6
MOOSEHEART MAGAZINE
off those gloves.
The young pitcher avidly stripped off his white kid gloves, and held up two sinewy and perfectly normal hands.
Alma Kent’s heart gave one great throb, and then seemed to stop beating. Jack Dissler fairly quivered with excitement. The Colonel shot a quick look of surprise and inquiry at Martin Chew.
“Blame me for this confounded mess!” cried the old scout. “I tried to sign Wiliam Thumbs Grady, of Spring Mills, knowing the Colonel would fall for the surplus thumbs, but when I couldn’t locate him I decided to ring in this boy here.” He paused to favor his breathless audience with a prodigious wink, and continued: “We kept up the thumbs stuff because of the psychological effect it had on the batsman, but this lad doesn’t need extra thumbs to hold his own in fast company, as I guess you’ll all admit!”
“We do,” said the Colonel gently, “but if he’s not Thumbs Grady, it is time we knew his real identity. You know him pretty well, I presume!”
“Pretty well, Colonel,” quoth Martin Chew blandly. “This is the kid you would never give a chance because I happened to be his father.”
MISSING
Member of Martinez Lodge No. 1164, L. O. O. M. Information wanted as to the whereabouts of E. Richmond, sometimes known as Ned Richmond. Description — Height about 5 feet, four inches; weight about 135; hair light brown; eyes brown; teeth, full upper■ bridge work of gold, eye teeth crowned with gold; age 37 years; may be seen wearing light grey wool suit or pearl grey corduroy suit, coat styles of both suits are full box back. Please address all information to T. P. Hall, Secretary, Martinez Lodge, No. 1164, L. O. O. M., Martinez, California.
MISSING
Walter Frisk, also known as “Paddy,” machinist, age 25. Disappeared from his home at Sparta, Mich., three years ago. Has a small scar in center of forehead. Has worked in Flint, Bay City and other Michigan cities.
Please send information to Mrs. August Frisk, Sparta, Mich.
Brother Charles McFarland.
Information wanted as to the present whereabouts of Brother Charles McFarland, member of Norfolk, Va., Lodge, No. 39.
Five feet, eight inches in height, weighs about 145 pounds. Tatooed on both arms.
Please notify J. D. Reed, Secretary, Loyal Order of Moose, Norfolk, Va.
learned all in time. And even if this terrible thing hadn't cropped out you could never have married a freak. Even had I sanctioned the match, you yourself could not have—”
“I could! I could!” cried Alma wildly. “Oh, daddy, I love him—I can never love anyone else. Let him be a freak, an imposter if you will— these things are bad enough—but I will not believe he is a thief.”
Her father shook his head disapprovingly.
“You talk at random,” he said somewhat sternly. “John Grady is a rerespectable merchant of Spring Mills. He would not accuse his own nephew of a crime like that if he could not furnish proof; of that I am positive. Besides, you cannot marry an imposter with my consent!”
“Send for Billy, dad, send for Billy, please!” Alma’s voice was wheedling persuasive. “There is some terrible mistake—there must be!”
Using the telephone, the Colonel summoned to his home, without an inkling of the business on hand, Jack Dissler, Billy Grady, and Martin Chew. The three arrived almost together and were marshaled in the parlor.
Jack Dissler was pale but composed, and looked Thumbs Grady over with a glitter in his eyes. Martin Chew wore a puzzled smile in which approaching trouble was mixed with a near understanding. Thumbs showed the surprise he felt and smiled un-dismayedly at the quivering Alma, who looked away with a dry sob.
“Gentlemen,” prefaced Colonel Kent clearing his throat with vigor. “I have brought you all together to settle a little difficulty that has suddenly arisen in our joint affairs. Mr. Dissler, who has just returned from Spring Mills, has made a serious accusation against Mr. Grady.”
The young pitcher’s eyes flamed. “What have I done now?” he demanded.
“Just a moment, sir. You are William Grady, known as Thumbs, of the town of Spring Mills, whose uncle is John Grady?”
Grady stiffened as if he drew back from a scented danger. He looked appealingly at Martin Chew, who blinked like a man just coming out of a trance.
“I am William Grady, of Spring Mills,” said Thumbs distinctly.
Alma recoiled with a sharp gasping breath and her father gestured despairingly.
“Your admission,” he said severly to the young pitcher, “makes me confront you with serious charges. Your uncle, John Grady, accuses you of being both a thief and fake. Instead of a hero whq^won a commission on the battlefields of France I have come to know that you are a freak who dodged the draft. Isn’t that true?”
“It is not! I enlisted at the beginning of the war and won my commission----”
“Can you let me see that commission, please?”
“Er—yes, I—No, you can’t see it. My word is enough!”
“Hardly, .sir, in the light of recent revelations.”
Alma Kent sought the young pitchers’ eyes and held them in mute entreaty. He looked at her with a wry smile.
“What a narrow escape you had, Alma!” he laughed.
“Billy, don’t!” she sobbed. “My heart is broken.”
At this Grady whirled on Martin Chew, his face white, his eyes flaming.
“End this!” he commanded hoarsely. “End it at once!’
And so Martin Chew took a hand in the proceedings, rising on his toes to bellow: “I was about to say my little say, Billy, for there’s been enough of this nonsense already. Still, I was curious to see how far Mr. Dissler would go to put you in wrong. Alma, and gentlemen friends of mine, this boy is not William. Grady, and he’s not a fake, nor even a freak. Boy, take
“I was only obeying instructions, Grady. The President of the League has been receiving anonymous letters accusing you of using the emery ball, and he ordered' me to watch you today. I’ll be glad to report that you are not using anything like an illegitimate delivery.”
When the newspapers printed the story, Captain Dissler gave out an interview in which he waxed indignant that his star twirler should be accused of using the emery ball.
“Some jealous pitchers have■ taken to the poisoned pen stuff,” he told the reporters. “He has even the heaviest hitters in the league afraid of his marvelous shoots, for they know before they come to the plate that they must expect something out of the ordinary from a pitcher with two thumbs on each hand. When Thumbs has been in fast company a year and learned all their batting weaknesses he will win nine out of every dozen games he starts.”
Alma Kent smiled as she read this, calling upon her father at the time, and as Martin Chew happened to be she asked his opinion of it.
“Well,” said Martin, blandly, “you must note that while Thumbs Grady hasn’t lost a game to date, his admiring Captain predicts that come next season he will be able to lose three of every dozen. Mr. Dissler expects the lad to go ahead with a rapidity that in comparision would make a mud turtle under full headway look like a flash of light.”
Toward the end of the season Jack Dissler called upon Colonel Kent, and after a long exciting interview left the latter in a condition closely bordering on hysteria. It was the first time he had called upon his employer, and Alma was quick to notice the effects of his visits.
“Dad, has anything gone wrong?” she asked anxiously.
The :;Colonel leaned forward tensely, in his favorite lounge chair, clasping and unclasping his hands.
“Alma,” he said nervously, “I hope you have not fallen in love with this Thumbs Grady fellow—that is, fallen in so deeply that it will hurt you to give him up.”
The girl stared at him in speechless amaze. Fear drained her face white and she circled her lips with her tongue.	׳
“Tell me, dad!” she gasped. “What has happened.’/
Colonel Kent sucked noisily on his old pipe, and when he spoke he loaded his voice with all the impressiveness it could carry.
“Alma,, you must tell Grady to stop paying you attention. I wish it, for your own sake, and I demand it as a matter of duty.”
“But—but—O, this is some of Jack Dissler’s work, I know!”
“I have him to thank Alma, for discovering that Grady is a fake war hero—and worse!”
“A fake hero—and worse ? ” There was a toneless quality to Alma's usually rich voice. “You have proof of this, daddy?”
“More than I need, my child, I have just had a conversation with John Grady, of Spring Mills, over the long distance telephone, and he assures me that his nephew, William, otherwise Thumbs Grady, is a draft dodger who robbed him of three hundred dollars when he dissappeared from his home. Federal agents are scouring every circus in the country for the rascal because his uncle never dreamed he would have the audicity to use his pitching talent on account of his surplus thumbs.”
When the Colonel ceased speaking the silence that fell was so profound that the ticking of his watch sounded like anvil strokes. Alma was groping dazedly toward comprehension.
“It can’t be true, daddy,” she said in a muffled voice. “Not my Billy— not my Billy.”
Colonel Kent stroked the back of her head with pitying hand.
“It might seem hard child,” he murmured, “but we should be thankful we
I think, and then some day, after he has made his reputation, Billy is going to have an operation performed for the removal of those surplus thumbs.” “Who said so?” demanded Buck Coleman gruffly.
“Who’s Billy?” came from the still dazed Dissler.
“I said so,” was the pert rejoinder, “and Billy is Mr. Grady’s name. He is going to get rid of those thumbs so that people won’t call him a freak. It’s very disagreeable at times, and then nobody wants a freak in the family. Oh, what am I saying!” She blushed to the roots of her glistening brown hair and turned an embarrassed back to the two ball players.
“I get you, Alma!” shouted the brazen Buck. “You and Billy will have the Colonel’s consent if the thumbs disappear, ain’t I right?”
The dainty Miss Kent nodded and fled, while Buck guffawed and danced about in great glee. Jack Dissler smiled, but his smile held all the misery of the ages.
“The Colonel will never stand for it,” he averred stoutly, “Thumbs ain’t fit for Alma nohow.”
“Why?” Buck Coleman shot at him. Dissler fumbled with his collar. His face was livid, and his voice came in a sort of sobbing bleat:
“He’s a quitter—he’s a freak with a yellow streak.”
Buck Coleman controlled a facial spasm with a powerful effort of the will.
“I know you don’t mean he’s yellow physically,” he said tensely. “If he’s yellow as a pitcher I’m no judge. That boy has nerve, you can take it from me.”
Buck’s belief in Grady’s courage on the field was justified the very next day. While pitching to Brunt, of the Quakers, one of Buck’s returns struck the dirt in front of the pitcher’s box and rolled to Dissler at second base. Jack affected not to see the ball, and when Grady called to him to throw it he made a savage toss to Thumbs with instructions to wake up and chase his own errands.
Thumbs Grady was not expecting the ball to be thrown with such wicked force, and he got nipped on the end of the third finger of his pitching hand. It made a nasty gash, but Thumbs said not a word and went on pitching with the blood spurting from the cut. When another infielder ran over to him and asked to see the extent of his injury he covered his gloved hand and calmly announced that he could fininsh the inning without any inconvenience.
Between innings he walked off by himself and bound up the injury with electric tape. Every ball he threw when he resumed pitching caused him intense pain, but he stuck gamely to his task. He grew better as the game progressed and was rewarded with his ninth consecutive victory.
Jack Dissler came to him in the club house and took his hand in view of the whole team.
“Thumbs,” he said in a thick voice, “I see that you have the gameness that every great pitcher needs, and I ought to have taken you out of the box when I saw the injury you received through my temper. But I was trying your courage.”
Thumbs seemed to be immeasurably stirred by the spectacle of his Captain kneeling to him.
“Everything is all right, cap,” he said genially. “You wanted to see if I was a quitter, and it was a good . chance to prove the thing one way or the other. We’ll say no more about it, if you feel that way.”
“Oh, I guess we’ll be rivals to the end,” retorted Dissler. “If I knew what to do with you afterwards, I think I’d strangle you.”
“If I felt that way toward you,” said Thumbs calmly, “I think I’d let you!”
The next time Grady scaled the mound the umpire halted the game at unexpected intervals to examine the ball, and then apologized to the young pitcher in these words: