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                          WHEN YOU WERE A BOY




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                      [Illustration: Frontispiece]




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                                WHEN YOU
                               WERE A BOY

                                   BY
                             EDWIN L. SABIN

                            WITH PICTURES BY
                          FREDERIC DORR STEELE

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                         [Illustration: Figure]

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                                New York
                       THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
              33-37 EAST 17TH STREET, UNION SQUARE (NORTH)




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             Copyright, 1905, by THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY

                                  ---

                        Published October, 1905




                The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.




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             For permission to republish the following
             sketches the author is gratefully indebted
             to the Century Magazine, the Saturday Evening
             Post, Everybody’s Magazine, and the National
             Magazine.




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                                CONTENTS

                                   ❦


                                                  PAGE
                     I The Match Game               11
                    II You at School                39
                   III Chums                        65
                    IV In the Arena                 91
                     V The Circus                  111
                    VI When You Ran Away           135
                   VII Goin’ Fishin’               155
                  VIII In Society                  179
                    IX Middleton’s Hill            195
                     X Goin’ Swimmin’              219
                    XI The Sunday-School Picnic    239
                   XII The Old Muzzle-Loader       257
                  XIII A Boy’s Loves               277
                   XIV Noon                        297




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                             THE MATCH GAME




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                         [Illustration: “YOU”]




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                          WHEN YOU WERE A BOY




                             THE MATCH GAME


      “OUR” NINE

    Billy Lunt, c
    Fat Day, p
    Hen Schmidt, 1b
    Bob Leslie, 2b
    Hod O’Shea, 3b
    Chub Thornbury, ss
    Nixie Kemp, lf
    Tom Kemp, rf
    “You,” cf.

    “THEIR” NINE

    Spunk Carey, c
    Doc Kennedy, p
    Screw Major, 1b
    Ted Watson, 2b
    Red Conroy, 3b
    Slim Harding, ss
    Pete Jones, lf
    Tug McCormack, rf
    Ollie Hansen, cf

                       We:     5   9   9    8—31
                       They:  11  14   9   16—50


FAT DAY was captain and pitcher. He was captain because, if he was
_not_, he wouldn’t play, and inasmuch as he owned the ball, this would
have been disastrous; and he was pitcher because he was captain.

In the North Stars were other pitchers—seven of them! The only member
who did not aspire to pitch was Billy Lunt, and as catcher he occupied a
place, in “takin’ ’em off the bat,” too delightfully hazardous for him
to surrender, and too painful for anybody else to covet.


[Illustration: FAT DAY]


The organization of the North Stars was effected through verbal
contracts somewhat as follows:

“Say, we want you to be in our nine.”

“All right. Will you lemme pitch?”

“Naw; Fat’s pitcher, ’cause he’s captain; but you can play first.”

“Pooh! _Fat_ can’t pitch—”

“I can, too. I can pitch lots better’n _you_ can, anyhow.” (This from
Fat himself.)

“W-well, I’ll play first, then. I don’t care.”

Thus an adjustment was reached.

A proud moment for you was it when _your_ merits as a ball-player were
recognized, and you were engaged for center-field. Of course, secretly
you nourished the strong conviction that you were cut out for a pitcher.
Next to pitcher, you preferred short-stop, and next to short-stop, first
base. But these positions, and pretty much everything, in fact, had been
preempted; so, after the necessary haggling, you accepted center-field.

Speedily the North Star make-up was complete, and disappointed
applicants—those too little, too big, too late, or not good enough—were
busy sneering about it.


[Illustration: BILLY LUNT]


The equipment of the North Star Base-Ball Club consisted of Fat’s
“regular league” ball, six bats (owned by various members, and in some
cases exercising no small influence in determining fitness of the same
for enlistment as recruits), and four uniforms.

Mother made your uniform. To-day you wonder how, amidst darning your
stockings and patching our trousers and mending your waists, she ever
found time in which to supply you with the additional regalia which,
according to your pursuits of the hour, day after day you insistently
demanded. But she always did.


[Illustration: SPUNK CAREY]


The uniform in question was composed of a pair of your linen
knickerbockers with a red tape tacked along the outside seam, and a huge
six-pointed blue flannel star, each point having a buttonhole whereby it
was attached to a button, corresponding, on the breast of your waist.
And was there a cap, or did you wear the faithful old straw? Fat Day,
you recollect, had a cap upon the front of which was lettered his
rank—“Captain.” It seems as though mother made you a cap, as well as the
striped trousers and breastplate. The cap was furnished with a
tremendously deep vizor of pasteboard, and was formed of four segments,
two white and two blue, meeting in the center of the crown.

All in all, the uniform was perfectly satisfactory; it was distinctive,
and was surpassed by none of the other three.

Evidently the mothers of five of the North Stars did not attend to
business, for their sons played in ordinary citizen’s attire of hats,
and of waists and trousers unadorned save by the stains incidental to
daily life.

The North Stars must have been employed for a time chiefly in parading
about and seeking whom they, as an aggregation, might devour, but as a
rule failing, owing to interfering house-and-yard duties, all to report
upon any one occasion. The contests had been with “picked nines,” “just
for fun” (meaning that there was no sting in defeat), when on a sudden
it was breathlessly announced from mouth, to mouth that “the
Second-street kids want to play us.”


[Illustration: HEN SCHMIDT]


“Come on!” responded, with a single valiant voice, the North Stars.

“We’re goin’ to play a match game next Tuesday,” you gave out, as a bit
of important news, at the supper-table.

“That so?” hazarded father, who had been flatteringly interested in your
blue star. “Who’s the other nine?”

“The Second-street fellows. Spunk Carey’s captain and—”

“Who is _Spunk_ Carey? Oh, Johnny, what outlandish names you boys do
rake up!” exclaimed mother.

“Why, he’s Frank Carey the hardware man’s boy,” explained father,
indulgently. “What’s his first name, John?”


[Illustration: CHUB THORNBURY]


“I dunno,” you hurriedly owned; “Spunk” had been quite sufficient for
all purposes. “But we’re goin’ to play in the vacant lot next to Carey’s
house. There’s a dandy diamond.”

So there was. The Carey side fence supplied a fine back-stop, and thence
the grounds extended in a superb level of dusty green, broken by burdock
clumps and interspersed with tin cans. The lot was bounded on the east
by the Carey fence, on the south and west by a high walk, and on the
north by the alley. It was a corner lot, which made it the more
spacious.

The diamond itself had been laid out, in the beginning, with proportions
accommodated to a pair of rocks that would answer for first and second
base; a slab dropped where third ought to be, and another dropped for
the home plate, finished the preliminary work, and thereafter scores of
running feet, shod and unshod, had worn bare the lines, and the spots
where stood pitcher, catcher, and batter.

A landscape architect might have passed criticism on the ensemble of the
plat, and a surveyor might have taken exceptions to the configuration of
the diamond, but who cared?


[Illustration: DOC KENNEDY]


“We” had promised that “we” would be there, ready to play, at two
o’clock, and “they” had solemnly vowed that “they” would be as prompt.
Tuesday’s dinner you gulped and gobbled; in those days your stomach was
patient and charitable almost beyond belief in this degenerate present.
It was imperative that you be at Carey’s lot immediately, and despite
the imploring objections of the family to your reckless haste, you
bolted out; and as you went you drew upon your left hand an old
fingerless kid glove, which was of some peculiar service in your
center-field duties.


[Illustration: RED CONROY]


Your uniform had been put on upon arising that morning. You always wore
it nowadays except when in bed or on Sundays. It was your toga of the
purple border, and the bat that you carried from early to late, in your
peregrinations, was your scepter mace.

At your unearthly yodel, from next door rushed out your crony, Hen
Schmidt, and joined you; and upon your way to the vacant lot you picked
up Billy Lunt and Chub Thornbury.

The four of you succeeded in all talking at once: the Second-streets
were great big fellows; their pitcher was Doc Kennedy and it wasn’t
fair, because he threw as hard as he could, and he was nearly sixteen;
Hop Hopkins said he’d be “empire”; Red Conroy was going to play, and he
always was wanting to fight; darn it—if Fat only wouldn’t pitch, but let
somebody else do it! Bob Leslie could throw an awful big “in,” etc.

The fateful lot dawned upon the right, around the corner of an alley
fence. Hurrah, there they are! You see Nixie and Tom Kemp, and Hod
O’Shea, and Bob Leslie, and Spunk, and Screw Major, and Ted Watson, and
Slim Harding, and the redoubtable Red Conroy (engaged in bullying a
smaller boy), and others who must be the remainder of the
Second-streets.


[Illustration: OLLIE HANSEN]


“Hello, kids,” you say, and likewise say your three companions; and with
bat trailing you stalk with free and easy dignity into the crowd.

“Where’s Fat? Who’s seen Fat?” asked everybody of everybody; for Captain
Fat was the sole essential personage lacking. However, even without him,
pending his arrival the scene was one of stirring animation.

Thick and fast flew here and there the several balls on the grounds,
each nine keeping to itself, and each boy throwing “curves”—or, at
least, thus essaying.

You yourself, brave in your splendor of blue star and red stripe,
endeavored, by now and then negligently catching with one hand, to make
it plain that you were virtually a professional.


[Illustration: BOB LESLIE]


The Second-streets were as yet ununiformed, even in sections. But they
were a rugged, rough-and-ready set, and two of them had base-ball shoes
on, proving that they were experts.

“Here’s Fat! Here comes Fat!” suddenly arose the welcoming cry; and
appareled in his regimentals, his cap announcing to all beholders his
high rank, panting, hot, perspiring, up hustled the leader of the North
Stars.

It was time to begin.

“Who’s got a ball?” demanded Umpire Hopkins, sometimes called Harry, but
more generally known as Hop or Hoptoad.

The query disclosed a serious condition. Balls there were, but not
suitable for a championship match game. They were ten- and
fifteen-centers, as hard as grapeshot or already knocked flabby.

“Where’s your ball, Fat?” you asked incautiously.

“In my pocket,” admitted Fat—a bulging fact that he could not well deny.


[Illustration: PETE JONES]


“What is it? Le’ ’s see, Fat,” demanded Captain Spunk.

“It’s a regular dollar league,” you informed glibly; and Fat, with
mingled pride and reluctance, extracted it from the pocket of his
knickerbockers,—peeled it, so to speak, into the open,—and handed it out
for inspection.

“Gee!” commented Spunk, thumbing it, and chucking it up and catching it.
“It’s a dandy! Come on, kids; here’s a ball!”

“But if you use my ball, you’ve got to give us our outs,” bargained Fat,
dismayed.


[Illustration: HOD O’SHEA]


“G’wan!” growled Red Conroy. “Don’t you do it, Spunk. ‘Tain’t goin’ to
hurt his old ball any.”

Awed by the ever-belligerent Red, Fat submitted to the customary lot by
bat. Spunk tossed a bat at him, and he caught it, with an elaborate show
of method, about the middle; then with alternate hands they proceeded to
cover it upward to the end.

The last hand for which there was space was Fat’s; by no manner of means
could Spunk squeeze his grimy fist into the two inches left.

“We’ll take our outs,” majestically asserted Captain Fat; whereat
whooped shrilly all the North Stars, and quite regardless of their
affiliations whooped shrilly the spectators also, composed of small
brothers and a few friends about equally divided between the contestant
nines.

Some preliminaries were yet to be gone through with. Doc Kennedy was
protested because he pitched so swift.

“Aw, _I_ won’t throw hard,” he assured bluffly.

“Of course not! _He’s_ easy to hit,” chorused his companions.

Then, in view of the fact that Billy Lunt had a sore finger, as
evidenced by a cylinder of whitish rag (which he slipped off,
obligingly, whenever solicited), it was agreed that he be allowed to
catch the third strike on the first bounce.


[Illustration: SCREW MAJOR]


A foul over the back-stop fence was out; a like penalty was attached to
flies over the boundary walks.

And now, turning hand-springs and otherwise gamboling exultantly, the
North Stars scattered to their respective positions.

Away out in center-field you prepared to guard your territory. You bent
over, with your hands upon your knees, and ever and anon you spat
fiercely, sometimes upon the ground and sometimes into your kid glove.
This was the performance of the players upon the town’s nine, the Red
Stockings and evidently greatly added to their efficiency.


[Illustration: TED WATSON]


Besides, on the edge of the walk just back of you were sitting and
swinging their slim legs two little girls, whom it was pleasant to
impress.

Overhead the sun was blazing hot, but not to you; underfoot the dust
from a long dry spell lay choking thick, but not to you; a
“darning-needle” whizzed past, and you scarcely ducked, although he
might be bent upon sewing up your ears. Your work was too stern to admit
of your noticing sun, or dust, or mischievous dragon-fly. So you spat
into your glove, replaced your hands on your knees, and waited. “Hello,
Johnny!” piped one of the little girls; but you deigned not to make
answer.

To right and to left were the Kemp boys, with their hands upon _their_
knees; and before were the infielders, with their hands likewise upon
_their_ knees; that is, all except the pitcher.


[Illustration: SLIM HARDING]


“Play ball!” gruffly bade the umpire.

Captain Spunk advanced to the slab.

“Gimme a low ball,” he ordered, sticking out his bat to indicate the
proper height that would meet his wishes.

Captain Fat rolled the ball rapidly between his palms, and thus having
imparted to it what he fondly believed was a mysterious twist, hurled
it.

“One ball!” cried the umpire.

Captain Spunk banged the slab with his bat.

“Aw, gimme a low ball over the plate!” he urged.

Again the pitcher rubbed twist into the sphere, and out in center—field
you hung upon his motions.

“One strike!” declared the umpire, and a great shout of derision arose
from the North Stars and their adherents.


[Illustration: TOM KEMP]


Captain Fat smiled wickedly: the unfortunate batter was being fooled by
those deceptive curves.

“What did you strike at that fer—’way up over yer head!” censured Red
Conroy, angrily.

“Darn it! gimme a good low ball! You’re ’fraid to!” challenged Captain
Spunk.

Whack! He had hit it. Right between Short-stop Chub’s legs it darted,
and you and left-field together stopped it, but too late to prevent the
runner’s reaching first.

Chub came in for a tongue-lashing from all sides; and then Spunk stole
second, and Billy threw over Bob’s head there (at the same time throwing
the rag cylinder, also, half-way to the pitcher’s box), and you
desperately fielded the ball in, and Fat got it, and threw over Hod’s
head at third, and to the wild cries of “Home! Home! Sock her home!”
Nixie got it and threw it at Billy; but nevertheless Spunk, spurred on
by the frantic exhortations of his fellows, panting “Tally one!” crossed
the slab.

Triumphantly cheered the Second—streets, and busily flashed the
jack-knife of each spectator as he cut a tally-notch in a stick.

Billy ran forward and reclaimed his precious rag.


[Illustration