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"But," I says, "the one you struck out on in the first innin’ was a fast ball. "

"So was the one I cracked in the ninth," says Ike.

IV

You’ve saw Cap’s wife, o’ course. Well, her sister’s about twict as good-lookin’ as her, and that’s goin’ some.

Cap took his missus down to St. Louis the second trip and the other one come down from St. Joe to visit her. Her name is Dolly, and some doll is right.

Well, Cap was goin’ to take the two sisters to a show and he wanted a beau for Dolly. He left it to her and she picked Ike. He’d hit three on the nose that afternoon—off’n Sallee, too.

They fell for each other that first evenin’. Cap told us how it come off. She begin flatterin’ Ike for the star game he’d played and o’ course he begin excusin’ himself for not doin’ better. So she thought he was modest and it went strong with her. And she believed everything he said and that made her solid with him—that and her make-up. They was together every mornin’ and evenin’ for the five days we was there. In the afternoons Ike played the grandest ball you ever see, hittin’ and runnin’ the bases like a fool and catchin’ everything that stayed in the park.

I told Cap, I says: "You’d ought to keep the doll with us and he’d make Cobb’s figures look sick. "

But Dolly had to go back to St. Joe and we come home for a long serious.

Well, for the next three weeks Ike had a letter to read every day and he’d set in the clubhouse readin’ it till mornin’ practice was half over. Cap didn’t say nothin’ to him, because he was goin’ so good. But I and Carey wasted a lot of our time tryin’ to get him to own up who the letters was from. Fine chanct!

"What are you readin’?" Carey’d say. "A bill?"

"No," Ike’d say, "not exactly a bill. It’s a letter from a fella I used to go to school with. "

"High school or college?" I’d ask him.

"College," he’d say.

"What college?" I’d say.

Then he’d stall a wile and then he’d say:

"I didn’t go to the college myself, but my friend went there. "

"How did it happen you didn’t go?" Carey’d a
sk him.

"Well," he’d say, "they wasn’t no colleges near where I lived. "

"Didn’t you live in Kansas City?" I’d say to him.

One time he’d say he did and another time he didn’t. One time he says he lived in Michigan.

"Where at?"says Carey.

"Near Detroit," he says.

"Well," I says, "Detroit’s near Ann Arbor and that’s where they got the university. "

"Yes," says Ike, "they got it there now, but they didn’t have it there then. "

"I come pretty near goin’ to Syracuse," I says, "only they wasn’t no railroads runnin’ through there in them days. "

"Where’d this friend o’ yours go to college?" says Carey.

"I forget now," says Ike.

"Was it Carlisle?"ast Carey.

"No," says Ike, "his folks wasn’t very well off. "

"That’s what barred me from Smith," I says.

"I was goin’ to tackle Cornell’s," says Carey, "but the doctor told me I’d have hay fever if I didn’t stay up North. "

"Your friend writes long letters," I says.

"Yes," says Ike; "he’s tellin’ me about a ball player. "

"Where does he play?" ast Carey.

"Down in the Texas League—Fort Wayne," says Ike.

"It looks like a girl’s writin’," Carey says.

"A girl wrote it," says Ike. "That’s my friend’s sister, writin’ for him. "

"Didn’t they teach writin’ at this here college where he went?" says Carey.

"Sure," Ike says, "they taught writin’, but he got his hand cut off in a railroad wreck. "