Although the stock of the Catalpa Baseball Club was divided among many shareholders in the town of Catalpa, it was evident that the mere holding, or non-holding, of shares made no difference with those who were engaged in the active duties of playing. To be sure, the nine had not yet begun their summer campaign. The first of April was early enough for the beginning of outdoor practice, and active work in the field would not open until the first of May; but enough had been done, in the preliminary organization and preparing for the summer’s work, to test the temper of the members of the club. It was not a purely businesslike venture into which these young men had gone for the purpose of making capital or money for themselves. They were burning to retrieve the reputation of “Old Catalpa” as they called their town, albeit it was one of the youngest in Northern Illinois.

And so, as Larry Boyne and Al Heaton were sitting on the rail fence that encloses the Court House of Dean County, in Catalpa, discussing the future prospects of the club, both were confidential and intimate in their exchange of opinions concerning the members of the nine.

“No, I tell you that you are wrong, Al, in your estimate of Ben Burton,” said Larry, earnestly. “I do not think that I could be prejudiced against Ben; and I try to judge him fairly; and so I cannot bring myself to believe that he would be tricky, or that he would undertake to play any foul game on me, or on anybody else, for that matter. He is sullen and moody, at times, and I know that he took to heart his defeat as candidate for captain of the club. I know that he don’t like me, although I don’t know why he should dislike me, as he certainly does.”

“Pooh! Larry,” was Albert’s frank reply, “you know well enough that he fancies that you are in his way as a suitor for the hand of a certain young lady, whose name shall not be mentioned even in this very select society. He knows that that young lady smiles on you in the most bewitching way, and he knows⁠—”

“Oh, see here, Al,” interrupted Larry, with flaming cheeks, “you are riding your horse with a free rein, don’t you think so? I have no right to think of any young lady with the seriousness you seem to put into the matter. I am young, poor, and without friends or influence.”

“Hold on there, Larry,” cried young Heaton, warmly. “You have no right to say that. You will never want for friends. You have a town-full of them, and when you need anyone to stand by and back you up in anything you undertake, you can just put out your hand, without getting off of this rail, to find one friend that will be the man to stand right there as long as he is wanted.”

Larry laid his hand on Albert’s knee as he said, “I know that, Al, and it is good to know it and to have you say it in that straightforward way of yours, and I will say too, that your father called me into the mill, the other day, and said pretty much the same thing to me; and he told me that he should consider it a favor, or something of that sort, if I would allow him to have a fatherly lookout for the folks at home, while I am off, this summer, in case anything should happen.” And Larry’s honest blue eyes filled with moisture as he looked far off over the outlying prairie, in the vain effort to conceal how deeply he had felt the kindness showed to him.

“That was very good of the Governor, I’m sure,” said Albert, stoutly, “and I don’t care if he is my father of whom I am saying it. But it’s nothing more than fair for him, and for the rest of us who stay at home, to do what we can to keep your mind at ease about your folks while you are out in the ball field for the summer. But what I was getting at is this: Ben Burton is down on you; he will try to get the advantage of you, if he can; and, what is of more consequence to all of us, he would not scruple to bring the whole club into disgrace for the sake of gratifying any selfish purpose that he might happen to have in view.”

“But what evil purpose could he have?” demanded Larry.

“As I said before, I don’t know. I don’t want to do Ben an injustice, but I do know that he is underhanded and mean. So you look out for him. As far as his relations to you are concerned, I might say, if you were not so everlastingly toploftical about it, that he is jealous of you on account of your supposed good standing with Alice Howell⁠—”

“Oh, hush‑h‑h‑h!” cried Larry, looking around in unfeigned consternation, to see if there were listeners near. “You really must not mention that young lady’s name in that manner, nor in any manner connected with my own. It would be almost insulting to her, it would fill the Judge with wrath (and I shouldn’t blame him for being angry), to know that gossiping young fellows like us were using his daughter’s name in this light fashion.”

“And why, I should like to know?” answered Albert. “He need not put on any high and mighty airs. I have heard my father say that when the Howellses came here from Kentucky, when the Stone River country was first settled, and old man Hixon was running his ferry across the stream here, they were so poor that they wore bed-ticking clothes, went barefoot, and lived on hog and hominy for many a year afterwards. Side-meat was good enough for them then. The fat of the land is not good enough for them now. It just makes me sick! Such airs!” And honest Albert got down from the fence to give freer expression to his deep disgust.

Larry went away from this casual meeting with his staunch friend Albert with a sense of depression. His nature was unsuspicious and he chose to think that all men were as honest and as frank as he certainly was. Young Heaton’s talk had shaken his faith in human nature as far as that was represented in one man⁠—Ben Burton, the open-eyed and bluff Ben Burton. No wonder Larry repelled Al Heaton’s notion that Ben “was not altogether square” and should be watched.

Larry was to stop at Armstrong’s blacksmith shop, on the north side, on his way home, to have his horse shod. So, as he was leading the animal across the bridge, lost in thought and dwelling somewhat darkly on his conversation with Al Heaton, he did not notice that a young lady, very charmingly dressed and daintily booted and gloved, was tripping along toward him from the opposite side of the river, in the foot-walk that skirted the lower side of the rickety old wooden bridge. He did not look up until his steed, never very easily startled out of a heavy and slouching gait, jumped wildly at a sudden flash from a sky-blue parasol which the young lady deliberately shook at him.

“Whoa, Nance!” cried Larry, astonished at the beast’s unprecedented skittishness, “you old fool!” but here he stopped, for his eyes fell on the bewitching apparition on the other side of the timbered rail, and he colored deeply red as he beheld Miss Alice ready to giggle at his confusion.

“Good day, Mr. Boyne,” said the girl, “I am glad I have met you. I wanted to ask you how the club is getting along, and if you think you will be in good condition for the coming season. To be sure, papa tells me that he has every confidence in your success; but then, papa is hardly a judge in baseball matters, you know, although he has learned a great deal lately, and so have many other people, and they all seem very confident; but the wish is father to the thought, you know, and so I thought I would like to see someone in whose judgment and candor I could put a great deal of confidence, a very great deal, you know, and see what he thinks about the prospect before us. I say ‘us,’ you see, because it is a sort of town matter. Now isn’t it?”

The young lady had rattled on in a random manner, as if she was giving time for Larry to recover himself. Certainly, he needed time. He was covered with blushes, not altogether becoming, for his natural color was quite deep enough for all artistic considerations. But as he stood there, cap in hand, the river breeze lightly lifting his brown curls and fanning his hot cheeks, the maiden’s bright eyes rested on the picture with a certain sense of satisfaction, and she said to her most secret and hidden inner self that there were very few handsomer young men in the region than he who stood before her.

Larry, laying his brown hand on the timber guard that capped the railing betwixt them, said, “You startled me so, Miss Alice, that I almost forgot my manners; and I haven’t much. Oh, you wanted to know about the prospects of the Catalpa Nine? Well, I do not think it would be wise to build many hopes on the future until we have met at least one of the best nines of the country about us. Some of our friends think we are going to sweep the deck. Excuse the expression. And some are even talking of our being the champion nine of the state.”

“Why,” said the girl, “don’t you hope for the championship? Is not that what you are going out to get?”

“Of course, Miss Alice, we hope for everything that is in sight, as the saying is; but we cannot expect, with any sort of reason, for so great success as that during our very first season. The matches are now nearly all made up for the coming season, and if we were never so good players, we should have no chance for the championship, I am afraid.”

“I never thought of that,” said Alice. “What an awful lot you know about baseball. But then that is because you are a man. My papa says that girls have no business learning about baseball. Now what do you think, Mr. Boyne?”

“I am not used to being called ‘Mr. Boyne’ for one thing,” replied Larry, gallantly, “and I should feel very much honored indeed if Miss Howell would remember that I am only ‘Larry’ the new third baseman of the Catalpa Nine.”

The heavy rumble of a farm wagon driving up on the town end of the bridge at that moment warned Larry that he must get out of the way. So, with a few concise words as to the all-absorbing topic of the day, he bowed, replaced his cap, and passed on to North Catalpa.

Sal Monnahan drove the sorrel horses that now came pounding along the wooden way. When she reached her home in Oneosho Village, that evening, she informed her nearest neighbor that she had seen “Larry Boyne lollygagging with that high-strung darter of Judge Howell’s, on the North Catalpa bridge, that arternoon, and then when the gal came off she looked as if she had been talking with her sweetheart, her eyes were so shiny, just like dimonds, and her cheeks were as red as a poppy in the corn. It do beat all how that young Irish feller gets on with folks in town. Gals and fellers⁠—all the same.”

As for Larry, he went across the bridge, leading his nag, and walking so lightly that it seemed to him that his steps were in the air. While Armstrong was shoeing the horse and chatting the while with Larry, he thought within himself that this was a particularly fine young fellow, and that it was a pity that he was poor. Presently his thoughts took shape and he said:

“Don’t you think you are too smart a chap, Larry, to waste your time playing baseball?”

“I am not going to waste much time playing, Tom. I know enough about baseball to know that a player doesn’t last as a good player more than ten or twelve years. He is too young to play before he is seventeen years old, and he is done for and is dropped out by the time he is thirty. So if I had any notion of making ball-playing my calling in life, I should have that fact in view to warn me. Oh, no Tom, I am only making this a bridge to carry me over a hard place.”

“That’s good sense. I was afraid you were going off with the baseball fever, and so never be fit for anything else. That’s what will become of some of those young kids over in town who don’t think of anything, from morning till night, but baseball. I always thought you had more sense into you than most of the boys around here. You are older than your years, Larry,” and the plain-speaking blacksmith looked admiringly in the young man’s face, “older than your years.”

“Older than your years.” These words rang in Larry’s ears as he swung himself lightly into his saddle and ambled down the river road to Sugar Grove.

The blacksmith looked after him and muttered to himself, “He is smart enough to be anything in the way of a lawyer that there is in these parts. And if he were to cast sheep’s eyes on the Judge’s daughter, or on anybody else’s daughter, for that matter, I just believe he would win her in time. He’s got such a taking way with him.” And honest Thomas Armstrong resumed his work with a mild glow of pleasure stealing through him as he thought of Larry Boyne and his possibilities.