



Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed
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                           SECOND BASE SLOAN




[Illustration: The White Boy, the Black Boy, and the Yellow Dog]




                           Second Base Sloan

                                  BY
                           CHRISTY MATHEWSON

                               AUTHOR OF
                         FIRST BASE FAULKNER,
                          CATCHER CRAIG, ETC.


                            ILLUSTRATED BY
                             E. C. CASWELL


                            [Illustration]


                           GROSSET & DUNLAP
                      PUBLISHERS        NEW YORK

                 Made in the United States of America




                          Copyright, 1917, by
                     DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                                     PAGE
       I TWO BOYS AND A DOG                     3
      II JUNE STRIKES A BARGAIN                13
     III THE SEARCH FOR WORK                   28
      IV DISPOSSESSED                          44
       V WAYNE PARTS WITH SAM                  57
      VI THE NEW HOME                          71
     VII THE LUCK CHANGES                      84
    VIII WAYNE LOSES A JOB AND FINDS ONE      100
      IX BIG TOM MAKES AN OFFER               118
       X NEW FRIENDS                          131
      XI THE CHENANGO CLUB                    143
     XII MEDFIELD CELEBRATES                  159
    XIII WAYNE BEATS OUT THE BALL             172
     XIV “A GENTLEMAN TO SEE MR. SLOAN”       186
      XV PATTERN GIVES ADVICE                 198
     XVI OFF TO HARRISVILLE                   210
    XVII TURNED DOWN!                         225
   XVIII “BADGERS” VS. “BILLIES”              236
     XIX WAYNE LENDS A HAND                   250
      XX JUNE GOES TO WORK                    263
     XXI MR. MILBURN PROMISES                 274
    XXII SECOND BASE SLOAN                    287




ILLUSTRATIONS


 The white boy, the black boy, and the yellow dog (Page 12)
                                                          _Frontispiece_

                                                                  FACING
                                                                   PAGE

 Wayne’s cry was uttered involuntarily as he leaped forward         104

 Every other Medfield adherent made a joyful noise                  182

 His conviction that he could hit that ball was still strong        296




SECOND BASE SLOAN




CHAPTER I

TWO BOYS AND A DOG


Two boys and a dog sat at the edge of a little wood and shiveringly
watched the eastern sky pale from inky blue to gray. One of the boys
was white and the other was black; and the dog was yellow. The white
boy was seventeen years old, the black boy sixteen, and the yellow
dog--well, no one knew just how old he was. The white boy’s name was
Wayne Torrence Sloan, the black boy’s name was Junius Brutus Bartow
Tasker, and the dog’s name was Sam. An hour ago they had been rudely
awakened from their sleep in a box car and more rudely driven forth
into cold and darkness and mystery. They had had no complaint to make,
for they had lain undisturbed in the car ever since the middle of the
previous afternoon; and between that time and an hour ago had rumbled
and jolted over miles and miles of track, just how many miles there was
no way of telling until, having learned their present whereabouts,
Wayne should puzzle out the matter of distance on the frayed and
tattered time-table in his pocket. Travelling as they had travelled,
on foot or stealing rides when the chance offered, makes a philosopher
of one, and instead of objecting to the fate that had overtaken them
when a suspicious train hand had flashed his lantern into the gloomy
recesses of the box car, they had departed hurriedly and in silence,
being thankful that the exodus had not been forced on them long before.

Minute by minute the sky brightened. The steely gray became softer in
tone and began to flush with a suggestion of rose. The stars paled. A
wan gleam of approaching daylight fell on one burnished rail of the
track which lay a few rods distant. The trees behind them took on form
and substance and their naked branches became visibly detailed against
the sky. The dog whined softly and curled himself tighter in Wayne’s
arms. Wayne stretched the corner of his gray sweater over the thin back
and eased himself from the cramped position against the trunk of a
small tree.

“What would you do, June, if someone came along about now with a can of
hot coffee?” he asked, breaking the silence that had lasted for many
minutes. The <DW64> boy aroused from his half doze and flashed the
whites of his eyes in the gloom.

“Mas’ Wayne,” he answered fervently, “I’d jus’ about love that Mister
Man. M-m-mm! Hot coffee! Lawsy-y! You reckon it ever goin’ to get
lightsome, Mas’ Wayne?”

“I reckon we can start along pretty soon now, June. Whereabouts do you
suspect we are?”

“I reckon we must be gettin’ mighty nigh New York. How far was we
yesterday?”

“’Most two hundred and fifty miles. If we’d just kept right on going
all night we might have been in New York right now, but that freight
was standing still more times than it was moving, I reckon. Look
yonder, June. Daylight’s surely coming, isn’t it?”

Junius Brutus Bartow Tasker turned an obedient gaze toward the east,
but his reply was pessimistic. A <DW64> who is cold is generally
pessimistic, and June was certainly cold. Unlike Wayne, he had no
sweater under his shabby jacket, nor was there much of anything else
under it, for the coarse gingham shirt offered little resistance to
the chill of the March night, and June and undershirts had long been
strangers. Early spring in southern Georgia is a different matter from
the same season up North, a fact which neither boy had allowed for.

“I reckon Christmas is comin’ too,” muttered June gloomily, “but it’s
a powerful long way off. How come the nights is so long up here, Mas’
Wayne?”

“I reckon there isn’t any difference, not really,” answered Wayne.
“They just seem like they were longer. Sam, you wake up and stretch
yourself. We’re going to travel again pretty soon now. Go catch
yourself a rabbit or something.”

The dog obeyed instructions so far as stretching himself was concerned,
and, after finding that he was not to be allowed to return to the
warmth of his master’s lap, even set off in a half-hearted, shivering
fashion to explore the surrounding world.

“I reckon he can projeck ’roun’ a mighty long time before he starts a
rabbit,” said June discouragedly. “It’s a powerful mean-lookin’ country
up this way, ain’ it? What state you-all reckons we’s in, Mas’ Wayne?”

Wayne shook his head. Shaking his head was very easy because he only
had to let the tremors that were agitating the rest of him extend above
the turned-up collar of his jacket! “I reckon it might be Maryland,
June. Somewheres around there, anyway.” He felt for the time-table in
his pocket, but he didn’t bring it forth for it was still too dark to
read. “I ’most wish I was back home, June,” he went on wistfully,
after a minute’s silence. “I sure do!”

“I done told you we hadn’t no business comin’ up this yere way. Ain’
nothin’ up here but Northerners, I reckon. If we’d gone West like I
said we’d been a heap better off.”

“Nobody asked you to come, anyway,” responded Wayne sharply. “There
wasn’t any reason for you coming. You--you just butted in!”

As there was no denying that statement, June wisely chose to change
the subject. “Reckon someone’s goin’ to give us some breakfast pretty
soon?” he asked.

But Wayne had a grievance now and, feeling a good deal more homesick
than he had thought he ever could feel, and a lot colder and emptier
than was pleasant, he nursed it. “I couldn’t stay there any longer and
slave for that man,” he said. “I stuck it out as long as I could. Ever
since mother died it’s been getting worse and worse. He hasn’t got any
hold on me, anyway. Stepfathers aren’t kin. I had a right to run away
if I wanted to, and he can’t fetch me back, not anyway, not even by
law!”

“No, sir, he can’,” agreed June soothingly.

“But you didn’t have any right to run away, June. You----”

“How come I ain’t” demanded the <DW64>. “He ain’ no kin to me, neither,
is he? I was jus’ a-workin’ for him. Mister Higgins ain’ got no more
’sponsibility about me than he has about you, Mas’ Wayne.”

“Just the same, June, he can fetch you back if he ever catches you.”

“Can, can he? Let me tell you somethin’. He ain’ _goin’_ to catch me!
Nobody ain’ goin’ to catch me!  folkses is free an’ independent
citizens, ain’ they? Ain’ they, Mas’ Wayne?”

“Maybe they’re free,” answered his companion grimly, “but if you get to
acting independent I’ll just about lick the hide off you! I ought to
have done it back yonder and sent you home where you belong.”

“I’se where I belong right now,” replied June stoutly. “Ain’ we been
together ever since we was jus’ little fellers, Mas’ Wayne? Wasn’ my
mammy your mammy’s <DW65> for years an’ years? How come I ain’ got no
right here? Ain’ my mammy always say to me, ‘You Junius Brutus Tasker,
you watch out for Young Master an’ don’ you ever let no harm come to
him, ’cause if you do I’ll tan your hide’? Ain’ she always tell me that
ever since I was so high? What you think I was goin’ to do, Mas’ Wayne,
when I seen you sneakin’ off that night? Wasn’ but jus’ one thing _to_
do, was there? How you ’spects I was goin’ to watch out for you like my
mammy tells me if I didn’ go along with you? Huh? So I jus’ track along
till you get to the big road, an’ then I track along till you get to
Summitty, and then I track along----”

“Yes, and you climbed into that freight car after me and the man saw
you and we all got thrown out,” continued Wayne. “I reckon you meant
all right, June, but what do you suppose I’m going to do with you up
North here? I got to find work to do and it’s going to be hard enough
to look after Sam here without having a pesky darkey on my hands. Best
thing you can do is hike back home before you starve to death.”

“Huh! I ain’ never starved to death yet, Mas’ Wayne, an’ I ain’ lookin’
to. Jus’ like I told you heaps of times, you ain’ got to do no worryin’
about June. I reckon I can find me a job of work, too, can’ I? Reckon
folkses has to plough an’ plant an’ pick their cotton up here jus’ like
they does back home.”

“There isn’t any cotton in the North, June.”

“Ain’ no cotton?” ejaculated the other incredulously. “What all they
plant up here, then, Mas’ Wayne?”

“Oh, apples, I reckon, and----”

“I can pick apples, then. I done pick peaches, ain’ I? What else they
plant?”

“Why----” Wayne didn’t have a very clear notion himself, but it didn’t
do to appear ignorant to June. “Why, they--they plant potatoes--white
potatoes, you know--and--and peas and--oh, lots of things, I reckon.”

June pondered that in silence for a moment. Then: “But how come they
don’t plant cotton?” he asked in puzzled tones.

“Too cold. It won’t grow for them up here.”

June gazed rather contemptuously about the gray morning landscape and
grunted comprehendingly. “Uh-huh. Reckon I wouldn’t neither if I was a
cotton plant! It surely is a mighty--mighty _mean_-lookin’ place, ain’
it?”

Well, it really was. Before them ran the railroad embankment,
behind them was the little grove of bare trees and on either hand
an uncultivated expanse of level field stretched away into the gray
gloom. No habitation was as yet in sight. The telegraph poles showed
spectrally against the dawn, and a little breeze, rising with the
rising sun, made a moaning sound in the clustered wires. Sam came back
from his profitless adventures and wormed himself between Wayne’s legs.
June blew on his cold hands and crooned a song under his breath. The
eastern sky grew lighter and lighter and suddenly, like a miracle,
a burst of rose glow spread upward toward the zenith, turning the
grayness into the soft hues of a dove’s breast! Wayne sprang to his
feet, with an exclamation of pain as his cramped and chilled muscles
responded to the demand, and stretched his arms and yawned prodigiously.

“Come along and let’s find that hot coffee, June,” he said almost
cheerfully. “There must be a house somewhere around here, I reckon.”

“Sure must!” replied the other, falling instantly into Wayne’s humour.
“Lawsy-y, I can jus’ taste that coffee now! Which way we goin’, Mas’
Wayne?”

Wayne stamped his feet on the still frosty ground and considered. At
last: “North,” he replied, “and north’s over that way. Come along!”

He led the way back toward the track, followed by June and Sam,
and after squeezing himself between the wires of a fence climbed
the embankment and set off over the ties with a speed born of long
practice. The rose hue was fast changing to gold now, and long rays of
sunlight streamed upward heralding the coming of His Majesty the Sun;
and against the glory of the eastern sky the three travellers stood
out like animated silhouettes cut from blue-black cardboard as they
trudged along--the white boy, the black boy, and the yellow dog.




CHAPTER II

JUNE STRIKES A BARGAIN


That they didn’t travel absolutely due north was only because the
track chose to lead more westerly. By the time the sun was really in
sight they had covered the better part of a half-mile and had caught a
glimpse of a good-sized town in the distance. Tall chimneys and a spire
or two pointed upward above a smoky haze. They crossed a big bridge
beneath which flowed a broad and sluggish river, and had to flatten
themselves against the parapet, Sam held tightly in Wayne’s arms, while
a long freight train pounded past them on the single line of track.
Beyond the bridge a “Yard Limit” sign met them, and the rails branched
and switches stood up here and there like sentries and a roundhouse was
near at hand. But they found their first habitation before that in a
tiny white cottage set below the embankment, its gate facing a rambling
clay road, rutted and pitted, that disappeared under a bridge. There
was a path worn down the bank to the road, and Wayne and June and Sam
descended it. A trail of smoke arose from the chimney of the house
straight into the morning sunlight and suggested that the occupants
were up and about.

Wayne’s knock on the door was answered by a tall, thin, slatternly
woman who scowled questioningly.

“Good morning, ma’am,” began Wayne. “Could you give us a cup of coffee,
please? We’ve been----”

“Get out of my yard,” was the prompt response. “I don’t feed tramps!”

“We aren’t tramps, ma’am. We’ll pay for the coffee----”

“And steal the doormat! I know your sort!” There was no doormat in
sight, but Wayne didn’t notice the fact. “Go on now before I call my
man to you.” The door slammed shut.

Wayne viewed June in surprise and the <DW64> boy shook his head
helplessly. “She surely is a powerful disgrumpled lady, Mas’ Wayne!
Yes, sir! Reckon we better move along.”

“Maybe she isn’t well,” said Wayne, as they left the inhospitable
dwelling behind and again climbed to the track. “Just the same, she
didn’t have any right to call us tramps, did she? I suppose we’d better
keep on to the town, June. It isn’t much farther.”

So they went on, past sidings laden with long lines of freight cars,
past locomotives sizzling idly, past a crossing where eight burnished
rails, aglow in the sunlight, crossed their path, under a big signal
tower, their eyes very busy and their stomachs, since they had not
eaten since early the preceding afternoon, very empty. A long freight
shed was reached, and as they passed it one of the many doors slid
slowly open and a brawny man stood revealed against the dimness beyond.
He stretched his arms, yawned, caught sight of the passers and stood
there, framed in the square opening, staring interestedly. Wayne
stopped.

“Howdy,” he said. “Can you tell me where I can get something to eat,
sir?”

“Sure! Cross over back of the yellow building and you’ll see a
lunch-wagon. Maybe you’re looking for the hotel, though?”

Wayne shook his head. “I reckon a lunch-wagon’s good enough. What is
this place, please?”

“Medfield, son. Aren’t lost, are you?”

“No, sir. What--what state are we in?”

“Pennsylvania. What state might you be looking for, son?”

“New York. Is it