CHAPTER XII
THE CALL TO BATTLE
It was a week later and Joe was returning from the post-office where hehad stopped for the late afternoon mail.
Reggie had left the day before, although Joe had urged him to remainlonger. But a clue had come from another State that, slender as it was,seemed to offer some chance of running down the elusive Tabbs, andReggie had felt that he ought to follow it up.
"It's too bad, old man," Joe had said to him, as he stood on the stationplatform bidding the dudish young man goodby, "to have come so near tofinding your man and yet just miss him."
"Oh, it's all in the game!" Reggie had answered, assuming a cheerfulnesshe was far from feeling. "I have a hunch that I'll run across him yetand bring him to a show-down."
"I'll keep my eyes wide open, too," Joe assured him, "and if I find outanything that will be of the slightest help I'll let you know at once."
But it was not of Reggie that Joe was thinking, as he hurried homethrough the dusk of the short winter afternoon. For he carried in hishand a big official-looking letter that bore on the upper left-handcorner the name of the New York Baseball Club.
He felt sure that it contained the contract, concerning which there hadbeen so much speculation in the Matson home for the last few days. Buteager as he was to know what it contained, he had restrained himselfuntil he reached home, so that all could read it together.
"Here it is at last, Momsey!" he shouted, as he burst into the warmbright sitting room waving the envelope above his head.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" began his mother fondly, while Clara was across theroom like a whirlwind and snatching at the letter.
"Open it up, open it up!" she pleaded. "I'm nearly crazy to know what'sin it."
"Little girls should be seen and not heard," teased her brother, as heheld it tantalizingly out of her reach.
But she tickled him under his arm so that he dropped it with suchundignified haste that she got possession of the letter, and like aflash had put the table between them.
Into the laughing group came Mr. Matson, just returned from theHarvester Works.
"What's all the racket about?" he asked.
"Oh, Dad!" cried Clara, running to him and putting her arms about hisneck. "It's the letter from the New York Club, and it has Joe's contractin it, and now we'll know all about it and whether it's for one year orthree years, and----"
"It seems to me that you're quite a prophetess, young lady," laughedher father, as he sat down in his easy-chair and drew her to his lap,"especially as the letter hasn't been opened yet."
"Perhaps it's just a note telling me that after thinking it over theydon't want me after all," teased Joe.
"Well, now that we're all here, suppose you settle the question byreading it," suggested Mrs. Matson.
There was a moment of breathless suspense and it must be admitted thatJoe's hand was not quite steady as he tore open the envelope. There wasa big formal document inside, and as Joe unfolded it a little blue slipfluttered out and fell to the floor. Clara was on it in an instant.
"It's a check!" she exclaimed, with a little squeal of delight. "Thatlooks a lot as if they didn't want you, eh, Mr. Joseph Matson?"
It was a check for one hundred dollars to cover traveling expenses tothe training camp.
Joe cleared his throat and began to read the formidable-lookingdocument. It abounded with any number of "wherefores" and "whereases,"but the sum and substance of it was that the New York Club agreed to payJoseph Matson the sum of four thousand five hundred dollars a year, fora period of three years from date.
Joe looked up at this point to see three shining pairs of eyes fixedupon him, although a suspicious moisture threatened to dim thebrightness of those belonging to his mother and his sister.
"Four thousand five hundred dollars!" exclaimed Mr. Matson. "That's anadvance of fifteen hundred dollars over what you got last year. Theycertainly do things up in liberal style."
"And that isn't all," cried Joe eagerly, as his eyes fell on a paragraphnear the bottom of the page. "Here's a bonus clause."
"A bonus clause?" interrupted Clara. "What is that?"
"Something they offer as a premium if you do more than is expected ofyou," explained her brother. "This says that I'll get an extra thousanddollars if I win twenty games during the season."
"That ought to be easy enough, I should think," said Clara.
"Don't you believe it," laughed Joe. "In the first place, if it wereeasy they wouldn't offer me anything extra for doing it. A pitcher isdoing very well who wins two-thirds of the games he pitches. On thatbasis I'd have to pitch thirty games to have a chance of winning twenty.But if his old pitchers are going strong, McRae may keep me on the benchhalf the season and only put me in when they fall down. He's a great onefor depending on his old standbys. Then, too, I'll be a newcomer, andperhaps the team won't play behind me with the same confidence as whenHughson or Markwith are on the mound. That will make it harder for meto win games. You must remember, too, that all the teams on the circuitplay harder against the New Yorks than they do against any other team.They take a special delight in downing the Giants before their homecrowds, and they always save up their best pitchers for those occasions.So, take it altogether, there's only a mere chance to win my twentygames during the season. I'm going to take that chance, though," andinto Joe's eyes came a steely look that would have delighted McRae ifthat fighting leader of the Giants could have seen it.
The precious document was read and reread and discussed in all itsbearings until Mrs. Matson insisted that supper would be stone cold ifthey did not come to the table at once. It is safe to say that in allRiverside that night no happier family grouped itself around the tablethan that in the Matson home.
"What's the idea of the three-year clause, Joe?" asked his father, whenthey had fairly settled down to the meal. "Rather a compliment, I takeit."
"It is a sort of compliment," admitted Joe. "They must feel pretty surethere's something in me to bind themselves to pay that salary for solong a time. I didn't really expect more than a one-year contract. Ofcourse there's another side to it. If I did especially well this firstyear, perhaps they figure I'd get a swelled head and hold them up for abig increase next year. As it is, no matter how well I do, I can't getany more salary until the three-year period is up.
"Then too," he went on, as he passed his plate for another helping,"there's been a good deal of talk lately about this third big league.They're awfully anxious to get star players so as to draw the publicfrom the start, and the only way they can get them is to coax them awayfrom the National or the American League. To do that they'll have tooffer enormous salaries. If I were bound for one year and the new leaguewanted me, they might try to get me to promise to join them as soon asmy year was up. But with a three-year contract holding me, McRae won'thave to worry."
"Those clubs must be awfully rich to tie themselves up for such anamount of money," remarked Mrs. Matson. "Suppose a player lost hisskill. Would they have to go on paying him just the same?"
"Not by a jugful," laughed Joe. "There's a little joker in the contractthat permits the club to release a player on ten days' notice."
"But you can't quit _them_ on ten days' notice!" exclaimed Clara. "Itdoesn't seem to me that that's fair."
"It isn't fair on the face of it," admitted Joe, "but as a matter offact, it works out pretty well in practice. In the first place, the clubis crazy to get hold of good players and is only too anxious to keepthem if they behave themselves and play the game. If a player gets a tendays' notice, it's usually because he deserves it. The club has to havesome protection against careless or drunken or dissipated players, andthe ten days' notice gives it to them.
"Take it altogether, the players get a square deal," he concluded."They get bigger salaries than almost any of them could command in anyother walk of life. They travel in Pullman cars with every luxury thatthe richest passenger can command. They dine and sleep in the finesthotels in the country. When they're
on the road, all their expenses arepaid by the club, so that their salaries are pure velvet. Nearly halfthe year they have to themselves, and don't have to work at all unlessthey want to. During their playing days they have plenty of time tostudy and prepare themselves for some profession later on. Lots of thembecome lawyers or dentists or prosperous business men. Some of them goon the stage and make more in a month than the average man can make in ayear. Hughson of the New Yorks opened an insurance office one winter andpeople fairly fell over each other to do business with him. They justwanted to tell their friends that they had done business with the greatHughson.
"Oh, we poor baseball 'slaves' are doing pretty well, thank you," Joeended, with a laugh, as his hand tightened on the contract and the crispblue check that had come with it.