Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/257

 are swatting my slow curve. There you go, that's the third out. Get busy. Give me one finger for a fast one; two for an out; and the closed fist for the drop."

The pessimistic philosopher, exiled to eternal solitude, shed coat and collar, put on mask and mit. A ball, a strike, a high foul. As he sprinted behind the backdrop to get under it, Neale sloughed off the parched skin of introspection. From that time on, he forgot everything but the game. He rattled off encouragement to the pitcher, "Keep workin', old man that-a-boy, make him hit it! Got him swinging wild!" He improvised wild flights of kidding to get the goat of one batter after another.

After the game when be and his pitcher were shaking hands and grinning at each other, he became aware of Berkley and Berkley's girl. What was her name? He'd met her at the Junior Ball—oh, yes, Miss Wentworth. They stepped to congratulate him. Neale was conscious, wretchedly, unphilosophically conscious of a very dirty face, a more than dirty shirt—and torn trousers. But Miss Wentworth didn't seem to notice. Perhaps she was a good sport. It was conceivable that a girl might be. She made a sensible comment on the double play which had saved the game in the eigtth. Why, she was intelligent as well as good-looking. Neale fell into step, forgetting his disheveled looks, and walked along to the drug-store at 120th Street, where they all had sodas.

He met her again that spring, in the waiting-room of the 125th Street station, of all prosaic places! He bad stopped in for a time-table to see about getting up to West Adams and she was evidently waiting for a train. He touched his cap. She smiled. He stopped to pass the time of day, "Vacation's almost here," he said.

"What are you going to do with it?" she inquired.

He hesitated. She wouldn't understand. But he was never very good on quick bluffs, and so said briefly, "I've got to learn to kick this summer—to kick a football, I mean. I—I play football a little."

She threw back her head and laughed, "Oh, you needn't explain. I know you play. I'm a regular fan. I haven't