Page:Nid and Nod (IA nidnod00barb).pdf/363

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his mask from a Farview batsman, reflected that maybe nothing was nearly as bad as you pictured it beforehand, and remembered with surprise that in making the throw he had not consciously thought a thing about it; hadn't hoped he would make it or feared that he wouldn't; had simply picked up the ball and plugged it across the diamond! Exit the bugaboo!

With two down, however, Farview refused to yield the inning. Instead, she poked a hit across second base and another past third and so added another tally. That seemed to distress Nate Beedle unnecessarily, and he proceeded to pass the next batsman. And after that, with two gone and two strikes and one ball on the succeeding aspirant, he pitched three more balls in succession and passed him, too! Very suddenly the bases were full, and the game seemed about to go glimmering. And at that moment George Pemberton and the scrub catcher strode off around the first base stand, and if the visiting crowd hadn't been making such a ridiculous noise the thud of ball against mitten might have been heard from back there.

Nate was, in baseball parlance, "as high as a