characteristics.

On another occasion Jack well remembered he had come very nearly
losing one of the best players on the baseball nine, when the pitcher,
Alec Donohue, appeared exceedingly gloomy, and confessed to Jack that
as his father was unable to obtain work in the Chester mills and
shops, and had been offered a position over in Harmony, he feared that
he would thus become ineligible to pitch for Chester.

But Jack, as so often happened when trouble beset him, took the bull
by the horns. He went and saw a gentleman who could give Mr. Donohue
employment, and enlisted his sympathy. It had all ended right, by a
place being found for the man who was out of work; and so Alec pitched
the great game whereby Harmony's famous team went down to a crushing
defeat.

Jack could not but take note of the similar conditions by which
Chester was to be threatened with the loss of one of the strongest
members of her team.

"Looks as though history liked to repeat itself," Jack mused, as he
walked back home after parting company with Big Bob; "only in this
case it's the football eleven that's liable to be weakened if Bob's
father takes him out; and we never could scare up a fullback equal to
him if we raked old Chester with a fine-tooth comb. So I certainly
hope it'll all come out right yet, I surely do!"