Catalpa was wide awake, next day, although the weather was hotter than ever and the little breeze that drew in from the prairie was laden with heat. The unexpected result of yesterday’s game had set everybody to speculating on the issue of this day’s contest. Some scandal was created by the appearance of Hank Jackson on the street with a roll of bills, offering to make bets on the game. It had never been the custom of anybody in Catalpa to wager anything on a baseball game, and there was some frowning now on the part of conservative and upright people; and those who were not specially conservative, but who disapproved of gaming, did not hesitate to reprove Hank in terms more forcible than elegant. Hank had spent some days in Bloomington, where he had frequented pool rooms and had acquired a taste for betting, and his brief experience was regarded by the younger portion of Catalpa with much awe and interest. He was followed about by the smaller boys of the town who listened while he bantered some of his cronies into making bets.

But public opinion in Catalpa was not yet educated to the point of engaging in gambling on the uncertain result of a baseball game. Added to this, it should be said, was Hank’s persistence in offering bets on the defeat of the home nine. That was an unpopular side. Almost everybody wanted the Catalpas to win the game. It would decide the championship; and, although it was almost too much to hope for, there was a feeling of confidence through the town that was quite inexplicable. So, Hank, after making a swaggering tour of the shops and stores, but without receiving much popular countenance, quietly dropped out of the throngs which gathered at the street corners and in other public places. It was in vain that he argued with rude logic that it was just as safe to bet on a baseball game as on a horse race. Very few who listened to him cared to encourage this new sort of gambling.

This time, it was Al Heaton who fired the heart of Catalpa with the first intelligence from the Diamond Field. It was nearly three o’clock when his first despatch arrived, and the game had been called at two o’clock. There was much grumbling in the main street of the town, where numerous groups stood in the shade of awnings and tall buildings, waiting for the news. The windows of The Leaf office opened on this street, as well as on the side street on which the telegraph office was situated. Editor Downey had announced that he had made arrangements with Albert to send news directly from the baseball grounds in Galena, and that he would display a bulletin from his office windows.

Accordingly, when there was hung out a big white sheet of paper, with black lettering thereon, the assembly below was hushed in expectation. The despatch ran thus:

Everybody confident. Larry Boyne says our nine will win the game. Weather hot, and the dust intolerable. Look out for fun.

“What does he mean by looking out for fun; and who cares what Larry Boyne thinks?” growled Hank Jackson. “I should think he might send us something more bracing than that by this time.”

But the straggling cheer that greeted Albert’s encouraging message drowned Jackson’s grumbling, and the crowd showed by their excitement that they were ready to accept the slightest omen as proof positive that the Catalpa nine would carry the day. So, when Judge Howell’s carriage drove up and halted under the shade of the huge catalpa tree that grew in front of Dr. Selby’s drug store, from which the fair Alice could see the throng and watch for the bulletin from the newspaper office, there was a little hurrah from some of the younger lads. They seemed to think that the young lady, in some fashion, represented the absent Judge, who was now recognized as one of the steadfast friends of the band of heroes.

“That’s a good sign! I’ll swear to gracious!” said Rough and Ready, in a low and hoarse whisper, as he saw the Judge’s handsome bays, champing their bits, and prancing uneasily under the shade of the spreading catalpa. “It’s a good sign, for that gal never went back on the nine, and her coming will bring good luck. Mark my words, Jake!” Jake, the big butcher, nodded his head and only said “yaw,” when the bulletin was again flung out from the window of the printing-office.

The magical black letters were read in silence broken only by the stamping of the horses tethered along the street and worried by the flies. This is what the eager spectators read:

First inning⁠—Catalpas, 1; Galenas, 0.

“A big round goose egg!” screamed Lew Morris, with delight. Then he raised a hurrah, and the small boys took up the yell. Horses jumped and tore at their halters and vagrant dogs barked madly about the street. Then there were smiles and even broad laughter among the devoted supporters of the home nine. Almost everybody looked pleased, and Dr. Selby, with the easy confidence of an old friend, went to the side of the Judge’s carriage and shook hands heartily with Miss Alice who was waving her parasol with a vague notion that it was necessary to celebrate the auspicious opening of the game.

“I didn’t tell you, did I, doctor, that I dreamed, last night, that we had won the game? Well, I did. Aunt Anstress says that dreams go by contraries and that that means our nine will be defeated. But I don’t believe that; do you, doctor?”

“Well, I don’t believe in dreams, anyhow, Miss Alice, and so I hardly think that that counts. But we will keep on thinking that the boys will beat, today, and even if we are disappointed, we have yet one more chance.”

The doctor, accepting Alice’s invitation, took a seat in the carriage from which advantageous point he looked over the gathering throng, now reinforced by arrivals from the region roundabout the town, for the news had gone forth that despatches were coming in from Al Heaton, and every man, woman and child who had the least interest in the game (and these were many) and could leave the labors and duties of the day, was there to hear.

“It looks as it did in the war, when the news from Shiloh and Vicksburg was coming in; doesn’t it, doctor?”

“I don’t know about that, Alice. I was in the war, myself, you know; was at Port Hudson and Vicksburg. You were a baby then, and I believe your father was in Congress. Yes, I guess it does look like war times. But see! There comes another bulletin!”

Editor Downey had rigorously excluded from his office all outsiders, and was devoting his personal attention to the all-important business of the day. With his own hands, he hung out the paper sheet bearing these words:

2nd inning⁠—Catalpas, 0; Galenas, 1; 3rd inning, Catalpas, 0; Galenas, 0.

“Not so good as it might be,” remarked Dr. Selby, cheerfully, “but it will grow better, by and by.”

A little cloud passed over the face of Alice, and she bit her lip with vexation as Hank Jackson bawled with a rough voice, “Ten to five on the Galenas!”

“If I were a man, I’d like to take that offer,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh, no, you wouldn’t, Alice,” cried her friend Ida. “You wouldn’t encourage gambling on baseball, I’m sure.”

“Perhaps not; but if I were a man, I would like to thrash that big ruffian.”

Better news came, after a little while. The bulletin for the fourth inning showed four for the Catalpas and a big round “0” for their opponents. At this, there was a general and apparently concerted hurrah from the company in the street below. Editor Downey, as if thinking the cheer a personal compliment, put his frowsy head out of the window and bowed with as much grace as was possible under the circumstances.

“Mr. Downey’s hair looks as if he was laboring under great excitement,” said the apothecary, blandly smiling at the editor’s somewhat touseled appearance. “Every individual hair is standing on end, as if he were charged with electricity.”

Alice laughed joyously and seemed glad to find something under which she could cover her great elation at the good news from the North. Miss Ida uttered sarcastic remarks about the editor’s exuberant comments in the morning paper regarding the coming contest in Galena. She declared that she did not think the game nearly as important as any one of the decisive battles of the war. And she was sure that The Leaf would be perfectly ridiculous, next day, if the Catalpas were to win the championship. Her remarks were cut short by the display of another bulletin announcing the result of the fifth inning in these terms:⁠—

Hurrah for our nine! Fifth inning⁠—Catalpas, 0; Galenas, 0.

“What in thunder does that mean?” asked Lew Morris, angrily. “Why does the numbskull tell us to hurrah for our nine when both sides have a zero?”

A yell of derision went up from the crowd, and the editor, hearing groans and catcalls in the street below, put out his head and, with much trepidation, cried, “It was a mistake. I forgot to put on the sixth inning. Catalpas, one; Galenas, nix!”

A loud laugh greeted this sally, and the crowd good-humoredly proposed three cheers for The Catalpa Leaf, which were given in a random fashion, mingled with laughter. Mr. Downey, now well-smeared with ink, and perspiring with excitement, acknowledged the salute with gravity.

“Six innings played and the Catalpas are six to the Galena’s one!” exclaimed Alice, who was keeping the score with an assiduity that seemed to come from a belief that exactness in the figures would, somehow, affect the final result. Scraps of paper, on which observers had marked the score and had set down their prognostications of the innings yet to come, were circulated through the crowd. The Catalpas now had the lead, and it would be difficult for their adversaries to come up with them.

Lew Morris, leaning on the door of the carriage, chatted with Alice, drawing on his vivid imagination for pictures of the nine as they were probably looking now, away up there in Galena. He could see, he thought, Hiram Porter devouring the ground as he made his bases with a giant’s stride, his handsome face glowing with mingled heat and determination. He could even hear Larry’s voice, in a stage whisper, crying, “Go it, Hiram!” And he could see Larry, at third base, when the Catalpas were in the field, making one of those superb running catches of his, Ben Burton looking on, “as if he would eat him up,” added Lewis, jocularly.

“Why should Ben want to eat Larry up?” asked Dr. Selby, innocently. “Does he love him so?”

“On the contrary, quite the reverse,” laughed Lewis. “Larry is showing himself to be the best player in the nine, and as Ben thought that he was the best, and is finding out that he is not, he loves Larry accordingly. Besides that, he is jealous of Larry for other reasons,” and the young man fixed a bold look on the blushing face of Miss Alice. She turned away to see if another bulletin were not ready, and the doctor shook his head deprecatingly at Lewis.

There was much time for talk, however, before another despatch from the seat of war appeared. The impatient crowd, panting in the heat that was more and more oppressive as the sun approached the west, flung all sorts of appeals upwards to the windows of the office of The Leaf. There was no response, although Mr. Downey, as if to contradict Hank Jackson’s loud jeer that the editor had gone to sleep, showed his shaggy head at the window and made a negative motion with the same. There was no news.

Finally, just as some of the less patient were beginning to make their way homewards, like a banner of victory, the sheet of paper again appeared. This time, it was blazoned with these returns:⁠—

7th inning⁠—Catalpas, 1; Galenas, 0; 8th inning⁠—Catalpas, 0; Galenas, 1.

“An even thing for the two innings!” cried Lew Morris triumphantly. “The Galenas cannot possibly pull up in the last inning! The game is ours! The game is ours!”

Lew’s jubilant shout was taken up by the crowd, which now grew denser again, and the excitement mounted to fever heat as the sun sank behind the cottonwoods below the town. Satisfied that the game and the championship were virtually won, some of the elder citizens, after exchanging congratulations with everybody that had a word of joy on their lips, walked homewards. But some of them stopped on the road and turned a listening ear towards the main street to hear the rousing cheer that soon went up, telling the town and all the Stone River Valley that the game was won and that our nine had captured the pennant of Northern Illinois.

A grimy and inky young imp, on the roof of The Leaf building, hoisted a particularly inky and grimy flag as the editor hung out from his window this bulletin:⁠—

The victory is complete! Old Catalpa to the front! Glory enough for one day! Following is the score by innings:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	total.
Catalpas	1	0	0	4	0	1	1	0	1	8
Galenas	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	3

The Galenas will banquet the Catalpas at the Quapaw House, this evening, when a right royal time is expected.

“And now for the championship of the State, dad?” shouted Tom Selby, exultingly, as his father descended from the carriage of the Judge. Alice, who was beaming with delight, could hardly speak her joy. The great contest was over, and the home nine would come back covered with glory. But she shook her head at Tom’s vainglorious remark. The league games were all made up for the season, she knew, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to secure a challenge from any club in the league. Oh, no, she couldn’t think of it. Tom must not think of it, at least, not until another summer.

The good doctor smiled at the lad’s enthusiasm and said that glory enough for one day meant glory enough for one season. There were other contests before the home nine, and they could be content, or they should be, to wear the laurels already won, whatever happened to them hereafter. They could not lose any prestige by any manner of means.

When Judge Howell arrived by the early evening train from Pawpaw, he was surprised to see the dingy flag of The Catalpa Leaf drooping lazily from its staff. He had not forgotten that the second game in the Northern District Championship was to have been played that afternoon; and he remembered his daughter’s prediction of success. But it seemed incredible that this should have actually come to pass. As he alighted from the train, his judicial dignity a little soiled by travel and perspiration, he was met by Rough and Ready, who, with a slight touch of his coonskin cap, the only recognition of high station of which he was ever capable, said, “Any baggage, Jedge? carry it as cheap as anybody. Our nine has flaxed out the Galenas⁠—eight to three! Big thing, Jedge! Lemme take that gripsack. Great day for old Catalpa, Jedge. Your darter, she said as how she allowed that you mought like to get the news straight, so I told her I’d come up and tell you quick. Thank you, Jedge.” And, dropping a silver quarter into his pocket, Rough and Ready turned and collared a stranger from whom he wrested his valise and marched triumphantly down into the town.

When the Judge, clothed once more in the dignity of cleanliness and his home headship, heard that night from the animated lips of his daughter the story of the winning of the championship, he said, with an air of graceful condescension, “It was a famous victory, Alice. We have reason to be proud of our nine; and I will venture to say that when we get the full particulars of the game, we shall find that that fine-looking young fellow, Lawrence Boyne, contributed the largest share to the triumph.”

When the details of the game were brought to Catalpa, next day, in a letter to The Leaf, it was found that the Judge knew just what he was talking about.

But greater news than this came with Larry Boyne and Hiram Porter, a week or two later. The nine had been playing a few games along the river towns and had rested for a day or two in Rock Island, after playing the Dacotahs of that city. Several of the nine took advantage of a lull in their engagements to visit Catalpa. Mr. Heaton and Albert had returned home, and Larry and Hiram had gone to Chicago on some mysterious errand, nobody knew just what. Neddie Ellis was one of those who had come back to Catalpa while the time was passing before they should play the new series of games beginning with the Moline club. Neddie looked very wise when asked where Larry and Hiram had gone, and Albert Heaton assumed a most important air whenever he said anything about the doings of the two absent members of the nine.

But it all came out in due time. Captain Porter and his trusty lieutenant arrived by the noon train, and before the sun had set everybody in Catalpa knew that a match had been arranged between the Catalpa nine and the Calumet club for the State Championship. It was indeed wonderful news, and nothing since the war had happened to stir the population of that region as the intelligence. There were divers opinions regarding this unexpected development. Many thought that it was indiscreet for so young and green a club as the Catalpas to challenge the Calumets⁠—the famous and renowned Calumets. Then there were others who thought that it was presumptuous for the Catalpa boys even so much as to ask any leading club to play them merely because a triumph had been unexpectedly achieved in Galena. But all agreed that it was a great feather in the cap of “our nine” that the Chicago club should have accepted the challenge, or should have agreed to meet them on any terms whatever.

“I am not certain whether I am glad or sorry that our nine will play the Calumets, papa,” said Alice Howell. “I mean that I cannot tell yet whether I shall be disappointed if they lose. I depend a great deal on my impressions, you know, and I haven’t any as yet.”

The Judge smiled at his daughter’s odd notion of waiting for impressions, and replied, “I do not wait for any inspiration on the subject, my child. I am sure that the Catalpa nine will be badly beaten. I don’t know much about baseball, but I do know enough to know that the Calumet club has been in the newspapers for a long time as the great baseball club of the northwest.”

“That’s so, papa,” sighed Alice, “and I have dreadful forebodings when I think of the risk that they have undertaken.”

“Nothing venture, nothing have, Alice, and it will be no disgrace if our nine are defeated by the Calumets. Unless they are very badly beaten indeed, and that is not improbable, to be sure, they will bring some new honors off the field.”

The Judge’s conservative and moderate view of the case was that of the average of Catalpa. To play the Calumets was in itself an honor.

Henry Jackson represented the most discouraging element in Catalpa public opinion. And when Ben Burton returned to town for a day’s holiday, and became at once unusually familiar with Hank, Larry’s face clouded and Alice Howell confidentially informed her friend Ida Boardman that she never could abide Ben Burton, and that now she knew he was a man who would consort with mean companions. Nothing could be lower, she thought, than the course that Henry Jackson had taken during the late contest between the Catalpas and the Galenas.

It was only by a lucky accident that the Calumets had been able to find a place in their later engagements for a championship series of three games with the Catalpas. The sudden sickness of several members of the Osceola club, engaged to play the Calumets, had made it necessary to cancel all the engagements of the former club for the season. The Osceolas had been overtaken by a contagious disease that had made sad havoc that summer, as many will remember, among strangers who visited the lower portion of the State, which had been under water from late in February until the beginning of May. But the ill-luck of the Osceola club was the means of opening a way for the Catalpas to play the Calumets; and that was felt to be something almost providential⁠—at least, in the town of Catalpa.