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I took the trouble to look him up last August." "Here we are," he said, and ushered Ivy in. A short, stout, proprietary figure approached them smiling a mercantile smile. "What can I do for you?" he inquired. Ivy's eyes searched the shop for a tall, golden-haired form in a soiled baseball suit. "We'd like to see a gentleman named Schlachweiler Rudolph Schlachweiler," said Pa Keller.
The vaguely troubled look in her eyes had become wildly so. "Schlachweiler!" shouted the voice of the boss. "Customers!" and he waved a hand in the direction of the fitting benches. "All right, sir," answered Rudie. "Just a minute." "Dad had to come on business," said Ivy, hurriedly. "And he brought me with him. I'm I'm on my way to school in Cleveland, you know.
Ivy went, looking the sacrificial lamb. Five minutes after the game was called she pointed one tapering white finger in the direction of the pitcher's mound. "Who's that?" she asked. "Pitcher," explained Papa Keller, laconically. Then, patiently: "He throws the ball." "Oh," said Ivy. "What did you say his name was?" "I didn't say. But it's Rudie Schlachweiler. The boys call him Dutch.
He sat out on the porch with Rudie and Ivy and talked baseball, and got up to show Rudie how he could have got the goat of that Keokuk catcher if only he had tried one of his famous open-faced throws. Rudie looked politely interested, and laughed in all the right places. But Ivy didn't need to pretend. Rudie Schlachweiler spelled baseball to her.
Kind of a pet, Dutch is." "Rudie Schlachweiler!" murmured Ivy, dreamily. "What a strong name!" "Want some peanuts?" inquired her father. "Does one eat peanuts at a ball game?" "It ain't hardly legal if you don't," Pa Keller assured her. "Two sacks," said Ivy.
Therefore, when I say that Rudie Schlachweiler was a dream even in his baseball uniform, with a dirty brown streak right up the side of his pants where he had slid for base, you may know that the girls camped on the grounds during the season. During the summer months our ball park is to us what the Grand Prix is to Paris, or Ascot is to London.
"Fudge!" exclaimed Ivy, continuing to play, but turning a spirited face toward her father. "What piffle! Whenever a player pitches rotten ball you'll always hear him howling about the support he didn't get. Schlachweiler was a bum pitcher. Anybody could hit him with a willow wand, on a windy day, with the sun in his eyes." The City was celebrating New Year's Eve.
I won't speak to Schlachweiler. Promise you won't do anything rash until the ball season's over. Then we'll wait just one month, see? Till along about November. Then if you feel like you want to see him " "But how " "Hold on. You mustn't write to him, or see him, or let him write to you during that time, see? Then, if you feel the way you do now, I'll take you to Slatersville to see him.
"Anything very special?" inquired the proprietor. "He's rather busy just now. Wouldn't anybody else do? Of course, if " "No," growled Keller. The boss turned. "Hi! Schlachweiler!" he bawled toward the rear of the dim little shop. "Yessir," answered a muffled voice. "Front!" yelled the boss, and withdrew to a safe listening distance. A vaguely troubled look lurked in the depths of Ivy's eyes.
Before she had nibbled her second salted almond, Ivy Keller and Rudie Schlachweiler understood each other. Rudie illustrated certain plays by drawing lines on the table-cloth with his knife and Ivy gazed, wide-eyed, and allowed her soup to grow cold. The first night that Rudie called, Pa Keller thought it a great joke.
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