make a whimper all thetime he was holding it. But the minute I grabbed it, it began to yelllike mad. Seemed to think that I was butting in on its fun. There'sgratitude for you," he ended with a chuckle.
"I suppose you held the poor little thing upside down or something likethat," said Clara, indignantly. "You men are so clumsy when it comes tohandling a baby."
While they had been talking, Mrs. Matson had brought in the supper, andat sight of it Joe forgot the laughing retort he was about to hurl athis sister.
"Yum-yum!" he sniffed, as he seated himself at the steaming, savoryrepast. "I give you fair warning, Momsey, that I'm going to make a wreckof this table."
"Go as far as you like," beamed his mother. "The best in the house isn'tany too good for my boy tonight."
Joe "waded in" to make good his threat, and for a time the conversationwas rather fragmentary, as he devoted himself to the delights affordedby a good meal and a healthy appetite.
"Now bring on your crazy men," he laughed, as he sat back after dessert."If I could knock out one of them before supper I'm good for half adozen now."
Mr. Matson smiled as he lighted his pipe, and Mrs. Matson brought outher mending, while Clara busied herself in clearing the table.
"How about my being a minister now, Momsey?" asked Joe with amischievous twinkle in his eye. "Do you suppose a minister would havebeen as useful at the lumber yard this afternoon as a professional ballplayer?"
His mother bit off a thread before replying. It had always been a sorepoint with her that Joe had abandoned the plan of studying for theministry. She had become somewhat reconciled to the idea by the successthat Joe had won and the fact, as shown in his own life, that he couldbe a ball player and at the same time an upright, moral man. And she hadto confess that the large salary that Joe earned by his skill had helpedhis father out on critical occasions and kept the little householdtogether.
"Well," she admitted, half reluctantly, "I suppose you did do more goodthis afternoon because you were so good at throwing the ball. And yetyou might be a minister and still be a good enough ball player to havedone what you did today."
"I hardly think so," laughed Joe. "But that's right, Momsey, stick toyour guns. But what's this?" he asked, as he saw a telegram on themantel piece.
"Oh, yes, I meant to tell you," Mrs. Matson hastened to say. "That camefor you this afternoon just before dark. I was so flustered by all thathad happened it went clear out of my head. Open it and let's see whatit is. I hope there's no bad news in it."
Joe tore open the flimsy yellow envelope and his eye ran rapidly overits contents.
"Why, it's from Reggie!" he cried, "and it's dated from Goldsboro, NorthCarolina."
"From Reggie!" cried Clara with a glint of mischief in her eye. "Are yousure that it isn't from Mabel?"
Joe withered her with a look.
"No, it isn't from Mabel," he answered, vexed at himself because of thered flush he could feel creeping up his face. "It's from Reggie."
"All right," laughed Clara. "But what are you getting so red about, Joe?What does Reggie have to say?"
"It seems rather queer," said Joe, slowly. "This is the way it reads:'_Am coming on. See if you can find Talham Tabbs. Have him held._' Nowwhat do you make of that?"
"Who is Talham Tabbs?" asked Clara, coming closer and looking over hisshoulder.
"That's the funny part of it," replied her brother. "Talham Tabbs is thename of the man I knocked stiff on the lumber pile this afternoon."
An exclamation of surprise came from each member of the family group.Even Mr. Matson was stirred out of his usual reserve by the singularcoincidence.
"How do you know that?" asked his father.
"Sam Berry said that that was the name the man registered under at thehotel," was the answer.
"But what possible connection can there be between Reggie Varley andthis crazy man?" mused Clara.
"That's what I'd like to know," replied her brother. "That's theaggravating thing about a telegram. It tells just enough to get youworked up and then you stew in your own juice while you're waiting tofind out the rest."
"It looks as though this Tabbs had committed some crime," suggested Mr.Matson. "Else why should Reggie ask to have him held?"
"That doesn't prove very much," laughed Joe. "Reggie sometimes takesqueer notions. There was a time once when he had half a mind to have_me_ held."
The family all laughed as they recalled the episode alluded to, but atthe time it had proved no laughing matter.
It had occurred at the time that Joe had been on his way to the trainingcamp at Montville in the year that our hero had joined the CentralLeague. He had been sitting next to the valise owned by a dudish youngman dressed in the height of fashion and pos
sessed of what he fondlythought was a pronounced English accent. The young man had left thevalise while he went to send a telegram and when he returned he foundthe valise opened and some valuable jewelry missing.
In a very offensive way he had practically accused Joe of stealing theproperty, and it was only the self-control of the latter that preventeda serious row between the two. The matter had been patched up, and sometime later the jewelry had been recovered through a little bit of smartdetective work on Joe's part.
Montville, the training grounds of the team, was located not far fromwhere Reggie Varley, the foppish young man in question, lived. One dayJoe had been fortunate enough to stop a runaway horse and save itsdriver, a beautiful girl, from danger and probable death. She turnedout to be Mabel Varley, Reggie's sister. Joe decided very promptly thathowever he felt toward the brother, he ought to feel very differentlytoward the sister, a resolution that was helped very much by a pair ofcharming brown eyes, a wonderful complexion and sundry other advantagesno less pleasing. Miss Mabel, on her part, knew a handsome, athleticyoung man when she saw one, and the romantic circumstances of theirmeeting helped to increase the impression he had made on her. Sincethen, they had met frequently and--Oh, well, it is sufficient to saythat Joe, healthy as he looked, was threatened with palpitation of theheart whenever he heard Mabel's name, and it had become one of Clara'sfavorite amusements to start the color rioting over her brother's neckand face whenever the demon of mischief gave her the opportunity.
Reggie himself had turned out to be not such a bad fellow, despite hislittle foolish peculiarities. He had apologized handsomely to Joe andthe two were now warm friends.
"Have him held," chuckled Joe, as he reread the telegram. "Well, that'san easy job. The jail authorities have him now and I won't have to holdhim."
Baseball Joe on the Giants; or, Making Good as a Ball Twirler in the Metropolis Page 4
