“And I admire gall. But there is a limit. That limit you have passed so far that you’d need to look for it with a telescope.”
“You refuse your consent.”
“I never said you weren’t a clever guesser.”
“Why?”
Mr. Rackstraw laughed One of those nasty, sharp, metallic laughs that hit you like a bullet.
How would you support my daughter?”
“I was thinking that you would help to some extent.”
“You were, were you?”
“I was.”
“Oh?”
Mr. Rackstraw emitted another of those laughs.
“Well,” he said, “it’s off. You can take that as coming from an authoritative source. No wedding-bells for you.”
Clarence drew himself up, fire flashing from his eyes and a bitter smile curving his expressive lips.
“And no Wagner bat for you!” he cried.
Mr. Rackstraw started as if some strong hand had plunged an auger into him.
“What!” he shouted.
Clarence shrugged his superbly modeled shoulders in silence.
“Say,” said Mr. Rackstraw, “you wouldn’t let a little private difference like that influence you any in a really important thing like this ball game, would you?”
“I would.”
“You would hold up the father of the girl you love?”
“Every time.”
“Her white-haired old father?”
“The color of his hair would not affect me.”
“Nothing would move you?”
“Nothing.”
“Then, by George, you’re just the son-in-law I want. You shall marry Isabel; and I’ll take you into partnership this very day. I’ve been looking for a good, husky bandit like you for years. You make Dick Turpin look like a preliminary three-round bout. My boy, we’ll be the greatest team, you and I, that ever hit Wall Street.”
“Papa!” cried Isabel, bounding happily from behind her tree.
Mr. Rackstraw joined their hands, deeply moved, and spoke in low vibrant tones:
“Play ball!”
Little remains to be said, but I am going to say it, if it snows. I am at my best in these tender scenes of idyllic domesticity.
Four years have passed. Once more we are in the Rackstraw home. A lady is coming down the stairs, leading by the hand her little son. It is Isabel. The years have dealt lightly with her. She is still the same stately, beautiful creature whom I would have described in detail long ago if I had been given half a chance At the foot of the stairs the child stops and points at a small, wooden object in a glass case.
“Wah?” he said.
“That?” says Isabel. “That is the bat Mr. Wagner used to use when he was a little boy.”
She looks at a door on the left of the hall, and puts a finger to her lip.
“Hush!” she says. “We must be quiet. Daddy and grandpa are busy in there cornering wheat.”
And softly mother and child go out into the sunlit garden.
The Slide of Paul Revere
Grantland Rice
LISTEN, fanatics, and you shall hear
Of the midnight slide of Paul Revere;
How he scored from first on an outfield drive
By a dashing spring and a headlong dive—
’Twas the greatest play pulled off that year.
Now the home of poets and potted beans,
Of Emersonian ways and means
In baseball epic has oft been sung
Since the days of Criger and old Cy Young;
But not even fleet, deer-footed Bay
Could have pulled off any such fancy play
As the slide of P. Revere, which won
The famous battle of Lexington.
The Yanks and the British were booked that trip
In a scrap for the New World championship;
But the British landed a bit too late,
So the game didn’t open till half past eight,
And Paul Revere was dreaming away
When the umpire issued his call for play.
On, on they fought, ’neath the Boston moon,
As the British figured, “Not yet, but soon;”
For the odds were against the Yanks that night,
With Paul Revere blocked away from the fight
And the grandstand gathering groaned in woe,
While a sad wail bubbled from Rooters’ Row.
But wait! Hist! Hearken! and likewise hark!
What means that galloping near the park?
What means that cry of a man dead sore?
“Am I too late? Say, what’s the score?”
And echo answered both far and near,
As the rooters shouted: “There’s Paul Revere!”
O how sweetly that moon did shine
When P. Revere took the coaching line!
He woke up the grandstand from its trance
And made the bleachers get up and dance;
He joshed the British with robust shout
Until they booted the ball about.
He whooped and he clamored all over the lot,
Till the score was tied in a Gordian knot.
Now, in this part of the “Dope Recooked”
Are the facts which history overlooked—
How Paul Revere came to bat that night
And suddenly ended the long-drawn fight;
How he singled to center, and then straightway
Dashed on to second like Harry Bay;
Kept traveling on, with the speed of a bird,
Till he whizzed like a meteor, rounding third.
“Hold back, you lobster!” but all in vain
The coachers shouted in tones of pain;
For Paul kept on with a swinging stride,
And he hit the ground when they hollered: “Slide!”
Spectacular players may come and go
In the hurry of Time’s swift ebb and flow;
But never again will there be one
Like the first American “hit an run.”
And as long as the old game lasts you’ll hear
Of the midnight slide of P. Revere.
SOURCES
“Why Base Ball Has Become Our National Game” by Albert G. Spalding. From America’s National Game (1911).
“The Model Base Ball Player” by Henry Chadwick. From Ball Player’s Chronicle (1867).
“Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. From The San Francisco Examiner (1888).
“Casey’s Revenge” by Grantland Rice. From Base-Ball Ballads (1910).
“The Color Line” by Sol White. From Sol White’s Official Guide: History of Colored Baseball (1907).
“A Whale of a Pastime” by Brig. Gen. Frederick Funston. From Harper’s Round Table (1894).
“The Rube’s Honeymoon” by Zane Grey. From The Red-Headed Outfield (1920).
“How I Pitched the First Curve” by William Arthur (Candy) Cummings (1908).
“Discovering Cy Young” by Alfred H. Spink. From The National Game (1911).
“Varsity Frank” by Burt L. Standish. From Frank Merriwell at Yale (1903).
“Baseball Joe’s Winning Throw” by Lester Chadwick. From Baseball Joe of the Silver Stars (1912).
“Mr. Dooley on Baseball” by Finley Peter Dunne. From Mr. Dooley on Making a Will and Other Necessary Evils (1919).
“Jinxes and What They Mean to a Ball-Player” by Christy Mathewson. From Pitching in a Pinch (1912).
“One Down, 713 to Go” by Damon Runyon. From The New York American (1915).
“How I Lost the 1915 World Series” by Grover Cleveland Alexander. From Baseball (1915).
“
The Crab” by Gerald Beaumont. From Hearts and the Diamond (1921).
“My Roomy” by Ring Lardner. From The Saturday Evening Post (1914).
“The Longest Game” by Ralph D. Blanpied. From The New York Times (1920).
“Fullerton Says Seven Members of the White Sox Will Be Missing Next Spring” by Hugh Fullerton. From The Chicago Herald and Examiner (1919).
“His Own Stuff” by Charles E. Van Loan. From Score by Innings (1919).
“The Pitcher and the Plutocrat” by P.G. Wodehouse. From Colliers (1910).
“The Slide of Paul Revere” by Grantland Rice. From Base-Ball Ballads (1910).
At the Old Ballgame Page 19
