Harmony | Page 5

saw Art in the Texas League before I'd of shook a girl to please him,
but you know these left-handers.
"Art had it all framed that we was goin' on the stage, the four of us, and
he seen a vaudeville man in New York and got us booked for eight
hundred a week--I don't know if it was one week or two. But he sprung
it on me in September and says we could get solid bookin' from
October to March; so I ast him what he thought my Missus would say
when I told her I couldn't get enough o' hem' away from home from
March to October, so I was figurin' on travelin' the vaudeville circuit
the other four or five months and makin' it unanimous? Art says I was
tied to a woman's apron and all that stuff, but I give him the cold stare
and he had to pass up that dandy little scheme.
"At that, I guess we could of got by on the stage all right. Mike was
better than this here Waldron and I hadn't wore my voice out yet on the
coachin' line, tellin' the boys to touch all the bases.
"They was about five or six songs that we could kill. 'Adeline' was our
star piece. Remember where it comes in, 'Your fair face beams'? Mike

used to go away up on 'fair.' Then they was 'The Old Millstream' and
'Put on Your Old Gray Bonnet.' I done some fancy work in that one.
Then they was 'Down in Jungle Town' that we had pretty good. And
then they was one that maybe you never heard. I don't know the name
of it. It run somethin' like this."
Bill sottoed his voice so that I alone could hear the beautiful refrain:
"'Years, years, I've waited years
Only to see you, just to call you 'dear.'
Come, come, I love but thee,
Come to your sweetheart's arms; come back to me.'
"That one had a lot o' wallops in it, and we didn't overlook none o' them.
The boys used to make us sing it six or seven times a night. But 'Down
in the Cornfield' was Art's favor-ight. They was a part in that where I
sung the lead down low and the other three done a banjo stunt. Then
they was 'Castle on the Nile' and 'Come Back to Erin' and a whole lot
more.
"Well, the four of us wasn't hardly ever separated for three years. We
was practisin' all the w'ile like as if we was goin' to play the big time,
and we never made a nickel off'n it. The only audience we had was the
ball players or the people travelin' on the same trains or stoppin' at the
same hotels, and they got it all for nothin'. But we had a good time,
'specially Art.
"You know what a pitcher Mike was. He could go in there stone cold
and stick ten out o' twelve over that old plate with somethin' on 'em.
And he was the willin'est guy in the world. He pitched his own game
every third or fourth day, and between them games he was warmin' up
all the time to go in for somebody else. In 1911, when we was up in the
race for aw'ile, he pitched eight games out o' twenty, along in
September, and win seven o' them, and besides that, he finished up five
o' the twelve he didn't start. We didn't win the pennant, and I've always

figured that them three weeks killed Mike.
"Anyway, he wasn't worth nothin' to the club the next year; but they
carried him along, hopin' he'd come back and show somethin'. But he
was pretty near through, and he knowed it. I knowed it, too, and so did
everybody else on the club, only Graham. Art never got wise till the
trainin' trip two years ago this last spring. Then he come to me one day.
"'Bill,' he says, 'I don't believe Mike's comin' back.'
"'Well,' I says, 'you're gettin's so's they can't nobody hide nothin' from
you. Next thing you'll be findin' out that Sam Crawford can hit.'
"'Never mind the comical stuff,' he says. 'They ain't no joke about this!'
"'No,' I says, 'and I never said they was. They'll look a long w'ile before
they find another pitcher like Mike.'
"'Pitcher my foot!' says Art. 'I don't care if they have to pitch the bat
boy. But when Mike goes, where'll our quartette be?'
"'Well,' I says, 'do you get paid every first and fifteenth for singin' or
for crownin' that old pill?'
"'If you couldn't talk about money, you'd be deaf and dumb,' says Art.
"'But you ain't playin' ball because it's fun, are you?'
"'No,' he