The Zane Grey Megapack. Zane Grey
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Best thing I ever seen, b’gosh! I’m a Brownsville boy, I am. Now you come along with me. I’ll git a pair of overalls fer you an’ a bite to eat. But you must light out quicker’n you’d say ‘Jack Robinson,’ fer two of my farmhands played yestiddy, an’ they’re hoppin’ mad.”
The kind-hearted farmer hid Chase in a woodshed near his house and presently brought him a pair of overalls and some breakfast. Chase right gladly covered his chilly legs. Once more he felt his spirits rise. Fortunately his pocketbook had been in his coat, so it a was not lost. When he offered to pay the farmer, that worthy refused to accept any money and said he and everybody who was ever born in Brownsville were everlastingly bound to be grateful to a lad called Chaseaway.
Then, under direction from the farmer, Chase started cross-country with the intention of finding the railroad and making for Columbus. When he reached the railroad, he had to take the spikes off his baseball shoes, for they hurt his feet. He started westward along the track. Freight trains passed him going too fast for him to board, so he walked all day. Nightfall found him at a village, where after waiting an hour he caught a westbound freight and reached Columbus at ten o’clock. He stumbled ’round over the tracks in the yards, climbed over trains, and made his way into the city. He secured a room in a cheap lodging-house and went to bed.
In the morning he got up bright and early, had breakfast, and bought a copy of the Ohio State Journal. He knew Columbus had a baseball team in the Tri-State League, and he wanted to read the news. The very first column he saw on the baseball page contained in flaring headlines, the words:
“CHASEAWAY, THE CROOKED-EYE WONDER, HOODOOS THE GREAT JACKTOWN NINE”
He could not believe his eyes. But the words were there, and they must have reference to him. With feverish haste he read the detailed account that followed the headlines. He gathered that the game had been telephoned to the baseball editor of the journal, who, entirely overlooking Jacktown’s tragical point of view, had written the game up in a spirit of fun. He had written it so well, and had drawn such a vivid picture of the Jacktown players, and especially of his own “chase away” with his shirttails flying, that Chase laughed despite his mortification and chagrin.
He gloomily tore out the notice, put it in his pocket, and started off to put Columbus far behind him. The allusion to his crooked eye hurt his feelings, and he resolved never to pitch another game of ball. There were other positions he could play better. It was Chase’s destiny to learn that wherever he went, his fame had preceded him.
In Black Lick he was told he might get a rail ride there; at Newark the wise-boy fans recognized him at once and hooted him off the ground before he could see the manager of the team; the Mansfield captain yelled for him to take himself and his hoodoo off into the woods; Galion players laughed in his face; Upper Sandusky wags advised him to go back to scaring crows in the cornfields.
Every small town in Ohio, as well as every large one, supported a baseball club, and Chase dragged himself and the hoodoo that haunted him from place to place.
The Niles team played him in right field one day, and, losing the game, promptly set him adrift. He got a chance on the Warren nine, and here again his hoodoo worked. Lima had a weak aggregation and readily gave him opportunity to make good. He was nervous and overstrained, and made five errors, losing the game.
He drifted to Toledo, to Cleveland, thence back to Toledo and over into Michigan. It seemed that fortune favored him with opportunities that he could not grasp. Adrian, Jackson, Lansing, Owosso, Flint—all the clubs that took him on for a game lost it, and further spread the fame of his hoodoo.
Chase’s money had long since departed from him. His clothes became ragged and unclean. Small boys called him “Hobo,” and indeed in all except heart he was that. For he rode on coal-trains and cattle-trains, and begged his few and scanty meals at the back doors of farmhouses.
In every town he came to, he would search out the baseball grounds, waylay the manager or captain, say that he was a player and ask for a chance. Toward the end of this time of vicissitude no one had interest enough in him to admit him to the grounds.
Back he worked into Ohio, growing more weary, more downhearted, till black despair fixed on his heart. One morning he awoke stiff and sore in a fence-corner outside of a town. He asked a woman who gave him bread to eat what the name of the town was, and she said Findlay.
Chase thought bitterly of how useless it would be to approach the manager of that team, for Findlay was in the league, and moreover, had been for two years the crack team of Ohio. He did not even have any intention of trying. There was nothing left for him but to go back home and beg to be taken into the factory at his old job and poor wages. They did not seem so bad now, after all his experience. Alas for his dreams!
It occurred to him in wonder that he had persisted for a long time in the face of adverse circumstances. It was now June, though he did not know the date, and he had started out in May. Why had he kept on? For weeks he had not thought of his mother and brother, and now, quite suddenly, they both flashed into his mind. Then he knew why he had persisted, and he knew more, that he would never give up.
He saw her smile, and the warm light of faith in Will’s eyes, and he heard his brother’s last words: “Hang on, Chase. Hang on!”
CHAPTER V
THE CRACK TEAM OF OHIO
In the afternoon of that day Chase, was one of the forerunners of the crowd making towards the Findlay ballpark.
Most ball-parks were situated in the outskirts of towns; Findlay, however, being a red-hot baseball centre, had its grounds right in town on a prominent street. They were inclosed with a high board fence, above which the roof of a fine grandstand was to be seen. Before the gates the irrepressible small boy was much in evidence.
As Chase came up he saw a ball fly over the stand fall to the street and bound away, with the small boys in a wild scramble after it. To secure the ball meant admission to the grounds. Quick as a flash Chase saw his opportunity and dashed across the street. He got the ball, to the infinite disgust of the small boys. The gatekeeper took it and passed Chase in.
Players in gray uniforms marked “Kenton” were practising, some out in the field, others on the diamond. Chase had never seen such a smooth baseball ground. The diamond was bare; all the rest of the field was green, level sward, closely cropped. Chase thought a fellow who could not play well there was not worth much. As the noisy crowd poured in, filling the bleachers, and more slowly the grandstand, he thrilled to think what it would mean to him to play there.
Then when the thought came of what little chance he had, the old heartsickness weighed him down again. By and by he would ask to see the manager, but for the moment he wanted to put off the inevitable.
He stood in the aisle between the grandstand and bleachers, leaning over the fence to watch the players. A loud voice attracted him. He turned to see a very large, florid man, wearing a big diamond, addressing a small man whose suit of clothes was as loud as the other fellow’s voice.
“Hey, Mac, what’s the matter with this bunch of dead ones you’ve got? Eleven straight games lost! You’re now in third place and dropping fast, after starting out to set the pace. Findlay won’t stand for it.”
The little man bit savagely at the cigar, tilting it up in line with his stub nose; and the way he frowned lowered the brim of his hat. “Sure, it’s a slump, Mr. Beekman,” he said, in conciliating tones. “Now, you know the game; you’re up; you’re up on the fine points. You ain’t like most of them wooden-headed directors. The boys ain’t been hittin’. Castorious is my only pitcher whose arm ain’t gone lame this cold spell. I’ve been weak at shortstop all this spring. But we’ll come ’round, now you just take that from me, Mr. Beekman.”
The pompous director growled something and went on up to the grandstand steps. Then a very tall fellow with wide, sloping shoulders and red hair accosted the little man.
“Say Mac, what was he beefing about? I heard him speak my name. Did he have his hammer out?”
“Hello, Cas. No, Beekman ain’t