Evening Star Newspaper, December 3, 1922, Page 76

4 Mary and Love and Luck Share With Stick-Up Men in Guiding a Base Ball Player ‘WAS sittin’ in the lobby of the hotel in San Antonio one spring night when this blue-eved young cake-eater with curly hair an’ an “On, girls, look!" suit of clothes on came up to an’ vs, “Are you | Clark Scanlon., the manager of the | Yanks?" 1 gave him a cuick up an’ down an' picked him for a bug. So I give him a look that would | have felt like a cold wind to & polar bear, an’ I s to him, I say: “Yes, I'm Clark Scanlon, an' I'm! manager of the Yank: 1 says to in't the half of it bout this time, nights when it's a full moon, T get red | in the face an' bite ‘with blue eyes an’ curly a full moon tonight” I say “Go on out an’ watch it come up.” him. *“An’ that ai 1 says. ‘Jus t But this young snip reaches in his| pants pocket, pulls out a fancy ciga- rette case, opens It. takes out a pill, | shuts the case, an’ taps the end of his cigarette on it, like an actor playin’ a | rich man's son. Then he strikes a | match an’ lights his smoke, an’ after he gets his smoke goin’ ood he give | me the eye. i e started with the top of my head, | which don't seem to meet with his | approval: went down across my face, | clumb down over my chest, and on down the rest of me to the soles of | my feet. When he got through sizin’ me up he locked me right in the eye, an' he “Is it indigestion, or were you just born that way " Say, that boy had a tore In his voice that was just the same to me as a lighted match to a pile of gun- powder. I couldn't 'a’ gat madder at | i an umpire than I was at him that minute. “Just step outside with me so I can | have the open air to spatter vou around in.” I says to him. “Boy." I says, “you're goin' to cover a awful lot of territory when I get done sowin’' spare parts of you here an’ there!” The kid sighs. You're a darn poor manager,” he looks at me an’ kind o’ #ays. “A good leader of men ought never to lose his temper. HBut that's all right. You ain't )in' to worry I : Lewis v . all I says to him. “You're cocky. whatever the rest of vour name i “ome on out to him, “an’ if T can find out what makes you this way, while I'm takin’ you ap ru throw it away. If you get well, maybe You'll be all right.” | “You're gettin' old.” the young fel- low says. “I don’t want to take ad- vantage of vou. Anyhow. 1 might break a knuckle on you or something like that, an’ you can’t afford to have me lald up with a bum hand.” Then T make him. Cocky Lewls! The Cocky part was what put me off. He was a young rookie from the Pa- fic coast that Jack Costello had tipped me off on an’ sent up for hi first shot at the big time. [ remem- bered what Ja had written me about the kid. 'm afraid to say how | good a second baseman I think this boy is,” he wrote in. “I think so well | of this kid that I must be losing my | judgment in my old age. No rookie can possibly be as good as this one looks to me. Take a slant at him an’ find out what alls him.” But he hadn't spoken of him as| Cocky Lewls, just J. K. Lewis. And| this was the kid! | I give him the up an' down an' says: | “Well,” T says, “you know how to | get In right with a guy who can put butter on your bread or skids under | your feet. Now, don’t you?” “I don’t have to get in right with any guy,” the kid says to me, cool an’ | unexcited. “That ain't the way I get | by."” he says. | “Oh, you do get by, do you?” I say: “I'va bad one year of memi-pro ball,” | he says to me, “an I'm here to play | second base for the Yanks, ain't 12 I Zuess that's gettin' by." { “You're here,” I says, “because poor old Jack Costello is gettin' along in vears. He must be failin® fast to fall for you! I'm goin’ to take one quick look at you, young fellow, an’ before 1 do let me give you a piece of advice. 1f you brought a trunk with you, don’t waste any money havin' It sent up to the hotel. You've already cost us Your carfare here, an’ a little birdle tells me we're goin' to be out your| carfare back by just about tomorrow | night “You and Jack Costello are just about the same age, ain't you?" the | k1d pops back at me. “The old-timers | tell me you were both good once.” | That slid up under my vest an' scratched. It's a lot easier for me to remember back to the time when I 1ast needed a comb an’ brush than it f8 to recall the first time I had to use arazor. Wo hadn't gone so good the year before, an’ some of the sport writers an' a lot of the bugs were puttin’ on a campaign to have me signed up with the Home for the Aged an’ Infirm. I stood there an' blinked at the kid —stuck! The only comeback T could think of was a smack on the jaw, an’ 1 couldn’t afford that. They'd have said 1 was gettin’ old an’ grouchy. “Show up at the park tomorrow an’ make me think you're a ball plaver,” I says to him. “Try an’ do 1tI" Am’ 1 walked off an’ left him. i * * ¥ i F course, everybody that knows anything about base ball knows what happened when Cocky Lewis, showed up at the park. After an | hour's work he didn't have a friend; on the team, an’, likewise, he didn’t have any more chance of bein’ shipped | back to the bushes than I have of pitchin’ the kind of a game that I used to turn in twenty vears ago.| The guy was almost as good as he thought he was, an’, believe me, when 1 say that I'm praisin® him. We'd figured on usin’ old Swede Tanson at second for one more year. But Cocky Lewis hadn’t been doin’ his stuff for half of the mornin” workout when the Swede passed me on his way to the bench to get a arink an' give mo as game a grin as 1 ever seen on a man's face. “I'm goin' to sell my extra palr o shoes an’ invest the dough in havin® the seat of my pants reinforced,” he says to me. “I'm goin' to have time to set an’ think this summer.” ~Fat chance you got of settin' any- where when there's a ball game on, sucker,” I says to him. *You're a good-hearted liar, Clark, the Swede says. “The kid's a darb. ain’t he?” Then he pulled his cap Qown over his eyes an' went on to gét his drink of water. &yt the time we got home an’ \learned about the luck piece. QS Career. THE SUNDAY STAR, WA‘SHINGTON D. C, DECEMBER 3, 1922—PART 4. “THERE WERE TWO SHOTS FIRED AN’ BOTH OF 'EM WENT HIGH. BEFORE THE STICK-UP GUY GOT FINGERL HIS TRIGGERS AGAIN, COCKY WAS ON HIM.” started the season Cocky Lewls was in wrong with every man on the team. Did you ever play poker with a guy who could draw two cards to a flush an' fill? An’ make inside straights? An’ then keep right on doin’ it night after night? A guy who can do that an’ does it has got to have a wonder- | ful disposition to keep any friends. Cocky Lewis did it. He did it right along, an' he had a disposition that would make you hate him, even if you were winning his money, which none of us ever did. He got the sport writers with the team set against him before he'd been with us two weeks. When they wrote that he was good—which he was—he'd go round an' bawl ‘em out for not havin’' made their stories stronger. An' when they wrote that he was a swell-headed youngster, which they also did. he'd laugh at ‘em and tell ‘em sure he was swell- headed; he had something to be swell-headed about. So when we got home the only friends he had left in the world were the fans an' Mary Horton. It was all right with me about the fans, but the Mary Horton thing made me sore. Mary was my sisters kid, an’ I'd had her with me ever since her ntother died, oungster was five. Mary was twenty- one the year Cocky Lewis first came up, an’ she was one little peach. Her time had been divided between board- in' schools an' college, press stands an’ ball parks, Pullmans an' hotels. | Her friends ran all the way from high-brow professors an' multi-mil- lionaires’ kids on down to rough- neck ball players. awful proud of the way she stayed | clear of the hundred an' one young snips that tried to make love to her. She hated a case of swelled head as much as 1 did. And yet she fell for Cocky Lewis! “He's a nice boy, uncle,” she told me when I tried to set her straight on him. “I know what you think about him, an’ I know what everybody else on the team thinks, 'an’ you're all wrong. Mr. Lewis has only two big faults, an’ I'm willin' to overlook them.” “Only two!" I says to her. *“What two of the ten thousand, seven hun- dred and eighty-six have you recog- nized?" “He's bashful,” she says, lacks confidence in himself.” “Mary,” I says to her, “I wish I had a daughter of my own,” I says. * wish T had her just so I could profit by what you've taught me, an' never send her to college.” “I know what you think,” Mary says to me, “but you're wrong, uncl you're wrong, an’ I'm right.” * k x % O they got engaged, an' that was that up to the time of that game with Chicago, the first week in July. I'm not one of those that says Dusty | Hanson meant to do it. I don't like Dusty an’ I never did, but he's no murderer. Cocky was always crowdin® the plate, anyway, an' Dusty wasn't the first one who burned 'em in high an’ Inside to drive him back. Of course, Dusty expected the boy to duck, an” why he didn’t do it nobody knows. Cocky himself could never explain it. I talked to him about it | while he was in the hospital. He {said he seen the ball comin’ an' the | next thing he remembered he was in bed. It was while he was delirious from that crack on the bean that I first It was gold-mounted rabbit's foot, at- tached to an old twenty-dollar gold piece. The kid got to callin’ for it in the ambulance before we got him to the hospital. “I want Uncle Jim' luck plece!” he kept sayin' over an’ over again. “Something’s happened to me. I want Uncle Jim's luck plec I want it! I tell you something’s happened, an’ I want Uncle Jim's luck piece He kept on an' on like that, an’ none of us knew what he was talkin’ | about till Mary showed up. As soon as she heard what he was askin' for she told me what to get. I frisked his clothes an’ I found this rabbit's foot with the twenty-dollar gold piece in a little special trick pocket In the | inside of his vest. An’ you know what? He had a lock on that pocket! Yes, he did! It was lined with leather an’ had a leather flop with one o' these little bits of locks on It, like you see on jewelry boxes. 1 got it out an’ took it up to him. He was unconsclous, all right. But, boy! He had sense alive In him somewhere to close his hand over that luck plece when I put it in his palm, an’ he never let loose of it for all the time he was delirious. Pretty near three weeks, that was, an' he held that luck piece in his hand all that time. There was a dozen times that the doctors thought he was goin’ to pass I see it start I just pull away as when the | T'a always been | “an’ he! out, gone he'd start in sayin’, right. I got Uncle Jim's luck piece. don’'t care! Somcthing's happen:d “It's all 1 “Oh, you'll be 1 got Uncle Jim's luck | wear off.” “I hope 80,” he sa: I don't care! plece!™ Mary told me about the thing. An luncle of Cocky's was an old-time western gambler. He used to play | the Pacific boats a lot. One of the best known of the early gamblers in | Dawson an’ Nome. Quite a character, I guess. Supposed to be honest. Never stacked a deck, but depended on his luck. It seems like every time | he missed a train 1t was wrecked. If| he meant to go to the theater an’ 1 didn't, the theater burned down—an' all such like as that. When Cocky was born in San Fran- cisco this Uncle Jim was just in, down from the north, an’ booked for passage on a boat to China. It scems he glve Cocky's mother this luck plece with a lot of rigmarole about | what it would do for the kid an’ how | it had always got him by, but he had plenty of money now, an’ he'd seen a lot anyhow—an' all such like as that. An’ then he salled for China, an'. of course, the boat was never heard from again, an’ Cocky had had it dinned into him from then on that as long ' |as he owned that luck plece he couldn’t lose, an’ If he ever lost it | that would be all for him. | “That's why he's so seemingly con- | fident an’ boastful about everything.” | Mary explained to me. “You see, he really lsn't confident or boastful | either. All of his confidence is in that silly, stupid old luck plece, an’ he's just like a scared boy whistlin® {in the dark to keep up his courage. | ball. to throw it again. of half ducks. ager in the minute, watchin’ the boy, enough gun shy, bit. with me,” he sa) | tears back. from it shoved me." ! He brags about things because he has Ino confidence in himself, an’ he's afraid some one will find it out.’ “Well,” I says to her, “if you're goin’ to get married to him you'd bet- ter find some system of makin' sure that he never loses that luck plece.” “Loses it!" says Mary, lookin' at ! me, an' the tears come into her eyes. “Ill never be happy until he does.” she says, an' turned around an' went | away. | I've never been married, but I know | enough about women never to ask {them to explain when they make some crack I don’t understand, so I just let it go at that. | * ok Kk | (YOCKY LEWIS wasn't abel to get back in the line-up that season but he showed up for spring trainin’ after a winter out on the Pacific coast, lookin' huskler an’ cockier than ever. He an’ Mary were to be mar- ! rled 1n June, an’ when'I seen the look |on her face the first day he came | | prancin’ into the hotel at our spring | | trainin® quarters I felt as if I could | almost like him. She certainly did think the world an' all of that | youngster! As I sald, Cocky looked all right. but the first time he stepped up to {the plate with a bat in his mitts I knew he was in for bad trouble., | Blocky Miller lobbed one over for him | |that you could have counted the | stitches on as it came up. An' what | {does Cocky do but stick his foot in | | the water bucket! Yes, sir! Cocky ! | Lewls, that had always crowded the plate an’ leaned Into the fastest of | ‘em, drew back as this little heave | come toward him an’' kind o' half ducked. He looked over at me an’ laughed. It was a pretty poor job of laughin’, at that. “What do you know about | that?" he says. “Can you beat it? I guess I must of been thinkin' about that one that caught me on the bean.” He hammered the plate with his bat an’ called out to Blocky, “Feed me another one, kid. Put some beef Into it an® watch me do murder!” Blocky heaved him another one—a wide one it was, an' slow, too. I was | watchin® the kid close, an’ I seen that he stepped back even before the ball left Blocky's hand. He stepped back when the pitcher made the motion to throw! You know what a lot o' chat- ter there is goin' on on a ball fleld when the boys are warmin’ up, par- | ticularly along the first of the spring trainin'? Well, sir, that field was as quiet as & church. Everybody was lookin’ at Cocky Lewls. His face got red, an’ he grabbed hi bat hard an' asked for another one. ! Blocky fed him another easy one, an’ back the kid went. He stepped away from the plate even before the ball left Blocky's hand! “All right,” I says to him. “Cut it out for a while, Cocky. Try it again later.” He threw down his bat an’ walked over to me. He was shakin’® all over, an' there was an awful scared look in his eyes. “I swear T don't know what's the matter with me, Mr. Scanlon,” he says in a scared voice, “but when Blocky starts to throw that ball I pull eway from the plate. I can’t help it. When were hit, isn't it he'd be all right. this time. says, the fence. You watch mel” catch with a couple of the boys. drew back his arm to toss the ball to Cocky, an’ what does the boy do but draw back an' half duck again. caught the ball. all right, an' tossed it back to Slater an’ motioned for him | Cocky. With the motion of his arm Cocky pulls back an’ kind | poses as arm round his shoulder. your clothes on now an’ forget it.| This 18 your first day out since you an' whenever he was pretty near though somebody hit me a crack in the jaw an' knocked me back.” all right, Cocky,” I to says to him, an' I never deliberately me, but I got Uncle Jim's luck plece. | told a bizger lie in my life. “That'll He walked away a little plece an’ called to old Jack Slater to toss him a | Jack was flddlin’ round, playin' He He e FORE he’'d been beaned any man- league would have given me $30,000 cash an’ maybe more for Cocky Lewis, an' right at that|pave hit it with a telephone pole an’ standin’ there on the fleld |jaugh about it an' T'd of sold him for | won't do it again. a dime an’' been sure I was gettin’ step up an’ do the same thing right the best of the Hargain. Once they’Ve over again, an' laugh some mors. He been hit that way, an’ get real sure- they're done! I walked over to the kid, an’ when ! . through. The rest of us all knew h I got to him he was blubberin' a little wag done. e “I don't know what's the matter yhae I mean. tryln’ to keep the | couid happen to hi 1 “Iain’t afraid of the ball, nee e e but I just can’t help steppin’ away | It's just like somebody ; “Come on, kid," I £ays, puttin’ mY | nim good-bye, 8o to speak. “You go get He nodded yes. “Well,” I says to him as he walked along toward the clubhouse, “you just g0 on back to the hotel an’ rest. You'll be all right tomorrow."” But he was scared—scared right! By the time I got to the clubhouse with him he was cryin’ like a kid. “I ain’t afraid of the ball, on sayin’, “but when I see a guy make a motlon to throw I just pull away an’ duck. I just can't help It. the matter with me?’ 1 tried to kid him along, but T knew I wasn't gettin’ anywhere with it. Probably I wasn't convincin® him for the good an' sufficlent reason that I knew I was lyin' when I told him he kept I stayed with him while he was gettin’ dressed, an’ he was in a ter- rible stew, up till he started to put on his coat an’ vest. An’ then, all of sudden, a look of rellef come into his face. He took a long breath an’ begun to laugh. It was a real laugh The regular old Cocky Lewis laugh, that 2we all hated. He was fingerin’ that little lump on the inside of his vest—that fool luck piece made of a rabbit’s foot and a twenty-dollar gold piece! lost my goat for a minute,” he “but I'm all right now. I'll be in there tomorrow bustin’ e'm over You watch me! goin’ to have to put ‘em close an’ fast to drive me away from that plate. knew an’ ‘What's They'se I figured maybe his faith in thut Please don't take it. It ain’t worth fool luck plece would pull him anything to anybody but me.” through, an’ I was glad of that, be-| “Is that a fact?” the hold-up guy cause he was a valuable plece of base | says. He ripped loose the lock on the ball property, an' on account of Mary. pocket an’ fished out the luck plece. ‘tOD, of course. But at the ramne time | “Please don’'t take th " Cocky it made me kind o sick. There was|begged, shakin’ all over. “That ain't | something about seein’ a full-grown [any good to you, an' I—T can't get man with all his will an’ courage de- | along without it! | pendent on the possession or loss of |a tool rabbit's foot hooked on to an | old twenty-dollar gold piece—that seemed kind of awful! But for once his luck piece failed to |work: that s, with anybody but He came out to the fle!d the next day as full of pep an’ higa pur- * ok ok X HE hold-up guy looked at the thing an’ helfts it in his hand. t looks like gold,” he says, “an’ it | feels like gold. If it is gold, I can juse it,” an’ he starts to put it in his | ocket ever, perfectly sure *hat h: | POTXet : = |was all rignt again. But he went| You could see Cocky's whole hods right on pullin’ away an’ kind + hate #100 Of contract ke = dmpe |duckin’ every time anybody tarew a 1% His hands came down = ::‘a‘d?"l“ ball at him. But it didn’t worr; sl o ' 2 Y Rim. | jump at the guy. The bird that had He'd step up to the plate an' pull | i . away from one o far he eoutin: |been friskin' him backed up a bit, an' i ever mind, | holdin’ the guns on us turned hoth A e | of “em on Cocky. | “Easy there” he says. “I don't want to shoot, but one more move like that out of you an’ Il spill a | couple of gunfuls into vour dinner’ An' then Cocky began to beg in but he still had confldence | srog wer DoinEi e D ese e In his charm—absolute confidencs, | 1o 8nd ‘em checks. Hed bring wm e e e miuehe™ | money at any place they'd say. Hed !do anything if they'd only give him 5 s > "° | back that luck piece! had that luck plece, an’ he went Fignt | "B\ v\ can't do business with a on plannin’ for a great career as a . = ball playcr long after the rest of us w‘::i:,“fn S e ot make wuy had put a lily in his hand an’ kissed |how much dough you promise to bring along. He's got to get what he's gettin’ while he's gettin® it. There was nothin’ doin’ on givin® F it had been anybody but Cocky Cocky back his luck piece or makin' |1 Lewis, he'd got all the sympathy 'any arrangement for him to buy it in the world, but the gang were glad | back later. I was watchin’ the kid nough to see him hit the chutes. close, because, knowin' what I did of |He'd acted so dog-gone swell-headed |the way he felt about it, I figured | —cocky is the right word—when ha | there was goin’ to be a play before was goln' good that they Were all |ever those two birds got out of that glad to see him slip. room with that fool thing that the His contract run for all that season, | boy set such store by. but along late in June the owners opposite end of the line from Cocky, egan to talk to me about payin’ what |an’ I didn’t bat an eve until I was was comin’ to him an’ lettin’ him |sure he was just at the bustin’ point. slide. payin’ his carfare around the circuit, | long as I did gets a kind of sixth lan’ naturally we couldn't get any- | sense that tells him when a man's thing for him in a trade. The news just on the point of startin' to do about him was out an’ there wasnit a 'something—to run or throw, or some- {team in the league would have paid | thing like that. Anvhow, I knew that | the price of a uniform for him. Cocky was goin' to go, just the tiniest 1 first began to think maybe the split flash of an instant before he {kid wasn’t such a bad sort of a human | started, an' T knew that the crazy kid | betn’ after all, when he insisted on | was goin' first for the guy with the postponin® his weddin’ date. Mary guns. | wanted to go through with it, but| An’ just that flash of an instant be- the kid said no. | fore he did start, I took my Iife in “I'm goin’ to be all right,” he says one hand an’ threw it up In the air to me. “You can laugh if you want|an' took chances on catchin’ it again | to, but T know what this luck piece | when it come down. | of mine does for me. I'm goin' to be| 1 give a sharp, quick vell an’ kind {all right, an' I know it! But Just|o half moved; just a little bit. The say, was perfectly certain that fool luck plece of his was goin' to pull him | * * x x [now ball playin’ Is the only thing I pirg with the guns jumped an’ swung | can get any real dough at, an’ every- | i You've all ‘em my wa " th % ! body thinks I'm through. em iuy way ui then he Swing fem {got me pegged for a dead one. x;:aif:: ,::‘w“d CGockx:fantcuc Hlooze Ik v you're wrong, but I'm in’ | 24 . oM e nov89 But he didn't swing ‘em quick | to marry your niece till I prove you're | all wrong. Shell wait for me an' I | €ROugh. Cocky was across the room | can wait for her until I make good | 20" into him like a flash, an'yas the ! again.” | guy shot, Cocky ducked, reachin’ for- | wWell, Cocky,” T says, “T don’t like | Ward as he aid it. with his arms up; | to be a crape-hanger, but I might as|he grabbed the guy's hands as he ! well tell you you're through in base | came in on him an’ shoved ‘em up. | ball. T'm tellin’ you this now because | There were two shots an’ both of ! the quicker you find it out the sooner |'em went high. Before the stick-up !you may quit wastin’ time an’ get guy got fingerin’ his trigger again, | started fn Some other business. Your Cocky was in on him with a smash | luck piece may work for you again if | of his head in the pit of the fellow's you'll start gellin’ automobiles, or stomach, and the rest of us were right insurance, or somethink like that, but | there with him. Somebody yanked one it'll never be any use to you with a | of the guns out of the stick-up guy's | {bat in your hand. { hand an’ banged the butt down hard | _“I know what you think,” he 8ays. | on the top of his head, an' that was | “but you're wrong. Just watch me!” | .11 for him. | A week later we're In Chicago an’| The windows leadin’ out on the fire I'm up in & hotel room watchin' a| ...v. were open, an’ the other guy— bunch of the boys playin' a little| . * 0 ") had frisked us—dove for stud, when the big stick-up comes| 2 O O oft. Two birds did the trick. They |“'C 0, ™o o yel an' went ater knock:dT - the lgoor an’ one of ‘em ;- oy grabbed an alarm clock SRy, S eETAm |off a stand that was sittin’ beside the Red Snider opened the door an’ the | 20 5 “%0 "0 Tt throw it at two of ‘em oozed in. The first guy | %"t ; had two guns, one in each mitt, an’ | SO ! ir—there it was! This guy he spoke his little plece about how | AP iner healthy’ we'd bo if we didn't make no | had what Cocky thought meant more noise. He lined us up against the |® him than anything else in the world wall an’ his pal started to frisk us, |20 he Wwas doin’ the one thing that None of the, boys had more than a |80t Cocky's goat. He had his arm fow dollars an’ some small jewelry |back like a ball player's, with a thing on, 80 we all stood for the frisk with. |in his hand to throw, an’ he was out makin’ any squawk until the guy |Boing’ to throw it at Cockyl It all that was goin® through us got tohappened faster than a guy could clap | Cocky Lewls. his hands ;onmer once, but I didn’t Cocky didn't squeal until the bird { miss any of it. had gone all through his pockets an’'! The fear that was in Cocky’s brain, finally felt inside of his vest, where |burned in there by that ball that Dusty the luck plece was. Hanson beaned him with, half stopped “Well, well,” says the hold-up guy | the boy, an’ he made that old motion who was goln’ through him, “what' to pull away an’ duck. have we here?” ' But the other thing was bigger. Cocky’s tace was chalk white an’ he | His craze for that luck plece was was shekin’ like & pair of dice in ajgreater than his fear of the guy nervous crops shooter's hand. throwin® something at him. He give “That ain’t worth nothin’ to any-|a great big yell an’ dove for the bird. body but me,” he says. “Let me keep | The stick-up man by the window let it, will you? Listen. I'll do anything |drive with the alarm clotk—an' miss- for you if youll let me keep that.led. He aidn’t miss much, but that I | | the fellow across the room that was | I was on the | They didn’t see any sense In I reckon a guy playin’ base ball as| wasn’t help to him. He missed an’ Cocky had him. When we finally got 'em untangled the kid had his luck piece held tight iin his hand an’ he started jabberin® ltke & madman. “I got it he says. anlon, 1 zot it T ain’t afraid of ‘em any more. he started to I wanted to, You 1s beat. I aidn’t duck when throw that clock at me. but I didn't, an’ I got it beat. think this luck piece is the bunk? that 50? Well, you see what happen- |ed! Put me In battin' practice tomor- !row an’ just watch what I do. | it beat!” | * % x ¥ “ ELL, I'll say he did. didn’t go to bed that night walked the streets an’ roamed aro the hotel all night long, an’ the ne mornin® at battin’ practice he stepped up to the plate and leaned into ‘e with all the nerve he'd ever shown fn the old days. I him In to pinch- hit that afternoon, with two out an’ |two on, an’ he stepped into a fast {one, high an’ inside, an’ cked out | as pretty a double as you'd ever want {to see. He was curcd. | That night 1 sittin® up in my | room, talkin® with him an’ Mary, an’ he was fingerin’ this luck picee of his 1 got The kid He It de me kind of sick the w he petted it an’ run ids fingors over it All of a sudden he starto ® awful hard at the twe plece. A funny look | face, an® he took it over close 1o {Mght an’ held it up to his eyes an’ |stared at it. Then he looked arcund at Mary. “Look!” he says to her, holdin’ out the luck piece. He acted like a !low that had just been shot. “The {date on this is 1880. I—w thought—— Why, what's happened? { It was 1870! Why, I've noticed it a { hundred times. TUncle Jim's piece was {1870! Why, something’s wrong:" | Mary stood up straight an' laoked {at him an’ for a minute she dis sa |nothin’. The creepiest kind of a { feelin’ come over me as I stood there { watchin' her, because somehow the !1ook in her face, the expression i her eyes, was just the s i 1'd s in Cocky’s face the night before when he thought he was goin' to luck plece an’ was decidi come down to that, {his life. An’ just that same way. a flash of an instant hefs started to speak, I had that fu | tle feelin' inside of me that s £oin’ to do something—do that took all she had in her to put over. { “Boy, it's time you |lieve in somethine re | if it Special Instructions for I O the editor: This is the open season for ducks in a good many parts of the country an practally everyb themselfs a he-blooded man has either been out duck shooting' or is going duck shooting you take most localities and they look down on a non-duck shooter and make faces at him and point at him and say there goes that man that {don’t shoot ducks. | On acct. of this sentiment why they's nobody so high up in the world | that they ain't ashamed to be classed as a non-duck shooter but unlucky a good many men don’t know the ropes lin regards to duck shooting and imake a miserable failure sa | when they try it. §o it looks like ! few hints on the subject from a ma like I would not come amiss as I wa: practally born in a bhevy of ducks you might say and know ail about them backward: A good many ignorant men w they go duck shooting makes the m take of only takeing a shot gun with them where as a experienced duck hunter will also arm themseifs with |a revolver and a dirk as they's telling when a wild duck will turn | you and then its good night un { you make quick work of them. Many {a man has found his Adam's apple |clutehed in a duck’s bil because he | didn’t have nothing only a shot gun {to fight them off with. | Wild ducks in the U. S. into 2 s namely can be di- water | 3 . Wood ducks {is generally always found setting on ia cord of wood where as you won't | never find water duc | close to running water liki | ocean or river or up to date bath tub. [In the last named case the way to do is throw your weppons to 1 side, | grab Mr. Duck with your bear hands |and drown them in hot water either | with or without soap. | * x HE most commonest kind of wuter ! ndled twe ducks is the pearl-ha | the copper-riveted millar: due bill duck and ; muddlehead. There is also what known decoys and drakes but it is vs. the v to shoot them only on a national election day. Still another varicty that is genally always found near mud puddi called the canvas back on acct. of their habit of never going out in wet weather without a canvas jacket or ! mon liver- is as ¢ another the expression got started that such and such a thing or so and so Was @s easy as shooting ducks. Nothing could fether than the truth as the duc always on their guard and the minute they see your gun pointed at them they duck which is where they got their name. This is specially tru: in the case of ducks like the addle- pated crum snatcher and the beetle browed woose. Ducks genally always travels in pairs of 2 at a time, usually every duck sticking to her drake but some- times you see a duck going it alone which probably means that she has lost her drake in which case they cull her a widgeon. The best time to go duck =nooting is along about the middle of the night when they are returning from the theater. They usually travel on badly lighted ferries and it is some- times possible to grab them in the dark and either brow beat them or at is Lardner Tells How To Shoot»r Ducks Browed Woose—Dangerous if They Turn on You. —_— s e BY WILLIAM SLAVENS McNUTT. her volea was as stern as a judge's )0 you remember Miss Greegan, the night nurse at the hospital where YOu were operated on? She took that luck piece of yours an' gave it to het swectheart. I had another made a1 near like the original as 1 could ge! ¥ it, but T didn’t have much time, an’ ! couldn’t find a twenty-dollar gol¢ of the right date in such It never had any power fou »od or evil any more than the one youw've got there, that I had made te substitute for {t” After she begun to speak I quil wachin® her ar’ begun watchin Cocky. Did you ever see one of these birds on the vaudeville stage doin® & trick b in' act. way high ug somewher On of these acts whers aE r sits on something a 1% 11l you're blame sure nz to fall? lian stands s g You know how you sit in your sea! all tightened up an’ thrilled, wonder * in' if he's poin’ to lean that extra little millionth of an inch an® comr crashin® the sta »wn to bust his noodle on or recover his balance ar : again? Ewve it's an act that th: day, an’ that he's u get an awfu! ? Sure vou was just acts, on 1ig] minute that kid andin’ i an awful tough spot You could see he was just about fall. An’ you knew, too, that it e did fall right there, that would be the end of him. * x * & back vou k an to E stood there lookin® at that luck piece in Lis hand for I don't know how long! T suppose 1t wasn't more thin half 2 minute, but it sure did seem to me like a couple of the longest r lived. Then he 1o all of a sudden and T knew the kid | nee again Tt was ¥ langh, with a i+ ne. The thing that % the thing in him tha everybody—but Mary—dis an the thing that was added was the thing that made evers ng to do witl it that Mar: place. run « to him aa® hugge: cried over him. an’ they together, an’ I wen? looked the window, feeli: churchy in o n an® Al Rights Reserved ) Jringing Down the Bettle- lease give them a good ducking. My brother Go once brought home string of 4 tweel, 3 woose and 1-2 long-nailed glugs without neve ng his gun off his shoulder. * % * UCKS that is found around part of the country feeds on fis of all kinds, wild crackers and oyste soup. Some huntsmen leaves their | golafish bowl in the front vd. at nigh: to draw the ducks but this is vs. the Haw in lid south and both the these states the g is 10 set a terrain of hot oys- i the porch and then pre- u was asleep. Turn out all the lights in the house and let fn The proper equipment for a stran- ger to take out on a duck shooting trip is a double bbl. shot gun, 2 bbls, of beer. a sweater jacket, a 6 shoo tend like y “OTHERS ARE CANVAS BACK ACCT. OF THEIR HABIT OF VER _GOING OUT IN WET WEATHER WITHOUT A CANVAS JACKET OR AN UMBRELLA™ 1d a good dagger of some standard smake, 2 pairs canvas shoes, 2 pairs hose, 1 garter and a dress shirt. Tais m like a whole lot « trouble but the results is genall: s worth it as they's no greater| 0. than bring home a fine bag o’ canvas backs, muddleheads and tweel and show them to the little womas with some such remark like loo what I done mamma? And incidently mamma will b tickled to death with her share of th. tertainment which is to pluck th < and get them ready for th. n which is about the most enjoy able of all & women's tasks with th possible exception of scrubing i kitchen floor but what is a el trouble when you think of the bi feast uhead of a bevy of wild duck whi th alw is tough and hard to get any g off of them and pretty nea: tastes terrible but still an all they are wild ducks and not to b sneezed at. RING W. LARDNER. Great Neck, Long Island, Dec. 1. _ A new copper process makes it po {sible to weld together iron and st parts. The copper penetrates lat the fine pores of the iron and form a firm weld. The hundreds of millions of bushe! of Marquis wheat produced in thi country and Canada annually a] originated from a single grain plan ed by a scientist at Ottawa in 1903.