Ever play any?"
"Never in my life," said Haywood. "I've never known any fellows
except one or two of my cousins."
"Jer like to learn? We're goin' to have a practice-game before the
match. Wanter come along? I'll put yer in left-field, and yer won't
be long ketchin' on."
"I'd like it bully," said Haywood. "I've always wanted to play
baseball."
The ladies' maids of New York and the families of Western mine owners
with social ambitions will remember well the sensation that was
created by the report that the young multi-millionaire, Haywood Van
Plushvelt, was playing ball with the village youths of Fishampton. It
was conceded that the millennium of democracy had come. Reporters and
photographers swarmed to the island. The papers printed half-page
pictures of him as short-stop stopping a hot grounder. The _Toadies'
Magazine_ got out a Bat and Ball number that covered the subject
historically, beginning with the vampire bat and ending with the
Patriarchs' ball--illustrated with interior views of the Van
Plushvelt country seat. Ministers, educators and sociologists
everywhere hailed the event as the tocsin call that proclaimed the
universal brotherhood of man.
One afternoon I was reclining under the trees near the shore at
Fishampton in the esteemed company of an eminent, bald-headed young
sociologist.
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