Kid from Tomkinsville Read Free Page B

not....”
    “Well, you’ll be paid something while you’re down here.”
    “Yessir, I know, but that goes home to Grandma. Y’see I had a job at MacKenzie’s drugstore, but when I quit ’course my pay there stopped.”
    “So you want to know if you’ll be sent back to your job?”
    “No, sir. Mr. MacKenzie, he said he wasn’t holding jobs open for ballplayers. He gave the job to Jimmy Harrison. I just want so’s I can take care of Grandma.”
    “I getcha. Well, I shouldn’t worry if I were you. We’ll see you land some place. Maybe if we can’t use you there’ll be a spot for you in one of our farms. Just you go in there and pitch the kind of ball you did the day I saw you last summer. And don’t worry about getting home, understand?”
    “Thanks, Mr. MacManus. Thanks lots. That sure helps. I’ll be in there trying every minute.” Now the sun really was shining. He felt warm and happy because the worst load of all was taken from his mind. Somehow, some way, they’d see he got back to Grandma. Who knows; maybe he might make good after all? Might be able to buy a blue sports coat with blue striped pants and white shoes. And a big car with the top rolled back to drive down all the way to the training camps in Florida. Who knows? There was almost a grin on the great man’s face. He was smiling at someone.
    “Hey, Jim, c’mon over here. Meet Roy Tucker, kid from Connecticut I was telling you about yesterday.”
    A small, thickset man coming out of the hotel yanked his hand from his side pocket. It was a flabby hand, not lean and hard like MacManus’s. “Oh, yeah, you’re the Boy Wonder from Connecticut, are you? Gladder see you. Well, you joined a screwy outfit all right.” He looked the Kid up and down with a glance that was not unfriendly and not friendly either. Then he half turned his back, interested no more, and addressed MacManus.
    “Say, Murphy just passed through. He stopped for breakfast. Drove down south, on some kind of scouting trip, for that Tiger second baseman, I guess. Know what he said?”
    The face of the older man darkened at once. He became another person, full of unconcealed annoyance as he answered quickly:
    “No, I don’t. I don’t care what he said. Don’t bother to tell me. Let him mind his own business and I’ll try to mind mine.”
    “Yeah, but you gotta hear this one. This is good, this is. He says the Dodgers’ll win the pennant.”
    “This year?”
    “Yep. This year.”
    “How’s he figure that one?”
    “Says there’s gonna be war. That all the other teams will have to go and fight, but that most of the Dodgers will be too old...”
    The annoyance that had changed into curiosity changed into anger. His face became red.
    “Kindly tell Murphy to mind his own business and quit popping off about our chances, will you?” His voice rose. The Kid thought this a good chance to move out of the firing line, especially as the bus that was to take the squad to the ball park drew up just then with a creaking of brakes. He heard the last few words....
    “Tell him I’m running my ballclub, and if he doesn’t mind...”

3
    A GRAY-HAIRED MAN in a dingy shirt and a blue baseball cap well down over his eyes shoved an armful of clothes at the Kid and indicated his locker. “Fifty-six. In the back row, there.” The lockers were plain wooden stalls about six feet high with a shelf one or two feet from the top. The front of his locker was open and along the edge at the top was pasted:
    “TUCKER, NO. 56.”
    There was his uniform with the word “ DODGERS ” in blue across the front and the number 56 on the back of the shirt. Already he had discovered there were twelve pitchers trying for half a dozen places, most of them with some experience, several like Kennedy and Foster and Rats Doyle with years in the League behind them. So what chance did a rookie have? But that blue cap and the shirt with the word “ DODGERS ” he could take home to prove that once he had