I said to the little sister. ``He plays first
base. He's saving himself for the
tournament. He's done too much already.''
The Blight merely turned her head while I
was speaking. ``And the Hon. Sam will
not act as umpire. He wants to save his
voice--and his head.''

The seats in the ``grandstand'' were in
the sun now, so I left the girls in a
deserted band-stand that stood on stilts under
trees on the southern side of the field, and
on a line midway between third base and
the position of short-stop. Now there is
no enthusiasm in any sport that equals the
excitement aroused by a rural base-ball
game and I never saw the enthusiasm of
that game outdone except by the excitement
of the tournament that followed that afternoon.
The game was close and Marston
and I assuredly were stars--Marston one
of the first magnitude. ``Goose-egg'' on
one side matched ``goose-egg'' on the
other until the end of the fifth inning, when
the engineer knocked a home-run. Spectators
threw their hats into the trees, yelled
themselves hoarse, and I saw several old
mountaineers who understood no more of
base-ball than of the lost _digamma_ in Greek
going wild with the general contagion.