“So I did,” said Tom. “Ain’t I a smarty?”
Whereupon Dan tumbled him over backward onto the bed and sat on top of him a long, long time, and told him how very, very smart he was. And it was not until Nelson, appearing on the scene with a wealth of surgeon’s plaster adorning his brow, asked innocently, “Who’s going to soak?” that Dan’s attentions ceased; and then it was only because he felt obliged to stand firmly on his feet in order to put the necessary amount of withering sarcasm into his reply to Nelson.
RECALLS THE FACT THAT WHAT’S FAIR FOR ONE IS FAIR FOR ANOTHER, AND RECORDS A DEFEAT AND A VICTORY
A week later Wickasaw came over to the mainland and met Chicora on the diamond. The final score, when the game came to an end at the last of the seventh inning, was 18 to 4, and I had rather not say which side scored the 18. However, defeat is not dishonorable; Chicora had that thought to comfort her. Wells, he of the snub-nose, pitched a magnificent game for five innings, and then went so high into the air that he wasn’t able to get down again while the game lasted. And while he was up there Wickasaw unkindly batted in eight runs and scored seven more on errors, four of them being due to Wells’s wildness. Wickasaw played every last one of her councilors--four in all--and would probably have won by a small margin even if Wells hadn’t gone to pieces. But the result was a disappointment to Bob, and he worried over it a good deal during the ensuing three days. Wickasaw went home in her launch and rowboats audibly pleased with herself, and the next day, beneath her camp-flag on the pole at the landing, floated a square of white sheeting inscribed:
+-------------+ | W. 18; C. 4 | +-------------+
And every time Bob saw that flag floating in the breeze he ground his teeth. And Dan smiled his widest smile, and drew a sketch of the flag _they_ were going to put up after the next game. And in the meanwhile everybody went to work harder than ever at the batting-net and in the field; for the lesson of defeat is renewed endeavor.
On the following Saturday Chicora played again, this time with the nine from the Chicora Inn, a nine made up of guests and employees of the hotel. It was the finest kind of an August afternoon, warm enough to limber the players’ muscles, and yet not so hot that the spectators were uncomfortable under the shade of the trees. Wells went into the box again for the Camp, while the Inn had her head clerk, a Dartmouth College man, do the pitching for her. For the first three innings the Camp had everything its own way. Nelson started things going with a three-bagger in the second, and after the bases had filled up Bob went to bat and cleared them, himself reaching second. Again, in the third a base on balls to the second man up proved costly, the runner on first reaching second on a passed ball and taking third on a single by Carter. Then Wells got in the way of an in-shoot and limped to base amid the laughing applause of the Camp rooters, and the bags were all occupied. It was Nelson’s chance again, and he made the most of it. With two strikes and three balls called on him he found what he wanted, and hit safely for two bases over short-stop’s head. The Inn had meanwhile scored but one run, and so at the beginning of the fourth inning the score stood 6 to 1, and the spectators who were gallantly flaunting the crimson flags of Chicora Inn were becoming anxious.