Page:Baseball Joe on the School Nine.djvu/108

96 when he was scarcely nine years old, and played those little chaps in a sort of improvised circuit.

Then, as he grew, and developed, and found that he could pitch, the world seemed to hold something worth while for Joe Matson. "Baseball Joe," he had been dubbed, when as a small chap he shouldered his bat and started off across the lots to a game, and "Baseball Joe" he was yet.

How he longed to be on the regular nine, even in the outfield, none but himself knew. And when he dreamed of the possibility that he might some time occupy the pitching mound—well, he had to stop short, for he found himself indulging in a too high flight of fancy.

"Get back to earth, Joe," he told himself. "If you want to pitch for Excelsior you've got to do a heap of waiting, and you are pretty good at that game."

And so Joe had hopes and fears—hopes that his dream might come true, and fears lest the enmity of Hiram and Luke would keep him one of the "scrubbiest of the scrubs."

He was tired after the excitement of the parade, and so was Tom, but they were not too weary to accept an invitation to gather in the room of Teeter and Peaches that night for a