l the Kingstonians to resembling a
telegraph-pole, so he had no real competitors for first base. He
declined to play, however, unless Jumbo were given the position of
short-stop; and Jumbo soon proved that he had some other rights to the
position besides a powerful pull.

Reddy and Heady had worked like beavers to be accepted as the battery,
but the pitcher and catcher of the year before were so satisfactory
that the Twins could get no nearer to their ambitions than the
substitute-list, and there it seemed they were pretty sure to remain
upon the shelf, in spite of all the practice they had kept up, even
through the winter.

The Kingston ball-team had found its only rival to the championship of
the Interscholastic League in the nine from the Charleston Preparatory
School. The Kingstonians all plucked up hope, however, when they found
themselves at the end of the season one game ahead of Charleston; or,
at least, they called it one game ahead, for Charleston had played off
its schedule, and Kingston had only one more nine to defeat, and that
was the Brownsville School for Boys, the poorest team in the whole
League, a pack of good-for-nothings with butter on their fingers and
holes in their bats. So Kingston counted the pennant as good as won.

Down the team went to Brownsville, then, just to see how big a score
they could roll up. Back they came from Brownsville so dazed they
almost rode past the Kingston station. For when they had reached the
ballground, one of those curious moods that attacks a team as it
attacks a single person seized them and took away the whole knack that
had won them so many games. The Brownsvillers, on the other hand,
seemed to have been inspired by something in the air. They simply
could not muff the ball or strike out. They found and pounded the
curves of the Kingston pitcher so badly that the substitute battery
would have been put in had they not been left behind because it was
not thought worth while to pay their fare down to Brownsville.

The upshot of the horrible afternoon was that Brownsville sent
Kingston home with its feelings bruised black and blue, and its record
done up in cotton. It was a good thing that Kingston had prepared no
bonfire for the victory they had thought would be so easy, because if
the defeated nine had been met with such a mockery they would surely
have perished of mortification.

The loss of this game--think of it, the score was 14 to 2!--tied the
Kingstonians