There was a big crowd of onlookers there that afternoon and the Clearfield Baseball Club performed to enthusiastic applause. Dick had sought to arrange a game for Wednesday afternoon but had found no team that could or would play them, which was a matter of regret since Clearfield needed harder practice than it could get without an opponent. Rutter’s Point, which had been playing two games a week steadily, was to meet Logan on Wednesday at the Point.
“I wish we had got them,” said Dick. “They’d give us just about the sort of a game we need.”
“Maybe,” suggested Jack Tappen, “they’d swap dates with us if we asked them. They won’t get any money at the Point, you know.”
“Yes, they will,” piped up Harold, who had come over to watch practice at Dick’s invitation. “They pass a hat around and sometimes get ten or twelve dollars.”
“Anyway, I don’t care to do a thing like that,” said Dick. “It wouldn’t be exactly square, I guess.”
“Go ahead,” said Jack. “You’re full of information, kid.”
“Well,” said Harold, pausing long enough to regard Jack with a look of disdain, “why don’t you play them in the morning?”
“‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!’” murmured Jack. “Kid, you’re all right!”
“We might,” pondered Dick. “They’re coming over anyway, and I dare say they’d just as lief come in the morning as later. I’ll get hold of that captain of theirs this evening and see what he says.”
“Tell ’em we’ll pay their fares both ways,” suggested Will Scott.
“Sure thing; and buy them a lunch,” agreed Way.
“They’ll do it,” said Gordon. “Make the game at ten-thirty, Dick.”
“Better say eleven. They could hardly get over here before half-past ten. Well, I’ll get after them as soon as I get home. Harold, you are a youth of ideas!”
That was just about the busiest week for Dick that he ever remembered spending. In the mornings there was usually Mr. Potter to be seen and Mr. Potter’s newest schemes to be considered. And, after that, for nearly three hours, he and Harold shut themselves up in the latter’s room at the hotel and worked like a couple of galley slaves. All the hard work wasn’t the younger boy’s, either, for Dick had to do a lot of studying in order to maintain with dignity his rôle of teacher. It would never have done to have allowed Harold to catch him napping! The younger boy’s capacity for study was a revelation to Dick, and his progress a source of great satisfaction. By the end of that busy week Dick could, and did, assure himself that the battle was won! That unless Harold had an almost total lapse of memory when he was put through examinations he could not fail to enter Rifle Point. Of course cramming is not the best means of learning, and much of what Harold learned that summer he was bound to forget later, but Dick hoped that the forgetting would not come until he had passed examinations. Mrs. Townsend almost wept with joy and relief when Dick told her that he firmly believed they had succeeded in what had seemed not many weeks ago an impossible task, and her gratitude, or the expression of it, embarrassed Dick horribly.