Hugh Fullerton - Jimmy Kirkland and the Plot for a Pennant

The girl smiled and McCarthy, stuttering in his effort to reply, managed to mutter good-night as she passed into the next car.

"It's a pink Kohinoor now," said the relentless Swanson, as he observed the flushed face of the recruit. "All fussed up, isn't he?"

"Oh, cut it out," retorted McCarthy, striving to cover his embarrassment by ball field conversational methods. "A fellow might be expected to be a little bit embarrassed with a lot of big stiffs like you standing around and never offering to introduce a fellow."

"I forgot it, Kohinoor," said Kennedy quickly. "I forgot you never had met her. She is Betty Tabor, Sec's daughter, and one of the best little women in the world. Even Silent is a gentleman when she is with the team."

"I'm always a gent, Bo," declared Swanson indignantly. "I took a night school course in etiquette once. Any one that ain't a gent when she is around I'll teach to be a gent – and this is the perfessor."

He exhibited a huge, red fist and smote the cushions of the berth with a convincing thud.

"I'll introduce you properly to-morrow," volunteered Kennedy. "Come on and get into the quartette. We'll try you out."

McCarthy surrendered more to conceal his agitation than because he felt like singing.

The quartette sang until the bridge players grew weary of the game and the tired athletes who preferred sleep to the melody howled imprecations upon the vocalists.

For a long time after McCarthy climbed into his berth he remained staring into the darkness, striving to recall the outlines of a face set with a pair of friendly brown eyes that lighted with a look of eager appreciation. He remembered the little dimples at the corners of the mouth, and the wealth of soft, brown hair that framed the oval of her face. He blushed hotly in the darkness at the thought of his own rather threadbare raiment, and he decided that he would evade an introduction until he could secure money from Manager Clancy and recover the clothes he had left in an express office.

He found himself striving to compare her face with that of another.

"She is not as pretty as Helen is," he told himself. "But it's different somehow. Helen never seemed to feel anything or to understand a fellow, and I'm sure Betty – Betty? I wonder if that is her real name – I'll sing for her as often as she will listen."

And, after a long reviewing of the past that was proving such a mystery and which the baseball reporters were striving in vain to explore, McCarthy muttered: "I've made a fool of myself," and turned over and slept.

The train was speeding along through the upper reaches of a beautiful valley when McCarthy awoke. As he splashed and scraped his face in the washroom he found himself torn between desire to hasten the introduction which Kennedy had promised and to avoid meeting the girl. He glanced down at his worn garments, wondering whether or not the girl had observed them. He went forward to the dining car with sudden determination to avoid the introduction. The dining car was crowded, and the table at which Swanson was eating was filled. McCarthy stopped, looked around for a vacant seat. There seemed to be only one – and at that table Miss Betty Tabor was breakfasting with Manager Clancy and his wife.

"Good morning," said the girl, smiling brightly. "There is a seat here. My father had to hurry away. Mr. Clancy will introduce us."

Clancy suspended his operations with his ham and eggs long enough to say:

"Miss Taber, Mr. McCarthy. Kohinoor, this is the old lady."

"I heard Mr. McCarthy sing last night," said the girl, acknowledging the informal presentation. "He sings well."

"So I should guess," remarked Clancy dryly. "Swanson has been bellowing his praise of it until everyone on the train thinks we have grabbed a grand opera star who can hit 400."

McCarthy found himself talking with Miss Taber and Mrs. Clancy and laughing at the quaint half brogue of the manager's buxom wife as if they had known each other all their lives. Clancy himself had little to say. The conversation had drifted to discussion of the country through which the train was running and McCarthy suddenly ceased talking.

"I always have loved this part of the valley," said Miss Taber. "When I was a little girl father brought me on a trip and I remember then picking out a spot on the hills across the river where, some day, I wanted to live. I never pass it without feeling the old desire. Have you been through this country before?"

The question was entirely natural, but McCarthy reddened as he admitted it was his first trip.

"And what part of the world do you come from?" asked Mrs. Clancy.

"I'm from the West," he responded. "Probably that is why I admire this green country so much."

"What is your home town?" persisted Mrs. Clancy.

Miss Taber, scenting an embarrassing situation, strove to change the subject, but Mrs. Clancy refused to be put off.

"Why is it you are ashamed of your home and play under another name, boy?" she demanded.

"Why do you think my name isn't McCarthy?" he parried.

"The McCarthys aren't a red-headed race," she said, her brogue broadening. "Ye have Irish in ye, but ye're not Irish. Is baseball such a disgraceful business ye are ashamed to use your name?"

"Of course not, Mrs. Clancy," he responded indignantly. "It is a good enough business – but – but – Oh, I can't explain."

"This mystery business is a big drawing card," remarked Manager Clancy, endeavoring to ease the situation. "They flock to see him because each one can make up his own story. Let him alone, mother. Don't spoil the gate receipts."

"Let him alone, is it?" she asked, turning upon her husband. "'Tis for his own sake I'm speaking. They'll be saying you've done something bad and wicked and are afraid to use your own name."

"What isn't true cannot hurt anyone," he replied quickly. "I have not committed any crimes."

"Mother is a good deal right about it," remarked Clancy quietly. "A baseball player is a public person. The fans are likely to say anything about a player, and the less they know the more they will invent."

"I believe Mother Clancy is right," said Miss Taber, seeing that her effort to turn the conversation had failed.

"But there really isn't anything to tell – anything any one would be interested in. It's a private matter," protested McCarthy.

"Listen, boy," said the manager's wife. "I've been with the boys these many years. They are all my boys, even the bad ones, and I don't want any of them talked about."

"There is nothing to talk about," he contended, irritated by the persistency of the manager's wife.

"They're already saying things," she responded, leaning forward. "They're a saying that you've done something crooked – that you've thrown ball games – "

"Oh," ejaculated Miss Taber. "They wouldn't dare!"

"I'd like to have someone say that to me," McCarthy said, flushing with anger.

"Hold on, mother," interrupted Clancy. "I'm managing this team – Let up on him. Where do you hear that kind of talk?"

"I heard it in the stands," she argued earnestly. "They were saying you knew all about it. If you deny it they'll tell another story and if you keep quiet they'll think its a confession. Tell them what you are and where you came from, boy."

Her voice was pleading and her interest in his welfare was too real not to affect him.

"I'm sorry, Mother Clancy," he said gratefully, unconsciously adopting the term he had heard Betty Tabor use. "There is nothing I can tell them – or anyone – now."

"It's sorry I am, Jimmy," she responded sadly. "If it's anything ye can tell me come to me."

"I see I have another adopted son," remarked Clancy teasingly as he winked at Miss Tabor. "Ellen mothers them all, as soon as she learns their first names – even the Swede."