The evening world. Newspaper, December 2, 1922, Page 13

ph ir) Saar ee aren = —7= THE EVENING WORLD, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1922. CLARK SCAD JACK COST Seam. Beanlon as a prize. pottant occasion. important stunt. WAS sittin’ in the liobby of the hotel in San Antonio ons {spring night when this blue - eyed young cake eater with curly hair a1 an “Oh, girls, look!” suit of clothes on come up to me an say: “Are you Clark Scanlon, the manager of the Yanks?" I gave him a quick up an’ down. an’ picked him for a bug. 80 I give him a } have felt like a cold wind to a pola- bear, an’ I says to him, I says: ‘‘Yes, I'm Clark Scanton an‘ I'm manager of the Yanks too,"" } says ro him. ‘An’ that ain't the half of it,” I says, “Just about this time—on nights when it’s a full moon—I get red in the face an’ bite nice little boys with blue eyes an’ curly hair, There's a full moon to-night,” [I says to him “Go on out an’ watch it come up.’* But this young snip reaches in hfs pants pocket, pulls out a fancy Cigaret case, opens it, takes out u pill, shuts the case, an’ (ups the end sof his cigaret on it, like an actor playin’ a rich man’s sou. Then he strikes a match an’ lights his smoke, an’ after he gets his smoke goin’ good, he give me the eye. He started with the top of my head, which didn’t seem to meet with lis 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 looked me right in the eye, an’ he Bays: “‘Is it indigestion or were you just born that w Say, that boy had a tone in his voice that was just the same to me as a Ughted match to pile af gun- powder, I couldn't ‘a’ got ‘madder at an umpire than I was at him that minute. “ust step outside with me so I can have the open air to spatter you @round fn,” I says to him. “Boy,” I says, “you're goin’ to cover a awful lot of territory when I get done sow- fn’ spare parts of you here an there!"’ The kid looks at me an’ kind o° sighs. ‘You're “a darn poor man- ager, he says. A good leader men ought never to loxe his temper. But that's all right, You ain't got to worry me any “If you're wis, right,” I says to him whatever the rest « Come on outside,” I says to him if IT ean find out what makes you this way, while I'm takin’ you Ht 411 throw It away. If you get well, may- be you'll be all ri “You're gettin’ old,’ the young fel- low says. ‘I don’t want to take ad- vantage of you. Anyhow, I might break a knuckle on you, or something like that, an you can't afford to have me laid up with a bum hand.” HEN { make Cocky Lewis! The Cocky part was what put me off. He was a young rookie from the Pucific Coast, that Jack Costello had tipped me off on un’ sent up for his first shot at the big time. I remem- I'm Cocky Lewis you're cocky all him bered what Jack had written me about the’kid. I'm afraid to say how good a second baseman IT think this boy is,"" he wrute In. ‘I think so well £ f@pot this kid that F must be losing my my No old rookie good as slant at him an Is him poken of him as t J, K. Lewis. And Judgment in can possibly looks to me find out what 4 But he hadn Cocky Lewis, 3 this was the | I give bin the says: “Weil,” Ls to get in rh put butter under your feet! “1 don't any guy, up an’ down an’ you know how on your or skids have cited we Way 1 get he “I’ve had one year ot semipro ball.” he says to the, “an here to ph t second base for th win f ' guces that's gettin’ by.’ j “You're here," 1 ae \ poor old Jack Costello is gettin’ 3 in years. Tle must be fallin’ fast to fall for you! I’m goin’ to take on quick lool at you, young fellow, an before I do let ine give you a piece of advice. If you brought a trunk with you, don't waste any money havin’ it pent up to the hotel. You've already cost us your curfare here, an’ a little birdie tells me we're goin’ to be out your carfare back by just about to- \ morrow night.” 4 A You und Jack Costetio just ’ wt the same age, ain't your” t i@ pops back at me he old-tin fell me you were both good once. _ What olid' mp under my vest an’ AT BAT AND ON THE BASES. JLON, old timer and manager, who knows a ball- player the minute he sees him work. {LLO, another old timer and scout for Scanlon's J. K. (COCKY) LEWIS, discovered by Costello and sent to MARY HORTON, Scanlon's niece, college-trained and equipped with thinking apparatus of her own. RED SNIDER who plays the role of door opener on a very im- MISS CREEGAN, a hospital nurse, who thoughtlessly did a very scratched. It's a lot easier for me to remember back to the time when I last needed a comb an’ brush than it is to recall the first time I had to use a razor. We hadn't gone so gocd 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 I stood there an’ blinked at the kid —stuck! The only comeback I could think of was a smack on the jaw, an’ I couldn't afford that. They'd have said I was gettin’ old an’ grouchy. Show up at the park tomorrow an’ make me think you're a ballplayer,”’ I says to him. ‘Try an’ do it!” An’ I walked off an’ left him. F course everybody that knows anything about baseball 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 1 used to turn in twenty years ago. The guy was almost as good as he thought he was, an‘ believe me, when I say that I'm praisin’ him, We'd figured on usin’ old Swede Hanson ut second for one more year Lut Cocky Lewis hadn't been doin his stuff for half of the mornin’ work- out when the Swede pussed me on his way to the bench to get a drink, un’ give me us game a grin as I ever seen on a man's face, “I'm goin’ to sell my extra, pair of shoes an’ invest the dough in havin’ the seat of my pants reinforced," he says tome. ‘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 ou're i good-hearted liar, € th wede “The kid's a darb, uln't he? Then he pulled his cay down over his eyes an’ weat on to get his drink of water. By the time v ed the season C Kt says. got howe an’ sta cky Lewis was wrong with every man on the team Did you ever play poker with a guy who could d two cards to a flus an’ All? make inside straights? An’ then k nt on doin’ it ni fter night? A guy who can do th does it. has got to have a wonder- disposition to keep any friends. y Lewis did tt: he did it right 1. ain’ he had a disposition that would make yu hute hin, even if Winning his money, which non¢ of us ever di He got team set r with us two weeks. hat he was good which he'd go round an’ bawi ‘em out for n havin’ thelr stores strony An’ whin they wrote that he was a swe ued younsst whieh they also did, he'd la » an’ tell was swell-headed: he had tg to be swell aded abont when we the only friends he had left in t the fans an’ Mary Horton. It was all right with world were me yout the fans, the Mary Horton thing made m sore. Mary was my sister's kid, an I'd had her with me ever si he mother died, wl bungster was fi Mary 2 the ye Cocky Lewis frst came up, ant was one litle peach, Her time vided between boardin press stands nans an ran all the way f u awinl proud ©; “"hhe an boy, unele,”" she told me when I tried to t her hin “TL know vy t yout uh lw 1 know whi fy eb On I says t " bashfu Maury ! tol had Joughte ' 1 oF had he just sa ft could 1 know what you think Mary in July, Um not one of thoxe that ways Dusty Hanson meant to do it, 1 don't like Dusty an’ I never did; but he's no murderer. Cocky was alway 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 nobédy knows, Cocky himself could never explain ft. I talked to him about it while he was in the hospital, He said he scen 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 learned about the luck piece. It was a gold-mounted rabbit's foot, attached to an old $20 gold plece. The kid got to callin’ for it In the 1LLU STRATED BY into him from then on that as long as from the plate even before the ball he owned that luck piece he couldn't left Mlocky's hand! lose; an’ if he ever lost it that would “All right," I says to him, “Cut jt be all for him. out for a while, Cocky. Try it again “That's why he's so seemingly con- later.’ Ile threw down his bat an’ fident an’ boastful about everything,” walked over to me. He was shakin’ Mary explained to me. “You see, he all over, an’ there was an awful really inn't confident nor boastful seared look in his eyes either. All of his confidence is in that “I swear I don't know what's the silly, stupid old luck piece, an’ he’s matter with me, Mr. Scanton,"” ho Vast like a scared boy whistlin’ in the says in a scared voice, “but when dark to keep up his courage. He Blocky starts to throw that ball I pull brags about things because ‘he has no confidence in himself, an’ he's afraid some one will find it out." away from the plate. I can’t help it. When I see it start I just pull away as though somebody hit me a crack in “Well,"’ I says to her, “If you're the jaw and knocked me back.’ goin’ to get married to him, you'd “Oh, you'll be all right, Cocky,"’ I better find some system of makin’ says to him, an’ I never deliberately JOHN dollar gold-piece! "TI lost my goat for a minute,” he says, “bute I'm all right now, I'll be in there to-morrow bustin’ ‘em over the fence. You watch me! They're goin’ to have to put ‘em close an’ fast to drive me away from that plate. You watch me I figured maybo hia faith in that fool luck plece would pull him through, an’ I was glad of that, be- cause he was a@ valuable piece of baseball property, an’ on account of Mary, too, of course. But at the same time tt made me kind 0° sick! There was something about seein’ full- grown man with all his will an’ cour- age dependent on the possession or “BUT HE DIDN'T SWING ‘EM we got him to the want Uncle Jim's Inck kept sdyin’ over ant over Something's happened to me nels Jim's luck piece! 1 1 tell you something's hap I want Unele Jim's luck He kept on an’ on like that, an > none of us. knew what he was talkin’ about tll Mary showed up. As soon 8 st ard what he was askin’ for she told me whit to get. I frisked his clothes an’ 1 found this rabbit's with the twenty-dollar gold piece in’ a ttle sp ul trick pocket in the in He } kon that pocket! ¥ he d Ii was lined with leather had a leather flap with one 0° thes little bits of son it, like you on jewelry bow I got it out an’ took it up to him. He was uneonsciow: all right; but, boy! He had + vive in him some where to close bis ltnd over that luck piece when T put it in his palm, fan’ he never let loose of it for all the time he w irious, Pretty ne that luck pie his hand ali that time tart sayin’; “1Us all tu Jim's luck pie rething’s happened {got Unele Jim's tn t 1 get Unel 1 vw oN Q s ed to be r Lu de at ‘ Ik seems 1 1a train it was 1 » tot tact burned 8 that scot 1 Him ow down t rth, ant booke r to China hs ‘ er th wit le alin M dan An’ then he sailed for China of aecin, go’ Cocky bad bad it dinned QUICK ENOUGH. never loses that luck told a bigger lie in amy life, pat’)! wear off iys Mary, lookin’ at I hope so,° he says. He wallkea tears come into her eyes. away @ little piece un’ called to old ppy until he does," Jack Slater to toss him a ball, Juek urned dround an’? went was fiddin’ round, playin’ eateh with 1 couple of the boys, He drew back I've never been vied, but I know tis arm to toss the bull to Cocky, af enough about women never tu ask what does the boy do but draw back them to explain when they ma half duck again! He caught the some erack 1 don't under 1, so 1 all right, an’ tossed it back to Just let it Ko that ran’ motioned for him to throw OCKY LEWIS wasn't able to get i! again. With the motion of his arm i, Cocky pulls back an’ Kind of bal but he showed up for ? Before he'd been d, any man tr after a winter out on the Pu- ager in the lea { have give Ane Coust, lookin’ huskier an’ cockier Me $50,000 cash u iybe more fk AAA , Cocky Lewis; un at that omit than ever. He an’ Mary were to be 1 208Y Veta! an eee as " in June, an! when I at stehin Vu of sold him for lock on her face the first day mn ured gettin’ the prancin’ into the hotel at our spring best of argain nce they've * quarters, I felt as if I coull been hit that way real gure- ce him, She certainly dil enou hy r he world of that young I walked ove kid when I got to him he ubberin’ a ttt uid, Co looked all right, bit. "I don't know but the first tine he stepped up to the With me," he says, tryin ep the plate, with the bat i mitts, 1 tears back ain't afraid of the ba Blocky Miller lobbed one dver for iw mit. I h ebod. tl could have counted t eved me + Cocky do but stick his foot In ann arc 18 bucket! Yex, sir! ¢ u un awh nwied t had always ¢ : plute nt ied into the fastest of Were em luck ax this Httle heave “Well, ima i eam ard hin kind © That Gree hack et i i + at me and laughed, You'll be alt right to-m: ; a AB af TAGE But he was seared 1 rig I gu 1 must of been thinkin ont . bou' ‘ wight me ont ot iat aanacay bean He hammered the ph ‘ in w \ n’ called out Mocky: Au Feed me one, kid, Put som t d beef into it an’ watch me do murde , A ; wide one it w * slow, too. Twat yyy Meient uth . Vth an’ 1 geen t new f was lyin! w told him he'd be 1 ba ent the t ail lent I and Ht 1 I stayed t ' ! ' att Ké n 1 A Held w " ; 1 " 1 back ihe kid Wel. Le stepped anay made of ® rabbit's feot and « twenty COCKY WAS ACROSS THE ROOM AN' INTO HIM LIKE A FLASH AS THE GUY SHOT.” loss of a fool rabbit's foot hooked onto an old twenty-dollar gold piece that seemed kind of awful! to work; fleld the once his luck piece failed that is, with anybody but Cocky. He came out to the next day as full of pep an’ high purposes as ever, perfectly sure that he was ull right aguin, But he went right on pullin' away an’ kind of hulf duckin’ every time anybody th » ball at him But it didn’t “ He'd step up to the plate away from one so far he huve hit it with a telephone an’ laugh about it an’ vay romind; | wen't do it 1 he'd step up 4 t over again, an’ | some me He was perfectly that fool luck piece of his was goin’ to pull him through, The rest of ua all knew he was done, but he atill had contidence in his charm: absolute con Ndence what IT mean He knew hin’ bad could happen to him as ew ery him. an’ pull couldn't “Nev An’ thi thing r int? n’ do the same nen cert ong as he had that luck ptece, an’ he went right on plannin’ for # great career as a ball player long after the had put a lily in bis hand Kissed him goodby, so to speak Tf it hod been anybody but Lewis, hed got all the sympathy tn the world, but the gang were glad enough to him hit the chutes He'd acted so doggone swell-headed rest of us eky Is the right word—when he was goin’ good, that they were all glad to kee him slip His contract run for all that season, Wut along late in June the owners be kan to talk to me about payin’ what wax comin’ to him an’ lettin’ him lide. They didn't see any sense in payin’ his carfare around the elreult fn’ naturally we couldn't get anything for him ina trade, ‘The news abor him w tan’ there wasn’t a team the leas have paid the T firat begu k maybe the hid Wasn't such « bad sort of a human twin’ after all when he insisted on j weddin Mary ) through with tt, but the Un v to be all right,” he says “ You can langh if you want but T know what this luck plece I'm goin’ to be wit! But just playir uly thing 1 £ eal A and every I'm t i y ve all me pegee a dead one. { know you're wrong, but I'm not goin’ to marry your niece Lill I prove you're THE EVENING WORLD'S COMPLETE NOVELETTE COCKY LEWI WILLIAM SLAVENS McNUTT ROBERT €E. A STORY OF LOVE, LUCK AND S STON BASEBALL all wrong. She'll wait for me an’ T can wait for her until I make good again.” “Well, Cocky,” I says, “I don’t lke to be a crape hanger, but I might as well tell you, you're through in base- ball, I'm tellin’ you this now, be- cause the quicker you find it out, the sooner you may quit wastin’ your time an’ get started in some other business. Your luck plece may work for you again if you'll start sellin’ automobiles, or insurance, or some. thing like that, but it'll never be any use to you with a bat in your hand."” “T know what you think,” he says, “but you're wrong. Just watch me A an’ I'm up in a hotel room watchin’ a bunch of the boys Diayin’ a@ little stud, when the big stick-up comes off. Two birds did the trick, They knocked at the door an’ one of ‘em says: ‘Telegram!"’ Red Snider opened the door, an’ the two of ‘em oozed tn. The first guy had two guns, one in each mitt, an’ he spoke his littie plece about how healthy we'd be if we didn’t make ao noise. He lined us up against tho wall, an’ his pal started in to friak us. None of the boys had more thaa a few dollars an’ some small jewelry ‘on, 80 we all stood for the frisk, with- out makin’ any squawk until the guy that through we got to Cocky Lewis. Cocky didn’t squeal until the bird had gone all through his pockets an’ finally felt inside of his vest, where the luck plece waa. “Well, well,” says the hold-up guy who was goin’ through him, ‘what have we here?’ Cocky's face was chalk white an’ he was shakin’ like a pair of dice in a nervous crapshooter's hand. “That ain't worth nothing to anybody but me," he says, ‘Let me keep it, will you? Listen. I'll do anything for you If you'll let me keep that. Please don't take it, It ain't worth anything to anybody but me.’’ Is that a fact?’ the hold-up guy says. He ripped loose the lock on the pocket an’ fished out the luck plece. “Please don't take that," Cocky begged, shakin’ all over, “That ain't any good to you, an’ II can't get along without it!"* The hold-up guy looked at the thing an’ hefts it in his hand. ‘It looks Uke gold,’ he says, ‘‘an’ it feele like gold, If it te gold, I can use it." an’ he starts to put it in hie pocket. You could see Cocky'’s whole body kind of contract Ike a doubled-up fist, His hands came down a little bit an’ he sort of crouched all ready to jump at the guy. The bird that had been friskin’ him backed up a bit an’ the fellow across the room, that was holdin’ the guns on us, turned both of ‘em on Cocky. Easy there," he says. “I don't want to shoot, but one more move like that out of you an’ I'll spill a couple of gunfuls into your dinner."” An’ then Cocky begun to beg in rnest, He promised 'em everything. He'd send ‘om checks. He'd bring ‘em money at any place they'd say. Me'd do anything if they'd only g' him back that luck piece! But you cant’ do business with a hold-up guy. He don’t make any dates to mect you later, no matter how much dough you promise to bring along. He's got to get what he's get- tin’ while he’s gettin’ it. There was nothin’ doin’ on givin’ Cocky back his luck plece or makin’ any arrangement for him to buy it back Inter. I was Watchin’ the kid close, because, knowin’ what I did of the way he felt about it, I figured there was goin' to be a play before ever those two birds got out of that room with that fool thing that the boy set such store by, I was on the op- posite end of the line from Cocky, an’ I didn’t bat an eye until | was sure he was just at the bustin’ point. [ reckon @ guy playin’ baseball as long as I did gets a kind of sixth sense that tells him when a man’s just on the point of startin’ to do something; to rum or throw, or something like that. Anyhow, I knew that Cocky was goin’ to go, just the tiniest split flush of an instant before he started, an’ I knew that the crazy kid was goln’ first for the guy with the guns. An’ just that flash of an instant be- fore ha did start, I took my life in one hand an’ threw it up in the alr an’ took chances on catchin’ it again when it ¢ome down, WEEK later we're in Chicago, GIVE a sharp, quick yell an’ kind ] of half moved; just a little bit. The bird with the guna jumped un’ swung ‘em my way an’ then he ‘om back toward Cocky an’ with ‘em didn swing ‘em quick Cocky was across the room into him Ike a flush as the guy sh Cocky ducked, reachin’ for- ward as he did with his arma up; he grabbed the guy’s hands as he me in on him an’ shoved ‘em up. here were two shots un’ both of ‘em high, Before the stick-up guy got fingerin’ his triggers again, Cocky was in on him with a smash of hie head in the pit of the fellow’s stomach, and the rest of us were right there with him. Somebody yanked one of the guns out of the atick-up guy's hand un’ banged the butt down hard on the top of his head, an’ that swung cut loose But enough went was all for him. T ndown leadin’ out on the fre exeape were open, an’ the other guy the one who had frisked us—dove fo one of ‘em. Cocky gave « yell went after him, The guy grabbed an alarm clock off » stemd that was alttin’ beside the an window an’ drew back to throw it at Cocky. Well, sir—there it was! This guy had what Cocky thought meant nore to him than anything else in the world an’ he was doin’ the one thing that got Cocky’s goat. He had his arm back like a ball player's, with a thing in his hand to throw, an’ he was goin’ to throw it at ‘ky! It all happened faster than a guy could olap his hands together once, but I did't miss any of it. The fear that was in Cocky’s bretm, burned in there by that ball thas Dusty Hanson beaned him with, half stopped the boy, an’ he made that old motion to pull away an’ duck. ‘When we finally got ‘em untangied, the kid had his luck piece held tight in his hand an’ he started: jabbertn’ at me like a madman. ‘‘I got it beat," he say ‘Scanlon, I got it beat, I ain't afraid of ‘em any more. I didn’t duck when he started to throw that clock at me. I wanted to, but I didn't an’ I got it beat. You think this luck piece is the bunk? Is that so! Well, you see what happened! Put me in battin’ practice to-morrow an‘ just watch what I do, I got ft beat!"" ELL, I'll say he did. The kid didn't go to bed that night. He walked the streets an’ roamed around the hotel all night long an’ the next mornin’ at battin’ practice he stepped up to the plate and leaned tate ‘em with all the nerve he'd ever shown in the old days. I put him in to pinch hit that afternoon with two out an’ two on an’ he stepped into a fast one, high an’ inside, an’ cracked out as Pretty a double as you'd ever want to see. He was cured. ‘That night I was sittin’ up in my room, talkin’ with him an’ Mary an’ he was fingerin’ thin luck piece of his. It made me kind of sick, the way he petted it an’ run his fingers over it. All of a sudden he started to look awful hard at the twenty-dollar gold piece, A funny look come over his face, an’ he took it over close to the Mght an’ held it up to his eyée an’ stared at it, Then he looked around at Mary. “Look!” he says to her, holdin’ out the luek piece. He acted like a fellow that had just been shot. “The date on this ie 1880. I—why—I thought— Why, what's happened? It’ was 1870! Why, I've noticed it a hundred times, Uncle Jim's plece was 1870! Why, something's wron Mary stood up straight an’ looked at him an’ for a minute she didn’t say nothing. The creepiest kind of a feel- in’ cor over me, I stood there watchin’ her, because somehow the look in her face, the expression in her eyes, was just the same thing I'4 seen in Cocky’s face the night before, when he thought he was goin’ to lose his luck piece an’ was decidin’ that if it come ‘down to that he'd rather lose his life. An’ just that game way, too, a flash of an instant before Mary started to speak, I had that funny little feelin’ inside of me that she was goin’ to do something—do something that took all she had in her to put over. “Boy, it's time you learned to be- lieve in something real," she said, an’ her voice was as stern as a jud; “Do you remember Miss Creegan, the night nurse at the hospital where you were operated on? She took that luok piece of yours an’ gave it to her sweetheart. I had another made ai near like the original as I could get it, but I didn’t have much time, an’ I couldn't find a twenty-dollar gold plece of the right date in such @ hurry. It never had any power for good or evil any more than the one you've got there that I had made to substitute for it." After she began to speak I quit watchin’ her an’ begun watchin" Cocky. Did you ever see one of these birds on the vaudeville stage doin’ @ trick balancin’ act, vay bigh up somewhere? One of these acts where & guy stands or sits on something an’ leans an’ leans till you're blame sure he's going to fall? You know how you sit In your seat all tightened up an’ thrilled, wonderin’ it he’s going to lean that extra little millionth of an inch an* come crashin’ down to bust his noodle on the stage, or recover his balance an’ swing back into safety again? Even when you know it’s an act that the guy does twice a day, an’ that he's sure to be all right, you get an uwful kick out of It, don’t you? Sure you do! Well, watchin’ Cocky was just like watehin’ one of those acts, only more #0. Right that minute that kid was standin’ fn an awful tough spot, you could see he was just about to fall. An’ you knew, too, that {f he did fall right there, that would be the end of him, He stood there lookin’ at that luck piece in his hand for I don't know how long! I suppose it wasn't more than .half a’minute, but it sure did seem t ome like a couple of the long- est years | ever lived. Then he looked up at Mary, an’ all of a sud den he began to laugh, and | knew the kid had got bis balance again. It was the same old Cocky laugh, with a@ little something gone thing that was gone was the thing In him that had made ew#rybody—but Mary —distike him; an’ the thing that was added was the thing that made everybody who had anything to do Mary was right In the first place. Mary run over to him an’ hugged him an’ cried over him, an’ they started laughin’ together, an' I went an’ looked out the window, feelin kind of solemn an’ churchy in my mind, {Seprriah All Righte Reserved.) 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