Jack Winters' Baseball Team, Mark Overton [urban books to read txt] 📗

believe I was better suited for that position than a tackle, though I wanted to be in the other place at the start. But it happened there were two sprinters better fitted than I was to hold down the job. So unless I run across a man who seems to show signs of being my superior in the field I’ve occupied, I suppose I’ll continue to play half-back to the end of the chapter.”

“Well,” remarked Toby, as Jack made out to pick up his cap with the intention of leaving, since the hour was getting late, “one more day, and then what? A whole twenty-four hours for things to happen calculated to bust up our plans, and knock ’em galley-west. I wish, this was Friday night, and nothing serious had come about. We need that big game to make us solid with the people of Chester. It might be hard on poor Harmony, but it would be the making of our town.”

“Hearing you say that,” chuckled Jack, “makes me think of that story of the old man and his boy’s bull-pup.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever heard it, so fire away and tell the yarn, Jack,” the other pleaded.

“Why, once a boy had a young bull-pup of which he was very fond. His father also took considerable interest in teaching the dog new tricks. On one occasion the old man was down on his knees trying to make the small dog jump at him, while the boy kept sicking him on. Suddenly the bull-pup made a lunge forward and before the old man could draw back he had gripped him by the nose, and held on like fun. Then the boy, only thinking of how they had succeeded in tempting the small dog, clapped his hands and commenced to dance around, shouting: ‘Swing him around, dad, swing him every which way! It’s hard on you, of course, but I tell you it’ll be the making of the pup!’”

Toby laughed as Jack finished the anecdote, which it happened he had never heard before.

“Well, Harmony will be dad, and the bull-pup I know turns out to be Chester, bent on holding through thick and thin to victory. I’m glad you came over, Jack, and if I’ve been able to hand you out a few pointers we haven’t wasted our time.”

“I noticed when on the way here that it had clouded up,” remarked Jack. “Let’s hope we don’t get a storm that will compel us to postpone that game. Our boys are in the pink of condition, with so much practice, and might go stale by another week.”

“That’s another cause for anxiety, then,” croaked Toby shrugging his shoulders. “Here, I’ll find my cap, and step outdoors with you. My eyes are blinking after so much light, and a breath of fresh air wouldn’t go bad.”

He had hardly said this than Toby stopped in his tracks.

“Listen, Jack, the fire-alarm bell! There’s a blaze starting up, and with so much wind blowing it may mean a big conflagration. Where did I toss that cap of mine?”

“I saw something like a cap behind the rowing-machine over there when I tried it out,” observed the other, whose habit of noticing even the smallest things often served him well.

“Just what it is,” asserted Toby, after making a wild plunge in the quarter designated; “that’s my meanest trait, Jack. Mother tries to break me of it ever so often, but I seem to go back again to the old trick of carelessness. Now come on, and we’ll rush out. Already I can hear people beginning to shout.”

They went downstairs two at a jump. For once Toby did not think of his mother’s nerves. Fires were not so frequent an occurrence in the history of a small city like Chester that a prospective conflagration could be treated lightly.

Once out of the house and they had no difficulty about deciding in which direction the fire lay. Some people, principally boys, were already running full-tilt through the street, and all seemed to be heading in the one direction. At the same time all manner of comments could be heard passing between them as they galloped along, fairly panting.

“It must be the big mill, from the light that’s beginning to show up in the sky!” hazarded one boy.

“Shucks! what are you giving us, Sandy!” gasped another. “The mill ain’t over in that direction at all. Only cottages lie there, with an occasional haystack belongin’ to some garden-truck raiser. Mebbe it might be a barn.”

“Just what it is, Tim,” a third boy chimed in eagerly. “Hay burns like wildfire you know, and see how red the sky is agettin’ now.”

Neither Jack nor Toby had thus far ventured to make any sort of guess. No matter what was afire it promised to be a serious affair, with the wind blowing at the rate of twenty miles an hour or more. If it turned out to be a private house some one was likely to be rendered homeless before long.

The bell continued to clang harshly. Chester still clung to the volunteer system of firemen, though there was some talk of purchasing an up-to-date motor truck engine, and hiring a force to be on duty day and night.

“Jack,” suddenly called out Toby, “don’t you see that we’re heading straight for Fred’s house. Honest to goodness I believe it’s that very cottage afire right now.”

CHAPTER XV
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE FIRE

“Hello there, fellows, you’re on the job, too, I see!”

That was burly Steve Mullane calling out as he came tearing along in the wake of Jack and Toby. Steve was passionately fond of anything in the line of a fire. He had been known to chase for miles out into the country on learning that some farmer’s haystacks and barn were ablaze; though he usually arrived far too late to see anything but the ruins.

“What do you think, Steve,” gurgled Toby, “I was just saying I thought it might be Fred Baxter’s place.”

“Seems like it was around that section of territory anyhow,” replied the other, as well as he was able to speak, while exerting himself to the utmost.

Jack made no immediate comment, but he himself was beginning to believe Toby’s guess might not be far wrong. It gave him a fresh wrench about the region of his heart to believe this. It would mean another source of trouble for poor Fred, and might in the end eliminate him from the game on Saturday.

All Chester was aroused by this time. When that brazen bell kept clanging away in such a loud fashion people knew that something out of the usual run was taking place. They flocked forth, all hurrying in the same general direction, until the streets were fairly blocked with the crowds.

Now came the engine, driven by an expert member of the fire company, the pair of horses galloping wildly under the whip, and the spur of such general excitement. Loud cheers greeted the advent of the volunteer department. The men looked very brave and heroic with their red firehats, and rubber coats. They would undoubtedly do good work once they got on the ground; but that wind was playing havoc with things, and perhaps after all it might not be possible to save the imperiled building.

All doubts were removed, for on rounding a bend the three boys discovered that it was actually the modest Badger house that was afire. Flames could be seen pouring out of the windows, and a great smoke arose, telling that the whole interior must be heating up, and liable to break into a vast blaze at any minute.

“Whee! it looks bad for Fred’s folks, now!” cried Toby, his first thought being of the suffering of those involved.

“It’s going to make a dandy fire, all right!” Steve was heard to say to himself; and it was not because he was a heartless boy that this was his first thought, for Steve could be as tender as the next one; only he did dearly love a fire, and on that account was apt to forget how a blaze almost always meant loss for somebody, possibly deadly peril as well.

There was quite a mob of people already on the spot. Some who lived much closer than the three chums had been able to reach the scene of the fire in considerably less time.

Jack was trying to remember what things looked like in the near vicinity of the Badger home. He had been there only once or twice in all, but that habit of observation clung to him, and he was thus able to recollect how he had noticed that some sort of a woodshed stood close to the back of the house. If this held considerable fuel for the kitchen stove, and a fire managed to start in some way, it was just situated right to sweep through the house, being on the windward end.

“Where’s Fred and his folks?” asked Toby just then, as they started boy-fashion to elbow their way through the crowd, determined to get in the front rank in order to see everything that transpired.

Jack was himself looking eagerly around, with the same object in view. He remembered the sad face of Fred’s little mother, who he feared had seen much of trouble during the later years of her life. It looked as though there might be still more cause for anxiety hovering over her.

“She must be in that bunch of women folks over yonder,” asserted Steve. “Yes, I just had a glimpse of that pretty little kid, Fred’s sister, Barbara. One of the women is holding the child in her arms, and she’s wrapped in bed clothes, which shows she must have been sleeping when the fire broke out.”

“I wonder what’s happening over where that group of men is standing,” remarked Toby, solicitously. “There, a boy has fetched a dipper of water from the well bucket. Why, somebody must have been hurt, Jack.”

“Let’s make our way over and find out,” suggested Steve, quickly.

Accordingly the three boys pushed through the various groups of chattering men, women and children. The firemen had by now managed to get to work, and the first stream of water was playing on the burning house; though every one could see that there was little chance of saving any part of the doomed structure, since the fire fiend had gained such a start.

“What’s the matter here?” Jack asked a small boy who came reeling out from the packed crowd, as though unable to look any longer.

“Why, it’s Fred Badger!” he told them in his shrill piping tones that could be heard even above the hoarse cries of the fire laddies and the murmur of voices from the surging mob, constantly growing larger as fresh additions arrived.

“What happened to him?” almost savagely asked Steve.

“He was trying to haul some of the furniture out, I heard tell,” continued the Chester urchin, “and he got hurted some way. He’s lying there like he was dead. I just couldn’t stand it any more, that’s what.”

Filled with horror Jack pushed forward, with his two chums backing him up. What fresh calamity was threatening the Badger family, he asked himself. Poor Fred certainly had quite enough to battle against without being knocked out in this fashion.

When, however, they had managed to press in close enough to see, it was to discover the object of their solicitude sitting up. Fred looked like a “drowned rat,” as Toby hastened to remark, almost joyously. Evidently they had emptied the pail of cold water over his head in the effort to revive him, and with more or less success.

Jack was considerably relieved. It was not so bad as he had feared, though Fred certainly looked weak, and next door to helpless.

“I hope he’ll not be knocked out from playing that