CHAPTER V
THE ANNUAL OUTING
The two big busses chugged at the curb. Joan, in a sleeveless greenlinen frock, with her tightly rolled bathing suit dangling by a stringfrom one finger, had been out a dozen times to have the driver of thefirst bus assure her that he was saving two seats next to himself forher and Chub. The busses were draped all around with huge placardsannouncing, “The Annual Outing of the Plainfield Evening Journal.”
The staff had raced all morning, and by noon, the forms were locked andthe big presses roaring. The paper was “on the street” half an hourlater, and by one o’clock the _Journal_ family was ready to start.
But first, they must all line up in front of the _Journal_ office, whileLefty, the staff photographer, snapped a picture. Miss Betty wailed thatshe was sure he had taken it while her mouth was open. Then, every onescrambled aboard. Chub captured the two seats reserved for him and Joan,and they were delighted to find that Cookie had squeezed himself next tothem. Betty sat in the last seat of all, between Tim and Mack. Both ofthem were in their baseball suits, as were all the team.
The editor and his wife sat in the seat right behind Joan and Chub. Mr.Nixon had his year-old daughter on his knee. His wife (the office staffcalled her Mrs. Editor) often brought the baby down to the office andlet her play on the files of out-of-town papers spread out on the longtable where Tim did his pasting when he had an extra long story. Joanthought little Ruthie very sweet and waved to her now.
Lefty came with his camera over his shoulder and extra plates under hisarm, for he planned to take more pictures later. Uncle John, who was asfat as Cookie, was there, too, with his family. That was Aunt Elsie andCousin Eleanor. Aunt Elsie’s facial expression showed plainly that shewas present only because Uncle John had insisted that her attendancewould be good policy. Cousin Eleanor was about Tim’s age and ignoredJoan almost completely, but played up to Tim. It was Aunt Elsie andCousin Eleanor, Joan was sure, who made Mother hate having Joan hangaround the _Journal_. They both felt above the newspaper and thoughtMother should feel so, too.
The head pressman and his wife and their three little boys filled oneentire seat. Joan saw Dummy coming, old and dignified. Would he enjoy apicnic? Papa Sadler, as the circulation man was called, and his scoresof newsboys, went in the other bus.
At last the busses were filled, and after the usual query, “Is every onehere?” they started. Chub and Joan, from their positions of advantage,watched the driver and the route through the city. Out to Yellow SpringsStreet and then straight toward Cliff Woods. It was about a half hour’sride after they passed the city limits, marked by the charred ruins ofwhat had been a match factory.
The flat dusty road stretched out ahead. They passed a swiftly movingtraction car. Fields of yellow mustard plant reflected the sunshine.Blackberry bushes grew on the roadside and brushed their branchesagainst the _Journal_ busses. Joan sniffed deeply when they passed agrove of locust trees in bloom.
The sight of the old match factory had started the editor and Cookiereminiscing about that fire which had occurred several years ago.
“Is a fire the most exciting thing that a reporter can be sent to writeup?” Joan forgot the scenery long enough to ask Cookie her question.
“Well, in a way, it is,” he admitted. “But reporting a fire is notalways fun. There’re too often deaths and accidents to write up, too,with a fire story.”
“That’s so,” answered Joan, soberly.
“Fires are like bananas—they come in bunches,” said the old reporter.
Joan laughed. “Cookie, remember, just the other day, you promised totell us some of your experiences on the New York newspaper. Can’t you doit, now?”
“Um—I guess so.” Cookie glanced out of the corner of his eye at theeditor. But Mr. Nixon was totally absorbed in retying the strings on thebaby’s frilly bonnet. He was clumsy about it, but he would not let hiswife help him.
Chub and Joan leaned near Cookie. His spotted vest smelled of staletobacco, but they did not mind.
“Well, anything to oblige and help a future newspaper reporter,” hechuckled. “This happened a good many years ago, when I was on the _NewYork Banner_. I started as a cub, you know, but inside of a year I wasdoing really decent stories. No more obits for me. Then, one day, theeditor called me to the desk and said he was going to send me out on theVanderflip wedding story. Well, can you imagine what that meant to me?”
“Was it a big wedding?” Joan did not know what answer Cookie expected.
“Was it? The wedding of Vanderflip’s only son to a girl as rich as shewas pretty? Oh, rats, I’m forgetting that all this was over ten yearsago. You couldn’t remember. But it was the biggest wedding St. Thomas’had seen in many a day. I didn’t write up the ceremony—understand, thesociety editors did that. But I was to trail along when the weddingparty left on the honeymoon, which was to be a hunting trip to Canada. Iwas to send back a story every day—a good long one, too, for New Yorkwould eat up all the details it could get.
“Well, I sleuthed those folks within an inch of their lives. It was allright till we got to the lodge. I found it one of those glorified camps,deep in the heart of the woods, on a private lake, and nowhere for me topark within hiking distance. What did I do but apply for the job ofchore boy at that camp—and got it! I wasn’t much good as a chore boy,but fortunately, there wasn’t a lot to do—take care of the boats andcanoes, and be generally useful. My job gave me plenty of opportunityfor close-hand stories. But between the work and writing up the stuff onmy portable typewriter up in my little shack way off in the woods byitself, I was pretty tired at night, and that’s how I happened to missthe fox hunt.”
“I missed it because I overslept. When I came down to the main lodge, Idiscovered that the wedding couple and their party had departed at dawn.The caretaker there was a jolly fellow who liked to talk. Believe me, Istarted him on the subject of fox hunts. I had to get some sort of storyto my chief. The old fellow told me all he knew, which, aided by myhealthy imagination, made a grand story. I described the woods in theearly morning, the dogs sniffing, the barking, and finally, thetriumphant end.”
“You _faked_ it?” Even Chub was scandalized.
Cookie nodded. “Had to. Well, I approached my chief’s desk with shakingknees, when I got back, expecting to be told I was fired. Instead hesaid, ‘Cookie, old kid, I believe you’ll make an extra space rate man,some day. You covered the Vanderflips pretty well, for the most part.But that fox hunt story—that was the cream of the whole collection!’”
“Didn’t you ever tell him?” Joan wanted to know.
“No. I was tempted to, often,” acknowledged the old reporter. “He was agood sort. Most editors are. At that, I hadn’t done anything soterrible. A great many editors would rather have a plausible andentertaining fake than a dull, colorless fact. He hates to be taken in,himself. He wants to be in on the joke, too. But it’s best to be honestalways,” he warned.
“We’re almost there!” piped the shrill tones of the head pressman’soldest son, as the bus swooped through a rustic gate and down into ashady, cool, cavernous valley. On one side huge gray cliffs, ragged andold, now rose to greet them. One looked like the Old Man of theMountain. The busses stopped at the side of the quaint old pavilion,where supper would be served in event of rain, and every one was out intwo seconds.
“First thing on the program,” announced Cookie, “is— Lemonade Made in the shade Stirred with a rusty spade.”
He was a self-appointed lemonade maker and was famous for theconcoction. The makings for the drink had been brought along. The restof the supper was coming out by the caterer’s delivery auto later on.Bossy, Joan, and Chub cut lemons while Cookie pressed them with a woodensqueezer into a large galvanized tub, kept from year to year for thisspecial purpose. A big cake of ice, shed of its coat of burlap, andrinsed off in the near-by spring, was slipped into the sweetened juice.Then buckets of spring water, more stirring, until Cookie pronounced it“Just as good as las
t year’s.” Dozens of shiny tin cups were let looseand tumbled upon the soft grass, and every one was invited to “Stepright up and help yourself!”
The head pressman’s three little boys took this literally. FinallyCookie had to hint, “It’ll be here all afternoon, folks. But we mustsave some for the _Star_ team.”
All during the lemonade making every one had been glancing back towardthe rustic gate, watching for the coming of the _Star_ team. Just asJoan was starting on her third cup of lemonade, a delivery truck with ared star on each side, drove up and the _Star_ team, in their baseballsuits of gray with blue letters, with a few of the staff as rooters,hopped out. The staff of the _Star_, since it was a morning newspaper,did not need to take much time away from the office for the game. Theyalways worked at night to get their paper out, anyway. Joan had oftengone to the _Star_ office with Chub when he delivered advertising cuts,which the two newspapers sometimes shared, and she knew most of thestaff by sight. Tebbets, the city editor, was a big bully of a man. Joandid not like him at all. His voice was so loud that the echo of itrumbled back from the cliffs. He was so different from Mr. Nixon. Ofcourse, Editor Nixon often got provoked and then he’d roar like a madbull, but most of the time he was good-natured and treated the _Journal_family fair and square. Joan might think him hard and stern, but he wasas meek as a lamb, compared to Mr. Tebbets.
“Well, Journalites,” Tebbets was bellowing now, “are you ready to gettrimmed by the best little team in the Ohio Valley?”
Of course, some one else might have said those very words and they wouldnot have been mean. But not the way Mr. Tebbets said them.
His eyes lighted upon Mack. “So you’re on the team?” he asked.
Joan guessed he was trying to be funny, for any one could tell Mack wason the team when he had on the baseball suit.
“Well—I’m the _Journal_ sport editor,” Mack said, as if in answer toTebbets.
The _Star_ editor snickered as though that were very funny. LittleRuthie toddled toward him, waving her plump hands. She had a gold ringon one of her fat fingers, tied to her wrist with a ribbon. But Mr.Tebbets did not even glance at her standing there. She looked so cute,too. She had her bonnet off now, and her dark hair was mussed. She wasfrowning because the sun was in her eyes. She looked like a miniature ofthe editor.
Altogether it was not a promising beginning. The _Star_ team looked somuch stronger than the _Journal_ men. Mack was of slight build andthough Tim was tall, he seemed awfully young next to all those strapping_Star_ players. Joan was silent as they all trooped along the footpathand up a little slope to the sunny field where the game was to be held.Rude bleachers had been erected by placing boards across wooden boxes.The _Journal_ folks, except some of the women who declared it was toohot up there, and the children too young to be interested in baseball,lined up on one side. The _Star_ rooters took the other. Chub and Bossysat on the bench for substitutes. Joan hung about.
“Have we a bat boy?” asked the editor captain, glancing toward thenewsboys on the sidelines.
But Joan was ahead of any of them. “Let me!” she begged.
She had played baseball at school and in the neighborhood, besideshaving attended several of the big games. She knew that the duty of thebat boy was merely to pick up the bat flung to the ground by the playerand to get it out of the way. The first time she had ever been a bat boywas when she was only eight years old. She had been hit in the nose by abaseball that time.
“All right,” nodded the editor, and Joan took her place on the field, tothe right of the home plate, to be ready.
The two teams, first the _Star_ and then the _Journal_, had a bit ofbatting practice (to sharpen up their batting eye, Chub said) as well asfielding practice. A well-liked deputy sheriff was to act as umpire.Chub spoke of him as “Umps.”
Soon the game was called. The _Journal_ team was in the field, and thefirst _Star_ batter was ready to step up to the plate.
“Play ball!” shouted the umpire.
Joan shivered with excitement and was glad again that Tim had made theteam. She glanced at him over there between second and third base, readyto live up to the name of his position, and “shortstop” the ballwhenever possible. The _Star_ made one score during the first inning.
“The _Star_ team knows its baseball,” Chub admitted, grumpily, as the_Journal_ team trooped in from the field.
Lefty was the first batter up. “Wait for a good one,” the crowd advisedhim, after two balls had been called. He was a good waiter and got awalk. Mack, the second batter, was nailed before he could reach second.A groan escaped the _Journal_ rooters as the inning ended and their sidehad not scored.
Three more innings dragged by without a score for either team. Then,Captain Nixon got his men together and encouraged them with a few, quickwords. Aroused to the fight, the _Journal_ team battled on. Lefty wasstill pitching splendidly, while the _Star_ pitcher seemed to beweakening under the strain. Even so, the _Star_ team managed two runs.Two more scoreless innings followed.
During the first half of the ninth, the _Star_ team fought harder thanever. But the _Journal_ team was fighting, too. No score was made.
The _Journal_ team was at bat again. The _Star_ pitcher’s balls weregoing a bit wild. The first batter was struck by the ball and got abase. The second made a base on balls. Then Mack managed a bunt whichlet the runners on first and second each capture a base. All three baseswere full when Lefty came to the bat.
Perhaps the _Star_ team had forgotten that Lefty batted the ballsleft-handed. Anyway, he knocked it straight down the third baseline andfooled the _Journal’s_ rivals, for their fielders were not on duty.
“Do a ‘Babe Ruth,’ Lefty!” yelled the newsboys as Lefty started towardfirst like a flash. There was no doubt but that all three men would comehome safe, making the score four to three. The newsboys started runningto the field. The _Journal_ had won!
The side lines, under Miss Betty’s guidance, burst into the strains of“The Wearing of the Gray.” Every one was pounding Lefty on the back.Joan suddenly felt a warm glow in her heart, as though this victorymeant that always would the _Journal_ win over their rivals, in scoopsand in the coming elections. She couldn’t help but feel her paper wasalways right!
Mr. Johnson, who had been standing on the side lines with the otherowners of the paper, sought her out. He inquired solicitously after themystery, and she had to admit they had no new clews. He had to hurry offto Cincinnati, he explained, and would not be able to stay for thesupper, but he had enjoyed the game. Joan wondered whether he were proudnow that Tim was on the staff, for Tim had been a splendid shortstop.
“Now for a swim!” That was every one’s thought after the game. In onecorner of Cliff Woods was a lovely, round lake, with bathhouses andrafts. Here, the hot, dusty members of the _Journal_ family enjoyed asplash.
As Joan emerged from the bathhouse, her wet suit a limp roll under herarm, her sunburned neck scratchy against her green linen dress, shefound Chub waiting for her. Together, like two hungry bears, theyapproached the pavilion but were shooed away by a bevy of printers’wives, the refreshment committee, who were surveying the long tablesthey had set up under the trees. The caterers’ wagons had come and gone.“Not quite ready yet,” the committee warned.
“Let’s go put that rock on the Picnic Pillar,” Chub suggested. “It mightbe too dark if we wait till after supper.”
They started up the path again, keeping to the right now, instead ofturning left as they had when they went to the ball field. The PicnicPillar was an old rock tower, where every picnic party added a rock tothe monument.
Soon they were in a little dell, where the brook bubbled noisily overthe rocks, and ferns and mint and watercress grew in abundance. Theybegan climbing the cliffs. Chub’s sneakers gave him good footholds, andhe helped to pull Joan up the steep, jutty side of the cliff, up to aflat space where there were more ferns and sweet, spicy-smelling plants.Near the edge of the ridge was the Picnic Pillar, high and towering.Chub found
a round, smooth rock, after turning over several until hefound one that just suited. He scrambled up on a convenient bowlder, andJoan steadied his ankles for him while he reached up and placed the bigstone on the top of the pillar—the most recent addition to the stoneerection which was a monument of hundreds of happy gatherings.
“Sh, Jo!” Chub had jumped to the ground and was silencing her as she wasabout to speak. “There’s that spooky Dummy down there, creeping along. Isaw him from up there; he’s just below the ledge—and he’s with Tebbets!”