Page:Baseball Joe on the School Nine.djvu/15

 hit the barrel head, close to the first, but not quite so near the middle.

"You can do better than that, Joe," spoke Tom in a low voice.

"I'm going to try," was all the thrower said.

Again his arm was swung around with the peculiar motion used by many good baseball pitchers. Again the snowball shot forward, whizzing through the air. Again came that resounding thud on the hollow barrel, this time louder than before.

"Right on the nose!"

"A clean middle shot!"

"A good plunk!"

These cries greeted Joe's last effort, and, sure enough, when several lads ran to get a closer view of the barrel, they came back to report that the ball was exactly in the centre of the head.

"Say, you're a wonder!" exclaimed Peaches, admiringly.

"Who's a wonder?" inquired a new voice, and a tall heavily-built lad, with rather a coarse and brutal face, sauntered up to the group. "Who's been doing wonderful stunts, Peaches?"

"Joe Matson here. He hit the barrel head three times out of three, and the best any of us