Chapter 12. A Call

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_ CHAPTER XII. A CALL

I have spoken of Ben Mayberry's fondness for athletic sports, and the great benefit he gained from the exercise thus obtained. When business permitted, I visited the ball grounds, where his skill made him the favorite of the enthusiastic crowd which always assembled there. He played shortstop, and his activity in picking up hot grounders and his wonderful accuracy in throwing to first base were the chief attractions which brought many to the place. He was equally successful at the bat, and, when only fourteen years old, repeatedly lifted the ball over the left-field fence--a feat which was only accomplished very rarely by the heaviest batsmen of the visiting nines.

There were many, including myself, who particularly admired Ben's throwing. How any living person can acquire such skill is beyond my comprehension. Ben was the superior of all his companions when a small urchin, and his wonderful accuracy improved as he grew older.

To please a number of spectators, Ben used to place himself on third base, and then "bore in" the ball to first. In its arrowy passage it seemed scarcely to rise more than two or three feet above the horizontal, and shot through the air with such unerring aim that I really believe he could have struck a breast-pin on a player's front nine times out of ten. I never saw him make a wild throw, and some of his double plays were executed with such brilliancy that a veteran player took his hand one day as he ran from the field, and said:

"Ben, you'll be on a professional nine in a couple of years. Harry Wright and the different managers are always on the lookout for talent, and they'll scoop you in."

"I think not," said the modest Ben, panting slightly from a terrific run. "I am a little lucky, that's all; but though I'm very fond of playing ball I never will take it up as a means of living."

"There's where your head ain't level, sonny. Why, you'll get more money for one summer's play than you will make in two or three years nursing a telegraph machine. Besides that, think of the fun you will have."

"That's all very good, and I can understand why baseball is so tempting to so many young men. But it lasts a short time, and then the player finds himself without any regular business. His fingers are banged out of shape; he has exercised so violently that more than likely his health is injured, and he is compelled to work like a common laborer to get a living. Ten years from now there will hardly be one of the present professionals in the business, I'm sure."

"I guess you ain't far from the fact, but for all that, if I had the chance that you have, I would be mighty glad to take in all the baseball sport I could."

But Ben was sensible in this respect, and steadily refused to look upon himself as training for the professional ball field. In looking back to that time, I am rejoiced that such is the fact. There are many of my readers who recall the popular players of years ago--McBride, Wright, Fisler, Sensenderfer, McMullen, Start, Brainard, Gould, Leonard, Dean, Spalding, Sweeney, Radcliffe, McDonald, Addy, Pierce, and a score of others. Among them all I recall none still in the field. Some are dead, and the rest are so "used up" that they would make a sorry exhibition if placed on the ball field to-day.

Ben Mayberry was a swift and skillful skater, and in running there was not a boy in Damietta who could equal him. It was by giving heed to these forms of healthful exercise, and by avoiding liquor and tobacco, that he preserved his rosy cheeks, his clear eye, his vigorous brain, and his bounding health.

"Why, how do you do, Ben?"

The lad looked up from his desk in the office, one clear, autumn day, as he heard these words, and I did the same. There stood one of the loveliest little girls I ever looked upon. She seemed to be ten or eleven years of age, was richly dressed, with an exuberant mass of yellow hair falling over her shoulders. Her large, lustrous eyes were of a deep blue, her complexion as rich and pink as the lining of a sea shell, and her features as winsome as any that Phidias himself ever carved from Parian marble.

Ben rose in a hesitating way and walked toward her, uncertain, though he suspected her identity.

"Is this--no, it cannot be----"

"Yes; I am Dolly Willard, that you saved from drowning with my poor mamma last winter. I wrote you a letter soon after I got home, but you felt too important to notice it, I suppose."

And the laughing girl reached her hand over the counter, while Ben shook it warmly, and said:

"You wrote to me? Surely there was some mistake, for I never got the letter; I would have only been too glad to answer it. Maybe you forgot to drop it in the office."

"I gave it to Uncle George, and told him to be careful and put it in the mail, and he said he did so when he came home, so it was not my fault. But I am visiting at my cousin's in Commerce Street, at Mr. Grandin's----"

"I know the place."

"They are going to have a grand party there to-night, and I've come down to ask you to be sure and be there."

"I am delighted to receive your invitation, but----"

"You can go," said I, as Ben looked appealingly toward me.

"Thank you, sir. Yes, Miss Dolly, I count upon great pleasure in being present."

"If you don't come, I'll never speak to you again," called the pretty little miss as she passed out of the door.

"I am sorry and troubled about one thing," said Ben to me, when we stood together. "This Uncle George of Dolly's is the G. R. Burkhill who received that cipher dispatch. I am satisfied he is a villain, and there's trouble close at hand." _

Read next: Chapter 13. At The Grandin Mansion

Read previous: Chapter 11. The Value Of Courtesy

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