So now today was the day. Rufus climbed off the sleigh, found his old pitcher’s mitt that he used to catch Nancy’s curves, and they all marched across the street to the big lot behind the library where the game was going to be held. While they waited for the teams to show up, Rufus spit in his mitt, rubbed sand in it, and got it into condition to play.
“I hope we don’t have to go all over town and round everybody up,” said Jane impatiently.
The Fatal Four had added another team member, Nancy’s sister, Beatrice, but they still called themselves the Fatal Four because it sounded better than fatal anything else. Since this team had such an excellent name, the F. F., it had plenty of applicants to join. Nancy and Jane were particular, however, saying to join the F. F. you really had to know something about baseball. Most applicants backed away apologetically when Nancy stated this firmly.
At last here came somebody across the lot. It was Joyce Allen, the captain of the Busy Bees.
“The others will be here soon,” she said cheerfully. “Some of them hadn’t finished washing the breakfast dishes, but they’ll be here soon.”
“While we’re waitin’,” said Jane, “since both the captains are here, we can see who’s up at the bat first.”
Rufus took the bat, threw it, and Nancy caught it. She put her right fist around the end of it, then the other captain put her fist above Nancy’s and swiftly placing one fist above the other they measured the length of the bat. The visiting captain’s left fist was the last one to fit the bat. It was a tight squeeze but fair, and Rufus said that the visiting team was first up at the bat. Rufus sometimes had to act in the capacity of umpire as well as backstop.
But where was the visiting team? Or Nancy’s, for that matter?
Rufus began to feel impatient. Here were the captains. All right. Let the teams come then. “Why not have the punch instead?” he asked. But nobody paid any attention to him. It seemed to Rufus as though the game were off, and he decided, Fatal Four or no, to go and find something else to do. Over in a corner of the field some men had started to dig a cellar to a new house. This activity looked interesting to Rufus and he was about to investigate it when along came two girls, arms linked together. So Rufus stayed. There was always the possibility that the Fatal Four might switch from baseball to punch and cookies. Either was worth staying for in Rufus’s opinion.
“These girls must be Busy Bees,” said Nancy.
They were Busy Bees. They both admitted it. However, they said they wished they could join the F. F. instead. They liked the name of it. They had heard many rumors as to what it stood for. Most people thought it stood for Funny Fellows. Did it?
“Of course not!” said Nancy, and Jane clapped her hand over Rufus’s mouth before he could say the Fatal Four and give away the secret. No matter what it stood for, the girls wanted to join it and be able to write the F. F. on all their red notebooks.
While the discussion was going on, three more girls arrived, three more Busy Bees. It seemed they, too, wanted to join the F. F., so they could write the F. F. on their notebooks also. Nancy and Jane looked at the captain. She must feel very badly at this desertion. But she didn’t. She said she wished she could join the F. F., too.
“Oh, no,” said Nancy. “You all better stay Busy Bees. What team would there be for us to beat if we let you join ours?”
So that settled the matter and Busy Bees remained Busy Bees. Now they lined up at the home plate, for they were to be the first at the bat. At last the game began. Thank goodness, Rufus is here behind me, thought Jane, pounding her fist into the big catcher’s mitt. For it really took two Moffats to make one good catcher. If one of them was she, that is.
Nancy’s team did not get off to a good start. Nancy had been practicing her curves more than ever, and they swung more and more sharply to the left. If they had not had such a good left-handed backstop as Rufus, goodness knows where the balls would have landed. In order that they would not crash through a window of the library, the girls rearranged the bases many times.
Of course, there was no danger of the balls crashing through the library windows from hits. The danger lay in Nancy’s curves. So far she had not been able to strike the Busy Bees out. They were all walking to base on balls. And the balls were flying wild now. Rufus had dashed across the lot to take a look at the men who were digging the cellar to the new house and he was sorely missed. Jane, who had had enough trouble catching in the old days, before Nancy cultivated her curves, was becoming desperate.
Right now happened to be a very tense moment. The captain of the Busy Bees was at the bat. There were men on all bases. They’d gotten there on walks. The captain had two strikes against her, however. She had been striking at anything, for she evidently had grown tired of just walking to base. If Nancy could strike her out, it would break the charm and maybe the Fatal Four team would have a chance at the bat. So far the Busy Bees had been at the bat the entire game. The score must be big. They had lost track of it.
Besides wanting to strike Captain Allen out, Nancy was trying especially hard to impress her. She came over to Jane and said in a low voice, “They’ll think they have a better team than we have, and I bet that pitcher can’t even throw curves! I’ve just got to strike her out!”
“Yes,” agreed Jane, who was anxious to bat herself for a change.
“Watch for a certain signal,” Nancy said. “When I hold my two middle fingers up, it means I’m going to throw a curve, a real one. It’ll curve out there by the library, and then it will veer back, right plunk over the home plate. She won’t strike at it because she’ll think it’s going over the library. But it won’t, and she’ll miss it and that’s the way I’ll put her out.”
Jane nodded her head. Another curve! Of course curves made it real baseball and not amateur. She knew that much. All the same she wished she had said, “Why don’t you pitch ’em straight for a change?” But she didn’t have the courage. Nancy was the captain and the pitcher. She certainly should know how to pitch if she was the pitcher. Nancy wasn’t telling Jane how to catch. She expected Jane to know how to catch since she was the catcher. She didn’t tell her anything. So neither did Jane tell Nancy anything, and she waited for the signal and wished that Rufus would return and backstop for this very important pitch.
Now Nancy was winding her arm around and around. Then she stopped. She held up her middle two fingers. The signal! Jane edged over to the left but Nancy frowned her back. Oh, of course. This curve was really going to fly over home plate. Nancy crooked her wrist and threw! The girl at the bat just dropped to the ground when she saw the ball coming and she let it go. And the ball really did come right over home plate only it was way up in the air, way, way up in the air and spinning swiftly toward the library window, for it did its veering later than calculated. Jane leaped in the air in an effort to catch it but she missed.
“Rufus! Rufus!” she yelled, and she closed her eyes and stuck her fingers in her ears, waiting for the crash.
Just in the nick of time Rufus jumped for the ball. He caught it in his left hand before it could crash through the window. He sprinted over with the ball.
“We’d better move the bases again,” said Nancy. And they all moved farther away from the library.
“Stay here,” said Jane to Rufus, pleadingly. So Rufus stayed and he said since he had caught the ball the girl was out, and why not have punch now? Jane gave him a nudge. This was real baseball and he mustn’t think about anything else. The girl said it didn’t count that Rufus caught the ball, for he was the backstop and not on the team. Even so, she graciously permitted Nancy’s team a turn at the bat now, because the Busy Bees had had a long enough inning. They had run up such a big score she was sure the F. F. could never come up to it.
That’s the way with baseball, thought Jane. Whoever is first at the bat usually wins.
Nancy was the first one up of the Fatal Four. The captain of the Busy Bee baseball team did not throw curves. Nancy struck at the first ball. It was
a hit. She easily made first base. Now Jane was at the bat. Rufus, who decided to play backstop for the foreign team as well as Jane’s, was pounding his fist into his mitt to get some real atmosphere into this game.
While the pitcher was winding her arm around and around, Jane was busy, too. She was swinging the bat, limbering up. At last, she thought. At last she was at the bat. That’s all she liked to do in baseball. Bat! And so far she hadn’t had a chance. And she swung herself completely around in her enthusiasm. Unfortunately the bat flew out of her hand and it hit Rufus on the forehead.
Rufus was staggered and saw stars. However, he tossed it off saying, “Aw, it didn’t hurt,” even though a lump began to show. Jane rubbed his forehead, and thereafter she swung with more restraint. Even so, the catcher and Rufus automatically stepped back a few paces whenever Jane was at the bat, taking no chances with another wallop.
But now the pitcher pitched. Jane, still subdued and repressed, merely held the bat before her. Bang! The ball just came up and hit it and rolled halfway toward the pitcher. Both the pitcher and the catcher thought the other was going to run for the ball. Therefore, neither one ran, and Jane made first base easily, putting Nancy on second. Now the bases were full because that’s all the bases they had. And it was Clara Pringle at the bat.
The situation was too grave for Clara. She did not want to bat. How could she ever face Nancy if she struck out? Nancy and Jane might never speak to her again if she struck out. Besides, she had hurt her wrist pulling up a stubborn pie-weed when she was in outfield. She looked at Jane, who was dancing toward second, and Nancy, who was dancing toward home, impatiently waiting for the hit that would send them in. Clara gulped at her position of unexpected responsibility. When she joined the Fatal Four she had never envisioned being in a spot like this. She raised her hand to make a request.
“Can Rufus pinch-hit for me because I hurt my wrist?” she asked timidly.
Rufus did not wait for anybody to say yes or no. He threw his mitt at Clara and seized the bat, pounding the ground, the home plate, and an old bottle. That’s the way he warmed up, and if Jane had been vociferous at the bat, Rufus was nothing short of a tornado.
“Stand still!” yelled the pitcher. “You make me dizzy.”
Rufus swung at imaginary balls.
“Hey!” exclaimed the pitcher. “He’s left-handed.”
“Sure,” said Jane. “Why not?”
“You call ’em southpaws,” said Nancy. “I pitch good to him myself.”
“Well, here goes,” said the pitcher. “It just looks funny if you’re not used to ’em.” And she swung her arm around and around again.
While she was warming up and while Rufus was stomping around, swinging the bat, waiting for the ball, Spec Cullom, the iceman, came along Elm Street. Evidently he saw in an instant that this was a real game and not just practice, for he stopped his team, threw down the iron weight to anchor his horse, Charlie, and strode into the lot and straddled the nearest log in the bleachers to watch. Rufus saw him and became even more animated with the bat.
At the same moment the twelve o’clock whistle blew. Now all the children were supposed to go home to lunch. The Busy Bees were in favor of stopping, but the Fatal Four protested. Here they were with all bases full and they should certainly play the inning out at least.
So the pitcher pitched and Rufus struck. Crack! He hit the ball! Up and up it sailed, trailing the black tape it was wound with behind it like the tail of a kite!
As it disappeared from sight in the pine grove, Nancy ran to home plate and Jane ran to second base, and then home, and Rufus tore to first, and then to second and then home. And so it was a home run that had been hit.
“A home run!” everybody yelled in excitement. It was surprising that that hit had not broken a window, and the outfielder of the visiting team ran in search of the ball. But she couldn’t find it and Clara joined her, for she was an experienced outfielder, but she couldn’t find it, either. Then the whole Busy Bee baseball team ran and looked for the ball, but they couldn’t find it. So they all went home. The captain, impressed by the home run, yelled to Nancy that the score must have been a tie and they’d come back in a week or so to see who was the champ.
Jane and Nancy ran over to the pine grove to look for the ball. They hunted in the corner of the lot where skunk cabbage grew thick and melon vines covered a dump, covered even the sign that said DO NOT DUMP. They searched through the long field grass on this side of the library, trying not to get the thick bubbly looking dew on their bare legs. Was this really snake spit as Joey and Rufus claimed? Jane wondered. If it was, where were all the snakes? She’d never seen a single snake. But where was the ball? That was some home run!
“You don’t suppose he batted it clear across Elm Street into that lot, do you?” asked Nancy incredulously.
“Might have,” said Jane, not knowing whether to be proud or ashamed. And the two girls crossed the street to take a look, just in case Rufus had swung as mighty an arm as that.
Rufus did not join in the search. He ran around from base to base to home plate, again and again, in ever-widening circles until his course led him to the iceman. The iceman was one of his favorite people in Cranbury.
“Here,” said Spec, “catch.” And he threw the missing baseball to Rufus. “I yelled to the team that I caught the ball, but they couldn’t hear me, I guess, what with whistles blowing and all the cheers. Some batter!” he said. “Keep it up, fella, and maybe next spring you can be batboy for the South End baseball team.”
The iceman rolled a cigarette, using the last of the tobacco from his Bull Durham tobacco pouch, and he handed the empty bag to Rufus. “Here, fella,” he said. “Put this in your pocket.”
Rufus grinned, stuffed the pouch in his pocket, grabbed the ball, and tore off to the other end of the field, where Nancy and Jane, wearied and hot, had given up looking for the ball. Then they all went home to lunch.
“Goodness!” said Mama, when she saw Rufus and Jane. “What have you been playing to get so banged up?”
“Just baseball,” said Jane, drinking a long glass of water thirstily.
After lunch Rufus went back across the street and sat down to watch the men dig out the cellar. He thought about being batboy for the South End baseball team and he pounded the old taped baseball into his fist, his left fist. And he thought about the Fatal Four. He was practically a member, and if the Fatal Four could not do without him for baseball, they’d naturally include him for punch and cookies if they ever reached that stage. He smiled to himself. The South End baseball team and the Fatal Four. That made two things he almost belonged to now.
5
Two Moffats Go Calling
Joey had a certain way he walked home from school. He did not walk up one street and down the next, turning sharp corners. He had it all figured out how he could cut catercorners across streets, how he could walk from the southeast corner of this one to the northwest corner of that one, and he knew that he saved at least one whole block, if not more, by walking home from school this way. Joey always walked; he never ran.
Jane always walked home from school with Nancy Stokes or she raced a trolley car. Rufus ran as fast as he could. He always was the first person out of the school yard, the first one up the street, and the first one home. That’s because he was the hungriest boy in school and had to get home in a hurry. He could eat anything, though he preferred something like pie.
“You’ll eat bread if you’re so hungry,” said Mama.
Sylvie didn’t go to regular school anymore. She went to Art School on the trolley. But she did run home from the trolley. Joey was the only one who didn’t run, and that was because he had this special way of walking home and measuring his steps and cutting across lots and studying how to get home by the shortest possible route. He did not stop along the way.
“Hi, Joey!” somebody would yell.
“Hi!”
“Want to play ball?”
“Can’t,” he
’d answer, not looking away from the point he was heading for. If he looked, he might be tempted to stop. He had no time for ball. And on he went.
On one block Joey stayed right on the sidewalk and did not cut catercorners. There was a high board fence here and someone had drawn a lot of initials in white chalk. In one place there was a large chalk heart and inside of this there were the initials J. M. and M. J. with an arrow plunged recklessly through the whole.
J. M. could be Joey Moffat. M. J. could be Mary Jetting. He always wondered when he passed this fence who had drawn the heart with these initials in it. Mary Jetting was nobody he cared anything about, just a girl in some room or other at school. Room Nine, he thought. The chalk was beginning to wash off and the initials to grow faint. He never stopped to look at this heart on the fence, of course, but he liked to take a sidelong glance at it as he walked past. He’d punch the fellow in the nose if he knew who put it there though.
He turned into Elm Street and, as he did so, a long red open touring car sailed by. My car, thought Joey, and he remembered about Miss Myles, a teacher he had when he was in the first grade. This teacher still sent him letters and Christmas cards. He had not been the teacher’s pet. Nobody was. But when he left Room One and went into Room Two, he still remembered his old teacher. He had found a picture of a long red automobile with a lady wearing a veil riding in it. This lady was supposed to be Miss Myles. And he was supposed to be the one driving the car. He had made Mama write on it, “I will take you for a ride in this kind of an automobile someday,” and send it to Miss Myles. Now she always wrote asking when she was going to have that ride.
Sometimes she sent him a limerick she had made up. Once she stuck a real dime and a real raisin on the limerick instead of using the words dime and raisin. Rufus ate off the raisin before anyone could stop him but Joey had kept the dime for years, until one day, when Mama didn’t have any money, he bought a loaf of bread with it. But you could still see the place on the paper where the dime had been stuck. He kept the limerick with his things. That was years ago and they still wrote cards and jokes. No more with dimes and raisins, though. That was just once. Mama made up Joey’s jokes for him. But he drew plenty of pictures with long red automobiles that he was going to take Miss Myles riding in.
Rufus M. Page 5
