Harmony | Page 3

my stuff, and when I came back in the car the concert was over for the time, and Art Graham was sitting alone.
"Where are your pals?" I asked.
"Gone to the diner," he replied.
"Aren't you going to eat?"
"No," he said, "I'm savin' up for the steamed clams." I took the seat beside him.
"I sent in a story about you," I said.
"Am I fired? "he asked.
"No, nothing like that."
"Well," he said, "you must be hard up when you can't find nothin' better to write about than a old has-been."
"Cap just told me who it was that found Waldron," said I.
"Oh, that," said Art. "I don't see no story in that."
"I thought it was quite a stunt," I said. "It isn't everybody that can pick out a second Cobb by just seeing him hit a fly ball."
Graham smiled.
"No," he replied, "they's few as smart as that."
"If you ever get through playing ball," I went on, "you oughtn't to have any trouble landing a job. Good scouts don't grow on trees."
"It looks like I'm pretty near through now," said Art, still smiling. "But you won't never catch me scoutin' for nobody. It's too lonesome a job."
I had passed up lunch to retain my seat in the card game; so I was hungry. Moreover, it was evident that Graham was not going to wax garrulous on the subject of his scouting ability. I left him and sought the diner. I found a vacant chair opposite Bill Cole.
"Try the minced ham," he advised, "but lay off'n the sparrow-grass. It's tougher'n a double-header in St. Louis."
"We're over an hour late," I said.
"You'll have to do a hurry-up on your story, won't you? " asked Bill. "Or did you write it already?"
"All written and on the way."
"Well, what did you tell 'em?" he inquired. "Did you tell 'em we had a pleasant trip, and Lenke lost his shirt in the poker game, and I'm goin' to pitch to-morrow, and the Boston club's heard about it and hope it'll rain?"
"No," I said. " I gave them a regular story to-night--about how Graham picked Waldron."
"Who give it to you?"
"Ryan," I told him.
"Then you didn't get the real story," said Cole, "Ryan himself don't know the best part of it, and he ain't goin' to know it for a w'ile. He'll maybe find it out after Art's got the can, but not before. And I hope nothin' like that'll happen for twenty years. When it does happen, I want to be sent along with Art, 'cause I and him's been roomies now since 1911, and I. wouldn't hardly know how to act with him off'n the club. He's a nut all right on the singin' stuff, and if he was gone I might get a chanct to give my voice a rest. But he's a pretty good guy, even if he is crazy."
"I'd like to hear the real story," I said.
"Sure you would," he answered, "and I'd like to tell it to you. I will tell it to you if you'll give me your promise not to spill it till Art's gone. Art told it to I and Lefty in the club-house at Cleveland pretty near a nionth ago, and the three of us and Waldron is the only ones that knows it. I figure I've did pretty well to keep it to myself this long, but it seems like I got to tell somebody."
"You can depend on me," I assured him, "not to say a word about it till Art's in Minneapolis, or wherever they're going to send him."
"I guess I can trust you," said Cole. "But if von cross me, I'll shoot my fast one up there in the press coop some day and knock your teeth loose."
"Shoot," said I.
"Well," said Cole, "I s'pose Ryan told you that Art fell for the kid after just seem' him pop out."
"Yes, and Ryan said he considered it a remarkable piece of scouting."
"It was all o' that. It'd of been remarkable enough if Art'd saw the bird pop out and then recommended him. But he didn't even see him pop out."
"What are you giving me?"
"The fac's." said Bill Cole. "Art not only didn't see him pop out, but he didn't even see him with a ball suit on. He wasn't never inside the Jackson ball park in his life."
"Waldron?"
"No. Art I'm talkin' about."
"Then somebody tipped him off," I said, quickly.
"No, sir. Nobody tipped him off, neither. He went to Jackson and spent the ev'nin' at his uncle's house, and Waldron was there. Him and Art was together the whole ev'nin'. But Art didn't even ask him if he could slide feet first. And then he come back to Detroit and got Ryan to draft him. But to give you the whole story, I'll have to go back a ways. We ain't nowheres