fered me the sum of $1,250 per annum for my services. This was
much better than I was doing at Rockford, and vet I was reluctant to
leave the little Illinois town, where I had made my professional debut,
and where I had hosts of friends.

When the end of the season came and the Rockford people offered to again
sign me et the same old figures I told them frankly of the Philadelphia
offer, but at the same time offered to again sign with Rockford,
providing that they would raise my salary to $100 per month. The club
had not made its expenses and they were not even certain that they would
place a professional team in the arena during the next season. This they
told me and also that they could not afford to pay the sum I asked for
my services, and so without consulting the folks at Marshalltown I
appended my name to a Philadelphia contract, and late in the fall bade
good-by to Rockford and its ball players, turning my face towards the
City of Brotherly Love, where I played ball with the Athletics until the
formation of the National League in 1876, and it was not until five
years had elapsed that I revisited my old home in Marshalltown, taking a
bride with me.

CHAPTER VII. WITH THE ATHLETICS OF PHILADELPHIA.

The winter of 1871 and 1872 I spent in Philadelphia, where I put in my
time practicing in the gymnasium, playing billiards and taking in the
sights of a great city.

The whirligig of time had in the meantime made a good many changes in
the membership of the Professional League, for in spite of the fact that
1871 had been the most prosperous year in the history of base-ball, up
to that time, many clubs had fallen by the wayside, their places in the
ranks being taken by new-comers, and that several of these were unable
to weather the storms of 1872 because of a lack of financial support is
now a matter of history.

Conspicuous among the absentees when the season opened was the Chicago
Club, which had been broken up by the great fire that swept over the
Queen of the Inland Seas in October of 1871, and not then reorganized;
the Forest City of Rockford, the Kekiongas of Fort Wayne, and several
others.

At the opening of the regular playing season the League numbered eleven
members, as follows: Boston, of Boston, Mass.; Baltimore, of Baltimore,
Md.; Mutuals, of New York; Athletics, of Philadelphia; Troy, of Troy, N.
Y.; Atlantic, of Brooklyn; Cleveland, of Cleveland, Ohio; Mansfield, of
Mansfield, Ohio; Eckford