“It beats all,” laughed Clancy, “what a fellow can make people do just by fooling with a thermometer.”
“The power of suggestion is tremendous,” said the colonel, “if rightly handled. It is so in everything, my lads. Start a train of suggestions properly and, if they lead in the right direction, you can mold nearly any one to your will. But that isn’t what I came over here to talk about.”
The colonel had climbed the veranda steps while talking, and he now shook hands warmly with Merry and his chums. Ballard pushed out a chair for him, and he lowered himself into it with a genial2 smile, while his eyes roved from one to another of the glowing young faces in front of him.
In some things Colonel Hawtrey was a stern old martinet3. The better part of his life had been spent in the military service of his country, and this may have developed the relentless4 side of his nature. He had a will of iron, backed by a judgment5 that was apt to make a mountain of errors out of a molehill of mere6 mistakes.
He was a lover of sports, however, and was the backbone7 and mainstay of the Gold Hill Athletic8 Club. He believed that, quite apart from physical prowess, the
169
right spirit in athletics9 developed inevitably10 all a youth’s manly11 qualities. And he had no patience with any one in whom manliness12 and personal integrity were lacking in the slightest degree.
That something of an unusual nature had brought the colonel from Gold Hill that afternoon Merriwell was positive. And that it might prove as interesting as it was unusual was evident from the colonel’s manner.
“What’s in the wind, colonel?” queried13 Ballard curiously14. “Clancy, here, is feeling like a castaway on a two-by-four island. If he can’t have a little healthy excitement before long, his pranks15 will probably get us all into trouble.”
“I’ve got everybody in a sweat around this hotel,” said Clancy; “that is,” he added, “with the kind assistance of Chip and Pink.”
“We’re all in it,” acknowledged Merry. “But what sort of a proposition have you got, colonel?”
“Darrel suggested the idea last night,” returned the colonel, “and it struck me as being a pretty good one. How long before you’re going to leave this part of the country, Merriwell?”
“As soon as the professor and Mrs. Boorland get the money for that mine. The check has to come from the East.”
“Do you think you’d have time to match an Ophir nine against a team from Gold Hill? This would be a very pleasant diversion, it seems to me, and I know it would be highly enjoyed by all the fans in both towns.”
“Bully!” exclaimed Clancy, all enthusiasm on the instant.
“Now you are shouting, colonel!” seconded Ballard, with equal zest16.
“Fine idea, colonel!” said Merriwell. “All the big
170
teams go South for their spring practice, and here in southern Arizona we’ll be getting ahead of them by two or three months.”
“Back at Farnham Hall,” went on the red-headed chap, enthusing more and more as the idea took firmer hold of him, “they’re thinking of skates, and toboggans, and ice hockey, and here we’re planning to go out on a diamond and bang the horsehide through the balmy air. Chip,” and he turned to his chum, “if that letter came from the East before the game, I guess we could delay our start for the North long enough to take a fall out of the Gold Hillers, couldn’t we?”
“Sure,” Merry heartily17 agreed. “I suppose this game would be pulled off in a few days, colonel?”
“Why, yes,” was the answer, “just as soon as you can pick up a nine. We had thought of playing next Saturday, on the theory, you understand, that we’d have to hurry matters if we succeeded in getting a game with you before you left. If you can stay longer, make it a week from next Saturday, if that suits you better, or any other day that tallies18 with your convenience.”
“This is Wednesday,” Frank mused19, “and that would leave only two days for getting a team together and practicing a little in case we play on the last day of this week. But we’d better make it next Saturday,” he added.
“Good!” exclaimed the colonel. “You’ve run up a long score of athletic victories since you’ve been in Ophir, Merriwell, and I give you fair warning that Gold Hill is going to do its best to give you a parting shot you’ll long remember.”
“Of course,” said Merry, “if Gold Hill didn’t work hard to win, the game wouldn’t be worth while.”
“We’ll have the advantage of you, unless the Ophir
171
Athletic Club can give you all the players you need who are up to snuff. Our boys will come direct from our own club, and they have been playing ball ever since that football game a few weeks ago. Bleeker, and the rest of those who had gone into camp in the gulch20, got back to Gold Hill several days ago, and they have been gingering up on the diamond ever since.”
“It’s a cinch, then, that your team will have a big advantage. I can use a few from the Ophir Club; Clancy, Ballard, and I will play, and then we’ll have to go hunting for the rest of our material. It will be quite a job to get the team together and pound it into any sort of shape in two days; but—well,” and Merry smiled, “there’s a spice about doing things on short notice, colonel, and it rather appeals to me. We——”
At this moment, Pophagan, palm-leaf fan in one hand and a handkerchief in the other, came slowly out on the veranda. He appeared surprised to find those on the veranda paying so little attention to the weather.
“Howdy, kunnel,” said he. “Ain’t you feelin’ the heat none?”
“I’m very comfortable, thank you, Pophagan,” the colonel answered, with a sly wink21 at the boys.
“Don’t mean to say you haven’t looked at the thermometer?”
“What’s the use? I don’t look to a thermometer for information as to whether I’m comfortable or not.”
“No? Well, all of Ophir gits its temperature right from this here weather machine o’ mine. I want to tell you, Colonel Hawtrey, that we’re havin’ a spell o’ weather right this minute that ain’t been equaled since ninety-six. Whoosh22! Jest take a look at that mercury and see how high she is.”
172
“You look, Pophagan,” laughed the colonel, “and report.”
The proprietor23 of the hotel lurched over to the thermometer and recoiled24 from it in amazement25.
“Jumpin’ sand hills!” he exclaimed. “I’ll be dad-burned if this don’t beat all get-out. What d’ye think?” and he whirled on Colonel Hawtrey with popping eyes. “That there thermometer has gone down more’n thirty-five degrees in half an hour. Blamed remarkable26, that’s what I call it. Dern nigh gives me a chill.”
Pophagan threw away the fan and put his handkerchief in his pocket.
“Reckon I better go and tell the perfesser an’ the chink afore they catch their death o’ cold tryin’ to be comfortable.”
With that he vanished through the hotel door. Colonel Hawtrey cast an amused glance after the lank27, retreating form.
“It would be hard for a person to believe that a thing like that could happen,” he remarked, “unless he witnessed it with his own eyes. The whole affair is absurd on the face of it, and yet there is no doubt of the genuineness of Pophagan’s sentiments. Well, well! That is carrying suggestion to an extreme.”
“I wonder,” said Ballard, a little pensively28, “if he’s trying to turn the joke on us?”
“Not on your life,” answered Clancy. “If that thermometer registered zero, when the temperature was really where it is now, Pop would put on his ear muffs and his fur-lined overcoat.”
“That’s the trouble with a good many of us,” said the colonel. “Often we’re not ruled by common sense, but by a very foolish habit.”
There were several things connected with this incident
173
of the thermometer which Merriwell was to remember later; and the most of them had, for a basis, the few comments made by Colonel Hawtrey.
“It’s definitely settled, then,” went on the colonel, “that the ball game is to be played next Saturday?”
“Yes,” Merriwell answered. “We’ll have to do a little hustling29 to get our nine together, but I think we can make it.”
“You know pretty well where you’re to get your material?”
“I’ve been going over that in my mind, colonel, and I think I have every position filled.”
“You’ll pitch, of course?”
“Sure thing,” put in Clancy promptly30. “We couldn’t get along without Chip in the pitcher31’s box.”
“You’re our stumblingblock, Merriwell,” the colonel laughed. “Gold Hill is full of rumors32 regarding your wonderful ability as a pitcher. I don’t suppose we have any one who can hold a candle to you, and we’ll have to make up what we lack by good work on other parts of the diamond.”
“Who will be the battery for Gold Hill?”
“Darrel and Bleeker. Darrel was always our star pitcher, and perhaps it was a good thing for our boys that he fractured his left arm some time ago instead of his right.”
Hawtrey frowned as he remembered the events connected with the fracturing of that left arm of Ellis Darrel’s.
“What sort of a catcher is Bleek?” Merry asked, more by way of getting the colonel’s mind off a disturbing train of reflections than for the purpose of acquiring any useful information.
“He’s good anywhere,” was the answer, “and particularly
174
good behind the bat.” The colonel got up. “We’ll be here Saturday afternoon,” he added, “and you can count upon facing a team that will make the affair interesting to you.”
With a friendly nod he passed down the steps and made his way up the street.
“This gives us something to take up our time, anyway,” remarked Clancy, with a good deal of satisfaction.
“We’re up against a hard proposition,” said Ballard, looking very much concerned. “Chip, it will never do for us to leave Arizona with a defeat behind us.”
“I don’t think we’re going to,” Merry answered. “You can bet your last copper33, though, that we’re not going to have a walk-away. Let’s figure out the make-up, fellows. Pink, take a pencil and paper and put Jode Lenning’s name at the head of the list.”
Ballard and Clancy straightened suddenly in their chairs and gave Merriwell a startled look.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
veranda
|
|
| n.走廊；阳台 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
genial
|
|
| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
martinet
|
|
| n.要求严格服从纪律的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
relentless
|
|
| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
backbone
|
|
| n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
athletic
|
|
| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
athletics
|
|
| n.运动，体育，田径运动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
inevitably
|
|
| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
manly
|
|
| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
manliness
|
|
| 刚毅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
queried
|
|
| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
pranks
|
|
| n.玩笑，恶作剧( prank的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
zest
|
|
| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
heartily
|
|
| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
tallies
|
|
| n.账( tally的名词复数 )；符合；（计数的）签；标签v.计算，清点( tally的第三人称单数 )；加标签（或标记）于；（使）符合；（使）吻合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
mused
|
|
| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
gulch
|
|
| n.深谷，峡谷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
wink
|
|
| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
whoosh
|
|
| v.飞快地移动，呼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
proprietor
|
|
| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
recoiled
|
|
| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
amazement
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
lank
|
|
| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
pensively
|
|
| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
hustling
|
|
| 催促（hustle的现在分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
promptly
|
|
| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
pitcher
|
|
| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
rumors
|
|
| n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
copper
|
|
| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |