Page:The purple pennant (IA purplepennant00barb).pdf/304

Rh Breen faced Fortune calmly. Perhaps that misjudgment in right-field—it couldn't be scored as an error, but that didn't take any of the sting out of it for Howard—had put him on his mettle and endowed him with a desperate determination to make atonement. And possibly Dick Lovering was counting on that very thing. At all events Breen came through! With one strike and two balls against him, Breen picked out a wide curve and got it on the middle of his bat. It was a lucky hit, but it did the business. It started over Newton's head, went up and up, curved toward the foul-line and finally landed just out of reach of first- and second-basemen a foot inside the white mark!

And when second-baseman scooped it up Breen was racing across the bag, Gordon had tallied and Warner Jones was just sliding into the plate.

For the succeeding three minutes pandemonium reigned. Purple banners whipped the air, new straw hats were subjected to outrageous treatment and caps sailed gloriously into space. At first-base Bryan was hugging Breen ecstatically and midway between the plate and the pitcher's box a half-dozen Springdale players were holding a rueful conference. When comparative quiet had returned, and after Fudge had saved his face by carefully explaining that Breen's hit had been the