Lanny went down to second on the first pitch, and, although Houghton threw quickly and well to that bag, Lanny beat him by a yard. Danny Shores, who was at bat, had swung and was one strike to the bad when Mason grimly turned his attention to him again. Quite a few of Danny’s friends from the factory were on hand to see him perform, and when, after the third delivery, he caught the ball squarely on the nose and sent it streaking just over second baseman’s head, they shouted themselves hoarse in Danny’s honor. On the bench, Jack Tappen looked a bit glum. He had visions of being displaced by Mr. Shores. Lanny came in without hurrying much, and Danny reposed on first. Fudge tried to do his share of a hit-and-run play, but he swung far wide of the deceptive drop, and Danny was caught at second and the inning was over, with Clearfield two runs to the good.
Enthusiasm reigned among the spectators on the stand, and they “rooted” valiantly for Clearfield throughout the rest of the game. In the fifth the Point got two men on bases, and was in good position to score, there being but one out, when Pete Robey pulled down a liner that had been distinctly labeled “two bases,” raced to second ahead of the runner, and then completed the double by making a fine throw to Gordon. Mason struck out Tom easily in the last of the fifth, passed Harry Bryan, fanned Will Scott, and then, with Gordon at bat, caught Harry off first.
Every play was loudly applauded, and the audience was by this time perched on the edges of the seats. Again in their half of the sixth Rutter’s Point found Tom for two hits, and again sharp fielding kept her from crossing the plate. It was evident, though, that Tom was less of a puzzle now than in the earlier innings, and it seemed only a matter of time when the Pointers would bunch their hits and Dick would have to credit them with a run or two. You are not to suppose that Dick was doing nothing but keeping the score. He was managing that game from the bench as scientifically as if he had played the game all his short life. Every batsman got his orders from Dick before he stepped to the plate, and every coacher was instructed before he went to the box. And, besides that, Dick was teaching Harold Townsend how to score a ball game. In spite of his indifference two days before, Harold had appeared with a brand-new, black-covered score-book and a fountain pen. Dick had told him to put the pen in his pocket, and had supplied him with a pencil instead. Harold seated himself by Dick and watched and learned. He made more mistakes than enough, and his score when finished was a veritable hodge-podge of misinformation, but he seemed to get a lot of excitement and fun out of it, and he really did learn a good deal for a boy who had theretofore scored an out by placing a huge X opposite the batsman and a run by marking up an equally enormous I. When he began to memorize the symbols for struck out, base on balls, hit by pitched ball, and so on, he discovered that scoring was not the simple task he had thought it. About the sixth inning he gave up trying to keep a detailed score, and contented himself with disposing of the batsmen with his X’s and I’s. But by that time the excitement had grown so intense that it would have required a person with a much cooler head than Harold’s to keep his mind on scoring.