u!"

Rollo dropped the bat to an easy slant over his shoulder and looked
attentively at his father. The ball came in. Rollo caught it right on
the nose of the bat and sent it whizzing directly at the pitcher. Mr.
Holliday held his hands straight out before him and spread his fingers.

"I've got her!" he shouted.

And then the ball hit his hands, scattered them, and passed on against
his chest with a jolt that shook his system to its foundations. A
melancholy howl rent the air as he doubled up and tried to rub his chest
and knead all his fingers on both hands at the same time.

"Rollo," he gasped, "you go to bed, too! Go to bed and stay there six
weeks. And when you get up, put on one of your sister's dresses and play
golf. You'll never learn to play ball if you practice a thousand years.
I never saw such a boy. You have probably broken my lung. And I do not
suppose I shall ever use my hands again. You can't play tiddle-de-winks.
Oh, dear; oh, dear!"

Rollo sadly laid away the bat and the ball and went to bed, where he and
Thanny sparred with pillows until tea time, when they were bailed out of
prison by their mother. Mr. Holliday had recovered his good humor. His
fingers were multifariously bandaged and he smelled of arnica like a
drug store. But he was reminiscent and animated. He talked of the old
times and the old days, and of Peoria and Hinman's, as was his wont oft
as he felt boyish.

"And town ball," he said, "good old town ball! There was no limit to the
number on a side. The ring was anywhere from three hundred feet to a
mile in circumference, according to whether we played on a vacant
Pingree lot or out on the open prairie. We tossed up a bat--wet or
dry--for first choice, and then chose the whole school on the sides. The
bat was a board, about the general shape of a Roman galley oar and not
quite so wide as a barn door. The ball was of solid India rubber; a
little fellow could hit it a hundred yards, and a big boy, with a
hickory club, could send it clear over the bluffs or across the lake. We
broke all the windows in the school-house the first day, and finished up
every pane of glass in the neighborhood before the season closed. The
side that got its innings first kept them until school was out or the
last boy died. Fun? Good game? Oh, boy of these golden days, paying
fifty cents an hour for the privilege of watching a lot of hired men do
your playing for you--it beat two-old-cat."

SPELL AND DEFINE